Aside from Dracula, I don’t believe any human being ever came back from the dead, so, how could any of us really guarantee what happens after death?
Could it possibly be total nothingness? Yeah sure. Could reincarnation be a real thing? Maybe. Live, die, repeat. Some would actually hope so. But could it not also somehow, in some way, for whatever reason, be a permanently dark, scary, and never-ending experience of horrifying suffering and terror?
Who could possibly guarantee what really happens after death?
We could logically assume & conclude stuff, but we can’t ever know until we’re really there.
I think to myself: When contemplating suicide, do we consciously and seriously consider the possibility that we’d be throwing ourselves into an even worse reality?
Knowing this possibility exists, would you really full-heartedly say
“Either a possibly permanent relief from this worldly pain or a possibly permanent experience of unimaginable worse suffering, I’ll take my chances“?
To me, as tempting as the first possibility might sound, that second possibility just makes death seriously not worth trying my luck at!
I know these soul-stirring questions might get some of you guys here heated, but I have no where else to discuss this dark stuff, so, sorry!
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Oh, one more point here.
It’s usually debated that consciousness/sentience ends by death because the brain seizes to function (cell death, etc).
But how can we know for a fact that consciousness/sentience originates (only or at all) from the brain (or any physical organ)?
How can we prove for a fact that a non-physical soul/spirit exists or not exist?
I wrote “We could logically assume & conclude stuff, but we can’t ever know until we’re really there”.
I’d elaborate: Throughout history, and at various points in time when us human beings believed ourselves to be at the pinnacle of scientific knowledge, we’ve logically assumed and concluded with reassuring guess-certainty the unknowns of life.
And yet we’ve time & time again been proven wrong because there were things far beyond our imagination at the time our conclusions were drawn and we had no methods for really knowing.
The Miasma Theory is a prime example I think, but many examples continue to take place even in our modern day & time.
That’s how faulty & limited human logic is about the unknowns of life.
How faulty and limited could our logic possibly be about the unknowns of death (a completely closed realm in which absolutely nothing is known)?
lexturn those are good points. scientists tell us consciousness is just a bunch of nerves shooting electrical signals in the brain, but that could be as wrong as the ancient scientists who said emotions originate in the heart. one thing is constant: scientists are always proven wrong if you wait long enough.
until someone can show us what consciousness is, the same way we see a sickness is an invading virus, then im not going to take any doctors word on matters of existence and philosophy. they may be experts at treating the vessel (body) but thats not the same as what inhabits the vessel (consciousness).
as for suicide leading to something worse, i guess some of us reach a point where it’s worth the chance. I don’t think any suicidal person truly believes death will guarantee something better. I think its more like desperately trying to get out of an unbearable situation. it’s like you’ll know when/if you reach that point. maybe overthinking death is pointless, itll happen anyway. so the only question is, how valuable is the time we have remaining.
We can’t prove any of it, and that’s the maddening aspect. The only hope I have is considering the scale of the universe – for me, assuming that there’s an overlord with a clipboard monitoring my behavior and preparing a punishment OR reward is a bit childish in an incomprehensibly huge universe – so typically humanly arrogant. But the fact remains none of us will ever know until we die. Until then, we’re left with our overactive brains.
Haha, the way you write, I wonder if you’ve studied philosophy recently, either formally or independently.
Logic is all well and good, but humans aren’t in fact the rational animal we’re purported to be; just an animal that can sometimes be rational. The laws of the universe/nature rule all, and when your existence is such that it is no longer bearable to you, no one would factor in the “possibility” that death could be worse – we have absolutely no referent for such a concept.
I don’t think most people who quit are even in the frame of mind that death/non-existence/etc. will be “better”, it just won’t be the intolerable agony that is being.
My belief in nothing is as strong as some people’s faith in God. It’s not a lack of faith but a true conviction there’s nothing out there and nothing when you die. That’s how I can be convinced dying is better. Nothingness is subjectively better than this slog-sleep-repeat existence.
It’s an important question, and one that absolutely plays into my own hesitation – if there’s some kind of hell, then I’m pretty sure I’m headed there. It is absolutely a leap into the dark. On the other hand, we’ll all have to face death at some point, so we’ll all have to take that leap, sooner or later.
So I suppose it becomes a question of how unbearable your current level of suffering is, and whether or not you think that by continuing, maybe you could positively effect whatever awaits beyond death.
My assumption, fear, and relief are based on the belief that after death there is non existence. Since I have contemplated suicide and am an overthinker I have a fear of going to hell even though I’m non religious, my catastrophizing brain’s finest work.
I don’t know, i’ve had a personal experience that led me to the realization that i’m reliving my life after death, in a cause and effect way, so i die and am reborn in the same disgusting body and have the exact same worthless life until i die again and repeat. In a way i guess it makes death worse than living, because i don’t want to go back to any of that shit, but if i just killed myself when i first considered it i would be endlessly reliving a lot less suffering.