What Is Death?

NOTABLE POINTS OF DISCUSSION:

we have an endless amount of little deaths of parts of ourselves throughout our life, and perhaps the goal is to die as many of those little deaths as possible so that when you actually die, you don't have so much baggage and so much you're holding onto
secular views of death tend to believe that there is no afterlife, and this may lead to a rise in nihilism or apathy. however it could also inspire one to pursue their dreams before time runs out and there is nothing left to experience at all
regardless of religious background or lack thereof, coming in close contact to death is typically followed by a greater sense of gratitude for the everyday, mundane phenomena. everyday is a blessing
theory of energy conservation, in essence, the idea that nothing/no one ever truly dies. instead, the energy used by a conscious being is simply transferred into another conscious form with no lapse between. there is no “self” that exists as a single, separate, permanent identity. the “selves” that we experience in our human forms are just borrowed/transferred energy given to us by previous forms of consciousness which “died” in our common sense view. death doesn't exist for consciousness, as it travels through multiple universes. consciousness continues existing even after death, with information flowing through different realities
it is important to be thinking of death more often and to find some structured system that reminds us of our inevitable end and in turn live more intentionally/purposefully
using drugs is a powerful way to grow, but it leaves out a lot of other facets necessary to understand those new views of reality seen during altered states of consciousness. it is better to be humble enough to grow incrementally over a long time rather than try to take shortcuts with drugs and miss the full picture, although purposeful use can still be very beneficial

QUESTIONS WITHOUT CLEAR ANSWERS:

what are the differences between being in a coma vs being dead vs being braindead, and would we know if we were in a coma and/or braindead?
are the visions/commonalities seen during near death experiences simply a byproduct of the biological process of dying that produce physiological appearances, which are further influenced by one’s preexisting notions of what people see at death, or is it a true spiritual experience in which one is existing in another plane of reality?
how can we realistically catalyze others to consider death more often in daily life and lessen the fear of it?

WATCH AND LISTEN:

Listen to “What Is Death?” on Spotify, the full discussion recorded May 12, 2024

THE GENERAL CONSENSUS:
this summary includes actual quotes from the discussion that were recorded and transcribed. listen to the full discussion under the corresponding link.
on comas vs being brain dead vs being dead:
“You know, what is the difference between a coma and death?”

“Well, I was gonna mention brain dead. Because people can be in a coma, but then be brain dead. So their body is still alive, but their brain is not functioning. Right? And so it's kind of like, imagine your monitor still works. But your CPU is broken, you know, you can't process any information. But I guess your mouse still works, what good is that”

“Yeah you're just kind of existing”

“Well, yeah, your extremities are. But then there are neurons throughout your body. So actually, I was in a meditation yesterday. He goes, where do you feel you exist? He asked everyone in the room. He points to the head, the heart, here? He's leaving it open ended. So people choose where they are, some people who said their heads and their heart. And I was thinking to myself, there are neurons everywhere. Like I know that. Less neurons and than know in your brain, there's more neurons in your brain than the rest of the body, but there are technically neurons everywhere in your body. But yeah, if you're brain dead, a lot of your function is gone. So that kind of begs the question, like, if you're in a coma and your brain dead, is that death?”

“I feel like I feel a little bit in my head, the question being where do we feel our existence? But I feel like it's difficult to uncouple that from the way that I associate my mind with my brain. I think if I remember reading this correctly, in ancient Egypt they associated the heart with the seat of the soul. So I wouldn't have been surprised if you would ask people back then, they would have pointed to the heart maybe more so than the head.”
“Right, knowing what we know now scientifically that would make sense right. This is a good place to start, like basically what is the transition to death? Like is it the brain dying?”

“The medical definition says ‘an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.’ "
on the premise of an afterlife:
“I see a metaphor between death and a breakup. The song "Do you believe in life after love." A breakup feels like death sometimes, particularly if you're going through it for the first time. And what you said about that space between, some people want a friendship after the breakup, some just want to cut it off altogether. But there is the space after a breakup where you're trying to find your identity, who you are, because your identity was so focused on that person or that relationship. And so there's a space of exploring who you are again. And then sometimes you need to have the space before you can transition from what you were to what you're going to be after that.”

