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I've been thinking a lot about my same experience. I also spoke to her as it was kicking in. It was humbling. Like a computer being turned off, and then back

I've been thinking a lot about my same experience. I also spoke to her as it was kicking in. It was humbling. Like a computer being turned off, and then back on an hour later. For that time, I didn't exist. It helped convince me that after death there is just.... Nothing.

voidpointercast 3y ago
This seems like an assertion based on incomplete evidence. Not saying you're indelibly wrong, but presuming there is such a thing, one would think it's infallible, and thus you're not going to accidentally slip into paradise before your allotted time.
- XorNot 3y ago
  Most ideas about life after death are based on the assumption that because we have consciousness, it can't just "stop existing" as a true nothingness. Ask someone to picture that, and they picture a black void that they still experience. So it seems sensible to me that General Aneasthesia would feel quite unique in that regard (I have experience it myself) - one moment you're here, the next you're waking up. You don't dream, you don't feel like time has passed at all, it's just kind of a blink and then you're somewhere else. And that's it - "true nothingness". It's the closest you can get to not existing while still being able to come back.
  - Sunam 3y ago
    I had surgery last year and I believe I was out for a few hours. when I woke up I could definitely sense that some amount of time had had passed. I haven't felt that sensation during quicker surgeries so maybe our perception of how quickly time passes is changed and slowed down?
  - simiones 3y ago
    I think a good way to imagine non-existence it is to ask people to think about how they feel about the time before they were born. It's better than that idea of a black void that some get, and it tends to better illustrate the concept that the world once existed without you experiencing it, and so there is nothing weird about it existing again without you experiencing it in any way.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      I think this is a cheat. If instead we found someone who (for whatever reason) believed that they just popped into existence, as if from a puff of smoke, at the age of 3... and we did your thought exercise but instead told them "think back to the 3 years before you manifested"... To that person, it might well seem like a clever idea. "Hey I didn't exist then, but I don't really experience or remember that nothingness!" Except they did exist, may well have been conversational even for the last part of it, etc. There's no good way from first principles for me to be sure the same isn't true of myself before my birth. I don't expect much after my death, but like everyone else I'm just going to have to wait and see (or, wait and not see, as the case may be).
      - simiones 3y ago
        Oh, I'm not claiming I've solved the mystery of what happens after death! I'm just saying this may be a good way to help someone visualize better what it even means to say that consciousness just stops, not that it somehow proves that is what happens.
  - polishdude20 3y ago
    I wonder if going under anesthesia is different though due to the time involved. Like, if you're under for 4 hours, you'll feel like no time has passed. But what about 4 days? Or 4 months? If death is infinite, to really compare death and anesthesia, we'd need to experience being under for longer.
- elwell 3y ago
  Perhaps our consciousness existed in some spiritual way, but no memories got translated to our biology.
  - swayvil 3y ago
    You ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think changes in perspective break memory. Greater changes mean greater breakage. Walking into another room is a change. sleeping, dying, Weird drugs. Those are also changes. Also, there is a degree of breakability/flexibility, inherent to the person. Depending on various stuff. And there are ways to become more flexible too. Less prone to breaking. This leads to phenomena like "lucid dreaming".
throwanem 3y ago
That seems a somewhat hasty assumption, given at no point did you die.
- SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
  No, they lost themselves completely to something much less destructive than death. If a chemical causes a complete cessation of self it only follows that's brain death would as well, unless propofol somehow affects your ethereal spirit more effectively than your brain literally decomposing.
  - throwanem 3y ago
    While I don't intend to make any actual assertions in either direction, I do feel bound to note that the experience of being anesthetized isn't really incompatible with a concept of souls and of ensoulment. After all, under anesthesia there remains something to "come back" to. When dead, not so much.
  - polishdude20 3y ago
    My theory is that death is different than taking propofol or some other anesthesia because while you are taking those drugs, your cells are still living. Your brain cells are not dieing and producing decomposition chemicals everywhere. I think that's in the difference. When dead, your cells all decompose and start releasing and forming decomposition compounds which flood your brain and body. Not to mention your cells becoming fundamentally broken and unable to do their jobs. My theory is that there's a fundamental system in the brain that gives us our sense of self gives us our sense of "this is me, and that is everything else". And that slowly goes away to the point where you can't distinguish the difference between self and other and you become everything.
    - throwanem 3y ago
      Interestingly, entheogens as a category of drug have been defined by the same ablation of self/other boundary that you describe. (Please don't ask me for a citation! I remember seeing this definition in the context of MDMA's inclusion in the category, but have no idea where.)
tlocke 3y ago
It seems that when you die, memory and the capacity for thought are irretrievably lost. It seems that consciousness is separate from memory and thinking. What happens to consciousness when we die? It's reasonable to think the same thing happens as when we're unconscious. It seems that being unconscious (through sleep or aneasthetic or some other method) is a reversible death. Maybe consciousness is always there, but experiencing something else, just not our brains?
- polishdude20 3y ago
  Why would consciousness be different from memory and thinking? I don't think there's even an agreement on what consciousness IS. Or even, is consciousness even a thing? Or is it a label we give ourselves to separate us from other things?

voidpointercast 3y ago

This seems like an assertion based on incomplete evidence. Not saying you're indelibly wrong, but presuming there is such a thing, one would think it's infallible, and thus you're not going to accidentally slip into paradise before your allotted time.

