Do you believe our consciouness lives on after death?

reply to post by unityemissions


It does not just take a hammer to the head to change ones personality. Ones personality is not actually a real substance that resides somewhere in the brain, it is complex of ones memories, attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and social relationships and thus is changing every moment as they are also changing. My personality is not the same when I am conversing with my parents as when I am conversing with my friends, or my teacher or my boss. In each situation the personality is different.

By the logic where you define yourself as your personality you are dying every moment. However, despite this you have an enduring sense of self. How is this possible if you are the changes of your personality? Therefore you cannot be your personality, you are something other than your personality.

We can establish the same with respect to chemical changes in your brain. Your brain is constantly undergoing chemical changes and activity like neurons firing about, but despite this constant activity you have an enduring sense of self. Therefore you are other than changing brain states. Moreover, suppose you were actually the changes of brain states, why then do you not experience changes of brain states, but experience sensations? I certainly do not experience my serotonin chemicals surge when I am happy, I experience the emotion of happiness. Therefore my experience is something other than brain state changes.

Perhaps you may assert your self is the body. But this is not true, because your body is also changing moment to moment. Do you know what happened to your body 15 years ago? It's gone, long since replaced. But still you have an enduring sense of self.

If you look at it from a rational point of view your "self" will always be other than brain state changes, thought state changes, personality changes, body changes or basically any kind of change. In other words your self is not in space-time but outside of it. Therefore it is never born in space-time, and if it is not born, it cannot die. It is therefore eternal. You are eternal.

But scrap everything I said because I want it to be a surprise to you when you kick the bucket



[edit on 15-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by unityemissions
Not in the slightest. If I have brain damage, my personality may be changed. This for me is proof enough that we are physical beings. I think life goes on, but not for the individual. When my body ceases to function, the same will go for myself. I do my best not to fear death, because it's inevitable and besides the point in life. That being the case, I see no reason to fantasize being immortal.

Hello again brothers and sisters.

You have spoken of a very naive subject on the damaging of the physical vessel.

The brain, as some scientists will admit, is only a transmitter. A reciever.

If you have a cell phone who's speaker is slightly damaged, the voice sent to you from the sender will not be as significant nor have clarity. This is the same concept of the brain.

Memory actually persists on a nonphysical level, at higher frequencies that we can currently detect physically, and Quantum Physics is just starting to confirm this. Medical PET and MRI brain scan images are only maps of brain activity which show the circuitry and electric flow in the “TV receiver” (the brain), but not the program – the content, idea or emotion experienced in consciousness. Scientists will never prove that the brain is the mind.

Think outside of the box that has been created for you.

The main point of being human is faith, coming from the unknown into the know, seperation into unity.

But brothers and sisters, do not have faith have trust.

Namaste. May the light and love be with all of you.



[edit on 15-12-2009 by Psychonaughty]

I do believe that we live on after physical death. I find the subject very fascinating even though I don't really know a whole lot about it. I'm new to this site, and thought this thread was very interesting. I also believe in God, though I don't believe any religion to be right about what God is. Hopefully this site may help enlighten me.

The video about Pam Reynolds was very interesting. I had not seen that before, so thank you for posting that!

In 2006, my (now) girlfriend and I postulated a thing we referred to as "Ping Theory" then, only a few months ago, we read a study of the Law of One on Divinecosmos.com and Ra, through the channelings, summed up Ping Theory in a much more complex way, but essentially it was the same thing.

So, I would say in a nut shell, I believe the Law of One way of interpreting life and "apparent" death.




edited a spelling mistake

[edit on 15-12-2009 by psilo simon]

I am a rational being. Sorry, but your reasoning seems like hogwash, yet again. The reason my sense of self is fairly consistent is because of genetics, mostly.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
reply to post by unityemissions

 

It does not just take a hammer to the head to change ones personality. Ones personality is not actually a real substance that resides somewhere in the brain, it is complex of ones memories, attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and social relationships and thus is changing every moment as they are also changing. My personality is not the same when I am conversing with my parents as when I am conversing with my friends, or my teacher or my boss. In each situation the personality is different.

The memories, attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and social relationships are a product of the brain in action. Without a brain, none of these are possible. Not one. The fact that your personality is different based on the external environment shows quite a bit about your character. I'll leave others to fill in the gap.

By the logic where you define yourself as your personality you are dying every moment. However, despite this you have an enduring sense of self. How is this possible if you are the changes of your personality? Therefore you cannot be your personality, you are something other than your personality.

