What is death like?

[the PC apeman]

So existence a you know it ceases to exist for all time, never to be repeated.

Existence for you was just a brief window onto a wonderful realm, proceeded by an eternity and followed by an eternity of nothing. Oh wait, less than nothing, an entire absence of anything.

There is a difference between what the evidence supports and what one might like to be the case. Are you attempting to conflate the two in this thread?

 

[I Ratant]

I know, but what do you think it will be like?

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We will never know.
We stop totally at death.
It's similar to the nothing that one feels after waking from being anesthesized..
You are aware of nothing during that period of being "out".
Death is that, only forever.

 

[Rasmus]

So existence a you know it ceases to exist for all time, never to be repeated.

Yes. Or, to be overly precise, the existence of the dead person. The rest of the universe will continue to exist - for the time being, at least.

Existence for you was just a brief window onto a wonderful realm, proceeded by an eternity and followed by an eternity of nothing. Oh wait, less than nothing, an entire absence of anything.

I never said, or at least never meant to say, that there was a significant difference between "nothing" and "absence of anything". (Even though "absence of anything" seems to me to be giving too much room, if you'll excuse the term, in which stuff could potentially happen but just happens not to.)

I'd suggest sticking to the "before you were conceived" analogy: You didn't exist then. You weren't waiting or on hold somewhere, much less in a state that could reasonably compared to being asleep. You were simply not made yet.

20,000 miles under the sea was published in 1870. Jules Verne was born in 1828. Where was the story in 1814?

 

[I Ratant]

The one word that describes it and its effects is "final". No matter what you've experienced before, this will end that. Whether that's good or bad for you depends on how you've lived up to this point.

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The manner of going can be frightful, but the result is still nothing left to feel anything. No good, no bad. Just used carbon based parts.

 

[I Ratant]

I've been in situations where I thought I was going to die twice. Very strange, but not scary or even very troubling. More like a third person watching and a commentary... "Oh, so this is what it's going to be like."

I figure when it finally gets me, I won't have all that much time to dwell on it. When you survive, there's plenty of time.

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Closest I've come to that was sliding along Soledad Canyon Road after my motorcycle slid out from underneath me, and I was headed for the Armco fence..
"Oh ****, I'm in for it now!"
Fortunately the riding suit I was wearing slowed me down and let the scooter go on up the road ahead of me.
All I got out of it was a broken collar bone... which was diagnosed 30 years later from an x-ray taken to find the broken rib from the mountain bike accident.
The collar bone still hurts.

 

[dafydd]

Existence for you was just a brief window onto a wonderful realm, proceeded by an eternity and followed by an eternity of nothing. Oh wait, less than nothing, an entire absence of anything.

Well done, once again you understand.

 

[I Ratant]

Worms eating holes throuh your rotting, festering body is not as pleasant as it sounds.

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The worms like it.

 

[dafydd]

20,000 miles under the sea was published in 1870. Jules Verne was born in 1828. Where was the story in 1814?

Existing as an unknown unknown beyond the event horizon of the formless, waiting to be potentialized into an actuality in an nearly infinite sub-division of the Planck length.

 

[Dessi]

For a perspective on dying: Enter the Void. Watch it.

For a perspective on death: I had a major surgery and was put under anesthesia for 6 hours. I remember falling asleep, and it was hard to wake back up, but the space of time between sleep and becoming aware of my existence was instantaneous from my point of view. I didn't know how long I was out, couldn't even make a guess.

There was not even a void filling the space of time, no perceptible hole in time at all, it was like someone stitched the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up. If someone had stitched that moment to the death of the universe and end of time, I wouldn't even know the difference. That space of invisible time between going under and coming out is the only way to describe death.

 

[ehcks]

But I can't remember what it was like before I was born.

Precisely. Before you were born you didn't exist for over 4 billion years. Death is just like that. Nonexistence.

Life is a brief and fleeting moment of consciousness. You get one very short chance to do whatever you want, then you're gone forever. Use it wisely.

 

[joobz]

So existence a you know it ceases to exist for all time, never to be repeated.

Existence for you was just a brief window onto a wonderful realm, proceeded by an eternity and followed by an eternity of nothing. Oh wait, less than nothing, an entire absence of anything.

Are you bothered to think that every soap bubble that is ever formed and pops out of existence ceases to be?

What about the bacteria that were killed when you washed your hands today?
Do they all continue on somewhere else when they cease to be?
What about the trees that are struck by lightening? Do they go on forever after they die?
Your pets?
Your ideas?


Why are we different?

 

[12AX7]

So existence a you know it ceases to exist for all time, never to be repeated.

