Serious Life After Death

[DM]

You shouldn't be citing those shows to prove your point. Most(if not all) are faked to get ratings. If you believe in that crap it's like you believe in propaganda. It's bullshit.

I could cite my own experiences with the paranormal. Would you call those bullshit too? You aren't there with them, you can't say for sure what's faked and what isn't.

Conservation of energy is a concept that is centuries old. The Einstein mention is also kind of ironic because general relativity actually does not necessarily have conservation of [mass-]energy as a law (though it has similar consequences). Additionally, if you're talking about a "something" that's lost when you die, it's not really "energy" in the sense you'd have to mean if you wanted to invoke conservation of energy in the first place.

I'm not going to sit here and act like I have an expansive knowledge on physics, but I think of it like this: if I am eventually going to die and become nothingness and be beyond thought, how can I live in this moment? How do I have memories? If life is truly a zero sum game and my consciousness disappears at death, I shouldn't even be aware of my actions right now. My whole life would be just like a blacked out drunken night, except without waking up the next morning. I would have nothing.

"Paranormal" is also a weird term to invoke. You're pretty much going to be trapped between merely meaning stuff we can't explain (and indeed there are things we wouldn't be able to know even if we had a theory of everything) and meaning stuff that people insist is "evidence" for some concept that they invented (which is pretty much crackpottery). I think many of us are not saying that the afterlife "doesn't exist", but more what Steamroll/Smith/I have been saying: that it's pretty much impossible even to talk about it in a way that makes sense and/or is testable. What's north of the north pole?

I agree in many regards, except that the paranormal is completely contrary to tangible evidence. People are able to capture spirit voices on digital recorders and photograph entities in spectra of light that the naked human eye cannot see. There are even devices that can measure electromagnetic fields occurring when/where they should not. The science is fledgling, and I understand that it isn't widely recognized, but it exists.

 

[Eagle4]

I'm adding a poll for further insight into the Community's theories and beliefs.

 

[Majestic Electric]

I believe more in reincarnation, or in another place maybe.... cause theres have to be something more to do.

 

[ssbbm]

I'm not going to sit here and act like I have an expansive knowledge on physics, but I think of it like this: if I am eventually going to die and become nothingness and be beyond thought, how can I live in this moment? How do I have memories? If life is truly a zero sum game and my consciousness disappears at death, I shouldn't even be aware of my actions right now. My whole life would be just like a blacked out drunken night, except without waking up the next morning. I would have nothing.

well, do you consider a computer to have an after life when it is turned off? when we consider consciousness and memories, its really all just biological functions of the brain, similar to any machine! like, i think that i am looking at the computer screen, but its really just that my brain is getting signals from the nerves in the eyes and then it translates those signals into vision. similarly, my thoughts are really just signals from neurons inside my brain, and my memories are just signals from different parts of my brains.

on the subject of the paranormal:

i dont believe in the paranormal because i have not encountered it. if i do indeed encounter the paranormal then i will probably believe in the paranormal (unless theres an obvious better answer like im high or drunk or whatever)

yeah, i think my answer to the question of the afterlife is that i dont and probably will never know anything about it until i die so its best to just live a happy life (:

a question for those who believe in the afterlife: do dogs / animals have an afterlife too you think?

 

[superbadd]

I could cite my own experiences with the paranormal. Would you call those bullshit too? You aren't there with them, you can't say for sure what's faked and what isn't.

I'm betting your experience can be explained scientifically. You don't have to "be there"(most of the time) to understand something if you have enough information. Try to see it objectively. People hallucinate due to lack of sleep/nutrients. I'm not saying that's the case for you, but try looking at it objectively. All these "paranormal" situations can be reduced to something simple, but we just tend to over-complicate things in hopes our irrational fantasies will be true.

 

[ssbbm]

I'm betting your experience can be explained scientifically. You don't have to "be there"(most of the time) to understand something if you have enough information. Try to see it objectively. People hallucinate due to lack of sleep/nutrients. I'm not saying that's the case for you, but try looking at it objectively. All these "paranormal" situations can be reduced to something simple, but we just tend to over-complicate things in hopes our irrational fantasies will be true.

science is the attempt to find order in what is probably the most random system, the universe, by assuming that there are a set of rational laws that holds true.

assuming science is the end-all be-all is kinda irrational!

science works 99.9999% of the time though at least, its still pretty awesome

 

[iDunno]

My personal belief is that time "slows down" infinitely in the moments near your death so you end up experiencing a sort of eternal dream. So I guess that does kind of qualify as an afterlife.

 

[superbadd]

Don't take my words out of context. I'm saying that the situation can be explained instead of jumping to "zomg GHOST!!!!" I never said science was the solution to everything, just most.

