Eternal Oblivion

[lesliedellow]

This feeling, thought, is incredibly uncomforting.

I remember acknowledging this possibility at around the age of 16 when I really began to challenge what the Universe was really all about and it bothered me for a little while but I was able to find distractions and that's all that keeps me unbothered about it but recently throughout the day I'd be subconsciously thinking about it.

I've taken quite a liking to science for science is the study of the physical world. The how, what, where, and when, and in "some" cases why. Its mission is to discover the complete explanation to the deepest mysteries of the Universe and how it all works, with indepth and well-substantiated explanations.

And biologically? Death is the termination of all biological functions which includes our brain and therein lies the source of our consciousness.

I find myself growing closer and closer to not living my every day life as I have been doing. At work I have been nothing short of top notch. One of the best and most knowledgeable workers and I'm still continuing this way but I'm not quite sure how much longer I'll be able to. I find it as if it has no meaning to me anymore. My awards, accomplishments. If eternal nothingness is what awaits us then nothing we do here truly matters for it will be as if we never existed. It will be as if nothing ever existed to begin with.

I cannot live my life under this belief much less the way that I have been living it but there seems no other way around it. It only seems morally illogical and "morals" very well could just be a man made concept, not an actual thing that "comes from the heart." I understand that this is incredibly dehumanizing and I for one feel very much so, dehumanized.

All beliefs are welcome.

The best I can suggest is that you try reading some books by people who undoubtedly do have analytical minds, and yet manage to be religious. I mean people like John Polkinghorne, Francisco Ayala or Ken Miller. Although it is by no means guaranteed, one of them might give you a way in.

A pointer is the very fact that we do have this need for an overarching meaning. Why should evolution have thrown up such a thing?

 

[Nithavela]

Sorry to break your dream. That certainly will not happen. History proves it.

Sorry to break your nightmare but the world has gotten objectively better in the last few decades and centuries. We are living in one of the most peacefull and safe times of known history, crime rates are falling, life expectancies are rising, new medicines are discovered daily, and every second, thousands of people around the world are creating new knowledge for our race to use.

Thinks are looking up. It is only those that pine for the endtime (and those have always been here, THAT history proves, indeed) that will not see this, no matter the evidence.

 

[Espy]

Sorry to break your nightmare but the world has gotten objectively better in the last few decades and centuries. We are living in one of the most peacefull and safe times of known history, crime rates are falling, life expectancies are rising, new medicines are discovered daily, and every second, thousands of people around the world are creating new knowledge for our race to use.

Thinks are looking up. It is only those that pine for the endtime (and those have always been here, THAT history proves, indeed) that will not see this, no matter the evidence.

I agree with this. I can at least find solace in the fact that I live in a time and region where I could enjoy life without being bothered (for the most part) and receive vast amounts of knowledge that's been recorded throughout the years.

To think. If I was born 40 or so years earlier than I was could have been quite the difficult childhood.

Anyone who believes that life isn't the easiest it's ever been is out of their minds.

We used to live in a world where slavery was common thing. People born poor were set to also die poor without an education or a fighting chance. Nowadays they have that fighting chance. Because of modern medicine and more peaceful times the human population is growing. More babies are being born than people are dying.

That in itself is a problem so one could argue that times are too good.

 

[Espy]

If morals 'come from the heart', then they are man made concepts. This is not a dehumanizing concept -- it is a humanizing one.

Sorry I should have worded that one better. I meant the way that I was viewing ourselves. Basing our reactions and emotions off of an internal system.

The people who will try to recruit you to their religious beliefs are wasting their time. There is no solace, for an inquisitive mind like yours, in that which cannot be known. You already know this.

Don't be grumpy about not having access to eternity. As the great philosopher Freddie Mercury (!) said, "Who wants to live forever?". Instead, be grateful for the time you have. Be grateful that you were the sperm which made it, and not one of the millions which did not. Try not to waste a single second.

Bertram Russell gives some good answers to your questions, and is recommended reading:

That brings up quite the question.

Were we really one in a million? My problem is what's determined that I am controlling this body, and not your body, or JFK's, or a Zebra, etc. What's made it so that this is me? Even twins are different in a variety of ways. It's mind-blowing that the Universe is the way that it is and that maybe it could have just as easily become something entirely different.

What's more likely to you?

Being one in a million and experiencing a chance at life

Or a spirit simply finding an available vessel?

I feel as though that "one in a million" and not just being a cum stain in a living room couch concept is difficult to believe. As if I'm supposed to believe that if I didn't hit that lottery I would never have had a chance of existence. It's interesting. Perhaps we can find the answer to the end by finding the answer to the beginning.

There are some things to recognize that will help you:

1) Do you suffer that you did not exist as a conscious creature in 1885? Then why do you suffer that you will not exist as a conscious creature in 2185?