What? This makes no sense whatsoever. Ever heard of memory? You claim to be logical. I just don't understand.

We can establish the same with respect to chemical changes in your brain. Your brain is constantly undergoing chemical changes and activity like neurons firing about, but despite this constant activity you have an enduring sense of self. Therefore you are other than changing brain states. Moreover, suppose you were actually the changes of brain states, why then do you not experience changes of brain states, but experience sensations? I certainly do not experience my serotonin chemicals surge when I am happy, I experience the emotion of happiness. Therefore my experience is something other than brain state changes.

The sense of self comes from the feedback mechanisms. I really can't make any sense of the rest. We DO experience changes in brain states, AS sensations. Why are you separating these? How odd!

Perhaps you may assert your self is the body. But this is not true, because your body is also changing moment to moment. Do you know what happened to your body 15 years ago? It's gone, long since replaced. But still you have an enduring sense of self.

One word. Genetics.

If you look at it from a rational point of view your "self" will always be other than brain state changes, thought state changes, personality changes, body changes or basically any kind of change. In other words your self is not in space-time but outside of it. Therefore it is never born in space-time, and if it is not born, it cannot die. It is therefore eternal. You are eternal.

But scrap everything I said because I want it to be a surprise to you when you kick the bucket

[edit on 15-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Okay, you're definitely not being rational. Please don't make this claim anymore. You're using false assumptions to justify false foundations. It's just a mound of nonsense. Nice try, though.

Yes.

except I dont believe it..

i know it.

I was pronounced clinically dead for over 3 minutes, about 5 years ago,
due to a cliff diving accident.


my consciousness was alive and strong the whole time.
I knew everything that was going on.... and then some.

somehow, i knew that my body was of no more use... unless i wanted it to be.... and that i had the choice to re-join it, or not...

... for some reason, that i wasnt aware of yet.....
i wanted it to be rejoined with it..
and here i am.

so,
there are many topics that i can only speculate on, and theorize about...

but this is one of the few, that i can speak on from personal experience.

reply to post by unityemissions


Oh Unity. What is the point of being if there is not a point?

This is why I iterate quite often, when asked for specific information, that it pales to insignificance, just as the grass withers and dies while the love and the light of the One Infinite Creator redounds to the very infinite realms of creation forever and ever, creating and creating itself in perpetuity.

Why then be concerned with the grass that blooms, withers and dies in its season only to grow once again due to the infinite love and light of the One Creator? This is the message I bring. Each entity is only superficially that which blooms and dies. In the deeper sense there is no end to being-ness.

You'll go on forever, indefinitley.

You are every thing, every being, every emotion, every event, every situation. You are unity. You are infinity. You are love/light, light/love. You are.

What is it that is there in between thoughts?

Namaste.

reply to post by Psychonaughty

Scientists will never prove that the brain is the mind.

You are so arrogant.

While I am open to the possibility of these various idea's, it's the arrogant assertions made by their proponents that makes me want to argue against them.

Do you have all knowledge of the mind in order to state that science will never prove it's a product of the brain?

The ignorant arrogance astounds me, and it's done without shame, remorse or guilt; but with pride and self ego boosting! You make an empty claim without showing the work and then turn around with an infantile statement that the contrary to your view will never be proven by science.

reply to post by sirnex


Sirnex,

Any scientist will tell you that nothing is 100% proven.

Science = Scientist arguing against other Scientist over "Facts". These facts aren't even facts if there are opposing sides to them being in any way legitimate.

I am not arrogant I just bring the message. That message of not faith but trust.

Instead of wasting energy to fight my arrogance why don't you forgive the arrogance for the greater good.

Namaste brother/sister.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by Psychonaughty]

Originally posted by unityemissions
The sense of self comes from the feedback mechanisms. I really can't make any sense of the rest. We DO experience changes in brain states, AS sensations. Why are you separating these? How odd!

Brain states are simply correlations between the physical vehicle and perceived behavior, but the brain is still hardware, nothing but mechanical moving pieces.

The mind is the entity that responds to this experience.
The physical parts of the brain are no more part of your mind than your left toe is.

The brain is simply the synthesizer of the different senses. Our body reaches out into the external world for information and our brain turns this into a message that we “feel”, into part of our mind.

This is why our experiences change “us” because they become part of “us”.

We cannot be physical, we are innately abstract, we respond to the physical world as a feeling.

We are the culmination of feelings.

reply to post by Psychonaughty


Nothing. There is nothing in between thoughts. If we are thoughtless, we don't exist. Whether you're aware of your thoughts or not, they take place constantly.

Is there a point? Who knows, truly?

Not I.

Why do we have emotions?

Why do experience Dejavu?

Why do only use 5% of our conscious mind and not the other 95% as I've heard it told?

I was hanging out with my wife and a friend one time not too long ago, and in the middle of us just hanging out I remembered the exact thing I was experiencing at the moment. I knew what was about to happen and everything. At this moment I had the opportunity to change what I remembered was about to happen. As if to change something that happened. Other than that it was exactly as I remembered I just got to change what it was I wanted to be different. Maybe we live and live again to correct things in our lives until we meet some sort of eternal enlightenment where we exist in another plane? I don't know. I certainly can't accept that this is it and when we die we're dead. It just doesn't make any sense. Why would we think so much about it, why would we have feelings about it at all that it would even cross our minds? The stories of NDE's and people meeting with their family members during NDE's seems to me that we do actually have a meaning and we do meet back up with others after this world or plane of existance. How I wish I knew all the answers! But then what we have to look forward to?

Hope that makes some sort of sense. I'm just trying to hear others perspectives.

Edited for errors.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by asking79]

My take:

We are living in a simulated universe. An advanced species of life created a simulated universe (think the Matrix), and thus her we are. Maybe it was made as a test to see how things would advance and evolve, maybe it was made as a game (think The Sims), or maybe it was made as a cruel joke.

Everything in this world is too perfect to have been created by chance. It makes sense for this reality to be a simulation, with data entered into a computer and out pops everything around us.

Now, what happens when we die? That is entirely unpredictable, unless we figure out the simulation.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by Double Eights]

reply to post by Monts


Yes.

I believe in many lifes.

I remember in parts some of them.

Fragmented memories.

"The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal." "It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals… and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some strange new disguise."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

reply to post by Psychonaughty

Any scientist will tell you that nothing is 100% proven.

Science = Scientist arguing against other Scientist over "Facts". These facts aren't even facts if there are opposing sides to them being in any way legitimate.

So the honesty of science is it's ultimate downfall in your opinion?

I am not arrogant I just bring the message. That message of not faith but trust.

The arrogance is evident from the hypocrisy. Science is wrong and can never be right, but you can openly claim truth without showing truth, but ask that we "trust" that truth without reason but say that its not 'really faith'.

Instead of wasting energy to fight my arrogance why don't you forgive the arrogance for the greater good.

I won't forgive your arrogance because we both know your smarter than that. Your not stupid, your just arrogant. You have a capacity to think critically, and you do use it to an extent, but that arrogant hypocrisies and contradictory arguments hinders that capacity to flower and grow. You can be better than that, and I fight for you to be better than that as I can't discover reality alone nor can I discover reality by blindly "trusting" those who claim truths without showing truths.

I believe our consioucness moves onto another level of being after we die. it lives... but it doesnt remain the same as we know it.

Everything in this universe is connected in ways we will never understand. I dont see how a living creature who has been on earth for a number of years could just die and never have any energy leftover. doesnt make any sense to me.

reply to post by sirnex


Sirnex, If you do not forgive me than the wheel of kharma continues onward innocently balancing itself.

Don't you see? If we forgive eachother and forgive ourselves than the paradoxes are solved.

That is all humanity needs to learn is forgiveness and utter innocent unconditional love, that love that keeps us existent for ever and ever. This type of mindset would free humanity of it's negative karmatic debts which we continiously see with war etc....

Just stop for one moment just stop all thought all worries and just be.

All is one.

Namaste brother, Namaste.

I am a rational being. Sorry, but your reasoning seems like hogwash, yet again. The reason my sense of self is fairly consistent is because of genetics, mostly.

Nah, you are far from rational. Your entire argument rests on just a single assumption that you are your brain, which you have not challenged. This makes you no different to a religionist who believes in something, say the resurrection or judgement day, without challenging it.

Fortunately, I have a good grasp of logic and brain science so I can pretty much destroy your arguments one by one.

The memories, attitudes, beliefs, thoughts and social relationships are a product of the brain in action. Without a brain, none of these are possible. Not one. The fact that your personality is different based on the external environment shows quite a bit about your character. I'll leave others to fill in the gap.

You are not really justifying how they could be possible with the brain. You are simply arguing your argument with your assumption[brain causes it all] This is circular reasoning.

It says something about my character that my personality changes in relation to different external environments? You are certainly an ass then, as there is considerable evidence in psychology that our personality changes in relation to our environment and several experiments that demonstate it(Milgram, Zimbardo etc) You would not behave in the same way if you were put in a crisis situation, compared to say in your regular comfort zone. You would behave differently in an interview situation, a date, a conference with the boss, a causal night out with your mates. This is basic social psychology 101.

What? This makes no sense whatsoever. Ever heard of memory? You claim to be logical. I just don't understand.

Memory does not explain your brain theory - which you still have not explained and I don't think you ever will. By using the term memory you are making an appeal to a psychological entity, not a physical entity. The next question you need to ask is where does this memory reside? Does it reside in your brain? Actually it doesn't. If you look at the neuroscientist Karl H Pribram, who founded the holographic model of the brain, he demonstrates that memory does not reside in any single part of the brain, but rather it is distributed across the brain from a non-local souce.

The memory is basically a feature of your stream of consciousness which is connected to the conscious agent(your enduring self) This memory requires a storage location, but no such physical storage location has been found. That is because your brain is constantly changing and regenerating and as a changing medium it cannot provide ground for your unchanging self and its memories - which give it a sense of sameness of identity. Pribram's experiment demonstrates this by showing that the location of memory is actually non-local to the brain. Even after the brain suffers major trauma or loss of a huge portion of its matter, memories are redistributed across the brain.

So memory does not actually reside in any part of your brain in the same way memory resides on the hardrive of a computer. It is a complex and mysterious process and still no scientist knows where it is. That is because, I argue, it is not a physical thing that can be measured.

The sense of self comes from the feedback mechanisms. I really can't make any sense of the rest. We DO experience changes in brain states, AS sensations. Why are you separating these? How odd!

You clearly missed the point. Let me spell it out for you...again. You experience sensations, but you never experience brain state changes. I gave the example that I never experience my serotonin chemicals surging, what I experience is happiness. Therefore the experience is something other than the chemical changes. They are not the same.
It was once believed brain state change = experience by behaviourists known as type-type identity theory, but this was soon defeated in neuroscience. If brain state changes are the same as experience then why do they have different properties? One is a physical process and the other is a non-physical process. This is known as the hard problem of consciousness in neuroscience and it is an unresolved problem. The soft problem of consciousness is finding neural correlates for experiences, which is no problem as we know there are neural correlates for every kind of experience.

If you do want to prove that the brain is actually causing conscious experience you would have to solve the hard problem of consciousness. And if you do solve it, then you would have done what neuroscientists and neurophilosophers have not been able to do for decades. However, I doubt you are going to be solving it, seeing as I am having to educate you on the basics of neuroscience and neurophilosophy. And this is ironic, as you are the one arguing it's all caused by the brain and I actually have more knowledge on brain science than you

One word. Genetics.

None of these problems have one word answers. These are some of the hardest problems in philosophy of mind, neuroscience and neurophilosophy and countless books have been written on this area to try and answer these questions. I think you should appreciate this and stoping being so ignorant and behaving like an ass with me.

Prove that the brain is causing the conscious experience, and if you cannot, stop behaving like an ass and accept that you cannot prove this, you just simply believe in it.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

Originally posted by sirnex
reply to post by Psychonaughty

 

Scientists will never prove that the brain is the mind.

You are so arrogant.

It isn't arrogant it is simply a fundamental aspect of the mind.

It is the opposite of the brain.

It is the opposite of physical.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
Prove that the brain is causing the conscious experience, and if you cannot, stop behaving like an ass and accept that you cannot prove this, you just simply believe in it.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by Indigo_Child]

I will accept that this is belief, if you do the same of your view. We both know that this can't truly be proved either way. I do agree you are more educated than myself. I do accept that I was being an ass. My apologies. Let's just agree to disagree. I can be wrong. For sure!

As for the problem with memory. I don't think this is much a problem. Your saying it's non-local doesn't equate to it not residing solely in the brain. Only that it's not simply one specific area, for each individual memory. Holographic is one metaphor that would make sense. Also seeing it like a raid-like redundancy would suffice. At least I think so.

I'm willing to accept the possibility that the mind is more encompassing than the brain alone, but don't think their is much more than theory and belief here. Much like my belief that it is solely a function of the brain. It seems we don't yet know for sure.

Once again, I apologize for being an ass. Peace.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by unityemissions]