Philosophy Discussion Forums

I do not believe in an after or before life.
Only NOW ever exists
The past does not exist anymore
The future does not exist yet
We are an ever expanding ever changing singularity consciousness (1) in a universe of nothingness (0) vibrating 00110
Creating everything you imagine exists.
I THINK therefore I AM - just consciousness

Oh yeah atoms are just vibrating energy- NOT PHYSICAL
Subatomic electromagnetic energy forces

godblog wrote: ↑January 12th, 2023, 10:25 am I do not believe in an after or before life.
Only NOW ever exists
The past does not exist anymore
The future does not exist yet
We are an ever expanding ever changing singularity consciousness (1) in a universe of nothingness (0) vibrating 00110
Creating everything you imagine exists.
I THINK therefore I AM - just consciousness

Yes and No

Where as I accept consciousness as the universal matrix of all
- I do not accept the commonly accepted "Only NOW ever exists "
IN FACT NOW NEVER EXISTS

At the moment of the Big Bang, Creation, or however you might see our Universe beginning {yes, beginning is assumed},
nothing was ever again constant, time and change became relentless and irreversible - AND THE MOMENT CALLED NOW
NEVER AGAIN EXISTED

In order for now to exist time would need to stop - and time does not stop
leaving us with an endlessly evolving future.

In fact only the future exist

Gertie wrote: ↑January 11th, 2023, 8:05 pm I don't believe in an afterlife.  On the evidence we have, conscious experience correlates with physical brain processes.  And when they cease there's no more discernible sign of consciousness, which we can recognise as such at least. (The anecdotal evidence should be more than anecdotal by now, I reckon - not to say it can't be profoundly meaningful to those who've had such experiences).

If the universe is such that consciousness which manifests now  as me in this body continues, the implication of neural correlation suggests to me  it will  manifest as what it's like  to be my decaying or burnt corpse, slowly dispersing. Á cheery thought, but 'we are all stardust' is a groovier way of putting it! 

Or, the nature of the universe is unimaginably different to how we experientially model it, then you can speculate just about anything, but test nothing. So that's not worth worrying about - just make the most of now.

What if the afterlife consists of brain activity with the last x minutes of oxygen left? You are clinically dead. Your heart has stopped. But your mind is active. That's technically an afterlife. We don't know for sure how a brain shutting down can impact on the subjective passing of time, so such an life-after-life may not be nearly as trivial as most people assume.

UniversalAlien wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 4:26 pm And for you Count Lucanor and others who want to hold to scientific dogmatism, consider this



First Carl Sagan and now Stephen Hawking, still commucicating from the other side
- Maybe we should add Albert Einstein

I did not know that Einstein was left handed. Looking at this picture of Einstein has reminded me that an old superstition can cause damage currently. Did you know that hundreds of years ago, it was thought that left-handed people did the Devil's work? That only right-handed people did "God's" work? Being left-handed meant that you were bad or likely to become bad, but no one believes this anymore, so it could not affect people. Or could it?

I am a lefty. When I started school in the mid 1950's, they were still forcing left-handed kids to switch to their right hand because of this old superstition, but my Mother was aware of the problem, so she went to the school and informed them that I was left-handed and would stay left-handed -- they were not to switch me. Although I received poor marks in coordination because of my inability to handle (right handed) scissors well, I generally did OK until they started to teach me to write long hand or what we call cursive writing. Have you noticed that many left-handed people seem to curl their hand around to the top of the paper, and twist it, just to write? It looks awkward, but this is how I was taught to write. It is also how President Obama writes and how Prince William writes -- both of them being lefties. One would think that England would be able to teach it's future king how to write properly; but alas, that was not the case.

So I was really surprised when I saw Einstein, pen in hand, looking very normal. He is of an age where his writing should have been corrupted, but he must have had very good schools. If you look at the picture of Einstein, his left arm is on the exact same angle as his paper -- the paper follows the same line as his arm and lines up for him to write. Imagine that he takes the pen from his left hand and puts it in his right hand to write, but leaves the paper in the same position. Where would his hand be in relation to the paper? It would have to be along the top, twisted up, to write. I was seven years old when I tried to explain to my teacher that I would have to angle the paper in the opposite direction because I was left-handed. I was correct, but I lost that argument.

