Before I get on with my topic, I’de like to say I’m very happy to be here, I finally decided to make myself an account, after exclusvily reading the forums for a while. Waiting may have been a bad idea, but I suppose I was a little intimidated, I know relativily nothing about Philosophy, and being just 17 years old, I’ve found that there aren’t many other outlets to learn about this broad topic (my school doesn’t have a class for it) so I’de have to settle for the internet, which turned out to be a very fun, and helpful choice, hopefully it continues to be. So I took a plundge and started reading and I can say that I throughly enjoyey many, if not all of the discussions here, and can’t wait to start learning more about this fascinating subject. Anyway, I’ll get on with my little idea / question.
This isn’t somthing factual at all, or even a popular theory as far as I know, but I have been mulling it over in my head now for a few weeks and I thought it was an interesting take on things of this nature. After reading an article not to long ago, I’m not sure where it was or what it was called, I just remember bits and peices of what it said. It stated that the most common last words for people who have died of natural causes, was just the singular word “Oh”. At first glance I laughed and thought that I would have come up with somthing much better to say, then moved on. Though, as I continued to read down the article, it mentioned that these people did not say “Oh” in the sense of “oh, that hurts” or “oh thats pretty cool” they said it in the same sort of sense that you would imagine a child saying it when they just found the answer to a seemingly monumental problem, or had made an amazing discovery of some kind. I do take this article with a grain of salt, its purely subjective as to what sense a dying person says a singular word, in fact a large portion of them could possibly be people letting out their last breath, and possibly making that “oh” sound, but I digress.
It was though, enough content to get my inexperienced wheels turning, even if it was down a road that was seems pretty silly, and is nought but a large ammount of fanciful thoughts based on little to no evidence, but never-the-less I humored my own mind and let the idea distract myself. Since then I have made a few conclusions from this article. The first being that if sombody were to say the word “Oh” as they were lying on their deathbead, no matter what context it is in, that word represents a discovery of some sort, even if it does turn out to be somthing as simple as pain. And secondly, if the person saying it really did have a sense of childlike wonder, then it must have been somthing rather important, or awe-inspiring.
Then I got to thinking about some of things that people say about death in general. Such as, your life flashing before your eyes, the encompasing light, and things of that nature. And yes, I do realize from here on in, its purely guesswork. But before I move on any further, lets look at the human brain for just a moment. I wish I could say truthfully that humans only use 10% of our brain, that would add some more “cool points” to this idea of mine, maybe make it a little more beliveable. But so far as I’ve read, we use much more then just 10%. Though, the fact does remain, that there are virtually lifeless spots in our brain, that are being kept alive, but serve no obvious purpose. The brain is also one of the biggest mysteries of science, from what I have read, there have been some major headway made in the study, but it still remains largely a compilation of estimations and guesswork. So, I sort of took all of these facts, semi-truths, and speculations, and combined them. The result I got was a pretty neat idea of what happens after you die, and who knows, its just as likey as any other theory I suppose, so I’m sticking with it for now, becuase it seems pretty neat to me.
My thought is that during your last moments in life, your body will start to undergo a change. So if I may, I will paint a little fictional picture for you, explaining what I personally belive, could be an afterlife possibility. Buckle your seatbelts this will probobly be long, drawn out, and not very impacting, but “cool” nevertheless. (To me anyway)
Your 87 years old, and lying in the hospital. Your body is deteriorating, and you were told that you had only hours to live by the doctor, two and a half hours ago. You have been in and out, sleeping and waking, and your senses are starting to fail you, conscience is just barely beyond your fingertips, as your mind frantically tries to grasp onto tangible things, such as your bed, the consistent beep of the heart monitor, to keep itself from slipping into nothingness. Nothing is working though, you are dying, and there is no saving you at this point. Like a thick fog, calm and peace starts to come over you. Yet, quite the opposite thing happens to your mind like the slow and steady tide your brain starts to fuction and back to you, thinking clearly is no longer impossible. Your heart beat begains to beat with a slightly stonger intensity, and the oxygen content in your blood is raised. Adrenaline, endorphins, and seratonin are released, and you start to feel as though your thoughts are traveling at a very high rate of speed. You can literally feel your impending death coming closer to you, but you are not scared. Now you can see yourself in your bed at the hospital, you can see the drive there a few weeks ago, your new home you bought a few years back, the birth of your 3rd grandson, images of your life are going through your mind, recessing back towards the start, this process takes just seconds but feels as though it were minutes at least. As you approach closer to your own birth, things speed up progressivly faster, while this is happening your sense of fear has long since gone, and been replaced with a yearning, and eagerness to reach that unknown point. And then all of the sudden you feel a calm, but you barely have a chance to take a breath before it hits you. All at once, with a force more powerful then a huricane, and more gentle then you could have imagined comes over you like a breaking tidal wave, you feel warm and secure. You have reached enlightenment, everything makes sense, you understand all of the questions you had long sought answers to, and you are perfectly at peace, happy, and free. The “secret” of life is as simple for you to see now, as breathing was years ago,its also become just as nessisary. The words “Oh” escape your lips. And your body passes on, as well as any thoughts you had about your past life. Yet, you still exist, in some form or another. You see no color, no shapes, you don’t see darkness either, there is just absence of all senses. Your body has died, but your mind, not your physical brain, but the intangible, thoughts that made up what you were has remained. You no longer think with spoken word, or through images, but through pure thought alone, in fact you do not “thinking” would not accuratly describe it, you do not have countable, finite thoughts that have a specific output. All knolege flows in and around you freely, and you know everything there is to know. You have become thought itself. And so you remain, all knowing, enlightened, and completely at peace. And so you will remain forever, yet you will not know it, becuase you will have no sense of time.
This was pretty long, and pretty dramatic too, I know. I tried to write it in such a way that I could relate to you how I think this will all play out, and as best I can, describe how it will feel. Your life flashing before your eyes, the sudden calm, then flash, and ensuing peace. Hopefully you’ve read this far, and havn’t been bored out of your mind.
This is just how I see the afterlife, I don’t belive that there will be a “god” that is tangible and visible. There will only be you, but you no longer exists either, you are simply all thought. Its hard for me to explain this concept, I’m sure you have an idea of what I’m talking about here, that you won’t be reuinited with your long lost friends, but rather you will know everything about them, you will understand every aspect of existence. The easist way to explain it, is to imagine what it feels like to be dreaming, and then take away all the senses from that, so you do not see anything, do not feel anything, etc. Just have that whispy, almost unoticable existence, as if you were in the vast space of your mind, and you are in the very center, and in a way, observing yourself think.
I would just like to hear your thoughts and opinions on this, I am not even sure if this a philosophical question, situation or anything of the sort, I put it in this forum becuase it didn’t seem to fit any of the others. The religion forum stood out to me slightly, but I decided that since this idea is unique to me, and that there is no real religious system behind it, that it is not religious in nature.
And if this post is completely out of line, and doesn’t belong on these forums at all, then please accept my apoligies. In that case, just pretend I didn’t write any of this except the first paragraph, and was only making an introduction post for myself.
Good day.
-Gloam