Existence for you was just a brief window onto a wonderful realm, proceeded by an eternity and followed by an eternity of nothing. Oh wait, less than nothing, an entire absence of anything.

Yes. You simply cease to be.

That's why some of us choose to cherish every day, every second, because this is it. What we are, here and now, will never come again.

This is reality. Some cannot accept this and flock to religion for comforting lies, something 'warm and fuzzy' to believe in. I, as well as many others here, chose to face the reality, savor every moment life has to offer on the one and only time we're going to ride this ride.

I'm going to a baseball game tonight with my 5 year old son. Friday is ZZ Top with 3 Doors Down in concert. I see some Chinese food in the near future too. Life is good!

 

[Dave Rogers]

20,000 miles under the sea was published in 1870. Jules Verne was born in 1828. Where was the story in 1814?

L-space. Duh.

Dave

 

[Elizabeth I]

Pittsburgh.

That bad?

No, I'd rather live forever if i had a choice.

Don't forget to wish for eternal youth with that!

 

[I Ratant]

That bad?



Don't forget to wish for eternal youth with that!

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That's fer dang shure, Jarvis.
At the rate the body deteriorates, at "forever", one might be just some slime in a Petri dish, if that.

 

[fuelair]

I am interested in what you think about death.

In your mind what it is like to be dead?
Can you imagine it?
Can you justify your position?
Are you looking forward to it?
Or are you scared, and hoping it won't happen for some time?
How often do you think about it seriously?

I was watching you tube footage after the Houla massacre in Syria. Which caused me to wonder about the answers to the above questions that would be given by people who live there.

I suspect it is just like life four + months before you are born. No perception that is in any way meaningful/no perception. Nothing, but you don't notice even that there is nothing.

 

[MuDPhuD]

Here is how to imagine what death will be like:

Imagine being completely blind, and deaf.

Now imagine that you also have no sense of touch, temperature, or pain, or vibration (that is you have no feeling of pressure where you contact whatever it is you are sitting or laying on, no sense of movement of the world you are in contact with, no sense of coolness or warmness in the air around you, no sense of air blowing against your skin, no aches or pains from within you or from anywhere on your skin, no itches, or tickles anywhere, no sense of your gurgling, peristalting intestines, no sense of your heart beating, no sense of blood moving through your ears)

Add to these deficiencies that you are completely anosmic, and have no sense of taste, or of any feeling of moisture or dryness or pain or pressure or motion within your mouth or nose.
Also you have no sense of your body's position or the relative motion of your head with respect to gravity, and you will therefore be unable to verify whether you can or cannot will movements of the body parts of which you are no longer aware.

Sounds horrible doesn't it?

Fortunately your cognitive apparatus will also be non- functional. No thoughts will occur, and no memories will be available for recall, no imagined visions or activities will occur because your brain will not be functioning.

I think some one else in the thread may have said things more concisely.

 

[Croc411]

There are spacetime coordinates at which you exist and there are others at which you don't. Being in a dreamless sleep state and being dead both fall into the latter category. I really think it's THAT simple.

The difference is that when you are dead the hardware that could bootstrap you into existence again is not there anymore.

It seemed to me that if I were dead for millions/billions of years or longer and then became alive again, that time would have passed in an instant. In fact if I were dead for a nearly infinite period of time eventually inevitably I would become alive again by chance alone and it would be in the blink of an eye.

Very much a possibility, but we don't know if the universe is that big.

 

[baron]

Whatever you define as 'you' is incumbent on your being alive. So it makes no sense to speculate on what happens when you are dead any more than it's sensible to talk about what a flame looks like after it's been extinguished.

 

[KevinCanada]

For a perspective on dying: Enter the Void. Watch it.

For a perspective on death: I had a major surgery and was put under anesthesia for 6 hours. I remember falling asleep, and it was hard to wake back up, but the space of time between sleep and becoming aware of my existence was instantaneous from my point of view. I didn't know how long I was out, couldn't even make a guess.

There was not even a void filling the space of time, no perceptible hole in time at all, it was like someone stitched the moment of falling asleep to the moment of waking up. If someone had stitched that moment to the death of the universe and end of time, I wouldn't even know the difference. That space of invisible time between going under and coming out is the only way to describe death.

Exactly I was put under once for 10 minutes. Then woke up in a different room. The slow awaking was just the drugs, it takes time for your body remove it all.

That 10 minutes is competely wiped from my memory. It still wasn't death, I feel like I lost 10 minutes, not billions of years up to being conceived.

Ironically, I believe in everything has a reason that includes death. To bad we just don't know the reason for it.