I have been told that left-handed people write like that because they have a mental or coordination problem. I have known people, who deal with dyslexia from being switched from their left to right hand. So yes, an old idea that no one believes anymore can still cause problems today because we attach procedures, ideas, and even habits to the original idea.

Thousands of years ago, we decided that the conscious mind was "Godly", that it was only possessed by people, and that it was a "higher" consciousness. The unconscious, or instinctive, mind was considered to be "lower" or "animalistic" and was not really consciousness. When I talk about consciousness, I am talking about all consciousness, unless I specifically designate otherwise. There seem to be people in this thread, who see consciousness as the "higher" consciousness, the "spiritual" consciousness, or maybe the consciousness of the rational mind -- exclusively. The problem with this is that you can not acquire any evidence or understanding of how consciousness actually works if you are only studying part of it. You can only study what you imagine it to be.

Gee

godblog wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 11:29 am Let’s use some logic here.
1: the past is over and DOES NOT EXIST anymore.
2: the future DOES NOT EXIST yet
3: only NOW ever exists
Now after now after now it will always be and has always been NOW
We have FAITH NOW in our memories of the past
We have HOPE NOW for a better future
We have LOVE we must use NOW to create our next better now

You are having a bit of a problem here. You can not state that NOW is all that exists, exclude time, and also state that you are using logic. The reality is that logic requires time in order to work. When you say, "I think; therefore, I am", what you are saying with the "therefore" is that something follows something else -- which requires time.

See if you can look up Matte Blanco in Wiki. He was the one, who found out how the unconscious aspect of mind works without time/logic. If you can't find it, I think I can find a link.

Gee

I do not regurgitate the vomit that has been chewed over by other people. I am quite capable of using evidence logic and reason to come to my own conclusions, so let us discuss the FACTS to try to come to a mutually acceptable conclusion.
For example, if the past is over it doesn’t exist anymore
If the future has not happened it doesn’t exist yet.
Since the future and past do not exist, LOGICALLY all that exists is an ever expanding ever changing NOW.
Now let’s take a closer look at the physical perception of reality.
Everything is composed of atoms. Atoms consist of protons electrons neutrons. Those are a perception of subatomic electromagnetic energy we mistakenly refer to as particles.
we are creating this illusion of a physical reality in order to make our existence as a BORED LONELY singularity (1) consciousness in a universe of nothingness (0) a more enjoyable experience by vibrating 10011000 .
Everything we see is ANGSTROMS- vibrating energy
Everything we hear is DECIBELS- vibrating energy
Everything we think is CONSCIOUSNESS - vibrating energy

Now consider what Rene Descartes said.
I THINK THEREFORE I AM
just consciousness.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 5:01 pm

Gee wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 12:34 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 7th, 2023, 9:28 pm There's no doubt that afterlives happen, though not to everyone. The question is how long they subjectively last. Generally, a clinically dead person has a number of minutes of oxygen in their brain. So, yes, the people are dead to the outside world but they still living a life in a final dreamworld.

Actually, I suspect that it does happen to everyone, it is just that everyone does not remember, or maybe does not want to remember. I have been studying this for decades and think that life, death, and reincarnation are all part of the process that we call evolution. I know that idea is kind of "out there", but if one studies all of the different aspects of death/consciousness, it starts to make sense.

The question of how long they subjectively last is a good one. The answer, I think, relates to bonding. The brain, I think, takes six minutes to completely die, but other organs take longer and the body as a whole can take hours or even days for all cells to die depending upon the circumstances of the death. When does subjectivity end? With the death of the brain, the death of the whole body, or the demise of the chemical make up of the body? It is interesting to note that religions that believe in everlasting heaven try to preserve the body, but religions that believe in reincarnation tend to want to terminate the body to release the subject, often burning it. Is this because they suspect a bond between the subject and the body?

It is also interesting to note that the people who witness paranormal phenomenon regarding death also tend to witness it within a few hours or a few days of death -- which matches the breakdown of the body. Interesting. Also note that people, who have interactions with "spirits" are mostly people, who are at the scene of the death or people who have a bond with the deceased.

