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.
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Sy Borg
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Sy Borg »

Jan Sand wrote: March 6th, 2018, 2:03 amBut all human activity is reconfigured geological matter. Then the word "geology" becomes meaningless as a term distinguishing it from human activity.
Not from chemical or systemic perspectives.
chondriac
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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or electromagnetic modes involving I and O
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QuarterMaster69
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by QuarterMaster69 »

philoreaderguy wrote: April 14th, 2007, 3:14 pm What happens to us when we die? What do you think happens? What do you want to happen?
150,000 people died yesterday. 55 MILLION people died last year.

When we die we become a number--an unknown number in the sequence of deaths since Adam and Eve.

What I want to happen is for a catastrophic event that kills every single species of living things on Earth right down to every bacterium including myself to occur so that when I die so does the world. (Hey, you asked.)
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Jan Sand »

Humans in genera delight in destroying wonderful things. A quite small sector of humanity is fantastically talented in producing the stuff that the mean, vicious and incredibly stupid people enjoy in destroying. In a a few decades it is quite obvious that the destroyers will destroy much of everything. This is the legacy of humanity.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Atreyu »

To answer the question properly you have to divide time into two parts, 1) the time of the living, "time as we know it"; and 2) the person's individual time, the "time of his life". Because these are "two different times".

If we answer the question from the pov of #1, we can say that you will be 'eaten' at death. Your physical body will rot and decompose, becoming one with the Earth. Other more 'fine' matter (soul) will also be eaten, but not by the Earth. You will not exist. Period. The subjective experience of this is unknown.

If we answer the question from the pov of #2, we can say that you go back to the beginning, as if the time of your life was a circle. As if a point on the circle were labeled "birth/death". You've run out of time and cannot continue living in the time of the living (#1). But your time still exists -- in the past. The subjective experience of this is also unknown, until one becomes around the age of 3, when he himself can then remember it. So the period from death --> rebirth --> to age 3 is unknown.

To understand this idea properly you would have to understand that your great grandpa does not exist, period, in this time. But he continues to exist in his own time (the past). The dead become separated from the living via time. The dead 'stay behind' so to speak, having run out of time, while the living continue 'moving forward' in time, so to speak.

The reason many people think that the dead are 'gone', in the absolute sense of the word, is because they are not taking the space-time paradigm into account concerning life and death, i.e. they are not considering these two separate times I just delineated above. They are only considering their time, "time as they know it", the "time of the living". They do not consider that perhaps the dead are still living, just "living in the past" (literally), but the space-time paradigm tells us that this is the most likely scenario.
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Sy Borg
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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Atreyu wrote: March 13th, 2018, 6:53 pmThe reason many people think that the dead are 'gone', in the absolute sense of the word, is because they are not taking the space-time paradigm into account concerning life and death, i.e. they are not considering these two separate times I just delineated above. They are only considering their time, "time as they know it", the "time of the living". They do not consider that perhaps the dead are still living, just "living in the past" (literally), but the space-time paradigm tells us that this is the most likely scenario.
An interesting idea but I am not sold on Minkowski space, the 4D spacetime manifold. Relativity puts time aside, as though it would work either way but that is theoretical. The physical reality is the arrow of time, possibly associated with dark energy, if existent. It seems more likely that the past only remains insofar as it resonates in the present.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Hereandnow »

The ancient hippy says:
Must keep in mind that 'death' is a word. Death, life, electromagnetic modes, systemic perspectives, Minkowski space, my cat's furry paws: all words, and words are inherently interpretative. They do not mirror "the world," they interpret it. So whatever what we call death may be, conceptual constructions are always already "wrong" and it is therefore best to be silent on that of which we cannot speak, and let the world speak. Best sit under the Bodhi tree ...and listen. The most interesting thing in the universe is within.
I do miss the old times.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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Greta wrote: March 13th, 2018, 10:37 pm An interesting idea but I am not sold on Minkowski space, the 4D spacetime manifold. Relativity puts time aside, as though it would work either way but that is theoretical. The physical reality is the arrow of time, possibly associated with dark energy, if existent. It seems more likely that the past only remains insofar as it resonates in the present.
Yes, but the key word is "physical". The "physical reality" is the reality of the living, of those who perceive themselves to be "physical", of those who have physical bodies.

