I mean, it wouldn’t be strange if there’s an afterlife, right?

[1] We haven’t unraveled the mysteries of the universe at all, and life itself is still just a mystery. Nobody has any way of knowing what’s going on in realms beyond the reach of modern science.

• [3] Real reality begins after you die.
• [4] I wish there was, but probably not.
• [6] If you view the universe as a giant organism, we get incorporated into a part of it and reincarnate.
• [7] I don’t even wish there was one. Do people normally want there to be? It’s fine if there isn’t, really.
• [12] I was perplexed by the conclusion in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s movie ‘Pulse’, which was something like, “Being a ghost is better because at least you’re not lonely.”

[13] For example, even if there’s an order established by current science right here, there might be a completely different order in the far reaches of the universe or beyond. From our current perspective, that would be utter chaos, but if the key to life lies within that chaos, then the very meaning of the phenomenon we perceive as death becomes ambiguous. That’s what I’m trying to say.

• [18] I have tons of regrets in this life, so I want my consciousness to continue after death.
• [20] It’s horrible to think you can’t even be at peace after dying.

[21] If you stand inside any chaos, you can find order. What we see as order might look like chaos from the outside, and vice versa. At the edge of the universe, maybe the chaos where common sense doesn’t apply is the order. If death is what connects our order with the order of the afterlife, then death might literally be a departure. Does anyone else think this far?

• [23] Everyone inevitably experiences it, and compared to the universe, it’s so much closer to us, so why hasn’t it been figured out?
• [24] Isn’t it because it’s irreversible?
• [26] Well, even if it’s just hallucinations right before death, unusual things are still happening, so it’s worth investigating.
• [29] You become the first living thing you killed. Probably a mite.
• [33] I don’t mind if there’s nothing after death, but what’s scary is not knowing the true nature of this situation right now, where something exists.
• [38] After death, the pain you felt at the moment of death continues forever. Please, anything but that.
• [41] Death is salvation.
• [42] >>41 Yeah, right? If there is such a thing as an afterlife, nobody can possibly say what form it might take.
• [65] There is an afterlife. I’ve seen it.
• [66] I’m also in the ‘no afterlife’ camp, but since I think death encompasses life, if we assume there’s an afterlife, I think this world is it. Maybe it’s just a difference in how we observe it?
• [90] Well, since there was a world before birth, there must be a world after death, right?
• [91] I mean, this world right now could be the afterlife for all we know.
• [94] Your consciousness disappears when you die, so how can you recognize an afterlife? In a way, maybe that is the afterlife.
• [97] Idealism, huh? As a materialist, I doubt we’ll see eye to eye.
• [105] >>97 Even among materialists, some look for basis in quantum mechanics (no need to start talking about how faster-than-light communication is impossible, it’s not me saying this) or consider post-mortem survival beyond physical gaps. Oversimplification isn’t good.
• [98] I could argue for the survival of consciousness after brain death or the rationality of out-of-body experiences, but it’s too much hassle, so I won’t.

[101] >>98 Wow, you seem to know a lot about this stuff.

• [102] >>98 Did consciousness exist before birth?
• [117] >>102 Don’t ask about my subjective experience, okay? According to materialism, consciousness should emerge after the 20th week. Well, since the formation of the ego happens around age 2 after birth, maybe it’s better to say from around age 2. However, the idea that memories before age 3 are false memories reconstructed from surrounding information is also considered quite plausible, so there’s some truth to that too. When it comes to occult topics, this field is familiar with past life research through hypnotherapy and Ian Stevenson’s research on reincarnation. In other words, the reincarnation hypothesis is stronger in this field than the afterlife hypothesis (though reincarnation often doesn’t address what happens at the end of infinite regression). Anyway, a lot of past life regression therapy has been done, and interestingly, nobles and royalty don’t make up the majority. Most are farmers, which could be considered somewhat significant evidence. The counterargument is, well, aren’t the people undergoing hypnotherapy already believers in past lives? Didn’t they just make it up on the spot in their brain? Ian Stevenson’s research has collected quite a few cases, and books are published in Japan too, but the lack of reliability is a drawback. However, the fact that reincarnation data has been gathered across many cultures (even Christian ones) could be considered reasonable evidence. Oh, and I just remembered, there are also claims of encountering babies yet to be born in the afterlife. Like there were many babies and beings protecting them. But there’s no objective evidence for this.
• [111] >>98 Have you heard of the AWARE Project led by a doctor named Sam Parnia, which tries to verify out-of-body experiences?
• [123] >>111 I’ve heard the name, but similar phenomena to OBEs can be physically induced by stimulating the brain’s limbic system. Well, I haven’t heard stories from people who’ve had their limbic system removed, and one could argue the limbic system acts as an antenna, but in that case, it becomes a very materialistic argument.