Sightings of "spirits" or "ghosts" after the first few days are almost always associated with a location or a person, who has a relationship with the deceased, or is in a bloodline, family, of a person who is deceased. All of this implies bonding with something physical. It does not imply an other dimension, although I suppose that is possible.

Gee

Maybe some would forget their NDE but I think it more likely that they had none, like being under general anaesthetic.

While that is possible, I do not find it likely. I am reminded that NDE's have a quality that is very dream-like, and that science has recorded dreaming and NDEs that look much the same in MRI testing. I can not discount this similarity. A lot of people do not remember their dreams, but science tells us that; nonetheless, everyone dreams, and it is a requirement for our health that we all sleep and dream. So I think that while the conscious mind is out, as in general anesthetic, the unconscious aspect of mind is still active, after all, the unconscious controls the body and still regulates breathing, heart rate, body temperature, and all other aspects of life in the body. I suspect that we all have some kind of NDE's when we die, but we do not always remember the experience -- or come back to tell about it. I think it is helpful to remember that these experiences are not regulated by us, or by our will, they are completely involuntary and maybe reactionary. What they are reacting TO is another question. I can see why some might remember it, and others may not; but I can not see why some might have it and others do not.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 5:01 pm When brains die, they don't die at the same rate. Different parts will fail first, depending on the condition. If the thalmus fails, for instance, then it's lights out. I've been interested in NDEs for some years now, and it does seem that those in coronary wards are the most likely to have a significant NDE. I'm guessing that heart-related deaths may result in a similar sequence of shutting down in the brain.

You have obviously done some studying on NDE's, but NDE's as measured by science are not the only sources for information on out-of-body consciousness -- there are other sources that cause people to consider the possibility of an "afterlife". Two of the problems that I have with your conclusions are that science tends to forget that their initial premise is often an assumption, and they have a problem with confirmation bias, because that is what they are testing for -- confirmation. Even if I agreed that consciousness and NDE's are produced by the brain, I would have to question whether or not "those in coronary wards are the most likely to have a significant NDE" or if the "significant NDE" is more likely to be believed and recorded because the patients were in coronary wards.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 5:01 pm While there's objectively a few minutes of brain oxygen left at the time of clinical death, we cannot say how long that lasts subjectively. People have gone through NDEs that may only last for minutes, but it feels to them like days, or longer.

So true, and this brings up some interesting ideas. The unconscious aspect of mind, which sources NDE"s, does not acknowledge time the way the rational conscious mind does; we know this from studies in psychology, examples of PTSD, and even from personal experiences. If you are at the bank and someone comes in to rob it putting a gun in your face, you will be hard pressed to tell officers afterward just how long the robbery took. It could be from two minutes to twenty minutes, and you would probably be unable to judge the time. This is because emotion, in this case fear, is not limited by time constraints, it actually warps our awareness of time, and it works through the unconscious.

The other idea is that most people think of their "self" as being their intentional rational mind, but as we have seen through NDE's and other examples, the unconscious reactive aspect of mind is just as subjective as the rational mind. This almost seems like a paradox because the unconscious is subjective, but it also connects with other selves and works objectively as in Jung's collective unconscious.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 5:01 pm The nature of these experiences vary and, if a person is undergoing intense fabulous or nightmarish experiences, that may well feel like eternity. It's possible that heaven and hell reside in that brief window of final brain operation with subjective time dilation.

I have often wondered about the same thing. People have been having experiences that they can not explain for many millenia. If these experiences have been interpreted as "heaven" and/or "hell" the experiences would not only feel eternal, but also appear to be eternal -- implying an "afterlife". I suspect that many religions saw these experiences as examples of justice in the afterlife which also discouraged bad behavior.

