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

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.”

He's suggesting that our perception and experience of time is an illusion. This doesn't negate the finite nature of our physical existence. It's only extrapolation is that if we alter our perception we can imagine in a tangible way (such as with hallucinogenics) that our finite existence is other than that. However, from another observers point of view this may resemble mental instability or even a vegetative state.

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.

This separation from the truth of our physical existence would likely lead to a speedy extinction. Perhaps i'm missing your point!?

I do agree that there's far more to reality than we perceive, but i don't think a re-wiring of our senses, or some kind of synesthesia will help us since this is subtracting what we're now capable of, rather than building on it.

Interesting topic though

Originally posted by jiggerj

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.

My sentiments exactly, I've always thought that the "SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE" explanation was a big cop out for "I DONT KNOW WTF IT MEANS!" he, he! What are your thoughts on that one? I would love to know...

Well the fact that we exist now is evidence that we will always exist in some way.
If our lifespan is about 75 years on average then considering that the universe so far is approximately 14 billion years old and counting, the odds of being in a state of existence is astronomical if this was the only time we would ever experience existence.

The universe could continue on for countless years so if I only had a 75 year timespan then the odds are that I would have been and gone already, or not yet come to pass. To exist right now and acknowledge it would truly be a miracle against all odds if it was the only one we get.

But if we have an eternal existence then I would expect to exist in some form 100% of the time which would make sense why I exist now.

reply to post by oghamxx


So where's the evidence? All you are doing is postulating theories and possibilities. That's not evidence. I get really sick of posts with false, sensational titles. You want to speculate? Fine. But please don't waste other people's time with misleading post titles/headers.

Originally posted by andrewh7
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I have seen some compelling evidence that brain damage affects personality, cognitive reasoning, and memory. Your brain is an organic computer. If I shoot my desktop pc, it will stop working properly. You damage components of your brain, it also won't work properly. If you're claiming your consciousness is independent of your brain, then brain damage shouldn't have any effect whatsoever.

What if 'personality' is a rather superficial layer of physical human existence? Like, say, a graphical user interface? A way to make interactions with others easier?

We're now very familiar with cloud computing. If you shoot your desktop, it will stop working properly - but the data and programs will still be out there though unable to operate effectively on your computer.

Now that we have cloud computing technology and capacity - albeit in a rudimentary form as yet - it's far easier to comprehend that consciousness may also be out there, existing interconnectedly everywhere/nowhere.

Originally posted by kalisdad

Originally posted by Dynamike
No, no, no. The only thing that causes the structure of the atoms of our brain to have consciousness is the continual wave enumerated through the structure of our brain.

We live at about 40 "frames of consciousness" each second. This means are momentary gaps of unconsciousness in our brains but are overlapped like continuous waves, somewhat how the brainwave function occurs. This operates off of the quantum superposition theory.

To be clear, any structure can have moments of consciousness. A star can have consciousness, or parts of it perhaps, at random times. However, since there is no brain structure the information would not go anywhere.

Your consciousness might mean everything to you but it is not much of anything. In fact it is nothing. You will never regain consciousness after you die. You will never experience anything else. Others will, but it does not matter because you will be dead.

Only the continuation of waves of consciousness matters, and each of ours is not even a sand on the beach of what the scale of the universal consciousness is; especially what it will be. I'm sorry but you all would likely require hundreds of lifetimes of thought to begin to understand what you are a part of. We are but a mere tool and ironically we believe we are the only living thing in the universe. We believe that space is nothing and time can not exist without it. We believe that a rock is not living. In fact, the rock is as much a part of what you might understand as life as any of us. If you could only understand the great lengths of the process that brought matter into this womb. If you could begin to understand that the laws of physics and the substance of matter which the universe is made of is the equal of the DNA in your genetic sequence you may begin to understand what your life is part of.

Look at my posts in this thread.

we do live many lifetimes here, repeating until we understand things. we then choose to stay here and help others find their beliefs, or we go back fulfilled with the experiences we had.

I also believe in the consciousness of our universe including all matter being a form of it. the problem lies in humans not being able to seperate themself from their own experiences. we have no way to know what its really like to be that tree or rock, so we dismiss it just as being part of this reality beyond something to look at.

people talk a lot about understanding, but the reality is, few of us in this world have had the chance to figure things out on our own. throughout history, the majority of the population has been forced one way or another into beieving what they are told to believe.

edit on 27-6-2012 by kalisdad because: spelling

You state all this in a matter-of-fact manner, yet how can you be so sure? Any evidence to all that you stated? What made you so 100% sure of all that you said. I didnt notice many (if any) "mays", "coulds" or "woulds" in the explanation you gave.

