Our inevitable fate.

A biological computer.... something not even us intelligent and self aware humans have been able to match in complexity...

Riddle me this....

Who invented this biological computer?

Who is the user? You can't have a computer with a fully integrated user interface, and not have a user.

Your logic always comes to a dead end, man. No pun intended... or maybe it was.

So what your are saying is that self awareness is regenerated by matter and then when matter expires its shelf life then self awareness follow…you still have not defined what is death.
You just have explain one stage of expiration or changes…not actually what is death or what is behind death…as you have no clue to what is behind then I am sorry to say that all other peoples theories are valid as yours.
In my view it is a philosophical or metaphysical issue as we have not all the physical data to come up with an absolute certainty that is nothing after death.
Kacou.

So, on this subject, nearly everyone's an expert?

So we have these posts telling us exactly what's over on the Other Side, and why?

So, how many of these experts have died yet?

Yeah, thought so.

Look, cognitive science has come a long way, but it's far from a complete explanation of human consciousness. There is no complete explanation of human consciousness, and anyone who thinks there is is seriously deluded. We understand a lot about the brain and how it affects consciousness, but we don't understand how consciousness is created.

And if we don't understand how something is created, how can we understand how, when and if it is destroyed?

Consciousness, like any controversial issue in science, attracts a lot of semi-religious fervor. Even if the conclusions made by science in this field are, like many, a representation of our best understanding of a subject, these conclusions are held by these zealots, for lack of a better word, as absolute indisputable fact.

Wake up and smell the evolution of science. It's wrong sometimes, even when it was certain it was right.

yes we dont know how conscious came to be in evolutionary terms...i already said that...but its not anywhere except inside your brain....brain stops....consciousness and memory etc etc stops also...its not rocket science.

[edit on 8-8-2008 by Lethil]

[edit on 8-8-2008 by Lethil]

How it is CREATED, not how it evolved. How it is generated within the human mind to create the human experience. As I said, we know how different things affect consciousness, but not how it is generated.

My God man, it's really not that complicated. How can you use your mind to define the mind? We can define the brain, because it is a physical thing, something tangible that we can hold and measure. But the mind exists solely within the mind. Within an individual alone, it is vastly immeasurable, let alone the depth of an entire species.

You must understand the distinction between mind and brain. Again, I realise that we have learned a lot about how different things, electrical signals and chemicals within the brain to name two, affect the mind, but such an enormous thing as the human mind cannot be defined nor explained by current science, particularly while we're trying to use our minds to do the defining or explaining.

reply to post by Astyanax


well - let us know what's going on when you find out for sure

meanwhile - I'm going to ponder the whole thing some more....

Sometimes I wonder if some people purposely act like it is an alien concept.

The brain was not invented, it evolved through a rather complicated process called evolution. There is no 'user interface', it is just a very very complex calculation machine. The logic is sound, it is the apparent ignorance that is at fault. Your lack of understand simple concepts is rather unsettling.

How would you want death to be defined? In a natural sense or in a supernatural sense? Death, for a living being, is to cease being alive. In one moment you are alive, self aware of being alive. In the other moment, you cease to function. All organic molecules that make you, you, begins to decay.

You need to remember one important thing, any and all concepts of a possible afterlife are fictitious fantasies of living people who have never died. No one who has died has ever come back to life to tell their tale. Once you are dead, you are dead, there is no coming back. If there is no coming back, then how can you be sure there is anything after death? Because some charlatan who has never died told you so? Would you really be so quick to trust the word of someone alive over the word of someone dead, whom can't speak of what it is like?

Consciousness was not created or is created. It is just another way of saying I am self aware of being aware of myself. It is the mirror of empathy. We know what consciousness is, we just don't know what areas of the brain control it. It could be seated in one particular location, or it could be a culmination of various areas all interconnected to one another.

There is no difference between mind and brain. If you wish to separate the two, then you could say the mind is a product of the brain. You can not say the two are separate entities from each other. In order for that to be possible, something would need to be generated some detectable energy that some how is attracted to sexual intercourse between two people, or attracted to the copulation of the sperm and egg. Then, even for that to be all possible, we first need to ask why would we even think that something of this sort would even be a requirement for life?

When does the mind come into existence? Is it always there? Is it created during intercourse? Is it created during birth? Is it created when a child can voice their opinions clearly? Why would it have to be 'created'? Why should it not be a product of the brain?

Because man is so arrogant to think he is special and serves some higher ultimate purpose.

