"Our present considerations are limited to an analysis of being-certain with regard to death; and this being-certain will, in the end,present us with an eminent certainty of Being... Strictly speaking, 'only' an empirical certainty may be attributed to death. Such certainty falls short of the highest certainty, the apodictical one, which we attain in certain areas of theoretical knowledge... As the end of Being, death is the ownmost nonrelational, certain, and, as such, indefinite and not to be bypssed possibility OF Being... The phenomenon of not-yet has been taken from the ahead-of-itself; NO MORE than the structure of care in general, can it serves as a higher court that would rule AGAINST a possible, existent Wholeness; indeed, this ahead-of-itself first makes possible such a being-toward-the-end. The problem of possible wholeness of the being, who we ourselves actually are, exists justifiably IF care, as the fundamental constitution of Being, 'is connected' with death as the most extreme possibility of this Being." Heidegger in Sein und Zeit, all emphasis mine

So he seems like he is anti-Hindu and pro-Hindu at the same time. Being has something to do with death and we only know it negatively for now. However, he disapproves of trying to escape the world. For him, we should live as fully in the world as possible, all the while knowing it is passing away and we are exiting this world very soon.

But how can you be in the world while skepticism raises it's persistent head? What I wanted to talk about in Heidegger is the part about death being less certain than math. I think he says this basically because we don't know what death is. We don't know what happens inside then and where we go, if anywhere. What if I died last night and this world is a different world with the same people? Maybe a nuclear war happened last night and we all died and this is our after life. These skeptical thoughts I want to explore in this thread.

Bertrand Russell said the world might have started when he was born. Is such an opinion irrational? It denies that other people are telling the truth about their past. But what if you were the only person with the consciousness gene? Is it impossible to know for sure there are consciousness in these other bodies?

Finally, why not take cyanide? After all, for all you know an alien changed your cyanide to LSD and you are missing out on a great trip by not taking the "cyanide"! Skepticism seems to logically break down all our beliefs without giving us reason to believe in anything. I don't see a flaw in the logic though. How can you possibly put a probability on whether an alien switched your poison for something that is good for you?