Death

[Lateral]

How do you all deal with the fact that you will die one day. I'm fairly young (23), but I find myself thinking about death on a daily basis. I never thought about death until I had a mushroom trip a couple of years ago that awakened in me a deep and unsettling fear. When I lay down before bed, I imagine the possibility of never waking up. I wish that I were a less rational person who could convince themself of an afterlife, or even reincarnation, but I cannot come to persuade myself.

I fear that when I die, I will never experience anything again. The seeming permanace of life appears to have been shattered for me. And I find myself wondering what is the point of doing all the things I'm supposed to do in life if one day my sand castle will be eaten by the tide.

So my question is, how do you accept death? And how do you deal with nihilism? Thanks!

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Well, there actually is "life after death", so there's that.

Assuming there wasn't, it could be done like this. When you die everything else continues on. By interacting with the environment in such a complex manner, you left "actions not yet finished" everywhere. That means, what you did in life has an effect that continues on after you die. This effects the other people who are still alive.

Bonus round: when all life on earth ends, the imprint that life on earth left will continue on. There will be a kind of living vibration.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I have the three artifacts of death, so being the master of death I can die whenever I want, and greet death like an old friend. What are the three artifacts you ask? I can't tell you because in doing so I would be spoiling a book. It's sad, but something you'll have to deal with, like how you have to deal with thinking about death all the time like a pleb.

 

[Black Rose]

Let's say that brain rewiring was a feasible technology. I could, if I wanted to, rewire my brain so that I had the brain of Tom Cruise. My brain wires would totally be reconfigured to become anyone on earth.

In my life, what I think of as myself is simply electrical signals transversing neuron to neuron. I often in meditation loose my body and I am in a completely black void with no time. As I think about it the reason we experience anything is energy going through a wire network system. This energy can become high or low. But to think that the body is gone, that the wires disconnect and the energy is dispersed. The ability of the mind to shut down with no activity is the same as disintegration where all the wires disconnected. These are the same, there is no difference, complete shutdown or disintegration.

Where do you go when you do not have a body. You have no space, you have no time, you are the void, the complete emptiness feeling of your experience. This is where you were before conception after you entered conception you were born. You then grew in awareness. Then you go back to the void. Every person enters reality from the void and the void is where you go when your wires disintegrate.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Let's say that brain rewiring was a feasible technology. I could, if I wanted to, rewire my brain so that I had the brain of Tom Cruise. My brain wires would totally be reconfigured to become anyone on earth.

In my life, what I think of as myself is simply electrical signals transversing neuron to neuron. I often in meditation loose my body and I am in a completely black void with no time. As I think about it the reason we experience anything is energy going through a wire network system. This energy can become high or low. But to think that the body is gone, that the wires disconnect and the energy is dispersed. The ability of the mind to shut down with no activity is the same as disintegration where all the wires disconnected. These are the same, there is no difference, complete shutdown or disintegration.

Where do you go when you do not have a body. You have no space, you have no time, you are the void, the complete emptiness feeling of your experience. This is where you were before conception after you entered conception you were born. You then grew in awareness. Then you go back to the void. Every person enters reality from the void and the void is where you go when your wires disintegrate.

Just as you enter the void and return to your conscious-of self, so too does a form of the identity remain in tact after death. As you say, they are equivalent. This energy can exist outside of any physical body, and still influence occurrences around it. It can enter the body of a living thing, perhaps across its whole life, so that a fraction of its totality animates that thing, giving it life and spirit.

Spoiler

Now, if the spirit is animating not a body, but some amorphous structure, there will be no coherency felt, as far as this field of existence is concerned. It will be a vast web with no real intention, but the potential for collaborative states which can animate the world in various ways, e.g. the void of the atmosphere is a conscious void which can produce tornadoes.

Spoiler

Or we could consider the alternate perspective: that the mind is a structure created through natural selection, which is animated simply by some arbitrary portion of the totality of energy/matter in the environment. At such event as death, the code breaks down possibly never to be directly retrieved, and the consciousness disperses into the environment. The self is gone.

