【Nothingness】A Thread to Seriously Discuss the World After Death

[1] Nothingness

[2] “Nothingness” is pretty profound, isn’t it?

• [6] Good morning. How was your life as XX? How about a life like this next?

[15] >>6 That’s not death in the first place.

• [22] >>15 If the place you reach beyond the “death” that exists in this world is like that, wouldn’t you call it the world after death?
• [8] Should we really talk about nothingness in terms of time passing?

[14] >>8 Because a sense of time is essential for living beings to contemplate it.

• [13] Are only humans subject to reincarnation? What about dogs, cats, or amoebas?

[19] >>13 Basically, it’s just a convenient delusion created by humans.

• [20] >>13 Everything is subject to it. We humans just think about it this way because we have intelligence. If we become a mouse in the next life, we just live with what that mouse has. The soul has neither intelligence nor emotions.
• [563] >>20 What about aliens? Higher-dimensional beings? Plants?
• [578] >>563 I don’t know about aliens or higher-dimensional beings, but wouldn’t you say that’s what we can perceive on Earth? However, since there’s quite a bit of variance even among us, perhaps higher-dimensional beings are included too.
• [16] Being “something” is the rare state, so nothingness is only natural.
• [18] Weren’t we nothingness for all that time before we were born? We just return to that state.

[24] >>18 Before birth and after death are different, you know. The experience of going from “something” to “nothingness” is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event.

• [36] >>18 Exactly.
• [21] Oh no, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.
• [23] Consciousness is merely the sum total of electrical signals. When brain activity ceases, we feel nothing. Nothingness.
• [27] Isn’t it just that consciousness gets divided and resides in different life forms?
• [29] People who’ve had near-death experiences know.

[38] >>29 Near-death experiencers are still among the living, after all.

[32] An equation I arrived at in elementary school: Nothingness → Universe → Nothingness → ? Then Nothingness → Me → Nothingness → ?

• [33] Memories will be lost, but we’ll probably become human again many times over. Unless we’re just cleverly programmed machines.
• [34] It’s pretty cruel, isn’t it? Whatever created humans gave us brains capable of perceiving the world and thinking about the future, only to make us experience the terror of death.
• [35] Aren’t you thinking too much with humans at the center of everything? What happens to other creatures?
• [40] >>35 Equally nothingness.

[50] >>35 Given that humans excel outstandingly in the ability to think among countless creatures, confronting the question of death on behalf of all life is, well, practically a duty.

• [41] Dying is scary, truly…
• [318] >>41 It’s interesting that even that feeling is deeply ingrained in our DNA from ancient times as a survival instinct.
• [342] >>318 Someone mentioned something like babies cry at night because they can’t yet distinguish between sleeping and dying. I thought, maybe that’s true.
• [42] How do the reincarnation believers interpret the rapid increase in population?
• [71] >>42 The universe isn’t just one, you know. Many exist side-by-side. In other words, different worlds.
• [43] Well, I think it’s nothingness. Humans are just animals, after all.
• [47] Rebirth is probably true, right? But of course, babies are born without any memories, so you have to ask if that idea even has any meaning.

[84] >>47 You might say that based on the law of conservation of mass, but there’s no trace of the original organism left anywhere.

