Sharing my thoughts on evidence which supports an afterlife....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4s-ts1XzsU
If you take OBE's, NDE's, past life regression, psychadelics and spiritual practise, there's enough evidence to suggest that consciousness is not a product of the body. Any discussion about the afterlife is incomplete without aknowledging atleast OBE's and NDE's.
There are medical doctors and physicists like Dr. Robert Lanza and Dr. Fred Alan Wolf who support life after death with their research. I also read the two first books shown in the video which were excellent. I like to add a book written by Howard Storm called My Descent into Death.
shareYea, no.
All that "evidence" is just really hokey and very fallacious. There is not one thing that is not better explained (or actually explained) by empirical and logical considerations.
Also, appealing to authority is a basic logical fallacy: lots of experts engage in wishful thinking, or have biases that blind them to the point that they see what they want to see. They are, after all, human. And most of these people are just pure charlatans who don't really believe what they are purporting to, but are just making money to a credulous logically illiterate public.
Besides, to appeal to (knowledgeable) authority, the vast majority of scientists, philosophers, and doctors do not believe in life after death, or a "soul" (whatever that's supposed to be: it's not even a coherent concept) or "god" or "heaven" (more non-concepts), etc. Why? Because there is no good evidence for any of them and strong strong evidence, logic, and reason to believe they are pure fanciful half coherent delusions. When you read up on such things, critically, from unbiased and honest people who desire truth above all else, these phantoms disappear as all magical things do when the light of reason shines upon them.
Research these matters for yourself from academic critical sources (easily found on the web: just type OBE, NDE, et al. and "skeptic"; there are also dozens of books, many I have read). Keep an open mind (all truth is, after all, only provisional), but not so empty your brains fall out. Mitigated skepticism is what is called for here. I, being a rational person who proportions my belief to the evidence (to paraphrase philosopher David Hume), will believe something only when and if there is solid publicly verifiable, demonstrable, repeatable, logically coherent and consistent reason for said thing or phenomena. I will not choose to believe what I wish despite the lack of any good evidence or reason, and/or against very good counter evidence/reason. To do so is childish, irrational, and even morally wrong (intellectual honesty is a very important thing in value theory or ethics).
Besides, who wants to live forever anyway? That's silly. This one and only life is all and enough. What in the hell is one going to do for eternity? BORING! It's precisely that this one and only life is all we have that makes it so precious: if it endures for eternity, then it becomes empty, almost valueless. Just think about what living for eternity would actually be like, would actually entail. That's hell. There are many times that even in this short life there is much boredom even in the fullest of lives; do we really wish to perpetuate existence indefinitely? Even a very good existence full of flourishing? (Which raises the problem of whether there can be free will in "heaven": in order to make the moral choices that make our lives worth living, interesting, we must have some good and evil in the world, or "realm", but in "heaven" there is no evil or suffering by definition. So how are we supposed to choose between good and good, or, rather, our choices would be arbitrary and meaningless. And how are we supposed to develop as moral agents?--as we do here on earth? Not all of our choices are purely moral choices, but the most valuable ones are. How bland an existence of no moral choice would be, of no challenges, no hardships to overcome, no struggle to improve. In "heaven" everything is literally perfect so we just sit around like we are on valium forever. That's not how human happiness works: if it was people who are constantly buzzed on something would be "happy", but we know they are really miserable, or, at best, attain a cheap and immature type of half sober non-existence. Same with "life" in "heaven", or, rather, HELL).
The more one analyzes such half coherent notions, the more one realizes they are incoherent on many fundamental points and not to be valued or desired. Thank goodness this is the only life we get!
PS: If you want to really look at reasons why the mind might not equate or reduce to the brain, read up on some basic philosophy of mind material. Just search for "arguments against materialism" (or physicalism). Go to reputable sources like the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the IEP (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy), never wiki!. There are tons of introductory books on the subject as well of course, just google "intro to philosophy of mind". One is "This is Philosophy of Mind" which has a resource rich companion site here: http://tipom.blogspot.com/p/pete-mandiks-philosophy-of-mind.html All major academic publishers also have good intro books as well (Oxford, Routledge, Cambridge, etc.); one is this one http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415891752/, though it is mid level more than introductory (of course philosophy is so complex and abstract that there really is no introductory material on or to it).
As one can see after even glancing at the subject, it is quite complex and neither substance or property dualism ("soul" theories) or material or physical monism ("brain" theories) are without deep objections (and they are but a part of the material the subject covers). Still, everything we know about the mind strongly suggests that we are but "conscious meat" like any other sentient being, and when our brain dies, the "we" or "me" or "self" we are dies as well, just like with any other animal. Our brains are inexorably linked to our "minds"; in fact, they are them, and, as such, can not exist apart from them.
