Corey Anton: 3 Main Claims About Death

[@bevnae]

A new Corey video...what a rare treat! Christmas came early.

[@CoreyAnton]

Thanks!

[@JamesRolandPodcast]

My greatest fear is that after I die I will see the smiling face of Mark Zuckerberg, and he will say "Hey there! I hope you enjoyed your free trial of the Metaverse..."

[@CoreyAnton]

Funny! Scary too.

[@Riddlemewalker]

This seems like an expansion of my favorite Corey quote "Death is the gift that makes life a gift" . Added to Santa's list! Thank you

[@shenandoah7875]

I don’t know how, but somehow I didn’t come to your channel in at least a year. I so appreciated this, and it really brought me back to when I first subscribed to you back in 2008 or 09? I would binge watch your videos all the time then. Your speech made me teary eyed.

[@shenandoah7875]

I will request your book at my library. I think I actually requested another one of yours and forgot to take it out.

[@CoreyAnton]

Thanks. Much love to you.

[@ecstaticeclectic]

You are proof that intelligence and understanding is life's greatest reward. We need not fear death, because it's unavoidable.

[@CoreyAnton]

Thanks. Good comment

[@xSaecredChaotixx]

Will definitely be getting this book. Haven't felt this invigorated since reading Blessed is the Flame.

[@dimepia123]

I think this is the afterlife

[@CoreyAnton]

Trans-generationally speaking, yes. Indeed. A mix of heaven and hell.

[@BeyondBeliefBelle]

I hope you're doing good! I am a returning subscriber, lost track of your content for a few years. It feels great to be back and this book sounds like what I need.

[@webkahmik]

We're here to literally "grow a soul". That is, as the thermodynamic homily goes, "energy is neither created or destroyed", and we are here to add to that energy (or subtract) and modify others lived experience in our relational energetic exchanges with them. I proffer that the thing that does carry on afterwards, after the physiological, metabolic process that is us ceases, the electromagnetic force-field that literally makes this creature dance DOES go somewhere. It's such an utterly different mode of consciousness it bears little or no relation to our lived experience here. Life goes on, within us and without us, as does energy.

[@raresmircea]

There’s a neuroscientist from Boston Univ. that wrote an excellent essay about the fact that "just like whirlpools perpetuate themselves through the water medium, we are patterns that perpetuate themselves through the material environment". It’s harder to see because the material cycles in a different way through us and, in highly complex trajectories and at different "speeds", but essentially you take in carrots through one end, the matter whirls and swirls through you-*as you*-for a while and then, sometimes days other times years, the material atoms exit along with sweat, urine or the exhaled humidity. Even neurons, which are structures that remain mostly unchanged throughout your entire life, have their composition constantly changed-molecular bits and pieces are replaced by new proteins which are being constantly produced. Some of the old "construction material" gets reused but most is taken by the blood, filtered out by the kidneys and pissed. You’re not your material body because the material is in flux, always changing. You’re the abstract pattern perpetuating through the matter. And not even that, because that’s also changing a lot-the genetic code gathers mutations (different in different cells!), epigenetic information changes, hormone levels change, the delicate neural-lacing of the brain changes, etc. Persons are incredible subtle forms, apparitions in flux, implemented holographically by countless relations between myriad things.

[@Demention94]

It's like assuming something can be animated with no animator. Almost like one is "possessed" by something...its whole life. I agree with you. Why would we be "designed" to procreate IF NOT to transmute energy into the extension of ourselves. That extension being a child which somehow has it own "soul"..

[@bigron7009]

Great to see Mr Anton back with some new content. Thank you 😊 Food for thought is one thing but Corey usually serves up a Michelin Star 5 course with every vid...peace & love from the UK 🙏

[@CoreyAnton]

Thanks

[@danterosati]

it's astonishing that there are still reductive materialists lurking here and there despite all the evidence against it, even absent personal experience.

[@yoyodynepropulsion6484]

Please point me in a direction of an alternative

[@danterosati]

@@yoyodynepropulsion6484 first meditate on there being something rather than nothing until you experience astonishment. Then meditate on the fact that you can feel astonishment at this and the implications. A fish is not aware of the water. If we only existed, we would not be able to notice our being.

