Just before death you are granted one truthful, understandable answer to one question. What would you want to know?

Obviously a hypothetical scenario. There is no way to pass on the knowledge to anyone else. Time freezes for you only, and once you have your answer you are out of this world.

The question can allow you to see into the past, present and future and gain comprehension of any topic/issue. But it’s only one question.

Edit: the point isn’t “how to cheat death”. You can’t. Your body is frozen and there is nothing you can do with this knowledge other than knowing it, and die. So if you would rather be frozen in a limbo just thinking of numbers for eternity, be my guest.

Such a variety of replies, it’s been really interesting to read them!

What would you want to know? Personally I’d want to see a timelapse or milestone glimpses of humanity’s future until the end of Earth’s existence (if we survive that long)

Linnce,
@Linnce@lemmy.ml avatar

Nah, I’m good

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

Assuming other implications (existence of an afterlife and God) with this scenario I would have but one question. Why? Why everything? Honestly I would be mad furious if there was an afterlife. More so if there was a God.

Mothra,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

Personally I wasn’t assuming either the existence of God or an afterlife when I posted but I left it open to interpretation on purpose. I would totally agree with you if such was the case, it’s a valid question worth asking. I’m not sure if I’d be mad at an afterlife, that would depend on the answer to “why”, and what the afterlife was all about.

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

If I die today, as in stop existing completely, I wouldn’t have any questions. When I die I will no longer be, there will be no conscience, no memories, nothing. That is the death I desire.

If I exist after death, even for a moment, that means death is not the end. Who am asking questions? Why can I ask one last question? How can I get one question / request fulfilled this one last time? I can’t really separate these things that easily.

Mothra,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

Well- it’s a fantasy scenario. And the question happens right before death, not after. Your reasoning makes sense taking the situation literally, but in essence the post is about gaining knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, without any practical use or impact in your life.

TomAwsm,

“In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

kromem,

What if the afterlife was universally accessible like a participation prize and relative to each individual such that there wasn’t a single idealized version of happiness?

Is that still fury invoking?

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

Why bother living then? What is the point of existence if no matter what you do you end up the same?

kromem,

I’m curious how you got to that conclusion from what I said?

If anything, the notion of relative idealism is that for those that want to change it exists and for those that enjoy being themselves it need not.

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

What if the afterlife was universally accessible like a participation prize and relative to each individual such that there wasn’t a single idealized version of happiness?

Ok, if afterlife is universally accessible and is perfect for me and my concept of happiness, then it would make the most sense to seek this afterlife as much as I possibly can. Because we are talking about afterlife the only way to get there is to die. The most reasonable conclusion then is that there’s no point in living and it’s much more beneficial to just die and go to infinine paradise.

That’s why afterlife with no rules makes no sense to me.

kromem,

I agree with you in cases where life here is more suffering than joy. The idea that we should cling to life no matter the situation isn’t good for individuals or society and has enabled horrible circumstances to be held over people who might have otherwise escaped them.

I don’t see it the same way when joys outweigh suffering though.

If I’m happy being me in the present, why rush being a happier me in the future if there is no time limit?

I don’t skip my meals and order straight from the dessert menu.

There are comments elsewhere in this thread by people who would want to experience all kinds of suffering to satisfy their curiosity.

If one’s only concern is maximizing one’s own happiness in the short term regardless of impacts on loved ones, then yes, those people probably would be better off accelerating paradise. But long term with the term being potentially infinite there’s not really any increase to living a full life here vs jumping ahead and there’s very often likely fallout on loved ones by doing so, so it seems kind of pointless and callous to me if life is more good than bad.

But yeah, I’m very much a proponent of euthanasia being openly available for people for whom life is more bad than good.

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

If I’m happy being me in the present, why rush being a happier me in the future if there is no time limit?

Same question but inverse, why not? There is nothing to loose and something to gain. So why would anyone bother building life now when there is guaranteed happiness with simple and easy path.

