Great, no "Afterlife"?

[gjones2]

...my useless thought of the day.

Not useless in my opinion but just another indication that the entire frame of reference would be different. Ordinary assumptions about life on earth would be thrown out the window (if there were any windows .

Another line of thought would be to speculate about what would happen if human life could be extended on earth to many thousands of years. Here BillyJoe's considerations about boredom might apply. I assume that the ability to do that, though, would be accompanied by other very advanced abilities. If necessary, parts of the brain's memory might be selectively erased, allowing the continual perception of the sensation of novelty.

 

[LucyR]

Lucy, you are avoiding the issue also .....

BJ

That’s because I really don’t have any insights to offer.

Truth to tell, I haven’t thought about it much since I was about 8 or so, when I gave up any religious beliefs I may have had.

Now that you ask, I don’t find the thought comforting, other than on the rare occasions in my life when I have been extremely depressed, and have really craved (or at least thought I craved) oblivion.

 

[BillyJoe]

steenkh,

I grew up with comic strips with superheroes who righted the world's wrongs. I would have loved to be one of them. The fact that such is not possible and that we will have to live with it, does not stop us - or some of us - from wishing things to be different.

Well, I think we are just different.
I have never read comic books. Can't stand them! But I too have enjoyed superhero stories and imagined being one. But I have never let my fantasy world mix with reality. Moreover, I would never want to live in a world where there was magic. I mean, and to put my previous statement more clearly, if you could make everything turn out right by the waving of a wand, what would be the point of striving for anything.

A writer like Steven Erikson also go into details about eternal life and afterlife, and gives sometimes frightening pictures of how this could be like. Makes you think that not having an afterlife is not so bad after all.

Seems like I may be on a similar wavelength to Erikson. Is there any particular book where he puts these views. I'd be interested to have a read.

BillyJoe

 

[BillyJoe]

gjones,

I see no reason why you must assume that an eternal being would be conscious of the passage of time the way we are.

Yes, I agree.

Maybe it -- or we -- could be more conscious of the moment or otherwise perceive things in a very different way.

But here I disagree. I don't think we are capable of this.
What am *I* but a program running in the hardware of my brain - a program running through time and connected by memories stored in that hardware. The continuity through time can be broken by, for example, by sleep or coma from head injury. But if the continuity gap is bridged by these memories of my past experiences, *I* continue to feel that I am BillyJoe.
If I were to suddenly be conscious of only the moment, *I* (BillyJoe) would cease to exist. On the other hand, if my memories were to continue after death, I would then also be capable of pain and sorrow. And of experiencing the horrible implications of eternity.

Also memory would not have to be eternally incremental. It could be cyclical, and in the short cycles there might be no sense of the great passage of time (maybe we're already in one -- it's just not heaven . Another thought -- parts of our memories could be periodically erased, while still retaining enough to have a sense of identity.

Ah, I see you have partially made the connection with memories. But I think you fail to see that erasing memories erases the identity. Each of your cycles would represent a different being. Same as with reincarnation. If there is no memory of past lives, its all just philosophical baggage.

All this speculation is pointless, though, because the premise is based on something that would have to transcend reason in the first place.

But now you are giving up, I think.

BillyJoe

 

[BillyJoe]

wildflower,

Much as our bodies tend to respond automatically to threat despite carfeully reasoned assessments, the "horror" of no afterlife is more of a visceral response than a reasoned perspective.

Yes, I can see that. And, for me, the horror of eternity (once its implications hit me) produced a pretty visceral response as well.

BillyJoe

 

[BillyJoe]

..and the concepts of 'years', 'days', etc., are too dependent on life down here on Earth (the planet is rotating and revolving around the Sun). Heaven, without a star-planet context, would lack this reference frame for our perception of the passage of time.

I don't think any of that is necessary. All that is needed for us to experience the passage of time is for us to be doing things and remembering the thing we have done.

That was my useless thought of the day.

 

[Bunk]

I voted yes though I might differ in terminology from the poll. I don't know if I look cheerfully toward death (I really may have trouble putting this to words). I love life, I love being alive, I love my family and friends, but I think after a while I'm just going to want a break. There's a limited number of restaurants in this little town I'm in and after a while you just get tired of eating at them even though the food's just as good as it was the first time you ate there. I daresay I'd like to live longer than I'm going to, but eternity's a long time and I'm not buying the "heaven's a wonderful place and god'll keep you happy" routine.

I imagine an eternal creature gets pretty bored. Maybe that's an argument in favor of Christianity and Islam. God's cruel because he's just bored.

 

[BillyJoe]

If necessary, parts of the brain's memory might be selectively erased, allowing the continual perception of the sensation of novelty.

Memory is lost all the time of course. Who remembers their first two years of ilife? And in old age, recent memory becomes a problem. But what selective parts of memory would you erase - the unpleasant memories? And how does this allow novelty? Don't we have novelty anyway, even with our memories intact?

 

[BillyJoe]

Truth to tell, I haven’t thought about it much since I was about 8 or so, when I gave up any religious beliefs I may have had.

My mind must run at half speed. I was about 16.