Spoiler

However: what we must regonise is that the same self experiences itself through all of the possible selves that our earth/universe can contain. The same energy animates it all, and we can understand this energy at certain key frequences, for example as shown by the division into sciences such as physics/chemistry/biology. It may be known as the mind of God, or as the universal spirit. This vastness is where our consciousness comes from, and our consciousness, our will, is in fact a key player in all. It is about: which aspect of the All are we currently accessing, and which aspects (most) are outside of that. Thus we can consider analogues of life on the scale of any entity that can be the subject of our consideration.

 

[Jennywocky]

How do you all deal with the fact that you will die one day. I'm fairly young (23), but I find myself thinking about death on a daily basis. I never thought about death until I had a mushroom trip a couple of years ago that awakened in me a deep and unsettling fear. When I lay down before bed, I imagine the possibility of never waking up. I wish that I were a less rational person who could convince themself of an afterlife, or even reincarnation, but I cannot come to persuade myself.

I fear that when I die, I will never experience anything again. The seeming permanace of life appears to have been shattered for me. And I find myself wondering what is the point of doing all the things I'm supposed to do in life if one day my sand castle will be eaten by the tide.

So my question is, how do you accept death? And how do you deal with nihilism? Thanks!

Well, eternity was more frightening to me when young -- if you live forever in some form, there is no boundary and no ending, and that's pretty terrifying because it's too big to comprehend.

Anyway, as I got older and death became more a possibility (and I might only have anywhere from 20-40 years left now -- short of an accident of some kind), I just learned how to put a bit of momentary blinders up. The reality is that I am going to die. There is nothing I can do about it, reasonably. Therefore to focus on it is a distraction. Yes, I might die in my sleep, and if I do... well, I'm dead. Nothing I can do about it. Your sand castle will be eaten by the tide. The universe itself will eventually end.

So the focus becomes more on "what am I going to do while I am here?" I focus more on exploring the world around me and learning, for my own insight and how I can help others; and working on projects I care about; and spending time with people I care about. If nothing I do will last forever, then trying to make that the foundation of my existence will not make me happy. So therefore it's got to be in the living, not the enduring forever, that you find value. It also becomes less about how long I live and simply about how I live.

This is the kind of stuff that it was harder for me to understand when I was younger, because it deals more with my own personal vision and values and not some universal laws or rationality. I'm actually allowed to pursue things that leave me personally fulfilled and are enjoyable, rather than some structured laws of the logic that prioritize things that endure the longest or exist outside me. Let's face it, we are not things that live forever nor are we the focal point of the universe. All of humanity could eradicate itself in the next fifty years and the universe does not care. It will keep on moving as it has been, on its own life cycle. I'm just a temporary biological unit on one very very tiny smidge of the universe.

I guess it can still be kind of scary. Then again, every other human being has had to play under the same rules. The road I am walking is not a unique one; trillions have walked it ahead of me. It just is what it is. Basically you need to value the opportunity you DID get to live, to learn, to explore, to do whatever, because while you're alive it DOES matter to you; while meanwhile not trying to hold onto something past its time and accepting that things end.

 

[gilliatt]

What a lovely subject. There is this option we have, existence or non-existence. We are a living organism and we are substance. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but keeps on existing. Living organism::life or death. Living organisms had to keep moving, action, keep the process going are we die. But our chemical elements remain, not its life. This concept "Life", "Value". It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. A table, chair does not know the difference. They are unconditional, have no power to affect their fate one way or the other. Death is stillness, the essence of death, death is a state that does not involve or require action. Just refrain from doing anything; lie down, do not move, do not eat.
Someone said, "We do not die, but the world stops."
There is so many other things to discuss, we have not mentioned robots, super-computers, AI and other inanimate inventions. Study all we like, you can never affect the distinction between red and green.
One more point is a living organism, but not matter as such, is destructible. One can become inanimate; the other already is.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

I find it a soothing and happy thought that I wil not need to exist forever. One day we will go back to being stardust in the big, indifferent univese. All the silly little problems we invent for ourselves will be swiftly forgotten.