 

[DM]

well, do you consider a computer to have an after life when it is turned off?

I find the brain = computer analogy to be quite tired and inaccurate. Yes, our brains function similar to a computer, but one is man-made and the other has evolved over millions of years and still isn't completely understood. The similarities end very quickly.

i dont believe in the paranormal because i have not encountered it. if i do indeed encounter the paranormal then i will probably believe in the paranormal (unless theres an obvious better answer like im high or drunk or whatever)

It's funny: you never hear about someone who believes in ghosts, and then at some point just stops. I'm sure they're out there, but you hear much more about skeptics who are made believers once they have an experience. This is as opposed to believers/non-believers of a god, people fluctuate between those two positions frequently.

I'm not suggesting anything empirically, I just find that intriguing.

a question for those who believe in the afterlife: do dogs / animals have an afterlife too you think?

I think all living things have an energy that lives on after it dies.

I'm betting your experience can be explained scientifically. You don't have to "be there"(most of the time) to understand something if you have enough information. Try to see it objectively. People hallucinate due to lack of sleep/nutrients. I'm not saying that's the case for you, but try looking at it objectively. All these "paranormal" situations can be reduced to something simple, but we just tend to over-complicate things in hopes our irrational fantasies will be true.

Normally I would agree, and I am a firm believer in science. I have had instances of sleep paralysis, so I know that feeling of "is this real or not?". My roommate had something like that happen as well, and I was able to explain away his experience. But I have many other experiences that are not so easily explainable, and they are witnessed by other people in addition to myself, and the other witnesses cannot explain these occurrences either. One person sensing paranormal can be called tired or crazy; multiple people sensing the same event are not so easily explained away.

 

[yee]

I captured an orb ghost on my cell phone back in 06', at the time I was terrified of it so I deleted it although I obviously regret it now. I caught it in a random picture at my friends house, who I thought was jokingly telling me all the time had ghosts in his house but sure enough we glance at the picture and there was a face smiling at my phone in a tiny gas-based looking ball. It looked like a happy old woman if anything, but it was still a bit freaky.

Once I was waking up just thinking "If I ever saw a ghost why would I be afraid of it? It can't do much, I could stand there and laugh at it if I wanted to.", my neck sprung stiff and for a couple of seconds my head was slowly lifted off the pillow by something that didn't seem like me.

I have grown to personally believe in weird inexplicable things with ghosts after these experiences and expect weird things to happen going to a "haunted" house or anything of the like. Perhaps living near the Queen Mary is part of the cause.

 

[theBEEZ KNEEZ]

I'm a Christian, so I believe in a heaven and a hell. Heaven to me is being with God - he will be so amazing, powerful, cool, majestic, loving, etc. that we will all fall down and worship him for eternity. Hell isn't full of fire or torture or anything, its just having to know that you will spend eternity separated from God's glory.

 

[capefeather]

Personally, if I never intend to investigate the paranormal, I can just defer to James Randi or something...

 

[smashlloyd20]

Logically, absolute nothingness would be the logical conclusion. However, once you die you lose all feeling of everything, so absolute nothingness wouldn't be possible, or if it was you wouldn't be aware you were there (or of anything for that matter).

I think I believe in whatever the Jewish perspective is on life after death. Will have to figure out exactly what that is-we don't really have a defined heaven and hell like Christians.

EDIT: Essentially, absolute nothingness is what I would think. However, I don't understand how you can simply just -stop- feeling everything. I feel like there must be something there...

 

[His Eminence Lord Poppington II]

i like the idea of absolute nothingness and ceasing to exist in every respect because it is equally unfathomable as the concept of creation (to me).

not that i would embrace it, quite honestly, i live and choose not to worry about this kinda shit, inevitable events i tend to just phase out of my head, what happens happens.

 

[The Requiem]

i like the idea of absolute nothingness and ceasing to exist in every respect because it is equally unfathomable as the concept of creation (to me).

Agreed. Seeing as how I've been me for as long as I can remember, plus a couple of years before that, there's no real way for me to wrap my mind around suddenly not being. It's sort of scary and comforting at the same time. I'm not sure why I feel that way about it, I just do.

Of all the afterlives that I've read even an inkling about, the one that I like the most is reincarnation. I like the idea of re-rolling a new character at the end of this life. I wouldn't even necessarily have to come back as a human, or remember my life as it is now. (If I had lives before this one I certainly don't remember them.) Just the idea of being able to experience the whole thing again would be pretty stellar.

At the same time, I cant help but ponder the fact that we're just a millisecond as far as cosmic time goes. So when I do think about things like this I always end up just thinking that this sort of thing is just nice to think about. Something to help us cope with the fact that we are finite. So in that sense I guess its just all about the journey, and I'll worry about what happens when we die when I get there. And I'm not in any rush.

