What is death like?

[calebprime]

So existence as 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.

... 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.

No, punshhh, listen to Dessi. She gets it. Not an eternity. No time at all.

Of course, there's no waking up.

Epicurus understood this, also. Subjectively, life is long and death is nothing, not even short.

 

[GlennB]

Most nights I have some period of deep and dreamless sleep. Sounds like a good view of death to me. It really isn't that scary either.

A general anaesthetic seems a good parallel. The time you're "under" is totally missing. One minute getting sleepy and the next instant awake with *nothing* in between.

 

[Joecool]

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.

Death and taxes, two things inevitable and unavoidable.

 

[nakedjuggler]

AFAIK death is a 7 foot skeleton with a fondness for curry.

 

[mike3]

And you wouldn't be there to appreciate any of that...

And you wouldn't be there to regret not being there to appreciate it.

And you wouldn't be there to appreciate not being there to regret not being there to appreciate it.

And you wouldn't be there to regret not being there to appreciate not being there to regret not being there to appreciate it.

Oy... You just wouldn't be there, hmm.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Epicurus understood this, also. Subjectively, life is long and death is nothing, not even short.

Yeah. You can't experience not existing.

 

[dafydd]

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?

Some of us can invent foolish things like religion and mysticism.

 

[Ocelot]

The corollary of "I think therefore I am" is quite possibly "I won't be therefore not a single **** will I give that day."

 

[the PC apeman]

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 couldn't have been wiped from your memory if it was never in there. You have no memory of those 10 minutes because you never experienced them.

It still wasn't death, I feel like I lost 10 minutes, not billions of years up to being conceived.

You feel that way because you woke up.

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

It comforts many to think so.

 

[marplots]

What is it that people find so mysterious about death? We see it all the time, from the more dramatic road kill to the nearly invisible dissolution of bacteria in my stomach. I pluck a plant from the garden with no qualms at all and squish any bug that is foolish enough to come to my attention.

Arguably, you've seen much more death in your lifetime than you've seen of life. Last year's flies; all dead. Every butterfly you noticed growing up, every firefly you plucked from a branch; all dead. Pets, birds, people -- the very context of your world is just one big, heaving mass of about-to-be-dead stuck in a universe full of never-was-alive.

Watch an old movie sometime. It's a fun game, not to pick out the stars that are dead, but the one or two that may still be alive. Death is the default, the norm, the expected and, in the end, quite banal.

 

[dafydd]

. Death is the default, the norm, the expected and, in the end, quite banal.

True, but some people are so puffed-up with self-importance that they cannot imagine not existing, so they need the comfort of a religious or mystical afterlife.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well let's not forget these are the same people that are so self centric they actually entertain the idea that they entire universe exists solely in their head.

 

[dafydd]

Well let's not forget these are the same people that are so self centric they actually entertain the idea that they entire universe exists solely in their head.

And they forget that we have existed for only a tiny,tiny fraction of the age of the universe, yet mystically the universe is inextricably bound up with us.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Walsall isn't imaginary.

Neither is Hell

 

[Lord Muck oGentry]

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?

I tried sneaking up on your question by asking myself What is it like to be alive?.

I failed miserably.

 

[I Ratant]

A general anaesthetic seems a good parallel. The time you're "under" is totally missing. One minute getting sleepy and the next instant awake with *nothing* in between.

.
The guys I've talked to about what they experienced in surgery say the same thing.

 

[dafydd]

I tried sneaking up on your question by asking myself What is it like to be alive?.

I failed miserably.

It's like not being dead.

 

[I Ratant]

True, but some people are so puffed-up with self-importance that they cannot imagine not existing, so they need the comfort of a religious or mystical afterlife.

.
I think that was Aquinas' problem.
In his mind he was too magnificent a creature to not exist after death, so he rationalized reasons for that existence.

 

[BoogieWoogieWookie]

I concur with the surgery and anesthesia comments. I have had more than thirty major operations (ones that require more than local anesthesia). Without going back and looking at my records, I believe that more than twenty of those required general anesthesia.

The longest one required about twelve hours. This is a very long time to "be under", I was told. What I remember of it is the anesthesiologist asking if I was OK. I replied something to the effect of being quite used to it by now, but still a little scared because of the length of time it would take. He then told me that he had all kinds of good drugs to take care of that and I wouldn't be scared of anything in just a few seconds.

Then, as if by magic, I was lying in a different room with people sitting and standing around my bed. I was quite groggy and very uncomfortable with the breathing tube down my throat and tied down such that one arm is all that I could move.

There was no sensation or memory of anything between. It was exactly the same with the other times I was put to sleep. I suppose this is what it is like to "not exist".

 

[Brian-M]

I can't help but think of the first episode of Red Dwarf...

Lister: What's it like?
Rimmer: Death? It's like being on holiday with a group of Germans.