[XorNot]

Most ideas about life after death are based on the assumption that because we have consciousness, it can't just "stop existing" as a true nothingness. Ask someone to picture that, and they picture a black void that they still experience.

So it seems sensible to me that General Aneasthesia would feel quite unique in that regard (I have experience it myself) - one moment you're here, the next you're waking up. You don't dream, you don't feel like time has passed at all, it's just kind of a blink and then you're somewhere else.

And that's it - "true nothingness". It's the closest you can get to not existing while still being able to come back.

[simiones]

I think a good way to imagine non-existence it is to ask people to think about how they feel about the time before they were born. It's better than that idea of a black void that some get, and it tends to better illustrate the concept that the world once existed without you experiencing it, and so there is nothing weird about it existing again without you experiencing it in any way.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I think this is a cheat.

If instead we found someone who (for whatever reason) believed that they just popped into existence, as if from a puff of smoke, at the age of 3... and we did your thought exercise but instead told them "think back to the 3 years before you manifested"...

To that person, it might well seem like a clever idea. "Hey I didn't exist then, but I don't really experience or remember that nothingness!"

Except they did exist, may well have been conversational even for the last part of it, etc.

There's no good way from first principles for me to be sure the same isn't true of myself before my birth. I don't expect much after my death, but like everyone else I'm just going to have to wait and see (or, wait and not see, as the case may be).

[simiones]

Oh, I'm not claiming I've solved the mystery of what happens after death!

I'm just saying this may be a good way to help someone visualize better what it even means to say that consciousness just stops, not that it somehow proves that is what happens.

[polishdude20]

I wonder if going under anesthesia is different though due to the time involved. Like, if you're under for 4 hours, you'll feel like no time has passed. But what about 4 days? Or 4 months?

If death is infinite, to really compare death and anesthesia, we'd need to experience being under for longer.

[Sunam]

I had surgery last year and I believe I was out for a few hours. when I woke up I could definitely sense that some amount of time had had passed. I haven't felt that sensation during quicker surgeries so maybe our perception of how quickly time passes is changed and slowed down?