What is so frightening about nonexistence?

[SillyBear]

The sole reason fairy tales focused on the "after life" exist are because human beings have an incredibly hard time coming to terms with the fact they just won't exist one day. We're selfish and our brain thinks selfishly, so it's hard to grasp - especially for smaller minded folk.

That's a huge part of the reason religion existed. Along with the need for a patriarchal figure to structure their life. Humans like the sense of order and purpose, so making up a God seems pretty great.

Anyway, being dead will be like before you were born.

 

[FalloutJack]

-Trope'd!-

Non-existence, eh? Never really contemplated it. Didn't have to. I read Descartes. He did all the work for me. Not really what I call a 'fear' thing. Don't really understand how you can be afraid of literally nothing. I thought they told me there was nothing to fear but FEAR itself, not fear to nothing itself. Have you noticed that I'm rambling? I think I'll cut myself sho-

 

[dslatch]

It is less of a fear of nonexistence and more of a fear of the unknown.


(My captcha was upside down wtf)

 

[Chemical Alia]

Who cares. I have nothing to complain about all of those billions of years before I was born, so why should afterward be any different?

 

[Joshua Dragoneyes]

Your nonexistence upon your death should not bother you any more than your nonexistence before birth. Mark Twain said something along these lines...

 

[Custard_Angel]

Existence is preferable to non-existence?

 

[Creator002]

Just that we have no idea what it feels like and can't really fathom the idea of non-existence. That being said, I'm not scared of non-existence. If it has to happen, it has to happen.

 

[Chezza]

The idea bugs me a bit because of several reasons:

- Considering all the good and bad times, I love consciousness, its rewarding. Its real and I do not want to miss out on the fruits of life, especially if I cant sit back and enjoy remembering my life in a place like Heaven (hopefully not hell). Yeah I am a christian, just not a strict one.

- As a christian I like to think all the good decisions people make are not for nothing. Otherwise being selfish is the pragmatic way of life and donating or helping someone without expecting a reward or same treatment simply means your a fool. I sure don't want that to be true. And vise-versa I do not want horrible people to go completely unpunished.

- I like to think our human race is more special than the animals on this planet etc. Would be good to know if we do have souls that either re-exist or enter an afterlife

- Its difficult for me to comprehend why and how the universe exists with its complex life forms, evolution and behavior without a meaning we could theorize, guess or ever find out

So yeah, keeping all those factors in mind I get a bit intimidated by the idea. But I still shake it off quickly by realizing I am still young and assume I have plenty of time before worrying. I wonder if I will have a crisis with it in the future :/

 

[C-Mag]

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 think this is what most people (or at least, atheistic people) imagine when they try to comprehend death. The problem lies that the act of imagining is inherently opposite of death.

For example, try and think of nothingness. You can't, because your mind cannot comprehend such a concept. To our brains, the idea of "nothingness" is downright bizarre. In an attempt to understand it we project what we can understand unto the things we cannot understand and eventually make the assumption that even nothingness is a state of existence. When logic fails we resort to emotions. The conclusion might not be logical but it doesn't matter because you can understand it.

That's the reason right there, except not quite. Because I can and have managed to imagine nothingness. It might be because I'm a really deep person who has never stopped contemplating and exploring ideas with my mind for my entire life, but I did it. I'm only able to do it with great effort, and it only lasts for a few tenths of a second before the mind rejects it, because it is too terrifying to grasp for any serious length of time. It is THAT scary, when I first managed it I lay awake on my bed for five minutes with an elevated heartbeat.

I believe that any atheist who is not afraid of death does not truly understand what it is. Being able to think about nothingness on an intellectual level can only take you so far, your mind has to truly experience it through strict control of a powerful imagination before you can truly understand it.

It can sometimes help to try it on a grander scale. Riddle me this; why is there something rather than nothing. Let that sink in, try to grasp an absence of absolutely everything.... Oh God I did it just then by accident. It manages to be far more terrifying than even death.

Just keep trying, and eventually you may see what I mean.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Its the fear of the unknown I think. But really... I do have to agree that any kind of afterlife would suck. Why?

Well... look at the Christian concept of afterlife for starters (would go into some other examples, but I'm not familiar enough with them to comfortably do so)...

its either eternal happiness or eternal agony.

Both would get incredibly boring after a while. Juxtaposition is what makes life interesting.

Similarly, even if we could sort out the inevitable population control issues associated with true immortality, life would get completely pointless. To quote a character from VTMB... "Life would be stagnant and agonizing, the only emotion would be existing..."

 

[kickyourass]

I guess because nonexistence is foreign to us. Everything we have experienced in our lives, heck, EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of our lives has been nothing but existence. Even those dream worlds that may exist in our minds are in existence, albeit only in our minds.

Nobody has ever experienced nonexistence in their lifetime, as life is nothing but existence, so of course it's a bit difficult to comprehend fully. The idea that the afterlife will be nothing but eternal darkness, except you can't see anything so it won't be darkness and that you won't be experiencing it and... Yeah... It's actually quite a bit to wrap your head around.

Wonderfully put, this is basically why some people think it's scary.

 

[fluffybunny937]

I think they went over this in Hamlet. The "To be, or not to be" speech.

