Dumb Questions for Smart People: Life After Death Edition

[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.

[Doktor Howl]

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.

[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]

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".

[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.

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.

[Doktor Howl]

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.

[Doktor Howl]

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.

[Cramulus]

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]

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.

[rong]

it could be something like this - words won't mean anything

[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.

[Frontside Back]

Was there death before birth?

[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.

[Doktor Howl]

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.

[The Wizard Joseph]

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.

 !