Current Events > What are your thoughts about the afterlife?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It doesn't have to conform to any religious view or anything. What do you personally thing happens?

I think there is something, obviously not sure what. Many cultures around the world, which had no connection to each other (think: aztecs or mayans, I forgot, and then a culture in the middle east) believe there is a river that you have to cross, but you can't. Your dog, a dog you had in your life will help you cross it. The river is the Jordan river, according to some cultures, for the aztecs it's the apanoayan or "place of the dogs".

I do believe that sometimes our loved ones look after us from the afterlife...

IDK, I'm curious what you guys think

There better not be an afterlife, if I have to continue existing after all this shit I'm throwing hands

Nothing happens.

The same as before we are born.

SSJKirby posted...

There better not be an afterlife, if I have to continue existing after all this shit I'm throwing hands

but maybe you're just like... a consciousness. Pure energy, able to exist without - or over - human emotions, and earthly things don't matter anymore. Sadness, pain, greed... all gone. Pure energy.

Bender was right

All awareness of experience depends on consciousness, which ceases at death because its dependent on brain processes and the brain ceases to function when we die.

We just put into a whole other body and have to do the whole thing over again

if it exists and the sorta karmic assumption is accurate i'll probably come back as like a deer tick

I assume the consciousness(spirit, soul?) gets "recycled" and put into another body.

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You think that accounts for subjective experience? Does that mean that you think computers experience the world just like we do as well?

Atheist, but I believe in reincarnation.

There was some Doctor who did a study on our brains, and the fact that unlike almost all other animals we think about the "long-term" future, at all times. Some birds (ravens) can apparently plan for the "future", or seem to (although just like migratory birds' "zugunruhe", and ants' seemingly high complex behaviors -- this may be a "false friend", and instead be instinctal), but this is not the long-term future. For example in humans often children (after the age of 6 or 7), when they begin to think about the future, will become melancholy when they realize their own parents are not there.
We don't see this behavior in any other animal, that we know of.

Which means our brains cannot "think" about a world where we are not, therefore an "afterlife" of some kind is the only thing they can think about.

iCurious posted...

I assume the consciousness(spirit, soul?) gets "recycled" and put into another body.

basically reincarnation?

knightmarexx posted...

There was some Doctor who did a study on our brains, and the fact that unlike almost all other animals we think about the "long-term" future, at all times. Some birds (ravens) can apparently plan for the "future", or seem to (although just like migratory birds' "zugunruhe", and ants' seemingly high complex behaviors -- this may be a "false friend", and instead be instinctal), but this is not the long-term future. For example in humans often children (after the age of 6 or 7), when they begin to think about the future, will become melancholy when they realize their own parents are not there.
We don't see this behavior in any other animal, that we know of.

Which means our brains cannot "think" about a world where we are not, therefore an "afterlife" of some kind is the only thing they can think about.

interesting

Thinking purely in a practical way, it would make sense for consciousness to be reused. Otherwise youre starting over.

However we know that nature isnt always practical.

The_shibe posted...

basically reincarnation?

Without the karma bits, yes. I started to just say that exactly, but a lot of people don't think of one concept without the other.

Unfortunately I have to admit my understanding of this is basically what would be considered the "layman" understanding in terms of Eastern thought. Since I'm thinking about it in terms of the base/physical planes in which we experience our everyday life/living. (But which is certainly the way that almost everybody on this earth will be personally experiencing the immediate afterlife).

But the easiest way to think about it is that you're a sentient human currently with the possibility to move "up" or "down" the ladder of reincarnation in the next life. Which may as well be interpreted in the West as versions of heaven or hell. Except in either case, the end-result will be temporary, just like this life is. There is also the possibility to just be reincarnated in this literal worldscape as another person, possibly of lower or higher class from birth (think caste system in a sense). But, "down" would be to some type of lower lifeform...like an ant. And "up" would be being reborn as a sentient being (let's just say as a human for ease of thought) into a higher world, with earth being essentially a kind of purgatory in this scenario.

Again though, this is the more simplistic way of looking at the afterlife. Since it's generally taught your best bet in the here/now is to just focus on moving "up" in the next life so you have a better chance at becoming enlightened.

I always like the thought of that we just start over again. Even though we remember absolutely nothing of what we chose to do last time. I like the thought that moments I enjoyed so much in this life that I'm experiencing now I could experience them again and have no clue how many times I've experienced it but it always feels like the first time. Or on the flip side moments that I regret right now, maybe don't happen or it's just turns into different regrets.

I believe in nothing after death. Despite how depressing that may sound, it is perhaps a lot more comforting than most people would think.

Time is relative to humans, things can go by fast or slow. When we die or when we reach a near-death experience, we sometimes hallucinate, seeing things that are separate from reality.

Using that theory, I assume when I die, I could live a false life for millennia because time is subjective, in reality, I'd cease living within a few seconds, but in that brief period, anything could be possible and in my opinion, it beats the concept of an afterlife or reincarnation because it is what you want.

It'd be nice if there was an afterlife I guess, but an infinite existence also kinda sounds like hell.

No matter how nice you try to make a universe in which everyone has eternal life, it will always be a hell.

