I have a hard time wrapping my head around loving life and existence. It's been so long since I've considered existence to be a pleasant experience I forget there are people out there actively enjoying themselves.

I’ve felt that way before, and it was kind of freeing. I actually went out and did more because my acceptable of risk was higher, and I didn’t worry so much because I was ready for it to all end anyway.

You're better off that way. The mental stress of actively not wanting to die is unimaginably high.

It's the absurdity of fearing death and/or loathing life that is almost humorous when you think about it.

> I honestly can't wrap my head around nonexistence, a brief 0-100 year existence, and then nonexistence again

Death might not be non-existence. Many religions, philosophies, spiritual teachings, say that it isn't. Of course, maybe they are all baloney–and a lot of them have to be mostly that–but there is at least a chance there is some truth in one or more of them.

Maybe quantum immortality is true, and all of us live forever, but it is a lonely existence, cut off seemingly forever from family and friends. (I hope that isn't true, it sounds rather hellish.)

Could we be living in a computer simulation? If we have no idea, shouldn't we assign a 50% probability? But, if we are in a computer simulation, our simulators might decide to provide an afterlife for us. And if we have no idea whether they would or not, shouldn't we assign a 50% probability to that? Which gives us 25% chance of a simulated afterlife – not the best odds, but far from the worst either.

We could be physically resurrected into some paradise by various random processes (quantum tunnelling, quantum fluctuations, thermal fluctuations). The probability of that happening is immensely small but non-zero. No matter how small it is, if the future is infinite, then almost surely it will happen eventually.

Most people who think death is non-existence accept a materialist position in the philosophy of mind, but often without giving any great thought to the alternative positions. If idealism is true–and we have no hard evidence it isn't–then death being the cessation of existence is far less likely. If idealism is true, then quite possibly minds are inherently immortal, in which case an afterlife would be metaphysically necessary.

For me, a lot of that seems like wishful thinking. We didn’t exist before birth, and we think nothing of it. More than likely, that’s where we are headed. We just have a really hard time excepting something that is so fundamentally against our current state of existing.

We don't know for certain that we didn't exist before birth/conception. It is common ground among materialists and the mainstream Christian tradition, but many people believe in a before-life – reincarnation/rebirth in Hinduism/Buddhism/etc, pre-mortal existence in LDS teaching, the 3rd century Christian theologian Origen, Islam.

About "wishful thinking", many people really want there to be an afterlife, but conversely at least some people really want there to not be one. Some people fear hell, or that everlasting existence might become boring (apeirophobia). Others find the idea of oblivion and infinite nothingness as reassuring. see e.g. Swinburne's Garden of Proserpine – https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45288/the-garden-of-p...

>We didn’t exist before birth

At the risk of sounding all "woo-woo", this statement bears some qualification.

How do you define existence, here? Are you equating it with consciousness? Surely your constituent parts (atoms, molecules, particles, etc) existed before your consciousness, and continue to do so afterwards.

I think you'll also agree that the arrangement of matter and energy you call "your life" is regulated by natural processes.

In principle, it's possible for the thing you call "your life" to be a brief window within some larger process (a meta-life, if you will) of which you have no recollection.

I don't know if I believe any of this to be true, but metaphysically speaking, it's not at all obvious that we "didn't exist before birth".

>How do you define existence, here? Are you equating it with consciousness?

Yeah, I, for one, equate it with consciousness. I could not give less fucks if my "atoms, molecules, particles" existed before me or will exist after me.

I want the whole conscious being, able to kiss, hug, think, love, hurt, eat a steak, and so on to extend.

>I think you'll also agree that the arrangement of matter and energy you call "your life" is regulated by natural processes. In principle, it's possible for the thing you call "your life" to be a brief window within some larger process (a meta-life, if you will) of which you have no recollection.

If I don't have "recollection", then I still don't care.

I think you may have completely missed the point being made.

