Hello,

My view regarding life, death and afterlife:

"You are a self-aware human being. This sensation will continue to exist in those self-aware entities that will be born after your death, whether those entities will be humans or some other form of sentient life. Thus, in a sense you (or rather the feeling of "I am", which you have had while alive) will live again - although nothing that is a part of the entity that is you, will survive your death.

I feel this is the most important simple lesson that a human being can learn. There is nothing supernatural or mystical about it - there is no survival of soul, such thing doesn't exist. It is just the way life is. It sets us free.

Proof of this is the fact that you are alive and self-aware. We are the afterlife of those who have gone before us."

I believe this to be the only true and logical explanation of what happens after death and it removes a great deal of the fear of death, if not all of it.

Of course, I still remain openminded about changes / expansions to my model if there ever should emerge evidence for such things as "higher level of existence" or "soul" -- but to this date, I have yet to meet assuring indications of such [immaterial if you like] things.

Your thoughts? :)

You are conscious, aware, only through thought. The other animals use thought--the dog, for example, can recognize its owner--in a simple manner. They recognize without using language. Humans have added to the structure of thought, making it much more complex. Thought is not yours or mine; it is our common inheritance. There is no such thing as your mind and my mind. There is only mind -- the totality of all that has been known, felt, and experienced by man, handed down from generation to generation. We are all thinking and functioning in that "thought sphere", just as we all share the same atmosphere for breathing. The thoughts are there to function and communicate in this world sanely and intelligently.

Man has abandoned the natural intelligence of the body. That is why I say--it is my "doom song"--that the day man experienced that consciousness that made him feel separate and superior to the other animals, at that moment he began sowing the seeds of his own destruction. This warped view of life is slowly pushing the entire thinking towards total annihilation. There is nothing you can do to halt it.

There is no such thing as absolute. It is thought, and thought alone, that has created the absolute. Absolute zero, absolute power, absolute perfection, these have been invented by the holy men and "experts". They kidded themselves and others.

Averages cannot describe reality. To become aware of things through the senses is an entertainingly misleading deception of the highest kind. To see, understand, or grasp mentally is all that you can do. The senses have no way of looking at any physically observable fact or event except through the knowledge you have about them. You can't experience what you don't know. We have to accept the reality of the world as it is imposed on us. Doing so helps us to function sanely and intelligently. Otherwise we will end up in a loony bin singing loony tunes and merry melodies.

Awareness can never be separated from the activity of the brain. That is the reason why I always describe what is happening here (pointing to himself) in physical terms. "The reflection of that, (pointing to a cushion) whatever it is, on the retina, and to experience that without naming it," is only a clever game we are playing with ourselves. You think that recognition is separate from naming. This is not true. Recognition and naming are one and the same. Whether I name it or not, the very recognition of you as a man or that as a pillow, itself means that the naming is already there, whether I use the word or not. That is the reason why I point out to the people who say that the word is not the thing, the word is the the thing. If the word is not the thing, what the hell is it? It is all right for the philosophers to sit and discuss everlastingly that the word is not the thing. That implies that there is something there other than the word. So you cannot accept the fact that the word is the object. That is, even if you say that there is an object without using the word, it means that there is a separation there. What I am trying to tell you is how this division, separation is occurring.

You are conscious, aware, only through thought. The other animals use thought--the dog, for example, can recognize its owner--in a simple manner. They recognize without using language. Humans have added to the structure of thought, making it much more complex. Thought is not yours or mine; it is our common inheritance. There is no such thing as your mind and my mind. There is only mind -- the totality of all that has been known, felt, and experienced by man, handed down from generation to generation. We are all thinking and functioning in that "thought sphere", just as we all share the same atmosphere for breathing. The thoughts are there to function and communicate in this world sanely and intelligently.Are you saying there is no individual mind - that we share the same mind? Then why can't I read your thoughts? Is it a skill that can be learned? How do thoughts assure sanity or intelligence?

You can't experience what you don't know. We have to accept the reality of the world as it is imposed on us. Doing so helps us to function sanely and intelligently. Otherwise we will end up in a loony bin singing loony tunes and merry melodies.I can perfectly experience gravity without knowing anything about it, can't you? I agree with the rest though.

Awareness can never be separated from the activity of the brain.This is most likely true.
You think that recognition is separate from naming. This is not true. Recognition and naming are one and the same.Where from do you draw this interpretation of me thinking they are separate?

Mind is not brain. Mind is the accumulation of ideas that create our reality.

Incidently, I copied all this from U.G.'s (http://www.well.com/user/jct/) site, he said I could.
My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.

I can perfectly experience gravity without knowing anything about it, can't you?
I don't think so.

Man has abandoned the natural intelligence of the body.What is this intelligence like and how does it differ from intelligence that is common to humans today? How is it natural?

I have this slight feeling that we're going a bit off topic, but it's fine with me. :)

Mind is not brain. Mind is the accumulation of ideas that create our reality.Looks like you might have a bit different definition for reality than me.. how do ideas create reality? Are you saying you can 'wish' something to be real and this thought alone makes it so?