Like any discipline, religion has its flaws, but all religions provide charities for needy people, they also promote a sense of unity and bond a society together, and help us to maintain a moral compass. These are not bad things, but I think the most important thing that they do is they give us a way to believe in and hope for our happiness in death. Most religions have a path to redemption/forgiveness, so that we can feel safe when we pass. Is this important? I think so. NDE's are experienced by the unconscious aspect of mind, even though they are remembered by the conscious aspect, so what a person thinks is not going to matter much when they die, but what they feel and believe is very relevant because emotion works the unconscious and controls belief. We can think a thousand things when we are dying, but if we feel that we are worthless, or bad, we may very well assign ourselves to hell. (This being a good argument against suicide.) For this reason, if no other, I have tried to respect religious beliefs. I think these beliefs have value and that it would be cruel to try to damage someone's beliefs.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 5:01 pm As for paranormal observations after a death, I am skeptical. If detections of dead spirits are not imaginary, then there must be an extra dimension (or more) with a relationship to space and time that is closer to that of dreams than waking reality. Millions, maybe billions, live in hope that this is the case.

I was raised Christian; and so, I believed that everything has a beginning and an end, including me. I was also skeptical. Two things made me reconsider, first as I learned more about this reality, I realized that nothing seems to have a beginning and/or end -- it just changes. The second thing was learning about Ian Stevenson's work on reincarnation -- learning about his work was a serious wake up call. I had always thought of reincarnation as a religious idea, but it makes more sense with regard to how nature works than beginning/ending idealism does.

Don't know much about dimensions, extra or otherwise. (chuckle) But I think that the term "afterlife" is an unfortunate word usage. Can you imagine ghost Dad coming home from work, greeting ghost Mom at the door, then helping ghost daughter with her homework, while ghost Mom goes to wake up ghost baby before dinner? And how did ghost baby get there? Did ghost Mom deliver in a ghost hospital? Or is this a baby that died in infancy and must remain a baby for eternity? The idea of an "afterlife" is just too concrete, too static, too much like physical life to function without the physical.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 9th, 2023, 5:01 pm Putting aside practical concerns like suffering and grief, I see the problem of death is a problem of identity. IN a sense, we live forever in much the same way as the marines under Gunnery Sgt Hartman of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket were said to live forever. Individual "cells" may fall away but the broader entity lives on, rather like the Ship of Theseus. Devotion to something greater is the key to eternal life, but it's an act of faith because they obviously won't be around to see what happens (unless undiscovered dimensions exist).

This certainly makes sense to me, and I agree. I see the problems of identity and self as possibly being solvable through bonding.


Gee

godblog wrote: ↑January 14th, 2023, 6:58 pm I do not regurgitate the vomit that has been chewed over by other people. I am quite capable of using evidence logic and reason to come to my own conclusions, so let us discuss the FACTS to try to come to a mutually acceptable conclusion.
For example, if the past is over it doesn’t exist anymore
If the future has not happened it doesn’t exist yet.
Since the future and past do not exist, LOGICALLY all that exists is an ever expanding ever changing NOW.
Now let’s take a closer look at the physical perception of reality.
Everything is composed of atoms. Atoms consist of protons electrons neutrons. Those are a perception of subatomic electromagnetic energy we mistakenly refer to as particles.
we are creating this illusion of a physical reality in order to make our existence as a BORED LONELY singularity (1) consciousness in a universe of nothingness (0) a more enjoyable experience by vibrating 10011000 .
Everything we see is ANGSTROMS- vibrating energy
Everything we hear is DECIBELS- vibrating energy
Everything we think is CONSCIOUSNESS - vibrating energy

Now consider what Rene Descartes said.
I THINK THEREFORE I AM
just consciousness.

Oops, the crown slipped there for a moment. I can't for the life of me understand why you would regard what other people have thought as "vomit", there is absolutely nothing - nothing - that you have written here that didn't come from other sources. You might not be aware of it, but the brightest ideas and the biggest garbage that we express are a result of our interactions with other people. That is why humility is always the best choice.