No, I've got the point being missed. I just don't find the distinction useful at all.

The whole point being made was that "metaphysically speaking, it's not at all obvious that we "didn't exist before birth".

Which I say is irrelevant, if we need to distort "exist" so much as to mean some "larger processes" or our "atoms and molecules" existing.

Metaphysically speaking it might not be obvious, but the way the grandparent, me, and almost everybody else uses the term existence (i.e. regarding the conscious person, or at least their soul) it's obvious that we very much do not exist.

My take is that that there is no way to prove conclusively the existence nor the nonexistence of an afterlife. So each person makes a decision (bet). At the end of this life, we each find out if we were right or not. Well, technically, if there is an after life, we would find that out. If not, we don't find anything out, do we?

Betting on an afterlife is a bet you can't lose. If you bet there is an afterlife and there is one, you win the sense of satisfaction of having been right. If you bet there is an afterlife and there isn't one, you never know you were wrong. So, when offered a bet you can't lose, why not take it?

"If the future is infinite, then almost surely it will happen eventually."

Yes, you've caught on to this notion, and that's really the best we can ever do in our present state. Funny how we imagine our little 3 pound mass might someday fathom the secrets of the cosmos. Could a fruit fly trapped in a jet airliner ever comprehend the turbo jet mechanics keeping its carrier aloft?

I would argue that it's fairly safe to conjecture a continued progression of "higher" dimensions beyond time and space; beyond our human imagining. Might as well think of the progression itself as infinite.

From this, entire books could be written about the imagined implications, such as every possible timeline "emanating" from every point in time. Relatively rudimentary approximations of what we can not fully imagine.

So, how does this relate to the afterlife. Well, once it's established that at least everything our puny brains could ever imagine does cosmically exist, then our continuation is certainly included in that. So is choice / free will, simply put. Of course, there would exist many individual continuations and wills, even variations of individuality. It's interesting to consider and one inevitably encounters a thickening cloud of paradoxes, indicating that our mental models are laughably incomplete.

There's just as much chance religions were yet another case of early human exceptionalism, as an explanation for times when no better was available. Just as we once believed earth was centre of the universe (exceptionalism once again), humours or phlogiston.

Immortality in the Carl Sagan sense that we came from stars, and one day will be there again, or even within a cycle of nature on mother earth, sure that seems reasonable. Particle immortality. Remarkably complex tales of hades, meeting everyone who has ever lived in paradise or cute red guys with a pitchfork require remarkable evidence.

On impending nonexistence, I've never quite understood why this is a struggle for so many to contemplate - maybe that's something lacking in me, who knows. I always just figure it like the tungsten filament after you flick the switch; fade then off. Why's that difficult? Why must it matter more? Can't it just be? It just is. I am perfectly chill with that, and always have been. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> as we once believed earth was centre of the universe (exceptionalism once again)

The earth actually is (roughly speaking) the centre of the observable universe, which quite possibly is all the universe we can ever know.

If this is a computer simulation, you'd expect some parts of the simulation to be much more accurate then others. Our psychology would be simulated to a great degree of accuracy, distant galaxies would be simulated at only a very coarse level. So, the centre of the simulated universe, the area with the highest degree of simulation accuracy, would be this planet. So, if we are in a computer simulation–and if we don't know, let's say the probability is 50%–then the earth is the centre of the universe after all.

If philosophical idealism is true, and esse is percipi, then the area around the earth (which is highly observed by minds) exists in more detail, has a greater degree of existence, than distant galaxies. So, philosophical idealism can lead to a similar conclusion as the simulation thesis, that the earth actually is the approximate centre of the universe.

This is a much more entertaining topic to contemplate than non-existence. :)

If the universe is infinite then we are always likely to be at the centre of whatever range our instruments manage. In a universe where there is no such thing as centre. If it's simulation, it seems reasonable for the edge of observable to be the limit of simulation - the rest being under the galactic equivalent of fog of war.

