Suppose you have two options after dieing
 

Ok, I'm going to put forth two scenarios that happen after you die. Not in a sense of which is more likely to happen, just given the two options, which would you take. You have to pick one option, and you cannot break the rules.

1. After you die, you are dead. There is no endless blackness, no endless whiteness, nothing. No thought processing, simply dead forever, it's over.

2. After you die, you begin a new life as another person on Earth. What happens during that life could be any number of things, but you will always begin your life again as a person on Earth at some point from 1990- later. You will never gain immortality. Even if science manage to let people live millions, or billions of years, you will still die eventually, and then restart as a baby human after dieing. Also, there is no way you will ever know anything of your past lives, or have any recollection of them, and you will have no idea what happens after you die. IE: Each time you 'reincarnate' you are left to wonder what will happen after that life, and essentially after each cycle, that person you were is dead, and you cannot obtain any recollection of being them, or any idea that you restart life after you die.

I do not understand how they are distinguishable. In what sense is the person in the second option, "me?"

those two options are basically the same.

To me too they are basically the same. Is either one better though? Would you choose one over the other, and if so, why?

Fundamentally they are the same, but they are also rather different.

I guess I'd pick #2. Doing things is what I like to do.

1. 2 violates the laws of thermodynamics, and they amount to the same thing.

Both of these don't account for this: What about the journey of the soul? Surely even after option 2 you would have to die for good and you would have to transcend the physical.

Or, the mind is a function of the hardware. It doesn't survive any more than a program in a computer's memory does when that memory is powered down :)

fact is in these theories no one is right because none of us has died and came back and told us *shrugs*

I'd pick 1. Just one good life is enough to keep me happy for eternity.

^What that guy said.

Though I guess my one question would be is; Do you know that you will be reborn, or is it always unknown to you, no matter how many times you are 'recycled'?

HNM: As you can see in the OP, it's a hypothetical situation. ;)

As for what I'd choose, number 2 - I'd rather have an eternity of experiencing life than an eternity of nothingness.

But you wouldn't know.

What?

What about option 3?

3) Turn into a ghost and scare the **** out of people.

^(OwO^)

Booooo~

I'd be happy not knowing about what awaits after death until the time comes.
That way you get a surprise either way.

What do you mean?

Regardless, it's a hypothetical situation and I believe something absolutely different. :P

What he means is, if you were reborn, you wouldn't know you had been reborn, or that after you died, you didn't know you would be reborn. To you, you would just live out your life, just as anyone else would, you would die, expecting to die and they you would 'just so happen' to be reborn with no post or prior knowledge.

(Reading back, that is worded extremely crazy/confusingly, but I hope you catch my drift. :D)

*aint that a b***? :S

The way the 2 options were presented - with full amnesia in both cases - ìt doesn't seem to be much difference between them.

Erm.. any chance for at least a vague glimpse of a memory? Like a feeling in a place you visit for the first time: "This seems familiar... I feel I've been here before..." or a sudden recognition of a person, you feel like you know them forever? Dreams/ flashes of seeing yourself in a different epoque, with a different look?

Provided that, I would sign up for the 2nd option. True, or not, but it leaves something for imagination (at least :P)

PS Oooh and is it obligatory to be reborn on Earth? any chance for other worlds? cos I know where I would want to be reborn... :rolleyes:

I'd rather just have cookies when I die.

How would you eat the cookies? Maybe you'd just pass through them?

They'd be ethereal cookies, duh. :D

But then they wouldn't have the delectable charm of the old ones. :P

Why not? You've not got tastebuds either. :awesome:

death. just would be such a piece.. reborn.. no way, a one way ticket on this terrible spot in the universe is enough.

Because.. Reborn... Well.. Work, age leads one downhill and every rebirth the same wish for destroying the universe again without reaching the goal... no way - this is even so much that i can not handle this :P

Death is the only real thing :D

Interesting, because the two options are not actually mutually exclusive. Indeed they could be regarded as consecutive.

Anyway, I will answer the questions. Or what I really mean is that I won't becauee I am not ready to answer yet. There is no time limit on giving the answers. So I think I will wait before answering.

