There is something, it's the same thing that was before your birth, in that sense so you are very much just returning to your natural state: You have been not born for the longest time and you will be dead for the longest time.
In that context this rather short experience of existence is actually the thing that's out of the ordinary, making it that much more valuable.
It feels so normal to sit there on my couch, writing this message from my smartphone.
But in fact life is just a ridiculously short period at the scale of... Of what, actually?
How long have I not been born, and how long will I be dead? Trying to make sense of it is what makes me anxious.
When I look at these things I'm amazed that I'm part of these scales, or as Carl Sagan put it: "We are made of star stuff".
Once I'm dead, the elements my body consists of will go back into that eternal cycle, making me once again a part of the whole or maybe even part of evolving into something completely new.
While my non-corporeal parts, my consciousness, my character, will hopefully be fondly remembered by family and friends.
At least that's how I found a bit of peace of mind after having suffered from anxiety and existential dread for most of my youth.
When I read or think of events on cosmological scale it always gives me feelings of curious bliss.
The idea that being dead is the same as not being born seems like an elegant conclusion until you consider how much our perception of time varies even while we're alive, and it's actually an observation made after you gained your current consciousness; meaning that you truthfully have no idea what happened before you were born, only your current perception of it. What you're really saying is "I don't remember, and no one else remembers, therefore there was nothing".
Reality is unintuitive. Modern theoretical physics suggests that time itself is an illusion and that every state of the universe is superimposed into one unifying entity: past, present, and future. What does that mean about our perceptions of life and death?
The truth is we don't know much of anything, we can only speculate about it.
In today's world there is a lot of information about us that has been recorded. In some sense we're not completely forgotten because, at least in modern societies, we have birth records, death records and all manner of other details collected about us... mentions in newspapers, pictures, video clips, etc. But there will be some point in the future where all these details will inevitably be lost and all trace of our personal existence will be unrecoverable. In some ways that's sadder than anything I can think of.
I think of ancestors who were born before the advent of any sort of record keeping now are nothing more than nameless ghosts. Their only record may be some small fragment of DNA, and even then there's no guarantee that any of it was passed on after enough generations.
As for not being there - you still are. You have touched innumerable lives, for better or worse, as you live. You shape those lives by what you do, and you live on in the effects you had.
No more HN or chocolate though. I'll miss chocolate.
Okay, just getting real for a second, that is definitely a trick redefinition of "being there" to something other than what was originally being referred to. Kind of like if I stole a kid's lollypop, and when he complained, I told him that as long as he remembered the lollypop, he would still have it.
That's the key difference to the lollipop. Remembrance is not an observable side effect of lollipops. That tree I planted is. That person whose career I helped improve still has an improved career. Etc.
That's one of the two ways you live. The other one is the experiences you have. Sure, you can optimize for that, but as far as we all know it pretty much stops when you die. So I prefer option 1.
Yes it is, it's manifested in the physical re-arrangement of the kid's neurons.
It's all up in the air; some claim there is, others the opposite. And there's no way to prove anything.
The only thing that makes sense to me is to pick the version that makes you happy and run with it.
The fact that those pushing the idea that there is something also depend exclusively on your believing the idea to make a living and gain power and influence over society leads me to believe that the odds are not 50/50.
In summary: just because some people and organizations promote religion for their purposes does not at all wipe away the various religions across time and cultures that DONT fit those criteria you mentioned.
It's still 50/50, because you have no proof either way.
Not so much of what happens after dying.
I found the experience strangely comforting - basically the closest approximation to what death is like. One second you're there, and the next you're not. It wasn't bad or scary or painful or anything. It was just existence and then nothingness and then the feeling of coming back online realizing what happened.
And when I was coming back online, my thinking was: Well, I'm glad to be back! And if I hadn't come back, would I have even noticed? (The answer is no).
Epic of Gilgamesh, first human history
And if there is something, the worry was misplaced in the first place.
> But the fact that I won't be anymore,
I think that’s what many people fears about being dead, the not being (alive) anymore aspect of it.
And, well, children have wild imaginations and I'm sure it's not unlikely that a small percentage of children in any population would have a wild imagination mixed with maybe a mild level of psychosis or other abnormal behavior. Also mainstream science seems to have ignored these children. So I mostly write these stories off, but I would not be closed to them having some paranormal component to them if some more interesting information presents.
I also typically completely dismiss all paranormal stories as having physical explanations. Although I'm also open to being exposed to these types of events if they present. One day in college I was sitting in my car just waiting for a friend inside. 12 inches from my face, there was a huge explosion of water, as if a balloon exploded, which left my entire car interior drenched. It was a sunny day, windows were closed, no water, bottles, or other water sources were in my vehicle. I wasn't scared, but never have been able to explain what the causality was there. So.. Idk. If anything, that has always left my perfectly rationalizing brain to accept that we might not always know everything.
But the fact that I won't be anymore, FOREVER: that is what literally gives me the chills everytime I think about it.
God, I really hope there's something after death.