Are you saying there is no individual mind - that we share the same mind? Then why can't I read your thoughts? Is it a skill that can be learned? How do thoughts assure sanity or intelligence?
There is no individual conscious mind, but an individual unconscious mind. According to evolution we all came from one bacteria - objectively speaking, that means that ALL of us were that one bacteria. That bacteria is made up of atoms, meaning that we all were once an atom. So everything , living and non-living emerged from the samething.

Think about it, you don't create your ideas or thoughts, they are just transformations of what was already there.

Looks like you might have a bit different definition for reality than me.. how do ideas create reality? Are you saying you can 'wish' something to be real and this thought alone makes it so?

The conscious mind doesn't control reality, the subconscious mind does. Just as the subconscious controls your breathing, heart rate, etc... it controls your subjective reality.

how do ideas create reality? Are you saying you can 'wish' something to be real and this thought alone makes it so?
Let me give you this analogy, I find it hard to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. When I'm watching TV, and someone tries to talk to me, and I concentrate on what they are saying, the sounds from the TV become chaotic and unintelligible, and vica versa, if I concentrate on the TV, the words are only chaotic sounds. So, it is the brain that makes the difference between chaotic noise, and music or speech.
I assert that all perception is this way. It is instilled in us from birth. I recommend the movie "The Mystery of Kasper Hauser" by Werner Herzog. It is about an otherwise normal man who was raised in a barn with almost no human interaction. He is released into the town square one day and... well, we see over the course of the movie, how much we take for granted the role of our own cultural conditioning in perception.

Are you saying you can 'wish' something to be real and this thought alone makes it so?
It is almost impossible to fool yourself into thinking reality is something radically different than what do have been taught, but not impossible, it is quite common in schizophrenics.

All right.. but still I don't see what your posts have directly to do with my original post and its ideas. (If you think they have, I would appreciate a simple explanation that would tie these ideas together..)

How do you see the death of a human being, what happens to us in it?

Would you agree with me that the sensation of self-awareness continues to exist despite the death of an individual [-- in other to-be-born individuals]?

The conscious mind doesn't control reality, the subconscious mind does. Just as the subconscious controls your breathing, heart rate, etc... it controls your subjective reality.I can easily control my breath consciously, can't you?

Spidergoat,

Up until now I didn't realize how much I agree with U.G.Krishnamurti.
Thanks for pointing me to his website.

The afterlife implies existence of "beforelife". When looking for the end, one should be advised to start with the beginning.

All right.. but still I don't see what your posts have directly to do with my original post and its ideas. (If you think they have, I would appreciate a simple explanation that would tie these ideas together..)
My feeling is that self-awareness, or sense of self, or ego, is continuous, as long as it is continually handed down to others through culture and knowledge. However, it is a subjective framework and creates the illusion of separateness. The body can only be considered to die if you put an intellectual frame around any particular body. Probably about half of "your" body, the cells, die everyday, and we think nothing of it, because we don't identify with the cell. Draw back your frame of reference to all humanity as the body, and the body is quite robust, has lasted for several million years, at least, and might last a few million more. Draw back the intellectual definitions to all life on earth, and we can say that it is practically immortal.

BTW jr, welcome to Sciforums!

My feeling is that self-awareness, or sense of self, or ego, is continuous, as long as it is continually handed down to others through culture and knowledge.Partly I agree with this, though I don't quite see why culture is needed to establish a continuum of self-awareness. I rather think it is an endogenous feature of a nervous system / brain that develops for certain species such as humans.

BTW jr, welcome to Sciforums!Thanks!

(Added this text to reach 10 character minimum post length.)

So everything , living and non-living emerged from the samething.

Think about it, you don't create your ideas or thoughts, they are just transformations of what was already there.Yes we are from the same thing. But what does it mean in practice? We are still different from each other, because things are changing, dividing, multiplying, destructing.

I read about the U.G guy, and I agree partly with what he is saying.

That somehow you are what you experiance, and that what you don't experiance doesn't exist (to you). What he had done was, as it seemed when I read it, to take away everything that wasn't confirmed by his experiance. Taking away everything unnessesary. He became the experiance itself in search for the only truth that he could know for certain.

If I try to analyze this, then I guess that would be why he only felt parts of the body that was experianced, he didn't build a fantasy image of the body to compensate for the unknown.

I do not think that he took the right way. He was as far as I'm concerned playing with the scales.

I don't agree that love is contamination, neither is faith or hope. These three will stay, they are as pure as your awareness will ever be.

Someone may argue that whatever we feel is a disruption of that perfect awareness, and thus a contamination. But it isn't a disruption, all pure feelings go hand in hand, they are unique, there aren't only one pure feeling, there aren't only one "pure", it can be pure in different ways. Awareness is so pure that we don't really feel it, somehow it flows through us and is reflected upon us. I have a feeling it's God looking at us, from every angle, inside and out.

There is one perfect though, one God, and not the deepest depth can escape His light.

What is God needed for?

"Proof of this is the fact that you are alive and self-aware. We are the afterlife of those who have gone before us."

No, those who have gone before were different people. Your "self" is generated by your brain, & each individual's brain is a unique state of dynamic order, represent the specific memories, personality traits etc of the individual.

