25 Things That Will Happen When You Die

<h4>

25 Things That Will Happen When You Die</h4>

As we currently understand it, death comes to us all. In recent decades the average life expectancy has risen for human beings, but there’s still the inevitable waiting at the end. And yet, although death is unavoidable, it’s also one of life’s greatest mysteries.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at 25 things that will (or could) happen when you die - according to science, religion, philosophy, technology, and theories on the future.

This video will look at death and dying from multiple angles. First, at the physicality of death, according to science; what actually happens to your body? Then, at the possibilities for death according to religion; what happens after you die? Third, at the possibilities according to non-religious philosophy; what logically happens, without the need for faith? Then, at death as per technology; could you, one day, be brought back to life? And finally, at death according to theoretical science; can we really hope to live forever? So, let’s get into it!

#25: Heart and Brain Death

While it may seem surprising, the rules, laws and definitions of death aren’t universally the same, around the world. Broadly, there are two competing ideas. One is that you die when your heart stops beating, otherwise known as heart or cardiac death. The other is that it’s when your brain stops functioning, otherwise known as brain or brain cell death. Under typical conditions, there’s only about thirty seconds between both; brain cells start to perish around thirty seconds after the supply of oxygen to the brain (from the heart) ends. However, as in some cases the onset of brain death can be prevented, it means that time-of-death can sometimes be a controversial science.

#24: Pallor and Livor Mortis

With “mortis” roughly translating to mean “death” or “at the moment of death” in Latin, these are two of what are generally considered the first four stages of death. Pallor mortis typically sets in within minutes, causing the skin to turn noticeably pale due to the shutting down of blood flow in the body’s capillaries. Livor mortis takes hold within the first few hours, and involves the blood that had once been pumping, settling in lower parts of your body, due to gravity. It causes a purplish-red discoloration observable on the skin that’s resting against the ground or another solid object - for example, if a person dies lying down.

#23: Algor and Rigor Mortis

These are another two of the first four stages. Known as the chill of death, algor mortis is when body temperature begins dropping towards ambient temperature. How quickly this occurs can vary depending on environmental conditions, and it can therefore provide clues regarding time since death. Rigor mortis is perhaps one of the most well-known postmortem phenomena, where muscles stiffen due to biochemical changes within muscle tissue. Starting from small muscles like those around the eyelids and jaw before spreading to other parts of your body; it usually sets in within 2-6 hours after death and can last for up to 3 days total.

#22: Decomposition: Part One

Although there are stages of it that take days, weeks, and even months, decomposition of the body actually begins immediately. Putrefaction is easily the most infamous aspect of the natural process, where bacteria and fungi break down and digest tissues. It’s this that releases the gasses responsible for the smells associated with decay, as well as the bloating of the body. It’s also due to putrefaction that skin and muscles ultimately deteriorate into nothing, and the major organs succumb to liquefaction.

#21: Decomposition: Part Two

Some of the lesser referenced aspects of decomposition aren’t, perhaps, universal, but are still common. Such as marbling; when bacteria in the blood causes greenish-black patterns beneath the skin that resemble marbled textures. There’s also desiccation, where body parts dry out, including the lips, which can reveal a seeming grin. And finally, as decay progresses further, bodily fluids are known to escape from natural openings such as the mouth, nose or ears… while, in some circumstances, the fats inside a body convert into what’s known as grave wax, which can actually preserve it for longer, in some cases.

#20: Heaven

The good place according to multiple religions, Heaven is said to be where gods, angels, saints and all worthy souls are living out an eternal afterlife in paradise. In general, it’s a transcendental realm beyond physical reality. It can’t be proven by science and, for the most part, relies on faith. Nevertheless, it’s where countless doctrines claim you will go, especially if you follow particular rules. Ideas relating to Heaven actually date back far beyond the emergence of texts like the Bible, with various ancient groups - including the Sumerians - said to believe in a plane among the stars. Perhaps the most commonly shared aspect across all religions, however, is that there are levels to it.