Until we actually have proof that there is an afterlife there's no reason to believe in one.

Enclave posted...

Until we actually have proof that there is an afterlife there's no reason to believe in one.

Except for wishful thinking. Which is so potent I wonder

Ar0ge posted...

Nothing happens.

The same as before we are born.

My position as well.

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Well yes, but subjective experience is used to describe that which is experienced by an individual, and interpreted through the lens of an individual consciousness. It contrasts with objective reality, if there is such a thing.

I didn't come up with the term.

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Your description of where consciousness comes from gave me the impression that you believe the requirement is just an arrangement of matter, and I thought electrified bits of silicon processors with sensory input in the form of cameras and microphones could potentially suffice just as well as electrified meat bags under this view.

But you're saying that isn't what you mean, so I guess I'm left wondering what you're saying consciousness comes from. What special property of the electrified bags of meat brings about conscious perception?

The extent of my own answer to the hard problem of consciousness boils down almost entirely to what I've ruled out, and the materialist view just happens to be it. But I'm still always interested in the possibility that science has found a way to make the materialistic explanation for consciousness make sense - until such a time that I've settled on an alternative anyway.

No afterlife, you cease to be aware of anything.

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So you just take the baseline, unexplained materialistic view at face value with absolute confidence, and on that basis write off any form of afterlife whatsoever? Well, fair enough. I guess that's a normal scientific view if nothing else. Couldn't do it myself.

Im of the opinion that the only reason to believe that there is any sort of afterlife is wishful thinking.

iCurious posted...

I assume the consciousness(spirit, soul?) gets "recycled" and put into another body.

Thats quite the assumption.

Glob posted...

Im of the opinion that the only reason to believe that there is any sort of afterlife is wishful thinking.

I mean, yeah. Oblivion is scary, fear of it is commonly the last major barrier in people becoming atheists.

Ive only been there briefly but I hated coming back here, I look forward to returning when Im done

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What explanation? "At some point, all the right bits of matter come together and quite suddenly, like magic, consciousness arises". That's not an explanation. It's a placeholder that does nothing more than acknowledge that consciousness exists. It clarifies nothing about its source.

Unless I've missed the more enlightening bits, the idea that consciousness results from something that doesn't fit the materialistic world view at all is no less plausible.

VampireCoyote posted...

Ive only been there briefly but I hated coming back here, I look forward to returning when Im done

wait what?

Ar0ge posted...

Nothing happens.

The same as before we are born.

Pretty much. You just stop having thoughts when you die. Sorta like sleeping except you don't wake up.

I lean heavily towards it being the same as before you were born and that's very comforting to me

Quorthon109 posted...

I lean heavily towards it being the same as before you were born and that's very comforting to me

I mean no one remembers being a fetus or a sperm, but they were at some point. So in that case you just... become something else?

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so you do feel there's something?

The_shibe posted...

wait what?

I suffer from tonic clonic seizures and when I have them my consciousness simply stops. It isnt like dreaming, there is no thought or awareness at all in my brain because every synapse is firing and causing total overload.

When it stops though and I start to come back, there is the distinct feeling that Im being shoved back into my body and its a terrible feeling because the place Im being shut out of has just no stress or negative things at all, it is just a realm of nirvana

VampireCoyote posted...

I suffer from tonic clonic seizures and when I have them my consciousness simply stops. It isnt like dreaming, there is no thought or awareness at all in my brain because every synapse is firing and causing total overload.

When it stops though and I start to come back, there is the distinct feeling that Im being shoved back into my body and its a terrible feeling because the place Im being shut out of has just no stress or negative things at all, it is just a realm of nirvana

That sounds similar to when I drowned in the second grade, however I just remember this empty blackness and then all of a sudden the lifeguard, my mom, and my best friend at the time were kneeling/standing over me.

And for the record, I didn't drown cause I sucked at swimming. It was this slide where there's like a 6ft drop until the water. I was swimming under the water because that was how I preferred. I guess the person in charge of saying when to go thought it was clear. Some adult man slammed onto my 7/8 year old back, instantly forcing my mouth open, all the air out, with water rushing in, and then blackness.

Though I don't know if I would call it nirvana, more like just nothing.

Now that I'm older I think it was just a state of existence while my brain waited to die, would have possibly gotten a DMT trip had I not be resuscitated.

VampireCoyote posted...

there is the distinct feeling that Im being shoved back into my body

sorry to hear about the seizures :(

As for the part I quoted... maybe it is that? You know, people experience out of body experiences and things like that. The "silver thread" and all that

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at the same time that idea doesn't sound that good to me in the sense that a lot of people had a first love, a love of their lives, a relative they loved very much, etc. So you just go into another body and that meat nothing and now you're gonna have a new 1st love, a new closest relative, etc?

I guess the idea of heaven just sounds nicer to me. But that doesn't mean that's what it is, of course

I dont think there is an afterlife and Im okay with that.

I couldn't guess exactly what "happens", but I believe there is Something, whether it's a proper afterlife, reincarnation, or... Something. There being absolutely Nothing doesn't really make sense to me, because to me that implies we (as in, our consciousness / sense of self) also came from absolutely Nothing, which also wouldn't really make sense to me.