Once your brain dies, you, that specific, unique "self", are gone.

But it's at least possible that at some other time & place, that exact same state of order might come into being again. But the probability of that seems to be extremely remote.

"Proof of this is the fact that you are alive and self-aware. We are the afterlife of those who have gone before us."

No, those who have gone before were different people. Your "self" is generated by your brain, & each individual's brain is a unique state of dynamic order, represent the sepecific memories, prersonality traits etc of the individual.

Once your brain dies, you, that specific, unique "self", are gone.

But it's at least possible that at some other time & place, that exact same state of order might come into being again. But the probability of that seems to be extremely remote.You misunderstood.

I'm not saying that our self (ego / I / whatever you want to call it) will survive death. But humans have something in common that we all share. That is the sense of being, sense of "I am"; I can say that I am, you can say it too. It is called self-awareness which we all have. This is what will appear again in the to-be-born individuals, after the death of an individual, such as you and me.

You misunderstood.

I'm not saying that our self (ego / I / whatever you want to call it) will survive death. But humans have something in common that we all share. That is the sense of being, sense of "I am"; I can say that I am, you can say it too. It is called self-awareness which we all have. This is what will appear again in the to-be-born individuals, after the death of an individual, such as you and me.

OK, jr, but I would interpret that as representing an "afterlife" only in a metaphorical sense.

OK, jr, but I would interpret that as representing an "afterlife" only in a metaphorical sense.Yes, mainly it is indeed metaphorical, but it also describes in practice what happens in "afterlife" - that is, what happens after the death of an individual.

If you take my definition of afterlife in strictly metaphorical sense, could you conceive another way to see the term, such that would make any [practical] difference?

Yes, mainly it is indeed metaphorical, but it also describes in practice what happens in "afterlife" - that is, what happens after the death of an individual.

If you take my definition of afterlife in strictly metaphorical sense, could you conceive another way to see the term, such that would make any [practical] difference?


Well, yes. As I argued above, it's at least possible that the state of order represented by an individual's unique "self", as manifested in the brain, might re-occur at some other time & place. In which case the idea of "afterlife" would maintain its traditional meaning, that of an individual "reborn" after the death of the body with which he/she was hitherto associated. (Although the term "after" in this sense is not necessarily a literal time-sequential thing. One could imagine, for example, a state of order arising (perhaps in an artificial consciousness machine) that corresponds exactly to the accumulated memories, personality etc, of someone who will die in a few million years time, on the other side of the universe. Nonetheless, as far as the perception of "continuity of self" is concerned, from the point of view of the individual himself, the "earlier" experience of self will become the "afterlife", because of the sequential order of memories)

I must agree that while those are pretty far out ideas - if you don't mind me saying - they are still possibly valid. :)

But humans have something in common that we all share. That is the sense of being, sense of "I am"; I can say that I am, you can say it too.
We do share the same basic genetic sequence with all other humans, so our perceptions will be bound by the physical structure of our sensory organs. I think we have to separate the idea of self-awareness into two parts. One part is body awareness, which is similar among most humans and the other is ego, or self identification, which I think has changed over time. Identification has not always been with the self. Some historical or primitive cultures identify more with the group, in the sense that, the well-being of the group is more important than that of the individual and takes the place of our modern sense of individual self in the psyche of each member.

What happens after the death of the individual? It is an ending, the genetic printout that is the individual, stops functioning, and its constituent matter spreads out into the environment, from which it came.

Jr, I think what you are trying to define is a sense of continuity. At a time when old beliefs are fading in the light of doubt and science, and the world seems insecure and dangerous, we look for some permanent stabilizing metaphor, something to hold on to and give life meaning.
We are struggling to make sure of the permanence, continuity, and safety of this enduring core, this center and soul of our being which we call "I". ...We do not actually understand that there is no security until we realize that this "I" does not exist.
Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

I wrote elsewhere:

"As long as there exists self-aware life,

there will be a witness to the world from the point of view of the individual."

So the individual POV cannot be gone for good. Otherwise we wouldn't be self-aware, right now.

Surely the "I" exists, at least in some emergent form (like language). How else could we currently say "I am"?

Man has abandoned the natural intelligence of the body. That is why I say--it is my "doom song"--that the day man experienced that consciousness that made him feel separate and superior to the other animals, at that moment he began sowing the seeds of his own destruction. This warped view of life is slowly pushing the entire thinking towards total annihilation. There is nothing you can do to halt it.

On that day it was Adam and Eve who "experienced that consiousness" that was "separation" from God (natural intelligence of the body) through disobedience , and ego (superior) as well as a host of other selfish thought patterns, behaviors and actions began to evolve. Man was made superior to all creation but did not "feel" superior until after sin; the floodgates where then opened up to Ego and Pride and they began to then focus on Self for lack of a whole relationship with the Creator. Humanity has continued to slip away from the Source ever since.

I find the story of the fall to be a compelling metaphor, CosmicOne, we differ only in the details.

Send a telegram to the afterlife! (http://www.afterlifetelegrams.com/AFTERLIFE/)