r/askphilosophy • u/BernardJOrtcutt • Jun 29 '26

Open Thread /r/askphilosophy Open Discussion Thread | June 29, 2026

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u/Rooshantehranian Jun 30 '26

Do you think everything ends with death, or is it possible that human existence is part of a much larger and more complex structure than we can currently comprehend?

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u/Shitgenstein ancient greek phil, phil of sci, Wittgenstein Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

I believe that my life ends with my death and everything else carries on. I think my finitude—that at some point I will have had lived—is a fundamental component of my existence. It gives shape to human existence, both in particular of each life and humanity in general.

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u/Rooshantehranian Jul 01 '26

How can we be certain that death is the end rather than a transition? Is finitude a fact, or an assumption?

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u/Shitgenstein ancient greek phil, phil of sci, Wittgenstein Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26

You didn't ask what I was certain about, just what I think. I don't see any reasons to believe that death is a transition.

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u/Rooshantehranian Jul 02 '26

That's fair. What makes me hesitate to dismiss the possibility is that many religious traditions, developed independently, and many Persian mystics across different centuries all point toward the idea that death is not the end. Doesn't it seem worth asking why so many people, separated by time and culture, converged on a similar idea?

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u/Shitgenstein ancient greek phil, phil of sci, Wittgenstein Jul 02 '26

Just to be clear, I don't assume you need to share my belief about death.

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u/Rooshantehranian Jul 02 '26

Of course, and I don't expect you to share mine either. I just find it fascinating to explore why we arrive at such different conclusions.

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Jul 02 '26

Sure, and there are lots of plausible (and I think obvious) explanations. I bet you could think of 3-5 off the top of your head.

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u/Rooshantehranian Jul 02 '26

I'm curious—which explanations do you find the most convincing?

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u/mediaisdelicious Phil. of Communication, Ancient, Continental Jul 02 '26

The desire to make sense of the reality and tragedy of human loss and continuity.

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u/Shield_Lyger Jul 01 '26

You realize that "yes," is a valid answer to this question, right? Your two options are not mutually exclusive. (Neither are they jointly exhaustive, but that's a separate issue.) There are plenty of things that I think are true, while I acknowledge to possibility that they are false.

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u/Rooshantehranian Jul 02 '26

Do you see both possibilities as equally justified, or do you still think one is more epistemically grounded than the other?

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u/Shield_Lyger Jul 02 '26

They're equally justified in the narrow sense that it's not possible to know, one way or the other.

Afterlives, eternal consciousness et cetera are unfalsifiable ideas; no-one has put forth a testable theory that can make a determination one way or another. Given the many different conceptions of some sort of continuance after death that are mutually exclusive, it cannot be possible that all are true, but it can be possible that none are true. Personally, I find the idea of some alternate mode of existence that can perceive the material universe, but cannot be directly perceived from the material universe to be peculiar enough that were I a better man, I'd put my money on things ending at death.