Mortality and where we go when we die...

[Psycho Lee]

You know, this shooting a few days ago, which was apparently people fighting over drugs or something, happened not too far from where I live, just a few buildings from mine, and it's been making me think of my own morality. What would happen if I was shot? Would I die instantly?


And then last night I started thinking of dying. As someone who's agonistic and not really Christian I doubt the existence of an afterlife. I wondered, what if the atheists were right? What if I just cease to exist? What if I suddenly die, unknowingly, and everything goes to black, and everything I am is gone? Like a stray bullet hits me and it's like the ending of the Sopranos? Fade to black. Would the universe go on without me?


The idea is a scary one. I mean, I seriously thought of this last night in bed. The idea of just ceasing to exist. I wondered if the universe would cease to exist too. It's like the question of "if a tree falls in a forest," because in order to make a sound someone has to be there to hear that sound. It's that theory that the universe exists because we perceive it.

I sometimes wonder if maybe this entire universe was created for me. not trying to sound egotistical here. I'm not saying that the world revolves around me, rather that the world was created for a place to put me, much in a way a cage is created to place a mouse in. So does that mean when I die, the universe will disappear? If it goes on, who will be there to perceive it? Since I perceive the universe, who will perceive it when I'm gone?


Ugh... this is hard to even explain. I'm thinking in such abstract concepts right now, in such high level psychological and philosophical levels here that even my brain cannot wrap around the enormity of what I'm trying to figure out.

I guess the thing that's bugging me is the idea of just ceasing to exist when you die. Since I perceive the universe from my own point of view, I just cannot wrap my head around what will happen when I die. Will the universe die too, because I cease to perceive it, or will it continue on while other people perceive it? Boom, I'm dead, but where will my consciousness continue?

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I was born in a war-torn or poor third world country, or if I had died in childhood, or was tortured or raped... I consider myself somewhat lucky to be alive but wonder if I will ever be in a situation like other people are, will I be the one suffering next, will I be the next dead one? For all those who suffer, what was it like from their perspective?

But I babble.

I think I fully understand now the popularity of religion, as it gives easy answers to the purpose of our short existence and our inevitable deaths. We exist as agents of a god, we die and go to paradise. It easily answers those tough philosophical questions of death, purpose of life, and how we view the world.

But, not being one who's very religious, all of that stuff doesn't help me right now. I'm feeling too mortal... too depressed.. too scared of death.


Srz debate only plz.  

[Singe Dragon]

Well now. it seems we have a Rather deep post here.

From the things and strange groups i have been around i beleave in alot of rather off the wall things. tho as far as the point your trying to make i is clear tho i can see cloudy in a sence. All live as we know it and the universe Is built around perception. The amuseing thing about that is it gose all the way back to a chicken or the egg question. From the first person or people born it started a perception of the world and all things in it.

With that said you have to realize that All started with an origonal thought and way of seeing it all. And later down the line when we started populating over the earth each group or brange slowly evolved the perception. We pass down the views to new borns thrue the live giveing a basic idea Tho letting you or the indvidual build on it.

So in reality Its more of a mass basic perception of everything. One view fadeing Dosent Mar The masses, However Your death Will Change the perceptions of the ones around you. In life or in death You like everyone makes a diffrence and has an effect on the world or universe if you want to go as far as that.

Now as far as what happens when you die that is a vary intresting thought thats been kicked around for ages. I beleave that Man created God and all of the rest As a Nice security blanket so that in death they have peice of mind At least bleaveing that there Faith will be rewarded. Im not bashing anyone's believes here at all.

As far as what i beleave on death. Some may have a reason Or something to accomplish before death and after death if not compleated you return of corse in a new place, time, area of perception. i mean some of us beleave in past lifes or reincarnation. Some due to religion stateing that But others just haveing that feeling. Past life regressions thrue hypnosis can put some weird insite into things if you bleave enuf to try something of that sort. I bleave in that only because it seems from the things with me i carry traits from these Past lifes that i Posably had.

some anime Like full metal Alchemist Uses the "All is One, One is all" Theory Stateing that The one Is Me And the all is the world we live. If we stop liveing nothing else stops it just carrys on your returned to the earth and grass grows and all continues. Or Coyboy bebop Useing the man came first and created god to ease them into death. in some cases Applauds Rictus Acts leading to death. Like Zelots that would kill For a higer power even tho breaking Laws and starting wars.

Anyway That is My peice of mind on this. Take it or leave it.  

[Af Mas]

The idea of oblivion terrifies me but is the only rational conclusion I can come to, so I accept it. I'm still ******** scared of it, but there's nothing I can do about it. That said, I believe a philosopher once said that it's really a bit silly to be worried about death and such because when it comes, and there indeed is no afterlife, then you'll be dead and not have to worry about it, because you will not exist anymore. We have a tendency to imagine ourselves as dead and being able to perceive it as such, so we have scenarios where we imagine ourselves dead and there is just nothingness. This would be a problem if we were immortal and the world ended, but not with death. This particular philosopher gets kind of snarky and says that people shouldn't mourn the dead for whatever reason, I can't remember. Either way, I keep this in mind whenever, for whatever reason I'm thinking about death. It's no possible to imagine yourself not existing, but it's strangely comforting to me, even while I'm still scared, that I won't have to worry about it because I'll just be dead.