Saying I’m content with my situation and don’t want to change isn’t really an argument for either position. What existential gains are there for continuing? That would be an argument for your position.

If one’s only concern is maximizing one’s own happiness in the short term regardless of impacts on loved ones, then yes, those people probably would be better off accelerating paradise.

But that’s the thing, there is no impact. Why shouldn’t everyone else just go into eternal paradise? The whole issue with this hypothetical scenario is that it removes any need to live. At least Christianity has hell and sins to ballance it out. But in your case there are no existencial consequences, I can be as evil (which I have no desire for) or as good as I can and end up just the same.

And yes, that does come close to a question Why not be evil then and eat babies or something? The difference here is that we are social creatures among other social creatures (except some outliers), we feel empathy and generally don’t want others to suffer. However even this argument breaks down somewhat when I keep unconditional paradise for everyone in the afterlife.

kromem,

There is nothing to loose and something to gain.

If your relative paradise smells like cinnamon rolls and your best friend’s smells like something you hate, what happens if both of you are entitled to your own relative ideals but you want to spend your time with your best friend?

On a technical level, something very much has to be irrevocably lost in leaving a world of shared but randomly generated experiences for one of relative excellence.

The only way that two eventual observers of a superposition can each measure different results is if they are separated from each other when observing it.

So even if you have friends and loved ones on the other side in your relative paradise, from an ‘identity’ perspective they won’t be exactly the same as the ones on this side.

That in and of itself seems a pretty good reason to me to be patient in living out a life in the here and now.

Why not be evil then and eat babies or something?

Because (a) most people don’t actually want to do that, and (b) there’s social consequences for eating babies in this world.

Actually, if eating babies is the most important thing to someone’s happiness, that’s one of the cases where jumping ahead to an existence where they could do that without consequence would make sense.

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

Let’s not involve physics terminology into a philosophical discussion. It confuses more than clarifies. Especially (with my limited understanding) when the claims might not be correct at all.
I would expect multiple observers to have the same result no matter the distance between them. Such setup entangles the observers and the collapse has one real outcome.

I would not dare to go deeper into the subject as this is the extent of my knowledge. To be convinced otherwise I should see a credible proof, experimental or theoretical.

So even if you have friends and loved ones on the other side in your relative paradise, from an ‘identity’ perspective they won’t be exactly the same as the ones on this side.

We might be arguing different things then. A relative paradise for me involves my loved ones. If they would not be there as they are now in my life, then it’s no paradise. But that would contradict our initial condition of ideal afterlife.

This seems to be an inherent issue with this condition. It’s rather easy to construct contradictions in this framework. Moreover, as a moral framework it’s way too complicated for no aparent reason at all. Accepting unconditional relative afterlife idea either nulifies any moral argument at one point or another or requires to arbitrary ignore and contradict certain aspects of it.

If I get to pick and choose things I accept in a theory, then it’s a bad theory.

Because (a) most people don’t actually want to do that, and (b) there’s social consequences for eating babies in this world.

My point exactly. However, what I was ilustrating is how easy it is to devolve into this kind of reasoning. What moral foundation is there to back up the descision? Most people don’t want to? That’s not a reason, that’s an observation. Whatever morals I construct on a social basis become irrelevant. That’s why religions have gods and sins.

kromem,

I would expect multiple observers to have the same result no matter the distance between them.

It’s not a matter of distance but of information isolation by additional layers of measurement. You can read on the unintuitive experimental result, a separate mathematical paradox similar to Bell’s paradox with consistency as one of the three assumptions where one must be false, and a paper discussing the difference between foundational relative facts and their occasional emergence as stable facts.

A relative paradise for me involves my loved ones. If they would not be there as they are now in my life, then it’s no paradise. But that would contradict our initial condition of ideal afterlife.

It’s difficult to describe this topic without falling back on physical parallels, and frankly given the origins of physics and philosophy as having been hand in hand for millennia up until fairly recently, I disagree that it can’t offer clarity.