[@raiseyourvibration1411]

Thank you, Corey. Your new book is excellent! I highly recommend it as a stocking-stuffer. You may be chagrined about this, but after I read it, for the first time in my life, I questioned why it's necessary to accept that we currently have the ultimate tools to address the ultimacy of existence. I now see that as a major assumption. This assumption is analogous to the scientists swallowing the hegemony of science hook, line, and sinker--they think they know. It's analogous to your grandmother saying there's continuity between our current life and something after, such that her questions to God are legitimate questions. I can't nail it down, but there's an argument for the idea that our bodies necessarily limit consciousness, and that we currently do not have the ultimate tools to address the entirety of existence. We only have the tools to address our current situation. But I'm NOT arguing for an afterlife. On the contrary, the notion of afterlife already makes that assumption which I'm questioning. I agree, once our body dies, that's it. We're gone. However, I'm not arguing against an afterlife, either. This is the claim that I'm wrestling with: The argument about "this life is all there is" vs. "our personalities go on to exist in an afterlife" is a false dilemma. Does this make sense? One housekeeping thing: As you know, I participated in the study group about HNBHB and it was amazing! Jeremy (I think his name is Jeremy?) said that he could arrange another reading group, and we talked about reading Sources of Significance. How can we get ahold of Jeremy? Aloha!

[@CoreyAnton]

Thanks for the thoughtful comments here. Jermaine Martinez, I think, is the person you want to get a hold of.

[@Svankmajer]

Nice to see you back. Since you refer to a type of antinatalism: David Benatar separates between cosmic purpose/meaning and terrestrial purpose/meaning. So, he rejects the idea we have cosmic purpose, and argues that is a negative thing (for various reasons, as it would be nicer if there was one) - while he does argue we have a terrestrial meaning and purpose, which means a rejection of nihilism - yet still, the terrestrial meaning and purpose we have is very limited. This can make a life worth living, although it does not necessarily make a life worth starting. I'd be curious if you disagree with this assessment, and if so, why?

[@CoreyAnton]

Thanks much. Yeah. I have a great amount of respect for Benatar's thought, and I engage his work, at least a little bit, in my most recent book. I see him mainly as a pretty potent corrective to radical pro-life arguments. Part of the difficulty for me, and please see the recent book for more detail, is that sociality runs deep and is ontological, meaning that the line between "worth living" and "worth starting" is not so easily drawn: no one gets to choose life for themselves. Any persons who ever had a life "worth living" could not do so if it were not for many others, including especially those other people who brought them into existence without their consent. Also, for more on my sense of it, look carefully at the dedication Benatar gives to his Better Never to Have Been. The question seems to be: What have we all done with our lives, how have we contributed to life, and what is the most fitting response, given that we already have been harmed by coming into existence? Best to you,

[@66smashy]

One of the most intriguing films of recent years to me is Denis Villeneuve's Arrival (2016). I could be completely wrong, and I'm not equipped to tie up the loose ends of the film, but I'm sure that this movie touches on these ideas. It deals with past, present and future, non-linear language and humanity's problem of the linear toward death.

[@logiconlyzone]

Death is not the ending of life. The material and energy is just transmutated into something else. Nothing is created or destroyed, it just changes form.

[@nicholasporteron]

yes you're back!!!

[@akrasia1969]

I agree that life has inherent meaning without the promise of an afterlife, but I doubt that everyone has the ability to access such meaning. Either they altogether lack the facility, or the abject circumstances of their lives keep them forever imprisoned in The Cave.

[@logiconlyzone]

The energy that makes up your consciousness does not cease to exist sir. Very possible that death is just a modern materialist construct. In fact, it probably is.

