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What does it feel like to be dead?

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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
so anyways I thought maybe one day i could write a book about this but i dont think i will get around to it and in the meantime i dont want anybody else to claim to have this idea before i did.

So if you take enough biology you eventually realize that nothing that happens in the human body is anything other than a chemical reaction.   Everything that happens in your body is a chemical reaction.
There is no  "magic" that goes on inside of living things, just chemical reactions.

So why is that important?

It is important because if you were to say what is the fundamental difference between the chemical reactions in us and those in a burning match the answer is none.

Why is that important?

Because it means we are not actually "Alive" in the first place   And if you are not alive then you cant really die.

Being dead is gonna feel familiar. It will feel like you do now in between thoughts.

When your in your coffin you will still have the feeling of existence because alot of the reason you feel like you "exist" right now is not becausr you are breathing or thinking but because you are made of physical matter that is part of this universe.

pretty random sorry
Jun 15 2010 5:20AM
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Bukkakeskitrip
Posts: 5677 - Karma: 95
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what if that happens?
Jun 15 2010 5:24AM
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feihlination
Posts: 8356 - Karma: 1,084
i understand the point youre making but i think you took a wrong turn somewhere.
Jun 15 2010 5:38AM
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jasontheredhead
Posts: 955 - Karma: 243

i feel ya for the most part, but in order for the chemical reactions to take place there needs too be a reactant and fuel to make a product, the human body gets old and runs out of the reactants so therefore there are no products to be made, if that makes since, so when we die, were dead

Jun 15 2010 5:46AM
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Mr.Panda
Posts: 17711 - Karma: 564
God tells me I have a soul and that I will go to heaven while non-believer idiots like you will go to hell. I win!
Jun 15 2010 5:49AM
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
your story is quite random, are you trying to point out that we aren't actually alive because you can't define the difference between alive and dead?
(this is actually a bit more complex then it sounds, no lolling intended)

just like with any other science, you have to start off with your definitions....

and for a fact the concept of "life" is quite broad and hazy defined, so there is no way that you are gonna prove to us that we are actually dead...


^^i think your problem or error, whatever, lies that you just chose to ignore the definition of life and then prove it wrong, saying it's the same as being dead, but how can you prove something if you don't start off with the definition?

I think you can define life like that one saying: "it's what we do, that defines who we are", and in this case "what" we are.... Dead or alive...


Jun 15 2010 6:16AM
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
and before someone starts throwing flaming shit at me or the OP for whatever reason; i just like to reason about these things, so please dont throw flaming feces at me.....
Jun 15 2010 6:18AM
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Half-Blood
Posts: 1770 - Karma: 385
I think you need to go back to school and pay more attention. First off lets look at what needs to happen for something to be considered alive:

1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
2. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and by chemotaxis.
7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.

Now lets take your example of a match which is an inanimate object, and does not fill any of the proposed phenomena.

I do agree with you that we are made up of a magnitude of complex chemical reactions, however we are so much more than that. Not to mention the human conscious and how little we really understand about it.

So I argue that life and death is far more complex than just chemical reactions.
Jun 15 2010 6:25AM
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
^^yep, start of by a definition :)
Jun 15 2010 6:31AM
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Che~
Posts: 2108 - Karma: 296
find out for yourself
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Jun 15 2010 7:15AM
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Hansel.
Posts: 4583 - Karma: 112
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wheres your god now, oh yea thats right big butter jesus got hit by lightning and burnt to the ground.
Jun 15 2010 8:29AM
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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
definintions?

when i say dead i actually mean alive...

and when i say alive i actually mean dead...

hope that helps

Jun 15 2010 8:50AM
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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
yo man like not to be mean or anything but you really missed the boat. You need to get a little smarter then reread my original post.

The chemical reactions in life are unbelievably complex this is true. But they are still chemical reactions. And the chemical reactions that occur in living things are not "MAGICAL", even if you think they are.









Jun 15 2010 9:22AM
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
it's about drawing a line dude, yes, we are all composed of organs, organs are composed of tissues, tissues are composed of biomolecules, biomolecules and bio-molecules are composed of atoms

a rock is composed of atoms, a rock is dead, so i am dead also? or the rock is alive?
Jun 15 2010 9:47AM
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StevenR
Posts: 1372 - Karma: 33
I dont know where you come from, but around here the rocks make up like 30% of the workforce. And now that number is growing with affirmative action expanded to include rocks.
Jun 15 2010 10:07AM
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thugaim
Posts: 2181 - Karma: 33
I imagine being dead feels a lot like what it felt like before you were concieved.
Jun 15 2010 10:34AM
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bstuck1
Posts: 426 - Karma: 46
After you die eventually chemical reactions in the body will eventually stop. Feeling is due to a chemical reaction, as you pointed out. Therefore, once you're dead you will not have the chemical reaction occurring that allows you to feel, so it will not feel like anything.
Jun 15 2010 10:41AM
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Billek
Posts: 5665 - Karma: 98
When I die, I'm just not gonna know what happened.

I won't even think about the fact that I don't know what happened because I won't know what happened because....I'll be dead.

With absence of essential chemical reactions, our dead bodies are nothing more than a pile of matter. We won't have any connections to this dead body, not because we are no longer within the body, but because we don't exist in any form.

These thoughts make me hold out hope for the perma-trip theory on DMT right before we die.



Jun 15 2010 11:49AM
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Half-Blood
Posts: 1770 - Karma: 385
When did I ever claim chemical reactions were magical? I did read your original post and I think you are the one who "missed the boat." Chemical reactions occur everywhere however that does not mean that everything is alive. You're blatantly ignoring the basic principals of what the phenomena of life are based on. Yes chemical reactions are part of what classifies life however there is a lot more that needs to happen for something to be alive.

