Is there life after death?

[Ryndanangnysen]

Is there a 'life' after death or are we really 'gone' and 'bye bye' forever?

There seems to be much more evidence to show that we 'live' after our physical death.

Of course our consciousness lives after we 'die' . There is no other way,

If you only study the Near Death Experiences it becomes clear that we 'live' after death.

But there is soo much more....

 

[Bells]

Mod Note

Your childish way of communicating aside, you have provided absolutely no proof to support your claim.

Therefore, moving to a more appropriate forum.

For future reference, you are expected to support your arguments with scientific evidence. Your say so means nothing.

 

[cosmictraveler]

Is there a 'life' after death or are we really 'gone' and 'bye bye' forever?

There seems to be much more evidence to show that we 'live' after our physical death.

Of course our consciousness lives after we 'die' . There is no other way,

If you only study the Near Death Experiences it becomes clear that we 'live' after death.

But there is soo much more....

I've died once already for about 3 minutes and saw nor heard anything. So I'm a living proof that there isn't "life after death" because I've been there and done that.

 

[Magical Realist]

I've died once already for about 3 minutes and saw nor heard anything. So I'm a living proof that there isn't "life after death" because I've been there and done that.

Actually you're living proof there IS life after death, at least insofar as one comes back to life.

 

[Magical Realist]

Mod Note

Your childish way of communicating aside, you have provided absolutely no proof to support your claim.

Therefore, moving to a more appropriate forum.

For future reference, you are expected to support your arguments with scientific evidence. Your say so means nothing.

NeoMeme 3798: 'What matters in the world is not so much what is true as what is entertaining, at least so long as the truth itself is unknowable.'

 

[Kristoffer]

Is there death after life. Certainly.

 

[Daecon]

If there was an after-life, what would be the point of a before-death?

 

[spidergoat]

Death is apparently the end. No near death experiences have revealed specific information that the observer could not have known.

 

[paddoboy]

Recent predictions in Australia have shown that by the year 2050, the average age for death will be 100.
I also remember quite a few years ago, a local professor [Karl Kruszilnicki]
that once said words to the effect that we could be one day virtually living forever.
Any comments?

 

[C C]

Is there a 'life' after death or are we really 'gone' and 'bye bye' forever?

Before counting chickens like that before they're hatched, one should probably be more concerned about genuinely escaping this life (i.e., if even death / nothingness is a way out). Especially in regard to those for which it would be an extremely miserable life to be locked in for all eternity.

PAUL DAVIES: Physicists prefer to think of time as laid out in its entirety - a timescape, analogous to a landscape - with all past and future events located there together .... Completely absent from this description of nature is anything that singles out a privileged special moment as the present or any process that would systematically turn future events into the present, then past, events. In short, the time of the physicist does not pass or flow. [...] And what if science were able to explain away the flow of time? Perhaps we would no longer fret about the future or grieve for the past. Worries about death might become as irrelevant as worries about birth. Expectation and nostalgia might cease to be part of human vocabulary. Above all, the sense of urgency that attaches to so much of human activity might evaporate. No longer would we be slaves to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s entreaty to “act, act in the living present,” for the past, present and future would literally be things of the past. --THAT MYSTERIOUS FLOW; SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, SEPTEMBER 2002


SEAN CARROLL: If you believe the laws of physics, there's just as much reality to the future and the past as there is to the present moment.

MAX TEGMARK: The past is not gone, and the future isn't non-existent. The past, the future and the present are all existing in exactly the same way.

BRIAN GREENE: Just as we think of all of space as being "out there," we should think of all of time as being "out there" too. Everything that has ever happened or will happen, it all exists, from Leonardo da Vinci laying the final brushstroke on the Mona Lisa; to the signing of the Declaration of Independence; to your first day of school; to events that, from our perspective, are yet to happen, like the first humans landing on Mars.

