What happens to you when you die?

[rax]

Here's the deal. I've heard a lot of atheists say that "Nothing happens to me when I die. I just end." This almost seems like a claim to knowledge. To me, to state that when one dies they blink into nothingness is almost a ... belief. Why not stay more open minded and say "I have utterly no idea..."?

Mine: I don't have a single clue what happens to whatever 'me' is when I die. I don't know if I will blink into nothingness any more than if I will wake up staring at Hades' boatman. I hope there is some sort of an afterlife, maybe something akin to Valhalla where everyone that has ever lived is there but at the same time I want to be practically all-powerful (so I can look back in time and see 'what really happened', among other things). I approach death with curiosity.

What is everyone's position on death? What say you?

[WingedFoe]

Well, the evidence suggests that nothing happens. Why? Because consciousness depends on the brain, and once one dies the brain ceases to function.

Of course, no one really knows, in the same way no one can really know anything for certain.

[Purple Rabbit]

Death is what ensures that meaning is contained in our life.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Here's the deal. I've heard a lot of atheists say that "Nothing happens to me when I die. I just end." This almost seems like a claim to knowledge. To me, to state that when one dies they blink into nothingness is almost a ... belief. Why not stay more open minded and say "I have utterly no idea..."?

My position is "I don't know for a fact"

However my perception, based on evidence of which I'm aware , is that the mind is a product/process of the living brain. This can be easily demonstrated by damaging a brain. There is predictable and repeatable damage to the personality,memory, motor skills, intellect, even autonomous organ function.


I have certain level of personal certitude that once my brain stops receiving blood, it will die, and I with it,just like blowing out a candle. The wick and the candle are still there,but the flame is gone.

A skeptic, I try to avoid absolute statements as does science. All I am prepared to assert is I do not believe in gods, the soul, or an afterlife due to lack of evidence. I concede the possibility of error and that I have no idea how likely I am to be wrong. I like to think not very.

[downbeatplumb]

Here's the deal. I've heard a lot of atheists say that "Nothing happens to me when I die. I just end." This almost seems like a claim to knowledge. To me, to state that when one dies they blink into nothingness is almost a ... belief. Why not stay more open minded and say "I have utterly no idea..."?

Mine: I don't have a single clue what happens to whatever 'me' is when I die. I don't know if I will blink into nothingness any more than if I will wake up staring at Hades' boatman. I hope there is some sort of an afterlife, maybe something akin to Valhalla where everyone that has ever lived is there but at the same time I want to be practically all-powerful (so I can look back in time and see 'what really happened', among other things). I approach death with curiosity.

What is everyone's position on death? What say you?

Electrial firings of neurons in the brain are 'me'.
When these end so do I.

[Shinylight]

When you die that is it, your brain stops working which kills your mind.

Then you are either cremated or you rot in the ground, in either case your matter is turned into energy which then is released back into the rest of the world.

[Paul the Human]

I agree with the others. Of course no one can know for sure, but since the mind is a product of the brain... it makes sense that once the brain stops functioning, it stops producing the mind. So, I believe that when I die, all that makes me 'Me' will cease to exist.

[Minimalist]

What was your consciousness doing before you were born, rax? Got any recollections of the pyramids being built or Napoleon marching across Europe while you lounged around waiting for your turn to be born?

As with the others I think the light goes out when the brain dies. Can I "prove" that? No. But then again I cannot "prove" that there are not invisible pink unicorns drinking margaritas in a Tiajuana bar during spring break, either. I can state that there is no evidence for it.

Similarly, the likelihood of facing st peter or Charon seems pitifully small on the probability chart. Both are just more made-up shit by humans who think that the world can't possibly go on without them.

[Welsh cake]

Here's the deal. I've heard a lot of atheists say that "Nothing happens to me when I die. I just end." This almost seems like a claim to knowledge. To me, to state that when one dies they blink into nothingness is almost a ... belief. Why not stay more open minded and say "I have utterly no idea..."?

Death is literally just that, the termination of the biological functions that define a living organism, namely you and me. To suggest there's an "after-death-life" for speculation's sake is simply unrealistic.

"I just end" isn't a particularly accurate statement, the law of conservation of mass is in effect, matter cannot be created/destroyed, so "ending" as it were is inaccurate. You as a 'person' would cease to be, but your remains usually become part of the biogeochemical cycle, the atoms that made you up will carry on for billions-to-trillions of years afterwards until cosmology as we know it suffers heat death and/or eventual destruction by black holes (according to entropy, part of the second law of thermodynamics), but essentially we've not a shred of evidence to suggest the phenomena that is the consciousness survives and lives on somewhere else when the brain actually dies.

[rax]

Well, I guess I'm speaking more of something that you could call a soul, essence, spirit, mind, or maybe something else that is there but is undefined by man or maybe is defined, basically 'me', with disregard to my physical body. 'Paul the Human' said that "the mind is a product of the brain". Really? Are we certain of this? We certainly don't have any evidence that any of these things exist and I'm not making the claim that we do. I'm also not stating that I believe they exist, I lack a belief. However, I'm not ruling out the possibility that something could exist because of hope, a hope that I don't put much stock in, but is interesting to think about all the same.

This notion that there's evidence that when we die, "that's it", is false, in my opinion. There is no evidence either way and it might even be unmeasurable so there is no way to take a position. Now I understand if one doesn't believe in heaven or hell or other blatantly fantastical conjurings, but can you not even entertain the idea of a continuation of 'yourself' after death, somewhere, somehow?

I would say that the proposition that there is some sort of soul/spirit/thing that continues on to some other sort of existence, however improbable, is possible within the realm of possibilities, and that to claim with almost certainty that 'nothing happens'/'worm food, that's it', is as much of a claim to knowledge of this event as the religious claims.

There is no evidence of an afterlife... but to my knowledge, there's no evidence of a "blinking into nothingness" either...



(If I am nothing more than some electrical-chemical computer program that runs within a biological meat bag, then as far as I can tell, it is possible for science to advance to the point where my brain could be perfectly replicated within a computer, where I would then 'exist'. If I think of it this way, then it would be entirely possible for the program 'rax.exe' to be deleted and cease to exist as easily and as certainly as a deletion of 'tities.jpg'. I guess if I think of it this way I can understand the 'nothingness' position. However, I guess I would still like to use my imagination to ponder what could happen after death.)