this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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I did get messed up by some anxiety and have these thoughts rolling through my head so I'll leave it at cosmic horror warning.

spoilerI'm not religious but I have thoughts about experiencing consciousness and what it is. I say that consciousness is independent of memory because we forget, clearly dependent on our physical body, etc. generally I do say that we don't know consciousness so maybe it can be reconstructed (in the can't rule out the possibility way)

So I can see scenarios were my conscious could pop into existence without my memories after I die (as I'm writing this I realized that's nothing to fear).

I am trying to adopt healthier mindset of looking at everything in life as a quest, new things are a call to action, and that it's okay if everything I do amounts to little in x number of years (worked out okay for ozymandias, right?).

Im probably just rambling because my life has got boring and monotonous along with actual fear of American politics.

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[–] laconiancruiser@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

The amount of effort people put into saying “Maaaybe. We really don’t know,” is just crazy to me. No, because it’s nonsense.

[–] NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Anyone who says they know what happens when you die is trying to grift you. No one knows and we all find out one day, no point in dwelling on it.

[–] Deathgl0be@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If it was a choice why would I ever wanna come back to this hell hole ?

[–] Cattail@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think this universe sucks, not to ignore human history. Lots of it is empty space apparently cosmic events can wipe you out with next to no warning, your made up of atoms and cells that can die and degrade, and we are stuck to this solar system because space isn't empty it's full of shit thats going to kill you

[–] sheogorath@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Which is why my headcanon for this universe is that we're basically running rogue playthrough in this life. After you die, you'll regain all your "soul" memories and will be given a choice to "replay" with another life and losing your memories "again" until you've reached a certain level of enlightenment and then you'll "graduate" from our current level of existence.

Call me crazy but it helps me sleep at night, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

We live in an infinite universe. As such, it seems hubristic to me to believe that we have, more or less, nature figured out.

I don't feel compelled to believe in the soul as some strange sort of object that is continuously reincarnated towards a great purpose. But if we consider consciousness as an energy of its own kind, then it should hold true that it cannot be created or destroyed, only change form. This could mean that the consciousness that resides in the body could move between different life forms like a fluid, freely mixing and melding with others, filling a new vessel as necessary.

[–] Cattail@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I don't know if I can believe in a great purpose, is there an end that's meant to be reached or is it like we find the next step.

Maybe we dream, and works towards it if we achieve it; we dream again. We can enjoy it, be absolutely ambivalent, or even suffer. Maybe I can get back to appreciating the universe unfolding in front of me.

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[–] ApollosArrow@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I don’t believe in reincarnation, but one thing that isn’t mentioned enough is that there aren’t enough “souls” for everyone to have a reincarnation. If you rewind the clock back, once the original (for the sake of this exercise) 100 people died, the next generation would have 200-300 people already alive due to multiple children, which means they would halve mostly new souls. Fast forward to today, I’d imagine a lot of people would have baby souls.

[–] Cattail@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Yeah I'm no gonna subscribe to the religious concept of reincarnation. I do agree it wouldn't make sense that there's a fixed number of souls that were doing it for eternity, or that there's this coherent cycle reincarnating as different animals all the way back to begining of life.

It is cool think about "soul" being cleansed like some day we can become redeemable through some process. I don't believe that's happening

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[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You say forgetting memories is proof or indicative that memory depends on the physical body. But isn't that true for conscious as well?

Our conscious is inherently bound to our physical being. We see, we feel, we taste, we identify with our body. Our brain allows us to think, and experience, to conceptualize our body, our being, us as an entity.

We cut off fingernails and discard them as no longer part of ourselves. We drive a car and internalize movement as if it were us moving, while not seeing the vehicle as part of ourselves.

Without experiencing and without a body to conceptualize, what would our consciousness be? Without a body and mind where consciousness can arise from experience and thoughts, how could consciousness arise?

[–] Cattail@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah theirs an idea that universal can recreate particles and mass from energy that exists and eventually I guess the universe can recreate the the universe similar to how we know it after some amount of time or make a big bang. I don't understand that physics but interesting concept.

I would be curious if the was consciousness without matter, maybe a pure energy based being could exist

[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago

I don't see any possibility of that based on the physics I know of and my understanding.

[–] Oberyn@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Want there to be evidence reincarnation exists . Want there to be research teams dedicated to finding it

[–] Cattail@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Only if there's a way to test reincarnation. It would be neat to look at potential test. The closest thing I think of is anesthesia because that shuts your brain off

[–] kromem@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

No. I believe in a relative afterlife (and people who feel confident that no afterlife is some sort of overwhelmingly logical conclusion should probably look closer at trending science and technology).

So I believe that what any given person sees after death may be relative to them. For those that hope for reincarnation, I sure hope they get it. It's not my jam but they aren't me.

That said, I definitely don't believe that it's occurring locally or that people are remembering actual past lives, etc.

[–] twice_hatch@midwest.social 1 points 1 month ago

No, that's silly and easily disproven. I merely believe I'm a facet of a benevolent fierce deity that supervenes on behalf of humanity

[–] QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 month ago

I want to believe

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I say that consciousness is independent of memory because we forget, clearly dependent on our physical body

Some parts remain even after you forget. That is the outcome of your own free decisions, that has formed part of your personality. For example, you like cornflowers because you have decided to like it. So when you forget how cornflowers look, you will still like them when you see them, even without really remembering them. A good part of your personality is formed in that way: you have decided to be that way.

I believe that (most of ?) our personality remains when the current body goes to compost and we enter the next world, either up or down :)

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