With this bold insight, Einstein shattered one of the most basic concepts of how we experience time. "The distinction between past, present, and future," he once said, "is only an illusion, however persistent."

But if every moment in time already exists, then how do we explain the very real feeling that time, like this river, seems to endlessly rush forward?

Well, maybe we've been deceived, and time does not flow. Perhaps the river of time is more like a frozen river.

DAVID ALBERT: The most vivid example about the way the world is has to do with this flow of time. Physics does radical violence to this everyday experience of time.

JANNA LEVIN: Our entire experience of time is constantly in the present. And all we ever grasp is that instant moment.

MAX TEGMARK: There is nothing in the laws of physics that picks out one now over any other now. And it's just from our subjective viewpoint that it feels like things are changing.

BRIAN GREENE: Just the way an entire movie exists on celluloid, think of all moments of time as already existing too. The difference is that in the movies, a projector lights up or selects each frame as it goes by, but in the laws of physics, there is no evidence of something like a projector light that selects one moment over another. Our brains may create this impression, but in reality, what we all experience as the flow of time really may be nothing more than an illusion.

--THE FABRIC OF THE COSMOS: THE ILLUSION OF TIME, NOVA episode, November 9, 2011

 

[cluelusshusbund]

Recent predictions in Australia have shown that by the year 2050, the average age for death will be 100.
I also remember quite a few years ago, a local professor [Karl Kruszilnicki]
that once said words to the effect that we could be one day virtually living forever.
Any comments?

I cant prove it... but i thank by the year 2050... the necessary technology to live forever will likely be a reality.!!!

 

[Magical Realist]

“Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us … know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”===Albert Einstein

I feel like what happens to us after death will be just as surprising as what happens to us at birth. All of our knowledge about the universe could not have prepared us for the appearance of this one conscious being called "me". A being like none other in that it is experienced firsthand, immediately, and necessarily conscious of its own condition. No logic tells us that this one baby out of billions would turn out to be you. Consider the odds of this. And yet it did! I think when you die something similar and miraculous will happen again. A kind of being we could not have forseen nor expected from inside our finite brain bubble. And given we are talking a spacetime scale of trillions of eons, what may NOT happen to us? The thing we were, a human body of flesh and bone, will indeed cease to be. For the physicalist extinction is indeed our destiny. But the irreducible core or quantum of who we are--that will endure-if indeed being outside of THIS space and time can be called enduring.

 

[kx000]

Death only leads to the most holy hell. The point is to unlock enlightenment and resurrect life to an absolute. Sorrow is technically not part of reality.

 

[Sarkus]

I feel like what happens to us after death will be just as surprising as what happens to us at birth. All of our knowledge about the universe could not have prepared us for the appearance of this one conscious being called "me".

My parents had been prepared for 8.5 months or so for "me".

A being like none other in that it is experienced firsthand, immediately, and necessarily conscious of its own condition.

So rather like every other being that is necessarily conscious of its own condition?

No logic tells us that this one baby out of billions would turn out to be you.

Actually it tells us that you could be none other than you. That the chances of the baby being who it turns out to be was 100% - no more, no less.

Consider the odds of this. And yet it did!

Deal a shuffled deck of cards face up... what are the odds that the 52 cards would be dealt out in that precise order? Yet it was!!! Wow! Spooky! (there are something like 10^68 possible permutations, btw)

I think when you die something similar and miraculous will happen again.

Sounds like wishful thinking. Certainly nothing supported by evidence.

A kind of being we could not have forseen nor expected from inside our finite brain bubble. And given we are talking a spacetime scale of trillions of eons, what may NOT happen to us? The thing we were, a human body of flesh and bone, will indeed cease to be. For the physicalist extinction is indeed our destiny. But the irreducible core or quantum of who we are--that will endure-if indeed being outside of THIS space and time can be called enduring.

