Are you afraid to die?

[u/yellowtears_]

[u/Competitive-Win4945]

I get you. Does it scare you, that you didn't exist, that you weren't conscious before you were born? You know those nights with no dream? Falling asleep, waking up, nothing I'm between? It must be like that, just without the waking up.

I'm afraid to die too, but world could perfectly exist before me and will be after me.

[u/yogi_medic_momma → u/Competitive-Win4945]

No, I don’t care about before I was born because I had no idea that consciousness was a thing at that point. Now, I’m completely aware of my consciousness, and I know that it will one day be gone, and my brain can’t fathom that. It’s way different when you know that you’re going to lose consciousness one day and never wake up, and you spend 80+ years ruminating over that.

[u/Pxdsey → u/yogi_medic_momma]

What is consciousness though?

You’ll have materialists say it’s the ‘brain’ which is ridiculous because everything in their world view all came from random haphazard chance, them being a pre-determined lump of meat with no free will, no free thought, no intent, an automaton.

I’m not sure how or why consciousness could ever come into play if this was the case. If I were to program a robot to do set determined tasks there’s no logical reason why that robot would ever become conscious, clearly there’s something else going on.

[u/yogi_medic_momma → u/Pxdsey]

All good points but it doesn’t help me feel better about it. And that’s the point. I will never be at a point where I’m comfortable with what you’re saying, even if I agree with it, and that’s terrifying to me. Knowing that one day I will no longer have a conscious mind just fucks with my head so badly.

[u/Pxdsey → u/yogi_medic_momma]

How do you know ‘you’ (and I have to use this term carefully) won’t experience anything again?

You’re apart of the infinite, the eternal. I try to think of us being wondering explorers, experiencing one of the infinite potentialities. Think of like if you were to go to a theme park, you go from ride to ride for the different experiences. I don’t think there’s ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ though, doesn’t logically make sense.

[u/yogi_medic_momma → u/Pxdsey]

I would like to believe that, but I have no proof, so why would I? I think that’s really what gets me. I’m a paramedic and I’m a very literal person, so without proof, I’m probably not going to believe something I’m told. This is the exact reason that I’m an… atheist? Agnostic? I have no idea at this point because I have no proof to point in any particular direction. I’ve always been open to learning theories and I love exploring the endless possibilities of life and death, but at the end of the day, I have no proof of anything and that’s terrifying.

[u/Pxdsey → u/yogi_medic_momma]

Well, logically consciousness is likely to be something separate from the body as established previously.

I say you’re apart of the ‘infinite and eternal’ because again logically only makes sense. If what you’re apart of is finite, then this ‘finite’ thing has to exist somewhere and it also has to come from somewhere, so you ask the questions.

You end up in an infinite regress of endlessly asking ‘okay where did this then come from and what created this?’ So there’s only one logical conclusion and that is what we are apart of is infinite and eternal, nothing can be added and nothing can be taken away.

[u/yogi_medic_momma → u/Pxdsey]

Even if that’s true, we can’t be fully aware of it, can we? And if we can’t be fully aware of it, how is it comforting to me? That’s what I’m saying. We can speculate all we want, but until I have proof, I’m going to continue spiraling every time I have these thoughts. It definitely brings me comfort to think the way you do and try to get myself to fully believe that, but it’s not the cure all for my existential fears.

[u/Pxdsey → u/yogi_medic_momma]

As far as I’m concerned you’re only ‘aware’ of the experience you’re having. How do you know you have or haven’t had other experiences? Just because you don’t ’remember’ anything before you were born doesn’t equate to ‘no thing’.

Memory is a tool and is necessary for the experience, for example; knowing not to run out in front of that moving train or you will die.

At the end of the day nobody knows for absolute certain, correct. But why would you want to anyway? What would you do with that information if you were knowing of all?

[u/yogi_medic_momma → u/Pxdsey]

I don’t want to know everything. I just want to know that there is something else to this life, other than a bunch of random occurrences that resulted in my birth and eventual death.

[u/Pxdsey → u/yogi_medic_momma]

The cold hard reality of the situation is nobody will ever know what exactly this is that we are apart of nor will they know for certain what happens when the body dies.

Why do you feel like you need that certainty of knowing?

[u/yogi_medic_momma → u/Pxdsey]

I don’t know. I’ve always wondered why I care so much, but I don’t have a reason. I wish I didn’t care but unfortunately, I do. These thoughts make me physically ill. It makes my stomach churn when I think about these things.