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> God, I really hope there's something after death. There is something, it's the same thing that was before your birth, in that sense so you are very much just
by freeflight 6y ago
> God, I really hope there's something after death.
There is something, it's the same thing that was before your birth, in that sense so you are very much just returning to your natural state: You have been not born for the longest time and you will be dead for the longest time.
In that context this rather short experience of existence is actually the thing that's out of the ordinary, making it that much more valuable.
- spfzero 6y agoThis is also how I think of it. Billions of years go by where you don’t exist, then you do, for a tiny slice of time, maybe 90 years, then more billions of years when you don’t exist.
- prohobo 6y agoThis is a myth. If you get blackout drunk and don't remember the night before, does that mean you ceased to exist in that time period? How can you prove any conclusion you come to? The idea that being dead is the same as not being born seems like an elegant conclusion until you consider how much our perception of time varies even while we're alive, and it's actually an observation made after you gained your current consciousness; meaning that you truthfully have no idea what happened before you were born, only your current perception of it. What you're really saying is "I don't remember, and no one else remembers, therefore there was nothing". Reality is unintuitive. Modern theoretical physics suggests that time itself is an illusion and that every state of the universe is superimposed into one unifying entity: past, present, and future. What does that mean about our perceptions of life and death? The truth is we don't know much of anything, we can only speculate about it.
- tilolebo 6y agoThat's exactly what makes it scary to me. It feels so normal to sit there on my couch, writing this message from my smartphone. But in fact life is just a ridiculously short period at the scale of... Of what, actually? How long have I not been born, and how long will I be dead? Trying to make sense of it is what makes me anxious.
- garaetjjte 6y agoYeah, reading about events on cosmological scale (galaxy, blackhole formation, etc.) usually ends up in existential dread feeling for me.
- RotANobot 6y agoNot to take away from your experience, I just wanted to share mine. When I read or think of events on cosmological scale it always gives me feelings of curious bliss.
- freeflight 6y agoI guess it's a matter of perspective. When I look at these things I'm amazed that I'm part of these scales, or as Carl Sagan put it: "We are made of star stuff". Once I'm dead, the elements my body consists of will go back into that eternal cycle, making me once again a part of the whole or maybe even part of evolving into something completely new. While my non-corporeal parts, my consciousness, my character, will hopefully be fondly remembered by family and friends. At least that's how I found a bit of peace of mind after having suffered from anxiety and existential dread for most of my youth.
- marton78 6y agoYou were never not born, and you will never be dead. The concept of time is meaningless if it's not experienced, so as far as you're concerned it won't exist, and what doesn't exist can also not be infinite.
- AQuantized 6y agoThis is the sort of thing that seems like it makes sense, but assigning a time period or ownership to a lack of existence doesn't follow. We can talk about something not existing but it's only a convention.
- lozf 6y agoKinda like you're cosmic lego .. you make something (a life), play a while, then all the pieces go back in the toy-box ready to make something else next time.