People often think about death as some kind of positive non-existence when in reality death can’t by definition be experienced. If it feels like something then it’s the process of dying people are talking about. Not being dead. I believe the closest thing to death we can “experience” is general anesthesia and the people who have gone thru that know there’s nothing to experience. Just a teleportation from one moment to another.
This actually makes me believe in some form of “rebirth”. Not in the sense most people think about it but since consciousness can only experience being but not “not being” then it seems very likely that death just means that your experience moves from one place to another. If there’s a break in between you can’t experience it. You just can’t help but keep having experiences.
Really interesting stuff. Sam Harris made a fascinating podcast about this subject. As a subscriber I can give free links to the full episode if you’re interested. Just send me a PM.
Since I was dead and did not experience self, time or consciousness while this happened the closest I can explain it is that I just didn’t exist during that period of reference. It was like time travel, and did not feel like anesthesia, the time completely felt like it did not happen. It was minutes but might as well have been thousands of years, there was no concept of time at all.
My personal theory is that whatever death is, it exists outside of the concept of time. It seems that your consciousness resets and you find yourself alive again. In my case back in the same body but if reincarnation is possible then in a new life.
The perceived time doesn’t seem to need to be in any time frame or chronological order. Maybe you instantly skip over many years, or even transfer to the past.
Here is a theory I came up with entirely based on my own experiences, only to find out it is a real quantum physics theory:
Basically you find yourself in the reality where you somehow survive, because the one where you didn’t you don’t have consciousness. Both times incredibly unlikely circumstances saved me that also happened to occur at the exact moment needed.
I’m not sure how to pm on here but maybe if you send me one I can see it to check out your links.
Quantum suicide is really interesting, I’ve always thought something like this could be possible and this is the first time I’m learning that there’s a word for it. There’s something intuitive about it, I bet lots of people also feel the same way. I’ve been in a few potentially near-death situations and one specific thought always pops into my head afterwards, “I wonder how many versions of me just died from that.”
Yes and it is also important to point out that if this is true, there is even more reason to be careful with your life and health.
You would have a situation where your family experiences your death in one reality, but you might continue on disabled in another. It only requires you to be conscious, but your physical condition doesn’t matter beyond that.
That’s a terrifying thought. But then what happens when you get very old? We don’t live forever. And even if some life extension technology is discovered before we die, what about everyone in the past who died? Did they all end up in a reality where some incredible technology figured out how to keep everyone conscious indefinitely? What about people who lived before we even knew what viruses were? As intuitive as it feels, it doesn’t seem to pass the smell test. I would guess that some of the “intuition” I’m feeling is actually just a fear of dying
I would imagine it could continue on until it absolutely can’t anymore. At which point it either ends, or some kind of ascension or rebirth.
Hopefully your soul, higher power, the universe, etc would have choice or mercy at some point. Maybe you eventually accomplish what you needed from this life.
If it is purely physics without choice then you would eventually find yourself as one of the world’s longest living people. It would keep branching until the very last reality where there are no more where you can possibly survive. At least you would have a good answer when people ask your secret to long life lol.
People often think about death as some kind of positive non-existence when in reality death can’t by definition be experienced. If it feels like something then it’s the process of dying people are talking about. Not being dead. I believe the closest thing to death we can “experience” is general anesthesia and the people who have gone thru that know there’s nothing to experience. Just a teleportation from one moment to another.
This actually makes me believe in some form of “rebirth”. Not in the sense most people think about it but since consciousness can only experience being but not “not being” then it seems very likely that death just means that your experience moves from one place to another. If there’s a break in between you can’t experience it. You just can’t help but keep having experiences.
Really interesting stuff. Sam Harris made a fascinating podcast about this subject. As a subscriber I can give free links to the full episode if you’re interested. Just send me a PM.
Since I was dead and did not experience self, time or consciousness while this happened the closest I can explain it is that I just didn’t exist during that period of reference. It was like time travel, and did not feel like anesthesia, the time completely felt like it did not happen. It was minutes but might as well have been thousands of years, there was no concept of time at all.
My personal theory is that whatever death is, it exists outside of the concept of time. It seems that your consciousness resets and you find yourself alive again. In my case back in the same body but if reincarnation is possible then in a new life.
The perceived time doesn’t seem to need to be in any time frame or chronological order. Maybe you instantly skip over many years, or even transfer to the past.
Here is a theory I came up with entirely based on my own experiences, only to find out it is a real quantum physics theory:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_suicide_and_immortality
Basically you find yourself in the reality where you somehow survive, because the one where you didn’t you don’t have consciousness. Both times incredibly unlikely circumstances saved me that also happened to occur at the exact moment needed.
I’m not sure how to pm on here but maybe if you send me one I can see it to check out your links.
More about time:
https://interestingengineering.com/science/what-einstein-meant-by-time-is-an-illusion
Quantum suicide is really interesting, I’ve always thought something like this could be possible and this is the first time I’m learning that there’s a word for it. There’s something intuitive about it, I bet lots of people also feel the same way. I’ve been in a few potentially near-death situations and one specific thought always pops into my head afterwards, “I wonder how many versions of me just died from that.”
Yes and it is also important to point out that if this is true, there is even more reason to be careful with your life and health.
You would have a situation where your family experiences your death in one reality, but you might continue on disabled in another. It only requires you to be conscious, but your physical condition doesn’t matter beyond that.
That’s a terrifying thought. But then what happens when you get very old? We don’t live forever. And even if some life extension technology is discovered before we die, what about everyone in the past who died? Did they all end up in a reality where some incredible technology figured out how to keep everyone conscious indefinitely? What about people who lived before we even knew what viruses were? As intuitive as it feels, it doesn’t seem to pass the smell test. I would guess that some of the “intuition” I’m feeling is actually just a fear of dying
I would imagine it could continue on until it absolutely can’t anymore. At which point it either ends, or some kind of ascension or rebirth.
Hopefully your soul, higher power, the universe, etc would have choice or mercy at some point. Maybe you eventually accomplish what you needed from this life.
If it is purely physics without choice then you would eventually find yourself as one of the world’s longest living people. It would keep branching until the very last reality where there are no more where you can possibly survive. At least you would have a good answer when people ask your secret to long life lol.
Sam Harris believes in life after death?