4 ms·

What is the user experience after you die? Ah, that's probably the greatest question of all time.

by RickJWagner 7y ago

DrNuke 7y ago
You just go into some deeeeep sleep and never wake up again?
- scoutt 7y ago
  Some say you reboot and a new instance of yourself is generated inside another type of container.
  - DrNuke 7y ago
    Not so sure I want to try that, which is exactly the most fundamental conundrum I wanted naughtily to downplay here... ehehe...
    - aruggirello 7y ago
      The manual states that only a clean exit may result in a new instance. Any core dumps will surely piss off the Great Maintainer.
- mapcars 7y ago
  Try to imagine how would it be going to sleep forever. Try to imagine how would it be waking up without ever going to sleep. Spend some time in this with full attention, something might change in you.
nonsapreiche 7y ago
smooth and quiet with a dark theme?
jaclaz 7y ago
The good news being that there are no robo-calls in the afterlife (or so I am told).
Hammershaft 7y ago
Perhaps your perception of time ceases and therefore and eternity can pass in the blink of an eye. If the universe is in the long run cyclical then maybe the moment you die is the moment you wake up in another skull. Of course, that idea makes a lot of big assumptions about the nature of consciousness that I have a hard time buying. It assumes our consciousness is akin to a singular entity, which I'm can't make sense of in either a materialistic framework of consciousness or a pan-psychic one. The real answer to this depends on the nature of conscious awareness, and I haven't been able to find a single framework for how consciousness emerges that has even been internally consistent or fully explanatory, let alone one that has a lick of evidence in favor of it. Even if we assume that death is a state of nothingness, I definitely find the popular idea that death feels akin to being basically trapped in a dark box for eternity to be nonsensical. We close our eyes and see darkness and so we assume that darkness is akin to nothingness, but in reality the perception of darkness & time is very much a something. To make an analogy, nothingness isn't what you see when you close your eyes but instead it is closer to what you can see right now out of your elbow or your foot. I think the same applies to our perception of time.
- Hammershaft 7y ago
  I'll end it with this interesting tidbit I found on hacker news about timescales involved in cyclical universes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20116147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20116147
saiya-jin 7y ago
The most logical conclusion is of course that there is nothing, we mean nothing, have no soul in any way and our version of universe we have in our minds will simply cease to exist forever. Our dying is same as bacteria's dying, what kind of user experience do you expect for it afterwards? But humans are anything but logical creatures, still rather primitive some would say (but we're trying!), so this isn't acceptable for many/most. Especially if one has been indoctrinated in one of many various religions du jour since birth, this idea becomes very hard to truly accept with all the consequences. Add high age and it becomes practically impossible. Many people will mentally go to great lengths to avoid even considering this as a possible option. I don't blame them, for many life would lost any meaning (this I don't get, there is plenty of good regardless), and maybe adhering to morals of these days might be harder for them if there is no ultimate punishment. I personally find it liberating and am perfectly content with all aspects of this. Can't really explain rationally why though.
mapcars 7y ago
And great thing is we all will get to know the answer :D
Koshkin 7y ago
That, I guess, depends on how your body is used after you die and who the user is.
crispyambulance 7y ago
> What is the user experience after you die? HN is the PERFECT PLACE for such questions. I expect it is similar to loss of consciousness from anesthetic, like propofol: a few seconds of fading awareness followed by nothingness. The difference is you don't wake up and marvel at not remembering anything while under the effect of anesthetic.
kempbellt 7y ago
Just the other weekend I had a very weird sleeping/lucid dreaming experience that gave me a new perspective on death. Someone in my house woke up around 6am and made some noise. Enough to wake me up. I quickly wrote it off as "not a danger" and went back to sleep. For some reason though, over the next 3 hours, I went in and out of sleep maybe 30 times. Each time entering a dream-state for a couple of minutes, dying, and re-awakening here. Then semi-consciously deciding to go back into another dream knowing that I would likely die back into this reality. Much like is shown in the movie Inception. It gave me a strange new perspective on what happens after death - making it seem like a song I'd listened to too many times to care about anymore. Like, "Eh... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ been there, done that" (even if only in a dream). Living life is more interesting to me than worrying about what happens in or after death.
- RickJWagner 7y ago
  I love it when I have some weird 'lucid dream'. I've never had an experience of the duration you've had, but I hope I will someday. Sounds awesome.