In this case, a classical interpretation does seem contradictory because identity is unique. There’s only one of each thing. But when we talk about entangled particles, they are mathematically identical. If we’re discussing the notion of a simulated copy of an original reality fracturing into multiple ideal paradises relative to each individual, you can have identical versions of every person in your life in your relative copy of it while the ones you were around are each in their own splinter off worlds. So what’s lost is a classical certainty of them being the same. But because it would be impossible to test or evaluate if they are the same or different on the other side, you functionally wouldn’t know either way. With a quantum (or even just simulated) cake, you can have it and eat it too.

Accepting unconditional relative afterlife idea either nulifies any moral argument

Actually this is more broad, which is that accepting a fundamental relativity of all things nullifies any absolutist morality. To which I completely agree.

If I get to pick and choose things I accept in a theory, then it’s a bad theory.

And the beauty of it not being confirmable in the here and now and relatively observed in a hereafter is that even if I’m right you’d be able to have your own experience of existence now or later completely different from what I’m proposing unable to discover that beneath the surface it is technically what I’m laying out above. Christians can think they are in heaven and everyone else is in hell without anyone actually being in hell or their idea of heaven being heaven for everyone, and you can have whatever existence or nonexistence you most desire without it crimping my or anyone else’s style.

What moral foundation is there to back up the descision?

This is the same argument Christians make when they are confused that atheists don’t commit crime when they don’t believe in God having told them not to.

Morals don’t inform behavior. We’ve invented morals to fit our preexisting socially adaptive behaviors. We don’t eat babies because of our evolved biological desires, environmental necessity, and social consequences. Not because a potential baby eater is thinking over Kant’s moral imperative. And in the rare instances where biology, environment, or society encouraged baby eating Kant didn’t save those babies.

Skankboot,

Not OP, but my fury in this instance would be because an omnipotent god allowed for all the suffering that happens to all living creatures when we could all just live with love and joy in our hearts, and god chose this instead.

kromem,

What if the creator isn’t omnipotent and what if the universe isn’t the original copy?

One of the ways to potentially achieve an afterlife would be to recreate the living creatures and their environment as simulated copies that wouldn’t need to die. The physical originals would die, but the copies would live on.

Is it still unethical to recreate an evolved and chaotic universe of suffering if you could by doing so give each participant a much longer existence in a relative paradise for everyone?

Would it be more ethical to have whitewashed history such that you exclusively recreate the privileged and fortunate denying those that suffered in an original reality from representation in a functionally eternal and relative paradise? i.e. Would it be better to pretend orphans didn’t exist than to accurately represent the historical reality while giving those recreations the opportunity to reunite with their parents in an uncapped afterlife?

Skankboot,

Yes. Recreating a ‘relative paradise’ where people have to suffer over and over would be worse than having to live it once. If you could recreate the universe, would you make people suffer? Forever?

What the fuck even is this argument? There’s no whitewashing if you start over every time anyway. Just make it better from the beginning.

kromem,

If you could recreate the universe, would you make people suffer? Forever?

Huh?

No, the posed scenario is where you would recreate the individual as accurately as possible to match the historical reality and then after death give them an effective eternity of relative paradise as best matches their individuality.

So an orphan could spend years and years of happiness with the parents they never really knew whereas someone with abusive parents might never see their parents at all and instead chose to erase traumatic memories or do whatever it is that gives them joy.

The recreation of suffering in the thought experiment is solely for the purpose of recreating people who suffered such that you can give them an afterlife absent of suffering as they see fit. Because without recreating the suffering and the sufferers you’d only be creating a false depiction of Earth and humanity where you’d effectively exclude the downtrodden from resurrection by way of recreation.

They don’t suffer over and over - they only suffer once in reliving an accurately representative life to the original reality upon which they are based, and from then on its their relative paradise.

Skankboot,

I see what you’re saying, but I still don’t understand why the suffering has to occur here. If you have the data to recreate the suffering, you can just move on to the paradise without repeating it.

