Where do you think you'll go after you die? + Rant you can read or ignore

[Headstorm]

My personal view on afterlife is very simple though. We cease to exist. Our minds are within our brain, and what we experience, see is a product of our brain. So, no brain, no thought, no existence.

 

[Ren]

Uberdarwinism

Now I'm picturing Darwin driving an Uber. Thank you @Headstorm

 

[John K]

I personally disagree with that part. I think we should look at it from a certain darwinist point of view. No necessity, things change, are being born, new, sometimes random and if those things are able to exist they will remain. If not, they disappear. Survival of what is able to remain. Something like that. Uberdarwinism

Ah but I’m following up the many worlds kind of angle in quantum mechanics. This says that all the options at every event in time and space are actualised. Our personal awareness timeline only follows one track through them but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t actualised - just that we individually have no access to them. I’m not confining my thought experiment to a single universe either but to all universes that are logically possible.

 

[Ren]

Ah but I’m following up the many worlds kind of angle in quantum mechanics. This says that all the options at every event in time and space are actualised. Our personal awareness timeline only follows one track through them but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t actualised - just that we individually have no access to them. I’m not confining my thought experiment to a single universe either but to all universes that are logically possible.

I like the sound of that, John. In OM, I call it the domain of "total being" (all possible universes).

 

[John K]

I like the sound of that, John. In OM, I call it the domain of "total being" (all possible universes).

Yes - I feel a very strong affinity with this concept in OM. It seems consistent with modern views that see the nature of the physical world as open ended and resting on information rather than hard stuff (which doesn’t exist in the real world in the way we experience it with our senses). I hasten to add that my suggestions in this thread are pure thought experiments - I remain completely agnostic on what happens after death apart from a conviction that we have an existence that persists and lies outside our everyday experience. But it’s fun to play with how the very practical laws of the world could be used to suggest how it might happen in physical terms.

 

[Skarekrow]

Just to continue the thought experiment .....

Well when I stop and think about it, I have serious problems with contingency at the heart of what exists. I can see clearly that ‘Nothing’ is quite reasonable - but clearly that isn’t where we are because we are here so there is Something . But if we say that only some of the things that are possible exist then that seems odd to me - how is the choice made? I think it’s far more likely that everything that is possible exists necessarily in some sense. This has affinities with the ideas behind many worlds approach in quantum mechanics, and with string theory implications. It also has affinities with @Ren ‘s OM, but blurs the boundary between virtual and actualised being.

It would of course mean there’s plenty of places available to continue our existence beyond our current lives - maybe even lots of them simultaneously lol. Obviously it isn’t common experience that we get shifted from one to another of these in the normal course of our lives - but it would clearly be possible in this view of reality.

When I said “blink out” I only meant from this dimension or universe.
Yes though, I agree with what you wrote.
There is the theory of course that we are living simultaneous multiple lives...there is a chance you could run into a splinter of yourself according to some.
Or that time is all happening at once and the idea of past lives also takes the form of us being able to exist in multiplicity seemingly.
And yes...there is a the multiple universe theory where every possible thing or person could exist.
I still have a fairly strong idea that we can travel outside our own current “reality” via OOBEs and other altered states of consciousness.
Then there is the idea that we have a higher self...existing somewhere in the future but helping us occasionally now...or at least in some cases.
Much love!

 

[Headstorm]

Ah but I’m following up the many worlds kind of angle in quantum mechanics. This says that all the options at every event in time and space are actualised. Our personal awareness timeline only follows one track through them but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t actualised - just that we individually have no access to them. I’m not confining my thought experiment to a single universe either but to all universes that are logically possible.

You have some deep thoughts on this. I would have to think about it some more if I can find the time (but intuition tells me something is off, or maybe I simply don't understand ).

Our lives form a 4-dimensional shape through that space-time and this line exists eternally - eternal here doesn't mean for an infinite duration of course, because we are looking at it from outside time and space.

Ok, I think I understand what you are saying, but the only conclusion I would make from that, is that we exist in a certain place in a certain time, in a certain universe. But that we already know.

As I said, I will try to understand your thoughts a bit better first.

 

[John K]

You have some deep thoughts on this. I would have to think about it some more if I can find the time (but intuition tells me something is off, or maybe I simply don't understand ).



Ok, I think I understand what you are saying, but the only conclusion I would make from that, is that we exist in a certain place in a certain time, in a certain universe. But that we already know.

As I said, I will try to understand your thoughts a bit better first.

Don't try too hard, or you'll end up as daft as me

Like I said to Ren, I'm really exploring ideas here as a way of stretching my imagination to see if the different worlds of science and the possibility of an afterlife can be brought together. The notions of time, space and indeterminacy I'm using are very much part of the implications of modern physics. Even though they are completely counter-intuitive, they are supported by very firm experimental evidence. My attempts to link them to possible immortality are just a speculative thought experiment ...... for example, just because our time line is fixed for all eternity, it doesn't mean we remain conscious of it once our awareness has tracked to the end. Similarly, just because there is a place an the infinity of alternate worlds that our consciousness could jump to at our death it doesn't mean it will - and even if it did it wouldn't necessarily take anything with it to tie us to our current life. So the argument works both ways.