#19: Hell

Most religious versions of Hell - the bad place - are also built around a graded system. With the innermost regions being the worst of all. Hell is usually depicted as a realm of punishment and suffering, typically inflicted on anyone who hasn’t followed the rules. In some belief systems, such as in most versions of Christianity, it’s an inescapable place; eternal damnation really is forever. However, in others - such as in some versions of Hinduism and Jainism - Hell is escapable. There remains the threat of being cast into Naraka, a hellish place filled with pain and torment, but the cycles of life and death do perhaps offer a way out.

#18: Reincarnation

Religion doesn’t only offer up everlasting peace or eternal damnation. Multiple religions - Hinduism and Buddhism, in particular - propose reincarnation as the true fate for all of us, most of the time. Life and death are pitched as two parts of a cyclic, ongoing experience when, although you never really realize it from one life to another, this life is merely the latest in a long line of lives that you’ve lived. In Hinduism specifically, the cycle is called samsara. Through it, the soul is reincarnated into different life forms based on the karma you’ve racked up from all your previous existences.

#17: Nirvana

Of all the spiritual possibilities for what happens when you die, perhaps nirvana is the most comfortable, forgiving and desirable of all. A supreme end point in Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and others, it’s the breaking free of the shackles of Earthly life itself. It’s ultimate salvation, the end of suffering, and the final liberation from that cycle of birth, death and rebirth. If a soul were to reach nirvana - otherwise known as moksha - then it very literally could never be happier. It will have essentially completed life and reality. Although, of course, the trick to achieving nirvana is only very rarely uncovered.

#16: Resurrection

No matter their differences, there is a common theme throughout all (or most) religions, after you die; judgment. In whatever version of the ever-after that’s promised, there’s typically a being or process by which (or through which) the soul is tested and graded. In Ancient Egypt, there was the spirit’s journey through Duat, an underworld populated by various gods, all of which have their say on how well (or badly) your life was lived. Across many of the world’s leading religions, however, the judgment is said to come following universal resurrection. This is a crucial moment at some point in the future, when all souls are brought back to life to receive final judgment. And it’s often said to happen just moments before the end of the world.

#15: Eternalism

As we enter into the realms of philosophy, there’s seemingly still room for a variety of afterlives. Although not quite in the same way. Eternalism is a view of time, in which all points in time are equally real. It means that our lives - the past, present, and future - always exist, inside a wider structure also referred to as the block universe. Therefore, even after death, one's life - or, perhaps, one’s essence - would still exist, as an eternal part of the fabric of space-time. In this way, it could simply be that nothing will happen when you die, because there has always been a time when you will die… and that moment is but one of a multitude of others, that are all equally always there, in the grand scheme of things.

#14: Annihilation

The view that nothing happens after you die can be taken in a different direction, too. Theories on annihilation suggest that you - your consciousness - just ceases to exist at the moment that you pass, and there is no afterlife. It crosses paths with the eternal oblivion theory, which again says that nothingness is the only thing that will happen. It’s also tied in with nihilism. Nihilists believe that there's no inherent purpose or value in life, at all, and that extends to death. Therefore, when you die nothing inherently meaningful happens because both life and death are insignificant. Along another, similar train of thought, there’s Epicureanism, which says that upon dying there's simply non-existence; a state similar to before birth with no consciousness or experience attached.

#13: Floating Consciousness

If annihilation feels a little too bleak, there are philosophies that offer an alternative. Dualism is probably one of the most famous. Championed by René Descartes, it argues that the mind (or soul) could be a non-physical substance distinct and separate from the body. Some interpretations suggest that, after death, although the body is no more… the soul continues, in some form. There may be some crossover with panpsychism, a theory of mind in which the mind is a key, fundamental part of reality as a whole. Once the body (and the brain) perishes, the panpsychic mind no longer has a means to know itself in the same way… but that doesn’t mean that it no longer exists. Or maybe some form of metaphysical dissolution is what’s closest to the truth. Where your body and mind disintegrate, your individuality is lost, but whatever energy or soul there might’ve been is still flushed out into space, onto something new.

#12: Try Again

If floating in the unknown is still just not filling you with optimism, though, then there are some philosophies that posit literal try agains for life, the universe and everything. Eternal recurrence (or, eternal return) is a mode of thought rooted in the stoics of ancient Greece, but was given new life in the 1880s via the work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche - particularly in his philosophical novel, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. Broadly, the idea is that you live your life an infinite number of times, and as Nietzsche saw it with no changes from one to the next to the next. However, the Russian Pyotr Ouspenskii built on eternal return, further suggesting that small changes could be made between lives, until eventually one could break out of it. Here, philosophy clearly resembles religious reincarnation.

#11: Bad Heaven

For centuries, scientists, philosophers and religious thinkers have wrestled with a number of paradoxes about the beliefs of humankind. The prospect of Heaven, to some, is particularly difficult. For one, can Heaven really exist if Hell does too? If those in Heaven have knowledge of Hell, or if they know of the souls of loved ones that haven’t made it to Heaven, then can they ever truly be at peace? If they’re unaware of Hell as part of eternal bliss, then do they still have free will? And, if they don’t, if their experience is in any way controlled by something else… then, again, is Heaven actually good? For those debating this, the answer is often to end all hope for Heaven to begin with. And, instead, to live and enjoy the life on Earth that we have.

#10: Harddrive Heaven

Moving now toward the future view of death, and of all the technical solutions that might one day be available, mind uploading is easily the most well known… and arguably the most likely. Increasing numbers of technologists and futurists envision a coming time when not only will the human brain be mapped fully (and individually) but our consciousness will be completely traceable and rebuild-able, as well. This means that digital consciousnesses might soon be housed indefinitely as non-physical information, ready to be pulled back up whenever it’s needed. On the one hand, it theoretically means that you might one day be switched back on as soon as your biological body gives out; on the other, perhaps it suggests that, so long as there exists enough digital information about them, then anyone who dies in the future could be brought back via machine - whether they like it or not.

#9: Technological Resurrection

What’s fast becoming the traditional sense of mind uploading can be (and has been) built upon, however. Already, many have moved past the plainer view of a speculative future in which the souls of everyone are digitized only to be housed on faceless, bodiless machines. Instead, it may be that one day the soul of a deceased person is channeled through biotechnology and artificial intelligence, to be placed inside an individual machine - aka, a robot. Clearly, it’s an entirely hypothetical possibility. However, if all the headiest projections for future tech are realized, then it actually isn’t that far out to imagine that soon, after you die, you’ll wake back up with a wholly enhanced, cybernetic future ahead of you.

#8: Hibernation

It’s another outwardly science fiction idea, but another that technology is currently working on. Otherwise known as suspended animation or cryosleep, cryonics is still the world’s leading method in which we may one day achieve it. At present, being brought back to life after being frozen post-death (as cryonics promises) certainly isn’t possible… although that is also kinda the point of it. For those who place their faith in cryonics, they’re generally envisioning a future time a) when it is possible to resuscitate people out of deep freeze, and b) when it’s also possible to grant those reborn with longer, healthier, perhaps even immortal lives from that point forward. In the cases when only the head of a person has been preserved, then it’s predicted that wider tech solutions will again be able to rebuild a body.

#7: Deepfake Ever After

We’ve all seen in recent times just how quickly and significantly AI technologies, in particular, can grow. So much so, it may be that in the future, having your actual, genuine soul on file might not even be necessary anymore. From the point of view of life after death, there are already whispers of meticulously tailored personal assistants - akin to Alexa or Siri - but with the exact voice, phrases, mannerisms, beliefs and opinions of a person who, in reality, has died. These are essentially chatbots that are trained before you die… to carry you on after you’ve gone. A deepfake so convincing that it’s as though you're still here. As with most technological predictions for the future, there are some major ethical issues in play.

