Immortality could be one of the most painful punishments. We are born to die because we are organic existences which have a cadocous period. I remember this situation in Hermann Hesse "Steppenwolf" where the main character is judged to being immortal and the he considered this is probably the worst thing can happen to you.
Is it possible that after death we have a life? I do not know because is one of the most important question in our era. What happens after you are dead. Here I questioning myself if it is possible have awareness after all has passed away. I mean, if that somehow world or "Cosmos" provide us the feeling or remember our past lives, what we lived or who we are.
Imagine living this life and then for nothing because when you die you can lose awareness and then it looks like living it isn't worthy at all
It is an interesting debate trying to understand what mysterious path is afterwards you have lived.

Yes, in some ways I think that the experiences of life after death, by its very nature, could be a form of punishment. However, I am aware that many people seek it and, in many ways, some have found refuge in the beliefs, in coping with a painful existence in this life. Perhaps the people who are enjoying this life greatly spend less time wondering about a possible life after this one. I am inclined to think that this life is hard enough, with or without a future one.

But I am also wondering about what the existence of a life without a body would be like. That is because it is unclear in some of the ideas about life after death whether it would be embodied or disembodied. So, I think that I am going to revise my question to what it would be like to live without a body?

I have just updated my thread question because I am not really wishing to ask if there is actual life after death. I think that is such a difficult question and I am not sure if we can answer it with any certainty. I also think it would probably be pointless to start a debate on the form life after death may take because we have so little evidence to go on.

So, I am pointing to one idea which is apparent in some ideas about life after death, which is the that of living without a physical body. I have been wondering what that would be like. No physical needs: food, sleep, sex etc. I wonder what it would be like? Would we miss our bodies, or imagine that we still have our former bodily form?

I am not trying to create a problematic discussion, but create one for pure imaginative philosophical speculation.

Interesting question. It is complex to explain. I guess it would looks like "air" or atoms just flowing in the sky or cosmos. I admit this is so intangible. But the interesting fact here is if we would have some kind of awareness. I guess without awareness we can't exist after death or even how or body would look like at all. Cogito ergo sum
This example is important: Some people before death they write in some deeds they would like to be buried in a garden so afterwards a tree is raised there. It is beautiful but at the same time important because it shows the power of our life after the death comes.
Never forget we are afraid of death because we do not know how will be the body at the end. We can only speculate about.
So, in this fact I guess our body will be like some organic atoms flying around.

I see the problem of awareness this raises because we would be without the senses, as we know them. Or, would we have some kind of multisensory awareness? It would involve living some kind of existence as a spiritual being.

I am sure that many people on the forum will consider my question as complete nonsense. However, many people do believe in the existence of beings without physical bodies. Even the mythical account of the fallen angels suggests the idea that the fallen state involved entering into a bodily existence. So, I am just wondering about how this can be thought of, but with openness towards fantasy, or as you suggest 'atoms flying around.' And, of course, people's lives at the end, with all that was left unsettled, everything from wills to severed connections. it also raises the question of contact with other being, embodied or disembodied.

Eh, it's not all that bad. You can still talk to people. Hang out. Material concerns and physical death are no longer paramount. Not really at least. All your needs are met. :lol:

Until you try to regain your body that is.

However, many people do believe in the existence of beings without physical bodies.

I believe in this criteria but I guess we do not have developed our science to discover it yet. So it is free to interpretation and I think it is interesting debating about it.

"And you're making me feel like
I've never been born"

:yikes:

So, I am pointing to one idea which is apparent in some ideas about life after death, which is the that of living without a physical body. I have been wondering what that would be like. No physical needs: food, sleep, sex etc. I wonder what it would be like? Would we miss our bodies, or imagine that we still have our former bodily form? — Jack Cummins

I don't imagine "it would be like" anything at all ... except the absence those who have been revived from a coma can't even recall ... Anyway, in what sense is it "living" to be "without a physical body"? (like: In what sense is a triangle still a "triangle" without any angles?) Living feels (like something) because it is always, with every embodied breath, a near-death experience; lacking any physical points of reference, it doesn't make sense to ask – try to imagine – "what it feels like" to be disembodied (i.e. dead).

I am answering your response first because it is the most rational one. Your point about it making you think about not being born is relevant because we don't have a body of our own or an ego at this stage.

Obviously, it is likely that in many ways that death is the answer to the loss of the existence of the body, although Huxley's idea of how hallucinogenics open up perceptual doorways has made me wonder about other possible scenarios sometimes. But, of course one did still have a body. The whole out of body experiences may be an illusion. When I have experienced a couple of borderline sleep experiences in which I am flying around my room and can view my body lying on my bed, I am aware of being back in my body at some stage, and I am still alive in the usual way. I do consider these as astral projection experiences, but whether the astral dimension is real, independent of our experiences is questionable. Of course, many people do see the possibility of entering into such states after death as possible. I would imagine that this is the basis for ideas such as heaven and hell.

I am not saying that I think such ideas of an afterlife should be taken literally, but it is an interesting area to wonder about. I am not sure whether people imagine that they would have physical bodies in heaven and hell. Perhaps such bodies would be more subtle bodies rather than the bodies like ours. I think that some esoteric writers, such as Blavatsky, speak of early human beings having a less gross physical body, and the Bible refers to the idea of a spiritual body.

It is a whole area of speculation and even though I am not sure that the idea of not having a body has been discussed as such, I do think that certain ideas about life after death do raise that possibility. Certainly, in my own upbringing in Catholicism I was taught that we would be raised from the dead after the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. However, I was taught by some people that there would be some kind of existence in between death and resurrection. So, that did make me wonder about the whole possibility of disembodied existence. I do find myself wondering about that whenever I start thinking about the mind body problem in philosophy. I don't know why I started thinking about it today, but I did. Perhaps, I am spending too much time thinking...