My personal bottom line - my gut tells me that this world is not all there is for us, and I'm pretty close to @Skarekrow on many of the things he says.

 

[Skarekrow]

My personal bottom line - my gut tells me that this world is not all there is for us, and I'm pretty close to @Skarekrow on many of the things he says.

Perhaps, but you put into words what I often fail to, and much more eloquently and mathematically than I can ever muster good Sir.

 

[John K]

Perhaps, but you put into words what I often fail to, and much more eloquently and mathematically than I can ever muster good Sir.

 

[Asa]

I don't believe in organized religion. I'm not an atheist.

A funny story:
A friend once told me that he believed whatever a person believes happens after death will happen to them.
I asked him what he believed and he said, "I believe nothing happens."
My response, "So, you're deliberately choosing nothing?"
His reply, "Yes."

 

[Headstorm]

I'm really exploring ideas here as a way of stretching my imagination to see if the different worlds of science and the possibility of an afterlife can be brought together.

Go for it

"So, you're deliberately choosing nothing?"

I sense some profound wisdom there

 

[Asa]

I sense some profound wisdom there

I wouldn't pin "wisdom" on a teenager. The idea of choosing nothing when one believes there are many choices, always stuck with me.

He's a very different person now.

 

[Ren]

I wouldn't pin "wisdom" on a teenager. The idea of choosing nothing when one believes there are many choices, always stuck with me.

He's a very different person now.

It's quite a thought-provoking answer, indeed.

Heck, if I could choose, I'd probably pick immortality, eternal youth, and eternal pleasure forever.

By the way, @Asa: you may have said this before, but do you identify as agnostic?

 

[Ren]

I remain completely agnostic on what happens after death apart from a conviction that we have an existence that persists and lies outside our everyday experience.

I'm on the same page as you, pretty much.

In my view, anything that is logically conceivable = possible world, so ... technically, the Kingdom of Heaven is real

 

[Headstorm]

I wouldn't pin "wisdom" on a teenager. The idea of choosing nothing when one believes there are many choices, always stuck with me.

He's a very different person now.

Never underestimate the wisdom of a teenager. I have several running around in my house, I know .

 

[Ren]

Never underestimate the wisdom of a teenager. I have several running around in my house, I know .

One of the most respected philosophers alive today, Alain Badiou, once said that children were better metaphysicians than adults.

Child: "What is reality?"
Adult: *gives simple explanation of reality*
Child: "But why is it that way, though?"

 

[John K]

I asked him what he believed and he said, "I believe nothing happens."

Weird how statements like this seem to shimmer with meaning depending on how you look at them. There actually is something comforting in the idea of nothing if the alternative is a medieval belief that most people end up in hell. Then there's the teenage angst and urge to shock - I used to do that in my teens by claiming that the world wasn't real ... that's what it actually looked like to me, but I was just jerking them about with it sometimes. You could also say that once you are dead even if you continue to exist there may not be any time or space as we know them and nothing can actually 'happen' without them. Then there's the Buddhist sunyata - the void - undifferentiated emptiness of things - oneness. I can understand why mystics can get hung up on meditating on nothingness.

 

[Asa]

It's quite a thought-provoking answer, indeed.

Heck, if I could choose, I'd probably pick immortality, eternal youth, and eternal pleasure forever.

By the way, @Asa: you may have said this before, but do you identify as agnostic?

Indeed.
Also, @John K - indeed!

Ren,
My choices would be similar to yours. Can we be eternally youthful, but have the wisdom of elders?
Being Gen X, I can honestly feel a bit like a replicant when I read news that we may be 'the last generation to die'.
Immortality isn't really an accurate assessment of that news, but life could be immensely prolonged for younger generations, including Millies. That is exciting for you, and tragic for those older because it is just out of reach.

I am agnostic, yes. I also celebrate pagan holidays, though all organized religions, including pagan ones, make me uncomfortable.

When we die... I don't know what happens. I believe nobody knows what happens. (Agnostic! LOL!) The only thing I feel strongly about is that whatever happens to us, happens to other living things.

I could tell different stories and details to personalize this, and I would if we were sitting together offline over coffee, or good music, and you asked, but for online purposes, I try to keep the information I give to a limit to offer perspective or be helpful and not focus your brain on me too much. Thank you for asking me.

 

[Asa]

My personal belief is that we're gong through an "experience" to learn things. I don't conform to any religious belief or organisation.

That said I do have a deep religious belief, which for me means loving, and caring about each other, and this world that we live in. I don't understand why that is such a difficult thing for people to say, when its clearly what most people really feel.

As for what happens after death. We're seemingly made of atoms, so our physical body decays and is recycled. But I think after death the essence of us goes through a transition.

Our intuition, is knowing things without knowing how. I think this is maybe how that happens.

Everyone, I'm tearing up right now.