 

[scampy]

Hello,

Those who are interested in the nature of consciousness should read a little about what quantum mechanics tells us with regards to the nature of observation. Don't worry, no mathematics is involved, although that is certainly a fascinating topic in its own right. The belly of quantum weirdness is best described by Young's double slit experiment, and the Stern-Gerlach experiment.

In quantum theory, matter arises whenever a measurement is performed on a wavefunction, which is an indefinite state merely describing the probability of how the matter will be distributed once a measurement has been performed. The key word is "measurement", which mandates the inclusion of an "observer". Unlike classical physics, processes in quantum theory are utterly inseparable from you, the observer.

As we define our own experiences of the universe by the consciousness, I will define consciousness as "An agent which can process measurements, and can thus collapse wavefunctions"

This raises some tricky questions. Namely: If consciousness arises from matter, but matter arises from measurement via the consciousness, then we arrive at a curious paradox. So perhaps it is a fallacy to assume that consciousness arises from matter.

I might post my own interpretations of this later, but I'm not really one for debates... I much prefer giving others food for thought. Really, I just want to challenge the realist (science-y) assumption that consciousness is a material phenomena. And from that, raise questions about what can honestly be said about the "afterlife" from a realist standpoint.

As most people here are from the USA, I strongly encourage you to check out Hindu and Buddhist philosophy from the East. It's absolutely fascinating and tends to be far more introspective than Western religions when it comes to pondering the nature of reality and consciousness. Buddhism in particular welcomes Western science with open arms.

Other stuff:

There is some interesting research into accounts of reincarnation. I refer you to the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson. Of course, it is up to you whether you consider his research valid or not. I am on the fence, personally.

There are fascinating accounts of people who are able to live normally in society, despite not possessing the majority of brain matter associated with higher functions (such as the case of a mathematics student at Sheffield University). I guess it's not strictly relevant to the discussion, but it's an interesting tale so I thought I'd share it. Take from it what you will. : )

 

[ssbbm]

Don't take my words out of context. I'm saying that the situation can be explained instead of jumping to "zomg GHOST!!!!" I never said science was the solution to everything, just most.

"All these "paranormal" situations can be reduced to something simple, but we just tend to over-complicate things in hopes our irrational fantasies will be true."

i believe in science you just kinda sounded condescending so!

I find the brain = computer analogy to be quite tired and inaccurate. Yes, our brains function similar to a computer, but one is man-made and the other has evolved over millions of years and still isn't completely understood. The similarities end very quickly.

idk, the brain is realllllly similar to a computer. like, neural networking is computing that basically just simulates (to a degree) how a brain associates stuff, and there are other cool things that show how brains and computers are similar! like my really smart best friend is currently doing some research into relating computers and brains and stuff

@scampy that explanations kinda sounds like youre twisting science, no offense, or i guess i could be misinterpreting! like, you don't need a consciousness to collapse a wave function anymore than you need a device which can observe; the double slit experiment, for example, didn't use "consciousnesses" as opposed to machines that could observe. even in the absence of consciousnesses, the waveform collapsed!

 

[NoUserName]

i haven't made my mind up at all, but i find the concept of reincarnation enticing (though i don't believe in it). that's because it's easy to imagine: you start a new life, forget about your old one, and everyone's happy. but what happens when humanity inevitably dies out? do we fade into nothingness (as i talked about earlier) or do we enter some sort of world that is detached from our universe? reincarnation doesn't give us an answer to that; thus, it isn't complete.

I was thinking about days ago, before I saw this thread.
It seems that you are supposing that humans can only reincarnate into humans. What about if all living beings may reincarnate into another living beings, for example a plant cell into a human, a bacteria into a fungus or a human into a plant or even a living being into an unknown creature of a far away planet?

 

[Umbreon Dan]

when a conscious being falls asleep, reality is displaced (from its perspective) until it awakens again. for that reason, while i know that i will die, i don't think i can ever be dead, from my perspective. when i die, i will immediately find myself existing in some other form -- maybe in some other form, or on some other planet, or in another time, or in another universe altogether. essentially, this is an invocation of the anthropic principle.

from my perspective, time only goes forward, but to somebody outside our universe, there's no reason to think that time should only go in one direction. for that reason, it seems to me entirely possible that i was a dinosaur in a past life, or will be one in a future life. if you accept my assumptions so far, then you can follow that line of logic to its ultimate conclusion to get my completely unscientific and unjustified hunch about death:

we're all the same consciousness.

we differ in instance, in physical state, but i suspect that we're all from the same source. you, the reader, will be me in a future life, or were me in a past life, from the perspective of our shared timeline. to an outsider, we're here at the same time, in different instances. when we die, or when somebody is born, we move further along our timeline.

the main merit of this explanation is that it makes it easy to see where morality comes from, and why it only serves ourself to treat each other (and animals) well.

do i have any evidence to support this, or really any reason to believe it? nope! i'm not zealously devoted to it. but, for as much as we need "some explanation" to tide us over until science solves the mystery, it's the one that seems most natural to me.