That is not to say I don't enjoy life - I actually try to live it to the fullest and taste its juices to the best of my capabilities. I am an anti nihilist. Most people do the opposite - effectively, to them life is a joke and death something very serious.

 

[Rixus]

I kind of see life as my little story - there are many chapters, and many characters that come and go. And many interesting anecdotes that would amuse anyone watching. It's funny to picture someone watching it all as a soap opera, but it's both detached and somewhat useless really. What bothers me most isn't that I will some day be gone, because we all will eventually, but what happens to all those stories lost in time. All that knowledge and wisdom we accumulate that will be meaningless afterwards. I suppose that's why I have a desire to write, and why I probably share more than I should sometimes. Because I know I'm not going to be around forever.

In the end, our little story is meaningless and nothing in the grand scheme of things. Sure, there are those who affect history on a scale that means something to humanity, but most of us will never be that important. We are just part of a whole. And all we can really hope is that our actions will have some effect, even just a smidgen, of improving that whole and making it a tiny bit better after we are gone.

Even if one day the sun will expand and gobble up this world, eventually the heat death of the universe will reduce everything to a dark wasteland and if nothing else, the universe will either collapse in on itself or all photons will eventually lose their coherency (which is something us poor INTP's have to live in awareness of), but that won't be for a long time. Humanity will, in some way, survive for a long time after us. So, I just hope to do my little part for it, keep my cog turning and hope I helped to move humanity forward. It wasn't long ago people thought it normal to watch public beheadings, so let's all just help to keep that trend going forward.

And Jenny - you have a penchant for somehow saying just what I need to here at the time. Just when I was feeling pretty nihilistic today, I read your post and somehow felt better. And it's not the first time.

 

[JR_IsP]

Hm, I often think of dying as the great equalizer, I mean, people I love, I hate, rich, poor, anyone will be dying some time in the future (maybe tomorrow I get myself a heart-attack and end up dead), and in that way it pretty much nihilisms me (I just created that verb, lol) and TBH, it makes me wannna kill myself sometimes (constant depression doesn't help neither).

Anyhow, maybe there's something next, maybe not (I'm more into the latter), but until then I'd like to accomplish a "to-do list", like being on a band, having a cat, finding love, that kind of corny stuff we deny but deep into everyone we all want.

And as of information loss, kinda like Rixus with writing, but I also want to do some cool research for science and becoming a wise professor to make students a little but more clever... but for now, I'll just apply to work on college's library.

-------------

Btw! Why this thread didn't appear on the "new posts" section? I found it by accident.

 

[Black Rose]

Alan Watts

Alan Watts - What if when we die we wake up?

 

[Polaris]

I don't "deal" with the idea of death and I don't "deal" with nihilism either.

Loser I am, fumbling around like some.........human.

I don't want to die, but neither do I want to be trapped in some eternal cycle, either. I don't know which one is worse, but being dead, I s'pose I'm just dead, so that's not so bad...?

I want to be able to go to sleep whenever I feel like it.

And maybe wake up again, haha.

I don't want interference from some kind of deity, that's just ridiculous - why die, only to be resurrected in some kind of afterlife? What is the point of life then, huh? It makes no sense - we may as well have eternal lives. But I also don't want to be alone. I think I would like to die of a massive heart attack, or aneurism somewhere in the middle of the Arctic wilderness, ideally. In the presence of a wild deer, or a great stag.

Not a bear , I don't want to be scared to death, but maybe death is scarier than a bear, who knows, I guess I'll find out when I'm dying.

Death is like a grizzly, polar, black and brown bear all at once. A bear-vortex.

I think I need to stop posting.

 

[Jennywocky]

..Death is like a grizzly, polar, black and brown bear all at once. A bear-vortex.

I think I need to stop posting.

naw. The bear vortex.... that's a delightful idea, that's gonna stick with me a long time.

 

[Cognisant]

Imagine every morning the spectre of death appears at your bedside and asks you if today will be the day, when will you agree to die?

When you've done everything?
There's more books published, movies released, games uploaded (and a million other things) in one day than anyone can experiance in one day, we are truly spoiled for entertainment and the spoils are ever increasing.