If the reality is option one and there is nothing after death. Then I choose option 1 because that is the reality. Any other response would be pure delusion.

If the reality is option 2, then I will have to live out all my lives before choosing. If all my lives are varied, full of happiness, action and exciting sex, then I choose option 2.

On the other hand, if my lives are generally dull and full of suffering, dispair and monotony, then I choose option 1.

So that is my choice if I can choose to wait.

On the other, hand if I have to choose now, then I choose option 1. because then I will be cradled again in the arms of the Mother Goddess. Back where I belong, in exactly the same blissful ignorance in which I existed (or should I say not existed) before i was born.

So there you go. I choose option 1.

But if hypotheticals are impossible, they're not worth considering. :P

And I still don't understand how the people in the second option are "me" in any way. I don't suppose someone could explain that? AFAIK, they're completely unrelated people.

I have to admit, I don't remember having any bad memories or experience relating to my infinite period of non-existence before my birth. Thus, there is no reason to believe that it will be bad in the infinite period of non-existence I will have after my birth.

It occurs to me that the question is exactly the opposite of the choice given to Achilles. Either have a long uneventful life or a short life full of sensation and action.

The OP seems to ask the opposite:
1) Do you want a short uneventful existence?
OR
2) Do you want a long existence full of varied sensation and action?

You could say that one option is the choice of God and the other is the choice of the Devil. The question is: Which is which?

Thermodynamics is tricky though, because matter does enter and exit our universe, so conservation is not necessarily true.

As for being who you are, well what makes you who you are? You are a long lasting chemical reaction increasing the entropy of the universe, and you would likely remain so in each consecutive life.

As for me, if I were presented with the choice, I would probably choose 1, cause I couldn't stand the thought of having more parents and more lives, even if I only had that thought for the short remainder of the life I lived out in which I chose between option 1 or 2.

In short, I couldn't go to that many funerals of my parents, so presented with the question I would choose 1.

It does? Since when?

But I'm a specific chemical reaction, and the distinguishing feature is my memory. That is not carried over into the "next" life.

In quantum mechanics, particles can pop into and out of 'existence'

So although it's small quantities of matter, the amount of matter and energy in the universe is not constant. (If you want me to find some scientific essays on it, I can, but it will take awhile, cause I leave for college tomorrow and will be very busy)

Also, your memory will be gone when you are dead, and ultimately (although it is theory, it is a plausible fate) the universe will end with every atom decaying to a hydrogen atom, and moving further and further apart. So all of your atoms will have broken down to the most basic state of 1 proton hydrogen atoms. So I'm not entirely sure what you mean by 'specific'

Also,think about this: If you take all the atoms that made you when you were alive, and reconstructed them perfectly into your body, you would have your memory, let alone the same personality etc. (Although we are incapable of doing that today, it is perfectly possible to do so given a few technological advances.)

Grr, no one watched my video from before -.-

Well said on both :)

Also, idk what AFAIK stands for?

As far as I know.

will you give us an URL?

Anyway, if I die first, I promise to "pass the message" somehow. I just imagine a post/thread on ToS:

"Look guys, you'll say I am mad but I am haunted by Apache. As soon as I close my eyes she is there, saying that she has died & threatening to haunt me until I post whatever delirium she is saying. She is flying around in circles, laughing with evil laughter & screaming "Post it, post it, post it!" So I'd better do it cos my sanity is under attack...

and then...
Option 1: Apache says that there's Nothing out there. Nada. Rien. Zero patatero. & this is her last message ever before complete disappearance.

Option 2. Apache says she is having the high of all highs (what she means by "she" is beyond me, "Something that makes you unique & different from any other person on Earth minus your physical body" :S :hmm:Dunno). It's all peace & love, Eywa is real, & some cool things she can't even explain cos there are no concepts for them in human language. But Do Not hurry into "out there" cos if you do (i.e. try to kill yourself) you'll be stuck in "the twilight zone" (which I don't get either but it doesn't seem nice).

Anyway, now that I've posted it, I hope she stops haunting me once and for all!!"
:xD:

^ Win.