A small interruption... I've heard the following bit of wisdom several times recently:

Quote Originally Posted by EzioAuditore View Post
...Were you afraid/bored before you were born? Do you remember anything about your pre-birth life? Were you floating in purgatory? You don't remember? Did you care? Did you ponder about what your life will be like? No?
What does that even mean? That, because we did not exist before we existed, then we will not exist after we exist? That because we once (necessarily) did not care about existence, or rather non-existence, that we need not care about it now? That, when we did not exist, we didn't think about coming life, so now that we do exist, we should not ponder our death? That, because we didn't exist once, we are not permitted to exist again? Or maybe that because it at some point did not exist, our living consciousness is incapable of building something that might survive the death of its corporeal creator and vehicle? Or perhaps that because we once didn't exist, the nature of our current existence is irrelevant, no matter what we think? Or does it mean something else altogether?

I don't know; I have a feeling it means nothing at all. It just sounds cool, like something a stoned college student would say at 3am, to the astonishment of his equally stoned buddies. Thinking that we did not exist before we were born and then attaching the obvious fact that, since we didn't exist, we could not care about that non-existence, seems absurd to me, and does nothing to sway or temper a current concern about death.

Why should the fact that we didn't know or fear anything before we were born hold any sway at all about what we're thinking about now that we are born, have an identity, and perhaps might wonder bout what happens to us after death? It might sound pretty, or even logical, but it really means nothing.

Also, let's say there is something after death, some form of survival of consciousness. Why would that survival be negated because we once did not exist?