Of course we don't know if it actually is centred, or just appears so from being in a local hotspot. Without knowing the extent of simulation that may be unknowable. There could just as easily be countless other species in other parts of the sim, or earth as an insignificant backwater with all the real activity outside our range. Unless it's encoded in an easter egg we may one day find, I suspect it will always be unknowable. And that's without considering multiverses. :)

> Our psychology would be simulated to a great degree of accuracy

Have you seen just how weird people are? I think the psych simulation is loaded with bugs.

Those are some pretty optimistic view points. The worst world views start with the universe being generated on birth and disappearing after death and quickly get worse and worse after that...

Reproducible evidence talks, bullshit walks.

No sense wasting glucose on thinking about things that are beyond our probing.

It really is the only thing that, when I catch myself thinking about it, requires me to forcibly do something else. As a nonreligious person, there is no answer to it other than "that's the way it is". Maybe it's something an older me can tackle. For now, it's a topic that leads to existential panic in a matter of minutes, ha!

Completely agree with everything you are saying. I also immediately have to think about something else to avoid what I feel would be a mental collapse.

One thing that has given me a bit of comfort was an answer I heard when somebody asked one of the great minds of the 21st century, Jennifer Lawrence, "what happens after we die?"

https://youtu.be/5LoBGoQPUNc?t=371

Epicurus' four-fold cure:

1. Don't worry about the gods; they're too busy being gods to bother you.

2. Don't get anxious about death; you didn't exist before you were born, and I don't recall that being unpleasant.

3. What is good is easy to get; friendship, wisdom, bad jokes.

4. What is bad is easy to endure; if it gets too bad, you'll die (see #2).

For me it depends on the day.

I believe I want to live forever if it's forever in health and non-poverty and freedom.

The fact that I will not live forever really effects my thinking and what I'm willing to do. As just one example, being older I know that I can't go dedicate 10 years to living in another country to learn a language or I could but I've only got at most 2 10yr chunks left, more like 1, before my ability to be free and healthy and non-poverty change. Or similarly to change my career or go back to school. I'm already in my mid-50s.

Conversely I'm lost, isolated, and without direction, have no close friends, no partner, and find it exceedingly hard to fix and so the thought of just calling it quits does pop into my head.

I obviously do not know your situation. But have you tried something wildly different that is communal? Church, community theater, community choir, a group that goes on vacations together, etc.? It is never too late my friend.

Parents and siblings?

When I was younger, around 19 or so, I contemplated death for the first time. I grew up religious, Catholic, and always believed that you go on after death. This was the first time I imagined the truth.

It stunned me. I couldn’t sleep. I could NOT imagine non-existence. It terrofied me.

In the next few years I learned more about the world and grew far more comfortable with my place in it. I don’t feel nearly as puzzled about nonexistence as I used to.

For me, I see myself as a cell in a greater body — humanity — and I see humanity as part of an even greater whole, the universe. Does a single cell worry about its fate after death? No. It merely does what it is supposed to do, does it well if it can, and then ends gracefully when its time has come.

I feel the same way about my own life. I am part of a whole, humanity at one level, the universe itself at another. I do my best with the limited time I have; I do my duty; and then I die.

I have grown quite comfortable with this view of life and death over the years. It gives nonexistence found at the end of life its appropriate meaning. It is the natural end of a temporal life.

Human have been thinking about that for as long as they were able to think. A lot of them put their ideas in books, you might find some interesting point of views in work from Seneca, or Alan Watts for example.

No one talks about death in real life, we just kind of go with the flow of "death is bad" yadda yadda. If you deconstruct your view on death and looks at how other societies or cultures sees deaths it can be eye opening. It's only bad if you see it as a bad thing.