 

[BillyJoe]

Bunk,
(any relation to de-bunk?)

I daresay I'd like to live longer than I'm going to, but eternity's a long time and I'm not buying the "heaven's a wonderful place and god'll keep you happy" routine.

BJ

 

[gjones2]

But now you are giving up, I think.

BillyJoe

I gave up at the very beginning -- if you're referring to analyzing what's wrong with heaven. ("If you're assuming an afterlife in the first place, you're already assuming something that seems to go against reason and everything that we experience in our ordinary lives. In order for heaven to exist, it would have to transcend human reason and not operate by the laws of earthly existence.") It's pointless to say that heaven doesn't exist, and then go on to try to examine its nature in detail (pointing out why you couldn't be happy there). If it doesn't exist, then it has no nature. If it does exist, then the rules of thinking that deny its existence can hardly be used to analyze it.

I'm willing to spend some time speculating, but I think that what we're saying really applies more to conventional human attempts to extend human life on earth.

With that in mind, let me say that I don't believe that identity is equivalent to memories. Memories have much to do with what's characteristic about an individual, but the individual's consciousness is something a bit different. Even by natural means much of memory is lost. It seems to me that artificial means could be used to erase some of short term memory, while leaving the basic consciousness and other parts of memory intact. This would allow the illusion of novelty and avoid the feeling that the same things were happening again and again. (I'll explain later, though, why I don't think this would be necessary.)

I saw a tv show once about a person who had a mental problem (I believe it was damage caused by an injury), and each night she forgot everything that happened during the day, waking up the next day with no memory of it. Yet she managed to hold a job as a teacher and live a life that was close to normal (she wrote down all the important events of the day that she thought she'd need to remember the next day, and reviewed her notes the next morning). This woman could live forever and -- except for her imperfect notes -- not be aware of the passage of more than one day.

 

[gjones2]

Besides, I don’t share your fear of boredom (which is apparently very intense). When I was a child, I occasionally had times when I was painfully bored, but the older I get the less susceptible I am to boredom. I rarely get bored at all anymore. When I do, the boredom is very mild, nothing compared with what I felt as a child. I don't always maintain the same level of interest in the same thing, of course, but usually what happens is that I go from one interest – often enthusiasm -- to another. I move on to something new (or return to a previous interest) before I get bored with the current one.

And when I return to a previous enthusiasm, I find that I’ve forgotten many things about it, so I go over many things again as if they were new. Also each time my perspective is slightly different, so even the details I remember are seen somewhat differently. (This happens, for instance, with books of fiction read again years later.)

Memory is not a box of infinite size into which we can put all the knowledge we’d like. Well-educated adults eventually reach a point at which they’ve learned much more than they can possibly review often enough to keep large parts of it from slipping away. When they put something into the memory box on one side, it pushes something out on the other.

They forget old memories about as fast as they add new ones (or refresh some of the old ones). Fuzzy general ideas and the essential impressions of years of experience are retained, but the details continually fade away. Even with normal minds -- not altered naturally or supernaturally – I believe we could live forever, keep a sense of identity, and not necessarily be bored. Persons who had been bored as children or adults (in their ordinary lifespan) might be bored, but it wouldn't be the length of their lives that was responsible.

 

[BillyJoe]

gjones,

I gave up at the very beginning -- if you're referring to analyzing what's wrong with heaven. ("If you're assuming an afterlife in the first place, you're already assuming something that seems to go against reason and everything that we experience in our ordinary lives. In order for heaven to exist, it would have to transcend human reason and not operate by the laws of earthly existence.") It's pointless to say that heaven doesn't exist, and then go on to try to examine its nature in detail (pointing out why you couldn't be happy there). If it doesn't exist, then it has no nature. If it does exist, then the rules of thinking that deny its existence can hardly be used to analyze it.

All I am saying is that if God is going to transport me, after death, to Heaven - a place of perfect happiness - he would need to erase all my memories because these memories would cause me to not be happy at times. To do so, he would have to so alter my brain that I would lose all sense of identity as BillyJoe. I would be effectively dead

.....let me say that I don't believe that identity is equivalent to memories. Memories have much to do with what's characteristic about an individual, but the individual's consciousness is something a bit different.

What I said was that *I* am a program running in the hardware of my brain. This brain contains memories which are essential to this identity.
If I suddenly woke up one morning with all my memories erased, I would have no sense of who I am. For all I know I could have been created an instant ago in an artifical brain and body, having had no previous existence at all. Likewise, if God used my brain and body to create an identity that was capable of perfect happiness which, of necessity would mean erasing all my memories, *I* would be as good as dead.

I saw a tv show once about a person who had a mental problem (I believe it was damage caused by an injury), and each night she forgot everything that happened during the day, waking up the next day with no memory of it. Yet she managed to hold a job as a teacher and live a life that was close to normal (she wrote down all the important events of the day that she thought she'd need to remember the next day, and reviewed her notes the next morning). This woman could live forever and -- except for her imperfect notes -- not be aware of the passage of more than one day.

