Thetownend.com

Here's one....

Everyone who has ever lived, have they experienced death before? Namely the unknown before you were born?

Are you actually alive now. Or is this death?

I thought death was the bit where it's dark and quiet  :)

My old mate Phill Jupitus does a little routine in his set that reminds me of this.

His 6 year old daughter Emily comes up to him 1 day and says "Daddy, what is it like when you die?"

Joops, taken aback for a minute thinks about it and says "well Emily, you know what it felt like before you were born?"

Emily "no Daddy, I don't"

Joops "well its like that!"

I think you have to differentiate between death and not being alive. Death is a moment in time, something that happens to you at the end of your life. Not being alive is just a state of (non)existence.

We've all experienced not being alive, but none of us have experienced death (unless you believe in reincarnation).

Oh, I though this was going to be about jumbled up 9 letter words.

I have died on the operating table 15 years ago while having my spine operation. It was 7th July 2005, I was in Taunton Musgrove for spine fusion surgery having 5 lower verterbrae fused.

I went down for the operation at 8am and knew nothing of the London bombs going off that day until a couple of days after when I finally came around.

The hospital notes just stated "there was a problem during the procedure" which when my doctor enquired mean that I had to be resuscitated during the 9 hour operation. Every year on 7th July I celebrate my back to life day :)

There was no bright light, no hot little place with a man with horns, there was....nothing, sorry to disappoint.

Surely by definition we can't have "experienced" not being alive, even if we can speak of having been in that state.

When I had my first seizure I stopped breathing and went blue, which as you can imagine rather freaked the wife out!

I have no recollection of the experience, but I sure as hell don't want it to happen again.

It's the whole beginning and end thing. As people we have not existed before but genetically we go back to year dot. Likewise someone who hasn't been born yet is genetically in existence already (and I don't mean somebody who is already in the womb).

Yes, but you weren't brain dead, so we can't be sure :)

Many would argue that point with you!

Good point.
So to 4D's original question I guess that means none of us have experienced the unknown before we were born, because it's impossible to experience. However it's similarly impossible to experience the unknown after we die.