[@inquisitivechimp5408]

What an awesome video! Very rich. It seems that you can't make a video that is not interesting and deeply stimulating. You must have a lot of contact with people who believe in the afterlife. I think that as a good part of the video appears to be addressing people who believe in it. I know that in the US you have a lot of born again christians and many mini-denominations. I bet it gets weird. But the fact that you refer to the afterlife is interesting to me because I barely hear such opinions nowadays. From my tiny corner of the world I see it as something that is becoming exctinct. And I see good in the idea, not only bad (which, of course, also exists). I see other peoples' belief in the afterlife as having more benefit for themselves, for society, and even for myself (as part of that society) than their not believing in an afterlife. It's a primitive technology, but I think it's quite functional especially for those who are not inclined to study and research philosophical matters. The veracity of the afterlife is not the issue to me. It's cash value is. I think it's the kind of topic where a pragmatist perspective works well. Of course, I wouldn't be able to get myself to believe in it - though I did as a kid. The problem with reason is that it sometimes slaughters useful but untrue concepts - the afterlife being one of them. The imaginary carrot and stick that we call heaven and hell is much better than the police state with cctv and AI technologies that is probably coming. The more our intelligence kills the afterlife, the eye in the sky, and the judgement day (imaginary policing) the more space we create for a techno-horrible social credit systems like the one in China to evolve (non-imaginary policing). We stuff our faces from the tree of knowledge and we leave behind anything Eden-like (religion has some good metaphors). The common narrative of our grandparents, full of untruths as it was, is what made a functional civilization. Reminds me of that joke with the old lawyer and his son who was also a lawyer. The son takes over the legal firm from his father. One day he calls his dad and tells him: "Father, father, I finally solved that legal case you have been trying to win for decades!" And his father replied: "Oh son, what have you done! That unsolved case paid the bills, your tuition! It was a cash cow! Now that you have solved it, there will be no more money from that source" (bad translation and taken from a Greek context so might not translate well). In other words, we young unwise lawyers that we are have solved the question of the afterlife. But our fathers (i.e. the ancients) knew about the the non-existence of an afterlife as well. It's not a new discovery. However, societies chose the untruth of the afterlife for practical reasons. And as long as that belief was running as a common shared narrative, it produced some benefits. Some benefits that we will no longer see because we are smart young lawyers. I barely know any christians any more. I know Muslims though. They are the true believers in the after life nowadays. 1.7 billion of them. But, a narrative that targeted belief in the afterlife by making reference to Muslim beliefs as examples would be less acceptable today. It's acceptable to bash our own collective delusion, but not the collective delusion that are not domestic. It seems that for us westerners all tribes are cool except the ones in our back yard. We westerners have killed god. We have gone through our Nietzsche phase and trampled all over that construction. And we replaced him with prozac, 400 schools of psychotherapy, the narrative of the day, week, month, with consumerism, with sexualization of everything, with meaning derrived via social justice wars and other manic virtue signalling crusades. Meanwhile, I miss the old generation. I miss the old folk. I miss their virtues. I miss their ways. Those who were brought up in that problematic narrative of crosses and christs and afterlives. I miss them. I look at them - those that are left - like an anthropologist looks at a dying tribe. A tribe that is dying out culturally, losing its ways, becoming 'modern'. Yet there are still some Mohicans left. Which is why I like to stand up for them even though I disagree with them and they disagree with me. I want them to survive, even though I'm not one of them. These jews and christians and muslims and other afterlife believers have their ways and they are quite interesting. I think we can learn from them even if we don't share their beliefs. I weigh the pros and cons of these afterlife belief systems. I weigh them against the pros and cons of this no-afterlife era we live in. This era, with all it's reason, and all it's science, and all it's technology. With all it's atheism and DIY spirituality. I don't know. I think we've replaced one problematic god with a different one. You can't believe in Santa as an adult because at some point your parents will die and there will be no one to bring you the gifts anymore. You'll then start to wonder what happenned to Santa. But it's fun while it lasts and even atheists like to give their children that experience of a harmless collective delusion during their early years. Why do to we have to throw the afterlife in the bin? It's untrue, yes. But do those who believe in it feel better and function better with it than without it? If yes, then I don't see why we shouldn't encourage them to believe in it. They'll probably never find out it's not true if we don't spoil it for them. Yes, they can be a pain. Especially when they come knocking on your door selling their afterlife when you don't want it. But other than that, I think they are pretty harmless socially. I would be more inclined to go after the idea of hell than the idea of the afterlife in general. But even then, hell has a useful function as well. Hell as an idea has probably kept more people out of jail than social services have. The benefits of hell are largely invisible. Just thought I'd reflect a bit on this issue of the afterlife. Given that we celebrate 200 years from the Greek war of independence from the Ottomans, I thought I'd pay a little tribute to this technology of the mind that turned men and women into heroes and allowed for the existence of the Greek state and the survival of the Greek nation. The level of self-sacrifice and bravery required to win a war of independence without means, requires mental technologies that function as power multipliers. The belief in the afterlife is such a technology. It is a power multiplier in certain contexts. Context is everything. The car replaced the donkey. But I don't want to get rid of the few remaining donkeys. And battery operated watches replaced wind up watches. If the quote that is sometimes attributed to Einstein turns out to be true - i.e. about the fourth world war being fought with sticks and stones - then I think we will see once again the value of donkeys, wind-up watches, and the afterlife. Context makes things relevant and valuable or irrelavant and useless. This era of ease and femininity that we live in does not seem to have much use for the afterlife technology. Instagram is more important to people than the afterlife. But in a context where a different set of virtues is required for collective survival, perhaps we will once again utilize the afterlife idea to obtain easier and more widespread access to those virtues. Of course, there are many bad uses of the afterlife idea and some not so positive potential consequences of belief the afterlife. And you point some of them out excellently. But I just couldn't resist the temptation to think up some humble thoughts in response to your wonderful video! An excellent video as always! A real joy to watch! Hope you get a chance to post some more over the holidays!