XorNot 3y ago
Most ideas about life after death are based on the assumption that because we have consciousness, it can't just "stop existing" as a true nothingness. Ask someone to picture that, and they picture a black void that they still experience. So it seems sensible to me that General Aneasthesia would feel quite unique in that regard (I have experience it myself) - one moment you're here, the next you're waking up. You don't dream, you don't feel like time has passed at all, it's just kind of a blink and then you're somewhere else. And that's it - "true nothingness". It's the closest you can get to not existing while still being able to come back.
- Sunam 3y ago
  I had surgery last year and I believe I was out for a few hours. when I woke up I could definitely sense that some amount of time had had passed. I haven't felt that sensation during quicker surgeries so maybe our perception of how quickly time passes is changed and slowed down?
- simiones 3y ago
  I think a good way to imagine non-existence it is to ask people to think about how they feel about the time before they were born. It's better than that idea of a black void that some get, and it tends to better illustrate the concept that the world once existed without you experiencing it, and so there is nothing weird about it existing again without you experiencing it in any way.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    I think this is a cheat. If instead we found someone who (for whatever reason) believed that they just popped into existence, as if from a puff of smoke, at the age of 3... and we did your thought exercise but instead told them "think back to the 3 years before you manifested"... To that person, it might well seem like a clever idea. "Hey I didn't exist then, but I don't really experience or remember that nothingness!" Except they did exist, may well have been conversational even for the last part of it, etc. There's no good way from first principles for me to be sure the same isn't true of myself before my birth. I don't expect much after my death, but like everyone else I'm just going to have to wait and see (or, wait and not see, as the case may be).
    - simiones 3y ago
      Oh, I'm not claiming I've solved the mystery of what happens after death! I'm just saying this may be a good way to help someone visualize better what it even means to say that consciousness just stops, not that it somehow proves that is what happens.
- polishdude20 3y ago
  I wonder if going under anesthesia is different though due to the time involved. Like, if you're under for 4 hours, you'll feel like no time has passed. But what about 4 days? Or 4 months? If death is infinite, to really compare death and anesthesia, we'd need to experience being under for longer.
elwell 3y ago
Perhaps our consciousness existed in some spiritual way, but no memories got translated to our biology.
- swayvil 3y ago
  You ever walk into a room and forget why you walked in? I think changes in perspective break memory. Greater changes mean greater breakage. Walking into another room is a change. sleeping, dying, Weird drugs. Those are also changes. Also, there is a degree of breakability/flexibility, inherent to the person. Depending on various stuff. And there are ways to become more flexible too. Less prone to breaking. This leads to phenomena like "lucid dreaming".

throwanem 3y ago

That seems a somewhat hasty assumption, given at no point did you die.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
No, they lost themselves completely to something much less destructive than death. If a chemical causes a complete cessation of self it only follows that's brain death would as well, unless propofol somehow affects your ethereal spirit more effectively than your brain literally decomposing.
- throwanem 3y ago
  While I don't intend to make any actual assertions in either direction, I do feel bound to note that the experience of being anesthetized isn't really incompatible with a concept of souls and of ensoulment. After all, under anesthesia there remains something to "come back" to. When dead, not so much.
- polishdude20 3y ago
  My theory is that death is different than taking propofol or some other anesthesia because while you are taking those drugs, your cells are still living. Your brain cells are not dieing and producing decomposition chemicals everywhere. I think that's in the difference. When dead, your cells all decompose and start releasing and forming decomposition compounds which flood your brain and body. Not to mention your cells becoming fundamentally broken and unable to do their jobs. My theory is that there's a fundamental system in the brain that gives us our sense of self gives us our sense of "this is me, and that is everything else". And that slowly goes away to the point where you can't distinguish the difference between self and other and you become everything.
  - throwanem 3y ago
    Interestingly, entheogens as a category of drug have been defined by the same ablation of self/other boundary that you describe. (Please don't ask me for a citation! I remember seeing this definition in the context of MDMA's inclusion in the category, but have no idea where.)

tlocke 3y ago

It seems that when you die, memory and the capacity for thought are irretrievably lost. It seems that consciousness is separate from memory and thinking. What happens to consciousness when we die? It's reasonable to think the same thing happens as when we're unconscious. It seems that being unconscious (through sleep or aneasthetic or some other method) is a reversible death. Maybe consciousness is always there, but experiencing something else, just not our brains?

polishdude20 3y ago
Why would consciousness be different from memory and thinking? I don't think there's even an agreement on what consciousness IS. Or even, is consciousness even a thing? Or is it a label we give ourselves to separate us from other things?