You say about 'regaining the body' and the question is whether one would wish to do so. It may depend on the bodilý existence one had prior to death and the realm one had entered. Also, would one necessarily be able to go back into the body? If one was entering into horrible dimensions, the worst problem would be that one could not even kill oneself, being dead already. The best option might be to try to journey forward to a better place, which may be suggested by the Christian idea of purgatory, because that implies temporary suffering, from which one may reach heaven eventually.

Perhaps, I am spending too much time thinking... — Jack Cummins

When you are thinking you are not spending time :) I also spend time thinking in my existence and another circumstances which are around me. Your topic is interesting because it makes us to admit we don’t certainly know what is afterwards. Probably when some philosophers as Nietzsche said “God has dead” is referred to there is nothing after death.
Another perception I usually think which is connected to this one is the time itself. Life can be long and short at the same time. It scares me a little bit how slowly we are driving to this subterfuge of what the futures holds when the life passes away.

I am probably spending too much time, 'Alone in a Room', like Leonard Cohen.But, I do believe that we don't really know what comes after death. Many people probably don't think about it unless they are face to face with death, their own or that of someone close. I wonder if the pandemic is leading more people to think about it as there is a whole fear of death underlying it. Also, people are spending more time alone rather than with the usual distractions of daily life.

I do wonder if Nietzsche's idea of God being dead does come with a subtext of there being nothing after death. The two ideas do seem linked because the belief in life after death usually goes alongside the idea of God. I am not aware of many atheists believing in life after death, but that doesn't mean that it is not possible to think of there being life after death independently of believing in God. It would probably be a different form of an afterlife, but there other ways of thinking about the matter other than the ones within Western religions, such as within Buddhism.

Yes, I think that time can be a fearful concept, and sometimes it seems to pass so slowly and other times so fastly. So, there does seem to be a whole subjective way of experiencing it. It is also true that none of us know how long we have in life, and the idea of death can be terrifying for some people.

Sorry to keep playing around with my title, but it didn't feel quite right to say 'without a body' and I think that beyond seems to make more sense in relation to the spectrum of possibilities, and include immortality once again because I am talking about existence beyond the body after death. I am not even sure to what extent we should be thinking about it , but for me the whole question of immortality hovers in the background always.I am not sure that we can really know the answer, but, really,I am raising the one of what if...? It is all speculation and, I would also add, that I am not wishing to oppose anyone's views, but simply open up the philosophical imagination, and dream..

I'm pretty sure Prince Philip is half beyond the veil at this point.

He does look like he is in a rather strange state of being.

Actually, you have just reminded me of David Icke's idea that the royal family shapeshift to become reptiles...

My view of the universe is that it is in a constant flux yet still a ‘block model’. So, we’re all immortal even if we die.

Basically we will always have existed at some ‘point’ some ‘how’. That is essentially the same thing as existing forever given that we change second by second, hour by hour, year by year anyway.

The whole issue of temporality is strongly tied up in how we communicate and interact in the world. Today’s modern existence is one of perpetual time-keeping and clock-watching. The more we quantify the rate of change in this way - and place markers for them - the more aware we become of ‘beginnings’ and ‘ends’ and place them to the forefront of our daily attitudes.

Imagining an ‘afterlife’ is a strange act given our utter ignorance.

think about what it would be like to exist without a physical body, — Jack Cummins

Wouldn't it be like a dream? Every night I have great adventures, run around in semi-familiar worlds, solve problems, interact with people I used to know and some I never knew. Then I wake up and realize that I did all this without the use of my body. Perhaps I'm doing that right now. Maybe I'm a brain in a vat or a program running in the great computer in the sky. In short, existing without a body wouldn't be any different than what we experience now. If you didn't have a body maybe you'd think you did. Maybe you don't have a body and think you do. Just some idle thoughts. I have vivid dreams every night, generally weird but not very disturbing. But they're always realistic. I never have any idea that I'm dreaming. In fact the only way I can tell I'm awake is that when I'm awake, I can wonder if I might be dreaming. When I'm dreaming, I never wonder about that!

... I did all this without the use of my body. — fishfry

Perhaps your body does it all without using you.

I think that it is also worth considering what does is involved and what is dreaming exactly? We have dreams every night and from what I have read in that area of psychology, it appears that dream sleep (REM) is of particular significance, to the point where it could be asked is the whole purpose of sleep to dream? Dreams have been seen as significant in some cultures, and both Freud and Jung spoke of them as revealing significant insights about our personal lives. But what is dreaming?I wonder about the significance of dreaming in the wider scheme of the development of our consciousness.

Jack, maybe you DO know what life after death is like -- maybe this is it.

What if before this existence you lived as a spiritual being in a world of purity, peace, beauty. Freedom from suffering. A place in common with other beings of good will living lives dedicated to intellectual pursuits. Then for some unknown reason you were condemned to die and become a human being in this world. Now you find yourself living in an animal-eats-animal world imprisoned in a body wracked with desires you usually can't satisfy among billions of other such bodies, all of whom judge you and all of whom are totally out for themselves. Now you live a life of striving and angst with only occasional if not rare moments of peace and even rarer ones of pleasure, while always on the razor's edge of sickness, or impoverishment, or loss of a loved one, or some other grisly experience. So while in this human "living" state what do you subconsciously yearn for the most? Mortido. The dream of "death", of going home.

Lifespan isn't just limited by the body
Lifespan is limited by identity which is limited by understanding which is limited by empathy