How do you know you're not one second away from death?

Question

This is not a question about how we could die at any time without warning ...

What I'm asking is: how do we know we haven't lived our whole life through already and are now reliving our life in the so called flashback?

Apparently, just before we die, we experience our whole life again in a flashback. I think it's possible that this flashback is measured in time without the individual's experience, but for the individual him/herself it is relived, moment for moment, in real time. If this is so, then how can we be sure that what we are experiencing right now is real, first time around experience as opposed to the flashback which is just as real?

And please, no stupid answers: this is a serious philosophical question

There are lots of great answers here, and one or two stupid ones ... yes you tango ...

It's going to be difficult to choose a best answer.

Answer 1

You don't.

We don't even know that we lived a life at all.

The only reason we know anything is because we have 'memories' and they are pretty tenuous anyway. We couldnt have a concept of time, or really anything. We would just be raw 'perceivers' with litte ability to process the 'perceived universe'. In fact, even with what we have we have little.

What is the energy that you feel with another person? Are are 'selves' linked through some other medium. Are the eyes really a window to the soul?

I don't know you exist, you don't know I exist.

What is 'I' anyway. Where am 'I'?

How can 'I' cause something to happen, when 'I' don't exist, or at least not anywhere physical, or concrete?

What is 'red'? Without senses does anything exist?

So many questions. So few answers. I have stopped thinking too much about this but, as you say, it is really interesting.

I think it is presumptuous to say that we all experience flashback, that is more a movie thing. Some people claim to have done so though, so I understand what you mean.

Okay, now if someone has a flashback, dies, then gets resuscitated, then what was the second flashback, if his/her life was a flashback in the first place?

Have you seen the Matrix? : )

Great question, I hope you enjoyed my answer, consider some of the earlier points mate. Some philosophers have spent (wasted?) their whole lives considering such questions. Enjoy!!!

cya
J.

Answer 2

The philospher Henry James said that if the outcome of a question leads to no pragmatic change then cease asking it. Go and make a cup of tea instead. Though asking ridiculous questions can be interesting.

I would say trust in your senses, does your reality seem like a flashback or does it collude to what you understand to be reality? Obviosuly the problem with the question i've just posed is that as the philospher, Nerval once coined 'reality is just the mirror of our perceptions'. As someone earlier in this thread said it very much depends on your subjective interpretation and whether you in fact subjectively think we live in an objective or subjective reality.

My heart and even my mind tells me we are one underlying conciousness all linked on some level beyond the physical, and that death is the release of our soul into some other field. Either that or it's the end and there is no point in worrying. I do see it's an appealing idea to question one's reality, and the whole Matrix film analogy, well it's interesting, kind of like Plato's shadows, but when you reallly look at the Matrix it get's us no closer to the truth. The humans realise their reality is a lie, but then still are left not knowing where they originated.

Answer 3

I think throughout this lengthy flashback we would be living with the memory of having lived the life we are flashing back through. I just don't see how it would be plausible that we were experiencing that whole life without the subconscious memory of having lived it, especially considering how rarely deja vu strikes as it is. We would be walking zombies pulsating with deja vu. Life is long and boring enough. I can't stand the thought that I've lived this already, albeit dragging on even longer. Can somebody stop this ride?!

If anything, recent theories have suggested that the universe will reverse itself so that we live everything backwards after the end of time.

I think "life flashing before eyes" is merely the hyperactive brain, when stimulated by sudden and intense fear response. When provoked to unfamiliar speed the neurons could spit out quite a mess of images and sensations past.

Answer 4

I have firsthand knowledge that the flashback you refer to is a myth, as is the "near death" experience. I was in an accident several years ago. I "died" on the operating table twice. No tunnel of light, no departed loved ones greeting me, nothing.While the car was rolling, no flashback of my life,either. I do remember thinking, "I'm gonna die now", but that was it. As a side note, I had this happen BEFORE the near death phenomenon became popular with all the paranormal types. Sorry to disappoint, folks, but I seriously doubt that there exists an afterlife.

Answer 5

Having had an experience where the whole of my life flashed before my eyes, I can assure you that the day to day experience of life is nothing like that. The two don't even compare - one is a rapid stream of memories pouring through the mind (and not evoking sensation) whereas the life I experience day to day does have sensation attached - I am fully immersed in it, rather than an observer.
That's the best answer I can give you. Whether or not the nature of reality is illusory is another matter altogether.

Answer 6

I would say that this would be moving into the transcendental area.

What you are referring to is whether our 'consciousness' is aware that the external 'reality' of time-space-events is indeed a reality taking place in real time-space based on the feedback provided by the brain sensors, or that this 'reality' could be simply a 'non-reality' (you call it a 'flashback') which is also a feedback provided by the similarly adapt brain sensors.

I would then say that the experience of reality and 'flashbacks' are truly 2 realities within the same universe. It's just that the person who is stuck in thinking his flashback is a reality could be unfortunately operating in the wrong place (or space) at the right time.

Answer 7

very interesting! I actually had a brush with death last week, you can read my blog on myspace for the details if you like, my url is photolover1.
I literally was a second away from death and I have always had a fear of death but in the last 2 years since I lost my dad I have really developed my spiritual side and I honestly thought I was going to die, all I could do was close my eyes and think I'm going to die and I haven't even talked to my son today but I wasn't scared, after it was over and I calmed down I realized that and it was kind of a peaceful feeling, hard to explain.
I am interested to see other responses.
Great question!

Answer 8

In Hindu theology, life is but a dream. As human beings, we can only expect that the future moment will more like the previous moment than like our final moment or our first moment. Statistically it is so, because for each life there is one birth and one death.

According to my own near-death-experience and to those I have heard/read about, the life review emphasizes instances of import; where choices made/actions taken, when one has injured another or oneself, gone against what one knows to be right, etc., are highlighted.

Some questions like yours about life review as the time of death or as it seen by some as a purgatory or bardo state, or whether it is a pre-life review, we can only answer with our own common sense to realize that now is now. We are living life. If your actions have consequences, then you're still here with the rest of us.

Answer 9

i think a flashback would be shorter than the amount of years ive lived on this earth and a flash back got its name from being fast not slow and aging like we are now some how i get the feeling we would no if we were having a flashback and on our way to met our maker?/near death experiences i think have taught us alot on what to expect wen we go

Answer 10

If this is a flashback......it is verrrrrrry long and extremely boring. I would like to think that flashbacks skip all the slow bs and jump right from highlight to highlight. I don't want to waste my flashback time thinking....."Oh yeah....I remember that night when I was replying to someone's question on Yahoo Answers!" Fun times! Lol!