What happens to us when we die?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Post Reply
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Jan Sand »

Throughout all of human history wherein we have records humans have used their superior talents to make tools of all sorts of materials and of all sorts of animals but to a huge extent we have made tools of each other and inevitably in all sorts of societies the cleverest and the most skillful and the most brutal people have subjugated most of the rest in all sorts of violent and subtle ways have made a very good life for themselves and their families and created huge miseries for everybody else. This seems to be the essence of humanity and it has no progressed to the point wherein human skills have advance to the point where they will soon totally destroy all possibilities of life on the planet. If somebody can rejoice and find worthy meaning in this I will be most attentive. I am at a loss to discover it.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Hereandnow »

Well Jan, if you put it like that, it sounds awful. I don't put it like that. There are other ways to put it that are entirely different from this, but I hesitate to say what they are because, well, it requires a way of looking at the world that rearranges assumptions. tough to do in a post.
For now, though, not that I'm not sympathetic, but why does the one cancel out the other? Why, for example, cannot a couple be blissfully engaged without this being undermined by the misery required to secure the possibility of this? Why not just let the bliss be bliss? And why is it that the society in which this occurs must end in the destruction of all possibilities of life?
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Jan Sand »

Of course I sympathize with the desire for a decent world. I merely indicate the unceasing repetition of human brutal history and note that this process is in very dynamic operation throughout today's world. Many thousands of people are thoughtlessly killed each day and many, many millions have been unnecessarily killed over the last decades. There is no indication that this will stop.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Hereandnow »

Ah, I see. Maybe one day, after we have mastered the human genome, moved into genetic engineering and made people so well that they have no reason to take issues with others. Waiting for this. It is inevitable, if you ask me, for as soon as the technology can do it, it will be done and the nay sayers, the religious types who think it an intrusion into god's exclusive prerogative, will yield to the prospect of having a perfect child.
too bad we won't be there to see this, though. Next millennium, maybe.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Jan Sand »

The first thing that human society does after acquiring a new technological skill is to turn it into a weapon or use it to corrupt society for their own profit. The internet held the promise to spread instant knowledge and entertainment with very little cost throughout the world. A good deal of that has come about but it is now thoroughly infested with all sorts of major corruption from stealing billions of dollars to total population control from invasive governments to conning people to spend their income on really dumb gadgets. As technology progresses the worst side of humanity quickly sees opportunities to create huge miseries. Whether we survive atomic weapons is now a matter of luck and luck always runs out.
User avatar
Sy Borg
Site Admin
Posts: 14942
Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Sy Borg »

Hereandnow wrote: January 18th, 2018, 8:56 pm
Greta:
Suffering makes sense to me. The universe is growing and developing - from something simple and mindless to something much more sentient. This is happening on all levels; what was once the stuff of clouds and rocks has long been spontaneously reforming itself into feeling body systems and brains, of which ours are just a couple - Sagan's star dust on the move. If you are an infant, then you struggling your way out of chaos and turmoil; if you are old and wise, you probably feel pretty good most of the time because you have achieved more mental and emotional order, including more acceptance of, and capacity to ignore, physical pain.

On another level, our body routinely kills and slews its own cells when no longer required. The situation for us animals is the same. We are both ends in ourselves and the collateral damage that is part of the process of larger emergences, of which we are part, as they move towards greater maturity and order. Hence theism's - all of society's, really - constant pressure and encouragement to not identify with self but a larger entity. It's long been sensed that mindfulness of our small roles within larger entities at least existentially provides the optimism of feeling more useful than doomed.

My guess is that life (or what emerges from life) that's much more advanced than us today will suffer less intensely, just as we today have an easier time of it than ancient people living their short and dangerous and perennially perplexed lives. When ye olde worlde metaphysics are removed, de Chardin's Omega Point concept makes good sense - the natural product of evolutionary processes; constant inversion and eversion, consumption and output over time that creates ever more integration and interconnection in the fabric of reality, concentrated in nodes.

Summary: I'm optimistic about the deep future.
I wonder, Greta, if you would be so understanding if you were being hung by your thumbs in a medieval Roman prison. Or if the flames were licking at your feet during a witche's burning, and you were the witch. The point is, the ideas you expound above seem to lack the urgency, the horror, of actual suffering. It is one thing to have science at your back when theorizing; but quite another to be "in it". The latter is the reality I'm alarmed about. I am not so alarmed by the way theory takes care of suffering. It does so handily. But theory like this is like some political theory that justifies the means with the ends: yes its awful, but we are trying to achieve something here, a better world. Such a thing dismisses the true material horror. This latter, as with all things, upon closer look, is something much, much different from what is considered in theory.
Where is the dismissal of suffering? Does "struggling out of chaos and turmoil" sound desirable to you?

