sweep

oh god, I had no choice but to live. why could I not have been. where was the 'not me' that became 'me'. I don't have an answer.

oh god billions upon billions of people are going to be born. they don't know it. Where are those people. They don't exist, of course. what do you mean they don't exist? I mean they're not here. where are they then? they aren't anywhere they don't exist. but that's circular logic! the only reason they don't exist is because you have a concept of billions of people existing. there is no-one 'not existing'.

oh god, when my awareness is not, and this body, in this form is not, please let me stay 'not' *just kidding*. I would hate or should I say, hate would I, the nothingness or whatever it is not, that am I not, to become.

oh god, there is someone out there who will never exist. What do you mean they won't exist? here we go again with that circular logic. I mean, of all the people that are, there is potential for others. My niece did not exist three years ago, but I did not say to myself, my niece is going to become. her nothingness depends on her life, that has become. By that token there is no-one that will never exist, since they have to exist in order not to exist.

do people have to not exist in order to exist. I don't have an answer. If you don't understand, or you think I am a loony, or whatever that's fine.

oh god, please don't let me be born a dog. look at my dog. It is a good thing that he dies. If he doesn't then he is dead already. my immortal dog will never know colour like I do, he will never type, or read a book. he will never drive a car, or have a deep conversation on a warm summers evening. he will never experience consciousness as I do.

please god, let my dog die, and let another being born. A being that is not shaped like a dog, but one that develops an I. It will simply say I am, and possibly add, because I am not.

lets make the world a good place to be, otherwise billions will wonder as I sometimes do, why I was ever born, and where I was when I was not.

JaeIsGod

Me thinks you need some sleep

sweep

I'm not physically tired, but my limbs felt heavy, and I was depressed. I hate the adverts on tv. what a savage race. sorry to bother you.

Barcode

I concur with what NonHomogenized said ... no need for me to repeat ...

starling

You forgot the non-judgemental afterlives! Like, what if at the moment we die, our consciousness is shunted to an alternate universe where the death somehow did not happen? That's my "Can't conceive of death" theory. What if our universe is like a point source for souls? We die and get ejected from the universe, and returning is as likely as escaping the event horizon of a black hole?

Perhaps there are great kingdoms established by omnipotent ancestral spirits, but that's not the only option. Perhaps there's nothing out there but a meaningless limbo in which we languish and lose ourselves. Perhaps there's a mutual attraction, like Vonnegut's karass poorly illustrates (darn you, Vonnegut) in which the convergence of souls causes a universe to come into being. There could be a thousand things out there, beyond the boundaries of our system, where even the laws of Physics do not hold.

One thing is for sure, and even that could change any day now. I have never seen anyone come back after death. LIfe is, probably. But we don't know whether where we come from and where we go is a blank slate or not. It could be a very complex slate, or even something else entirely.


Starling

SimplyAtheistic

I love how people post ridiculous theories simply to cling to a hope of something after death. We die, our brain ceases to function, our consciousness becomes null, nothing more.
Jake

crocodile deathroll

However the ultimate in wishful thinking was demonstrated by those al-Qaeda hijackers on 9-11 who believed that through their actions they were going to be rewarded by Allah in an Islamic paradise for their acts of so call "martryrdom"

crocodile deathroll

Baseless premise

openeyes

How so? I'm with Biff and Jake. Without our unique brain physiology, which ceases to function when we die, we are nothing. Therefore, when we die, that's it, except for the impact we've had the other people's brains and their thoughts of us.

crocodile deathroll

Yes and that is what makes your episodic memories, the brain does very effectively stores your episodic memories until such time it disintegrates and totally obliterates those memories and you forget that you were ever born in the first place.
However what you are still left with is the genetic blue print for the development of "brains" in collective sense and you will have no possible means on knowing which one will ultimately become you.

What can prevent the neural processes in this brain that generated you sense of self into existence from being emulated by another brain?.

You will just begin that life as though it is a one life experience, as you have totally obliterated the acquired memories of your last dead brain.
Is there any supernatural being out there to remind you that you have already lived you one life in the universe?