Scared of death

LongTimeLurker72 · #1 10-16-2007, 05:34 AM

(for anyone too tired to read whole posts this deep into the thread, cliff notes at bottom) 

At first, I was just going to read through this thread and not add anything. But this has been so good, given me so much to think about, it just wouldn't be right to go away without at least sharing a couple of thoughts of my own.

During the times I've contemplated what happens after you die (during a long shower, a traffic jam, or waiting for a hot cup of joe to cool down), I often had thoughts similar to the idea a few other posters here did, that because you only have a "subjective reference" to your own existence and the universe, you never really "don't" exist. Before you were born, to you, the universe didn't exist. And after you die, from your POV, nothing exists. That leads me to:

 Theory #1: After death, your life starts over again, like a DVD on auto-replay. At first this makes no sense, until you consider. . .
A) time is relative, NOT absolute (for non-physics buffs, see discussions of Einstein's theory of relativity, how time slows down as you approach the speed of light, etc). Therefore time, as we think of it, only exists for you because of how your mind perceives it. When you die, you have ceased to exist at a moment in time as your mind would perceive it, but time itself is not linear, that is just the way we perceive it, leading to. . .
B) forward-moving time (the way we perceive time passing) is the only way our brains are wired to perceive time.
C) The human mind cannot comprehend non-existence, hence why it seems like the universe did not exist before you, as opposed to you not existing before your birth.

Since time is not absolute, and is not linear, as the point in "time" is reached when you die, your brain could do 1 of 3 things: 1) End the program (which it is unable to do because the human mind, as previously discussed here, cannot comprehend non-existence); 2) Run the program backwards until it reaches the other end of existence, birth (which it is ALSO unable to do because, as stated in B, the human mind can only perceive forward-moving time); 3) Begin the program over from the beginning, from birth. The brain would not "choose" option 3. It would HAVE to do that, because it is incapable of doing either of the other 2 things.

If you go with this theory, then the big question becomes: Do you just keep living the same life over, or can you do things differently each time? The interesting aspect of this is, IT DOESN'T MATTER. Since upon starting over, you would start with the memory you had when you were born (zero), you would have no way of knowing how things turned out "before", and thus you would never know if you were doing anything differently, for better or worse. Interesting how this parallels some of the thoughts about parallel universes (no pun intended), where you wonder if in another universe, how things might have turned out differently if your "you" had made a different choice yesterday, but would never have any way of knowing whether or not "you" did.

So, in theory #1, you either relive your life over again endlessly (a la determinism), or you relive your life differently each time (Free Willy!. . .errr free will). For the sake of those who had a hard life, I personally hope the latter is true. (interesting side thought: If free will allows your life to change each time, does that mean that the world you are born into each time is different, because other people's choices have also changed? In fact, in many scenarios might the world be so different that you are never even born? (which you would just skip over, since your mind cannot comprehend non-existence again. . .silly brain!) Or would you simply be reborn into the same world each time, because other people's choices happened before you existed, therefore to your mind previous choices or paths could not exist? This whole line of thought actually makes me think that the determinism argument is much more likely, which is kind of depressing. But like I said before, we won't remember anything that happened in previous life-runs, so we won't know that. . .so, ignorance is bliss?)

 Theory #2: There is only one consciousness, one awareness, in the entire universe, and it experiences the lives of everything, one creature at a time. This theory doesn't really have any concrete facts to back it up, it's just fun to think about. Here are the 2 half-baked ideas behind this theory:
A) Since time is not absolute or linear, it is only perceived as linear by the mind, one consciousness could be experiencing the life of more than one living thing at the same time. But the "mind" of each living thing would be unaware of the consciousness in the other, and to each "mind", it must be it (I know, awkward wording). So the only logical way for the consciousness to experience the lives of both of these living things would be to live them sequentially. For instance, in one life you're the cheetah chasing gazelles for fast food every afternoon, and the next life. . .you're one of the gazelles. (it's like the literal translation of the song "sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug")
B) Descarte (old Greek philosopher dude pronounced "day-cart") came up with the first absolute truth, "I think, therefore I am". Even if you cannot assume anything is real, everything could be an illusion, you MUST exist, because you can think about these things. He, and most other philosophers, were able to build on this first truth to come up with the proofs for the rest of life and existence. But, some philosophers thought the others were wrong, that they had made some assumptions to reach their further conclusions. These philosophers, called isolationists, believed you cannot be 100% sure of anything beyond your own existence. If they are right, then it is POSSIBLE that your consciousness is the only one in the universe.