The most underestimated suffering is that of wild animals. For many millions of years before humanity arrived, and since, think of starvation, exposure to the elements, predation, loss of offspring, parasite infestations, disease, often deprived of mating opportunities, not to mention the ever-present chance of being ambushed at any moment and being eaten alive. Humans created civilisation so as to escape all of that.

I note that, in your post, you refer to the kinds of torture indulged in by indigenous, ancient and mediaeval sadists but are far less prevalent today; we humans really are getting better, even if the progress en masse is too slow for most people's liking. That's not much comfort for those in the middle of agonies, sure, but not much is. The options there are limited: stoical acceptance, an optimistic afterlife belief, or the simple fact that we tend to black out and/or die when pain and damage becomes too much.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Jan Sand »

Although the noteworthy achievements of the CIA may not be as spectacular as the regular beheadings in Saudi Arabia or the despicable cruelties of the ISIS maniacs, they are worldwide and in many secret places beyond Guantanamo. There are millions of underfed kids in the USA, the richest country in the world and the regularity of the mass murdering in that country only adds to the incessant shootings by the police of unarmed black citizens. This may be an improvement on earlier times but, strangely, I am not comforted.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Hereandnow »

Greta:
Where is the dismissal of suffering? Does "struggling out of chaos and turmoil" sound desirable to you?

The most underestimated suffering is that of wild animals. For many millions of years before humanity arrived, and since, think of starvation, exposure to the elements, predation, loss of offspring, parasite infestations, disease, often deprived of mating opportunities, not to mention the ever-present chance of being ambushed at any moment and being eaten alive. Humans created civilisation so as to escape all of that.

I note that, in your post, you refer to the kinds of torture indulged in by indigenous, ancient and mediaeval sadists but are far less prevalent today; we humans really are getting better, even if the progress en masse is too slow for most people's liking. That's not much comfort for those in the middle of agonies, sure, but not much is. The options there are limited: stoical acceptance, an optimistic afterlife belief, or the simple fact that we tend to black out and/or die when pain and damage becomes too much.
Right. I agree with all of this. The point I make is frankly not about any of this. It's not about the kinds of suffering nor from whence these came. Didn't mean to sensationalize the issue, but nothing puts a matter on the table better than its strongest example. Anyway, the idea here is suffering as such. Not something that happens on any time a place, but that it happens at all. Not who did it to whom, but that it is. Look at it as a phenomenon, not as part of the usual narratives; its "thereness." My question is, what is it doing there at all? Among the possibilities in Being here. Why is it that after the Big Bang suffering was even, if you will, on the menu at all? if we don't have God telling s that we suffer due to sin anymore, we are left with an all but ignored but gaping hole in our moral logic about the world: we suffer (and again, those vivid examples are most poignant) for nothing. This is, I say, impossible.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Jan Sand »

There seems to be a neurotic if not psychotic concern with the unhappy qualities of life here and a total neglect of those parts of life which are enjoyable and rewarding. Any life is a mix of both and it must be accepted as such.
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Hereandnow »

Must be accepted, Jan Sand? But what if you want to take the question of suffering to its analytic limits? Where does such an enterprise take you? One has to understand that this "must be accepted as such" is not an absolute, for our everyday thoughts form which this emerges are not even an attempt to get at more general truths. So accepting is grounded in a kind of thinking that is surely inadequate. Best to look at the very interesting thoughts of those who take the matter to its limit.
Jan Sand
Posts: 658
Joined: September 10th, 2017, 11:57 am

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Jan Sand »

Let me put it on a personal basis. Back in 1968 I had a job in Israel working for the UN on a two year contract and my family joined me. The Israeli drivers back then were exceedingly careless. The house I rented was close to a rather quiet road and one afternoon while my wife was away and and my two sons, age 3 and 4 were playing in front of my house and I tried to repair a screen door in the back of the house. I suddenly heard a long sound of an automobile horn close-by and when I went to the front of the house my kids were not there. I quickly ran to the road and discovered my three year old prostrate on the road and the car that had hit him was stopped down the road and the driver had not even come out of his car to investigate. A policeman was already there and a taxicab with two passengers was halted on the road I didn't know where a hospital might be but realized something drastic had to be done immediately, With the policeman's agreement I commandeered the taxi who knew where to go and took my two sons with me with the two taxi passengers to the nearest hospital where the emergency section had been notified and they quickly operated to save my son's life. From that day onward my son. whose spinal chord had been severed, needed a respirator to breathe for the rest of his life and was paralyzed from the neck down. Neither my or my son's country, the USA, was in the least interested in helping me but my wife, who was Finnish appealed to President Kekkonen and he immediately gave Finnish citizenship to my sons and accepted my injured son into the Finnish medical system. My son died within the Finnish medical system about 30 years later and was wonderfully cared for and as a designer I constructed a system for him to work with his own computer back in 1980 and he made friends all over the world and even was accepted in discussions with academics on evolutionary biology although he never attended any institutions of higher education. My wife and I became familiar with the medical necessities for my son and often had to rush to the hospital in the early hours after midnight when his machines broke down. My son was a brilliant and reasonably happy person and a site on him at http://finapple.hho.fi/finapple/index.p ... e-ii-user/ has some details. My point on all of this is that when terrible things happen you don't moan about the awful way the world treats you, you deal with it as best you can and accept the challenges and capture whatever good you can out of it. My time with my injured son was full of wonderful memories and a highly treasured time of my life.
User avatar
LuckyR
Moderator
Posts: 7914
Joined: January 18th, 2015, 1:16 am