Love your wisdom, it's so lacking these days. I am an atheist, sometimes I wish I could believe all the silliness, but I never will, it's juat another fairy tale from days of old, but one that, for some reason, many people choose to believe is "true". When I was in a car wreck about25 years ago, I distinctly remember everything moving in ultra-slow motion; my hair for one, I could see it in my rearview mirror, and it was so beautiful, moving in such slow motion; very graceful. Was everything REALLY in slow motion? HAH! We all know that would be impossible, but in my MIND, that's what I saw. I know heaven is the same. My dad was an atheist, but when he was on his deathbed, even though he could no longer hear, you could see the wonder in his eyes; I know he was seeing something beautiful; that's the beauty of your mind and how it eases pain for us. Going into shock can be a blessing too; keeps us from feeling the real pain we should be feeling.
Poyzunus 1
Well, we will all find out one day.
shareWell, we will all find out one day.
yep, the lights will go off, and there will be nothing. I'll never understand why people are so afraid of this.
I'll take Punctuality
yep, the lights will go off, and there will be nothing. I'll never understand why people are so afraid of this.
Agreed, thanks.
The idea of consciousness without body is just nonsense, and is wishful thinking for the weak.
I'll take Punctuality
Sorry Chas and Speedy, but you're both WRONG. There IS a God and there will be an afterlife. This is not the sad delusional thinking of some indoctrinated religious person. I have had many spiritual experiences that tell me without a doubt that God is real and there is much after this life. Personally, I think your pessimistic belief in wishful thinking (and your subtle contempt for religious people) reflects more about your conception of your current lives (and the hopelessness and lack of faith in the present generation) than the reality of what happens when we die.
Simply put, there is a God and there will be much, much more after this life than you could ever imagine.
I think the very concept of nothingness is so impossible for the human mind to comprehend that, in the moments before all of our deaths, time will slow to a halt and our lives will play over and over ad nauseum. If time truly does not exist, then, in your mind, you could play years of your life in an instant, but it wouldn't FEEL like an instant to you.
What if you've already lived your life, and your are moments before death, and your mind is simply replaying it from the beginning in a desperate effort to hide you from the truth? Would you really know? COULD your really know if your mind didn't want to you?
What if your consciousness will fade into nothingness when you die, only to fade back into "somethingness," in a different person, in a different time and place? There's no logical reason to believe that the world, which despite other evidence, essentially starts and stops at MY doorstep, (because after all, all I have to perceive the world is MY senses), will continue to exist when I'm not there to perceive it. Or at least, it won't MATTER that the world exists if I can no longer perceive it.
The human mind, again, is unable to perceive nothingness, because it is constantly surrounded by somethingness. People create theories to explain what happens when something becomes nothing, but in reality, we just don't know. And we never will. I don't even think science will find a way to explain everything.
But again, if reality is based on my subjective senses, then it won't matter what happens after I die because I won't be able to perceive it, sensorily speaking. :-p
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Right now, we are alive... And in this moment, I swear... We are infinite.
[deleted]
Lots of words, but in the end your disbelief, like so many before, will be answered. The simple truth is every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord. I pray you open your heart before it’s too late.
shareAs a child, I used to see trivial scraps of my personal future in my dreams - about twice a year or so - until I reached my early teens.
It was not just "feeling that I had seen it before." In those years, I usually told my parents my dreams, in the morning. So ... if a dreamt event occurred, I remembered not only having dreamt it, but the daylight reality of having described it to a listener.
The scenes were trivial, but they were utterly unpredictable, and the implications were a great gift that I have had no doubt of, for decades: there are components of our psyches that time and matter have no grip on.
About 20% of the people I ask say that this has happened with them also.
Can I prove this to anyone? Certainly not. But ... I do bear witness.
Can I prove this to anyone? Certainly not. But ... I do bear witness.
In the most, to me, striking instance, the dream was that I saw a boy I knew (and I knew who he was, and I saw his red hair) and we were sitting catty-cornered at a table in a classroom (I could see those sky-blue painted cinder-block walls) discussing the plans for something.
Some months later, we both turned up in the same woodworking shop class. I had no more ordinary knowledge that he would be in that class, than you do right now of how much money is in the left pocket of the manager of the gas station closest to you.
I had never been in that room, when I had the dream - had never seen its furniture, or its layout. I had never heard, in advance, what the assignments were like, in those classes.