Expand on your sources or facts, please.

reply to post by Snoopy1978


I'm sure that I have no way of understanding how a tree perceives life. and looking around at all the humans, I am fairly sure none of them understand it either.

my beliefs in reincarnation are something that I have spent a lifetime formulating. it includes flowing with a cycle of energy throughtout many lifetimes... which to me explains the reason we just don't like that person we just met, despite not really having a reason. as well as explaining the concept of soulmates/love at first sight.

the concept of ghosts also fits well in my reincarnation beliefs, as I think ghosts are souls that either do not understnad their condition, or perhaps they are the ones that ultimately had no beliefs and ended up in a void, partially in this reality and partially not.

Ultimately its my faith in this, that makes not only makes my life easier, it makes death that much more of a comfort. While I might miss the option of sharing life with my loved ones, I know that its not the end of things when I die, so death itself scares me very little. Having spoken with a few people about my concept of life and death, I have been told repeatedly that my thoughts and words on the subject bring comfort to them. which is something I hope to be able to bring to anyone/everyone willing to hear my words without contempt.

in my opinion, regardless of what your beliefs are, ultimately faith gives one conviction to live life, and in the case of crazy suicide bombers, faith allows them to take their lives without fear of death.


ETA - as far as sources you requested... I recommend you check which forum you are in... how could I possibly quotes source for my own beliefs without just linking to other personal posts/blogs.

Here is a good NDE video. I have posted it before but some may not have seen it. Even the doctors are stumped.

Here is a short video of Stuart Hameroff talking about NDE. You should check out some of his other videos on YouTube. He has some great new theories on how consciousness works.

Originally posted by BS_Slayer

Originally posted by jiggerj

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.

How can one test such a theory without observation?

As I understand it, there are two observations in the experiment. The first observation is at the detector or screen where the particles hit. If only this observation is made then you will see an interference pattern indicating that the electrons behaved as a wave. When you add the second observation - at the slits - the result of the first observation changes. The interference pattern disappears and you now see two bands, indicating that the electrons behaved as particles.

Since some are declaring their IQ; I am very dumb with an IQ that hovers around the square root of negative 100,or 10i. So please forgive my imaginary idiot comment.

In regard to the dual slit experiment; it has a very simple solution: first and foremost one must realise that the wave particle duality is just that; there is alway a wave and a particle aspect present and it takes both sets of information to constitute an interaction, or observation.

Now let's look at an example using light from a hydogen transition from n=2 to n=1. It is important to note that the transition includes information about the change in the electromagnetic state and the gravitational state of the hydogen atom that does the emitting.
If the information is coded such that the electromagetic is in wave form and the gravitational is in particle form and both are entangled; then it is easy to understand that whilst the wave is free to diffract, the particle is not.

(Forgot to mention that the particle size is given by the usual R=2Ghf/c^4; so it is always sub-Planck.)

Therefore if one assumes that both sets of information are required for an interaction, or put in another way an observation; then the solution to the seeming conundrum is found.
In one slit there is always found a wave (undetectable) and in the other is always found a wave and a particle, that is the one that is detected.
Of course which is which cannot be known ahead of detection, and any attempt to trick it will lead to a collapse of the wave.
Simple eh.

In regard to life after death, I'm not sure except to say that there is definitely information after death.
What I mean by that is that information is never lost, and as such the information that sums to you at the time of your death, is available to someone else that is living with the required skills to obtain that information.
Does the information of the departed continue in a semi-autonomous sense, or in other words live.
I don't know!

Great thread.

My take is that death is an illusion only as much as much life is an illusion.
We are living in a dream, a long dream, with smell-a-vision and more.
When we 'awake' in the after life (in our spirit form), this earth, and the entire physical universe will seem very unreal and insignificant.

Science will never be able to prove it. It is not going to happen that way. There will always be theories, but conclusive scientific proof with concepts such as these is a contradiction in terms. You are trying to prove something with tools and techniques that don't even exist in the first place. Trying to catch a rainbow in the palm of your hand.

There are two ways to prove it:
Physical death (personal experience)
Meditation techniques from ancient India (personal experience)

A scientist can prove it to himself, thats all.

reply to post by oghamxx


This goes nicely with a theory I've been sort of developing over a number of years which ties together everything paranormal. I'm sure others have developed the same theories, or something close and I was going to start a thread about it. It's too complicated to go into a lot of detail here, but basically it's this:

There are many parallel universes, possibly even an infinite number of them, existing on an infinite number of timelines. Each one of us exists in many of them at the same time. Each universe is just slightly different than the one "closest" to it. The farther from your current universe you go, the more differences there are. Since there are so many, an infinite number of posibilities exist. In another universe for example, you are a millionaire, somewhere else you are living on the streets, and in others you are everything in between. We routinely slip from one universe to another many times throughout our lives, and always during death.