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by LuckyR »

Jan Sand wrote: January 19th, 2018, 12:43 pm Let me put it on a personal basis. Back in 1968 I had a job in Israel working for the UN on a two year contract and my family joined me. The Israeli drivers back then were exceedingly careless. The house I rented was close to a rather quiet road and one afternoon while my wife was away and and my two sons, age 3 and 4 were playing in front of my house and I tried to repair a screen door in the back of the house. I suddenly heard a long sound of an automobile horn close-by and when I went to the front of the house my kids were not there. I quickly ran to the road and discovered my three year old prostrate on the road and the car that had hit him was stopped down the road and the driver had not even come out of his car to investigate. A policeman was already there and a taxicab with two passengers was halted on the road I didn't know where a hospital might be but realized something drastic had to be done immediately, With the policeman's agreement I commandeered the taxi who knew where to go and took my two sons with me with the two taxi passengers to the nearest hospital where the emergency section had been notified and they quickly operated to save my son's life. From that day onward my son. whose spinal chord had been severed, needed a respirator to breathe for the rest of his life and was paralyzed from the neck down. Neither my or my son's country, the USA, was in the least interested in helping me but my wife, who was Finnish appealed to President Kekkonen and he immediately gave Finnish citizenship to my sons and accepted my injured son into the Finnish medical system. My son died within the Finnish medical system about 30 years later and was wonderfully cared for and as a designer I constructed a system for him to work with his own computer back in 1980 and he made friends all over the world and even was accepted in discussions with academics on evolutionary biology although he never attended any institutions of higher education. My wife and I became familiar with the medical necessities for my son and often had to rush to the hospital in the early hours after midnight when his machines broke down. My son was a brilliant and reasonably happy person and a site on him at http://finapple.hho.fi/finapple/index.p ... e-ii-user/ has some details. My point on all of this is that when terrible things happen you don't moan about the awful way the world treats you, you deal with it as best you can and accept the challenges and capture whatever good you can out of it. My time with my injured son was full of wonderful memories and a highly treasured time of my life.
My take on this story is that the blue situation contributed a lot to the red outlook (after the fact). As you may be aware many if not most don't have that option. IMO it is a bit cold to get down on folks with a significantly worse situation than yourself.
"As usual... it depends."
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Hereandnow »

Jan Sand:
My point on all of this is that when terrible things happen you don't moan about the awful way the world treats you, you deal with it as best you can and accept the challenges and capture whatever good you can out of it. My time with my injured son was full of wonderful memories and a highly treasured time of my life.
It was an awful thing that happened. But if I may ask, given the nature of this forum, what is your take on this philosophically?
User avatar
Hereandnow
Posts: 2837
Joined: July 11th, 2012, 9:16 pm
Favorite Philosopher: the moon and the stars

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Hereandnow »

Assuming it goes beyond tolerance and strength.
User avatar
Sy Borg
Site Admin
Posts: 14942
Joined: December 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Sy Borg »

Hereandnow wrote: January 19th, 2018, 10:53 am
Greta:
Where is the dismissal of suffering? Does "struggling out of chaos and turmoil" sound desirable to you?

The most underestimated suffering is that of wild animals. For many millions of years before humanity arrived, and since, think of starvation, exposure to the elements, predation, loss of offspring, parasite infestations, disease, often deprived of mating opportunities, not to mention the ever-present chance of being ambushed at any moment and being eaten alive. Humans created civilisation so as to escape all of that.