• [48] The theory that newborns retain past life memories for a certain period, but the brain deletes them deeming them unnecessary.
• [49] But why do we have a self (ego)? It’s strange.
• [62] >>49 To maintain self-unity, and as a code of conduct, generally speaking.
• [51] You casually say “nothingness,” but if you really think about it, it’s enough to drive you mad.
• [72] >>51 True, when you think about it, it means there’s no end. It’s starting to feel incredibly scary.
• [53] Does something like a soul have mass?
• [76] >>53 If you interpret ego as soul, then the soul has no physical substance.
• [87] >>53 No. Apparently, the atoms composing the body are exactly the same whether dead or alive.
• [55] Eternal nothingness is too terrifying.
• [61] If it were scientifically proven what actually happens after death – whether it leads to heaven, hell, something else, or absolute nothingness, etc. – would the number of suicides increase, or decrease?
• [73] >>61 It would increase. The fear of death is fear of the unknown. If the details of the afterlife and related matters became clear and certain, the fear would diminish.
• [105] >>73 In cultures where reincarnation is deeply rooted, people seem to commit suicide relatively easily, so if what happens after death is known (or believed), it seems suicides do increase.
• [90] >>61 There’s no such thing as an afterlife. This world is thoroughly materialistic.
• [115] >>90 As mentioned in the example, if it really is “nothingness,” suicides would likely skyrocket. I’m okay now, but I’m not sure how I’ll feel in the future.
• [68] I kind of believe this world is a virtual reality. You start to see it if you study things like particle physics.
• [75] >>68 The hypothesis that hints of a meta-world exist somewhere is kinda fun.
• [80] It’s gotta be nothingness. You just become something else. Whether it’s in this universe or not, who knows.
• [85] It’s interesting how concepts like this life, the next life, and reincarnation are so ingrained. Is the present really that unpleasant?
• [131] >>85 Even people without religious faith casually talk about “If I were reborn as…” as a normal topic. Objectively, it’s quite strange, I think.
• [93] I wish we could exist just as souls without bodies. No need for food, clothing, shelter, or labor, no excretion or cleaning, no accidents.
• [111] >>93 Well, perhaps that would be one form of an afterlife.
• [116] >>93 A higher-dimensional world.
• [132] >>116 I firmly believe higher dimensions exist, even if we can’t perceive them, and I think that’s probably the final destination for the soul.
• [98] Believing in something uncertain like a next life… must be nice to be so carefree.
• [144] >>98 I think even if past or future lives exist, if memories aren’t carried over, you’re born in a different place, your family are different people, your gender and appearance are different… that’s just a completely different person, isn’t it?
• [164] >>144 Exactly this. If consciousness isn’t continuous, reincarnation is meaningless.
• [172] >>164 People receiving punishment in the next life for sins of a past life… that’s just too pitiful, right?
• [100] If there’s a period of being “alive” within some vast expanse of time, the time spent “dead” is longer, so that’s the more normal state, isn’t it?
• [103] If the universe is infinite, like how the same sequence of digits eventually reappears in an infinitely long irrational number, maybe within the infinite arrangement of material atoms, an atomic arrangement forming my consciousness could be reproduced. The problem is, would that reproduced me have identity with the current me?
• [117] >>103 Wouldn’t it? It’s ultimately the same principle as monkeys eventually typing Shakespeare, right?
• [106] Is there only one universe? It’d be interesting if it were a multiverse.
• [108] If consciousness and memories could be copied onto a storage medium, allowing thought via a brain-mimicking CPU, would that still be “me”?
• [121] >>108 If you think it is, and others acknowledge it as such, then that’s the reality.
• [110] People say nothingness is scary because it has no end, but I don’t get it. Life doesn’t have an end as long as you’re living it, yet we manage somehow, don’t we?
• [118] Nothingness is the only possibility. Claiming souls or spirits exist is like saying that when a PC breaks, the data separates and lingers right there.
• [124] >>118 Being alive is just a phenomenon of that moment. It’s no different from all the parts of a PC working correctly.
• [122] Does something like a soul really exist?
• [135] >>122 If soul = consciousness, then it definitely exists, right?
• [170] >>135 I’m thinking of soul and consciousness as separate things. Like, a perfect android copy of a human would have consciousness, but no soul. But then the question is, what the heck is a soul?
• [189] >>170 Right? What even is a soul unrelated to consciousness?
• [217] >>189 Maybe it’s just a human delusion, wanting to believe in an absolute personality separate from the body. Like a unique soul that only emerges when consciousness and body align.
• [123] If there were an afterlife, would we live there forever?
• [125] Assuming an afterlife exists, I can’t imagine there’d be matter there, so it probably just seems like an infinite expanse of empty space.
• [127] Does anyone remember anything before they were born? You don’t, right? It feels like you suddenly had a sense of self around age 3, and when you die, it’s nothingness.
• [128] When you die, doesn’t the consciousness perceived right at the end become that person’s eternity? If you die peacefully surrounded by family, it’s heaven; if you die alone in pain, it’s hell?
• [140] >>128 That’s just wishful thinking from those left behind, hoping their loved ones went to heaven and they can meet them when they die.
• [175] >>140 That’s completely wrong. That’s not what I meant at all.
• [153] >>128 Oops, I misspoke. I meant to say, isn’t “the consciousness constructed from the last perceived information” at the moment of death that person’s eternity? Since no new information enters the brain after that. The idea is that the “individual consciousness” freezes at that moment. Time flows in the physical world, but the dead person remains stopped there forever, in my image.
• [168] >>153 Everything that constituted you disappears, so there’s no way such a will could remain.
• [194] >>168 Of course, it doesn’t remain. But I think everyone knows from experience that consciousness isn’t perfectly synchronized with real time. Sometimes it feels very fast, or incredibly slow during an accident. If such a temporally ambiguous “consciousness” is just continuous perception, then from the person’s perspective, the moment of death becomes eternal. That’s the idea.