What is the user experience after you die? Ah, that's probably the greatest question of all time.

DrNuke 7y ago

You just go into some deeeeep sleep and never wake up again?

scoutt 7y ago
Some say you reboot and a new instance of yourself is generated inside another type of container.
- DrNuke 7y ago
  Not so sure I want to try that, which is exactly the most fundamental conundrum I wanted naughtily to downplay here... ehehe...
  - aruggirello 7y ago
    The manual states that only a clean exit may result in a new instance. Any core dumps will surely piss off the Great Maintainer.
mapcars 7y ago
Try to imagine how would it be going to sleep forever. Try to imagine how would it be waking up without ever going to sleep. Spend some time in this with full attention, something might change in you.

nonsapreiche 7y ago

smooth and quiet with a dark theme?

jaclaz 7y ago

The good news being that there are no robo-calls in the afterlife (or so I am told).

Hammershaft 7y ago

Perhaps your perception of time ceases and therefore and eternity can pass in the blink of an eye. If the universe is in the long run cyclical then maybe the moment you die is the moment you wake up in another skull. Of course, that idea makes a lot of big assumptions about the nature of consciousness that I have a hard time buying. It assumes our consciousness is akin to a singular entity, which I'm can't make sense of in either a materialistic framework of consciousness or a pan-psychic one. The real answer to this depends on the nature of conscious awareness, and I haven't been able to find a single framework for how consciousness emerges that has even been internally consistent or fully explanatory, let alone one that has a lick of evidence in favor of it. Even if we assume that death is a state of nothingness, I definitely find the popular idea that death feels akin to being basically trapped in a dark box for eternity to be nonsensical. We close our eyes and see darkness and so we assume that darkness is akin to nothingness, but in reality the perception of darkness & time is very much a something. To make an analogy, nothingness isn't what you see when you close your eyes but instead it is closer to what you can see right now out of your elbow or your foot. I think the same applies to our perception of time.

Hammershaft 7y ago
I'll end it with this interesting tidbit I found on hacker news about timescales involved in cyclical universes. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20116147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20116147

saiya-jin 7y ago

The most logical conclusion is of course that there is nothing, we mean nothing, have no soul in any way and our version of universe we have in our minds will simply cease to exist forever. Our dying is same as bacteria's dying, what kind of user experience do you expect for it afterwards? But humans are anything but logical creatures, still rather primitive some would say (but we're trying!), so this isn't acceptable for many/most. Especially if one has been indoctrinated in one of many various religions du jour since birth, this idea becomes very hard to truly accept with all the consequences. Add high age and it becomes practically impossible. Many people will mentally go to great lengths to avoid even considering this as a possible option. I don't blame them, for many life would lost any meaning (this I don't get, there is plenty of good regardless), and maybe adhering to morals of these days might be harder for them if there is no ultimate punishment. I personally find it liberating and am perfectly content with all aspects of this. Can't really explain rationally why though.

mapcars 7y ago

And great thing is we all will get to know the answer :D

Koshkin 7y ago

That, I guess, depends on how your body is used after you die and who the user is.

crispyambulance 7y ago

> What is the user experience after you die? HN is the PERFECT PLACE for such questions. I expect it is similar to loss of consciousness from anesthetic, like propofol: a few seconds of fading awareness followed by nothingness. The difference is you don't wake up and marvel at not remembering anything while under the effect of anesthetic.

kempbellt 7y ago

Just the other weekend I had a very weird sleeping/lucid dreaming experience that gave me a new perspective on death. Someone in my house woke up around 6am and made some noise. Enough to wake me up. I quickly wrote it off as "not a danger" and went back to sleep. For some reason though, over the next 3 hours, I went in and out of sleep maybe 30 times. Each time entering a dream-state for a couple of minutes, dying, and re-awakening here. Then semi-consciously deciding to go back into another dream knowing that I would likely die back into this reality. Much like is shown in the movie Inception. It gave me a strange new perspective on what happens after death - making it seem like a song I'd listened to too many times to care about anymore. Like, "Eh... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ been there, done that" (even if only in a dream). Living life is more interesting to me than worrying about what happens in or after death.

RickJWagner 7y ago
I love it when I have some weird 'lucid dream'. I've never had an experience of the duration you've had, but I hope I will someday. Sounds awesome.