At a moment, I found that he and I had sat down together just as in the dream, and were discussing the parts and plans for the miniature Conestoga wagons that we were all assigned to build. And I exclaimed to him - "Drew! I saw this in a dream!"
The scene was exact: his position at the table; the table we were at; the way the tables were in the room; the wall behind him; the papers in front of us; our activity at that moment.
And of course I remembered telling my parents about it, since that had been only a few months earlier.
But that doesn't prove anything. My point still stands, what do you think is REALLY more likely:
a)you are part of a chosen few out of the 7bn people on this planet who has actually defied all logic and reason by somehow being born with the ability to see in to the future (seriously?)
OR
b) you have had similarish dreams to a real life situations (as we all have) which your memory has distorted and matched both perfectly. It has also distorted your memory of what you told your parents.
Really think about it, because what you are claiming is on par with someone who has seen 'god', been abducted by aliens or who can talk to the dead. Humans cannot see into the future. Please, apply some logic and reason to your thinking
[chosen few out of the 7bn people] About 20 percent of the people I ask have had similar experiences. Give asking a try :)
[is on par with someone seen 'god', been abducted by aliens or who can talk to the dead] Actually, there is a huge spectrum of possible experiences before getting to those stereotypically spectacular menu-items.
[Humans cannot see into the future] More spectrum-perspective: dreaming random tiny scenes once in a while is different from having a wide-awake power to browse the future in a directed, controlled way.
[defied all logic and reason] Ask around. My "yes" rate is about 20%. Then ... go to logic and reason and fit some new facts on them. Chat with some people who have done some future glimpsing, and who are still friends with logic and reason (I certainly am.) There is plenty of room, actually. By what logic and reason is it so impossible, anyway? :)
Edit/P.S. Say, old chap, could I make a suggestion? Read this excellent page: http://www.friesian.com/foundatn.htm That whole website is fabulous, by the way.
On that particular page, there is an excellent quote:
Be careful whenever a philosopher (like Hegel) begins talking about "reason" -- just as when Mr. Spock used to say in Star Trek, "Logic dictates." Logic doesn't dictate very much, and we must be very careful what someone means by "reason" when they begin invoking it. As you have seen, logic requires premises, and it ultimately cannot prove those premises. If "reason" means logic, it really only means consistency; but in principle, there could be an infinite number of consistent logical systems. Since Hume thinks that all first principles are established by sentiment, he properly asserts that, "Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions." Other philosophers (Aristotle, Plato, Kant) may mean more by "reason" than consistency, but we must be clear exactly how that differs from logical consistency.
I understand where you are coming from. I have had experiences similar to yours of seeing something in a dream and then a year or even 10 years later seeing that event played out.
For example when I was a teenager I had a dream about a strange picture of Rodger Daltry from " The Who ". About two or three years later I bought a new album by Rodger and on the inside sleeve was an advertisement for a 3-d picture of Rodger that had just been created for his new album. It was the exact same image from my dream.
I remember also a dream about Robin Williams standing at a window yelling, " Mommy, Mommy ". I remember waking up right when he said that in the dream. I thought upon waking, what the hell was that dream about?
About two years later I am watching a new episode of " Mork and Mindy ", Mindy goes to work or somewhere and Mork stands at a window yelling for Mindy and it changes to Mommy, Mommy.
Events like these really freaked me out, I am glad I don't have them so much anymore.
If a person has watched any science shows on quantum physics then they may learn that time is not always linear. It's kind of like a river with bends and twists in the water, sometimes the water may splash backwards momentarily and then move forward.
There is a concept called frame-slippage in which time may temporarily go backwards say around an object with intense gravitational pull such as a black hole. I think researchers have through observations of black holes been able to prove that this is a reality.
I think I read where they believe frame-slippage generally occurs around all objects with a certain amount of gravitational pull. Time goes backwards something like a billionth of a second before resuming it's normal path.
If a person dies at an instant of time and then time goes backwards as during a frame-slippage, then that person would have to regain consciousness for that brief instant of time that the frame-slippage occurs. The same would be true for any animal or insect.
I don't think it is physically possible then for there not to be a continuation of consciousness beyond that instant of death for all living creatures.
Quantum physicists have a general saying that the universe appears to be far stranger and more weirder than anyone can possibly imagine. Since living creatures such as ourselves are part of that universe, perhaps our existence and continued existence is far stranger and more weird than anyone of us can imagine.