#6: The Sim Reloads

The Simulation Hypothesis easily ranks as one of the most influential, alt-theories on reality of recent times. Popularized in the early 2000s by the Oxford professor Nick Bostrom, it suggests that it’s much more likely that we live in a sim, than don’t. It’s gotten so much attention in the last few decades in part because we do now have countless simulated worlds that we have created for ourselves, most notably in gaming and entertainment. So the theory is that if we can do it, then why not someone else? And why not create us while they’re at it? From the point of view of death specifically, however, one quite profound implication is that dying is simply restarting your sim. So, rather than reincarnated, are we all ultimately destined to be reloaded?

#5: Parallel Lives: Part One

What if your death in one timeline creates a parallel world where you continue to live? That’s the question at the heart of various theories on so-called quantum immortality. While highly speculative and controversial, the concept draws on principles from quantum mechanics - specifically, the Many-Worlds Interpretation proposed by the US physicist Hugh Everett, in 1957. Broadly, Many Worlds says that all possible outcomes from quantum measurements (and therefore from any moment in time) actually do occur in forever dividing branches of reality - or parallel worlds. For some, this might create something of an infinite regress, in which some form of someone could survive their own death an infinite number of times. Importantly, though, mainstream science does not generally support it.

#4: Parallel Lives: Part Two

Life flashing before your eyes is one of the most commonly cited aspects of a near death experience. What’s interesting, though, is that science still isn’t entirely sure how or why it happens. Historically, this has opened the door for speculative theories concerning higher planes and parallel universes; the suggestion being that, upon death, a person’s essence is granted some kind of higher view of everything they’ve ever done in this world. However, there is growing research to paint a different picture. Instead of second lives and parallel dreams, scans have revealed that memory centers in our brains are among the first to be triggered when we’re dying. As such, it’s now more widely believed that life flashing before your eyes is more likely the result of your brain trying to deal with the ultimate, final trauma.

#3: Cosmic Consciousness

When it first emerged, biocentrism was something of a game changer in terms of the potential for life - or at least awareness - after death. Championed in particular by the US doctor and author, Robert Lanza, it says that we create the universe… rather than the other way around. Thanks in large part to the observation effect in quantum mechanics and the fine-tuning problem across the universe (as we understand it) the biocentric view says that nothing can exist without our minds to construct it. Some take it further, though, and match biocentrism with something close to dualism (as per René Descartes). And the idea follows that after the death of our bodies, our minds may live on… continually fuelling reality, just in different, unknown ways.

#2: Green Shoots

Green burials certainly aren’t a hypothetical, future situation; they’re already here and, in fact, are widely used. In short, it’s when the body of any deceased person is interred in any way so as to speed up the natural processes that will happen to it - all of which we covered in the first part of this video. However, when the concept is matched with various philosophies around the nature of death - and especially about the eternalness of the soul - then there might arguably be reason to believe that, in some way, a green burial gives your consciousness the best chance to live on. If, for instance, everything is connected as one - as per reincarnation, eternalism, and the block universe - then, in your next life, some part of you really could be a tree.

#1: Another Dimension

Finally, the question of life and death eventually takes us to the bid for a theory of everything. Broadly, the theory of Orchestrated Objective Reduction (or, Orch OR) - put forward by the British physicist, Sir Roger Penrose, and the American anaesthesiologist, Stuart Hameroff - posits that consciousness is generated inside cellular microtubules, inside the neurons of our brain. It isn’t a product of how our brains work, specifically, it’s as though it’s just there… permeating through our brains, on a quantum level, something like a signal through a radio tower. Some interpretations are then that consciousness is wrapped up in another dimension beyond those we typically think and live in. And therefore, when we die, perhaps all that really happens is that our consciousness (our essence, soul, spirit, etc.) is released from our bodies but does live on. Naturally and inevitably.

So, what do you think? In this video we’ve covered what happens (or could happen) after you die from the point of view of science, religion, philosophy, technology and wider theoretical thinking. Clearly, and importantly, the fact is that nobody knows for sure. Death remains a mystery. But, in the meantime, we all have lives to live and to make the most out of. Our experience on this planet, with this body, at this time, through these eyes… is precious. No matter what happens next.