Given that energy can not seem to be created nor destroyed, the matter/energy that is currently making up the pattern of each of us will transform into matter/energy in some other pattern.
But given that evidence points to "me" and "you" being nothing but specific patterns of activity and arrangements of that energy/matter, "me" and "you" will cease to exist until such time as that pattern and a suitable arrangement of matter is reformed. But there's no evidence that is yet possible, given the vast complexity of that pattern we call "me" or "you".

 

[Magical Realist]

My parents had been prepared for 8.5 months or so for "me".

You are only a "me" to yourself. There is no experience of your meness by your parents or anyone else. Hence nothing prepares us for being born as THIS particular baby. This me as opposed to another of the thousands of hims born around the same time.

So rather like every other being that is necessarily conscious of its own condition?

There's nothing necessarily conscious about another person to you. They are only conscious empirically based on your observations of their objective body. You have to be a me to yourself to be necessarily conscious. IOW, firsthand, immediate, and self-evident.

Actually it tells us that you could be none other than you. That the chances of the baby being who it turns out to be was 100% - no more, no less.

I could have been any you though. Indeed, I could not have been born at all. There is nothing in the universe entailing that YOU had to be born at that specific moment.

Deal a shuffled deck of cards face up... what are the odds that the 52 cards would be dealt out in that precise order? Yet it was!!! Wow! Spooky! (there are something like 10^68 possible permutations, btw)

Before or after the deal? Makes a big difference--it's the difference between a future event and a past event in fact. What are the odds the 52 cards would be dealt in that specific order BEFORE you dealt them?

Sounds like wishful thinking. Certainly nothing supported by evidence.

As is your wishful thinking that you simply cease to exist. When dealing with absolute unknowns, all we have is wishful thinking.

Given that energy can not seem to be created nor destroyed, the matter/energy that is currently making up the pattern of each of us will transform into matter/energy in some other pattern.
But given that evidence points to "me" and "you" being nothing but specific patterns of activity and arrangements of that energy/matter, "me" and "you" will cease to exist until such time as that pattern and a suitable arrangement of matter is reformed. But there's no evidence that is yet possible, given the vast complexity of that pattern we call "me" or "you".

We are one continuous person from birth till death. The "pattern"--a dynamic conglomerate of molecules, energies, feelings, and experiences that run thru us, changes and morphs over that time. Yet there remains conscious identity thruout this changing of pattern. IOW, the pattern assumes a temporal self-identity such that these alterations in it can all be called changes of oneself. I feel like this identity is consciousness itself--an irreducible property analogous to mass or spacetime.

 

[Sarkus]

You are only a "me" to yourself. There is no experience of your meness by your parents or anyone else. Hence nothing prepares us for being born as THIS particular baby. This me as opposed to another of the thousands of hims born around the same time.

Everything prepares us for being who we are. Bear in mind that we are not born with full self-awareness: we gradually come to that state over the first 12-18 months. We also never have reference of being anything else than who we are (unless we suffer amnesia at some point in life and suddenly recover it later on, after a personality switch etc). We simply are who we are. Your position and tone seem to suggest that we have a comparison to make, yet you yourself acknowledge that we can have no experience of anyone else's "me-ness". Your positions thus seem contradictory.

There's nothing necessarily conscious about another person to you. They are only conscious empirically based on your observations of their objective body. You have to be a me to yourself to be necessarily conscious. IOW, firsthand, immediate, and self-evident.

No, but if they are conscious of themselves then they are like me or you (assuming you consider yourself conscious?) in that regard whether or not we can prove it or have it proven to us.

I could have been any you though. Indeed, I could not have been born at all. There is nothing in the universe entailing that YOU had to be born at that specific moment.

If you exist then you could only ever have been you. This is a self-evident truth. If you were not you then you would not have existed. Someone else might have existed but it would not have been you. So I consider it untrue that you could have been someone else.
Only you could have been born at the time and place you were to the parents you were born of. Noone else. Just you.
The only alternative is that you were not born. But you were, and as such you could only have been you.

