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Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

naturalism.org

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Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#3
What an enormous amount of words just to say: When you die you are not there anymore to experience the nothingness that you often picture death to be like.

I kept thinking that something profound was coming but no.

Edit: Perhaps it is interesting that so many non-theistic historical figures do reference death as a nothingness and suggest that that nothingness is somehow experienced by some remainder of one’s being, which is of course bit of a spiritual stance. A paradox in their worldview perhaps? Or just a sign that to drop a believe in god does not mean to drop believe in a soul, for some at least?

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#4
>The same is true of the time after death. There will be no future personal state of non-experience to which we can compare our present state of being conscious. All we have, as subjects, is this block of experience. We know, of course, that it is a finite block, but since that's all we have, we cannot experience its finitude.

Yeah, you just re-invented nothingness after death, just with more words...

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#5

Could someone explain to a layman what this article is trying to say?

Something akin to: "When you die you're dead, so you can't "experience" nothingmess, hence death can't be nothingess".

In other words, he just means "death is not an experienced nothingness".

Well, big deal. It's still nothingness, as far as we're concerned as living beings now (when we consider our death).

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#6
post #4

> The same is true of the time after death. There will be no future personal state of non-experience to which we can compare our present state of being conscious. All we have, as subjects, is this block of experience. We know, of course, that it is a finite block, but since that's all we have, we cannot experience its finitude. Yeah, you just re-invented nothingness after death, just with more words...

So. Many. Words. What was the point of this article? I'd rather die than read it.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#7
post #3

What an enormous amount of words just to say: When you die you are not there anymore to experience the nothingness that you often picture death to be like. I kept thinking that something profound was coming but no. Edit: Perhaps it is interesting that so many non-theistic historical figures do reference death as a nothingness and suggest that that nothingness is somehow experienced by some remainder of one’s being, w…

I think it is quite profound since many people seem to fear death because they imagine it is nothingness. But nothingness contains neither things to be feared nor a perceiver to fear them if they did.

On the other hand I highly doubt that nothingness actually exists. Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ?

If the void exists it has a major bug because experience (ie. non-void) somehow arose from it and every programmer knows that bugs always repeat.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#8
post #7
post #3

What an enormous amount of words just to say: When you die you are not there anymore to experience the nothingness that you often picture death to be like. I kept thinking that something profound was coming but no. Edit: Perhaps it is interesting that so many non-theistic historical figures do reference death as a nothingness and suggest that that nothingness is somehow experienced by some remainder of one’s being, w…

I think it is quite profound since many people seem to fear death because they imagine it is nothingness. But nothingness contains neither things to be feared nor a perceiver to fear them if they did. On the other hand I highly doubt that nothingness actually exists. Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ? If the void exists it has a major bug because experience (ie. non-void) some…

>Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ?

Given 7.9 billion people alive right now, give or take, I'm not quite sure where the idea it might be a one-off occurrence comes from.

But even if you mean our individual personal experience, I'm not sure what that would mean. A copy of me would think and experience in ways similar to me to a point, but we would still have different and distinct actual individual experiences of being.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#9
post #7
post #3

What an enormous amount of words just to say: When you die you are not there anymore to experience the nothingness that you often picture death to be like. I kept thinking that something profound was coming but no. Edit: Perhaps it is interesting that so many non-theistic historical figures do reference death as a nothingness and suggest that that nothingness is somehow experienced by some remainder of one’s being, w…

I think it is quite profound since many people seem to fear death because they imagine it is nothingness. But nothingness contains neither things to be feared nor a perceiver to fear them if they did. On the other hand I highly doubt that nothingness actually exists. Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ? If the void exists it has a major bug because experience (ie. non-void) some…

Hmm I guess after attaining my current worldview and dropping religion, I stopped worrying about death as a “state”. Because I was not uncomfortable before I was born I always reasoned. I tell my kids the same if they ask what is after death? I ask them back, what was it like before being born? It will be like that. Of course I still don't want to die.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#10
post #8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is quite profound since many people seem to fear death because they imagine it is nothingness. But nothingness contains neither things to be feared nor a perceiver to fear them if they did. On the other hand I highly doubt that nothingness actually exists. Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ? If the void exists it has a major bug because experience (ie. non-void) some…

>Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ? Given 7.9 billion people alive right now, give or take, I'm not quite sure where the idea it might be a one-off occurrence comes from. But even if you mean our individual personal experience, I'm not sure what that would mean. A copy of me would think and experience in ways similar to me to a point, but we would still have different and dist…

Well, I think that most people don't believe in reincarnation.
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