Yes, your examples are exactly along the lines of what I was describing :)
shareIn ancient times, if someone said there are these minuscule little things called germs that can make you sick, you can't see them but they're still there--just trust me--people would've thought this guy was crazy. How can something you can't even see have such an impact on a person's health? Insane, right? Fast forward to a thousand years ago, and every hundred years after, all the way up until the idea really took hold in the late 1800's--men of science were slow to jump on this bandwagon, but sure enough, they finally did. People slowly listened, and only then, was it focused on, tested, studied, retested, proven, tested, tested, tested, and finally believed. Almost a thousand years in the making--maybe even longer, who knows.
Ideologies change only when people shift their way of thinking. People of science make assumptions based on what is already known. They work within the confines of existence. It's only the brave that bring up new ideas, probably more than once, before it truly gets pondered on-- then finally formulated, tested, and theorized. Personally, the answer to the afterlife will never be found in science. It's a feeling kind of thing. It's never going to be a thinking thing.
Every thing around us, including us, are balls of energy--mere flashes of light wildly connected. Our soul, if you will, is also a part of that energy. It's not contained in a brain or a heart, anymore than it could be kept in a jar or a box. It's something that invades us by choice before we're even born. Our experiences with each other and the choices we make are imprinted into that energy when it goes--knowledge and lessons to take with us for our next leg of our journey. The body is just a temporary shelter for you to do what you have to do before you move on. It's like a record player playing your favorite album. You're not doomed to play it on only one player, inside your house. If that record player broke today, your album would continue to work, it just needs another needle and box, somewhere else.
The answers to the great beyond aren't found in mortar and stone. They've always been inside us from the day we're born. Can this be tested with any known machine? Of course not. If you need proof of this, I think everybody at one time or another has dreamt it. The problem is we're told early on to rationalize that proof away. I'm guessing there are even those that have figured out how to unlock that mechanism when needed, hiding away their secrets against today's judgmental society. I can't say I'd blame them either. And no, this has nothing to do with any known religion.
My beliefs, for what it's worth, is that all of us know exactly what happens to us when we die. It's just that there's a mechanism that prevents most of us from accessing it. The memory bank gets wiped to make room for a new test, if you will. Even though it's wiped, the impression is still there-causing those images to occasionally bleed through in dreams. Everyone, I believe has experienced that. Dreams are more powerful than most give them credit for. Yes, there's the usual filtration of the days events, but sometimes, if you're lucky there's something else--a 'night' pass to walk through another door--maybe even to a place where time doesn't exist. A plane where loved ones are waiting, wanting to take that next journey with you. Others are just taking a long ass break. Some wait with a warning already knowing you're coming, other's just want to refuel you with a hug and some kind words. And if you're really lucky, a person awaits who you haven't met yet, but one day will.
Could this be how ancient old philosophers have predicted the future? I think so--maybe. Maybe some needed a heavy amount of opiums to induce it, others great practice. The weird thing is, living in a world with very little, people actually had more hope back then. Even today, many would read Nostradamus and be more apt to believe him, but if someone today could do what he did, would anyone believe him? I don't think so. We're quickly becoming a hopeless sack of souls. It's like the more technology we have, the more limited our minds get. It's so incredibly sad. People need to think more. Allow themselves to feel more and trust their instincts. It wouldn't hurt to shut off the tv and phone and go outside with a beer, or a glass of wine, to get lost in the quiet and just be.
https://youtu.be/EPXPwRgV-NM Have you ever really listened to these lyrics? Andrew Lloyd Webber was really onto something, hiding the truth away in song.
~Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable~
The laws of thermodynamics also come into play I think. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change form. Matter itself is a form of arrested energy. If it weren't for the electromagnetic field generated by atoms we could literally walk through things as our atoms would have enough space between them to allow the passage of the atoms of say a table top. So I believe that the soul exists and that it has consciousness as well. If a tire gets a hole in it the tire doesn't cease to be a tire. It may not work as well as a tire that has never had a hole in it but it is still a tire. Likewise the body may be damaged so that it doesn't work as well as it used to but that doesn't mean that consciousness is only dependent on what can be shown to be going on in the brain.
shareThanks for the great reply. It sounds like we're of the same thought.
~Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable~
there's enough evidence to suggest that consciousness is not a product of the body.Come on, seriously? You could potentially make some claim about a soul or spirit but consciousness? The entire field of neuroscience invalidates you.
Fanboy : a person who does not think while watching.share
I saw my auntie suffer a brain injury, and it changed her, so clearly how we perceive things is all in the brain. The idea of a soul seems very bogus. In light of the fact that nde's can be created now by neuroscientists. Atesting to the fact that its all just in the mind only, and not external or outside of it.
shareWell I can say this for sure, when we die, we go to where ever everyone else went, be that heaven, hell or oblivion.
share