Before or after the deal? Makes a big difference--it's the difference between a future event and a past event in fact. What are the odds the 52 cards would be dealt in that specific order BEFORE you dealt them?

Indeed that is the difference, and I am glad that you see that point - which was the point I am making with the cards. Yet you seem to ignore that point when it comes to your own argument.
You are looking at who you are AFTER the event of your birth, and concluding that it somehow defies logic that you would turn out to be you.
You are not making the choice BEFORE your conception / birth, but you are looking at who you are now... i.e. AFTER.
So you are in the same position as looking at the deck of cards AFTER they have been dealt and concluding that there was a 1 in 10^68 chance... "yet it happened!".

As is your wishful thinking that you simply cease to exist. When dealing with absolute unknowns, all we have is wishful thinking.

No we don't. We have reason, logic and rationality to guide us - not to beliefs but to practical acceptance in the face of such unknowns. This is not wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is thinking it happens because you want it to, or prefer it to, over alternatives. It is an argument from conclusion.

We are one continuous person from birth till death. The "pattern"--a dynamic conglomerate of molecules, energies, feelings, and experiences that run thru us, changes and morphs over that time. Yet there remains conscious identity thruout this changing of pattern. IOW, the pattern assumes a temporal self-identity such that these alterations in it can all be called changes of oneself. I feel like this identity is consciousness itself--an irreducible property analogous to mass or spacetime.

You feel like it is... and that's all you have... your emotional attachment to the notion. I.e. wishful thinking. None of your conclusion is supported, at least not by you, by evidence nor logic.

 

[Magical Realist]

Everything prepares us for being who we are. Bear in mind that we are not born with full self-awareness: we gradually come to that state over the first 12-18 months. We also never have reference of being anything else than who we are (unless we suffer amnesia at some point in life and suddenly recover it later on, after a personality switch etc). We simply are who we are. Your position and tone seem to suggest that we have a comparison to make, yet you yourself acknowledge that we can have no experience of anyone else's "me-ness". Your positions thus seem contradictory.

You know what I said initially. Here it is again:

"All of our knowledge about the universe could not have prepared us for the appearance of this one conscious being called "me". A being like none other in that it is experienced firsthand, immediately, and necessarily conscious of its own condition. No logic tells us that this one baby out of billions would turn out to be you."

Tell me how any knowledge about the universe would have told you this one baby would have been born as "you". What facts about biology, or dna, or neurons, would have identified the one baby you were born as AS you? None whatsoever. Your meness, it's showing up at a particular time and place, is not something logically given by any physical circumstances. You can SAY it is, but you have no proof. Quit trying to twist my points into something they're not.

No, but if they are conscious of themselves then they are like me or you (assuming you consider yourself conscious?) in that regard whether or not we can prove it or have it proven to us.

Their consciousness is revealed firsthand only to them. Just like mine is to me. The self-evidence for their being is in their own experience, not mine.

If you exist then you could only ever have been you. This is a self-evident truth. If you were not you then you would not have existed.

But prior to that me, I could have been born as anybody. There are no constraints on existing to the non-existent.

Someone else might have existed but it would not have been you. So I consider it untrue that you could have been someone else.

It would certainly be a different you. Perhaps a psychotic you, or genius composer you, or transgender you. I'm not prepared however to say it isn't you to some degree. Identity may afterall not be so black and white. Haven't you ever felt "not yourself"? Haven't behaviors not typical of you ever surfaced, perhaps in response to brain chemical changes?

Only you could have been born at the time and place you were to the parents you were born of. Noone else. Just you.

So any number of millions of brothers and sisters to me couldn't have been born at the same time and place to my parents instead of me? I disagree. There is no fate that you would be. It's the luck of a draw. We got very lucky, that's all.

The only alternative is that you were not born. But you were, and as such you could only have been you.