I think the main reason I think that consciousness persist after death is this:

When you consider the epic size of a human mind, even if you just consider the memories, that is an enormous amount of information. To think that an entire life of memories can be stored within a small chunk of flesh just doesn't jive with me. And that's just memories, add in the abilities, speech, co-ordination, emotion. It's just too much for the physical size of the brain.

That's why I believe that some form of consciousness must exist in a 'physical' space other than the physical matter of the brain. If consciousness exists on some plane other than the physical brain even if it is closely tied to the brain there is no reason to assume that the end of the brain means the end of the consciousness.

I get that there are many within the scientific community and abroad who believe that the entire human awareness is generated and stored within the physical matter of the brain, and that's cool, but you have to acknowledge that it's an area we don't completely understand, because it's an area we can't completely understand.

I believe this analogy is used in The Holographic Universe, which has been recommended on the book thread: for us to define the human mind is like asking the fish to define the fishtank from within. To truly observe something, we must be separate from it.

Some people think consciousness is an integral aspect of the universe, at the most fundamental level. A very basic property on the same level as "time" or "space," present everywhere and always, woven into the very fabric of the universe.

I don't know if that's true but its a very interesting idea.

Personally, I hope for nothingness after death. I've had a good life but life itself is wearisome and there is a lot of "wear and tear" inherent in the very act of living. I think the idea of an eternal "dirt nap" seems very appealing. In fact, I would even go so far as to say the idea of eternal consciousness is far more disturbing than the idea of finite awareness to me.

reply to post by TheStev


So in essence, the holographic memory chips being developed shouldn't be possible either. These tiny 1cm sq cubes capable of holding vast amounts of information controlled by a computer that can take input from a variety of sensors. None of it should exist. In fact, thirty years from now, personal computers will be able to store more information than the human brain.

The human brain doesn't store every sensory perception it receives from the environment. Our brains don't even store everything to remember. Can you remember what you did 5 years from now on a Tuesday at 5:34pm? Without lying?

There is no reason to assume that there is some higher plane for the mind to exist on separate from biological processes of the brain. We have no observational evidence that would allow us to conclude that there is something more. We have no experimental evidence either. What we do have is everything indicating that the mind is a product of the brain.

If you wish to choose to believe otherwise, then that is of your own opinion. However, opinions do not facts make. You can't say there is something else out there just because it helps you sleep at night. You have nothing to point at to even show as that something.

Originally posted by b6x87
I myself don't believe there can't be nothing after death. Just holding on to the hope that it's something good!

The Clearest Expression of the "truth" behind the vail of death and the world of "after-life" can be read in the Urantia Book.

www.urantia.org...

I find it funny that the book is so shadowed in the mystic that people are blissfully unaware of the reality of that book. I could write a several page paper proving the reality of the book. But would you read it or even care?

At any rate. The book is there. I just point and let you do the rest.

I've read the Urantia Book, I even own it. Interesting work, but wrong. I would love to get into a discussion on this if you would like, but not on this thread.

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by sirnex
So in essence, the holographic memory chips being developed shouldn't be possible either. These tiny 1cm sq cubes capable of holding vast amounts of information controlled by a computer that can take input from a variety of sensors. None of it should exist. In fact, thirty years from now, personal computers will be able to store more information than the human brain.

'Vast amounts of information' in computer terms is a trifle compared to the information processed by the brain every second, even just in terms of conscious information. All five senses, emotion, cognition, all in beyond full HD.

Our brains remember far more than we are capable of accessing at any one moment. And it's a whole spectrum of data feeds that does not even compare to today's computer storage.

There is no reason to assume that there is some higher plane for the mind to exist on separate from biological processes of the brain. We have no observational evidence that would allow us to conclude that there is something more. We have no experimental evidence either. What we do have is everything indicating that the mind is a product of the brain.

There is no reason to assume otherwise. As I said, several times, we can't understand the mind as long as we're trapped within it. We can try, and we can get some ideas, but we'll never have a complete understanding because we're working within the confines of the very thing we're studying.

But if you wish to believe that our best current understanding of consciousness stands as a complete understanding and absolute fact, then go right ahead. Just know you're being a scientific zealot about it. Knowledge begins with accepting how little you know. Some scientists still accept that, but a lot would rather say 'We're pretty sure this is how things are, so this is exactly how things are and it's an indisputable fact'.

Personally, I think it's because fear of the unknown is a basic element of the human condition. Religions survive because of this fact, God says 'this is how it is' and science has its own side of that. It's a lot easier for science to just say 'this is how it is' rather than 'we're not sure how it is but we have some ideas'.

