After speaking to many friends, and acquaintances who are Atheists I have learned that many of them believe there is simply "nothing" after you die. Now after a lot of thought, I have begun to strongly disagree with this idea. The reason why is because the same people that believe nothing is experienced after death also believe everything came from absolutely nothing. So, considering no time would pass inside of nothing, and if something (everything) CAN emerge from nothing then wouldn't it be the case that after death nothing would be experienced for no time at all and then something would emerge once again out of this nothing which would be considered our Afterlife. I am genuinely excited to hear some other points of view on this. Thank you.
Subscription Note:
Choosing to subscribe to this topic will automatically register you for email notifications for comments and updates on this thread.
Email notifications will be sent out daily by default unless specified otherwise on your account which you can edit by going to your userpage here and clicking on the subscriptions tab.
You might find this interesting ––despite it being rather dry–– it is somewhat related to what you mentioned:
Poincaré recurrence theorem.
Yes. Rather interesting, indeed. if applied to the same line of thought as my original question this suggests there is some sort of "cycle" from beginning to end with the same or similar time elapsed for each cycle. Although, my question to that is, would this be considered an afterlife or at least not "nothing" after death but maybe something more similar to reincarnation, especially because this theorem suggests that in rare cases "there may be some special phases that never return to the starting phase volume, only return to the starting volume a finite number of times then never return again"
@ joe17
"there may be some special phases that never return to the starting phase volume, only return to the starting volume a finite number of times then never return again" is roughly the reincarnation process described by the first buddha.
specifically to paraphrase below;
"THE CYCLE OF BIRTH AND DEATH
The Buddha pointed out that whenever one is reborn, whether as a human being, as an animal, or as a god, none of these states of existence is permanent. The average life span differs for living beings in the six realms of existence but none of them lasts forever. Eventually, rebirth will take place. The realm into which one is reborn and one's conditions of rebirth are determined by past and present actions.
Because of the force of their karma, people are born and reborn endlessly in one realm of existence or in another. The Buddha declared that there is no permanent rest in this cycle of birth and death. It is only when one follows the Noble Eightfold path taught by the Buddha and eventually attains Nirvana, that one finally becomes free from this ceaseless cycle and gains supreme and permanent happiness."
Interesting. If we remove the religious aspects the thought seems very much the same.
Whenever one existence ends, whether as a human being, as an animal, or as a god, none of these states of existence is permanent. The average life span differs for living beings but none of them lasts forever. Eventually, rebirth will take place. The point at which one is reborn and one's conditions of rebirth are indeterminate.
Because of their inherent life force , entities are born and reborn endlessly in one realm of existence or in another. There is no permanent rest in this cycle of birth and death. It is only when entities attain a null energy point they finally become free from this ceaseless cycle"
I am not espousing this postulation but I am certainly interested in the way that the two statements seem to converge.
."
Certainly glad I brought this idea up in this forum. I had never toyed with the idea of the cycle that would ensue with my original idea or its closeness to the idea of reincarnation. It seems like the big difference is the idea of karma, as it does not fit in with the original idea. Also that the rebirth that I originally thought of was never thought to be being reborn as another conscious being but perhaps something else entirely. I'm not trying to figure out what that could be, only the idea of "something" happening.
@ joe
That's why I tried to take as much of the 'woo' factor away in the second paraphrase there. If you want to wade through a lot of semi religious stuff then buddhism, specifically zen buddhism has a lot to offer in the way of training through medittaion and conceptual analysis of normal living.
To answer your post below for Sunyata : thezenuniverse.org/sunyata/
That is quintessential zen. "The Buddha always used the terms void, no rising and falling, calmness and extinction to explain the profound meaning of sunyata and cessation"
"sunyata" and "cessation" are concepts I have thought of but never had a word for. I have also never learned about quintessential zen. What exactly is this concept?
Your energy will be conserved, that is as good as it gets I would imagine.
@joe17 original post
I believe it is extremely likely there is nothing after we die. (No afterlife where a soul or conscious continues on.) But I do not believe everything came from nothing, I simply do not know. I believe it could be one way or the other.