I'll use your original example of a match, striking a match causes a chemical reaction however that match was never and will never be a living thing. This is due to the fact that it does not fulfill any of the other requirements needed for life that are in my original post.

If you really want to break it down to the basics everything is just energy.
Jun 15 2010 2:19PM
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Gnarshred
Posts: 5670 - Karma: 18
My theory is that when you die you go on a crazy ass trip. DMT is released in your brain so the trip will feel like an eternity. That'd be pretty dope I think.
Jun 15 2010 2:24PM
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Half-Blood
Posts: 1770 - Karma: 385
No one really knows what happens during death so you can not say we do not exist in any form. For all we know our conscious continues on to a new state of being.
Jun 15 2010 2:24PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 126
that's my take on it.


but to the OP... in another thread (the one about that dumb ICP song miracles) i brought this up. science and chemistry etc are merely our (excellent) descriptions of what we have observed. they allow us to understand things very well and utilize our discoveries, but it is completely untrue what you say about there not being any (for lack of a better word) "magic" going on. underneath our concepts and descriptions (science) there are "magical," mysterious things happening in EVERYTHING. any good scientist will tell you we do NOT have shit so figured out as you might think. there are still so many mysteries we can't even comprehend them
Jun 15 2010 2:53PM
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Hemulen.
Posts: 448 - Karma: 17
only one way to find out.. GOGOGO!
Jun 15 2010 2:57PM
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thugaim
Posts: 2181 - Karma: 33
This.
Jun 15 2010 3:10PM
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el_chupacabra
Posts: 639 - Karma: 14
all i know is our bodies release a massive amount of DMT right before we die, so i expect to be tripping my balls off right as i die
Jun 15 2010 3:20PM
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remove
Posts: 2566 - Karma: 1,026
ask somebody with cotard syndromw
Jun 15 2010 3:24PM
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s_a_m
Posts: 916 - Karma: 58
i find your username ironic
Jun 15 2010 3:28PM
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paige.
Posts: 1932 - Karma: 924
We are 'alive' according to the scientific definition of life, and a rock is not. There is no arguing that.

Existence is something completely different, it's a human formed concept and is more flexible. In my mind existence depends on being sensed.

When a person dies maybe some chemical reactions are still taking place, however these involve the decomposition of the body and will be driven by other bacteria etc. The bodies biochemical pathways will no longer be functioning, we will no longer be 'alive'. Also our senses will no longer be function- we will be unable to see, hear, feel, smell, taste. Because of our inability to sense the environment around us and ourselves we will also cease to exist. Our body still exists- other living beings can see the body, feel it etc. But that life that used to be in the body has ceased to exist. A rock, like a dead body, exists, but it can only be sensed, it has no ability to sense- it exists physically but not emotionally or sensually - it is not alive.

Obviously you can look at existence through many other lenses (religions, philosophies) and get different answers. There is no way of knowing whether one idea is right.
Jun 15 2010 3:37PM
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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
yeah i know but how do you know the feeling you have right now that you exist has to do with you being alive. How do you know that you dont have that feeling because your made of matter?
Jun 15 2010 10:44PM
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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
yeah totally true but just cause you cant remember before you were born doesnt mean we didnt exist then. If we didnt exist back then,   then we dont exist now.
Jun 15 2010 10:49PM
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bootleg_BEN
Posts: 2499 - Karma: 44
thats a shitty gun.
Jun 15 2010 11:01PM
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skithesprings
Posts: 9086 - Karma: 1,349
I gave YOUR theory a chance but then you used YOUR in place of YOU'RE which leads me to belive that YOU'RE an idiot.

Plus, YOUR theory is retarded. Rocks are made of matter, they don't have feelings, they're not alive.

How high are you right now?
Jun 15 2010 11:02PM
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thugaim
Posts: 2181 - Karma: 33
Read this before you make another post on this topic please: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness


You are apparently incapable of putting together an argument of any sort.



For what reasons can you say that I dont exist now? I exist because i am concious of my own mind, and concious of the physical universe.

Please explain both how i could exist before being concieved... and how i don't exist now if i didn't exist before i was born.
Also, please define both 'existance' and 'life.'

Jun 15 2010 11:05PM
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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
you guys are all missing the point.

Im saying that there is nothing that distinguishes us from a physical standpoint from a nonliving chemical reaction.

Your body is currently in a phase of performing life sustaining chemical reactions. But that does not make us distinguishable from something like a fire from a mathematical or physical standpoint.
There is no such thing as being "alive" is what im trying to say. So when we are supposedly "dead" we are gonna feel exactly the same as we do in a coma or in stage 4 (deep) sleep where there is no brain activity
Jun 16 2010 10:01AM
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thugaim
Posts: 2181 - Karma: 33
You're an idiot.
Jun 16 2010 10:06AM
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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
and your argument " I exist because i am concious of my own mind, and concious of the physical universe."    is totally inaccurate
Jun 16 2010 10:09AM
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I.killCommies
Posts: 186 - Karma: 10
thugaim you think that your ability to understand some things about the universe makes you exist?


Your an idiot man, stop wasting my fucking time you dont have to participate in this thread if its too far over your head.
Jun 16 2010 10:14AM
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Bukkakeskitrip
Posts: 5677 - Karma: 95
hell yeah, makes it seem a bit less scary now
Jun 16 2010 10:58AM
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thugaim
Posts: 2181 - Karma: 33
Cognito ergo sum sort of sums up my argument here.




I stated that a difference between us being alive and dead is that in life, we are concious of our mind and the physical universe. When you are dead, you are not.

Please define 'exist' before we continue this discussion.
Jun 16 2010 11:22AM
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