What is so frightening about nonexistence?

[The_End]

Most, if not all beliefs of the afterlife are frightening to an extent.
Nonexistence: Frightening because it's impossible for people to imagine nothingness. If people imagine a world where they didn't exist they see it through their eyes, if they imagine nothingness they imagine complete blackness, whiteness or a color they associate with nothingness and they are completely aware of themsevles. Also most people don't leave a huge mark on the world so it would be like you never existed at all; i mean how many people actually remember who their great great great great great great great grandfather was?
Reincarnation: An endless cycle of life and death. Even if you couldn't remember your past lives it is still frightening to some.
Heaven & Hell (depends on your beliefs)
Hell 1: Eternal torture
Hell 2: Basically nonexistence except you're aware for the rest of eternity.
Heaven 1: A place where you're more or less forced to be happy for all eternity.
Heaven 2: A paradise where all your wishes come true, but living in paradise for an eternity would become quite boring.

 

[I Max95]

i have long since stopped thinkin about stuff like that too much
it doesnt scare me very much

i beleive there is an afterlife simply because of the idea that matter and energy cannot be completely destroyed, only recycled

but regardless of any of that i know one thing for certain, when we die our lives before will cease to matter

whether we fade into nothing, recincarnate as someone else, or live on in a new form who we are now will mean nothing to us

and im not afraid of that, in fact i take comfort in it
there is no hell, or judgement, or a god we need to fear

there is just our time, and what we choose to do with it

 

[Venats]

Maybe it takes a million billion trillion quadrillion years for every form of entertainment out there to be old and dull, every new idea to just be an old one that's been done a million times already. But it will happen, particularly with everyone who's ever lived all in one place with nothing to do but look for new ways of keeping themselves occupied. And once it does happen, you still have eternity ahead of you.

I'll consolidate to just the above quote since I can build off of it to answer the rest.

My problem with what you are saying is that you are giving time its endlessness but you give possibility (as a word for what can be) limits. Why? Why is there a limit to anything when time goes towards infinity? There is a possibility that outside the bounds of our 'known universe' that the rules of physics themselves no longer exist as we know them: that could take you a trillion years to just learn all about and master. Then beyond that? And beyond that? Just study the history of a million planets, watch as it unfolds before you (you are immortal, after all), how many of them will be identical? How many permutations can you achieve for systems of millions, billions, or even trillions of units? (Effectively, an infinite number of units need to be taken into account so long as life continues to exist in the universe.)

Why do ideas have to be limited? Yes, just about everything is a build on something old but permutations approach infinity as complexity increases. In an infinite time you can push level of complexity towards an infinite. That is even assuming that, for some reason, no one will ever again have a new thought to revolutionize something or other.

As it is often said in Physics: The more you know, the more you realize how much more there is to know. (Or some variation of that.)

 

[squeekenator]

My problem with what you are saying is that you are giving time its endlessness but you give possibility (as a word for what can be) limits. Why? Why is there a limit to anything when time goes towards infinity? There is a possibility that outside the bounds of our 'known universe' that the rules of physics themselves no longer exist as we know them: that could take you a trillion years to just learn all about and master. Then beyond that? And beyond that? Just study the history of a million planets, watch as it unfolds before you (you are immortal, after all), how many of them will be identical? How many permutations can you achieve for systems of millions, billions, or even trillions of units? (Effectively, an infinite number of units need to be taken into account so long as life continues to exist in the universe.)

Why do ideas have to be limited? Yes, just about everything is a build on something old but permutations approach infinity as complexity increases. In an infinite time you can push level of complexity towards an infinite. That is even assuming that, for some reason, no one will ever again have a new thought to revolutionize something or other.

As it is often said in Physics: The more you know, the more you realize how much more there is to know. (Or some variation of that.)

Okay, perhaps you can spend a trillion years learning about these strange new laws of physics, then you can spend the rest of the lifetime of the universe observing everything that goes on, then many times that learning the histories of everything you didn't have time to observe. And you still won't have lived out the tiniest fraction of an eternity. You'll have exhausted this huge amount of fascinating stuff, sure, but you've still got all of eternity ahead of you. It doesn't matter how much there is to learn, as long as it's a finite amount it's all for naught. And I don't know about you, but I'm probably going to get bored of learning about yet another lump of rock in some insignificant corner of the universe just after a few months.

Yes, there will be revolutionary new ideas. Then they will get old. Yes, there are a potentially infinite number of variations on an idea, but only a finite number that are different enough to be truly considered different. Even if that wasn't the case, even if there were an infinite variety of properly different movies to watch, you're going to get bored of watching movies, and once that happens it does't matter how many there are. Maybe you'll get a renewed interest in them a hundred years later, but, in my experience at least, a renewed interest is never as long-lasting or passionate as it was before. Maybe you like extreme sports, but there's only so many times you can hurtle down a mountain at ridiculous speeds before it becomes dull, even if you do invent new ways of doing it.