But it is true for those who do not?
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Sy Borg
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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Atreyu wrote: March 19th, 2018, 4:18 pm
Greta wrote: March 13th, 2018, 10:37 pm An interesting idea but I am not sold on Minkowski space, the 4D spacetime manifold. Relativity puts time aside, as though it would work either way but that is theoretical. The physical reality is the arrow of time, possibly associated with dark energy, if existent. It seems more likely that the past only remains insofar as it resonates in the present.
Yes, but the key word is "physical". The "physical reality" is the reality of the living, of those who perceive themselves to be "physical", of those who have physical bodies.

But it is true for those who do not?
Those who do not have physical bodies?
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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While most "mediums" are charlatans, this doesn't mean that there never were, or could not be, any. The nature of so called "esoteric" practices such as 'talking to the dead' is that for every real practitioner there are bound to be hundreds of wanna-bes, of phonies. I wouldn't dismiss such practices out of hand just because of all the pretenders.

Talking with the dead is very similar to having a 'vision' of the past. If your awareness could travel into the past, then certainly you could communicate with the "dead"....
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Sy Borg
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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You are right that we should not dismiss esoteric ideas due to dodgy practitioners. We can only dismiss them based on evidence.

Due to the hard division between life and death, verifiable evidence that can be observed and understood by multiple informed observers is seemingly not possible. Further, there is no known means for the unattached information of your self to continue beyond the grave. So I doubt but don't entirely discount.

Further, I find myself not inclined to seriously investigate the paranormal - to "try" to perceive spirits - on a personal level because regular life has enough challenges without either messing around with something I don't understand or wasting time chasing illusory phantoms. If it turns out to be important one can always play catchup on one's deathbed :)
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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At the moment of death, whom is it that dies? The person whom we were is already gone and the person whom we will be, is not yet here. The body is in a state of continuous regeneration, old cells dying and new cells being created, so the physical body is never exactly the same at any given moment. Even in the death process itself, it is unclear when a person may be considered completely dead, as in near death experiences, when someone may be revived.

If it were possible to contact someone after they died, whom is it that we are contacting? The person we thought they were, the person they thought they were, or the person they really were?
Even though you can see me, I might not be here.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

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On that basis, dead or alive, each of us is merely a delusion that we continuously exist and therefore no communication between people has ever occurred. I find that rather odd.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Present awareness »

Jan Sand wrote: January 31st, 2019, 1:13 pm On that basis, dead or alive, each of us is merely a delusion that we continuously exist and therefore no communication between people has ever occurred. I find that rather odd.
If you have ever asked yourself the question “who am I” you will realize that what we consider to be “I” is based on past memories of whom we were, childhood, teen years, school, jobs, what others say about us etc. etc. It’s almost like a hologram built out of pieces from the past. However, whomever we were, is not whom we are! Whom we are is the one whom dies when the time comes. Whom we were is already dead. Only our memory keeps whom we were alive and our memory dies when our physical brain dies.

Is it really so bad to accept that we are nothing more then a fabrication, built out of memories? Whom we think we are is not whom we really are?
Even though you can see me, I might not be here.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?

Post by Atla »

Present awareness wrote: January 31st, 2019, 7:03 pm Is it really so bad to accept that we are nothing more then a fabrication, built out of memories? Whom we think we are is not whom we really are?
I think it's more like unthinkable than bad, as pretty much the entire Western school of thought is based on taking the individual "I" too seriously. Even though everything known to us shows that it's illusory, and it's perfectly obvious what happens to us when we die.

Having said that, "I" personally still don't want to die. Me, or the future me, will end, my memories will be lost. In one sense we are eternal, in another sense very mortal, and I still don't like that.
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