The "nothing" after death

Great thread some really brilliant ideas. This is why I love ATS. So many different opinions, thoughts, perspectives and alternate ways of thinking.

Okay....Has anyone here considered the possibility of alternate dimensions that we are not currently able to see or access?

Dimensions could be another possibility and explain the likes of "ghosts" or trapped spirits, souls, replays, whatever you refer to them as. Part of the process of transcending to another dimension.

There is possible 10-13 dimensions? Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we only know of 3 common dimensions.... 4 if you include space and time.

Who knows, there could be multiple even infinite dimensions.... This "life" we experience could be just a small part of a bigger picture/ - Life/vessel/meat/body/ whatever you chose to call it we have limited abilities when alive. we cannot go against the law of physics as we know it. but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of dimensions unknown.

Check this old but really very clever way of explaining dimensions and what we can see and possibly what we are unaware of because our technology and human eyes & mind are not developed enough or capable of sensing(yet).



I don't know if you will understand what I am suggesting as a possibility, if not reply and I will try and explain in more detail. But check out the video at least because it's so simple illustrates my thoughts in a simple way that just because we can't see something doesn't mean it's not there.

Heres the link to the video, I dont seem to have any luck embedding it.

www.youtube.com...

Sorry youll have to copy&Paste it to your browser.

its worth the watch though. Interesting!

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
Those who believe in there being nothing after death, doesn't the same hold true for before you were born? There was nothing or "darkness" and then there was light when you first opened your eyes. That "nothing" turned into this "something" you experience right now, which is what we call life. If you believe there is nothing after we die, would you consider the fact that that "nothing" will eventually turn into "something" just as it did before you were born?

What if where death ends, life begins again? Like I said, the same thing you believe happens after you die was exactly the same as before you were born, yet the nothing before you were born turned into this something. Why, in your opinion, would the same not hold true for the afterlife? What if we're in the "afterlife" right now, or that "nothing" turning into "something", darkness into light.

Just a thought I've been having. The universe is full of cycles, pretty much everything works in cycles, why would we be any different?

I've read a lot of opening posts to threads on this website. This has to be one of the best.

a reply to: Hugomax
I tried that video, but it was Carl Sagan dealing with a Creationist.

Regarding this matter of "alternate dimensions" you mentioned, I recently considered this on another thread along these lines.

One can actually notice that the physical body-mind exists in a vast field of (apparently) physical external events - and also one can notice inwardly that there are equally vast fields of subtle worlds that the higher(subtle) body-mind can contact.

In reality the inner (subtle) and outer (gross physical) worlds co-exist, and as a modification of consciousness (which is clearly NOT merely the waking state conscious mind).

Most of us here are locked into the lower mind and are constantly distracted by the apparently physical world via the five senses. Some go inward and may experience some mystical states of ascent beyond the gross physical realm - similar to what happens when the gross body dies and the subtle "body-mind" moves on.

But none of this, high or low, realizes the actual Truth of our situation here. But it is interesting to consider as it might help people see there is actually more to this existence than meets the eye - and ears, and nose....

So yes, this physical world co-exists with the subtle world because the body-mind has both a gross aspect and a subtle aspect. They can co-mingle, especially when one realizes that the outer and inner worlds are really one event, only apparently separated based on the brain-mind and the function of attention. For most of us here, attention is locked into the external physical world, and that is all we consciously perceive.

a reply to: 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I agree with you that the cycle continues, once you are in the nothing you become something again, but what if that something is actually you...again. Hear me out for a second

What if once you die the cycle begins again and you live your whole life as you again. This could explain deja vu because you are literally living your life exactly the same as before. I am a strong believer that there is no such thing as freewill that everything is predetermined. What if that was the reason. You are born, you die, you are born, you die. You live out the exactly same life with the same mistakes and the same situations and that goes for everyone one that is born so the live does continue on but you stay in the exact same place forever.

But who's to say for sure.

If humans have souls why not proto-humans or monkeys? Which animals have souls and which not? What about insects and bacteria? The problem with immortal soul is that there would be a lot of them and most would be souls of complete dimwits or infants who would not be able to even think properly in because they have no language or concepts. They could be completely retarded and deformed hideous freaks or have had so terrible miserable lives, they wouldn't even want to remember any of it anymore anyhow. And if you become brain damaged, is your sould forever brain damaged too? It can't be like that.

So, is the soul something separate from your physical intellect, personal history, knowledge and genes? How do you really define it? What does it really contain? Your sense of aesthetics? What makes you you? Your rationality? Your sense of morality? Your tragic backstory? Trapment in subjective state of being?

All this makes me kinda think souls don't exist.

How terrible would it be to be stuck with yourself forever? It may be just as bad as losing youself completely.
Where would the souls even go? In what form could they exist? Is your body image with you? Are your body and mind OK or the way when you died? What age are you? Are the centillion retards there too? What are you going to do there with that infinite time? Drink beer, watch TV, and get high? How's the internet there? How will you accommodate? Even if they are bigger-on-the-inside -houses, there would have to be insanely huge space for it and lots of traffic. Ridiculous to think dead souls would have addresses and mundane needs to satisfy though.

What if everyone becomes really smart there because no one is the prisoner of physics anymore and we can all function in divinely brilliant super savant levels and also know all in the universe and choose our form too and all be magnificent. Do we all become enlightened? So, what's left of us then? Just our aesthetics?

Or what if everyone is just free floaty ideas of soul and there are no time or place or rules or ground to stand on?
How will that ever work? Maybe some sort of a dreamlike state where we do have bodies but nothing is fixed?

Or would we just merge with the Godhead and have no sense of individuality anymore?

Or will we just keep on dreaming a fake world never knowing we are dead? Never getting the answers to anything, forever wondering.

What if there just is nowhere for the souls to go but to incarnate, does it mean souls die if population diminishes?
What if your soul is actually alien and you have been supplemented here because the other planet had extinctions?

No...

I kinda believe in tabula rasa. Life just is as it is and it's all there is. "Souls" come and go.
Nothing remains but their echoes. The dead become ideas and words, icons and paragons.
People should make the world just a nicer place in case we just keep doing this tabula rasa thing over and over again.
The thing is - there can't be complex lifeforms with abilitity to think consciously without idea of self/soul and wild theories of afterlife/prelife. I'm curious to hear what aliens think about this subject


[Sorry, this is all just a mess. writing is hard.]

originally posted by: Hugomax
There is possible 10-13 dimensions? Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we only know of 3 common dimensions.... 4 if you include space and time.

There are multiple dimensions, I'm not sure offhand of how many have been proven. Time is often referred to as the 4th dimension but that's incorrect. A physical object such as a hypercube can be a 3d object. An easy way to think of this would be to think of shadows. A 3d object creates a 2d shadow. A 2d object creates a 1d shadow. Similarly a 4d object creates a 3d shadow. We can use this property to look at the shadows of 4 dimensional objects.

Alternatively, you can think of the 4th dimension as the intersection of two 3d coordinates. In 1d (a flat line) you have one coordinate. Adding a perpendicular line creates 2d (an xy grid), adding another perpendicular grid creates 3d (an xyz grid). Adding another xyz grid would create 4d. Here's a short 7 minute video on it www.youtube.com... I've found that video to do a good job at explaining it.

The universe seems to not be constrained to 3 dimensions, but our perception of it is. So it's theoretically possible that there are beings out there who perceive more than 3 dimensions.