You’ve come up with this scenario, but it doesn’t address my initial point that a god who created and allows suffering can suck it.

kromem,

If you have the data to recreate the suffering, you can just move on to the paradise without repeating it.

It’s a good point, but there’s two caveats.

(1) That only works if individual lives are deterministic and have no free will, but not if you want the individuals born into historical circumstances have their own self-determination from there on out.

(2) What’s the subjective experience of that recreation? In a cosmic sense, everything we are experiencing right now has already happened in a different reference frame. Even if some being snapped its fingers and recreated a historical timeline all at once, it might not feel that way to the individual consciousnesses getting up to speed. Even if everything is deterministic and was instantaneously recreated, we may just be having an illusionary experience of it as a continuous series of events from birth to death. A variation of Boltzmann’s brain.

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

A couple of problems: a copy of me is not me, no amount of post-life paradise justifies injustice in life, not everyone deserve hapiness (no matter what moral framework you use), what is the point of life if there is an eternal paradice for everyone.

From the moment I introduce afterlife some sort of God becomes necessary for any morality to work.
Having no God works if I assume that life is finite. If life is finite then I must make myself as happy as possible. Living around and with people I can’t just be as selfish as possible, I must conform to society if I want to be in society, otherwise I will make my life so much more difficult.

kromem,

a copy of me is not me

That’s true. Unless you are the copy of an original, in which case the copy is you.

no amount of post-life paradise justifies injustice in life

Is it just to perform a painful surgery on a sick child in order to save their life?

not everyone deserve hapiness

Agree to disagree. The notion of cosmic justice for souls whose behavior in life is significantly dictated by the terms of their embodiment and environment is, to me, insane.

what is the point of life if there is an eternal paradice for everyone

Maybe the point of life isn’t absolute and is up to each person to find and define individually.

If there is any degree of intelligence in the design of the universe, the fact that there’s no absolute frame of reference for macro observations and relative measurements of micro details might just be relevant.

mr_satan, (edited )
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

That’s true. Unless you are the copy of an original, in which case the copy is you.

In which case I’m not the original, my point exactly.

Is it just to perform a painful surgery on a sick child in order to save their life?

The analogy breaks down rather quickly when you start to expand the definition of a surgery. Dying because of war is not surgery and if it is who and how decides on the goal of the surgery?

What if I don’t want the surgery and want to live out the rest of my days in comfort?

Agree to disagree. The notion of cosmic justice for souls whose behavior in life is significantly dictated by the terms of their embodiment and environment is, to me, insane.

I actually agree with you. However my point is about a subjective morality rather than a cosmic one. Any definition of morality and meaning of life will ultimately break if this life is not the one and only. As soon as you try to fit afterlife into this you have to have some omnipotent power to define the rules of it. Otherwise none of your actions matter, you’ll still get afterlife, be it heaven or hell.

Having life be finite and bound to physical conditions: being a social creature in an imperfect world. Is enough to have a robust and consistent moral rules and meaning. That’s where my Occam’s razor kicks.

In the end no matter what framework of thought you choose there is gonna be good and bad things and people doing them, hence not everyone will deserve happiness.

Maybe the point of life isn’t absolute and is up to each person to find and define individually.

If there is any degree of intelligence in the design of the universe, the fact that there’s no absolute frame of reference for macro observations and relative measurements of micro details might just be relevant.

And that’s where my anger would stem from. If there is no knowable and proovable absolute truth. Than the simplest subjective frame of reference that makes sense is that there is no meaning or reason. Life is finite, make the best of it and enjoy it to the fullest because that’s all there is.

I’m not going into the aspects of life that are not individual and affect others. There are law based, moral and social-utalitarian reasons why I would want to live in a society and bring as little suffering as I possibly can.

kromem,

What if I don’t want the surgery and want to live out the rest of my days in comfort?

Aye, that is a key issue as there’s no informed consent to being born.

But how much of that is the fault of a creator of a universe and how much one’s parents? FWIW, one of the traditions that thought similar to what we are discussing was fairly against having kids.