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

Wow, long post lots to chew on! I'm curious though....where did you learn there's no afterlife?

[@inquisitivechimp5408]

​@@JohnnyTwoFingers Good point. It's not something you learn through lived experience - perhaps through choosing to read certain books over others, to associate with certain cultures/subcultures over others, to follow certain thinkers over others. It's more a perspective you choose to believe in. Hence, my speech and writing in this sense is as biased as any believer's. In other words, I work on the basis that it does not exist because that's what my senses and mind tell me. And my mind tells me that, not because it is an accurate thinking machine - far from it! - but because I have stopped reading the stuff that supports the afterlife view and I feed my mind stuff that doesn't support the afterlife view. Having said that, even as a kid I didn't feel the afterlife view to be convincing for me because I saw no proof of it. I wanted proof (kind of childish of me as I didn't understand the function of the afterlife). Others think differently. In the future my mind and senses might tell me otherwise again. What my mind and senses tell me are in no way accurate representions of any reality outside myself. Anything we say or write is likely a huge misrepresentation of reality. Which is not a problem - as long as it is functional personally and socially. Science - that great god of modern people - is always proving itself wrong. The truth of today is the error of the future. So we are all biased is many ways. As you have probably guessed from my first comment I am very open to seeing through the prism of all alternative interpretations - especially when they are unpopular or ridiculed by mass society. However, when one outgrows a religious narrative through reading, he usually requires a shocking life event or an existential crisis (realization of the proximity of death) in order to return to the religious narrative. Which is why I can't say I won't return to religious narrative later in life. It happens. Of course, in areas where no one can know the truth of something, there is a lot of room from deception. But deception and self-deception is inevitable for the human - scientist or religious person. But if a deception causes better outcomes for society than the absense of that deception, I say go with deception! Deception is not in and of itself bad. But as you said - I don't KNOW whether an afterlife exists as I have never died. No one does.It's just what my mind and senses tell me at this moment in time. Hence, I speak/write on the basis of my biased assumptions.

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

@@inquisitivechimp5408 Ok, that makes a lot more sense now, thanks for the thorough explanation!!

[@CoreyAnton]

Thanks for the thoughtful comment and follow up.

[@JohnnyTwoFingers]

Great video as always! One thing though regarding awareness and realization: if you consider that such things are not binaries but spectrums *with unknown upsides*, does this change how some of these ideas look? For example, what if humanity could become HIGHLY self-aware? What is the range of plausible consequences?

