Do you care about what people think of you after you die?

If so how greatly do you care about what they think of you 1 year after you die? 2 years after? 5 years after? 10 years after? 20 years after?

If so whose opinions do you care about the most?

Not me, but the universe that dies.

Concern levels are at borderline non-existent.

My happiness on the other hand, depends on the quality of social relations that I have with others, so I am still concerned with how I treat them, whatever stage of this life I'm in.

Yes, though I have no special desire to be remembered for so-and-so long. I want to be remembered (and seen) as a good man, however. Obviously the ones closest to me in life matter the most.

Yes and no. I want people to say good things about me after I die and remember me fondly. But I want that because that means I lived a good life. And I want to live a good life for my own pride and happiness. I don't really care what they think about me since I'll be dead anyway, but it would be a sign that I lived well.

well if you are thinking about your after death rep then you are concerned about it now. which really just means you care what people think/rep now

Why?

Because that is how we exist, in the perception of others and ourselves. We're a social species from birth to death, even hermits would not live without the care of others early in their life (however sloppy it might have been).

The only difference death makes is that our own awareness disappears. If that is all you care about, you're in the wrong species.

Is it inconceivable that someone could live a moral life and be remembered very positively, without care for how they're remembered after death?

If it is, then I think the question stands...

Why?

Your answer presently, is a good explanation as to why some people would value their post-death reputation, but it doesn't add anything toward answering why one's post-death reputation should be something to value.

You seem to assume there is some difference between perception / conception of you while you live and while you don't. It's only perception / conception of you, your actual physical body doesn't reside in people's minds. Your line of questioning would only make sense if I had made some claim about caring after I was dead.

This is a bit difficult to explain properly, so I will illustrate with some hypotheticals instead. Consider your mate John, a good friend:

1. You will be alive in two weeks. Does John perception of you in two weeks matter to you?
2. You might be dead in two weeks, does John's perception of you in two weeks matter to you?
3. You will be dead in one week, but John won't know for a month. Does John's perception of you in two weeks matter to you?
4. You will be dead in one week, and John will know. Does John's perception of you in two weeks matter to you?

Now explain to me why the answers should be different in these.

First. You've avoided my question....successfully.

Now, I'll answer your questions.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. No

Now please answer my question.

Is it inconceivable that someone could live a moral life and be remembered very positively, without care for how they're remembered after death?

Under my philosophical lens, the universe seizes to exist after my death. You are (no one is) unable to prove otherwise. Thus, my line of reasoning, at the bottom-level of epistemology, is equally valid.

Yet, you seem to believe that it is somehow imperative to 'the species' or to 'x, y, z' that people care about their post-death reputation.

My happiness, throughout my life, depends on the quality of social relations that I have with others, so I am very concerned with how well I treat other people, whatever stage of life I am in. This means that I am likely to treat others just as well, as someone who cares about how they're remembered post-death.

Hence, why care for how you're remembered? It's unnecessary and irrelevant. Why not just care for how well you treat people while alive?

I can't prove or disprove anything outside logic or math. I'm an empiricist, I can only find evidence. Your line of reasoning here would make belief in Santa Claus equally reasonable to believing that Paris is the capital of France.

That's what you get for claiming that validity is all a belief needs, when what you should be looking for is soundness (for which validity is needed). And yes, soundness is a concept in logic.

There is no evidence to suggest that perception or conception of people cease after their deaths, and there is ample reason to believe that perception and conception of people is an integral part of social behavior. Then I do a jump to the normative and say that it should be an integral part of social behavior, which is of course rooted in my very basic belief that we should strive to be a good person to those around us.

I find your thought experiment to be just that; more an intellectual exercise than something worthwhile. Your line of thinking would for example also justify amorality on the grounds that you will be dead before anyone knows, which I find untenable.

I care to the extent that memories of me will be a reflection of who I was and what life I live.

Maybe a tangent, but I've had similar thoughts in regards to carrying out the wishes of those deceased. I was an executor on my grandfather's will, which given a surviving wife and not much of an estate amounted to taking his watch and giving my cousin his ring. It's not a particularly nice watch. It's probably worth a tenner. I don't wear it and no one would know if I got rid of it. I keep it not because I think it matters to the deceased but because I don't want what I told him when he was alive to be a lie.

That's somewhat analogous to my own death. I want to be remembered well not for me, but because it will be meaningful to those who remember. I'd like to think that when I die something like that crappy watch will be significant to someone.

Never gave one, still don't.

It's just a fourth wall anyway. Oscillating golden rules are pretty [censored] fun if you're the one being punk'd.

(:

I don't think it's a tangent I think it's the point. I'd add that honouring the wishes of the dead gives comfort to those in life whose post mortem wishes are important.

i'm decaying matter after my death, so no i don't care.