[129] Thinking romantically, if we define the time before the universe’s birth as “nothingness” simply because we “don’t know,” then perhaps “afterlife = nothingness” also implies something might “exist” there.

• [133] Someone once said, “When people die, don’t they just return to the state before they were born? Death is scary because we don’t know it.” That person is dead now, though.
• [157] >>133 This is it. We just return to the nothingness before birth.
• [134] It’s nothingness. No consciousness, so no perception either. It’s like being permanently unconscious.
• [137] Knowing you’ll 100% absolutely die is scary, isn’t it?
• [146] Man, life is tough right now, but I can’t bring myself to die because it might be even tougher after death.
• [147] >>146 That’s how it is for everyone.
• [167] >>146 If you die, you feel nothing. For those living a life of suffering, death is salvation.
• [173] >>167 I wonder… From our living perspective, it just looks like they aren’t feeling anything, right?
• [190] >>173 Only the dead know for sure. Nothing a living person says is convincing.
• [158] If there were an afterlife, wouldn’t everyone who has died since humanity began be there?
• [165] >>158 Actually, there are more humans alive today than the total number of humans who have ever died since humanity began.
• [179] >>158 If reincarnation is real, I think there’s a single, giant ocean of souls in some other dimension or world. Droplets jump out from there into living beings, and return to the ocean upon death. So there’s no capacity limit, and it won’t overflow.
• [162] I often wonder if other people actually have consciousness like I do.
• [176] >>162 That’s a bit too extreme, don’t you think…?
• [181] >>176 There are quite a few philosophers who are solipsists, you know.
• [188] >>162 Everyone but you is a robot.
• [206] >>162 There’s also the concept of philosophical zombies. Though that applies to oneself too, so it’s a bit different from just wondering about others.
• [185] But humans and animals instinctively avoid death, right? It must be a pretty terrifying place.
• [193] >>185 We’re just afraid because we don’t know. It’s not fear of something terrifying. They’re similar but different.
• [195] >>185 Isn’t it just that organisms that didn’t fear death or pain went extinct?
• [210] >>185 Isn’t the instinctive fear more about death itself than the afterlife? Fearing something like hell is more of a cultural thing.
• [245] >>185 That’s too scary…
• [200] I don’t believe in the afterlife at all, but you know how sometimes there are kids, like in America, who talk about past life memories in incredible detail? And it matches perfectly with the memories of that person. I wonder what that’s all about.

[216] If I were given a terminal diagnosis, I’d want to be put into cryogenic sleep on a spaceship traveling near light speed and released. I want to use the Urashima effect to return to the world of science pushed to humanity’s limits in the far, far future. Sounds like a plausible business in the distant future, eh?

The “Urashima effect” is a colloquial term in Japan for time dilation in special relativity, derived from the Japanese folktale “Urashima Tarō.”

• [223] Maybe someone was sent from the meta-world to teach us the truth, but they’re just being ignored with people thinking, “Who is this person?”
• [229] Humans are the kind of creatures that think about useless things like this; looking at Earth’s history, we’ll probably go extinct soon anyway.
• [230] What is death, does the soul exist… thinking about this stuff really makes my head spin. Oh yeah, weren’t there some great figures in the past who claimed they could communicate with the dead via telepathy or something?
• [242] >>230 Modern great figures like Master Okawa can also do Itako channeling.

• “Itako” are female mediums primarily from the Tōhoku region of Japan, believed to channel the spirits of the dead and speak their words.*

• [255] Isn’t what comes after death scary? Even after we die, the universe will keep ticking on for tens, hundreds of billions of years. Where’s the end? Where will we be during all that time? Can we never be born again? It’s too terrifying.

[284] >>255 Nothingness is not even feeling that immense passage of time.

• [302] >>284 Maybe so after death, but while we’re alive, it’s scary…
• [524] >>255 I get this because it scares me too.
• [270] Something like this would be fine.

• [273] The theory that human memories are backed up somewhere.
• [276] Maybe when you die, you’re told, “Alright, keep your current life’s experience points, it’s time for Stage 2.”
• [287] >>276 Yeah, like, “Next up is the 4th dimension.”
• [317] >>287 Exactly lol. Like the early clear bonus for Stage 1 is insane.
• [298] You know how if you ask kids around 3 years old about before they were born, they all say they were up in the sky and chose their mother?