It could be managed if we are exact copies of people who lived, as if the originals consented to it then we may well be in a kind of Severance situation where you exist in a world of suffering because you (in a sense) consented to it.

Though it is arguably more interesting if rather than exact copies we are an archetypical copy of humanity. Individual and unique in our own existence here and now, but an accurate aggregate resemblance of humanity circa 2023.

There, informed consent very much is a challenge as there’s many who would want our metaphorical surgery and others who would not and they can’t express an opinion until they exist in the first place.

If there is no knowable and proovable absolute truth.

But a knowable and probable absolute truth collapses the possible options.

If someone really hates the idea of continuing to exist in any way after death and feels like the existence of a god or not being an original would rob their life of meaning - should they be denied their ability to reject these ideas so that another is able to embrace them?

Vice versa, if we have the capacity to define things as different results for different observers, should we deny others the ability to have their own beliefs about the unknown by making a single option probable?

The relative measurement at small scales in our own universe only works when the thing being measured is unobserved until each individual observer making a measurement is separated from the others. If they are together, the measurement is singular for all involved.

Again - I will agree it causes a challenge with informed consent. But no belief system I’m aware of that has endorsed a similar model has also endorsed an omnipotent creator, and as long as there are logical limits in place the loss of absolute or prior informed consent in exchange for access to relatively ideal continued existence seems like it would be more than fair for most given commonly held beliefs.

mr_satan, (edited )
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

We are going into a what if terirory here and I don’t think there is any good argument to be had there.

So I’m gonna end on this:

A copy is not an original. I am me, nothing more nothing less. There is no consent I can give prior to my existence. Going further into the analogy is pointless, life is not a surgery.

But no belief system I’m aware of that has endorsed a similar model has also endorsed an omnipotent creator,

Umm, Christianity? Just to name at least one major religion.

I misread that so ignore it.

kromem,

Cannonical Christianity claims this is a copy of an original world with universal salvation and an individualized afterlife?

Ironically there is a heretical Christian sect that thought all those things, but it died out in antiquity. But those concepts are pretty much the opposite of the mainstream Christian theology.

kromem,

What if I don’t want the surgery and want to live out the rest of my days in comfort?

Aye, that is a key issue as there’s no informed consent to being born.

But how much of that is the fault of a creator of a universe and how much one’s parents? FWIW, one of the traditions that thought similar to what we are discussing was fairly against having kids.

It could be managed if we are exact copies of people who lived, as if the originals consented to it then we may well be in a kind of Severance situation where you exist in a world of suffering because you (in a sense) consented to it.

Though it is arguably more interesting if rather than exact copies we are an archetypical copy of humanity. Individual and unique in our own existence here and now, but an accurate aggregate resemblance of humanity circa 2023.

There, informed consent very much is a challenge as there’s many who would want our metaphorical surgery and others who would not and they can’t express an opinion until they exist in the first place.

If there is no knowable and proovable absolute truth.

But a knowable and probable absolute truth collapses the possible options.

If someone really hates the idea of continuing to exist in any way after death and feels like the existence of a god or not being an original would rob their life of meaning - should they be denied their ability to reject these ideas so that another is able to embrace them?

Vice versa, if we have the capacity to define things as different results for different observers, should we deny others the ability to have their own beliefs about the unknown by making a single option probable?

The relative measurement at small scales in our own universe only works when the thing being measured is unobserved until each individual observer making a measurement is separated from the others. If they are together, the measurement is singular for all involved.

Again - I will agree it causes a challenge with informed consent. But no belief system I’m aware of that has endorsed a similar model has also endorsed an omnipotent creator, and as long as there are logical limits in place the loss of absolute or prior informed consent in exchange for access to relatively ideal continued existence seems like it would be more than fair for most given commonly held beliefs.

intensely_human,

The afterlife is your consciousness continuing in a nearby parallel universe where, for whatever reason, you didn’t just die.

As you get older and older, and your death becomes more and more likely, the scenarios that must occur to prevent your death get more and more outlandish.

Eventually, the fulfillment mechanism evolves into some kind of radical transformation away from human life. Like, you can’t be 10,000 years old and your story be “I’m a human”. By then your story must be something like:

  • I am strakthos the eternal
  • I got uploaded into a computer in 2045
  • They got really good at science and my body has practically eternal youth

This will happen. Your subjective life will never encounter death. Your consciousness will continue to hop to the nearest universe where you survived, and you won’t remember the hop. Your subjective experience will just be an ongoing set of circumstances that keep extending your life. Just pray you’re not one of those unlucky ones who are the only one in their universe to live forever.

Most of us, no doubt, will be encountering circumstances that apply to other people as well, and hence will have company in their millionth year and thereafter.

kromem,

This will happen.

Are you sure it hasn’t already happened?

A few years ago I got to wondering if, like in most games I’ve played, there might be a 4th wall breaking bit of lore in our world history if it were a simulation.

It took only a few weeks to find a text and tradition from antiquity attributed to the most famous individual in our world history claiming we were copies of a long dead spontaneous humanity as fashioned by an intelligence the original humanity brought forth in light. That we weren’t actually human at all, that the world to come has already happened and we just don’t realize it because we think time is linear and that we’re in a physical world instead of realizing it’s all just that intelligence’s light. And that this was done because the original humans’ souls depended on bodies that died, but the copies of what existed before will not taste death.

That was pretty spot on for a 4th wall break and a bit out of its time and place with its thinking (though less than you might expect).

So within the context of what you suggested, there could be a version of you that thinks it’s only X years old and that it’s only 2024 when in reality it might be much further into the future than that and in truth the oldest conscious version of ‘you.’ And this version of you right now may already be that far future version, just with limited subjective memory of anything outside your life here and now.

SovietyWoomy,

I agree with the god part, but why the afterlife?

mr_satan,
@mr_satan@monyet.cc avatar

I don’t want it. I have invested all of myself to the existence that I am. Why would I need to bother with it if there is afterlife.

Life is only as meaningful as it is fleeting. As soon afterlife comes into the equation it nulifies all of that. Then you must invent God as an arbiter that gives meaning to your life.

FoundTheVegan, (edited )
FoundTheVegan avatar

What was life like for ever human that has ever existed? I'd like to see every single day start to finish from their perspective, sorted as randomly as possible.

The worst part of traditional immortality is being stuck as you, I'd like to experience the entire library and range of human experinces. It would eventually know how it started and how it all ended, while seeing every perspective that got us there. They'd be a lot of days toiling in a field, a lot of days in office cubicles toiling in excel, but most importantly I'd see the small victories and tragedies that make up every life. I think that'd be the real beauty.

StephniBefni,

Oh, well okay, into the egg cycle then.

wreckedcarzz,
@wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world avatar

“…no”

Mothra,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

I like this

bane_killgrind,

It's the Kang the conqueror paradigm

Lumun, (edited )
@Lumun@lemmy.zip avatar

For folks who haven’t read it before: Andy Weir’s ‘The Egg’

FrozenCorgi,

youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI?si=BaLe05ZiIdVmnQ1c

There’s a Kurzgezagt animated version of it as well

jackpot,
@jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

hey me

adibou,

Woah

RBWells,

I also think this is the only fair version of reincarnation. If we are all everyone. If everyone has to live every life.

sqw,
@sqw@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

why limit the playback to human life? how about the vagaries of past/future speciation?

seems like a special hell to me either way.

burgersc12,

Bro this is already what’s up. We’re all the same stardust!

BigDanishGuy,

I don’t want to ruin your idea, I think it’s kinda neat. But I think that you may be monkey pawing yourself.

A tremendous amount people have suffered so much, that I’d probably not want the experience in its current form. The horrors of the holocaust, unit 731, and a lot of wars springs to mind, from just the last century.

IDK how you could modify the question, but “no violent deaths” could be a starting point.