 

[kidd25]

i can't even begin to think of something without a consciousnesses i might be misusing the word here please correct me if i am. consciousnesses is what we are, when we sleep without dreams remember that, but its like your first memory can't remember anything after that. now your stuck like that, not losing consciousnesses but never having it again, not going all black just not there. no colors, no feeling, no thought, no understanding, nothing. you can't even fathom that.
Thank Lord jesus christ, i don't believe in that, but then eternity of life that scares me too
-_-'

 

[AndyFromMonday]

snip

My original post focused mostly on a persons interactions with the unknown and how things we don't understand make us think differently, be it logically or emotionally. I don't want to delve into this discussion but still, I don't believe it's possible to imagine nothingness. Not only do we not have a concrete definition of what nothing "is" but we have never seen it and therefore anything we actually imagine as "nothing" cannot be what it actually is.

 

[Venats]

Conversely, I don't understand why someone would have no reason to seek immortality or at least agelessness.

As much as people talk about how there's nothing to fear in nothingness, why is there something to fear in endlessness? If endlessness is truly endless, then there will never be a lack of something new.

To each his own, I guess.

 

[C-Mag]

snip

My original post focused mostly on a persons interactions with the unknown and how things we don't understand make us think differently, be it logically or emotionally. I don't want to delve into this discussion but still, I don't believe it's possible to imagine nothingness. Not only do we not have a concrete definition of what nothing "is" but we have never seen it and therefore anything we actually imagine as "nothing" cannot be what it actually is.

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.

Conversely, I don't understand why someone would have no reason to seek immortality or at least agelessness.

As much as people talk about how there's nothing to fear in nothingness, why is there something to fear in endlessness? If endlessness is truly endless, then there will never be a lack of something new.

To each his own, I guess.

AHA! A fellow spirit!

 

[squeekenator]

I find the idea of eternal life far worse. Sure, maybe heaven would be nice for the first hundred years. Maybe the first thousand, the first million, the first billion even. But what about the next hundred trillion years after that? And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And after all that time? You still haven't even lived out a fraction of a percent of eternity, because it's eternity. Sooner or later you'll have done literally everything you can derive enjoyment from so many times you won't enjoy them any more, and after that? Another hundred trillion years. And another. And another. And another. And another. Eternal life is the single worst fate anyone could be subject to. At least every other form of punishment actually ends.

- As a christian I like to think all the good decisions people make are not for nothing. Otherwise being selfish is the pragmatic way of life and donating or helping someone without expecting a reward or same treatment simply means your a fool. I sure don't want that to be true. And vise-versa I do not want horrible people to go completely unpunished.

But isn't that what makes it the right thing to do? You do good because you want to do good and because you care about others, not because you want to be rewarded. Doing the right thing because you get something out of it is just selfishness in disguise, and being a good person is/should be its own reward.

 

[Venats]

I find the idea of eternal life far worse. Sure, maybe heaven would be nice for the first hundred years. Maybe the first thousand, the first million, the first billion even. But what about the next hundred trillion years after that? And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the next. And after all that time? You still haven't even lived out a fraction of a percent of eternity, because it's eternity. Sooner or later you'll have done literally everything you can derive enjoyment from so many times you won't enjoy them any more, and after that? Another hundred trillion years. And another. And another. And another. And another. Eternal life is the single worst fate anyone could be subject to. At least every other form of punishment actually ends.

How can you say that with any more certainty than the opposite option? You've never experience either, and by the nature of time and its steady march forward is that everything, every single thing, changes. Nothing is ever the same from the last moment to the next, that is the whole beauty of the universe. If life were to suddenly stop moving with time, then you'd have a point but that's hardly true. Just as you go through your life discovering new things (that you may have missed or that come up as you live but hadn't existed before) so can you do the same thing with an eternal amount of time.

Otherwise, I ask you, what's going to keep you alive through your ~hundred years of standard life? Things you find fun are only fun for a few years at best. Do you still dig holes like you did when you were two? Are you still playing the same game from 1987 on DOS?

 

[squeekenator]

How can you say that with any more certainty than the opposite option? You've never experience either, and by the nature of time and its steady march forward is that everything, every single thing, changes. Nothing is ever the same from the last moment to the next, that is the whole beauty of the universe. If life were to suddenly stop moving with time, then you'd have a point but that's hardly true. Just as you go through your life discovering new things (that you may have missed or that come up as you live but hadn't existed before) so can you do the same thing with an eternal amount of time.

Otherwise, I ask you, what's going to keep you alive through your ~hundred years of standard life? Things you find fun are only fun for a few years at best. Do you still dig holes like you did when you were two? Are you still playing the same game from 1987 on DOS?

I can't say it with any sort of certainty, of course, but I assume that goes without saying when we're discussing our preferences in afterlifes. Yes, things will change and new things will appear. But eventually I'd grow tired of games. It might not happen in my ~hundred years of standard life, but in an infinite amount of time? Absolutely. So I'd turn to my other hobbies, spend some time playing D&D maybe, but eventually sitting around a table pretending to be Sir Robert of Bob will grow old. Eventually every feasible permutation of every movie idea will have been made enough times that they're boring now, and the same goes for every other work of fiction. Eventually I'll have discussed and argued about over the internet everything there is to discuss or argue about, and I'll be tired of it.

New things can be invented or created, yes, but even now we're starting to see that they tend to just be a new spin on an old idea. Eventually, everything will have been already done. It may take billions of years, but eventually eternal life would start to get boring. Heck, maybe billions is too small an estimate. 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.