While technically yes, that is correct. You do understand that "time" is merely a human thought construct of using one event to measure other events?
All you are really saying is: "there is no events or measuring going on when there is nothing."
If that does not make sense to you, perhaps you are stuck because of hollywood's notion of time and "time" travel.
When people say they want to go back in time to change something in the past, what they really mean, (without knowing it usually,) is they want every electron of every atom in the universe to be in the same exact spot it was at the "event" in their life that they want to change, except of course, the electron/atom positions in their own body or perhaps their own body plus whatever else they want to also not revert to atom/electron position of that particular event. (Like another person, a belonging, clothes etc.)
As for future time travel, the person really just wants: the atoms and electron positions in their bodies to reform in those same positions when the person first decided how many certain event measures, (perhaps 10 earth rotations around sun.) Again I imagine a person would want to include things like clothes.
LogicForTW,
Of course everything came from nothing. The problem is that we don't understand what the properties of "nothing" are. The closest we have gotten is what's called "strings" but we have no idea what they are since they exist before elemental particles. But they do form quantum foam which produces the first elemental particle that evolves into the next one and so on until they become complex enough to produce hydrogen atoms. Once celestial hydrogen forms visible material creation begins. The hydrogen atoms clump together into huge balls and goes nuclear, creating a star. The star cooks the hydrogen into heavier elements. The star blows up and the residue clumps together and forms planets. The planets the create new elements and organic compounds in their own furnaces. Under the right conditions the organic compounds become self-replicating and life is created.
The main problem people have is that they think that people and trees popped into existence in the blink of an eye. The process takes eons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGEjrADGPA
http://www.htwins.net/scale2/
I would say that we couldn't understand the properties of nothing because no properties could exist inside of it. And any concepts like "strings" or other couldn't exist inside of the abstract idea of "nothing"
"I would say that we couldn't understand the properties of nothing because no properties could exist inside of it. And any concepts like "strings" or other couldn't exist inside of the abstract idea of "nothing"
You've just made 2 claims about something you started by saying you could not understand? Define nothing, what is it 'exactly'?
In my original idea I assumed that no time passes inside of nothing and that something could come from nothing. I think that maybe a good place to start to describe “nothing” would be what oldmanshouts explained “The Buddha always used the terms void, no rising and falling, calmness and extinction to explain the profound meaning of sunyata and cessation”.
joe17,
Where do you think celestial hydrogen comes from, the grocery store?
Am I mistaken in saying that most atheists believe strongly in science? And from a scientific point of view would it not be unreasonable to claim "that "time" is merely a human thought construct of using one event to measure other events". You also say you do not know if everything came from nothing but it could be "one way or the other". What are the two options you are thinking of?
Most atheists follow the principles of science because it is the most reliable and consistent method to determine truth. We do not "believe" in it, we understand that it is a valid and effective method.
Actually, "time" is much more than an abstract concept. If I was to arrange a meeting with you at a certain location, it would involve four dimensions. The x,y, and z locations, and the fourth, time. Otherwise I would be sitting waiting for a long time. Time can be measured and it's properties defined. Did you know that all GPS satellites must be re-calibrated twice each day because a satellite in orbit is experiencing time at a different time rate than you or I sitting on the ground?
Have you ever heard the phrase "space/time continuum"? That is not just a buzzword from a science fiction TV show. Space and time are interrelated. This concept has been defined by not only Einstein's equations, but the work and math of many others. Experiments in other fields have confirmed relativity.
So we have a theory of relativity that has withstood the scrutiny of peer review and has been supported by independent experiments such a gravitational lensing. Now we get to the important part. If you do not have matter, you do not have time. "Nothing" is much more than the absence of atoms, it is the absence of everything, including time.
