alt Hacker NewsI go through that exercise of visualizing the void and it is fascinating and terrifying at the same time, especially if you do it before going to sleep.
That being said, you can't just assume that existence is bounded by your living memories. You might as well have been everything instead of nothing prior to being spawned and you just don't remember it.
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If you're a materialist and you think there is no afterlife then I don't believe there would be a void. There's no mechanism for "you" to perceive a void or perceive time.
Its the difference between:
"I see nothing when I close my eyes" (actually you 'see' darkness over time)
and...
"I see nothing through my elbow" (You really don't see anything through your elbow because the capacity for it just doesn't exist.)
Even our basic perception of time is mediated by the structure of our brains... and without that there's no difference between one second and a trillion^trillion years.
I've always wondered why doing it before sleep amplifies the anxiety
> you can't just assume that existence is bounded by your living memories
I was going to raise that, but couldn't find a short enough way to describe it properly. Something like:
Existence beyond what you can actually remember doesn't matter because it's outside any bounds of practical discussion; it should be excluded from consideration. The same way it's impossible to predict anything 'before the big bang' because we only have 'after the big bang' as useful evidence. There is no way to verify any continuity if you can't remember it or if there is no evidence of it. There's no guarantee you can even comprehend what it could be, 'you' as a concept may not even exist and it's unlikely to be relate-able to anything in this living world. Maybe you return to being 0.00001% of the collective consciousness of the universe, or any other crackpot thing anyone wants to suggest. Flying Spaghetti Monster.".