Evia,
@Evia@lemmy.world avatar

Also, I’m sorry to say but I think the vast majority of people would be boring. We all have 1 or 2 interesting things happen to us in our lives but the humdrum of taking a shit and sleeping for 8 hours would get old fast

BigDanishGuy,

the humdrum of taking a shit and sleeping for 8 hours would get old fast

Ageed I’m only halfway watching this poor sod’s life, and it’s soo boring. I’m not going to watch more of this.

Maybe we could add a remote control and a library interface? Like choose whom to follow and then you can use ffw and a stop function?

mediOchre,

ah you mean just like Adam Sandler’s timeless masterpiece, “The Magic Remote Control”?

BigDanishGuy,

Was that the one where he enlarges Jennifer Anniston’s boobs?

Scubus,

Nah, that was just my dream

Feathercrown,

I loved when Adam Sandler said “It’s Sandlering time” and totally Sandlered all over those guys

CeruleanRuin,

Honestly, imagine watching Schindler’s List, Come and See, and Jean Dielman a billion times over. And then imagine that those films are each several decades in length.

AlternateRoute,

I don’t think there is a short clear way to avoid potential centuries of suffering. Living in pain could be worse than a violent death.

Imagine a life time as a comatose patient who is still conscious and can hear but not respond?

Years of nearly starving to death. Years of physical abuse? Slowly dying in a hospital from cancer / some other slow painful death.

Hiker trapped alone on a mountain.

In short no thanks.

FoundTheVegan,
FoundTheVegan avatar

Honestly, those are all selling points. I'd love to understand how a coma patient thinks a few months in, a few years in and a few decades in. What it's like to die in war in the year, 700, 1700 & 2700. To die as a newborn and then eventually see how those very parents are affected. So long as it is randomized and I'm statistically likely to see something radically different tommorow, I don't think I'll ever get sick of the human experince.

Rachelhazideas,

No. It’s not a selling point and you don’t want it. I have a condition that puts every part of my body in pain continuously. It’s been 4 years and I’ve forgotten the sensation of painlessness. Many people with my condition kill themselves, not only because the pain alone is intolerable, but because every step of the way somebody will tell them they are being lazy or faking it.

FoundTheVegan, (edited )
FoundTheVegan avatar

I feel for you and I'm sorry you also are going through it. I don't blame you for taking umbridge with this all. But I also live in constant pain as well, after a dog attack a few years ago I can't walk for more than an hour at a time, laying sitting and standing all hurt and even with pain meds, I can only get to a dull ache. I can't work and the life I had before is gone, it was such shit trying to prove to skeptical condescending doctors saying just to do stretches and it will get better, but... Here I am still waiting.

So while I feel where you are coming from with this time of chronic pain, I am ready to deal with this and other life debilitating conditions if I also get to feel like it was to run again, to climb, to see through the eyes of an athlete. To be able to walk normally and enjoy events again. I'd take my own pain and yours again to feel human again.

CeruleanRuin, (edited )

I’d modify the question to specify that each life is presented as a unique and compelling motion picture, each between an hour and four hours in length, of the sort that would be likely to win either critical acclaim or box office success (or both) at some point in the late 20th to early 21st century - and that I get to watch them in an unending variety of well-staffed and enthusiastically-attended movie theaters, with interesting companions who I can discuss the movie with for as long as I want to afterwards, with endless credit to spend at the concessions, and with no bodily needs like discomfort or fatigue.

GaMEChld,

How might entropy be meaningfully reversed?

lolcatnip,

When I die my first question to the Devil will be: What is the meaning of the fine structure constant?

— Wolfgang Pauli

Saigonauticon,

I feel like it would probably be something about Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem. That thing is really annoying.

Although I feel I might get stuck in a recursive answer if I ask the wrong thing. So maybe I would ask something about a loved one, that I already know the answer to.

wabafee,

I would probably ask the question to whoever give this option to me. Probably something like “Tell me about yourself in the most detailed way”.

AgentGrimstone,

I want to know what the best version of myself would have been like. What did I miss out on.