I note that, in your post, you refer to the kinds of torture indulged in by indigenous, ancient and mediaeval sadists but are far less prevalent today; we humans really are getting better, even if the progress en masse is too slow for most people's liking. That's not much comfort for those in the middle of agonies, sure, but not much is. The options there are limited: stoical acceptance, an optimistic afterlife belief, or the simple fact that we tend to black out and/or die when pain and damage becomes too much.
Right. I agree with all of this. The point I make is frankly not about any of this. It's not about the kinds of suffering nor from whence these came. Didn't mean to sensationalize the issue, but nothing puts a matter on the table better than its strongest example. Anyway, the idea here is suffering as such. Not something that happens on any time a place, but that it happens at all. Not who did it to whom, but that it is. Look at it as a phenomenon, not as part of the usual narratives; its "thereness." My question is, what is it doing there at all? Among the possibilities in Being here. Why is it that after the Big Bang suffering was even, if you will, on the menu at all? if we don't have God telling s that we suffer due to sin anymore, we are left with an all but ignored but gaping hole in our moral logic about the world: we suffer (and again, those vivid examples are most poignant) for nothing. This is, I say, impossible.
Up to a point I agree with Jan that focusing on suffering can distort perspectives. A negative focus is logical because negative stakes, ie. death are higher and more enduring than all possible positives. Then again, we can just as easily ask why joy, curiosity or humour are present in reality too. The pat answer is "they just are", like stars and atoms, so let's put that aside.

Have you tried to imagine what reality would be like if suffering never existed? It seems to me that life and its emotional import are inseparable. If there is no care, there is no life, yet there is a strange overlap when you look at the domains of life. Simple life appears to suffer less than higher order animals with sophisticated nervous systems. Meanwhile, when we ourselves were simpler, as children, we experienced pain more intensely.

We deduce that other animals are less sensitive to suffering than we are based on their relatively relaxed responses to stimuli that would disturb most humans. Yet, other animals oftern respond in extreme ways to stimuli that we either don't mind or don't notice, eg. sounds, chemicals, sudden appearances. Maybe they have different triggers and experiences?

Remembering how much more intense pain was as a young child, I have sometimes wondered if simpler creatures - or at least simpler vertebrates - actually suffer more than us humans? Could it be that humans have simply devised an exquisite and dramatic theatre of its pain that exaggerates its relative import? We make assumptions about other creatures' tolerance to pain because they are not demonstrative. Then again, for social animals there is a benefit in expressing pain so as to elicit help. For non social animals, crying in pain may attract predators. Behaviouralism has its limits.

To explore to the depth that you seek, we need to consider not only what suffering appears to be in others, but how it is experienced. Physical suffering feels like varying sizes and intensities of heat and pressure distribution. Emotional suffering is basically disappointment that the world is not as you would want it to be, characterised by confusion, emptiness, a sense of internal void and incompleteness. It's the imposition of chaos upon your internal order. Evolution's fingerprints are obviously all over it.

Then again, why evolve? Why not chaotic change rather than observed progressive change? Probably the first law - conservation of energy. Reality is more of an accumulator than a rearranger. Yet the accumulations have limits - stars, gas giants and rocky planets change form after thresholds of accumulation are reached. Our lives too are accumulative to a peak, and then they break down. Suffering is basically the thwarting of natural accumulation and its breakdown.

Why do all these things. Why should all these lives build up with so much potential, only to break down again? The Sisyphean metaphor comes to mind. Is there a destination? Darwin says no and de Chardin says yes. I think de Chardin is right, though there appears to not be a reason for this progressive evolution, any more than there is a reason we all strive to grow, persist and influence.

Maybe it's that being is preferable state to non being, so we cling? We mostly seem keen to persist, to be. Aside from late at night when we are exhausted. Then we prefer non being, craving oblivion temporarily almost as much as we fear it permanently. So being and non-being are always toggling; we are never one or the other consistently. So, why are you "you" when you awake and not someone else? Because the configuration and conditioning of your neurons forms a channel, and it's the most natural way for your waking awareness to flow.

What are you yourself but a particular configuration in the fabric of reality? How unique are you? With seven billion people in the world there must literally be thousands of others who are very much like you - to the extent that friends and family would be surprised and amused. There's no doubt some mongooses and wolves who are most like you, or least like you. Seriously, if you closely observed animal social groups for long enough you'd find yourself rooting for certain individuals that you relate to more than others.

So, when you eventually "go to sleep" (the big one) when you are either too tired or damaged to "stay awake", who or what might you wake up to be?

To what configuration might "you" gravitate? In this context "you" is abstract, like a Jungian archetype, a spirit in much the same sense as one might refer to "the spirit of the times". We are personal Zeitgeists, if you like. Our particular iteration of "our kind of configuration" may break down, but to some extent (not exactly), our way of doing things will persist by the laws of averages as much as anything. We are each the expression of these mini Zeitgeists that inevitably must emerge in a reality that can only consist of its most persistent forms (which are more rare and predictable than the innumerable possible chaotic and highly temporal forms).

Or something like that ...? :)
Post Reply

Return to “Epistemology and Metaphysics”

2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021