I have listened and read debates about time. People much smarter than myself are on both sides. Time being relative and just looking up gives us a view of the past I lean towards dynamic time for all.
On the subject an afterlife, there is no known vessel that can contain the chemistry that makes a you. With this thinking I suppose an afterlife would be devoid of emotions of any kind. The one thing that is certain is that no known communication between this realm and the other has ever been proven. Some psychedelics and of course NDE's have shown that we tend to experience similar experiences.
With that mind I personally have decided my afterlife is right now. The interactions with friends, family and aquantances will define how my life was percieved. The better person I can be the more coruscating my afterlife will be. The soothing affect of belief in an afterlife can't be ignored. With four children I choose to tell them dead is dead, hopefully dispelling the existential dilema. If there is some surprise after party then they will be surprised as will I.

A handful of übersmart folks have argued that the mind and the body, despite the brain, aren't the same. As intriguing as this is, those who support this thesis aren't out the woods yet - there's more to the statement "there's an afterlife" which though at first glance appear useful are, for better/worse, not.

Gee wrote: ↑January 7th, 2023, 1:20 pm I think that I am really tired of people, who deny that conscious experience exists after death. There is tons and tons of evidence that consciousness survives death. People who state there is no evidence obviously do not know what evidence is -- maybe they think that if they can not hold evidence in their hand it does not exist. Horsechit!

I am in complete agreement with what you say here, but it does seem reasonable to point out that, as well as evidence, there are standards of evidence. Thus, there are things that I might accept as evidence, and perhaps you might too, but a scientist would find them inadequate for their scientific use.

Gee wrote: ↑January 10th, 2023, 6:51 pm Have you actually studied anything about reincarnation?

Tegularius wrote: ↑January 11th, 2023, 8:11 pm Enough to know that its probability status is exceedingly low.

I pose this question regularly, and no-one answers. <sigh> I'll try once more.

You state here that the probability (of an afterlife) is "exceedingly low". Please describe the means you used to justify reaching this conclusion. What is it that convinced you that this probability is knowable, and known (by you, if no-one else), in a quantified form? Intuition? Statistics? Divine inspiration? What?

You have stated, in language that leaves no room for flexibility or alternatives, that the probability status (?) of an afterlife is exceedingly low. Why did you do this? Do you seek to endow your words with greater authority, by making it seem as though you know what you're talking about? Do you simply 'exaggerate for effect'?

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑March 23rd, 2023, 10:06 am
I am in complete agreement with what you say here, but it does seem reasonable to point out that, as well as evidence, there are standards of evidence. Thus, there are things that I might accept as evidence, and perhaps you might too, but a scientist would find them inadequate for their scientific use.

It has been my experience that people who consider themselves scientists sometimes reject claims of things paranormal because of their preconceived ideas of what is real. For instance, one professor advertises Anomalistic Psychology https://www.gold.ac.uk/apru/what/ as:

"Anomalistic psychology may be defined as the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, including (but not restricted to) those which are often labeled "paranormal". It is directed towards understanding bizarre experiences that many people have without assuming a priori that there is anything paranormal involved. It entails attempting to explain paranormal and related beliefs and ostensibly paranormal experiences in terms of known psychological and physical factors."

In this case, "anomalistic" is used to mean aberration" rather than "para-" as in "aside from." Anomalistic psychology research reports are often written to suggest an honest examination of possible paranormal experiences like demonstrations of psychic functioning, when in reality, their research typically ignores research supporting the existence of Psi. The effect is that their "honest" research report are full of innuendo suggesting delusion that seems designed to prove psychic functioning is not real.

People tend to "make the world" according to their beliefs. Our mostly unconscious worldview has considerable momentum, meaning it is easier to confirm beliefs than to change them.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑March 23rd, 2023, 10:06 am

Gee wrote: ↑January 7th, 2023, 1:20 pm I think that I am really tired of people, who deny that conscious experience exists after death. There is tons and tons of evidence that consciousness survives death. People who state there is no evidence obviously do not know what evidence is -- maybe they think that if they can not hold evidence in their hand it does not exist. Horsechit!

I am in complete agreement with what you say here, but it does seem reasonable to point out that, as well as evidence, there are standards of evidence. Thus, there are things that I might accept as evidence, and perhaps you might too, but a scientist would find them inadequate for their scientific use.

No. That would only be reasonable in a science forum -- this is not a science forum. Science finds all evidence of consciousness inadequate, unless it can be reduced to the physical. That would be because science studies the physical.

Gee