The same thing that happens before you're born--nothing.

My sister is convinced that reincarnation is a thing, but my parents aren't sure what they believe. My dad believes that, since energy cannot be created or destroyed--just converted into other forms of energy, he believes that something must happen to our consciousness when we die, but he doesn't know what.

As far as I'm concerned, it's the very end. You don't see anything--not even black. You don't even see. You're dead. Gone.

It's a comforting thought.

The player-god puts another coin in to the machine for a new life.

The player-god puts another coin in to the machine for a new life.

That's another way of looking at it.

When you die, the human race lives on, and spawns hundreds of millions more as the years go by without you. So, in a way, you're dead, but you still carry on. There can only be so many configurations of brain function, and though we're all ultimately different, we're still fundamentally the same thing. Looking at it from any other angle seems pretty solipsistic.

Whether a Frenchman loses his arm in 1790, or a Muslim loses his arm in 2016, it's the same sensation. We're all going through the same shit, playing the same perpetual game. The nuances in our personality are merely an aesthetic--it's no meaningful difference.

Knowing that everything you do, everything you learn, every action that occurred in your life is gone is not comforting.

That's extremely comforting.

No pain, no hatred, no anger, no suffering, no people, no stupidity, no bullshit, no murder, no theft, no drugs, no anything.

Absolute perfection.

You cease to exist.

Quote from: Verbatim on April 09, 2016, 11:50:05 AM

You're dead. Gone.

It's a comforting thought.

Knowing that everything you do, everything you learn, every action that occurred in your life is gone is not comforting. All it does it points out the fact that life is meaningless and there is honestly no difference between offing yourself this very moment or dying at 80.

That's why you try to make a lasting impression.

Youre gonna be a teacher right? Even if its only one kid thats willing to learn, you can say you taught someone something

Sounds meaningful to me at least

And say nihilism is shit, at least we acknowledge that life is meaningless rather than trying to take solace in the fact that it is.

Life would be meaningless if suffering wasn't such a prevalent factor, but it is. Therefore, one's efforts to mitigate suffering for himself or (more importantly) others have meaning.

There is no use in prolonging suffering just because you go choose to look beyond the asymptotic nature of life. Because that, in itself, is meaningless and contributes no valuable statement to anything or anybody.

Yes, nihilism is the shittiest philosophy ever.

Sorry, Verb, but as I've said before, the only suffering I care about  is the suffering of the self, and by proxy the suffering of those close to me because that affects my own suffering.

That just makes me wish that everyone close to you dies. And then proceed to tell me nothing matters.

That's what I think a nihilist deserves--the absolute worst suffering imaginable. If you think nothing matters but your own sensations, you deserve the absolute worst that life has to offer, and perhaps more. That's what you should get for not acknowledging the suffering of other people, outside of your own impossibly selfish outlook. Pure hell.

The human race doesn't just stop suffering when you die. This should mean something to you.

Anyone who says they know what happens after death is lying to themselves.

Well, that's a bit of a tautology, because anyone who claims to "know" anything is also lying to themselves.

No one's claiming to know anything here.

I never liked the notion of a central "god" overwatching everything. I prefer the notion that the universe is such a complex design both on the scale of the massive and the small, that when looked at from smallest to largest through it's mirrored systems, that the entire thing in itself is a collective consciousness.

It doesn't pick or choose. No more than we can talk to our cells on a one to one conversation. It just is. Like me or you. Except that we're part of the immense clockwork that makes it. We're infinitely tiny in the grand scheme of it all. But so are the cells that make individual people.

And, arguably, those infinitely small cells are the most important part of what allows people to even exist and function on a larger scale. However, that's my happy ending. My happy idea, if you will. When I die, I merely just join the larger collective on another scale.

But the simple truth I should understand is something I should remember.

I don't know what's on the other side. And I think it's both stupid and incredibly, humanly arrogant to think that our minds even have a chance of having existence or non-existence figured out when our perspective is so limited to the both complex, yet simple systems of our bodies.

Our expectations and the facts of reality are two different things. I have my happy theory, but what it truly comes down to for me is this. If there's another side, or if there's not, I'll find out for myself when or if I get there.

If you've been good in life, then you're allowed to watch '90s western cartoons for eternity. How fun.

If you've been evil in life, then you're forced to watch modern eastern cartoons for eternity. How horrific.

Not an atheist but I don't hold a traditional viewpoint so I'll post mine anyways I guess.

I hold 'the self' as the highest regard. The self being the most fundamental essence of what you are, IE the purest awareness of your existence that you can have. (one without the bias of human experience, or any experience for that matter)

In life we have many notions about who or what we are but these arise from and are influenced by duality, or the state of being in which multiple phenomena are experienced. Your name, sex, race, personality, interests, family, occupation, religion, all of these things that you might consider to be the makeup of what you are, all exist interdependently, not inherently, and they are all rooted in something. They each have a source to their manifestation.

If you remove these notions and follow their sources back further and further, you come to a point where you reach that which cannot be gotten rid of. IE: the self. Through all uncertainty in life there is one truth, for each person (and this a very personal truth), that supersedes all others. This truth is that you simply are. It's not, "you are this" or 'You are that". It's not,"I am Zach," or, "I am a white male," or, "I am an American. " No it's just simply, "I am."

However, whosoever abides by this absolutely does not hold the thought," I am." No, in fact, anything that arises from human experience is absolutely extinguished in this state. That includes the ego. (Thoughts, personality, memories, emotions), leaving only the self in it's most naked and purest form. Without form or definition. No identity.

I feel like in death, we all return to this state. And maybe, perhaps after innumerable eons or even in an instant, becomingness is stirred up yet again and we might just take on a new identity in a new reality somewhere, or maybe even the same reality. Of course that life would be just as impermanent as this one ergo one would still return back to 'the self' eventually. Or maybe one might just stay in such a state indefinitely and break from the cycle entirely. I believe Hindus and Buddhists like to call that Nirvana or enlightenment.