Cessation of Existence & Afterlives.

Then I guess thats more or less the thick of it.

I think reality sucks.

Big time.

If there was a invention in the future that put my brain in a jar and I 'lived' in a more cyber reality I'd be all for it.

Again, if you come to terms with the end of your existence, reality won't suck 'cause you'll be able to enjoy life while it lasts. Well, that depends on many things, but at least the fear of death won't be among your worries.

Well, I think the idea of the self, i.e. "I/you/he/they/etc." is an illusion to begin with, but that's beside the point. That said, I don't think there's an "I" now, so the idea of losing it in the future would be nonsensical.

I can't say whether or not the final termination of consciousness is horrifying or not. It isn't to me, but if you find it horrifying, it's just as valid an opinion.

What I am afraid of is dying. Dying looks like it sucks in all but the most fortunate circumstances. I also don't relish the idea of having the connection between me and everything I've ever loved permanently severed, but life itself is such a blessing it would seem tacky and ungrateful to complain that it doesn't last forever.

If anything was to frighten me about death, that would be it. The idea of death itself is no more disturbing than the idea of "pre-birth." Neither come with suffering or want. There's nothing to fear there for me.

edited 28th Apr '12 5:27:32 PM by Sarkastique

I've said this before, but if you want to die well and are able to plan it when you want to (which would be when you're terminally ill and in pain,) you should look into nitrogen asphyxiation. It's supposed to be the best way to go known to man.

Basically, you choke to death but you never get the sensation of choking. Your mind slowly fades away, and the last sensations you experience are a sense of bliss and joy. This is known from cases where people have almost died of nitrogen asphyxiation but been saved at the last moment, so they've been able to tell. Of course, you're not dead the moment you lose consciousness, but the feelings I mentioned are the ones that immediately precede the loss of consciousness and thus they're the last thing you feel.

I'm afraid of the "Me" dying away though I believe it to be an illusion. There is no self. There is merely an ever changing stream of consciousness that comes to stay in particular ways for short periods of time before dying away and becoming something else. So rebirth frightens me. My soul will break apart I believe and while my consciousness will continue Aondeug will not.

Little bits of her will be passed on. In what is essentially her soul child.

But it won't be her. Not that she ever had a stable and solid self then either.

I look forward to this in a way though. Perhaps the new soul can get closer and closer to accepting this and leaving existence. To reaching our goal of Enlightenment.

^That actually sounds more horrifying than pain to me...

Most frightening death is that while having a seizure or recovering from one I think. Because I'm not conscious at all or have any memory of what was happening before...It's just...black.

I almost drowned like that...

edited 28th Apr '12 3:33:59 PM by Aondeug

Forgot to provide a link.

This is why I never, ever sleep during car rides and the like. Fear that I'll die while asleep or have a seizure in my sleep and then die during that.

So... Anyone here think that death might be a good thing?

I mean, I you can understand Who Wants to Live Forever?, then death has a purpose. It keeps things fresh.

And being alive forever and ever might be one of the most horrifying things imaginable.

Though I could accept Brain Uploading (hey, having my reset button triggered once in a while is only half as tragic), I wouldn't go for the brain in a jar thing. Wouldn't that be akin to an eternal prison?

Let's not get personal here, OK? Attack/criticise the argument, not the person.

Well no if there's a way out. You'd have to have the option to run a program that would "kill" your brain in the jar.

Relevant:

edited 28th Apr '12 5:53:46 PM by BestOf

Well I feel you'd have more control over your existence (perhaps even your memories as I mentioned) as a creature of consciousness alone...

Unless of course I Cannot Self-Terminate

Not thinking straight, sorry.

Not quite. In some ways, we are already brains in jars, it's just that the "jars" are what we call "skulls" (or cranium, if you're into anatomy). The reason why we don't feel trapped is that we still can interact with the environment (via our sensors like eyes etc and our limbs that can manipulate out environment) and move around. As long as your brain in a jar is connected to something that does all that ("sees" the environment and sends the information to the brain, and lets the brain sends our signal to the robotic limbs to move around, etc), it should not be too different in that regard.

@Subjective:

If you've ever taken drugs, one of the first things you'll notice when you develop a habit with certain drugs is that once you take them enough, for long enough, they stop producing the effects that you used to cherish them for. At the very least, they won't produce the satisfaction that they did when you took your first hit.

I'm in no position to know, but I have a feeling immortality wouldn't be much different. If I could just take joy, or love, or beauty for granted - day in, day out for eternity, it would lose its luster. The things I used to cherish and appreciate would just become par for the course, all day, every day, forever. When the best things in life become lost forever to tedium, that's what it really means to die, imo. The grave is nothing compared to that.

I'm disappointed enough that I'm going to become immune to Dopamine, the thing that gives you shivers down your spine. It makes some things so much more awesome.

Which is why I don't mind so much a Daddy's World-esque version of immortality where you can be reverted to a backup state.

We have evidence how that works physically, as receptors for those drugs on the neurons get less numerous (they get blocked off and do not work, from memory) and thus more of the same drugs are needed to produce the same effects. Not so sure about things like happiness as that works differently (dopaminergic receptors do not do that).

edited 28th Apr '12 8:39:13 PM by IraTheSquire

I really didn't mean it as a direct neurological correlation. I just mean that after billions and billions and billions of years, I really think that life would just be... inevitably dull. All the things I used to enjoy would have long become unbelievably banal and just not worth doing. I'm not the sort of person who can do the same thing over and over and over and over...

Point is, for me, sooner or later, the well would run dry.

It's actually not a very good analogy, but given that I'm under the influence right now, I'll just hope I salvaged the point enough that you understand what I'm saying, because I'm not sure you will. That's on me, not you.

edited 28th Apr '12 7:31:33 PM by Sarkastique

Death is just another adventure. I am in no hurry to rush it, but I look forward to it none the less.

It could be the last and shortest adventure though.

Short?

So short, it's over before it begins.

Agreed. If nothing happens after death and your brain just dies, then that's the end. Whatever. I won't be around to care if that's the case.

If there's an afterlife though... That means there's more. The adventure doesn't stop there, it means I get to keep going in some form or another, and that prospect excites me. Hell, what if there's worlds beyond this one, and that's where you go when you die? Everyone imagines the afterlife as having some finality, but what if it's like each life is a chapter?

edited 28th Apr '12 11:03:19 PM by Barkey

My friend has a very interesting idea that every single one of us is actually different reincarnation of the same person: the "soul" after having its memory and personality cleansed get sent back to the world in any random time. It improves itself and eventually reaches godhood and doesn't reincarnate anymore.

Thats a preferable outcome for me I do feel. I mean who knows, even if there IS nothing but we spend a gajillion years, then for some reason we come back to life, we wouldn't know the length of time, no?

Then again, I don't like anything ending. Hell I get bummed out when an anime or video game I like ends.

Just my life is kind of well. The biggest one of them all.

Has your friend perhaps read The Egg?

edited 29th Apr '12 2:02:51 AM by UltimatelySubjective