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Yeah, personally, I feel tons of anxiety about the effectively-infinite void of time before my existence, and that which will come after it. They are the same

Yeah, personally, I feel tons of anxiety about the effectively-infinite void of time before my existence, and that which will come after it. They are the same to me. Even though physically we are "born", I find it really upsetting that our experience and sense of selves is just an emergent organic process, a millisecond of a dream padded by infinite nothingness.

root_axis 5y ago
Far more horrifying to me is the thought that this millisecond of a dream is actually a process occurring in great abundance throughout the universe, with oscillating arrangements of particles facilitating whatever property of matter it is that embodies the phenomena of subjective experience. If it happened to "me" once, I don't see any reason why it should not happen again, or be happening everywhere at once in parallel, yet simply lacking awareness of this fact because the individual nodes don't share memory.
- cdelsolar 5y ago
  Exactly - I think this is the actual answer. At some point "I" am going to be a Holocaust victim, or a drug cartel's victim, etc etc. It's horrifying. I think when I die, "I" am just going to be somebody else. Nothing else really makes sense to me.
- digilypse 5y ago
  This is how I think of it. The experience of being “me” is the same for all life. An emergent process, but still real. I think some Buddhist concepts, like reincarnation and duality, can be interpreted as perspectives on this. It does increase my sense of compassion for life in general, and I try to lean into that.
pasquinelli 5y ago
it's not nothingness. think of all the people that're dead right now, and all the people yet to live. would you characterize right now as nothingness?
agumonkey 5y ago
I think some culture deep sense of tradition is a way to cope. You inherit the past, you give it to your kids. It's no more a void on both ends if you carry the past along. Does it make sense?
sockpuppet_12 5y ago
Have you considered an alternative world view? While it's true that we experience nothing while we die, there are good reasons to believe that that this life we have on Earth isn't accurately explained by purely materialistic means.

root_axis 5y ago

Far more horrifying to me is the thought that this millisecond of a dream is actually a process occurring in great abundance throughout the universe, with oscillating arrangements of particles facilitating whatever property of matter it is that embodies the phenomena of subjective experience. If it happened to "me" once, I don't see any reason why it should not happen again, or be happening everywhere at once in parallel, yet simply lacking awareness of this fact because the individual nodes don't share memory.

cdelsolar 5y ago
Exactly - I think this is the actual answer. At some point "I" am going to be a Holocaust victim, or a drug cartel's victim, etc etc. It's horrifying. I think when I die, "I" am just going to be somebody else. Nothing else really makes sense to me.
digilypse 5y ago
This is how I think of it. The experience of being “me” is the same for all life. An emergent process, but still real. I think some Buddhist concepts, like reincarnation and duality, can be interpreted as perspectives on this. It does increase my sense of compassion for life in general, and I try to lean into that.

pasquinelli 5y ago

it's not nothingness. think of all the people that're dead right now, and all the people yet to live. would you characterize right now as nothingness?

agumonkey 5y ago

I think some culture deep sense of tradition is a way to cope. You inherit the past, you give it to your kids. It's no more a void on both ends if you carry the past along. Does it make sense?

sockpuppet_12 5y ago

Have you considered an alternative world view? While it's true that we experience nothing while we die, there are good reasons to believe that that this life we have on Earth isn't accurately explained by purely materialistic means.