Impossible to imagine.

The same logic that leads you to be reasonably sure there isn't a giant invisible rabbit preparing to rape you would also lead to being reasonably sure that once you die, you're just gone. There is no evidence or any indication of an afterlife whatsoever. It's not even that everything goes black, or that you aren't thinking anymore. You're just done. Your brain shuts down and all thought processes completely end. You do not exist.

Most people imagine nonexistence as being terrible, but you wouldn't exist to experience it. Every part of you just disappears. Shitsux.

 

AHahahaha giant rabbit rape!!!

But yeah its true its gay how things work.

 

The language that gave you that logic is a belief too, how could it ever really capture what is outside of itself? Point being, maybe life and death are just words we throw around that mean nothing on an absolute scale. Death didn't exist until we labeled our immediate experience as life.

 

The language didn't give me the logic, only the means to express it. Labeling life and death is something humans have done but it doesn't change the fact that when you do what we call dying, all brain activity completely and totally stops.

 

Just try to pretend you are going to never die thats what I do.

 

"stops" going along with the idea that at some point it "started"

things don't begin or end in such a traditional sense.

but at some points your experience is over and cognitive function ceases.

Then things go back to the way they were.

 

Consciousness does start, and we can pinpoint where it does so. It has clearly been proven that you begin as a mass of cells, and you develop a brain that creates/controls thoughts, emotions, instinct, impulses, etc. At some point that brain stops functioning, along with every other organ in your body and all the cells that make them up. All brainwave activity ceases. You are no longer thinking.

There's no reason as of now to believe there is anything beyond that. I'm not saying it's impossible, just like the Flying Spaghetti Monster isn't impossible, but being possible doesn't validate anything.

 

Yeah but energy is what controls our bodies and mind, and I heard somewhere that energy cannot be created or destroyed.

 

It can be converted and transferred, however, which is what happens as you die and begin to decay.

Which is hardly relevant anyway, because simply saying energy controls our minds and bodies is far too simplistic.

 

Nobody is denying that, in fact I forgot to mention that I had agreed with you on the part of the post. It is true that all beliefs are equally crazy in a sense that neither can be proven true nor false, a belief is just where you place your confidence and even then you can be wrong. Nobody knows the immediate experience of what we call "death" until the time is now.

 

I always find it amusing how much some people are rooting for themselves to blip out of existence when they die. So much so that they come up with odd stretches of 'logic' to explain why it only makes sense - though when you go far enough, very little in the universe makes sense. Time doesn't make sense, nor does the appearance of the universe itself, or for that matter why our atoms hold together or gravity works the way it works. We know a lot of the 'how', but we know almost no 'why'.

So decide what you believe, be happy, and don't piss in everyone's corn flakes...because you don't know better than anyone else what happens when we kick it.

 

So it is the presence of thought that defines existence?

 

Very elegantly asked Guru

 

Yeah seriously stop being a buzz kill OP.

 

Never put much time into it because it is not immediately relevant.

 

The presence of thought is what defines the existence of consciousness, yes.

I'm not rooting for blipping out of existence. I'm saying it's the only conclusion the evidence we have would indicate. I'm not saying I know what happens after death either; I'm saying nothing happening after death is the most likely possibility we as humans have thought of so far (assuming the likelihood of something is based on the amount of evidence indicating such). I don't see how that is an odd stretch of logic in any way.

I actually meant to post this on the philosophy forums but apparently I accidentally put it here. I'm not here to be a downer, it's just an interesting topic to me.

 

Thought requires consciousness, but consciousness does not require thought. Thinking is what put this world into existence in an imaginary subject/object related sense. Before you turned 3 or 4 years old chances are you were unaware that you supposedly existed and had some sort of life, yet by any outside point of reference (an adult in this case) you would still be considered a child, which is consciousness in essence. They are conscious so much as they appear to be alive and functioning, seeing playing and interacting, though they are not of this world yet as in the way some of us adults tend to start seeing.

But yeah, everything else you have to say is entirely within common reason. We obviously have no concrete evidence of a God, so we obviously have no concrete evidence of any sort of after-life that would apply to such a concept. Then there are idea's of karma, it seems sort of reasonable and sort of not. The idea of karma in itself, the whole do a bad deed have a shitty next life seems a bit odd, but the idea of reincarnating into something else doesn't. It seems like it'd fit in with the fact that in essence we are energy, and if we are energy, and we die, and energy can't be destroyed, then it could be transferred somewhere potentially? And that would give basis for reincarnation. But that is only a thought of mine, nothing that can be backed up 100%.

 

It is the way you are defining consciousness. There are many levels of awareness that do not require thought. Awareness is a term that can be functionally applied to any system of organization.

Are you confident you have all of the evidence?

 

I did not say awareness, I said consciousness.

And no, I'm obviously sure we don't have all the evidence. I said "the evidence we have."

 

I would say the child is conscious because they are interpreting their surroundings and are able to think about them in abstract ways, even if at the most basic level. Knowing that you exist or knowing of your own consciousness is not a requirement for being conscious.

What I would say is not conscious is a spider, for example. They have a brain, unlike plants, but they run entirely on instinct. They observe and react without really considering or even having the ability to consider what they're doing. They have no ability for abstract thought. I suppose I should be more specific in saying abstract thought is what defines consciousness.