Sorry to threadjack; I'd rather not flood the board with a brand new post (unless we start a Megathread).
In my opinion, it's gotta be one of five options. 20% chance of each
if it's consistent for everybody. If not, then it's whatever aligns with your beliefs.
- Reincarnation (ad infinitum, or until a cycle is broken)
- True Rebirth (everything resets but you gain more spiritual insight, my ideal scenario)
- Afterlife (Heaven/Hell/Neutral/Purgatory)
- Eternal Peace/Oblivion (Unawareness, Void, "Null," Dreamless Sleep)
- Any combination of the above 4.
Reincarnation typically implies that we're here for some greater purpose (Buddhism/Hinduism). The cycle of Samsara is personally not my cup of tea, but I don't see any problem with subscribing to that particular belief.
True Rebirth implies that we'll keep on looping this life until we clear it successfully with our "soul" intact (i.e. video game logic), and each run provides our "soul" with further insight (the neurological cause of déjà vu & déjà rêve have yet to be determined, and I hypothesize that this may be why we feel intuition, and see "synchronicity" when we're following the right path; our past self is trying to guide us along, sometimes unsuccessfully).
Anecdotally, my life would be incredible right now had I not made a few wrong turns & said/did the wrong things. My heart feels a deep burning regret whenever I think about these moments & decisions; I'm hoping this is a resonance with my soul, understanding that I
will be coming back for a 2nd/3rd/50th/1,000,000th time over until I make things right.
Meanwhile, I can see this from other perspectives; those born with permanent disabilities and/or raised in traumatic environments will not see from my point of view, and thus would view that situation as an endless hell.
Afterlife solely implies that there is literally something "after" your life. Whether it lasts for an eternity or not will (ironically) be up for debate for an extremely long time, scientific breakthroughs notwithstanding. I personally believe that where you end up is a mixture of your beliefs, your ideals, your mentality near the time of your death, and the morality of your life decisions (not necessarily karma, but a spectrum of morality; a chomo would be a 1/10, average Joe would be a 6-7/10). It's easy to
say that we could get bored with
literal perfection for a
literally infinite amount of time, but we are unable to comprehend either of the two as we are now.
Eternal Peace/Oblivion (Nonexistence, Unawareness, Void, "Null," Dreamless Sleep) is effectively self-explanatory. You will no longer exist, and may not ever exist again, if the Universe undergoes the Big Freeze. You will not experience any of this, as it will be an incomprehensible nothingness. However, given an
infinite amount of time, it is essentially guaranteed that you will exist again in some way/shape/form. The YouTube channel
Kurzgesagt said it best;
"Close your eyes. Count to one. That's how long forever feels."
This simply means that eternity will feel as long to the dead, as that second felt to you. "You" (as you know it) won't be experiencing death. For what it's worth, a majority of NDEs/OBEs/other astral or spiritual experiences report the feeling as "an all-encompassing warmth & love," so if it's anything like a comfortable nap, this option doesn't sound too bad.
Finally, the "perfect" choice. Whether or not you believe in any of the main 4 options, I think we can all agree that a mixture would be our best bet. Imagine an eternal
afterlife that allows you to experience whatever you choose. You're not locked into a single path, you can choose to retry this experience or move on to more/less difficult challenges. This could be an extension to "simulation theory," but that would mean a future civilization has somehow synthesized the full breadth of consciousness, awareness, accurately replicated the 5 senses,
and implemented it in a way that is feasibly experienced within a "condensed" (relative to eternity) 70 or so years.
It really comes down to what you think is most likely (and, in a way, it could not be likely at all; we might just become ghosts and haunt people for all eternity

).
In truth, "we" may not ever know, and maybe that guardrail was put in place for a reason.