2) If the singulitarians are right and we experience a technological singularity by the year 2045, then you may well live for thousands of years at least.

3) If the singulitarians are wrong and we only slowly improve technology, then we can still assume it likely that humans will be able to warp time and space within a million years (look how far we came in a hundred). As ethically evolved individuals, it is likely they will use such technology to resurrect those who died before.

4) The chance that all of this is a simulation is somewhere between 30 and 66.7%. In that case, the whole "there is nothing after death" is off the table and we just have to admit we don't know what comes later.

Be optimistic. Against all odds, the human race has left the nomadic grasslands and managed to explore the farthest reaches of the universe. We can figure it out =)

Please elaborate on this 30 and 66.7% chance. Everything I've read about this theory has sounded incredibly ludicrous to me.

 

[Espy]

It sucks so much for people who work all their lives to develop a skill for people to claim it as a gift from god. Don't forget, all of our weaknesses are in that design as well.

I wouldn't have a problem with something being a gift from God that I take under my wind and further polish.

I feel as though there have been people with a natural inclination towards something that couldn't have come from their parents or culture.

I'm not going to pretend that I know exactly where that comes from, though.

 

[Split Rock]

Sorry to break your dream. That certainly will not happen. History proves it.

I suppose you believe this because you are waiting for the End Times, which are coming any minute now...... any minute........

 

[juvenissun]

I suppose you believe this because you are waiting for the End Times, which are coming any minute now...... any minute........

No. I am talking about the normal life of people on the earth across time. We are now NO BETTER than those people lived 1000 years, or 2000 years ago. Material advancement does NOT bring us better life and a few tens of years on the increase of average life span is meaningless. Tomorrow will NOT have a better world no matter how does a person tried.

 

[Nithavela]

What's more likely to you?

Being one in a million and experiencing a chance at life

Or a spirit simply finding an available vessel?

I feel as though that "one in a million" and not just being a cum stain in a living room couch concept is difficult to believe. As if I'm supposed to believe that if I didn't hit that lottery I would never have had a chance of existence. It's interesting. Perhaps we can find the answer to the end by finding the answer to the beginning.

Take a couple of dice. A good two hands full. Perhaps 30 or so.

Now roll them and observe the outcome.

You have just done something that has a exceedingly low chance of happening (6^30, or written out, a one in more than 22 sextillion)

Still it happened. Is it a miracle, then?

No, because the number of possible outcomes is also more than 22 sextillion, and all together, they are one.

You can't argue from the standpoint of "this was so unlikely to happen, so tjere must be something supernatural involved".

 

[BL2KTN]

No. I am talking about the normal life of people on the earth across time. We are now NO BETTER than those people lived 1000 years, or 2000 years ago. Material advancement does NOT bring us better life and a few tens of years on the increase of average life span is meaningless. Tomorrow will NOT have a better world no matter how does a person tried.

Says the hypocrite on his electricity-powered computer across the information superhighway.

 

[Nithavela]

I agree with this. I can at least find solace in the fact that I live in a time and region where I could enjoy life without being bothered (for the most part) and receive vast amounts of knowledge that's been recorded throughout the years.

To think. If I was born 40 or so years earlier than I was could have been quite the difficult childhood.

Anyone who believes that life isn't the easiest it's ever been is out of their minds.

We used to live in a world where slavery was common thing. People born poor were set to also die poor without an education or a fighting chance. Nowadays they have that fighting chance. Because of modern medicine and more peaceful times the human population is growing. More babies are being born than people are dying.

That in itself is a problem so one could argue that times are too good.

Today even the poor of fairly industrialised nations have a better life than the aristocracy had a few centuries ago.

Think about it. They get provided heal care that was way beyond the abilities of the best physicians back then (leeches, anyone?), they can eat food from the other side of the planet, they can obtain news and entertainment according to their every whim.

The only downside is a lack of precious material coating over their far more valuable posessions.

 

[Split Rock]

No. I am talking about the normal life of people on the earth across time. We are now NO BETTER than those people lived 1000 years, or 2000 years ago. Material advancement does NOT bring us better life and a few tens of years on the increase of average life span is meaningless. Tomorrow will NOT have a better world no matter how does a person tried.

I disagree. We are better off as a species then we were in the past. Life is better for many of us then it was a century ago. You may believe that there is something better waiting for you after death, but I am very skeptical of this.

 

[juvenissun]

I disagree. We are better off as a species then we were in the past. Life is better for many of us then it was a century ago. You may believe that there is something better waiting for you after death, but I am very skeptical of this.

Give me one such example except it has to do with material. I believe you can give none.

Even in the realm of material use, I can give you equally number cases of deterioration in human life. We gain one advantage through science, we also lose one advantage through the same science.

 

[MikeCarra]

Give me one such example except it has to do with material. I believe you can give none.