"But tell me, do you consider it fairer that you should obey Nature, or that Nature should obey you? And what difference does it make how soon you depart from a place which you must depart from sooner or later? We should strive, not to live long, but to live rightly; for to achieve long life you have need of Fate only, but for right living you need the soul. A life is really long if it is a full life; but fullness is not attained until the soul has rendered to itself its proper Good, that is, until it has assumed control over itself. What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness? A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life. Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying. He has lived eighty years, has he? That depends upon the date from which you reckon his death! ... Nay, he has existed eighty years, unless perchance you mean by "he has lived" what we mean when we say that a tree "lives.""

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius. (letters 4, 24, 26, 61, 82, 93)

https://terebess.hu/english/AlanWatts-On%20The%20Taboo%20Aga...

Every death is the natural death of the person. Unless you force the free will (illusion)/spiritual ideology upon everyone. All death comes without choices in a world where all experiences are factored from the preceding events. A person who dies by suicide didn't choose it. Similar to a person who dies from old age.

The concept of free will does not inherently rely on the concept of a spirit.

It may be in your philosophy, and I'm not arguing that. But it's not universal.

I didn't mean to imply spirit and should have wrote religious.

Consider Open-Individualism. It's actually very difficult to make a philosophical case for Closed-Individualism (the common sense belief your post seems to espouse). You have to show why subjects would be particular to a group of atoms which are constantly changing. If not, the subject of all experiences is the same across space and time, and it's only the experiences which are different and constantly changing. If so, existence is eternal, which is what relativity suggests.

http://www.atheismandthecity.com/2016/02/does-special-relati...

The trick is, that barring accidental death (including accidentally falling victim to someone elses intentional killing of you), you will stop wanting to live before you die. So take care of yourself, preserve your health, and enjoy your life -- by the time it's over, you won't want it anymore. So don't fear death; only fear harm in your life.

Also, remember that when you're gone, it won't hurt, and you won't miss anything. Everything in your life, from the worst torture to the most minor itch, hurts more than being dead.

it's easier and maybe normal to think about these topics when you're going through a horrible time. When you're on top of your game, maybe even responsible to look after life that you've brought into this world, it's much harder to wrap your head around death. Once people land on their ass (we all do every once in a while), maybe from sickness, bankruptcy, or death of a close person (or all of it combined, as is usually the case when things all come together at once), it feels much less morbid to think about these topics.

From all the existentialists I've read Peter Wessel-Zapffe[1], a Norwegian philosopher (considered the comedian among philosophers) has helped me understand the importance of always facing the bleak side of life. As somebody who is no stranger to depression (and thoughts of suicide every couple of weeks) facing the reality of death and even seeking it out as a topic is the only way I'm able to be happy.

Also worth reading is Denial of Death[2].

[1] The Last Messiah: https://philosophynow.org/issues/45/The_Last_Messiah

[2] Ernest Becker "The denial of Death" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death

I like existing but I dislike the idea of it continuing indefinitely. Once you accept it will have some limit it might as well be 80 or what have you.

The idea of any afterlife in which my personal identity is still coherent fills me with dread, frankly.

Thank you for putting into words the thoughts that I have had for quite some time. The "panicking" I experience is also similar, more accurately described as horror-fueled panic.

You might live your life over and over. The universe could be expanding and retracting for infinity. Resulting in all the variables for your same exact life to repeat for infinity.

Likewise. It's frustrating not even understanding consciousness.

And since having kids I find permanent nonexistence even more painful to contemplate.

I am in the same boat. All I've ever known is existence, and the thought of not existing anymore is terrifying.

I can't wrap my head around it either, but I don't worry about it because I won't be around to care.

I actually keep a list of quotes about death because it fascinates me. Here are two that I really like.

The nearer I approach death the more I feel like one who is in sight of land at last and is about to anchor in one's home port after a long voyage. -Cicero

The fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which people in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. -Plato

“Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me, and continues to teach me, strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death.”

Have you read the book “On Death & Dying”? It’s a collection of interviews with terminally ill patients, with commentary from the author.

I have not but sounds like I should check it out.