“In this life I think you're kind of just preparing for death, really. You're aware that you're gonna die someday, and until then you're trying to do things before that happens. To be prepared to die without having any regrets.”
“I think we all come from like this one, like source energy, whatever you want to call it. And we're all a little piece of this. And it's not one perfect being. We all kind of have our own unique mixture of soul, we're all a little soul recipe. And I think we do come here to learn lessons. I don't think of it as so much as like, Oh, we're preparing for death. But it's like, here's the classes I'm taking this semester of your life and you might have to retake a class over and over again, because you keep failing or you keep not going to class, you keep not doing the homework and you keep not listening or learning to what you agreed to learn here. I feel like for me, personally, my goal is to reach my full potential and do all the classes and pass and do what I came here to do. But I'm also not gonna beat myself up if I don't become perfect in all of these areas. Because I do think that there will be a chance for me to come back and do it. So I don't think of it as preparing for death. But it's like, let's see what I can get done while I'm here. And do my best at it. And then death is just energy traveling from one plane to another because you can't really destroy energy. It's going to exist somewhere.”
on the premise of no afterlife:
“I think one thing that's interesting in the transition from religious to secular conceptions of depth that might be involved in the degree to which people are thinking less about death is that the subject kind of changes. So religious conception of death isn't the total cessation of one's existence, because oftentimes, what will be discussed is the possibility of some afterlife and the conditions for actually being able to have that afterlife take on a certain shape. But typically, on a secular conception, for one who is secular will frequently think that death is just the total cessation. So the secularization of one's worldview oftentimes means one takes death as the biological process we've been talking about to be a very different kind of event. And so the difference in talking about it might be associated with the difference in the conception that one has of what's going on with death. So it's very meaningful to come and talk about death, if there are things we can do to make our post death existence better or worse. But if it's just the end of it, regardless, it's a very different topic.”

“I think that leads to the rise of nihilism, because if you do believe that nothing happens, and that's a whole separate rabbit hole, but, I would say it's a fair assumption to say that it's likely to lead to nihilism. In the realm of secularism, it's kind of understood that, yeah, if you die, there might not be anything after that. And it's almost like there is a popular belief that if you do believe there is something after death, that you're stupid. When I was growing up, I had a religious family and went to public school. When I met secular people, they would often refer to religious people as stupid people, like, oh, they don't believe in science. And science is pretty clear that there is no afterlife, you just die, and how could you believe in something so stupid? Now I'm a PhD scientist. So I find that pretty funny now. And there are many scientists who believe in God, like Einstein, but Stephen Hawkings was an atheist. Being a scientist doesn't mean that you don't believe in God. But somehow being opposed to an afterlife in popular culture got to be equated with being smart.”

