Infinity issues

I agree with your last statement, I think. I need time to consider the rest. And Iain's. And I'm aware I may be derailing the thread. This is one of those times I bite off more than I can chew.

Edit - I'm not quoting on your Scarlet Johnson comment - it's the other one. Confusion over how replies are stacked!

I had to find an answer away ffrom religious influences, because it was driving me crazy. I became an atheist first because nothing about Heaven was appealing at all. Glad I found other ways to interpret all that.

I know what your´re talking about. No religious or materialistic answer would be relieving to me. Childhood was kind of a metaphysical torture.

I agree with that about time. Those thoughts I referred to were there when I was 10, and now I understand time in a very different way (fortunately). But I have always been curious about the existence of others that find the mere idea of it extremely panicking, because I´ve always herard about concerns about boredom, or headeaches out of thinking of it, but no fear of eternity. My mum once told me that it was absurd to be afraid of it, as if in the case that we all could live happily together forever, but I found that very upsetting. She, or anyone else, just wouldnt understand why I felt that way.

I also like to ask people how they think "heaven" would work.

In my idea of heaven I would be in a polygamous relationship with Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba. But that would likely not be heavenly for them. How can we all be happy in this scenario?

I watched both my parents suffer through different types of dementia so it's something I have thought about a lot (and worry about for my own future).

I can imagine some sort of "higher being" version of myself that lives outside of time and space who would see "me" as an infinitesimal sliver of its greater reality.

However, that would be pure imagination with absolutely no supporting evidence, and how would "I" connect to that entity any more than trying to identify myself with the universe as a whole?

"I" am the collection of physical structures, experiences, memories and beliefs that have accumulated in this body. If those things were gone I would be something else, not me.

Is it correct to equate our fundamental sense of self with our memories? What about people who have illnesses which change or distort these memories? How accurate are they anyway in a healthy person? These are questions to consider.

I realise everything I'm talking about so far is deviating from the OP which is more about having trouble with dealing with existential matters rather than existential matters per se.

Unknown said:

I am curious why proof or disproof is necessary on some matters in this world. 

It is a matter of trust.

If the priest from your preferred religious organisation said that you must believe that the only way to have a good afterlife was to give the chuch all your money and your firstborn into their service then would you do it?

There are so many stories told by religions about the afterlife, most of which involves them getting lots of your money / time / devotion that I believe it to be a scam.

Science has no stake in this - ie you don't give them anything if they are right and they have used rigorous methods to test if there is proof - and everything comes up as unproven.

The answer seems clear cut to me but then I was never indoctrinated into any religion to have faith in the unprovable.

In the even science does come up with proof of a god or afterlife then I will examine it and re-evaluate my conclusions.

There's such a lot to think about in your very short post!!!!

I find it sad when people ruin the one life we definitely know we have in service to an eternal life we definitely cannot count on.

I am curious why proof or disproof is necessary on some matters in this world. 

Iain said:

There is no proof of life after death - I spent over 10 years studying this with the Society of Psychical Research and all the information I could find and all the tests we performed could find absolutely no conclusive proof.

We have quite a good understanding of how the brain stores memories, and it does involve physical structures and processes.

This implies that after our bodies die, our memories die with it. So if our spirit did survive, it wouldn't remember who we were, who we loved, what mattered to us.

Like you, the logic of etermal afterlife seems a bit of a ropey concept.

There is no proof of life after death - I spent over 10 years studying this with the Society of Psychical Research and all the information I could find and all the tests we performed could find absolutely no conclusive proof.

30 years later and they are no further forward which makes me think that if there isn't even a glimmer or evidence then there is a pretty good chance it doesn't exist.

I think we are just biological machines where our sentience is an accidental byproduct of millions of years of evolution.

It is quite natural to worry about what comes next but I find a comfort in thinking that all the most unpleasant people in history are not hanging about somewhere no doubt tormenting people in the afterlife just as they did in life.

The afterlife would also get pretty crowded when you consider that at this point in time there have been around 100 billion people who have ever lived ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimates_of_historical_world_population ) so their telephone directory will be enormous.

If you struggle in crowds then how does 100 billion sound?

Then again since autism is caused by our brains and they obviously won't be there in the afterlife then will we still be autistic?

Meh, too much vagueness, no proof and the answers all seem unpaletable so I'm sticking to my belief of it being lights out at the end.

I once had a really bad existential crisis with like five because one kid in kindergarten talked about heaven and since I am an atheist, I was very confused and was like: “Nah-uh, that’s very likely not the right answer”. I spiralled for days thinking about the “right answer”. My parents didn’t really understand and thought I was worried about death itself, so they told something along the lines of: “It’s nothing to be afraid of. It is still so far away from you and there’s nothing bad about falling asleep, right? It’ll probably be like that.” 
What I got out of this for myself was that death is probably like falling asleep. You don’t realise that time is passing by because you’re basically sleeping safe and sound. I no longer believe in this theory, but it soothed my childish brain at the time.

I have read a lot of books where the protagonist has to deal with immortality and they’re all fairly horrifying so I agree.

I also recall attending a funeral where one of the hymns had a line to the effect of ten thousand years in heaven is insignificant like a second.

My literal brain immediately thinks: if I had an infinity of time I’d need an infinity of new things to stop me going mad from boredom and maybe after a while I’d even get bored of novelty.

Maybe the idea is that when you’re a non-corporeal being not limited to physical space, time means something different or doesn’t exist at all.

You’ll rarely get a good exploration of the issue from religion though.