I wasn’t burdened by the curse that is awareness before I was born, and hence now as a result of this awareness, I am scared.
Fear not, and enjoy this mere interlude to its fullest!
Submitted 1 day ago by Godric@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ef4d4732-0eaa-48a7-944f-8dc7578f38a3.jpeg
Comments
Saarth@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Godric@lemmy.world 57 minutes ago
We are not cursed to know, we are blessed! We are a fantastic arrangement of atoms that so happen to be arranged into people instead of rocks!
We are, at the end of the day, infinitely small chunks of the Universe able to see, experince, know, and look back into ourselves!
I may be hammered, and the world is in an especially frightening place at the moment, but damn is it good to have my atoms arranged into a person instead of a tree
_AutumnMoon_@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour ago
wow so cool!
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid of the part before that.
Godric@lemmy.world 48 minutes ago
Same, let’s try and make that bit before that less shit, hey?
caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
I’m not afraid, I’m annoyed. I’ll never get to finish my unfinished books. >:(
baltakatei@sopuli.xyz 7 hours ago
Or my Steam library.
ceenote@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Because I forgot what it was like
snooggums@piefed.world 1 day ago
Can't forget something that doesn't exist.
Ste41th@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
It did but you wasn’t aware of it at the time
richardmtanguay@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
Everyone should be afraid of the judgement in the Realm afterwards!!! :-(
Godric@lemmy.world 50 minutes ago
Which judgement? Are we reincarnated into a form based upon our virtue? Are we trying to die a glorious warrior to feast with Wotan? Does “the god” demand blood sacrifice, killing all? Do we turn the other cheek to vibe with Yaweh? Do we simply sink into the potter’s ground, destined to have our current atoms remade, even though we are a single drop of rain, or shall we remain?
Digit@lemmy.wtf 20 hours ago
About 22 years ago or so, after not taking psilocybe mushrooms for a couple years, fasting for 24 hours, I took an uncounted tens of grams of dried, fine-powdered, strong psilocybe semilanceata, hot, in just lemon juice, and chugged that pint of thick mushroom super-lemony brew down as fast as i could. It started coming on FAST and STRONG. Ran the 3 strides to the bathroom sink with need to purge, which didn’t last long nor purge much of it… clinging to the sink as I slumped down, with the trip immensity roaring at the doors bursting in at all the seams, I tried to steady myself, I meditatively focused on a drop of water, empathising with it likewise clinging to the underside of the sink. I empathised my way instantly to know where every molecule, and every atom, of the water in there, had ever been, and it was a short jump from there to realise I could do that with everything. My experience is that every atom, every subatomic particle, have omnidirectional infinite sense of the entire cosmos… and this was only in the beginning seconds of the hours long trip, the ability to see behind things, to know from every perspective, everybody, all time, all times, all dimensions, all realms, all places, all interacting potentials… I cant speak to it really, only to say I remember I did experience it. Cannot take it all back with you.
First exchange with other people after I came out of the toilet, friends had come around, one asked “how was it?”, and with it all still being fresh, the immensity of having experienced omniscience, sought to offer what I thought was the most beautiful thing of it all… I said, with all glowing reverie “I know death”. The look of horror on the poor dear’s face though. Ho ho ho.
But yeah, get that… we mere mortals, many, all around, can experience omniscience.
And many are, and ever have. Say hi.
Wav_function@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
If you know you know
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk 15 hours ago
I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid of dying
sausager@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Came to say the same thing. Dying sounds painful, even in most of the best case scenarios
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
If I knew for a fact that I was going to die instantly, without even knowing it happened, I’d be worried about how my loved ones would feel, but okay with it as far as I’m concerned.
GalacticTaterTot@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
This strangely made me feel a better about the concept of death.
Sometimes I think about it and fall in a few seconds of existential dread. But this kinda…makes it make sense?
Godric@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
It brought me some comfort too.
noxypaws@pawb.social 10 hours ago
what about the cool bug fact?
fucking apostrophe abuse
Godric@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The shitpost’s will continue until morale improves’
noxypaws@pawb.social 9 hours ago
look here you little 'shit…
tan00k@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
You can’t “experience” nothingness. Even if you could, you can fear things you’ve experienced before…
OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
The previous billions of years of void was a grandiose buildup to the world’s largest nothing-burger, followed by an eternity of void again.
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
I’m looking forward to the nothingness, the first 14billion years was nice enough. It’s the time between everyday life and nothingness that worries me.
lectricleopard@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Just had a friend die of a heart attack while working in construction with his friends. Didn’t make it to the hospital.
That’s how I want to go. Just times up one day.
crank0271@lemmy.world 1 day ago
So sorry for your loss. You’re right - your friend is “fine” now. It’s the people we leave behind that can have a hard time with it.
ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I have never experienced unending nothingness, only noted the nothingness after it was over
akakevbot@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
That’s a good point, though I think it’s also fair to say that you won’t experience unending nothingness after death from that perspective, either. I can see how coming to accept that the world existed before our experience began could help one confront the world will continue to exist after our experience has ended.
SaltyIceteaMaker@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Because, now that i aquired conciusness, i dont want to lose it. i dont want to re experience nothingness. ffs id rather suffer for eternity than not live at all
Wav_function@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
You didn’t acquire consciousness, you acquired a human life.
smiletolerantly@awful.systems 21 hours ago
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 hours ago
Without a brain and no small amount of power (20% of your calorie count at rest on average, less when jogging, more when doing the calculus) the age of the universe goes by instantly. You don’t track time.
You also don’t track heat or pain, or memories good or bad. You don’t contemplate your trials and tribulations. You could be in the core of the sun at over a million degrees Celsius and not feel a thing or care how you got there.
The universe has been around for thirteen billion years, and will be around for even longer, and we only get this moment. And then it’s gone.
zululove@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
ngl i plan to be a digital being by 2060
Godric@lemmy.world 49 minutes ago
Art become reality, ye are the 21st century digital boy
rumba@lemmy.zip 16 hours ago
We are genetically configured to survive at all costs. That fear is simply the wiring in your head ensuring you do what you can to survive.
You can safely compartmentalize it. store it up there with your irrational fear of clowns.
lemmyknow@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Idk, sounds kinda scary. Idk what it was like before, because I lacked consciousness to experience it. And the idea that it all ends, back to nothingness forever. We live a few years. Pretty much nothing, if we consider the forever before, and the forever after our existence.
It’s something I recall fearing as a kid, due to the scary unknown. Glad to have enjoyed a decade of bliss. Too bad the fear has come back to haunt me. It’s not constant, though. Sometimes it comes, outta nowhere. Real strong. Not fun. But I don’t live day to day in fear.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
The thing is, once youre dead, there won’t be consciousness, you will not have any perception of a void, you won’t know anything because you will not be.
Marc Maron put it into good perspective. He was hiking in the hills and passed out. He noted that he could very well have been dead, and that would have been that.
You can’t be afraid when you dont exist and you will not be aware of anything.
Redex68@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t believe in God nor am I religious, but consciousness just feels so fucking weird man. Everything in the world can be explained through science and physics, cause and effect, hell even our brains and actions are just a chain of atoms interacting. But consciousness just feels so out of place. Why am I? Why am I even aware of my own existence? Why has a set of atoms resulted in my non-material consciousness? It feels so out of place. Why isn’t it just a bunch of atoms bumping into eachother, why am I capable of feeling and thinking?
lemmyknow@lemmy.today 1 day ago
That’s precisely the scary part. A nothingness, for all of eternity. It ends, never to continue. I do not know what it is like. Just… not seeing. Not hearing. None of the senses, and no thoughts either. No consciousness.
I wouldn’t be scared after dead, cuz I’dn’t have the consciousness for that. However, being alive, I can. I can fear the eternal nothingness of inexistence
I think this may or may not have some connection to a post from that monkey in the brain guy who also has a TED Talk (Tim Something?). I recall seeing a post of his about life or something. Talked about how short our lives are in the grand scheme of things. Had even an image with days or weeks or months of life, like a progress bar
On the other hand, reading that people actually close to death don’t worry as much as people imagining being close to death, iirc, may have had a positive impact in my fear. Though I recalln’t well
jaybone@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
The thing is, once youre dead, there won’t be consciousness, you will not have any perception of a void, you won’t know anything because you will not be
Do we really know this though?
What if upon death we exit the simulation?
Sometimes I think non-sim me decided to play life on hard mode. I’d kind of like to kick his ass for that. But then I realize he is me.
HalfSalesman@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
What I really don’t understand is bringing more people into temporarily existing without the ability to get their consent and calling it a “gift” that now they get to face the lovecraftian horror of future non-existence.
Pre-birth is not like post death. The arrow of time doesn’t reverse.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
I dont get it either. Guess we are wired different.
Matriks404@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Nothingless void is as believable as afterlife. From scientific point of view neither make sense, it’s like we’re giving ourseleves some metaphysical distinctiveness from the rest of universe but are merely physical bodies according to our scientific knowledge. And according to that we precisely know what’s after death: we rot in grave, and that’s sit. But that answer is not satisfying for us, because of our consciousness.
uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 1 day ago
Nothingness void is just another phrase for "irreversible loss of consciousness. Which is orders of magnitudes more believable than afterlife.
Matriks404@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
But why call it void if there’s no void at all? Or nothingness. There’s only void and nothingness when universe ends (if that theory is true of course). People still think about it as a state of our consciousness, when there is no really any ‘state’ after we die. It’s like
NULLvsUNDEFINEDin programming, or at least I see this that way.
Rothe@piefed.social 1 day ago
The first part of your comment is contradicting the last part of it.