 

[Venats]

Okay, perhaps you can spend a trillion years learning about these strange new laws of physics, then you can spend the rest of the lifetime of the universe observing everything that goes on, then many times that learning the histories of everything you didn't have time to observe. And you still won't have lived out the tiniest fraction of an eternity. You'll have exhausted this huge amount of fascinating stuff, sure, but you've still got all of eternity ahead of you. It doesn't matter how much there is to learn, as long as it's a finite amount it's all for naught. And I don't know about you, but I'm probably going to get bored of learning about yet another lump of rock in some insignificant corner of the universe just after a few months.

Again, I ask, why are you assigning finality/limits to the universe? The whole point of what I am saying to you is that there are no known limits to the universe, to life, or to possibility. Also, you are over simplifying what "our physics no longer works" means to everything, to your very understanding of reality, or to you in general. We are not talking about studying a rock, we are speaking completely alien understandings of everything; radical thought that to us would make no sense, no matter how intelligent/capable we may be in our physics. Imagine the fourth dimension (try envisioning a cube as its four dimensional counterpart), the fifth, etc. Read up on Many Worlds Theory, see why there is an endless sea of possibility (even if you want to limit the universe by some strange manner).

Yes, there will be revolutionary new ideas. Then they will get old. Yes, there are a potentially infinite number of variations on an idea, but only a finite number that are different enough to be truly considered different. Even if that wasn't the case, even if there were an infinite variety of properly different movies to watch, you're going to get bored of watching movies, and once that happens it does't matter how many there are. Maybe you'll get a renewed interest in them a hundred years later, but, in my experience at least, a renewed interest is never as long-lasting or passionate as it was before. Maybe you like extreme sports, but there's only so many times you can hurtle down a mountain at ridiculous speeds before it becomes dull, even if you do invent new ways of doing it.

You miss the point: if there are an infinite number of stories to be told, why would/could there not be an infinite number of media for them to be told through. Hundred years ago no one would have believed you that you could watch a story unfold on a big screen. No one would have believed you fifty years ago if you told them the epics of today's gaming world would exist. This goes on and on, so long as someone seeks to find a new way to tell a story.

You are stuck on allowing somethings to go to infinity while arbitrarily limiting others.

 

[Deacon Cole]

I cannot even conceive of anything more horrible than an afterlife. I like that one day I will end. I look forward to it. Afterlife concepts are usually wed to some version of paradise or eternal happiness. This only exposes the childish lie of it. It's like an article I had once read where the author noted that historians who would say they'd like to live during a given period in history actually meant they wanted to be part of the wealthy elite rather than the poor working schlubs. That's what heaven is, only worse. It's transparent fantasy. But even past that, just continuing on forever. I don't even care what happens next. Just the thought of eternal life just crushes me like a weight. Such a horrid concept. They should kill whoever thought it up.

 

[Mikkaddo]

I was wikiwalking on a certain hazardously readable website when I found this in the Real-Life section of the Fridge Horror page:

Take a moment to imagine that there is no afterlife. That there are no souls. That means that after you die... nothing. Absolutely nothing. And even if you get that, it's almost as if you still think you'll be living or you'll get another life. But what if you don't? Then it's literally NOTHING left. When this hits you, it's one of the scariest feelings you can ever have. And the fact that most people on this site are already in their 20s, 30s, 40s etc, it feels like time has flown by and your already half-way through your life. Then take in account the fact that people constantly die from unnatural causes.

I don't understand this fear. There are so many ways that being conscious for eternity could be worse (remember the mind-prison in KOTOR?), even in an afterlife that starts out pretty nice. To me it sounds not much different than the timeless, thoughtless state one is in between closing one's eyes and opening them a few moments later, only to realize that 5 or so hours have passed. What's so bad about that?

Anybody have thoughts on this?

EDIT: Reading further on the page, there seem to be a lot of things that people worry about too much or for strange reasons. Getting scared into veganism from the realization that you're made of meat as well? Isn't that like being afraid of nuclear fission because you're all atoms too?

The fear isn't the nonexistance itself, but the fact that:

if you die and stop existing, did you ever exist? and if death means nonexistance, did ANYTHING you EVER did or accomplished mean anything? did you really leave a legacy if you don't exist anymore? that's what scares people. That's what scares me, I want to leave a legacy . . . whether a child or something else, I want to have a living memory . . . some mark on history other than a gravestone and a few pictures on the internet. I don't believe I'll stop existing after death, but I believe that if you are forgotten after death, you might as well no longer exist.

 

[Kintobor92]

Exactly. It isn't possible to imagine nothingness, or a life without consciousness. The very definition of consciousness is a state in which you are aware.

While I'm sure you're right that people are afraid of it simply because it's foreign to us, I would guess it's more that people are scared of the meaninglessness they feel life would be without an afterlife of some sort. Which is also a reason many people are religious.