Do everything? What an absurd notion, here and now imagining ourselves being thousands of years old its easy to feel overwhelmed, easy to think one day we would be ready to die.
*Pulls out a gun and puts it to v3nge's forehead*
All things considered you've lived a full and eventful life, younger people than you are dying every day, whether it be now or a thousand years from now it makes no difference.
Are you ready to die?

Personally I accept the reality of death but I think being willing to die is insane.
Live forever or die trying.

 

[Jennywocky]

Imagine every morning the spectre of death appears at your bedside and asks you if today will be the day, when will you agree to die?

When you've done everything?
There's more books published, movies released, games uploaded (and a million other things) in one day than anyone can experiance in one day, we are truly spoiled for entertainment and the spoils are ever increasing.

Do everything? What an absurd notion, here and now imagining ourselves being thousands of years old its easy to feel overwhelmed, easy to think one day we would be ready to die.
*Pulls out a gun and puts it to v3nge's forehead*
All things considered you've lived a full and eventful life, younger people than you are dying every day, whether it be now or a thousand years from now it makes no difference.
Are you ready to die?

Personally I accept the reality of death but I think being willing to die is insane.
Live forever or die trying.

Hob, from Vertigo's "The Sandman".... we all love to bitch, but does anyone ever want to pull the trigger?

Spoiler

 

[Procinogen]

I just try not to think about it. The thought of how I will die on day haunts me every night before I go to bed. I try to just do what I like and make the most out of my time.
...
Well, that and I hope one day to immortalize myself by turning myself into a robot until I inevitably get bored of living and kill myself. But that's a problem for my future me to tackle.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

While I do believe in the afterlife, the thought of death is still scary.

After all, I have this life that I have so that I can do something with it - effect some change in the world, because change is something I feel that I have the capability to bring about.

So, I guess, once I feel I've made the bulk of the changes I am capable of, and that I have then started on the decline, living in the wake of it, and only partially seeking to enact further change... then I will be ready.

That day is still a long ways a way, and I have yet to really even get started with what I wish to accomplish. I have been through a lot, had many experiences that are out-of-this-world, and that's certainly something, but still... I... lack.

The question then is how to live. How to take what I have learnt, and make something of it in the world that will really be... worth something. What goals are even worth making? What steps to achieve those goals?

I have the tasks that are set to me currently. Those I shall carry out. The future shall remain a mystery.

 

[Cleopatra Selene II]

Personally, I don't even care that I will die one day. Sometimes I even look forward to it.

I guess I was always like that. I was constantly exposed to it at an early age so I just accepted it as a part of life.

Death never scared me. I don't even believe in an afterlife (I don't completely rule out the possibility though).

You get used to death and start to appreciate life when you realize that anyone you love can be taken away at any moment. No one is guaranteed to live to a certain age or past a certain point in their lives.

After a while, you look at it as just a change. You begin to appreciate people more while they are still living.

You realize that they do not cease to exist even though they are not on this earth anymore. They are still very much present in our minds and "hearts" and in the little mannerisms or small things we see that remind us of them. Their impacts are still present on this earth and they will never stop existing.

Death is also truth. It is one certainty that we have about our lives. It is one unchanging variable. It is nondiscriminatory and it doesn't care whether you are young or old or rich or poor or a good person or a bad person.

Honestly, the only thing that keeps me alive is knowing that my death would hurt the few people who do care about me. Also, I know that my purpose is to help as many people as I can and to try and make the world a better place.

 

[Please enter your name.]

Well I start to imagine many things..like the life after death..
Honestly I do not believe in life after death because there is no convincing evidence for that theory. But still..I continue to think about the after life..even thought I don't actually believe in it.
There are also times that I think about the way I might die in future.

 

[Viscosity]

The chance I die anytime soon is very low given my circumstances, therefore, I do not actively concern myself with death. The fear of it rarely expresses itself either, my last memory of what may be described as a fear of death, was a nightmare, and that was a feeling of terror. An experience relating to death which is far more common, is, to desire it, or, to fantasize about it, which is a reaction to stress and the desire to eliminate it.