IF i'm not decaying matter (and that is a friggin' enormous if), i'm probably going to hell for telling off god for being a huge douche, so no i don't care because i'll have bigger issues to think about.

IF i'm not decaying matter AND i don't go to hell, i won't care what people think of me because i'll have a ton of other interesting stuff to be thinking about (no body, just a "mind" existing outside of time? i think i'd like that and all those previous worldly issues would be basically pointless imho).

the ONLY people i would consider caring about how they thought of me after my death would be the same people i care about how they think of me currently, and that's an extremely short list of people. since i'm pretty sure i already know how they feel, i wouldn't be too concerned about how they would feel about me after i die as it probably wouldn't change. furthermore, unless they have been lying to my face for years and after i die they think horrible things about me (which, coincidentally they also thought while i was alive but i didn't know about it then) i would still not care what they thought about me because they were horrible people anyway.

therefore, i can't come up with a single reason why i should give a rat's ass about how people think of me after i'm dead.

furthermore, i want to be cremated (cemeteries, imo, are the worst things ever - they would be better off as parks for children. just burn our corpses and be done with it). also, i don't want a funeral. it would just be mostly fake friends who never had the time to talk to me face to face throughout my life anyway. for those who actually miss me, they can go have a few drinks to celebrate my life achievement (of dying). it's a big step in everyone's life so we might as well treat it like it's special.

This is only one of humanity's biggest ritual bedrocks. Some people do articulate what they want done with their remains solely in mind for those who carry on after them.

I have yet to see a body paint and jello shot wake though. Maybe next week.

My line of reasoning here has nothing to do with Paris or Santa Claus.
The fact that you cannot disprove my belief, any more than I can disprove yours, means more, than 'soundness'. Soundness of what? of a circular empiricist belief system?
I have the same belief, yet I don't find its necessary or relevant, to consider how people perceive you after "death".
It may not be worthwhile to you, but try not to over-generalize this to everyone.
Please elaborate on this.

Also, if you understood me correctly:

The universe will, but I, the experiencer, in whatever form, will not be dead. Never have been, never will be. Have no memory of ever not experiencing, will never have a memory of not experiencing. Forms, shapes and frameworks will continue to change, but I'll forever be....experiencing.

Consider the tautology between "death" and the end of the external world. There is meaning here.

You explicitly stated that since I couldn't disprove it, this made your reasoning equally valid. You did this knowing full well that the statement ("the universe ceases to exist after my death") you made couldn't be disproven because it is not falsifiable.

Reasoning like that is merely the god of the gaps in disguise. Since you have asserted that this all the epistemology you need, I actually don't need to provide arguments. I only need to make unfalsifiable claims. For example "I am right, and you can't prove me wrong".

So any more discussion isn't needed. Your own reasoning contradicts itself.

I'm not saying I'm right. I can't know that I'm right.

The key point, is that, neither can you.

I merely want to convey the point that beliefs stemming from empiricism, are not the only set of beliefs that lead to the conclusion of - treat others well, or better than you're treated.

Also that, valuing your post-death reputation, in general, has little if anything to do with how you will be remembered. I believe its largely irrelevant.

Very few people actually achieve something great only because they want to be immortalised in history books, or others' memories, contrary to what the movies might have us believe.

No, because all the people that remember me will die in turn and it will be nothing but an eye blink before it was as if I'd never existed at all. How many of the 100 Billion or so human beings that have died before us do any of us remember? I barely have any real memories of my grandparents, those memories will die with my own parents.

All of them. And all that they continue to be.

Retention of others' lives isn't and was never meant to be an individual repository. There is such a thing as racial (collective) and cultural (individual and group) memory.

The significance of Xerxes is not that he led, but that he can be found in a certain era representing a certain people. Nowadays, go into a History department, ask a Persian about Xerxes. Ask one of the descendants of Juba about this individual.

You will see that it was his Immortals that mattered, not him himself. Historical figures are simply larger personalities with natures that attracted (and still attract) masses.

Like galactic-center singularities. There's no pedestal in the end.

You know about a few hundred dead people maybe, and the vast majority of those will be people who died fairly recently (in the last few thousand years). You don't actually think about or know most of those who have died before us, especially the billions who died before there were even records and so are completely unknowable, your post is nonsense.

i'm concerned about eating tacos tonight

Incorrect. You're an individual example of a self-centred species. You direct your denial of my tautology in a manner of incomprehension and an ego all too frail and human in realizing in the grand span of what is a collective mind, you just don't count. And your opinions matter little for they are repeats of others' substandard thoughts.

I (and by extension we) have never been human except by absorbent submersion. Best way to learn about a species really.

So get over yourself.

I'd give you a number but it's expanding by several current Terran populations per femtosecond.

Unknowable my feline arse.

Waffle. Level: Expert. I'm certainly not part of your collective.

Do you scrape Deepak Chopra's site for this stuff?