Like any other unit of measurement, (distances, mass, etc) I argue time is an abstract human thought construction. What is a year? One earth orbit around the sun, (an event.) What is a day? One full spin of the earth on its axis, (another event.) The rest of the units of measurement of time are fractions of those two events. The months measurement based on the moon got butchered trying to fit a specific whole number amount of lunar cycles in a year, as well as days in a lunar cycle. The moon event does not give a crap about having nice even whole number fraction of earth spin or rotation around the sun cycles. Even earth spin day is not a perfect fraction of the earth's complete orbit around the sun, (hence the leap year.)
I feel the general theory of relativity actually makes a lot more sense and is easier to truly grasp and comprehend when you realize that time is a human construct of using one event to measure others. While the oft misunderstood concept of time gets "relative" but that can be confusing, instead one event, (or series of events,) measured, being relative to another event.
Yes, space/time continuum is a solid tool used in science. I suppose what I really am arguing here is: most people need to better understand what the human construct of time really measures. Instead hollywood sci fi stories mucking up people's understanding of time. You can not "go back in time." Time on a line, a graph is useful for illustrating things, but is not wholly accurate representation of time, and it really falls apart when you try to deal with relativity. All there is, is events, it just so happens you can semi accurately measure some events compared to others if all other forces are equal, and those measurements can get funky when affected by other things such as gravity.
Starting over, and perhaps re-realizing the human construct of time is actually based on using one event to measure others clears away the confusion. All the sci fi fiction "time travel" paradoxes go away when you realize when time is a human construct, a measurement of one event to be used to compare others. You cannot "undo" an event by playing with common misconceptions of what "time" is. There is no "time travel" if you think there is, you have the wrong understanding of "time." If paradoxes pop up, it is because the person's understanding of something is not complete. It just makes for a cool sci fi story.
Yes, but a more clear way of saying that is: without matter you do not have events, without events the human thought construct of using events to measure events no longer works, (nothing to measure and compare!)
Same could be said of distance. Without matter you have nothing to compare one piece of matter in a spatial sense, to another. With no matter, the human concept of distance no longer works. There is no wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum to base a meter off of, (or an earth for the previous used distance to measure off of.) There is also nothing to measure. The human concept of "distance" comes to an end simply because there is nothing to measure. No two points to compare to each other in utter lack of matter in true nothing.
I believe quite strongly in science. It is the first place I look to answers, and making life decisions based firmly in science has so far helped me lead a good, succesful and pain minimized life.
Two pretty simple options, to me, that I was thinking of:
One, there was at one point nothing. (So everything came out of nothing.)
Or two, there was always been something.
Both deal with concepts we humans struggle with in a large part because we cannot measure it. True "nothing" and infinity.
There is, (at least currently,) no way to prove either side. So: I simply think of it as, I do not know.
We can theorize one side or another, but the theories ultimately arise from a big fat, "we do not know" we can find evidence for the big bang expansion of the universe, but we cannot peer into what happened before that. There seemingly is no way to observe that. A "gap" where many theist apologist try to slide in to try and prove their god ( "god of the gaps"), - not well might I add, if we try to use common bronze age gods and lore to fill that gap.
First: No one believes that anything came from absolutely nothing unless they are completely ignorant. There is no example of absolutely nothing. You are asserting that something called "absolutely nothing" exists. This is an absurd assertion.
Asserting that absolutely nothing came before the big bang is not different that asserting a God came before the big bang. The fact is WE DON'T KNOW. You can no more prove the existence of "absolutely nothing" than you can "God."
Modern Physics breaks down at Plank Time. Beyond that, we know nothing. That is why we are experimenting with the particle accelerators.
So far we are back to a fraction of a second before the Big Bang. Like most people you probably do not understand what the Big Bang is.
BIG BANG - Is not a theory of the origin of the universe. It is not a cosmology. The Big Bang is not a bang. The "Big Bang" is a valid and verifiable theory about the expansion of the universe. Time and matter were created in the big bang. Before that there was a hot dense mass compressed into a singularity. Before that, anyone is guessing. There does not even need to be a "before that." 'WE DON'T KNOW" Why is that so difficult to accept.