[@raiseyourvibration1411]

@Trevor G Thanks so much for this insightful comment. My comment above is saying something similar to what you're saying here. I'm wondering if the argument about "this life is all there is" vs. "our personalities go on to exist in an afterlife" is a false dilemma. What if there's an "unknown upside" as you say? What does Logos look like if a person's awareness is able to transcend while they are still alive? Of course, we are necessarily stuck where we are with our brains and nervous systems, so that's why the question of life after death is not, in a sense, a false dilemma. But I'm wondering if the situation as it is for us could be transcended. E.g., Ramana Maharshi separated his consciousness into partly here and now, and partly into a kind of eternal realm, and this happened while he was still alive. (It's happened to many other people as well). When he was dying, people begged him to intervene and save his own life. But he had become highly self-aware, as you say, and his awareness was already partly in that kind of eternal realm. When they asked him to save himself, he said, "Why is everyone worried about this body? They say that I am dying, but I am not going away. Where could I go? I am already here." Aloha!

[@c3cxla]

Dance is given meaning by it's context; if there is not context there is no dance, it's just movement. life without afterlife can be meaningful, but material existence without the immaterial context can not be, at that point meaning itself becomes meaningless, becomes just another taste. it's silly to blame over-individualization, when throughout history there have been few times when people believed in afterlife less than they do now, even many religious people don't believe in it nowadays and just practice it as a cope. there are no ancestors worshipping cults anymore either, because when you take away the religious context of it all the act is not worth it for many.

[@Kropotkin2000]

As a nihilist: That's what _you_ say. There's a question posed in the Life of Brian by Eric Idle's character, who gives an immediate answer to it, as if he's just delivered an unrefutable rhetorical flourish: "You came from nothing, you go back to nothing; what do you lose? Nothing!" You lose everything in between the nothings.

[@CoreyAnton]

It is funny that you say that, as my book talks about Life of Brian in the first couple of pages. At death, there is no longer a you "there" to have anything now "lost." Said otherwise: we are only on loan to ourselves, and we can become ungrateful if we ever forget this basic fact. Hence: always look on the bright side of life.

[@logiconlyzone]

The whole YOLO philosophy is a HUGE assumption. Its very possible that you live more than once. Happy to argue this if there is any interest.

[@shenandoah7875]

Hi TLOZ. I checked out Professor Anton’s channel for the first time in apparently a year, and I was browsing the comments and saw you. Do you mean in an eternal return sorta way? I wonder if KZbin will notify you that I replied.

[@logiconlyzone]

@@shenandoah7875 Nothing is created or destroy, it just changes form. When our bodies cease to be what our body is made from doesn’t. Its a matter of considering if consciousness is an emergent property or an access type property. Its very possible that our consciousness is not a material emergent phenomenon but always is, moving from each form to the next. It doesn’t mean we are aware of what is happening, but its possible there is no “death”, like we are part of a process of eternal form changing and hold onto our consciousness and reemerge in infinite forms. I’m not saying this is true, but that it’s very probable.

[@britishempires]

What if its a flat earth digital realm construct and ur consciousness is having an experience in ur avatar.

[@alex_roivas333]

i dont think it's possible to fully "accept death", and that's part of us not being there when we're gonna die. even in your language, you are using stuff that is immortalizing our lives now: like "achievements" in science, music, etc. and that we aren't "like animals"

[@CoreyAnton]

Hmm. I think we may be in a kind of loose agreement. Communication technologies seem to be, inherently, immortality technologies.

[@googleiscreepynanya5926]

Very fascinating video. I appreciate your attitude and I enjoy hearing you speak. But I don’t buy the arguments for your claims. I see various obvious holes. For example the idea that the belief in an afterlife causes people to ignore the here and now. Well sure that probably does happen but it also probably causes people to take seriously what they do in here now, so how do you know which potential fallacy causes more harm? Further I believe it was 0ThouArtThat0 that had a video talking about what the effects on society would be if everybody believes in reincarnation. That is if you have to come back here it might be a good idea to do what you can to make this a nicer place to come back to. Of course these are pragmatic arguments against a pragmatic argument so it is what it is. Reality is extremely complex and I’ve had a very strange life that doesn’t jive with the point of human life being best accepted as part of some enlightenment ideal that you are speaking flowery to. I do buy the idea that it could be partly that, partly the point, like reality is trying to create beauty and so on. But of course why can’t this place be about many things? People here for many reasons? Multiple layers of meaning, multiple types of transcendence, multiple purposes, multiple levels of human identity. As above so as below. The idea that it must only be one type of human transcendence appears to rest on mere assumption.