I'm visiting Europe this week on vacation. So it is rather easy to see in the museums the advances we have over something like the Middle Ages. The simple discovery of public hygiene and medicine have not only extended lives (often by more than 3X) but improved lives. The only thing we had to give up was "faith" that touching a holy relic (which was probably not an actual holy relic) would heal the leprosy destroying a person's body (and the attendant ultimate failure of the "cure").

Yes, this is a "material" benefit. But is an "empty promise" that won't actually work (eg: healing by touching a fake holy relic) really a benefit that is superior?

In the modern age, obviously, faith is in NO WAY IMPACTED for true believers. They can (and do) still believe and still take comfort from their faith.

And that's good!

But I see no benefit in a benighted society.

The one thing I will grant that faith causes that we seem to have less of today is the drive to build incredible buildings that stand for hundreds of years while require vast resources from the towns around them. Today we build boxes that will be gone in a much shorter span of time and that lack anything like beauty.

But we could still build those if we liked. That is a choice. A choice a money-obsessed society makes. And money-obsession, last I checked, knows no religious limitations. It is a "value" we all share regardless of our faith or lack thereof.

Even modern churches are nothing more than simple, ugly, often windowless affairs that differ little from office parks.

 

[MikeCarra]

I disagree. We are better off as a species then we were in the past. Life is better for many of us then it was a century ago. You may believe that there is something better waiting for you after death, but I am very skeptical of this.

In some ways, at least in the case of Christianity, today's people are somewhat worse off. Today's Christian fundamentalists seem to value an anti-intellectualism in extremis. Unlike the Church Fathers and the Scholastics who valued reason and thought and education.

So, perhaps, some of our Christian bretheren are somewhat worse off than their predecessors. I do feel sad at times for the general tenor of modern Christianity with its intellectual softness or outright anti-intellectualism on the fringes.

 

[Usus Vox Tractus]

I'm visiting Europe this week on vacation. So it is rather easy to see in the museums the advances we have over something like the Middle Ages. The simple discovery of public hygiene and medicine have not only extended lives (often by more than 3X) but improved lives. The only thing we had to give up was "faith" that touching a holy relic (which was probably not an actual holy relic) would heal the leprosy destroying a person's body (and the attendant ultimate failure of the "cure").

Yes, this is a "material" benefit. But is an "empty promise" that won't actually work (eg: healing by touching a fake holy relic) really a benefit that is superior?

In the modern age, obviously, faith is in NO WAY IMPACTED for true believers. They can (and do) still believe and still take comfort from their faith.

And that's good!

But I see no benefit in a benighted society.

The one thing I will grant that faith causes that we seem to have less of today is the drive to build incredible buildings that stand for hundreds of years while require vast resources from the towns around them. Today we build boxes that will be gone in a much shorter span of time and that lack anything like beauty.

But we could still build those if we liked. That is a choice. A choice a money-obsessed society makes. And money-obsession, last I checked, knows no religious limitations. It is a "value" we all share regardless of our faith or lack thereof.

Even modern churches are nothing more than simple, ugly, often windowless affairs that differ little from office parks.

There is certainly power in the placebo effect. But I would expect things like often touched idols and the bowl of water that everyone dips their hands in, to be the dirtiest and most contaminated things around.

Turns out it's mostly contaminated with feces.
Holy Water Found to Have High Level of Fecal Bacteria : News : Headlines & Global News

 

[Usus Vox Tractus]

Give me one such example except it has to do with material. I believe you can give none.

Even in the realm of material use, I can give you equally number cases of deterioration in human life. We gain one advantage through science, we also lose one advantage through the same science.

One huge societal fall is the loss of free lands. Everything is owned, private, fenced off. No commons.

 

[Nithavela]

Give me one such example except it has to do with material. I believe you can give none.

Even in the realm of material use, I can give you equally number cases of deterioration in human life. We gain one advantage through science, we also lose one advantage through the same science.

How about crime rates falling? Is that not good enough, too, that people follow the commandments of your god? doesn't that matter, too?

US crime rate at lowest point in decades. Why America is safer now. - CSMonitor.com

 

[juvenissun]

How about crime rates falling? Is that not good enough, too, that people follow the commandments of your god? doesn't that matter, too?

US crime rate at lowest point in decades. Why America is safer now. - CSMonitor.com

Compare to crime rate 200 years ago? Or the rate at Iran?

 

[juvenissun]

One huge societal fall is the loss of free lands. Everything is owned, private, fenced off. No commons.

There are many incredibly bad things happened today that are unheard of only 100 years ago. Technology is a two-edge sword.

 

[Usus Vox Tractus]

There are many incredibly bad things happened today that are unheard of only 100 years ago. Technology is a two-edge sword.

I think we can put photo-degrading one time use plastics near the top of the list. It enters the food chain at all levels weakening, each link.