Assuming we even know what "being you" means. I'm not so sure about it. What makes you "you? I suspect it isn't the DNA, the brain, or the environment you were raised in. I suspect it is YOUR awareness as a me--an awareness that seems indistinguishable from anyone else's. Why couldn't you be aware of yourself, as a "me", as another person?

Indeed that is the difference, and I am glad that you see that point - which was the point I am making with the cards. Yet you seem to ignore that point when it comes to your own argument.
You are looking at who you are AFTER the event of your birth, and concluding that it somehow defies logic that you would turn out to be you.
You are not making the choice BEFORE your conception / birth, but you are looking at who you are now... i.e. AFTER.

I'm assuming familiarity with yourself as you are. I'm then asking what were the odds of that happening before you existed. That you, out of all the possible alternatives, would come into being? There is no fate here. The situation could have been entirely different. Yet it wasn't.

No we don't. We have reason, logic and rationality to guide us - not to beliefs but to practical acceptance in the face of such unknowns. This is not wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is thinking it happens because you want it to, or prefer it to, over alternatives. It is an argument from conclusion.

You are as clueless about what happens in death as I am. You are not priveleged with some preview due to your superior reasoning and logic. You therefore have a belief about what death will be for you that fits an agenda you have about what the world is or should be. It suits you somehow to stoically accept nonexistence as if this is some sort of brutal objective honesty. It isn't. It's just a metaphysical position on a state that is totally cloaked to us, and indeed will always be cloaked to us should you be right about. Cuz if your consciousness simply ceases to be in death, then you won't even be there to know it. You essentially have a belief about something, which if it IS true, won't ever be known to be true. At least I posit a scenario in which confirmation is possible.

You feel like it is... and that's all you have... your emotional attachment to the notion. I.e. wishful thinking. None of your conclusion is supported, at least not by you, by evidence nor logic.

You have emotional attachments to notions too. To feeling virtuous and unflinching in accepting death as nonexistence. That's a pleasant feeling for you. Although not exactly the stoic feat it is cracked up to be. Nonexistence is the permanent elimination of all pain, fear, uncertainty, despair, and angst regarding life. It's like going to sleep forever. That would be nice too I guess. In some ways it is better than continued consciousness. At least you are assured of eternal relief from this fitful fever called life. And if believing that helps you live your life, more power to you.

 

[Sarkus]

Tell me how any knowledge about the universe would have told you this one baby would have been born as "you". What facts about biology, or dna, or neurons, would have identified the one baby you were born as AS you? None whatsoever. Your meness, it's showing up at a particular time and place, is not something logically given by any physical circumstances. You can SAY it is, but you have no proof. Quit trying to twist my points into something they're not.

It's surprisingly simple, MR. If we are not born as ourselves, the alternative is that we are born as someone else.
How many people do you know who are not their own "me", but are in fact their neighbour Bob next door?
We are who we are. We can be no different to that. We are born as ourselves. We can not be born as Bob next door.
It is entirely logical, it is entirely supported by science, by biology, by everything you care to think of, you just merely need to think about it correctly.
That one baby could not have been born as anyone else other than the person they were born as. There simply is no alternative with natural births, and only science-fiction can possibly provide an alternative.

Their consciousness is revealed firsthand only to them. Just like mine is to me. The self-evidence for their being is in their own experience, not mine.

And? What leads you to conclude that they are not conscious? Can we prove it, no, but we can accept it based on reason. Unless you wish to go down the solipsist path?

But prior to that me, I could have been born as anybody. There are no constraints on existing to the non-existent.

No, you could not have been anybody. That other person would not be you, it would be someone else. They may talk, look, act like you in many ways, but they would be themselves, not you, and thus different from you. "You" are who you are. They are who they are.

It would certainly be a different you. Perhaps a psychotic you, or genius composer you, or transgender you. I'm not prepared however to say it isn't you to some degree. Identity may afterall not be so black and white. Haven't you ever felt "not yourself"? Haven't behaviors not typical of you ever surfaced, perhaps in response to brain chemical changes?