Matriks404@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
How exactly? I don’t see it.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
It’s not the death part that scares me. It’s the transition between living and dead that’s going to suck.
But then I had a really terrible November 2024 and am still suffering a high-suicidality psychotic break, so my opinion might be biased.
AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca 18 hours ago
Well for what it’s worth I’m glad you’re still around to contribute to the conversation :)
flango@lemmy.eco.br 15 hours ago
And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I don't mind Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
DarkSide
KittyCat@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Unless the universe is truly infinite, then from the point of view of your continuity of consciousness, you will never die, because they will always be somewhere in infinity where you’re exact current consciousness picks right up after you die without a blip.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
I don’t think that’s how infinity works
zexyqag@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Something about “there’s an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1, but none of them is 2” idk
KittyCat@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
In an infinite universe every configuration of matter that can possibly exist will just due to the laws of statistics. Meaning in an infinite universe there’s are infinite identical copies of this solar system exactly as it is, isn’t, and everything in-between. Since you obviously can’t observe your life if you’re dead, in such a universe you will always experience your point of view from the position of a living copy somewhere else that was identical up until that point. Now of course its not the other you physically. But if the mind is exactly the same it is you mentally.
Its more or less the star trek transporter problem taken to a logical extreme. If you step into a star trek transpoter and are reassembled with identical memories elsewhere, are you still you? If its yes, it must also be yes for the universal thought experiment.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The After is not what we fear. It is the pain of the transition
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Having grown up with the concept of an eternal hell hammered into my head since day 1, I spent many years fearing the after much more than the transition.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ah well, Religion does that for you.
ethaver@kbin.earth 1 day ago
apparently I literally tried to strangle myself on my umbilical cord in the womb but my take on that was that I knew what was coming.
lemmyknow@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Just like The Butterfly Effect ending we watched in class!
ethaver@kbin.earth 1 day ago
yeah my husband brought this up a few days ago actually and was talking about the movie and I was like do you remember me mentioning that I literally actually did that? 4 times around apparently!
Digit@lemmy.wtf 20 hours ago
Bought the ticket. Take the ride. Came here with purpose, despite the trepidation.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 hours ago
I remember what it was like, that’s why I am afraid of it.
agavaa@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Because there is no coming back.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
We only get one ride in this rollercoaster and half of us want to make the ride living hell for the rest of us.
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Half? Try an alarming small number and they are damn good at it.
saimen@feddit.org 1 day ago
Why are you so sure about this? Believing there is no reincarnation is just a religious dogma of Christianity or rather all abrahamitic religions and therefore deeply engraved in our culture so we don’t even consider other possibilities. Similar to how in buddhist and hinduistic cultures reincarnation is the default way of imagining life before birth and after death.
agavaa@lemmy.world 45 minutes ago
Sure? Christianity? Nah, atheism. I just don’t walk around believing stuff just because other people believe it. And if reincarnation is real I don’t see it as coming back, you’re a different person after all.
papalonian@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Believing there is no reincarnation is just a religious dogma of Christianity
I don’t know that that’s true.
We as a society don’t know what happens when we die, conscious-wise. To state “we definitely do come back” or “we definitely don’t” would be incorrect, just like saying “there’s definitely aliens” vs “there definitely are not”.
However, we can use evidence we’ve gathered over thousands of years of existence and make assumptions. Unless I’m mistaken, there’s little evidence that has been accepted by the scientific community (Western or Eastern) to support reincarnation, so to say that “we don’t come back” is a Christian dogma is a little unfair.
To be clear I don’t have a strong opinion on reincarnation. I’ve heard compelling stories that are hard to explain otherwise, but I feel like we’d have been able to gather at least some concrete data on it over the span of our existence.
Alfons@feddit.org 1 day ago
So where do the „extra“ humans come from in these religions? What I mean is the increasing number of people being alive at the same time.
TheDoozer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t believe in a soul. That is definitely not religious dogma.
The idea that reincarnation is the default and one would have to be indoctrinated against it is… I would say, a very interesting position to take, if I’m being polite.
Rothe@piefed.social 1 day ago
Believing there is no reincarnation is just a religious dogma of Christianity
No, it is pretty much the default position until you can prove that it happens.
Digit@lemmy.wtf 20 hours ago
Cannot step in the same river twice. Nor with the same feet.
fnrir@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
Cool bug fact is
bebabalula@feddit.dk 1 day ago
It’s just that I kinda like being conscious…
Valmond@lemmy.world 1 day ago
IhaveCrabs111@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Sleep is good too
Wav_function@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
You’re still conscious during sleep you just don’t remember most of it.
MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 15 minutes ago
Because it was terrifying to be in a state of nonexistence. Thinking about not having what i currently have or even the fact that I’m very much likely not even going to have a state of being where i can even remember the things i had done in my life is truly fucking terrifying to me.