But if there is an afterlife, I call lunch with Jesus and his homies biggrin  

[Shaviv]

It's impossible for us to know, but from what I've heard from someone who'd been "slowed" (meaning, blood oxygen levels crashed to the point that EEG activity slowed down very sharply, resulting in a deathlike state) is that it's just a stopping of everything. Your perceptions are jumbled up and meaningless and all impinging on you at the same time, except "time" has no meaning anymore.

(But then that individual's heart was kick-started from the outside and he woke up.)

But really we cannot comprehend what it is like to cease to exist, because we always think of experiences in terms of someone experiencing them. Obviously, in the case of death, there's a problem here.

Anyway, I don't think you can meaningfully say your ego, your "I", goes anywhere rather than disappearing. However, your lasting mark on the world is a different matter. A few religions require that a person leave the world at least no worse than it was when he entered it, preferably better...  

[Garek Maxwell]

Af Mas

The idea of oblivion terrifies me but is the only rational conclusion I can come to, so I accept it.

Unlike you, I stay confused and wonder why and many many thoughts run through my head on this subject. However, I stay terrified. I don't get comfort in thinking more about it. I find it easier to just not think about it at all. I feel better when I busy myself with something else. Anything else really.

Possibly the greatest and most hopeful end for me is to "live on" as a ghost. Even if it's nothing like being alive, it would be easier to comprehend and deal with than an absolute nothing.

...On the positive side of things, this thread just gave me a great idea for one of my projects due tomorrow. Thanks everyone! heart  

[shoki_de_nai]

I was brought up to believe in three levels of Heaven. Top level for the awesome people who get to hang out with Jesus (who can visit the other two levels), a middle for us average folk, and a bottom for the sinners which is like Earth, but a bit better. So, everyone still gets to go to a Heaven and there's not a Hell. I really like this idea. I also believe that some of us get stuck on this world (ghosts) for some horrible reason or another. Actually, I heard that some religion's have their version of "limbo" as a place on Earth, so that could be part of it too.

While I'm not so faithful in any religion anymore, I still believe that as long as I don't end up a ghost, anywhere I go after I die is better than this crappy place I'm at now. I do not fear death, though I do worry about those I may leave behind.

Besides, not like there's anything we can do about it. We're all gonna die sooner or later.  

[Selene Aries]

I have no assumptions of what shall happen to my consciousness when I die. I figure I shall find out when the time comes and am in no hurry for the answer.

Technically speaking if your brain completely shuts down then there is just nothing, not even any awareness that there is nothing. Though, I personally find the concept of there being no sensations after death disturbing.

However, if there is something about us that keeps on going even after out bodies cease to function, who knows what is waiting? If there really is anything like a Heaven and Hell, they are probably makings of our own subconscious.  

[Zella L.]

First, whether you die instantly or at all depends on where you get shot. Also, it's an extremely common misconception as to what the definition of "atheist" is--it means you don't believe in a god, and it makes no reference to other beliefs, although many who know enough about theology to know the definition of that word also know enough in that field to accept that there is no afterlife.
Think about Terri Schavio. Her brain had lost oxygen until she was in a vegetable-like state, where she could not comprehend things around her, remember anything, or respond. Where was her soul, where were her memories? All gone, as her hard-drive had been completely destroyed. When your heart stops beating and your lungs stop working, after 8-10 minutes your brain is like that--unoxygenated and dead. It will not seem that the world doesn't exist, nothing will seem anything to you.
There's really no use worrying though, worrying solves nothing. Enjoy life and achieve immorality through actions that change the world. I believe in life before death.
And REMEMBER: Desirability =/= viability. If your defense for a belief is that it is comforting, nice, or fair, then that is no defense at all.

P.S. The egg came way, waaaay before the chicken. I'd say around several billion years.  

[Shaviv]

Zella, depending on the theology you're thinking of, there may be multiple layers of the soul. E.g., you might say that all people and all animals have a basic breath of life in them, the vital soul perhaps; then, human beings and maybe a few unusual nonhuman species have a reasoning soul capable of moral judgment. And lastly, only humans have the third level of soul, which is essentially a fragment of the Divine Presence granted independent existence, and which is reunited with the Divine upon death.

As it was explained to me in primary school, the brain is the organ through which the ethereal soul may interface with the material body. If a person's brain begins to malfunction, then as it becomes progressively more and more damaged, the Divine aspect and the reasoning aspect of the soul both become less and less able to influence the behavior of the body; until in cases of severe damage, the body is left only with the vital soul, and can only act in simple, unreasoning ways in order to sustain its own existence.

That's a little more complex than simply saying the vital soul lives in the brain stem, the reasoning soul in the whole of the forebrain and the Divine aspect in the prefrontal regions, though; severe damage to the prefrontal areas doesn't eliminate a person's ability to think rationally about things, but it does mostly eliminate his ability to use rational thought to affect his actions. So that might be said to be such damage as would largely isolate the reasoning soul from the body.

It's rather complicated.