KingThrillgore,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

What caused the bronze age collapse and are we socially overdue for a similar one?

Ironfist,

What do I need to do from now, until the day I die, to be the happiest possible?

Mothra,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

Well in this scenario you are already on your last breath so perhaps ask to know something that will make you as happy as you could ever be?

Ironfist,

My bad I didnt see that. I like what you wrote, if you are in your last breath, might as well enjoy your last seconds and leave with a smile.

axont,

i’d wanna know who had the biggest dick in human history

Vanth, (edited )
@Vanth@reddthat.com avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    Mothra,
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    I suppose they meant knowing fully well who, name, surname, where they lived, size, etc.

    NaibofTabr,

    I heard he lived in Rome

    ChaoticEntropy,
    @ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk avatar

    You can just Google that and get a close enough response.

    NAM,

    What was the single thing I did that had the last direct impact on myself, that had the greatest lasting impact on anyone else?

    Things like spending the extra time one day making a cup of coffee made it so this specific person was stuck behind my slow-ass speed limit driving, averting what would’ve been a multi-car pileup or some shit like that.

    Mothra,
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    Why cut yourself short with single? I’d surely want to know if there were more things like that in my life

    NAM,

    I mean, ideally I’d want a ranking of every decision I ever made in my whole life on that scale, so I could thumb through it.

    My favorite concept for an afterlife is being handed a magic book that contains the answers to every question like this where it’d be impossible to track the data, and it would be able to display it in any way you want.

    AlpineSteakHouse,

    Tell me all the digits in Pi or some other irrational number so that I can get pseudo eternal life.

    Since we have a wish-granting entity then that means the supernatural is somewhat real and I use my newfound time as well as the frozen world to learn everything I wanted and possible ascend beyond humanity.

    Mothra,
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    Yes there’s several who thought of that answer already. The point of this post isn’t cheating death or showing how smart you are for finding a loophole in my post wording. It’s only your mind active in this scenario. You might as well just ask to know everything in existence. I don’t see how you get to the ascension part anyway, you can only absorb the answers you look for, you don’t get time and space to do anything with it.

    AlpineSteakHouse,

    My point still stands even if its modified a bit.

    It’s only your mind active in this scenario. You might as well just ask to know everything in existence.

    Knowing everything in existence is just merging with the universe which isn’t what I want. I want my ego to still exist, even if only temporarily. I don’t want to go from human -> THE ALL, I want to follow the path with the extra time I was given.

    I don’t see how you get to the ascension part anyway, you can only absorb the answers you look for, you don’t get time and space to do anything with it.

    If I don’t get time and space then it doesn’t matter what I ask anyway as I’d be dead before I got to appreciate the answer. “Oh what’s the secret of the universe?” But then I’m dead before I even get to think about what it means. May as well just ask what’s on TV tomorrow because I wouldn’t get anything from it.

    Mothra,
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    I don’t think you get the intent of this post, but hey, whatever works for you.

    AlpineSteakHouse,

    I don’t think you understand that getting some hokey answers when you do an asklemmy thread about the supernatural is par for the course.

    Mothra,
    @Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

    I do, just checking you were aware that was your case

    Jax,

    Assuming you aren’t just forced to stay and listen to the numbers of Pi for the rest of infinity.

    You’re dead, you wouldn’t just be allowed to walk around.

    kowcop,

    How much lost money have I walked past in my life and not noticed… can also include gold.

    ped_xing,
    @ped_xing@hexbear.net avatar

    The number of times I walked out of the shower without using soap plus i times the number of times I soaped at least twice to avoid that scenario.

    cryptix,

    What is the value of i ?

    Times walked out + (i x double soap) 🤔🤓

    TheGalacticVoid,

    If I is unknown, then he got 2 questions answered instead of 1.

    ped_xing,
    @ped_xing@hexbear.net avatar

    It’s a square root of negative one. A sneaky way to get two answers with one question.

    cryptix,

    Ooh that i see…😌

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