It wouldn't be me. Close is no cigar. If you are talking to them then you are talking to them, and not someone who could have been me.
As for feeling "not yourself", this would just be part of who you are, to experience such things.

So any number of millions of brothers and sisters to me couldn't have been born at the same time and place to my parents instead of me? I disagree. There is no fate that you would be. It's the luck of a draw. We got very lucky, that's all.

Sure, the same way that you could have dealt the cards in any different combination. But you didn't. What were the chances! Wow! Spooky!

Assuming we even know what "being you" means. I'm not so sure about it. What makes you "you? I suspect it isn't the DNA, the brain, or the environment you were raised in. I suspect it is YOUR awareness as a me--an awareness that seems indistinguishable from anyone else's. Why couldn't you be aware of yourself, as a "me", as another person?

What makes me "me" would be the fact of being conscious and the physical differences (DNA et al) and experiences. Whether the ability to be conscious is the same for each of us is irrelevant, as the "me" aspect is the sum of experience and the consistency of those experiences with the way we process them.

I'm assuming familiarity with yourself as you are. I'm then asking what were the odds of that happening before you existed. That you, out of all the possible alternatives, would come into being? There is no fate here. The situation could have been entirely different. Yet it wasn't.

And in asking that question you are asking something very different to "No logic tells us that this one baby out of billions would turn out to be you."

You are as clueless about what happens in death as I am.

Discussion with you would suggest otherwise.

You are not priveleged with some preview due to your superior reasoning and logic.

Perhaps not, but reasoning and logic can show us what is more rational to accept.

You therefore have a belief about what death will be for you that fits an agenda you have about what the world is or should be. It suits you somehow to stoically accept nonexistence as if this is some sort of brutal objective honesty. It isn't. It's just a metaphysical position on a state that is totally cloaked to us, and indeed will always be cloaked to us should you be right about.

Indeed, but it is a position about which we can still differentiate between what is rational to accept and what is mere wishful thinking.

Cuz if your consciousness simply ceases to be in death, then you won't even be there to know it. You essentially have a belief about something, which if it IS true, won't ever be known to be true. At least I posit a scenario in which confirmation is possible.

And that somehow makes it more acceptable, reasonable, rational? Again you are just confirming your need to think wishfully, to satisfy some emotional requirement.
But don't mistake my position for a belief... it is merely the practical acceptance of a position. If you wish to consider that a "belief" then I would question your usage but at least understand what it is you are referring to as a "belief".

You have emotional attachments to notions too. To feeling virtuous and unflinching in accepting death as nonexistence. That's a pleasant feeling for you.

You think?? Seriously?
You don't think I'd rather there was/is an after-life, where I can continue to exist in one form or another, where perhaps I can be reunited with family, friends?
You seriously think that it is a pleasant feeling to accept that this isn't the case?

Although not exactly the stoic feat it is cracked up to be. Nonexistence is the permanent elimination of all pain, fear, uncertainty, despair, and angst regarding life. It's like going to sleep forever. That would be nice too I guess. In some ways it is better than continued consciousness. At least you are assured of eternal relief from this fitful fever called life. And if believing that helps you live your life, more power to you.

I don't imagine it is like going to sleep: I look forward to going to sleep as I enjoy dreaming. I imagine death is like being knocked unconscious... permanently.
It is also not an eternal "relief" as such a word implies an experience of the lessening.
And does it help me to accept this about death? No. Not particularly. It is something I accept as being the most rational and reasonable explanation. And I just deal with it, no matter how more emotionally appealing the alternatives may be.

 

[Magical Realist]

Like I said, believe whatever you want about death. Call it rational and congratulate yourself that you have logically arrived at the truth of what death is. Whatever gets you thru your day. More power to you. All truth is subjective in the end anyway, is it not?

 

[Sarkus]

All truth is subjective in the end anyway, is it not?

No.