# When you die, I suspect you wake up crying. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 5, 2005, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582 "2005-02-05T23:20:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/21 "2005-02-06T05:23:15Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I don’t quite get the reasoning here, but it is quite interesting. Can you elaborate? I certainly hope so. I was musing on your observation about how we perceive the passage of time by observing processes in action, and what the implications are if consciousness itself is treated as a process. If our existence is defined by how our experiences play out through time, and if it makes sense to treat alternative potential futures as “real” in some sense, then the timeline in which your consciousness persists for the longest time will be the most “real,” in that it will allow your experiences to continue for the maximum possible duration. To put it another way: from my vantage point in the present, there’s a chance that I will wake up and experience tomorrow, and a chance that I won’t. If I die tonight, then my experiences come to an end and my existence terminates. Therefore, the alternative where I wake up and my consciousness persists further through time takes precedence: given that both alternatives are “real” from my frame of reference in the present, and I can’t directly percieve a future in which I’m not alive, then the only alternative is the reality in which my consciousness continues for another day. This process of selection continues until there are no viable timelines left in which my consciousness can possibly continue any further. We can experience the deaths of others, but we cannot experience the reality of our own nonexistence. Thus, if spacetime admits to multiple resolutions, we each experience individual frames of reference that are biased toward the perpetuation of our own consciousness. For example, say there’s a chance that I might have a fatal aneurysm tonight (or get hit by a meteor, or whatever). This will not shorten\* your\* experiential lifespan, so there’s nothing to prevent you from hearing about my death tomorrow. However, clearly the only options that I myself could experience are those that don’t involve a fatal aneurysm, so my consciousness can only continue along a timeline where such an event doesn’t occur. On the other hand, given that the spacetime region I’m currently occupying is “very late at night,” I estimate the probability to be quite high indeed that tomorrow morning I’ll experience a timeline where I find this post to be complete gibberish. 😃 If so, I’ll take another stab at an explanation then. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/22 "2005-02-06T05:32:14Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Both are mistaken in that it is implied or stated that one _experiences_ death after one loses all ability to experience anything. Your reading of other people’s thinking is 100% mistaken. I would have to be an idiot to think what you’re ascribing to me. > [@](#): > > What do YOU think? Nothing personal, but I think it’s is total nonsense. You’ve assumed a grand number of things and then picked a conclusion. > [@](#): > > Let’s put these facts together with the reality of death. We die; we’re gone. What happens? > > We wake up as squawling newborn babies. > > The reason is simple: We occupy a certain region of spacetime; that region never goes away (Fact 1), is never ground by time’s grounder into oblivion, as time is a location, not a process (Fact 2). Consciousness is in the brain. I assume this is what you mean when you’re talking about what “we” are. If it’s not, feel free to prove it. How would a consciousness move from one person to another? You have proven neither of these “facts.” You’d at least need to prove that “we” exist in some kind of beyond-corporal way. Consciousness outside of the brain or something. Even then that would only be step one. Good luck with that. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/23 "2005-02-06T05:50:49Z")
> [@II Gyan II](#): > > If Nietzche’s idea is true, then wouldn’t we not have free will? As I said, it’s not clear that even Nietzsche believed that lives repeated at all. **Thus Spake Zarathustra** is a creative, fictional work designed to express his ideas. It was not meant to be taken literally in every detail. > [@](#): > > \*After all, how do I know this life isn’t a repeat? \*You don’t, but if you are repeating the same life again then you’re just reliving the choices you made the first time around. Nietzsche’s point was that when faced with a decision, you had better make the one you’ll be happy with. You won’t get to change it later. You’ve got one chance, so make the best of it. This doesn’t contradict free will. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/24 "2005-02-06T06:01:40Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > We can experience the deaths of others, but we cannot experience the reality of our own nonexistence. Thus, if spacetime admits to multiple resolutions, we each experience individual frames of reference that are biased toward the perpetuation of our own consciousness. For example, say there’s a chance that I might have a fatal aneurysm tonight (or get hit by a meteor, or whatever). This will not shorten\* your\* experiential lifespan, so there’s nothing to prevent you from hearing about my death tomorrow. However, clearly the only options that I myself could experience are those that don’t involve a fatal aneurysm, so my consciousness can only continue along a timeline where such an event doesn’t occur. Years ago, a classmate of mine said he wasn’t religious but he thought he must have some kind of a guardian angel. He’d been in bad situations before where he thought he’d die, but somehow he got through them all. He’d been lucky every time. As he said that, I realized that his experience was nothing special. Everyone could say the same thing…because those who find themselves in bad situations where they think they’ll die but _don’t_ get through it are dead and can’t say anything. We can know about other people that haven’t been lucky, but we cannot experience a world in which we ourselves have not successfully cheated death every time. I don’t know how profound that is, but I wanted you to know that you weren’t alone on a limb with these thoughts. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/25 "2005-02-06T06:02:59Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > You’ve got one chance, so make the best of it. This doesn’t contradict free will. Exactly. How do I know I’m currently living that ‘chance’ instead of a replay? I only undergo an illusion of making choices if this current life is a replay. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Love](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Dr.Love](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Love)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/26 "2005-02-06T06:16:43Z")
> [@II Gyan II](#): > > Exactly. How do I know I’m currently living that ‘chance’ instead of a replay? I only undergo an illusion of making choices if this current life is a replay. Why would your choices only be an illusion? If you’re not making the choices, who’s making them? I would submit that free will still exists, even if the effects of that choice are temporally distant from the choice itself. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/27 "2005-02-06T06:21:11Z")
> [@II Gyan II](#): > > Exactly. How do I know I’m currently living that ‘chance’ instead of a replay? You do not, but nor do you know that replays even exist. If you’d like to waste what may be your only chance to choose your fate by worrying about whether you’ve actually got any choice at all, well…that’s free will for ya. > [@](#): > > \*I only undergo an illusion of making choices if this current life is a replay. \*If it’s a replay of the choices you made, what greater freedom could you ask for? You might as well say you don’t have free will because you can’t travel back in time and change what you did yesterday. Free will doesn’t mean you don’t have to lie in the bed you’ve made. Quite the opposite, in fact. But this is missing Nietzsche’s main point, which is that it is best to make every decision _as if_ you knew you’d have to relive it again forever. Whether or not you actually _do_ relive it again forever is unknowable, and doesn’t make much difference if you’re living the way you would if it were true anyway. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/28 "2005-02-06T06:38:30Z")
> [@Dr. Love](#): > > If you’re not making the choices, who’s making them?. Irrelevant. So I can’t think of an agent. Does not compute to existence of free will. > [@Lamia](#): > > You might as well say you don’t have free will because you can’t travel back in time and change what you did yesterday. Free will doesn’t mean you don’t have to lie in the bed you’ve made. Then the will’s not very free. Personally, it seems to me that ‘free will’ tends to get reinterpreted so as to maintain it as valid within the philosophical framework du jour. The concept’s very vague and distant for analysis. Anyway, this discussion is tangential to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/29 "2005-02-06T10:56:21Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > There are two versions of the Incorrect Interpretation of What It Is Like to Die, as I call it here: the Mean Version and the Nice Version. Both are mistaken in that it is implied or stated that one _experiences_ death after one loses all ability to experience anything. > > **The Mean Version** > You dead, m_th_f\*\*\*a! And you dead _forever_! [cut] > > **The Nice Version** > Lay your burden down, sweet friend; let the reaper take you easily. [cut] I think your fundamental premise is incorrect. Neither of the two perspectives above involves “feeling” or “thinking” anything after the point of death. They deal with your feelings today about the meaning of your absence in the future. You also don’t really seem to get beyond the whole concept of a transcending soul… in your summaries above, they sound less like ceasing to exist than continuing to exist but being trapped in a grave. That’s not what atheists believe. I can be worried today about what my non-existence will mean in the future, but that ends when I die. Either of your above scenarios could be true, but it means nothing to me because I no longer exist. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/30 "2005-02-06T15:55:43Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > You’re thinking of **Thus Spake Zarathustra** and Eternal Recurrence. It’s debatable whether Nietzsche actually believed that we repeat our lives forever, but he did present the idea as a guide for living. Live your life so that if you had to do it all over again, you wouldn’t want to change a thing. So how would George Washington be endlessly repeating his life? ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/31 "2005-02-06T17:28:49Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Let’s put these facts together with the reality of death. We die; we’re gone. What happens? > > We wake up as squawling newborn babies. > > The reason is simple: We occupy a certain region of spacetime; that region never goes away (Fact 1), is never ground by time’s grounder into oblivion, as time is a location, not a process (Fact 2). > > Of course, we do not remember our future, and our future is the same as it ever was or ever will be. The same life events within the same space-time. > > [snip] > > What do YOU think? I think the premise of your theory fails at the above point. What you are really is asking is “What happens **after** your death”, but at the same argument you have already removed the concept of time being a process, it’s just our preceptions. So how then can there be a ‘happening’ for a dead person with no preceptions? And how can that ‘happening’ be in any way said to _follow_ our death without there being a something that orders the process? It can’t be time itself looping back, remember; it’s a location, not a process. And why must we return to point of birth. Why can’t we remain frozen at the point of death? It’s just as real a point as any other. Or return to any other point in the middle? ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/32 "2005-02-06T23:31:54Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > And why must we return to point of birth. Why can’t we remain frozen at the point of death? It’s just as real a point as any other. Or return to any other point in the middle? Ooh that gives me a chance to dredge up my old mad obsession ([Life after death - the ultrapessimistic take.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=77181)) Basically I believe the last moment in “endless” because there is no following moment. Which I put best probably this way: “…because our consciousness does not continue on the timeline - from our perspective we do not end - time ends.” ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/33 "2005-02-06T23:50:35Z")
I think I want my 5 minutes back. [sub]Oh wait. _there_ it is.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/34 "2005-02-07T04:00:08Z")
> [@](#): > > For example, if the universe is truly infinite, then perhaps my consciousness will rise again in the sense of a random event creating the same memories I have now and continuing on. According to several physics theories, you will come back to life. Eventually, given a long enough time period to manifest the unlikely probabilties, energy will spontaneously come into existence. usually this ocurs on a ridicuously small scale, a single positive or negative electrons coming into existence. Given a long enough wait period there’s no reason whole complex atoms will appear, briefly reversing entropy by virtue of raw chaos. This could create whole galaxies or even a hole new universe. It presumably will eventually include you and every possible version of you, including you as another species. Given a long enough period it will also reform your own memories. So you are, effectively, immortal. Of course, you’ll also get to experience a trillion painful deaths for every real shot at life. Have fun. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/35 "2005-02-07T05:30:05Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > According to several physics theories, you will come back to life. Eventually, given a long enough time period to manifest the unlikely probabilties, energy will spontaneously come into existence. I’m trying, but I can’t see how the heck these two ideas are connected. “You” aren’t a discrete quantity of energy. You’re a physical being. Yes, you run on electrical impulses. Your consciousness is not electricity. Anyway the particles that can come into existence - and we’re talking about particles here, not people - exist for tiny fractions of seconds. And as I remember it, the larger the particles are the less time they exist for. This thread seems like a great example of what happens when people try to make quantum mechanics justify their spirituality. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/36 "2005-02-07T07:52:52Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > We must, however, consider the question of how merciful all the above facts truly are. I would hold that the negativity we experienced in the past _continues_ to be experienced in that piece of space-time (that is, the passage of time does not obliviate it), and likewise all the good we experiened _continues_ to be so experienced. The word “continue” is a function of time. You can’t use that word outside the context of time. No sooner do you get through saying time is a _location_, you turn around and imply that events in _one_ region of time would somehow inexplicably be true for _other_ regions of time. It’s like saying, “The living room and the kitchen are _locations_, therefore there are dishes, a sink, a refrigerator, and a stove in the living room.” You’re trying to have your cake and eat it, too. You want to embrace the modern mathematical view of time as a dimension, while simultaneously keeping the older view of time as an immutable force. But those two ways of picturing time are mutually exclusive. They cannot both hold simultaneously. If time is a dimension, then when you move into the future, there is no longer any “you” in the past; therefore your _experiences_ are not there either - just like when you walk into the kitchen, you are no longer in the living room. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/37 "2005-02-07T09:30:42Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I would hold that the negativity we experienced in the past _continues_ to be experienced in that piece of space-time (that is, the passage of time does not obliviate it), and likewise all the good we experiened _continues_ to be so experienced. So, how we feel at any given time is how we feel, and that we feel/felt like that at that time is true for all time? Well … _yeah_. I don’t quite understand the idea of a ‘_replay_’. One time (and the associated configuration of our sense-memory computer, or indeed the entire universe) is **inaccessible** to another: two different configurations cannot be the same. The 8th February 2005 configuration is _next to_ the 7th and 9th February 2005 configurations, not next to the 25th September 1973 configuration labelled ‘my birth’, nor the configuration labelled ‘my death’, when the cells comprising the biological structure holding my memories will undergo necrosis and begin the chemical process of decay. Why should I “wake up screaming?”, as opposed to waking up on my 14th birthday, waking up on _someone else’s_ 14th birthday, or ‘waking up’ in the non-existent state which comprised the 13.7 billion years before my birth? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/38 "2005-02-07T09:51:10Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > This thread seems like a great example of what happens when people try to make quantum mechanics justify their spirituality. Exactly. But the mental exercise is sometimes useful, if ultimately incorrect. I see what the OP is saying but I disagree with his implicitly trying to use it to justify christian theology. As he said, there is continuity between the present, the past, and the future. There was a great sci-fi story that described the 4-dimensional human as a “long pink worm” stretching from one’s birth to one’s death, with the head end having the cross section of an infant and the tail end having the cross section of an elderly person. Of course if you extend that logically to all of our physical being, we start out as atoms in the beginning and atoms at the end. We don’t know what time actually looks like… it may be a line beginning at the big bang and ending in the big crunch, or it may be some kind of torus, a static circular form. The question then would be, what is consciousness and human life? Are we giant donut-shaped entities with one small arc dipped in the sprinkles that we call consciousness, with our presence being a wave function that propagates continually around the donut? I don’t know. From a practical standpoint it’s bullshit, of course. For all practical purposes, we begin existing at birth and we cease existing at death. Sometimes we drink too much, as I do now. Anything that happens outside those boundaries may be true, but it’s outside of our event horizon. The living can never know what happens outside of that. But it’s fun to think about. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/39 "2005-02-07T09:52:54Z")
> [@NattoGuy](#): > > We don’t know what time actually looks like… it may be a line beginning at the big bang and ending in the big crunch, or it may be some kind of torus, a static circular form. Nah, we know there’s no Big Crunch coming. Perhaps you missed the memo. 😉 The universe is open-ended. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582/40 "2005-02-07T15:19:15Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m trying, but I can’t see how the heck these two ideas are connected. “You” aren’t a discrete quantity of energy. You’re a physical being. Yes, you run on electrical impulses. Your consciousness is not electricity. Matter is nothing, literarlly, except little balls of energy spun quickly. Energy works much the same way. Enough energy in a sifficiently dense and unlikely form could give rise to matter. > [@](#): > > Anyway the particles that can come into existence - and we’re talking about particles here, not people - exist for tiny fractions of seconds. And as I remember it, the larger the particles are the less time they exist for. Usually, yes. But with a sufficiently unlikely event, it’s possible for them them to remain on a more permanent basis. Now, the odds of this happening are indescribably small. Given enough time, however, it would presumably happen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-die-i-suspect-you-wake-up-crying/288582.md?page=3)