Well what happens after we die?

[downbeatplumb]

What do you think will be the first thing you see?

The evidence tends to support death being the end.
So you wouldn't see anything because there is no more you.

[King Dez]

I'll chime in with what other people have said.

Thinking about the afterlife is a religious subject, Christians and other religion practitioners should worry about that. Live life to the full now and don't worry about what's going to happen after you die.

What I think will happen is that after I die I just delve into nothingness and become nothing. Heavy words now that I think of it haha

[DeistPaladin]

Serious answer: We have no idea.

For anyone who worries about this, and the unknown is typically the greatest fear, just reflect on the worst case scenario and ask yourself if you could come to accept that. Chances are, you can and this will be less of a worry than the unknown. This is a good way to deal with worries of any kind.

Worst case scenario: I'm content with the idea that God gives us one shot at the brass ring and then fade-to-black, credits roll. Then we go to a place where no wish goes unfulfilled, no pain is ever experienced and no fear is ever felt.

If I'm wrong, I'll worry about then when it comes.

Maybe God will reward me for promoting free thought and getting people to abandon ridiculous ideas about It. I'll find myself in a beautiful mansion with 72 virgins... ha, ha, just kidding, 3 experienced bisexual wives and 1 experienced bisexual husband. We'll have 2 adjoining his and her master bedrooms with a lot of traffic between them and anyone's guess who will end up sleeping where on which night.

But highly unlikely.

[Confused Ape]

There is a lot of information about NDE experiences. There are two groups of people who interpret this information. One group (including doctors and psychologists) insist that NDEs are evidence for something after death. The other group (including doctors and psychologists) insist that they don't prove there's something after death. Nobody on either side of the argument has ever come back after being dead past the point of no return so the living can only hold opinions on the matter.

I've never been dead past the point of no return so haven't a clue what happens from personal experience.

[DeistPaladin]

There is a lot of information about NDE experiences. There are two groups of people who interpret this information. One group (including doctors and psychologists) insist that NDEs are evidence for something after death. The other group (including doctors and psychologists) insist that they don't prove there's something after death. Nobody on either side of the argument has ever come back after being dead past the point of no return so the living can only hold opinions on the matter.

I've never been dead past the point of no return so haven't a clue what happens from personal experience.

It would break my brain if anyone WAS past the point of brain death and came back with an account of "the other side".

Memory is stored in the brain once our senses receive and process the data (in said brain). Let's say for a moment that souls do exist, in which case they clearly depend on the brain both for sensory inputs from the physical world and for the memory of past inputs (or to put it poetically, the brain is "the seat of the soul" while we live our natural lives).

So if this soul were to return to the brain once released, where did it keep the memory of its experiences outside the brain? If it turns out that souls have the capacity to retain memory, why can it not do so when the brain is damaged by injury or diseases like Alzheimer's? It should function as a sort of "back up" when the primary device has failed. Apparently, it does not.

Lack of memory would, for this reason, not disprove the existence of some form of afterlife since this is precisely what we should expect. With no brain to store memory, there should be no capacity to remember. Let's say, just for the sake of musing, that reincarnation is the model (put aside problems accounting for increasing population for now). You should have no capacity to remember "previous lives" because those memories were lost when the last hard drive (oops, I mean brain) was destroyed.

On the other hand, I have to confess the whole idea of a fluid existence (we don't, then we do, then we don't) also breaks my poor brain. It did way back when I was a very young child, kindergarden age, and I overheard my parents discussing a trip they'd taken. I asked something along the lines of where I was at that time, since I didn't remember it. They explained I wasn't around back then; it was before I was born.

I was deeply confused when they told me that.

I remain confused about it today.

Long before I learned the word "sentience", I was trying to wrap my childhood brain around it. How is it possible I didn't exist back then but do now? Where did the "I" come from?

A lot of people wonder about the "hereafter". I wonder about the "herebefore". How did I go from non-existence to existence? Why do we even experience reality at all? Shouldn't we just be like highly elaborate machines, akin to an advanced AI?

The Law of Infinite Probability states that given infinite time and/or infinite space, anything that can happen, however unlikely, will happen.

So if it is possible to go from non existence to existence, and it is seeing that it happened at least once, does that mean we'll circle around to existence again?

This is why I refuse to spend much time thinking about "before" and "after" life. Our limited brains are just not capable of grasping the mechanics and our knowledge of what sentience is, a first step to speaking intelligently about such things, is too limited. So my philosophy is to live as best as you can and not worry about what comes after, if anything.

[Confused Ape]

Lack of memory would, for this reason, not disprove the existence of some form of afterlife since this is precisely what we should expect. With no brain to store memory, there should be no capacity to remember. Let's say, just for the sake of musing, that reincarnation is the model (put aside problems accounting for increasing population for now). You should have no capacity to remember "previous lives" because those memories were lost when the last hard drive (oops, I mean brain) was destroyed.

One thing to consider in all this is the fact that scientists still haven't figured out the true nature of the universe. What if it really is a computer simulation? Everything we are would just be information which could be saved. This information could then be recycled which could explain reincarnation.

Physcists May Have Evidence Universe Is A Computer Simulation

[bladevalant546]

Sigh, we do not know. It best to assume we just die. Who knows what happens or how death works with conscience beings.

[Thumpalumpacus]

What do you think will be the first thing you see?

Probably the same thing we all saw before we were alive.

[Thackerie]

What do you think will be the first thing you see?

Not a thing. I'll be dead.

[Jaysyn]

My fiance has been clinically dead 3 times in her life, she claims that she didn't see or feel anything.