If you want to assert that there is nothing, you have to prove it. You have to define it. You have to demonstrate it. Currently we have no examples of "absolute nothing." It is a philosophical and mathematical idea / hypothesis. You do not get to assume it is real without evidence.
I am not asserting anything. “Nothing” is an abstract idea and will probably never be anything but an abstract idea. I disagree that “You can no more prove the existence of "absolutely nothing" than you can "God.". I believe that proving the idea of nothing would be easier than proving the idea of a god because explaining the time that occurred before the Big Bang would be best explained not as an infinite amount of time with no beginning but as simply “nothing” with no time existing whatsoever
Re: "Nothing” is an abstract idea and will probably never be anything..."
To clarify.....
Nothing will likely never be anything, unless it is something, in which case there would be absolutely nothing we could do about nothing at that point, as it would be something else entirely, taking away anything and everything from the problem of nothing, which leaves us with having made much ado about nothing.
Nothing complicated about nothing at all, unless there is anything I forgot to add to nothing, which would naturally change nothing to something else entirely, putting us right back to everything about nothing being nothing like we thought it should be. Anything else?....
I rest my case.
Oh, hey, everybody! If you don't mind, show of hands real quick....
Please raise your hand if nothing makes sense to you on this thread.... (*counting*... Let's seeeee..... one, two, three.... Q! Stand on your tip-toes or something back there! Hard to see you!.... Eight, nine.... Hey, somebody put a stick through the spokes of Old Man's tricycle and tell him to pay attention, please....Okay, good. You can put down your hands now.)
So, that settles it, I suppose. Nothing makes sense to everybody on this thread. Thanks folks. Carry on.
lets say the bigbang is not real, at least we're not saying "ahh then it's god who created all of these"
we don't believe in happy ever after... you're a grown up man..grow up..
it's ok to say "i don't know"
thats why we're learning, not asserting...
I never claimed the Big Bang was not real. And I certainly did not claim anything close to god creating everything instead. I did not start this thread to discuss “happy ever after“, the Big Bang, or god. I’m trying to listen to new viewpoints on my original idea of nothing and an afterlife
Cognostic,
The Big Bang is just a silly ass theory of creation cooked up by a Catholic priest. If you think about it you will realize it's just BS.
https://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/astronomy-terms/big-bang-th...
NOTHING: If there is nothing then there is nothing. Absolute nothing. No God, no thoughts, no time, no ability to have a thought or take an action because time and actions are something; You can not get from nothing to something. More importantly, you can not get from something to nothing. We cannot see the whole universe so: this has not actually been measured - it is only in the context of a theoretical model that this can be said. We also have no idea at all what is outside the universe or what our universe is expanding into. "WE DON'T KNOW"
Assuming we do is just ignorant.
A lot will happen after I die. It just won't involve me.
@joe17:
I have a question for you. Do you think it is possible that when a dog, chimpanzee, elephant, or racoon dies that their consciousness dies with their bodies?
joe17: "After speaking to many friends, and acquaintances who are Atheists I have learned that many of them believe there is simply "nothing" after you die. Now after a lot of thought, I have begun to strongly disagree with this idea. The reason why is because the same people that believe nothing is experienced after death also believe everything came from absolutely nothing."
There is a serious flaw in this argument: "nothing is experienced". After death, the one who experiences is gone. There is no one left to experience the state of being dead.
Also, I do not know many atheists who believe everything came from absolutely nothing.
Well said Cognostic, there is no proof that "nothing" has ever existed. It is just an abstract concept.
And even if we did accept this complete reset belief, then in that interval when there was "nothing", that means there would be no god or religion, and once time did re-start, more likely than not, everything would start from a singularity and who knows what that would produce. If "nothing" happened, then there would be no connection to the two distinct time events.
This belief has many assumptions, that there is a "soul", a "soul" would exist in some form during "nothing" ( a contradiction) and that with no explained mechanism, in the reset the second time event would be a consequence of the first time event.
So for that to happen, then there could not be a break in existence, there could not be "nothing".
Pages