 

[Lanturn314]

I'm an agnostic atheist, which means I don't follow any particular religion, and I don't think there's a higher power, but there is still a tiny chance that one might exist, and who could possibly know for sure? There is no real evidence of said higher power, and the burden of proof lies with the believer, so I basically act as though there is no god or anything supernatural because I have no good reasons to think otherwise. If presented with sound evidence, I might change, but so far, nothing has been produced that is sound enough for my satisfaction.

Following from that, I think that whatever happens after death can't possibly be known for sure, as no one has ever come back from the dead to tell us. However, seeing as there is no scientific data to back up anything whatsoever, I'm leaning towards thinking of it as a complete lack of consciousness. After all, I wasn't conscious before I was born, so what would allow me to retain consciousness and experience anything whatsoever after all my brain cells died? From what I can understand, consciousness arises directly from the brain. So unless consciousness is just a free-floating thing and isn't bound to my brain at all (unlikely, since if that were the case I'd probably have memories from before I was born or something), the simplest answer that makes the most sense is nothingness. Again, if anyone produced a compelling enough argument backed up by sound scientific evidence, I might change my views on this, but as it stands, this is my view of things.

 

[MegaBuddha]

Given my experience with the close minded crowd of smogon I'm going to spare a philosophical enlightenment and simply vote that there is certainly something more to the universe than our 3rd dimensional biological vessels.

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DMT

ooo I didn't see the serious tag in it that changes everything!!!

 

[Dark Fallen Angel]

I'm an agnostic atheist, which means I don't follow any particular religion, and I don't think there's a higher power, but there is still a tiny chance that one might exist, and who could possibly know for sure? There is no real evidence of said higher power, and the burden of proof lies with the believer, so I basically act as though there is no god or anything supernatural because I have no good reasons to think otherwise. If presented with sound evidence, I might change, but so far, nothing has been produced that is sound enough for my satisfaction.

Following from that, I think that whatever happens after death can't possibly be known for sure, as no one has ever come back from the dead to tell us. However, seeing as there is no scientific data to back up anything whatsoever, I'm leaning towards thinking of it as a complete lack of consciousness. After all, I wasn't conscious before I was born, so what would allow me to retain consciousness and experience anything whatsoever after all my brain cells died? From what I can understand, consciousness arises directly from the brain. So unless consciousness is just a free-floating thing and isn't bound to my brain at all (unlikely, since if that were the case I'd probably have memories from before I was born or something), the simplest answer that makes the most sense is nothingness. Again, if anyone produced a compelling enough argument backed up by sound scientific evidence, I might change my views on this, but as it stands, this is my view of things.

One thing to note is that I wasn't also aware before I was born. How can you be aware? Nobody remembers what happened before we born. I don't remember anything before that, so I can't be sure if I was unconscious, or if I was on some place. I wouldn't say that this is an evidence for the lack of consciousness after death, but this is also not an evidence that there's any life after death.

 

[Kirbyofthestars]

Hmmm... well, here is somewhat of what I think:
If the afterlife is something so supernatural (could you say that?), then how could our human minds grasp it until we ourselves possibly experience it?
As I've heard, it's better to live your life helping others, doing good things, etc. and just "poof" out of existence, then to live a bad (as in, nasty and evil) life and face the consequences, one way or another.

One thing I don't get, though, as it seems DM brought up:

...if I am eventually going to die and become nothingness and be beyond thought, how can I live in this moment? How do I have memories? If life is truly a zero sum game and my consciousness disappears at death, I shouldn't even be aware of my actions right now. My whole life would be just like a blacked out drunken night, except without waking up the next morning. I would have nothing.

How can your consciousness, in one form or another, just "disappear," unless it never existed in the first place, which would lead to a twisted somewhat-paradox?

 

[Coronis]

Well the logical thing would be absolute nothingness, and I'm generally a very logical person... But in this case, I believe, despite being an atheist etc. that humans, animals, all living things have some "spirit". I'm not sure if thats quite the right word for it but meh. I think that when we die this spirit, rather than fading away into nothingness, is reused, and technically we live on, most likely as a completely different organism. So in a way, we all live on, though with no memories of our past live(s), if the organism is even capable of having memories...

 

[popemobile]

"Absolute nothingness" is the only rational conclusion, and any other conclusion is most likely some form of wishful thinking or delusion