TED Conversations

Edwin Nazarian

Founder, Unlimited Insights

TEDCRED 10+

This conversation is closed. Start a new conversation
or join one »

What is it like to die?

What is it like to die? - going to an eternal sleep or spending a temporarily dreamless night?

"Now, if the death is only a dreamless sleep, it must be a marvellous gain. I suppose that if anyone were told to pick out a night on which he slept so soundly as not even to dream, and then to compare with all the other nights and days of his life, and then were told to say, after due consideration, how many better and happier days ad nights than this he had spent in the course of his life - well, I think that ... (anyone) would find these days and nights easy to counts in comparison with the rest. But death is like this, the, I call it gain, because the whole of time, if you look at it in this way, can be regarded as no more than one single night." - Plato, The last day of Socrates.

This remind me Hamlet's monologue
"..................................To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause..."

being alive means not having first hand experience with death and its process.
but makes us to think if the world ended now would we be happy how you lived our life, would we done justice or would we just let it pass us by.
and finally would we be ready to face the death.

Steve Jobs said: "death is the only destination we all share"

share your ideas (before you die) :-) Thank you

Topics: Cognitive philosophy afterlife cognitive psychology critical thinking human behaviour life
+1
Share:

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.

  • thumb

    edward long 100+

    • 0
    Nov 5 2012: Many seem to be answering a different question than you have asked. To die is an instantaneous event, where metaboplism and respiration ceases, marking the transition from Time to Eternity. Most answers here, except for the NDE folks, are describing what they think it will be like to be dead, that is, what comes AFTER the death experience. Which of these is your intended question?
    • thumb

      Edwin Nazarian 10+

      • 0
      Nov 5 2012: Hi Edward,

      My question was for the Process of dying...

      you said: "...the transition from Time to Eternity."

      can we understand that death is an asleep in Eternity by this?
      does this also mean that there is life after death which is eternal?

      Please note that I haven't brought up the religious approach to death or dying, but a mere philosophical and poetic approach.


      Thanks
      • thumb

        edward long 100+

        • 0
        Nov 5 2012: Ah! The process of being dead is the question. Thank you sir for humoring me. Where you say "religious" I prefer the word "supernatural". My understanding of the supernatural comes from the Holy Bible. It says there are two possibilities regarding what happens after a person experiences the death event. One possibility consists of never-ending, timeless, eternal conscious existence in the presence of God. This is a perfect existence free from any and all negative realities. The remaining possibility is to cease consciousness and existence. This is not a state-of-being, rather it is as if you never existed. The unimaginable horror of the latter option is that there will be eventual awareness sometime prior to annihilation that one has lost the opportunity to enter into the pure joy of the former option. The Holy Bible offers hope to anyone and everyone to seek the former option. Where there is life there is hope. After the death event there is only hopelessness. Seek the LORD while he may be found.
        • thumb

          Edwin Nazarian 10+

          • 0
          Nov 5 2012: Edward,

          Thank you, I believe you are a believer and this may also be true to say that you are a follower of this supernatural power, (as you named it so).
          so as I understand you correctly you were saying that after death we end an eternal conscious existence in the process of God. How could this be Conscious when our organs don't function. I like the way Shakespeare put: "...For in that sleep of death what dreams may come."
          it can also be asked: for in that sleep of death what mind can think and be conscious?

          I just wonder why people in church tells us that it is alright to die, and Haven is a good place to be, when in actual fact NO one, absolutely no one, not even the Pope, wants to die.
          it is like we all want to go to Haven , but we don't want to die. Correct me if I am wrong in this.

          "where there is a life there is hope" - I agree, Hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies, and where there is life, just live it.

          to me , Haven is nowhere (now here). I want to see Haven on Earth.

          God created me/ you /us in his/her shape, and he made us to be creators. so God is in me/you/us. we are the God, the Creator, the Destroyer, The EVERYTHING.
          I seek inner guideness...

Showing single comment thread. View the full conversation.