What is Death?

[Troy]

Well last night I was laying in bed, thinking about what would happen when one dies. I don't believe in the whole heaven/hell thing, and thinking about what would happen started to hurt my brain.

My first thought was maybe we are re-incarnated, but then i got to thinking whether or not our new self would have any recollection of the past life, if our soul gets passed through from our one life-form to the next. Maybe souls/spirits/whatever don't even exist, maybe we're just here, we have a brain that we think with, and when we die it shuts off and WE are gone forever. We just see black forever.

I thought about maybe if we do have spirits, they get left on earth and float around for eternity. Kinda like a ghost, but that just seems silly.

To me, the most logical thing would be that we are just gone forever. Once we die our thoughts, everything that happens in the brain is gone and we are basically deleted from the world.

Its really weird to think about and was just wondering all your thoughts on it.


PS: Sorry if this isn't the right forum, it seemed the most logical to me.

[Tabula Rasa]

I've also brooded pretty intensely over the same thing. However, in me, these thoughts are generally triggered by something that i've taken.

I'll agree with you, that the most logical, plausible answer is that once brain function ceases, that's it for us. We don't "see" blackness forever, we don't see anything. We're dead, it's over. There's nothing. Too me, this is both incredibly disturbing, and surprisingly reassuring.

I was raised Catholic, but haven't been going to mass for about two years now because i'm 'plagued' by agnosticism. One of the big things that troubles me is the thought of an omniscient, all-powerful being is constantly judging us. That our lives have no other meaning than to prove to our 'lord' that we're worthy of redemption.

To me, this thought makes life itself meaningless. It's just a game, almost.

I'd rather that my life be filled with meaning that I give it, as opposed to an all-powerful being's plans. If we have all of eternity, that makes whatever choices we make in life, whatever we achieve here, utterly meaningless.

I'll agree that having these thoughts is incredibly daunting, and hard to deal with. I mean, since I was tripping when I formed my hypothesis (...) that I was simply suffering from a medical symptom, "a sense of impending doom". I'm not going to rule that out. Nor am I going to impose my beliefs on anyone else, or expect them to impose them upon me. I believe that people should ultimately have faith in whatever comforts them the most, and at this stage of my life that's oblivion.

[Interlaced]

I to do not believe in heaven or hell its just totally ilogical and pathetic what i believe and what im scared of is that its an endless cycle and once we die we are born new again with or without everything we had in our previous life to experience it differently but just the thought of starting again makes me ill.

[.inspire]

Well currently I think that once death happens, our whole life gets replayed. And then we go to the great Judgment which would lead us to either Heaven or hell. That is my thought.

-.inspire

[Aelius]

Well currently I think that once death happens, our whole life gets replayed. And then we go to the great Judgment which would lead us to either Heaven or hell. That is my thought.

-.inspire

And what reason do you have for this belief?

[dodo15]

ive always thought of life as the brain being active like memories and the thinking we do so i geuss death to me is the absence of those things because if u cant think then ur technically alive but ur not really living u know?

[iwpoe]

What is death for us? That is, what is my own death for me? Death is the possibility of the end of all my possibilities, which is most difficult to come to terms with as an understood possibility among my possibilities. It is the no-more that is not-yet. Moreover, this no-more that is not-yet is the possibility among all my possibilities that orients all the other possibilities. The possibility that I will have no more possibilities is not simply one possibility among many like taking a shower, quitting my job, or baking a pie, are possibilities. It is a possibility which limits all my other possibilities and orients them as possibilities that I accomplish within the possibility of no more possibility. That is to say, death says of my life that my work cannot go on as if without the possibility of its being brought to and end and never recommencing.

[Zelda]

I view life as a biological process, and our consciousness as a manifestation of our biological brain operation. When life and brain activity cease, as does our consciousness. I do not believe in a soul.

[iwpoe]

I view life as a biological process, and our consciousness as a manifestation of our biological brain operation. When life and brain activity cease, as does our consciousness. I do not believe in a soul.

Insofar as you take that to be an answer to the question "What is death?", your answer no more fully answers the question than "wood, fabric, bricks and mortar" answers the question "What is a theatre?".

[Zelda]

Insofar as you take that to be an answer the the question "What is death?", your answer no more fully answers the question than "wood, fabric, bricks and mortar" answers the question "What is a theatre?".

Bleak, I know.

[Aelius]

Insofar as you take that to be an answer the the question "What is death?", your answer no more fully answers the question than "wood, fabric, bricks and mortar" answers the question "What is a theatre?".

Yeah, that's because there's nothing else to say. You went on for several lines about nothing. I think I speak for everyone when I say you didn't make any sense at all. I'm sorry you want to try and make death out to be something it's not.

[iwpoe]

Yeah, that's because there's nothing else to say. You went on for several lines about nothing. I think I speak for everyone when I say you didn't make any sense at all. I'm sorry you want to try and make death out to be something it's not.

If you didn't understand how would you know whether I made it out to be something it isn't?

[Aelius]

If you didn't understand how would you know whether I made it out to be something it isn't?

Because I know you're no fool and you understand that we have no reason to believe death is anything other than the cessation of brain activity and that nothing follows death. I suspect you'd like to think of death as this mysterious phenomenon just aching to be riddled with a load of this philosophical razzle dazzle bullshit.

[Sig]

What is death for us? That is, what is my own death for me? Death is the possibility of the end of all my possibilities, which is most difficult to come to terms with as an understood possibility among my possibilities. It is impending non-existence. Moreover, this impending non-existence is the possibility that influences all my choices and everything I do. The possibility of dying is not the same as taking a shower, quitting my job, or baking a pie. That I may die, that I WILL die, influences every other thing I attempt, every other thing that I do, in that I must do them with the constant threat/fear of death hanging over me. That is to say, death says of my life, 'get a move on - if you want to accomplish something, do it! Because there will come a time when you die, when your life will end and never start again.'

Did I get that right? If I didn't I apologize

Yeah, that's because there's nothing else to say. You went on for several lines about nothing. I think I speak for everyone when I say you didn't make any sense at all. I'm sorry you want to try and make death out to be something it's not.

If I'm right (in fact, whether I'm right or not) he's not making it out to be something he's not. He's talking about death in relation to life, not in a complete contrast, but in how it influences life. He's talking about a side of death that means it is far more than some biological process, whether there is a soul or not, a God, or not, Heaven and Hell, or not, death is a looming shadow that influences our lives, whatever we believe follows it.

[Aelius]

If I'm right (in fact, whether I'm right or not) he's not making it out to be something he's not. He's talking about death in relation to life, not in a complete contrast, but in how it influences life. He's talking about a said of death that means it is far more than some biological process, whether there is a soul or not, a God, or not, Heaven and Hell, or not, death is a looming shadow that influences our lives, whatever we believe follows it.

That's where I take issue. iwpoe knows as well as I do that we have no reason to believe any of that. We have no reason to believe it's anything other than a biological process. And anyone who tells you they know otherwise is lying.