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It's death

jesseduffield.com

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Re: It's death

#51

Post by GlickWick »

_factor wrote: post #49
freetime2 wrote: post #14

This story has a strong "life sucks then you die" vibe going for it. And the afterlife also sucks apparently (although I don't personally believe in an afterlife). Hopelessness and injustice seem to be the current zeitgeist - at least for anyone who spends a lot of time online. And I get it, there's plenty to be unhappy about. But my counter-argument is that it's possible to do things in life that you're proud of. An…

It’s not the lifestyle that makes some people unhappy, it’s the knowledge that there is suffering around the world they can do near nothing to stop. Not everyone frames their happiness solely on conditions within their own sphere. Knowledge comes with responsibility.

I agree to the extent that you can impact things around you, but is the general chaos and suffering in the world outside of that sphere really a responsibility? At some point you have to accept you can really only impact the sphere unless you end up being a major historical figure.

Re: It's death

#52

Post by queenkjuul »

smnplk wrote: post #22
freetime2 wrote: post #14

This story has a strong "life sucks then you die" vibe going for it. And the afterlife also sucks apparently (although I don't personally believe in an afterlife). Hopelessness and injustice seem to be the current zeitgeist - at least for anyone who spends a lot of time online. And I get it, there's plenty to be unhappy about. But my counter-argument is that it's possible to do things in life that you're proud of. An…

> And the afterlife also sucks apparently (although I don't personally believe in an afterlife). Why don't you believe in the experience after dying ?

Dead brains don't feel

Re: It's death

#53

Post by mock-possum »

anon-3988 wrote: post #20

This style of writing feels like the Minecraft Parkour Civilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pFwQiwRbcg There's a perfect balance of absurdity and casualness that makes almost perfect sense that you can follow the show, and yet bizarre enough that you stick to know more.

Wow this is mindnumbing, it just keeps going and going and going.

Re: It's death

#54

Post by [deleted] »

GlickWick wrote: post #51
_factor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the lifestyle that makes some people unhappy, it’s the knowledge that there is suffering around the world they can do near nothing to stop. Not everyone frames their happiness solely on conditions within their own sphere. Knowledge comes with responsibility.

I agree to the extent that you can impact things around you, but is the general chaos and suffering in the world outside of that sphere really a responsibility? At some point you have to accept you can really only impact the sphere unless you end up being a major historical figure.

[deleted]

Re: It's death

#55

Post by Hammershaft »

canyp wrote: post #29
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to say it will be similar to the experience prior to birth / conception, ie. we were nothing, and to nothing we shall return. It's a scary feeling if you can grasp it. Grasping non-existence from within existence is difficult, I've consciously tried to do it and succeeded a couple of times, but it's fleeting and both times it affected my breathing and heart rate in a similar way to fear or panic or pain.

I go through that exercise of visualizing the void and it is fascinating and terrifying at the same time, especially if you do it before going to sleep. That being said, you can't just assume that existence is bounded by your living memories. You might as well have been everything instead of nothing prior to being spawned and you just don't remember it.

If you're a materialist and you think there is no afterlife then I don't believe there would be a void. There's no mechanism for "you" to perceive a void or perceive time.

Its the difference between:

"I see nothing when I close my eyes" (actually you 'see' darkness over time)

and...

"I see nothing through my elbow" (You really don't see anything through your elbow because the capacity for it just doesn't exist.)

Even our basic perception of time is mediated by the structure of our brains... and without that there's no difference between one second and a trillion^trillion years.

Re: It's death

#56

Post by vineyardmike »

GlickWick wrote: post #51
_factor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the lifestyle that makes some people unhappy, it’s the knowledge that there is suffering around the world they can do near nothing to stop. Not everyone frames their happiness solely on conditions within their own sphere. Knowledge comes with responsibility.

I agree to the extent that you can impact things around you, but is the general chaos and suffering in the world outside of that sphere really a responsibility? At some point you have to accept you can really only impact the sphere unless you end up being a major historical figure.

I think one of life's big questions is defining the size of your sphere of responsibility.

Some people decide that sphere is really big, and they go on to be those historical figures. Others define it really big, and wallow in angst, aware and powerless to the suffering. Others still define it too small, and by the end of their life, find regret that they didn't try to help those within reach.

Re: It's death

#57

Post by smnplk »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #27
smnplk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the afterlife also sucks apparently (although I don't personally believe in an afterlife). Why don't you believe in the experience after dying ?

I'm going to say it will be similar to the experience prior to birth / conception, ie. we were nothing, and to nothing we shall return. It's a scary feeling if you can grasp it. Grasping non-existence from within existence is difficult, I've consciously tried to do it and succeeded a couple of times, but it's fleeting and both times it affected my breathing and heart rate in a similar way to fear or panic or pain.

So you will experience something then, if you say that you experienced this nothingness before you were born :D ;)

What I was aluding to is that people have profound consciouss experience when they are dying. Even clinicaly dead people with zero brain activity. But even if EEGs can't detect extremely low brain activity, it's still weird to have such rich experiences.

I would have never found metaphysics in my life, if i didn't have a few unnatural experiences. I would not find the big explanatory gap between experience and matter, which is so obvious to me now. I would still be a materialist while not even knowing I was one, like many here in these comments.

Before I was a materialist like you and I was not afraid of dying, because like you, I thought it's just lights out and I am no more, so I can not suffer. But now I am more afraid od death, because of the unknown that follows.

Re: It's death

#58

Post by skissane »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #27
smnplk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the afterlife also sucks apparently (although I don't personally believe in an afterlife). Why don't you believe in the experience after dying ?

I'm going to say it will be similar to the experience prior to birth / conception, ie. we were nothing, and to nothing we shall return. It's a scary feeling if you can grasp it. Grasping non-existence from within existence is difficult, I've consciously tried to do it and succeeded a couple of times, but it's fleeting and both times it affected my breathing and heart rate in a similar way to fear or panic or pain.

Do you know whether we live in a computer simulation?

If we do, well it would seem trivially possible for our simulators to provide us with an afterlife if they wished–and we honestly could have no idea what they might wish.

If you claim to know we don't live in a computer simulation, or that if we do, our simulators would be unlikely to grant us an afterlife–how do you know that?

P(we live in a computer simulation) ~= 0.5

P(there is an afterlife|we live in a computer simulation) ~= 0.5

Therefore, P(there is an afterlife) >= 0.25 even if we assume P(there is an afterlife|we don't live in a computer simulation) = 0.0 (which is itself highly debatable)

Re: It's death

#59

Post by teekert »

Gotta love those comments. Goes to show, you can be called out like that, and be on the HN front page at the same time. When you're young, you may not realize this. I never did when I judged my own stuff as (too) edgy.

Re: It's death

#60

Post by TonyStr »

weregiraffe wrote: post #47
jadar wrote: post #33

“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” - Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

Which God? Yahweh, Jesus, Allah? Brahma, Amaterasu, Ahura Mazda?

The first three are the same, and the latter three are in no way related to the passage.
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