And if she was violently raped and tortured and her notebook destroyed, she would wake up the one morning (months later, after all her injuries had healed) as if nothing had happened. What sense of identity do you think this woman really has.

regards,
BillyJoe

 

[BillyJoe]

Besides, I don’t share your fear of boredom (which is apparently very intense).

The horror I speak of is not of boredom. The horror is in the realization of what eternity really means. The shear horror of knowing that it will never end, that you will never die, that life will just go on and on and on. As I said it is not sufficent to say that a trillion trillion trillion years is not yet even a beginning, it is the fact that it will go on and on and on. Can you not see the horror of that thought?
The realization of what eternity actually means hit me one night in my early teens and produced an intense feeling of panic that I find hard to put into words. Some years later when I came to the realization that there is no afterlife, I felt extremely relieved and happy.

BillyJoe

 

[gjones2]

I'm happy at times here on earth despite many bad memories, and I'd be quite willing to take my chances with eternal life in some kind of "heaven" (whether naturally or supernaturally produced, and whether the bliss were perfect or not). The passage of time greatly reduces the pain of nearly all memories (all that I myself have experienced). Also drugs, meditation, therapeutic techniques, ordinary distractions, or just being in a good mood can take away their sting.

The woman I mentioned in my example was close to normal in her personality and intelligence, and her memory of most of her life was normal as well. If I'm not mistaken, her only abnormality was that whenever she went to sleep she would forget everything that happened the previous day. So I suppose that her sense of personal identity would be about as strong as ours.

Her situation was almost the opposite of the premise of the movie Groundhog Day (with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell). [This paragraph reveals what happens at the beginning of the movie. It doesn't give away the ending, though.] The Murray character lived one day at a time, the same day over and over, remembering what was about to happen. He could modify the events of that single day. The next morning, though, the clock radio woke him up with the same Sonny and Cher song, and the same day started over again. The woman I referred to lived her day with a sense of complete novelty, without remembering anything that happened the previous day. Any changes that she made to the world were there the next day, but she had no memory of them.

...it will go on and on and on. Can you not see the horror of that thought?

No, I really can't. Of course, I wouldn't want to repeat Groundhog Day for eternity , but I don't believe that eternal life would have to be like that. It's the thought of annihilation, and not eternal life, that I find hard to accept. Ordinarily I try to avoid contemplating it at all. Our emotional reactions to these concepts seem to be very different, and it's not likely that anything we say to each other will change that.

 

[BillyJoe]

glones,

Our emotional reactions to these concepts seem to be very different, and it's not likely that anything we say to each other will change that.

That sounds lie a closing line. Fair enough. I not intending to change your or anyone else's views. I'm just exchanging views. And I do understand your view because it's the view I had for a long time.
When I refer to the horror of eternity, I'm not talking about whether it will be boring or cyclical or whatever. I'm refering to eternity itself. It just never ends. Can you imagine what it means.....to never end.....to just go on and on.....forever.
Sorry, I can't explain it any more clearly than that.

BJ

 

[Soapy Sam]

BJ- I'm with Pixel 42. When asked if I'm scared of being dead, I usually reply that I've been dead before and the first 15 billion years seemed to go by in a flash.

It has been said (by whom I can't recall) that people long for eternity who are bored on a Sunday afternoon. I can imagine no worse torture than eternal existence.

I would not object to maybe 100,000 years, but you should quit when you're ahead.

(nb- I'm not keen on the idea of dying you understand!)

 

[BillyJoe]

SS,

BJ- I'm with Pixel 42. When asked if I'm scared of being dead, I usually reply that I've been dead before and the first 15 billion years seemed to go by in a flash.

I don't understand that response. Those first 15 billion years weren't ever contemplated, except in retrospect, eternity is contemplated before the event (hmmm....that doesn't sound quite right....nevermind, you get my drift I hope).

It has been said (by whom I can't recall) that people long for eternity who are bored on a Sunday afternoon. I can imagine no worse torture than eternal existence.

SS- Your with me here.

I would not object to maybe 100,000 years, but you should quit when you're ahead.

Yes, life is too short.

(nb- I'm not keen on the idea of dying you understand!)

No, as you would probably agree, it's just far preferable to living forever.

BJ

 

[Soapy Sam]

I suppose my response begs the question. I'm assuming that death is a state of total nonexistence and therefore non-awareness. Time has no effect on the dead.
I see that as functionally identical to the state of "not-being-born-yet".

Of course the two states occur in a distinct time sequence , but differ only as observed by the living. Since your question refers to my present mindstate, I agree it's possible I might view the two differently.

But I don't.

Ask me again when I'm in an aircraft in heavy turbulence.

 

[sackett]

Fear of death vs. fear of eternity

. . . Ask me again when I'm in an aircraft in heavy turbulence.

In heavy turbulence (or any turbulence; call me Chicken Man, I don't care) I remind myself that 95% of air crashes happen on takeoff or landing. Turbulence is just not dangerous. It just isn't. It's not. It's not.

Doesn't help a bit, of course. Yes, at times like that, eternal life looks pretty good. But that just shows how our views can change with circumstances.