And if THAT were the case, then for every living creature that can only perceive time in a way similar to how we can, we would have to (or get to?) live every one of those creature's lives sequentially (or possibly in a random order, with some repeats in between, who knows?) If this scenario were true, karma really exists, and it works perfectly. If in your life, you brutally torture and murder someone, then you are going to BE that person you tortured and murdered sometime down the road. If you eat meat from cows butchered in a slaughterhouse (and I do, I eat at McDonalds at least once a week), eventually you'll be living the life of every single cow that is bred and raised in captivity, and slaughtered. (and even if you DON'T eat cow meat, remember that in this theory, you are EVERYONE, so eventually you WILL be someone who does this, so don't act so holier-than-thou you vegan! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]) Pretty wild, eh? Eventually, you would be a lion, a shark, Johnny Cochran, a cockroach, ZeeJustin, a guy who donates millions to St. Jude, a child who has cancer and is admitted to St. Jude, Hitler, Ghandi, a deer, an amoeba, a jackrabbit, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George Bush (both of them!), some guy typing out this very post (it's a good life, don't worry!. . .well, except for being a virgin until ago 30+)

Whew, that was a good bit longer than I meant it to be. Sorry to keep you guys up so late (or late to work if you're reading this during the day).

As a final note, if anybody here thinks this stuff is something a lot of people would like to read, you have my permission to link to it, or even cut-and-paste it anywhere you like (some credit would be nice, though).

As promised, cliff notes to follow:

 Two theories for what happens after you die:
1. Life starts over from the beginning, plays over and over again (determinism) or differently each time (free will)
Proof: A) Time is relative, not absolute. (Einstein's theory of relativity)
B) The mind can only perceive forward-moving time (which prevents the idea of replaying life backwards)
C) The mind cannot comprehend non-existence (so it cannot quit running)

2. There is only one consciousness (you), which will live the life of every living thing, one at a time.
HALF-BAKED IDEAS TO SUPPORT THIS:
A) The "mind" of each creature can only comprehend its OWN existence, so it would seem to each creature as if its consciousness was only its own, not in another being. (prevents feelings of simultaneous awareness)
B) Isolationist philosophers who cannot get past "I think, therefore I am", and claim you cannot be sure of anything beyond your own existence. (makes it possible that YOU are the only consciousness in the universe)

RustedCorpse · #2 10-16-2007, 07:56 AM

I always liked the idea of living my life over and over again. For the longest time I tried to argue that with an oscillating universe this would have to happen.

The other idea of spending existance as each and every creature always seemed fair but way too vast to comprehend.

I've tossed around both those ideas as well, and if there is anything I'd roll with one of those two.

Regretablly I think they're way to hopeful and that when I die I won't even be aware of it, my body will become mud and the planet will go on spinning. Unless we can hurry up and fix that whole aging thing.

LongTimeLurker72 · #3 10-16-2007, 09:08 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I always liked the idea of living my life over and over again. For the longest time I tried to argue that with an oscillating universe this would have to happen.

The other idea of spending existance as each and every creature always seemed fair but way too vast to comprehend.

I've tossed around both those ideas as well, and if there is anything I'd roll with one of those two.

Regretablly I think they're way to hopeful and that when I die I won't even be aware of it, my body will become mud and the planet will go on spinning. Unless we can hurry up and fix that whole aging thing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, in reality that IS what would happen even under this theory, that in "real" time (which is relative to perception and therefore debatable you could even call it that) your body would indeed become mud, it would be all over. But in YOUR mind, you just start over. The ONE thing that makes me think this is more than just wishful thinking is because of time being relative. Time only marches on if these is someone around to observe it marching on. If you are NOT around to observe it, time does not continue from your perspective. Your mind can only see that time which it exists in. As I said before, it goes back to the beginning not because it CAN, but because it MUST. And you living your life over and over is actually an illusion (though indistinguishable from the real thing). The rest of the universe will have moved on, but your mind continues to experience the time that was your life because time is not linear. In fact, you could argue that the rest of the universe has only appeared to "move on" to those people still alive, as only they perceive time as forward-moving.

Geez. . .this is a really, really hard concept to explain. I sat here trying to type out something explaining how relative time means no end, and I've ended up deleting and rewriting it several times and STILL haven't found a good way of saying what I mean. Maybe the best way to put it is that relative time does not mean eternal life, but a life without end. Think of it like the physical universe, where space is curved. The universe is finite, yet it has no boundaries, no ends. Since space and time are intertwined, the same must hold true for time, and therefore us.

27offsuit · #4 10-16-2007, 10:37 AM

Stephen Wright:

I plan on living forever.

So far, so good.