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Dumb Questions for Smart People: Life After Death Edition

Started by tyrannosaurus vex, February 06, 2020, 02:34:13 PM

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tyrannosaurus vex

I'm just curious about what, if anything, you people think about life after death. Is it possible? Probable? What would the experience be like? I have some ideas, but they're vague and not very well thought out, maybe I'll try to organize them later.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on February 06, 2020, 02:34:13 PM
I'm just curious about what, if anything, you people think about life after death. Is it possible? Probable? What would the experience be like? I have some ideas, but they're vague and not very well thought out, maybe I'll try to organize them later.

I see three possibilities:

1.  You sort of just sit there watching but unable to do anything when people do awful or stupid shit.  I imagine Harry Truman's ghost, for example, is shitting on the oval office desk and trying to get Trump to notice.  That's like hell, only worse.

2.  You go to either heaven or hell, but in either case you are more or less fuel or spare parts for the endless tug of war between the two.  Your actions in life just determine which tractor you become fuel for.

3.  You wake up in your console and debate whether or not you have time for another round of Humans.
Molon Lube

Cramulus

I don't believe in an afterlife


after you die, maybe something is left over -- but if so, is it you?

I think about how major life events change people. I know somebody that was in a train wreck and it gave her travel anxiety for years. I'm sure part of that stress never went away. If you were to experience something as traumatic as death, and something still existed afterwards, how different would it be from the self that's walking around today?

I think that after you die, people that had real contact with you can potentially carry on a piece of you inside themselves--and so parts of you can continue to act on the world after you've passed. Maybe you could call that a 'soul'; some lasting presence on the world.

But in the end, I'm pretty materialist about death.

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Cramulus on February 06, 2020, 04:14:55 PM
I don't believe in an afterlife


after you die, maybe something is left over -- but if so, is it you?

I think about how major life events change people. I know somebody that was in a train wreck and it gave her travel anxiety for years. I'm sure part of that stress never went away. If you were to experience something as traumatic as death, and something still existed afterwards, how different would it be from the self that's walking around today?

I think that after you die, people that had real contact with you can potentially carry on a piece of you inside themselves--and so parts of you can continue to act on the world after you've passed. Maybe you could call that a 'soul'; some lasting presence on the world.

But in the end, I'm pretty materialist about death.

I don't think anything of "me" is left over after death. There's no reason to think that happens except magical or wishful thinking. I'm more in line with traditional Buddhist ideas about reincarnation - that is, what I think of as "me" is just a collection of habits and memories and there's no continuity of that beyond the Big Dirt Nap. But what I really am isn't any of that anyway, I'm just a thing that the universe is doing, and after "I" die, the universe will do something else, somewhere else, and whatever that is will feel like it, too, is "I".
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 06, 2020, 02:53:09 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on February 06, 2020, 02:34:13 PM
I'm just curious about what, if anything, you people think about life after death. Is it possible? Probable? What would the experience be like? I have some ideas, but they're vague and not very well thought out, maybe I'll try to organize them later.

I see three possibilities:

1.  You sort of just sit there watching but unable to do anything when people do awful or stupid shit.  I imagine Harry Truman's ghost, for example, is shitting on the oval office desk and trying to get Trump to notice.  That's like hell, only worse.

2.  You go to either heaven or hell, but in either case you are more or less fuel or spare parts for the endless tug of war between the two.  Your actions in life just determine which tractor you become fuel for.

3.  You wake up in your console and debate whether or not you have time for another round of Humans.

I like #3 except I'd hope there's something besides Humans in that arcade.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cramulus on February 06, 2020, 04:14:55 PM
I don't believe in an afterlife


after you die, maybe something is left over -- but if so, is it you?

It has to be.  The universe wouldn't allow something as cool as me to just vanish.
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on February 06, 2020, 04:46:36 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 06, 2020, 02:53:09 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on February 06, 2020, 02:34:13 PM
I'm just curious about what, if anything, you people think about life after death. Is it possible? Probable? What would the experience be like? I have some ideas, but they're vague and not very well thought out, maybe I'll try to organize them later.