With the world changing as quickly as it is, people need facts to hold onto. Whether they are deemed true by science, or deemed true by God. But ultimately we're all just blind and fumbling in the dark.

reply to post by sirnex


sorry, nope, it isn't wrong in any way. Just because people misunderstand the meanings doesn't mean the text is in error.

The Urantia book is more right then you're willing to know.

reply to post by TheStev

When you consider the epic size of a human mind, even if you just consider the memories, that is an enormous amount of information. To think that an entire life of memories can be stored within a small chunk of flesh just doesn't jive with me. And that's just memories, add in the abilities, speech, co-ordination, emotion. It's just too much for the physical size of the brain.

I think you are awfully brave to make such an assertion, considering the strides that have been made in miniaturization over the last fifty years or so and are still being made. The capacity of modern computer memories is astounding; yet to date we have only scratched the surface.

This article in Byte explains that data can be stored in protein molecules, with each molecule representing a single bit.

Professor Robert R. Birge, director of the W. M. Keck Center for Molecular Electronics, has implemented a prototype memory subsystem that uses molecules to store digital bits. The molecule in question is a protein called bacteriorhodopsin... Birge selected bacteriorhodopsin because its photocycle , a sequence of structural changes that the molecule undergoes in reaction to light, makes it an ideal AND data-storage gate, or flip-flop... According to Birge, the bR (where the state is 0) and the Q (where the state is 1) intermediates are both stable for many years.

How many molecules are there in your brain? And remember, even that gigantic number isn't the limit of capacity for data held within it, because the same molecule, holding the same datum (i.e. state), could be a constituent of any number of different metadata (facts, instructions, concepts, processes). The computer on which you are reading this makes use of the same data to perform numerous different operations. It is hard to imagine any reason why a brain must be different.

As for processing speed, the rapidly-advancing science of quantum computing shows us how unimaginably complex calculations can be performed at seemingly impossible speeds. From the same article quoted above:

Lloyd wants to simulate the time evolution of 40 particles that make up the matter at the core of an exploding star. Performing these calculations digitally would require setting up and working on 2^40 by 2^40 matrices that would accurately describe all the quantum characteristics of these particles, such as their spin. 'It would take 10^24 digital operations to compute the result,' says Lloyd. 'A TFLOPS system would require a trillion seconds - 31,709 years - to compute the outcome. However, by using lasers to program the behavior of 40 ions in an ion trap, a quantum computer would have to operate for only a hundred quantum interactions.'

If you want to assert that there's something special about consciousness - that it is some kind of ghost in the machine or an immortal entity subsistent in a 'space' that is not spacetime - you are of course free to do so. But you must be honest and admit to yourself and others that it is a belief you hold because you wish to do so, not because it is supported by anything akin to a fact.

Urantia=plagarised new age/religious mumbo jumbo....I wouldn't be shouting at the rooftops with recommendations for that book....

[edit on 9-8-2008 by Lethil]

Originally posted by Lethil
Urantia=plagarised new age/religious mumbo jumbo....I wouldn't be shouting at the rooftops with recommendations for that book....

[edit on 9-8-2008 by Lethil]

Yeah well as always the majority isn't ready for the truth.

You shouldn't feel bad about this. You just were not up to it.

But I understand and respect your lose and unresearched perspective. It would seem that the Urantia plagarised the dead sea scrolls and the Nag too, but those lose scrolls where not aviliable at the time of the writing of the Urantia book.



[edit on 9-8-2008 by Incarnated]

Originally posted by Incarnated

Originally posted by Lethil
Urantia=plagarised new age/religious mumbo jumbo....I wouldn't be shouting at the rooftops with recommendations for that book....

[edit on 9-8-2008 by Lethil]

Yeah well as always the majority isn't ready for the truth.

You shouldn't feel bad about this. You just were not up to it.

Another possibility is you cannot comprehend fact from fiction...i think a survey would show me to be correct...

Originally posted by Lethil

Originally posted by Incarnated

Originally posted by Lethil
Urantia=plagarised new age/religious mumbo jumbo....I wouldn't be shouting at the rooftops with recommendations for that book....

[edit on 9-8-2008 by Lethil]

Yeah well as always the majority isn't ready for the truth.

You shouldn't feel bad about this. You just were not up to it.

Another possibility is you cannot comprehend fact from fiction...i think a survey would show me to be correct...

yeah sure a "servey" from the majority that through time is always shown to be wrong in spades. However that the majoirty rules so you must be right right? WRONG!