How will you know when you're dead?

[Samuel]

When taking N or whatever method you choose. How will you know you're not just unconscious or sleeping? What is the transition like?

 

[Malice1]

Nobody can answer that question. You wont know if your just in a coma or if you are dead unless there is an afterlife. Then you"ll know you're dead.

 

[Samuel]

Nobody can answer that question. You wont know if your just in a coma or if you are dead unless there is an afterlife. Then you"ll know you're dead.

You won't know you're dead unless there is an afterlife... Incredible really

 

[Tiburcio]

You won't know it. If you are unconcious but you wake up you can know you are alive. But if you die, conciousness is gone and you never could know it.

 

[Samuel]

You won't know it. If you are unconcious but you wake up you can know you are alive. But if you die, conciousness is gone and you never could know it.

Being dead and not knowing it really frightens me. I would want confirmation.

 

[Tiburcio]

Being dead and not knowing it really frightens me. I would want confirmation.

It cannot be.

But don't worry, death will arrive and you won't notice it. I mean, if you are dead, has it really matter? Nothing would have importance and you won't feel any kind of stress, doubt or bad sensations in general once you are dead. So don't worry for that.

 

[WakingUpFrightened]

If there is no afterlife then you won't know you're dead, because you won't know anything, because there will be no YOU anymore. You could also spend the rest of your life in a coma, in case your attempt failed, but that wouldn't be much different unless you maintained some level of consciousness, which would be a very scary experience, and you would just be in a bed waiting to "wake up" or die for what could be a VERY long time.

 

[Tomasnil]

Pain stops

 

[comfortablydumb]

Being dead and not knowing it really frightens me. I would want confirmation.

There'd be no you to want confirmation. All of the worries around death are only possible to have when conscious.

 

[Aponia & Ataraxia]

"Observers crossing a black hole event horizon can calculate the moment they have crossed it, but will not actually see or feel anything special happen at that moment." -Wikipedia, "Event horizon"

time is the only thing that actually exists (literally everything emerges out of time itself), understand this and the fear dissolves.

"Whatever is real in our universe is real in a moment of time, which is one of a succession of moments. The past was real but is no longer real. We can, however, interpret and analyze the past, because we find evidence of past processes in the present. The future does not yet exist and is therefore open. We can reasonably infer some predictions, but we cannot predict the future completely. Indeed, the future can produce phenomena that are genuinely novel, in the sense that no knowledge of the past could have anticipated them. Nothing transcends time, not even the laws of nature. Laws are not timeless. Like everything else, they are features of the present, and they can evolve over time." -Lee Smolin

"Of all obstacles to a thoroughly penetrating account of existence, none looms up more dismayingly than "time." Explain time? Not without explaining existence. Explain existence? Not without explaining time. To uncover the deep and hidden connection between time and existence, to close on itself our quartet of questions, is a task for the future." -John Archibald Wheeler

That being said: the dying process ought to be peaceful & pleasant, if not enjoyable and euphoric (my opinion)

"Everyone will die once, so we have to get it right the first time" -Dr. Richard Chye

"In what state of consciousness would I eventually like to die?" -Thomas Metzinger

 

[PsychoPyro]

You won't. That's the beauty of it.

 

[Deleted member 847]

You can only know if you're dead if there is some kind of afterlife/astral plane. If death is the end it will be like going to sleep and never wake up again. You won't be able to recognize the transition from unconsciousness to actual death because to recognize such transition you'll have to be conscious. Let's just say that "you" only exist when you're awake.

 

[Definitelyworried]

If there is no afterlife then you won't know you're dead, because you won't know anything, because there will be no YOU anymore. You could also spend the rest of your life in a coma, in case your attempt failed, but that wouldn't be much different unless you maintained some level of consciousness, which would be a very scary experience, and you would just be in a bed waiting to "wake up" or die for what could be a VERY long time.

This is really scary, but seems logical.

 

[higashikata_panos]

"When a man dies, he does not feel the pain of death because he no longer is and therefore feels nothing. Therefore, as Epicurus famously said, "death is nothing to us." When we exist, death is not; and when death exists, we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the belief that in death, there is awareness."

 

[Fylobatica]

How will you know?

When somebody dies, this person cannot perceive that everything went blackout, for obvious reasons (subjective perception / self-awareness). Just like nobody was aware to be alive before their actual birth, it's not actually different

 

[Soon4me]

http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/science/this-is-what-happens-30-seconds-before-you-die.aspx
Whenever the above starts you will know you are near
Although i'm not sure what effects different methods of death would have on the above.

When i had an operation before i was given anesthetic
I had to count 10,9,8 and i was out
What seemed like seconds later i was awake and the operation was over
But The operation lasted 3 hours it was a weird feeling
Just seemed like i closed my eyes and opened them seconds later

So death could be just like turning off a light switch
Or some people have or claim to have an out of body experience
Where they get to see their dead body
But i won't go into that i don't want to freak you out !

really no one knows for sure

 

[millefeui]

Hopefully you won't know because you won't exist anymore.

 

[Sohei]

I tend to think of death as a lack of absence of something much like a person with hemispatial neglect where areas related to attention are damaged on one side of the brain leading the it to still process visual input but because no attention is given, the person acts as though one side of their visual field doesn't exist. The person is unable to know that this is happening to them, it can't be confirmed through naive introspection. Excluding other syndromes from brain damage, when the entire brain is destroyed it's unlikely that one could be aware of anything.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemispatial_neglect

Interestingly, there is a syndrome called Cotard syndrome. This is where a person denies that they are alive, that time exists, that they have a mind, a body or certain limbs, and that they are rotting, while in other cases they believe themselves to be immortal. So if you don't die from your attempt and end up with certain areas of brain damage, you will be able to 'confirm' your death.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotard_delusion

 

[goggleboxers]

Nobody can answer that question. You wont know if your just in a coma or if you are dead unless there is an afterlife. Then you"ll know you're dead.

how can their be an afterlife ? there was no beforelife so the existance of an afterlife is mucho zero it will just be a black void that you will never have a recollection off

 

[goggleboxers]

http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/science/this-is-what-happens-30-seconds-before-you-die.aspx
Whenever the above starts you will know you are near
Although i'm not sure what effects different methods of death would have on the above.

When i had an operation before i was given anesthetic
I had to count 10,9,8 and i was out
What seemed like seconds later i was awake and the operation was over
But The operation lasted 3 hours it was a weird feeling
Just seemed like i closed my eyes and opened them seconds later

So death could be just like turning off a light switch
Or some people have or claim to have an out of body experience
Where they get to see their dead body
But i won't go into that i don't want to freak you out !

really no one knows for sure

you've kinda hit the nail on the head - being dead is like going under the knife simply no memory of ever being out , cant say for 100% sure as I've never died but being non religious because science proves so much I'm hedging a good bet

 

[Sohei]

how can their be an afterlife ? there was no beforelife so the existance of an afterlife is mucho zero it will just be a black void that you will never have a recollection off

With the evidence that we have there's no reason to believe in one. However, it is also unfalsifiable. For example, the life that we're living now could be the afterlife or the afterafterlife, or every Thursday we die and the universe is destroyed and reassembles itself and our memories are altered so that we don't remember it happening, or that life is a reality tv show. It's fun to think about but useless as an explanation as it's beyond wrong because it can't be falsified. Think of it as absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence, just no reason evidence to believe in it. It's more likely we cease to exist since the mind is most likely what the brain does and is destroyed at death because we have evidence to support that.