“I'm a secular person, but I have family, like many of you, that's very religious. And I always say that the Christian concept of "every day is a blessing," you start to believe in that more, and it's not that I believe in God or the construct that's in the religious Church of God, but I have an appreciation, for being thankful for every day being a blessing, I think they're spot on about that. Which leads to a larger thing. I was thinking, I am an atheist. And I'm a non, meaning a person who never went to church or Sunday school. And, I think a lot about conception, and our cultures and our religions, and the idea of what the true definition of faith is, and faith is believing in something that's unprovable, right. And so the conception, that after you die, you go somewhere, is like a metaphor. And I think about the metaphors that are in the Bible and religion, many religions. Be kind to your fellow man, help people that need to be helped, altruistic endeavors like that. And I think about heaven as being the memory in your ancestors, in their minds, that heaven exists in the minds of people that remember you or remember what you did. Or remember, even if you were a simple person, what you did for a child, you're in the thought of that child for the rest of their life, because you did something wonderful for them. And to me, it's metaphorical. And so I'm not your typical atheist, I'm appreciative of faith. And I think that it has value in human society. And I'm not going to call people stupid, because they have faith, you know. And in religions, it's framed around anthropomorphizing the universe, in that there is a father, like in the tribe, there's a leader of the tribe. So for 1000s of years, we talked about the leader, the Father, and in many religions, it's this patriarchal thing where we talk about the Father. And we live on this Fantastic Planet, it's extremely rare. And it's amazing to be conscious for the 70, or 80, or 90 spins, if you're lucky, around the sun to be conscious. I studied Buddhism in the 80s. And it's like, that is God, you know, the idea that you're conscious in this universe. And I do have some characteristics as an atheist that points fingers at religious people. You know, this world is not good enough for you. I mean, this is a fantastic planet, an incredible plethora of life and everything, that we have to view it through these blinders of most churches, or many churches in the way that they're trying to get people to join their congregation. They're trying to raise money, they're trying to support their leaders as being powerful. And it takes away from the idea that it's a fantastic planet, and life is what you make of it. I'm gonna get off my soapbox.”
on the use of psychedelic drug use for growth and/or medicinal treatment:
We had discussed the use of psychedelics that have led to further understandings of life, death, and the universe as a whole. One thinker mentioned his aversion to using such drugs without strategic intentions behind doing so, whether that means taking them for pure fun or as a way to expand the mind exponentially in an incredibly short amount of time. He made the analogy of one’s knowledge/wisdom existing as a sphere, which should expand equally across its entire surface area over gradual learning through life experiences. However, when one takes a psychedelic drug, it’s as if they pierce a small hole through the sphere, and are able to see a tiny little speck of higher knowledge through that hole in their sphere, and for a moment they may feel as though they have evolved their entire sphere to that level. But what tends to happen is that the new knowledge does not integrate into the sober mind because it is missing the context of all of the other elements that support that new knowledge. The sphere should gradually increase to that knowledge level rather than poke holes in itself and confuse the person.

Another thinker mentioned the possibility of using psychedelics medicinally in a controlled manner in order to help their daughter who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He asked how the sphere theory may work in that situation.

The thinker with the sphere theory digressed that yes, psychedelics can be very beneficial in these cases, but that it should be more regulated. He also changed the analogy of the spheres to one of a stormy ocean. The idea is, the stormy ocean is the person’s mind struggling with a mental disorder. When they take a controlled dosage of a psychedelic, it is as if it shakes up that storm and settles it down into a clearer sea, where the waves may still carry the mental patterns, but less violently.

on remembering death more often in daily life:
“I had a thought this morning about how we have a lot of little mini deaths throughout our life, of ourselves. Like versions of ourselves that kind of died off. For example, when I was a kid, I had this thing where, when I was going to sleep at night, whenever I closed my eyes, I had to be looking directly at a light source, whether that was the clock, the nightlight, the TV, whatever. I had to be closing my eyes while I was looking directly at the light, otherwise, the next day would be a bad day in my mind. But I don't do that anymore. And so that part of me kind of died off, in a sense. I stopped engaging in that behavior. So the behavior stopped existing, I stopped putting my life force into that version of being, and into other things instead. Maybe not even other things, but I stopped doing this specific behavior, and directed that like force into the rest of my other behaviors. Redirecting the light force and energy. Throughout our entire lifetime, there's so many of those little tiny, ego deaths or whatever, where we stopped doing one thing, and then we evolved into better, or maybe worse versions of ourselves, where we're directing our energy to other places. And I feel like the goal is to have died so many little deaths that when you finally die, you have nothing left to hold on to. You can just die and transition from life to death with no baggage.”

“We were just talking about this while walking over here. I won't get into the details. But there's a lot of victimization in society right now. And one of the root reactions to that [realizing the reality of death] possibly, is that there's a lot of need to feel significant in the world right now. There's a rise of secularism and a decline in religion, which I'm not saying it's good or bad, just saying it is. And people may not be acknowledging death as often as they used to. People went to church, or they went to their mosque, or they went to the synagogue. And they talked about it pretty often. So being reminded of their mortality, kind of was a wake up call, like, Oh, what do I do with my life? How do I think about my significance? And it's interesting that you bring that up, I completely agree that people should be thinking about their death constantly, to have less baggage when they die. Is that what we're doing in society? I don't think so. And so how do you catalyze people to think more about their death without some sort of standard practice? That's something I've been mulling over that is not the topic of our conversation, but something that's going to bother me for the next few years probably.”