That should be the case with most people, I mean, there should really be no reason to fear death within an environment where there is little to no risk of it, although, everyone has a fear of death, it is inherited, and those who claim otherwise, would likely express a contradiction the moment they are threatened with a machete, and, in the rare cases, where people do not react fearfully to such an event, but courageously, then, that is only a demonstration of the control of the reactions we relate to the fear of death. Otherwise, you could also live with an awareness of the possibility of death, and imagine how that pertains to your circumstances and interests, and act accordingly (where and if possible).

 

[Viscosity]

Come to think about it, I recall two friends of mine who believed that they were going to die young, and not by their own hand, and I think that what was responsible for that was a characteristic they both shared in common, and that was a tendency toward pessimism (irrational expectations of improbable and detrimental possibilities).

 

[Minute Squirrel]

The fear of death is irrational, stop being a pussy.

You're gonna die anyway, it's too late for you. So you might as well not worry about it. At the very least it should motivate you to live your life to the fullest(whatever that means).

 

[Batmanuel]

The one thing that keeps me going in life (and the only reason I haven't ended the bloody mess already) is that I feel I have a purpose. I have a mission I am here to achieve, and death, if anything, is a pretty good motivator. If one were to simply live forever, there would be no real sense of urgency, and they would live in a constant state of apathy and uselessness. Death is the wake-up call for us to make use of our precious time on earth, and I think it's fairly important to look at life that way.

People's fear of death takes them to rather irrational extents in my opinion. God knows how many times we've seen ads for magic pills and miracle cures that promise to rid us of our cancer and disease while we smear our faces with various creams. I have a coworker who chooses to run 6 10k marathons a year in a desperate attempt to cling on to his youth and delay the inevitable, which I think misses the whole point entirely. It's important to live the most productive and quality life possible, because that's what gives life the value we fear losing in the first place. If you let yourself live in constant dread of death, life just becomes that much more miserable itself, and I'd rather die than live like that.

Besides, what's wrong with death? I hear the booze in Valhalla is superb!

 

[Intolerable]

I don't fear it. I probably did when I was younger. I think of the times I've had asthma or when I was in the grip of sleep paralysis. I was afraid then.

Fast forward 30 years and I feel like I've exhausted much the world has to offer. Beautiful women, places and people I've enjoyed. There comes a point in your life where the good years are done. It'll still be a little good to you but not as good as it once was. I told myself when I was 20 that if I got to the point where life was no longer good to me I'd end it myself. That card is still on the table.

I would say to a young person that your fear of dying is fear of not having lived. You feel like you're giving up something incredible. In a sense your intuition is correct. It is not a permanent state of mind though. You eventually find good things in life and enjoy them until you don't. Then you're ready to die.

 

[JR_IsP]

All right, this may be a little off-topic, but maybe the way of how you think of death will also determinate your life.

2 people with different ideas of death may have completely different lives, don't you think?

Then... what should be the "best way" to think of death?

 

[S.Haze]

A few mushroom trips ago I started to panic at the thought of death. I started to feel light headed and also started puking... it became so intense for me that I was actually convinced that I was dying right then and there and couldn't handle it well, I guess, as I passed out.. there were a few seconds before I completely lost consciousness where it was all black and all I could think was fuuuuuck... noooo.. I'm dead.. then I awoke completely delirious, not knowing where I was, nor being able to recognize the person I was tripping with... from that point on I made it my goal for my future trips to come to peace with death... since then my thoughts while tripping go around the lines of this:
Nothing exists for your convenience.. existence doesn't know what is lenience
Be grateful you've been born a human in the first place. It's a daily meditation for me to consider how lucky I am to be in my position.
And when you die and it turns out that there is nothing.. oh well. You won't know the difference.
Mindfulness is very helpful for me. Try to be aware, at every moment, of how beautiful and majestic existence is. It's an amazing wonder.. and your ego should be humbled that you got to experience it as you have. There is so much opportunity to enjoy many moments.. so I do my best to make every moment I can a good one.
Peace