Ever come close to having an accident, and by some "miracle" it didn't happen? Well, it really did happen, but you slipped into another universe upon your death, or just before the accident occurred. Slipping into another universe most of the time causes you not to remember it happening. If you have a heart attack and end up in the hospital, you may have actually died in your universe, and slipped into another one where you survived without realizing it. When you have a lucky streak, or a streak of bad luck, you may have slipped into another universe temporarily.

You can also willingly move into another universe, and it's seamless in your mind. Ever hear about "manifesting"? People who have tried it say it works. They're not really physically manifesting anything, they are just moving to a universe where they have what they are trying to manifest.

Sometimes parallel universes collide and interfere with each other. Ghosts are just people who died in this universe but are still living in another one. When someone dies it causes a kind of vacuum and the "other" them becomes visible.

Psychics see into other universes, not this one. That's why even the best ones are wrong many times. They are looking into another universe and seeing a slightly different outcome.

Aliens know all this and have mastered travelling through parallel universes which is why their ships seem to defy the laws of physics.

At some point in your life you actually do die, either in an accident or of old age, and then you slip into a universe where you are just being born. This is why there are young children who seem to remember a past life in such detail.

Death is but a mere awakening from the dream of another you, how you wake will be reflected on how you lived up to that moment of awakening. No one can help you but yourself, no one will go with you, and no one will know where you will go but you.
But one can prepare wisely, the day one would like to awaken from the dream may be yours to choose, in what fashion and what mindset.
If a life lived in conscious awareness and remembrance of waking was cultivated, then lucidity and transcendence may indeed transpire. If on the other hand, a life was lived and wasted with a mind closed, well, it's elementary really.

Originally posted by andrewh7

Originally posted by Balkan

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 have seen some compelling evidence that brain damage affects personality, cognitive reasoning, and memory. Your brain is an organic computer. If I shoot my desktop pc, it will stop working properly. You damage components of your brain, it also won't work properly. If you're claiming your consciousness is independent of your brain, then brain damage shouldn't have any effect whatsoever.

Sorry, but your analogy is dicey at best.

Consciousness is like the electricity in your desk lamp. If you smash the lamp do you kill the electricity? No.
If you damage the brain, consciousness can not manifest properly, it does not mean you damage the consciousness.

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

How do you know that? That's myopic.
Kinda like how doctors used to say germs didn't exist because they couldn't see them.

reply to post by oghamxx


This whole existence is an illusion, Everything you think, do, experience. It's a school of sorts for you/I to mature, The soul.

Interesting concept, and sort of widely believed. Here's the way I see it...... God is the Creator, He exists as an Energy, albeit an extreme form of energy, one comprised of all that exists of course as the recipe is his. In Biblical teachings it has been said 'no man could see God directly and live'. To me this supposes that He is of such a stupendous energy form, it would be like walking into the Sun of our solar system and the results of such an endeavor. Just observing Him anywhere, would burn you to nothing, just an ash, thus man cannot be near or observe God. I think most grasp my thinking, or the concept. Thus, if 'no man could see God', it reasons that the only way you might be able to, is after death where your carbon based body would not be compromised. In an energy form you might then be compatible with the essence of, or energy that God is comprised of. God created man in His image. Thus, it would be reasonable to think, out of the same elements of energy, though surely dumbed down substantially. We might return to that Base energy at death and then be able to commune with God. Another scripture comes to mind.... 'man has not seen, nor imagined, the magnificence of heaven' ( wording close hopefully) but you get the jist there. So I'm thinking we are in such a reduced state of awareness that we could not even guess all the aspects of the realm of the expanse of God's throne and existence. Just look at the Hubble telescope pictures, now tell me those are not extraordinary, and maybe our future homes once we pass through the Vail of death....... into eternity. Death is not the end, it is only the true beginning. Death of this body is the beginning of real life , with no encumberments.

We could debate this till the sun grows cold and still have no proof. The only way we will ever know for sure, as individuals, is when it's our turn to die.
There are studies that say NDEs are real.
There are studies that say it's the brain hallucinating as it dies.
I'm in no hurry to prove either side.

reply to post by R0CR13

MY GOD YOU NASTY LITTLE TROLL!!!
MY GOD YOU NASTY LITTLE TROLL!!!

Originally posted by jaws1975
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.

If anyone hasn't heard of Dr. Melvin Morse, you should definitely look for one of his books in your local library. He is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington. Before he began encountering children who had NDEs he had absolutely no religious or spiritual beliefs, so his books are a good read if you are looking for something that isn't biased. He was able to come to his conclusions (that NDEs are a very real phenomena) without religion clouding his judgement.

He also raises a valid point by postulating that very young children for the most part are much better to study when it comes to this kind of phenomena, as they are still too young to have had their mind warped by religion, and most of them don't even know what an NDE is, so it's not likely that they are hallucinating what they expect to see.

www.near-death.com...
www.spiritualscientific.com...