“Well, how do you live differently? Acknowledging death versus someone who brushes it off?”

“You might live more purposefully, more intentionally. You'll probably value time a lot more and spend it differently”
on the possibility of death being nonexistent (energy conservation theory):
One thinker explained the theory of energy conservation. Energy will always take the path of least resistance. What does that mean in the context of death? Essentially, all of the energy and knowledge that one accumulates and uses throughout life will travel somewhere after their death, since energy can never be destroyed. Where exactly it goes, we may never know for sure. But since that energy does not want to have to travel through an amoeba body with all of the experience it has gained through a human body, it will want to travel to another human body or perhaps even a higher form of consciousness. Consciousness continues existing even after death. In that sense, one will never truly die completely. Death doesn’t exist for consciousness. It travels through multiple universes, with the conservation of information throughout multiple realities.

on the possibility of “curing” death and digitizing one’s consciousness:
Scientists claim that aging is a disease, and a few are trying to cure it through reverse aging. They have tested treatments on lab rats and met success, but human trials have yet to begin. If at some point in the future, humans no longer die from aging, how will they decide to die instead? Obviously accidents and other diseases would prevail and take away lives, but for those who persist for many years past the average lifespan of today, would they choose when to die? How long would they actually want to stay alive in a youthful body? Would it be normal to decide upon one’s own death date?

There is also the speculation of uploading one’s consciousness into digital existence. What exactly this would mean is unclear in terms of how they would be uploaded, but it also raises the question of how death would fit into this reality. Would one be able to choose to unplug themselves and die in that way? Would it be considered murder to unplug someone’s consciousness without their consent?

One of our thinkers spoke about a Canadian company working on an AI model which takes data from a person’s life and creates an entity online that anyone can “talk” to as if it were really them.

“HereAfter is an app that helps people record and preserve their life stories, memories, and voice so that future generations can get to know them in an interactive way. Users can have conversations with the app to record audio stories, upload photos, and create a virtual version of themselves.” (HereAfterAI)

on near death experiences; personal experiences thinker’s have had and biological explanations for physiological effects:
Several thinkers shared some personal anecdotes of times they came into close contact with death and what they learned from those experiences. One had a major surgery in college that caused him to have great appreciation for simple tasks such as putting on a shirt or washing his hair in the shower. Another was in the military and recalled similar feelings of profound gratitude for things as simple as driving to get a pizza after having been overwhelmed by nothingness for so long.

One thinker described a time when they had been too high and saw the meaninglessness of cyclic existence throughout hundreds of lifetimes, the endless universes and identities that arise, act, and then die over and over again. He mentioned seeing a light that seemed to indicate the choice of dying, but instead of following it he decided to stay alive in this lifetime out of guilt for doing drugs against his parents warnings, and perhaps out of fear of the unknown. Another thinker mentioned the Buddhist beliefs of the Bardo’s stages, which are 4 stages believed to occur immediately after one died and before they are reborn into another life. In one of these stages, there are supposedly blinding bright lights when one looks up, which if they are able to follow, lead to the escape of cyclic existence and that person will not be reborn into a human body. But looking down, there are soft and dim, comforting lights which feel familiar. If one follows those lights, they will be reborn into another realm of cyclic existence, likely another human body.

Another thinker spoke in great detail of a time she had felt she’d almost died during a sleep paralysis episode in which she saw visions, heard voices, and her body was convulsing but she could not move it. Someone mentioned how the biological process of dying may be a more realistic explanation for such occurrences that people experience during near death/death, rather than it being a spiritual revelation of sorts. The thinker who had the visions agreed, and admitted it did feel more so like her brain was shorting out and her actual body was dying rather than some type of higher wisdom coming to her from the universe. Could it be that the actual biological processes that ensue during death produce these experiences naturally, and people associate them with spiritual meaning because they have been conditioned into believing so?

A final thinker had a similar experience where she explained the way her soul left her body behind and felt immense peace and a sense of being home, although her body was freaking out and wanted her to come back to it. And she did come back to it in order to finish her journey in this life, although she admits it was difficult to want to come back after feeling the freedom of leaving the body.