What happens to us when we die?

in philosophy •  8 years ago 

What happens to us when we die?

First a shout out to my Steemit followers! I appreciate all of your reading, conversation and support over my first few weeks of blogging here. This Steemtopia is a little different than most, because it doesn't focus so much on the ideals we are looking for in a society while we are alive.

My question to you is this Steemit users,
"What do you think happens to us when we die?"
Is there a part of us that remains such as a soul?
Is there nothing?
Is there an afterlife?

I have my own ideas, but I really want to hear what YOU think. Below I provide some of my thoughts, but feel free to skip down to the comments if you don't want to feel influenced from my ideas.

To start, I want to mention that this is just my take, not meant to influence anybody.

Being a steadfast agnostic (and feeling that this is something I can not KNOW), I have two lines of thought. The first being that when we die, our entire self and essence end. The biological body has shut down, no longer regenerates or maintains itself, and what we think of as the soul ends as well. The energy of our mind, body and soul are no more and decompose into other forms.

The second line of thought (and more interesting to me) is that the physical body dies, but the spark of the soul (which I think of as subconscious) blends back into the rest of the universe, maintaining some vibrational form. To me this vibration is the permanent remnant that rejoins the rest of the universe when not encompassed by a self identity or ego. I enjoy the analogy of a drop of water going into the ocean. The drop is still there somewhere, but can not be reclaimed into its original, unique form.

I personally prefer the idea that there is a part of us that is reclaimed and continues on in some way.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

If you like discussions like this please follow me or check out my other posts at @sykochica

And please remember to #payitforward.

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First of all, congrats for making your posts very interactive. I really admire and appreciate users who take the time to acknowledge the people who engage with their posts.

Regarding my thoughts, we're on the same boat, ideologically speaking. It truly is something we don't have a capability of knowing, and there's some strange comfort in that. The analogy I commonly use though is that the soul can be considered as energy. If we're going to look at it scientifically, we can posit that energy is never destroyed, it's only transformed or converted into different forms of energy. We are the stars, lightyears away, and we are everything and nothing.

One other belief that I really wish to be true was written before by Andy Weir, entitled "The Egg". If you haven't read it, here's the link: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

I am totally with you. Most my best ideas/beliefs from conservation of energy.

I think the acceptance of knowing what we can't know is under-appreciated by many. Nice to be around here to find the ones that do appreciate that.

Thank you, I've not heard of that. I'll check it out and thanks for the link!

You're welcome! I hope you enjoy the read. It really gives a different perspective from the ones we currently share.

Thank you! I'll go give this a read.

I'm planning on regenerating like Dr Who.

Haha! Great answer!

I hope I go to heaven but who knows!

I can understand that.
I like to think that the big factor of heaven/ hell (should they exist) is based on the persons mindset when they pass. I.e. having a lot of guilt upon death stays with you, since there's no chance of fixing it, nor ability to change your mind without a physical body

I couldn't agree more. I think if you have that mindset on your way to the next stage then yes maybe you'll end up on hell , or heaven.

If only we had a tardis :)

i will continue drinking a couple of more beers and get back to this post then to truly comment

That sounds fair :) We usually have a couple before the podcast for the same reason.

I mostly agree with your second line of thought, that's kinda where I stand. I guess none of us will really know until we die, as blunt as that sounds. O.o

I understand. The idea of nothing is...a boring possibility. The bulk of my time is spent in hope/belief of something and what that might be. I find it way more appealing and gratifying.

I believe we have souls/energy and our bodies are just a vehicle to experience different forms of existence. I have had an out of body experience in the past and this was one of the reasons why i believe we have souls. Incarnation on earth is part of an education of one's soul, and perhaps come here multiple times to learn certain lessons. It's a very interesting subject to ponder, Thanks for posting on it.

I can definitely relate. I had practiced transcendental meditation a while when I was younger, leading to an out of body experience, seeing a gold (or silver, i forget) cord connecting 'me' to my body.

I'll happily admit that I don't know if this was just my mind creating the experience versus it being objectively real, but the experience happened regardless.

I love the way the soul/energy and body relationship were explained in a babylon 5 episode, where the soul is a projection through our body: