Is Death An Illusion? Evidence Suggests Death Isn’t the End

I don't know how old this is but I did not find it posted.

www.robertlanzabiocentrism.com...

Interesting and a bit 'heavy' but seems reasonable to me! Keep an open mind.

After the death of his old friend, Albert Einstein said “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us … know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

New evidence continues to suggest that Einstein was right – death is an illusion.

Our classical way of thinking is based on the belief that the world has an objective observer-independent existence. But a long list of experiments shows just the opposite. We think life is just the activity of carbon and an admixture of molecules – we live awhile and then rot into the ground.

We believe in death because we’ve been taught we die. Also, of course, because we associate ourselves with our body and we know bodies die. End of story. But biocentrism – a new theory of everything – tells us death may not be the terminal event we think. Amazingly, if you add life and consciousness to the equation, you can explain some of the biggest puzzles of science. For instance, it becomes clear why space and time – and even the properties of matter itself – depend on the observer. It also becomes clear why the laws, forces, and constants of the universe appear to be exquisitely fine-tuned for the existence of life

Consider the weather ‘outside’: You see a blue sky, but the cells in your brain could be changed so the sky looks green or red. In fact, with a little genetic engineering we could probably make everything that is red vibrate or make a noise, or even make you want to have sex like with some birds. You think its bright out, but your brain circuits could be changed so it looks dark out. You think it feels hot and humid, but to a tropical frog it would feel cold and dry. This logic applies to virtually everything. Bottom line: What you see could not be present without your consciousness.

There are more examples in the link.

I can accept the possibility of there being matter and even life forms which exist outside our limited sensory organs and thus can not be processed by our brains.

Years ago I read about a fish borne 'disease' which reversed your sense of hot and cold. Dangerous as you would gulp a cup of scalding coffee thinking it was cold. What if that happened worldwide and there was no cure. Mankind would have to make a major brain adjustment is very short order.

reply to post by oghamxx


I have been writing philosophy based on a many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics for about four years now, I am going to put up a thesis paper about it on ATS one of these days. It seems like that is the direction science is taking us, which is interesting.

So star and flag for being an important issue in the coming years!

So if a person believes in an afterlife then they'll have one, and if they don't believe then they won't? Is that the proper way of looking at the theory or am i way off?

There is no death there is only life. Life still exists even as form changes.

Even God does not know how to unexist self.

In my experience and research the concept of death is taught to us in order to wipe our memories and keep us perpetually enslaved here. You can guess where here is.

reply to post by oghamxx

Consider the weather ‘outside’: You see a blue sky, but the cells in your brain could be changed so the sky looks green or red. In fact, with a little genetic engineering we could probably make everything that is red vibrate or make a noise, or even make you want to have sex like with some birds. You think its bright out, but your brain circuits could be changed so it looks dark out. You think it feels hot and humid, but to a tropical frog it would feel cold and dry. This logic applies to virtually everything. Bottom line: What you see could not be present without your consciousness.

Programed by the creator.

or even make you want to have sex like with some birds

Call me childish but this sentence just made me think that it had been written by a scouser like. I had to re-read it a few times to actually understand what it was really trying to say haha.

This sounds really interesting and right up my street. I will definitely be reading more into this after work!

I have often considered that we can not grasp other states of existence because our consciousness is fed by our less than full spectrum sensory organs.

Gifted people, not me but maybe those like Edgar Cayce, and drug taking shamans have there conscious fed from beyond out five senses.

reply to post by oghamxx

I can accept the possibility of there being matter and even life forms which exist outside our limited sensory organs and thus can not be processed by our brains.

From what we have learned in the past century, you'd be crazy not to be open to that.

But, when we say death is an illusion, it's not exactly what you might think of an afterlife.

Our consciousness is a mystery. Many fields have tried to study it and explain it, and the best and closest explanation is, when multiple parts of your brain and working in tandem, compared to just the basic functions, that is consciousness. There is a distinct difference if you do a brain scan.

That said, your memories, feelings, fears, loves, all of that, is programmed in neuron pathways and synapses in your brain. That part, indeed, dies.

I'm open to the possibility that there is much more to this universe than we see and know, and that some essence of me carries over, but that is merely talking at an esoteric energy type level, not talking about me remembering who I was, or having that "wiped". When the body dies, so does that identity.

But really, in essence, you never truly cease to exist, as with everything in this universe, you simply change forms.

your body is rendered back into basic elements, and unless you are one of the few, that essence stays on this planet until the end, when it will be spread out back into space and possibly start a whole new cycle.

This area is where Religion and Science can co-exist.

Originally posted by ISHAMAGI
You can guess where here is.

Where do YOU think we really are?

Great thread I was very intrigued. Some say that our soul is made of energy aka light which can store information so what if all of our memories, feelings, etc can be backed up to our soul before we die and sent off into the cosmos heaven. We see spirits are orbs of light as light is the quickest way to travel through dimensions. I do really think that when we die we do get uploaded from physical body.

reply to post by MrUncreated


In a sense we are 'trapped' in the electromagnetic spectrum.

I have read that over 90 percent of the universe is comprised of dark matter, that which does not respond to the EM spectrum. IMO the time is near when we will 'discover' additional spectrum beyond our five accepted senses..

That said, your memories, feelings, fears, loves, all of that, is programmed in neuron pathways and synapses in your brain. That part, indeed, dies.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. I am a skeptic, but I've seen some compelling evidence for reincarnation. For myself, I had some strange dreams when I was a young child with adult-like emotional content and experiences I'm not so sure I could have imagined at that age. I also find the phenomena of dreaming/intuitions of loved ones after they have died (within hours/days) to be too common to be coincidence. Again, I've experienced this myself, and it was very intriguing. Do I believe in an afterlife? Souls? Reincarnation? I can't say for certain one way or the other. But I think there is interesting and compelling evidence that something of the consciousness does indeed hang around somehow/someway after the brain has ceased to function.

I got this quote from the link:

Wave your hand through the air – if you take everything away, what’s left? Nothing.

And this guy's an MD? Anyways, I thought it was funny.

Bottom line: What you see could not be present without your consciousness.

That's because you'd be dead or unconscious. This isn't rocket surgery. You cannot perceive it because you cannot open your eyes. But to assume it isn't there because you are asleep is ridiculous. Does anyone else really believe this?

The brain needs the body to survive. Without the body, the brain would shrivel up and rot. Hence the body, and the demise of the body, isn't an illusion.

So the outer world is the work of our brain? That would mean our brain itself is also the work of our brain. This seems to me a reductio ad absurdem.

Tell me how we are able to see without eyes. How are we able to feel without skin? How can we hear without the ears? How can we stand and walk without the bones and muscles. How does the brain get oxygen without the lungs, and blood without the heart?

Consciousness doesn't explain anything because it it doesn't exist on its own or outside the body.

reply to post by oghamxx


It has been proven many times now in physics research that, light, and matter do indeed behave differently in the presence of an observer. For example, light travels in particles and waves. When an observer no matter how far away is going to see the light it always travels in particles, when it won't. Be travelling in the presence of an observer it always travels in waves.

If their is no connection between cosciousness and the world around us, this would not be the case. Walk outside at night, look up. The light from those stars and galaxies was transmitted long before you were even born, yet somehow know that you would be observing it, on a planet that does not yet exist, countless lightyears away, billions of years from the time it was transmitted. Yet it was emitted in particles that your eyes can observe, instead of the waves you cannot. This phenomena is best described in the double slit experiment.
en.m.wikipedia.org...

So I would say we are very far from actually observing what is around, let alone what is out "there".

Death isn't the illusion.

Life is.

Researching NDE'S(near death experiences) is also another area that will lead to this same conclusion. A lot of the books out there concerning NDE'S are written by non religious highly sceptical physician's. Their research has in many cases changed the way they look at death and an afterlife.

Originally posted by oghamxx


After the death of his old friend, Albert Einstein said “Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us … know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

LOL I don't think that's what Einstein meant. I think he meant that the past, present, and future are all happening now. Don't remember how that theory goes, but I've heard it few times.

Originally posted by oghamxx


Years ago I read about a fish borne 'disease' which reversed your sense of hot and cold. Dangerous as you would gulp a cup of scalding coffee thinking it was cold. What if that happened worldwide and there was no cure. Mankind would have to make a major brain adjustment is very short order.

I've also heard that if you wear eye lenses that make you see everything upside down for an extended period of time, when you take off those lenses you'll find that your eyes have adjusted and you still see upside down.

But, be it fish or eyes, how does this offer evidence of life after death?

Originally posted by reddwhite
reply to post by oghamxx

 

For example, light travels in particles and waves. When an observer no matter how far away is going to see the light it always travels in particles, when it won't. Be travelling in the presence of an observer it always travels in waves.

You're saying that with no observer light travels in waves, and when we try to measure the light (to observe), it goes back to particles, right? Right. I know this is what the field of quantum physics wants us to believe, but I'm still not buying it. It's too much like magic.

reply to post by jiggerj


I'll try a 3 in one reply.

Einstein was saying just that. The DISTINCTION is a folly, they are all happening at once.

Life after death. Define death. Your consciousness (spirit/soul?) no longer responding to your 5 senses? Freed of those primitive burdens it can then focus on other realms.

Waves vs particles. It defies explanation given our current knowledge. Is 'something' in our brain/eyes sensitive to the waves but since we have no dedicated sensory organ to accept/handle them we translate them to easily handled particles? Just a thought.

I'm not YET ready to accept that the waves travel at the same speed as the particles. Run with that and a galaxy a billion light years away may indeed be very close in wave years????