OP, you may be interested to look at some Eastern thought, if you aren't familiar with it. Their religions often embrace a kind of nothingness or void. Sometimes they have it basically in place of Christian heaven. Just an interesting side note.

 

[FernandoV]

I was wikiwalking on a certain hazardously readable website when I found this in the Real-Life section of the Fridge Horror page:

Take a moment to imagine that there is no afterlife. That there are no souls. That means that after you die... nothing. Absolutely nothing. And even if you get that, it's almost as if you still think you'll be living or you'll get another life. But what if you don't? Then it's literally NOTHING left. When this hits you, it's one of the scariest feelings you can ever have. And the fact that most people on this site are already in their 20s, 30s, 40s etc, it feels like time has flown by and your already half-way through your life. Then take in account the fact that people constantly die from unnatural causes.

I don't understand this fear. There are so many ways that being conscious for eternity could be worse (remember the mind-prison in KOTOR?), even in an afterlife that starts out pretty nice. To me it sounds not much different than the timeless, thoughtless state one is in between closing one's eyes and opening them a few moments later, only to realize that 5 or so hours have passed. What's so bad about that?

Anybody have thoughts on this?

EDIT: Reading further on the page, there seem to be a lot of things that people worry about too much or for strange reasons. Getting scared into veganism from the realization that you're made of meat as well? Isn't that like being afraid of nuclear fission because you're all atoms too?

The only thing that I can say about nonexistence is that it sort've puts into perspective how the things we're proud of doing in our life didn't mean anything. I'm not under any delusion that we're all unique snowflakes that have a lasting impact on the world but I do assign personal importance to things I do, I like it that way.

 

[jack583]

i'm a christian and i believe in god as well as heaven and hell.
but i'll admit i have no physical proof.
so, personaly speaking, i'm not worried if i'm right or wrong.
because no one knows what happens after we die.
we have no way of knowing if anything does happen after our meat shells stop moving.
and the ones that do know won't be able tell the rest of us.

i have my faith, and this will never change, but i'm looking forward to knowing exactly what happens.
but that will happen soon enough, there is no stopping it, and as long as it's completely out of my hands, then i see no reason to worry about it.
so untill that day comes, i'll see what i can do here.

 

[Yoshisummons]

Irrational behavior stemming from chemical impulses that were triggered by your subconscious with the thought of failing the prime directive getting you down?

Spoiler

Nope!

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Everybody else said it better than I could so, um, I'll come up with something else. Nonexistence has a scary looking nose. Yeah, I'm the pinnacle of thought around here...

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Perhaps 'imagine' is the wrong word. No language is really built to describe a lack of experience. It may be more accurate to say that I managed to get some kind of weird duality going on where I managed to experience non-experience.... Like I said, VERY hard to describe, but it is very different from both normal imagination and conceptualizing nothingness on an intellectual level. It is strange, alien, and batshit terrifying, because it is the complete antithesis of everything you are.

Either way, we sort of deviated from my original point. People are afraid of what they can't understand.

 

[smithy_2045]

I don't find it frightening at all.

 

[Alexnader]

I think part of the problem is a misunderstanding of the premise. From what I've seen, it's incredibly common for people to interpret 'nothing after death' as 'your consciousness still exists and for the rest of eternity you have nothing to occupy your still lingering mind', as opposed to the idea that you simply cease to exist. But even that has a degree of fear that it inspires. Think of the general fear of death. Same idea, often the same rationale. Except in the case of oblivion it's even more permanent.

I'd prefer being stuck in a state of nothingness with just blackness. Anything over oblivion. To exist is the ultimate goal.

I am frankly amazed at the number of people who aren't terrified by the idea that this brief time we have on earth is all we get. Beyond that there is nothing at all, you don't even realise there's nothing. You just stop, forever.

Part of it is the fear of the unknown but most of it is the fervent need I have to be alive.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Well, why wouldn't it be frightening? I really enjoy to exist, you know.

 

[McMullen]

The fear isn't the nonexistance itself, but the fact that:

if you die and stop existing, did you ever exist? and if death means nonexistance, did ANYTHING you EVER did or accomplished mean anything? did you really leave a legacy if you don't exist anymore? that's what scares people. That's what scares me, I want to leave a legacy . . . whether a child or something else, I want to have a living memory . . . some mark on history other than a gravestone and a few pictures on the internet. I don't believe I'll stop existing after death, but I believe that if you are forgotten after death, you might as well no longer exist.

Fair enough, but given that the universe will probably eventually be a uniform field of thermal noise, all legacies are temporary anyway. I figure that, like most things, in fact nearly everything, the significance of a life is not the beginning or ending state, but all the complexity that happens between those points. I see no value in building a legacy, but I see a lot of value in building a life full of cherished memories.

 

[Brandon237]

The idea of not experiencing, feeling, doing BEING, is the most absolutely horrifying thing to me, worse than the biblical hell, pain is SOMETHING, to not even think permanently, I don't like that idea, not one bit.