I see three possibilities:

1.  You sort of just sit there watching but unable to do anything when people do awful or stupid shit.  I imagine Harry Truman's ghost, for example, is shitting on the oval office desk and trying to get Trump to notice.  That's like hell, only worse.

2.  You go to either heaven or hell, but in either case you are more or less fuel or spare parts for the endless tug of war between the two.  Your actions in life just determine which tractor you become fuel for.

3.  You wake up in your console and debate whether or not you have time for another round of Humans.

I like #3 except I'd hope there's something besides Humans in that arcade.

I'm more of a fan of #1, myself.
Molon Lube

Cramulus

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on February 06, 2020, 04:45:00 PM
I'm just a thing that the universe is doing, and after "I" die, the universe will do something else, somewhere else, and whatever that is will feel like it, too, is "I".

I like that-- individuals are like a mask that "god" tries on for a little while


Alan Watts has a relevant section in The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are: http://www.michaelppowers.com/path/taboo.html

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: Cramulus on February 06, 2020, 05:15:54 PM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on February 06, 2020, 04:45:00 PM
I'm just a thing that the universe is doing, and after "I" die, the universe will do something else, somewhere else, and whatever that is will feel like it, too, is "I".

I like that-- individuals are like a mask that "god" tries on for a little while


Alan Watts has a relevant section in The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are: http://www.michaelppowers.com/path/taboo.html

I credit Watts with two important things: describing things in a way that makes "materialism" seem way less sterile and dead, and having a pretty cool accent.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.


chaotic neutral observer

I believe in the soul, in a sense, but I believe it is mutable, frangible, destructible, and that it doesn't survive the death of the brain by more than a couple seconds.

Some people say that the afterlife you get depends on your beliefs; if that is true, then I'm going to spend eternity in a waiting room, with nothing to do.  I don't find waiting rooms particularly unpleasant, mind you, but it's going to be very very boring.
Desine fata deum flecti sperare precando.

Frontside Back

"I want to be the Borg but I want to do it alone."

Eater of Clowns

We simply cease to be. This is important for two reasons. The first is that the limited quantity of time we have is what gives any of this a purpose. A promise of afterlife is why you have a bunch of weirdo death cults actively praying for The Rapture.

The second reason is that I understand that there's only one form of immortality, and it is fecal transplants. Donate poop, get poop inserted into people who need it, save their life. Brain gut connection alters personality. Bit of EoC lives on in every poop recipient.

Timelessness in shit.
Quote from: Pippa Twiddleton on December 22, 2012, 01:06:36 AM
EoC, you are the bane of my existence.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 07, 2014, 01:18:23 AM
EoC doesn't make creepy.

EoC makes creepy worse.

Quote
the afflicted persons get hold of and consume carrots even in socially quite unacceptable situations.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Eater of Clowns on February 07, 2020, 11:43:10 AM
We simply cease to be. This is important for two reasons. The first is that the limited quantity of time we have is what gives any of this a purpose. A promise of afterlife is why you have a bunch of weirdo death cults actively praying for The Rapture.

The second reason is that I understand that there's only one form of immortality, and it is fecal transplants. Donate poop, get poop inserted into people who need it, save their life. Brain gut connection alters personality. Bit of EoC lives on in every poop recipient.

Timelessness in shit.

By that standard, I am literally the tetragrammaton.
Molon Lube

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 07, 2020, 02:54:24 PM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on February 07, 2020, 11:43:10 AM
We simply cease to be. This is important for two reasons. The first is that the limited quantity of time we have is what gives any of this a purpose. A promise of afterlife is why you have a bunch of weirdo death cults actively praying for The Rapture.

The second reason is that I understand that there's only one form of immortality, and it is fecal transplants. Donate poop, get poop inserted into people who need it, save their life. Brain gut connection alters personality. Bit of EoC lives on in every poop recipient.

Timelessness in shit.

By that standard, I am literally the tetragrammaton.

:fnord:!
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

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