[104] By the way, does anyone actually understand what I’m talking about? I mean, it’s ultimately about how we just don’t know, right?

• [106] >>104 I get that the physical body becomes other matter and remains in this universe, but there’s no consciousness or anything, right?
• [112] >>104 We feel like we age over time, but maybe from an outside perspective, we are generated from the earth and return to our original materials.
• [119] Just like how the Earth was moving, not the heavens, perhaps our consciousness isn’t moving either.

[120] Honestly, I sometimes think the universe might be inside consciousness. Maybe the chaos of the unconscious is the chaos of the universe itself. If you think about it that way, the relationship between consciousness and the universe suddenly clicks together.

• [122] I understand that memories get rewritten by experience, but I don’t see the connection between that and consciousness before birth.
• [124] >>122 Isn’t the vessel (= our body/existence) just automatically moving towards the apparent past?
• [126] >>122 It’s natural that discussions about when consciousness arose bring up the validity of memory. More information is desirable for maintaining objectivity. If you want, I can also talk about the Christian debates on the formation of the soul. Though my memory gets hazy around there.
• [127] >>126 No, that’s not what I mean. Okay, for example, where is the consciousness of someone who will be born in 2040 right now?
• [130] >>127 How would I know? I believe in the validity of agnosticism. I even believe it’s possible that God could burst through the ceiling and say, ‘Surprise! It was all a Truman Show!’ I’m not a believer, you know? So, while I can say what I can say now, the foundation isn’t there, so how could I possibly talk about applications?
• [136] Heaven and hell feel like the just-world hypothesis, don’t they? Maybe you go to hell for doing good and heaven for doing bad.
• [139] I’m always thinking about what happens after death.
• [142] Maybe our understanding of the afterlife is different. Of course, there probably isn’t a heaven like in manga, but from my living perspective, 100 years from now is the afterlife for me. My consciousness won’t exist then, though.
• [148] Can’t deny things like the five-minute hypothesis either. That’s different from thinking it’s impossible.
• [177] There are reports of 2-year-olds suddenly talking about sights they shouldn’t have seen or historical figures they’ve never met or seen, so it seems like some kind of world might exist.
• [181] [3-Year-Old Boy Identifies Murderer from Past Life Memory – Is Reincarnation Real?] A 3-year-old boy with memories of a past life identified the person who killed his former self. An axe and remains were found at the location the boy specified. https://the-liberty.com/article.php?item_id=9996 Articles like this make me want to believe in an afterlife or reincarnation.
• [194] I want to go for drinks with someone I can talk about this stuff with. And just debate endlessly until morning.
• [200] I do wish there was one.
• [202] There are plenty of crazy scholars out there.
• [206] >>202 I get that, but simply dismissing it as the ramblings of money-grubbing occult believers is counterproductive. Even if that were true, why would they do something with so little commercial benefit? Why are there so many ‘crazy’ scholars? It becomes an event worth considering. There are 123 peer-reviewed articles. Okay, 16 are mixed in as parapsychology research, but take this one for example: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/pacjpa/82/0/82_3EV-039/_article/-char/ja Would the Japanese Psychological Association really go so far as to help an occult business? If so, the hypothesis that they’re seeing hallucinations might be easier to understand.
• [203] The universe, from our perspective, is a giant life form, and we are merely cells within that organism.
• [205] I always thought near-death experiences were just: accident leads to unconsciousness -> brain goes (dying, dying, dying!! Let’s organize memories first) -> dreams related to death.
• [213] I feel like when you die, the next life just begins.
• [215] Maybe ghosts are translucent because they’re 4-dimensional.
• [219] Setting aside dementia, regarding desires, there are accounts that the afterlife means liberation from everything, so perhaps entering a special state of consciousness like the afterlife actually eliminates desires. Whether the afterlife exists or not.
• [220] If you can’t perceive the next world without a brain, then your sperm would have no boundary between life and death. If you try to resolve that, you’d have to disconnect it from the personality during life, but then everyone would become one single collective entity, which is, well, extremely strange.
• [221] Most dualism theories just treat the brain as something like a communication device, right? In fact, there are people who advocate for collective unconsciousness or emanationism from the One, but those are incompatible with near-death experiences, so there’s effectively no way for us to perceive it.
• [210] This is the afterlife.