What Happens When We Die?

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I didn't read all posts up to this point, but read about half, and then figured I'd make a few points.

About consciousness. Let's play a science fiction experiment...say we store your memories in a computer, and tell you that you're going to be killed. We're going to "bring you back" as a copy of yourself, a clone that is indistinguishable from you in every way, and it will have all your memories. It sounds maybe a little terrifying. But should you really be afraid? After all, it will be just like you, and essentially you. It will even remember having this conversation. It will wake up in a bed (the same bed we put you down in). The copy will remember everything, it will experience having woken up...but you will not. You will die, and will be gone. The first line below is you, the second line is your copy. X is death. ---- is lived experience, () is implanted memory.

-----X
(-----)X----->

So what significance did "you" have in the first place? You technically died, and are gone forever, but there's someone identical to you in every conceivable way still here. So did you really die? This ties into issues of identify and consciousness.

Now think of this (many already know this one): every 8 years or so, according to science, the cells of the body copy themselves (are regenerated). This is similar to the science fiction thought experiment, right? Are we really who we used to be? Maybe, maybe not. The passage of time is itself like death at every new point. We cannot necessarily distinguish where one "thing" ends and another begins. Things die and are remade, transferred to new energy forms, etc etc all the time. Sometimes they persist with "continuity", but between continuity is nothingness. Most of the universe is nothingness.

So. Maybe a billion years pass and there's a new you after you die. That time might as well be a blink of an eye to "you" (like before you were around, time passed very quickly, did it not?). At some point something was born of nothingness. How did this happen? We can project where the universe is headed (back to nothingness)...will it then start again, with something out of nothingness? It's quite possible. In a sense, time has no real meaning without consciousness anyway.

Our consciousness (as we understand it, linked to our identity) to me seems specific to this body and this life, like being encapsulated within the brain and the body. There are myths and stories of course...and some ambiguity about "what might have happened" or "what will happen", especially explored in religion...but I see them as stories more than anything, like stories in a storybook. Why should we believe they're anything other than made up except that people are claiming them to be such, if we cannot validate them for ourselves? People have shown us time and time again that they will lie. They will lie, they will imagine things, they are not reliable. So I think it's safe to not believe in comforting stories, myths, etc. about the afterlife. If something sounds crazy to me, I will discount it unless there's evidence. But I keep an open-mind because the universe seems to contain a fascinating infinitude of unknowns. We'll continue to make breakthroughs in science and technology and reach higher understandings of what it all means...and help to correct myths, lies, illusions, etc in the process.

I took 600 mushrooms when I was 17 and dozens of times since. DMT, Acid, Salvia, Mexican Mushrooms, Peyote, Ketamine, Meditation, Yoga, Trance states and rituals. I don't know anything about a spirit and find it all predominantly boring to partake in. I distinctly remember the smug afterglow of juvinile mushroom trips, we even saw past it at the time and coined a term for it, we knew the "secret of the key".

a great man said that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

I think it may be possible to download memories into digitial format in the not too distant future (there are a couple of scientists who now claim you can now transfer memories from digital file to your own cortex but the evidence is flimsy). But these are like recordings, they are not consciousness.



Yes you are on the right track. If we do have consciousness that persists after we die then it will not be the same as how we experience it now. Our perception of our identity is closely tied to our senses which intimately linked to our brain, body tissue and nervous system. If our consciousness persists then it will be devoid of sensory perception. Some claim our soul experiences afterlife like the way we experience dreams but dreaming relies on our brain neurons which we will no longer have after death.

The buddhists believe you can enter bardo from a meditative state in a process called astral travelling. This could be possible as long as your body is intact, the idea is projecting your mind.

But once you die the idea we will be a phantom body in Bardo that resembles our current body seems a little difficult to fathom if our bodies disintegrate. There could be an energy or force that is consciousness that persists but I think its likely it will not be anything other than energy that is devoid of identity. Identity is linked to our bodies. Indeed that is why buddhism has its goal to leave the cycle of life-death-rebirth in other words to stop forming attachment to our bodies.

Your Philosophy , Horatio

i didn't wanna accuse anybody directly or indirectly.

Well, one thing's for sure: if you've got a full bowel it'll be deposited in your pants when you die...

I see religion mainly as a crutch people use. If you really try to think for yourself (self-sufficiency of thought), you'll find live can be simpler...

Some people need that crutch though

like moi

The placebo effect is real

I have had someone close to me die of an illness that we knew was terminal for over a year before he died. It was incredibly helpful to me not to have religion or any other supernatural belief during that time. Acceptance is the only way to cope with such devastating loss, as far as I can see. At least it is for me. Hope is a terrible thing when there is no justification for it. How heart-wrenching it would have been to think that there could be a miracle or some other impossible relief if only I prayed hard enough.

Belief in the spiritual realm/ancestral plane != belief in the power of prayer to save lives via miracles.

none so blind as those who will not see.

Blind WP members just left the chat

Acceptance applies even to those who pray, just wisdom.