Theories About Death

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


I've actually lucid dreamt of things, people, and places I have never seen before. If you are sticking by the past experiences does that mean I was reincarnated and these people, places and things are from then?

Originally posted by CHANQ
As a Past Life and Between Life Regression therapist, I have seen many people remember past lives.
.
It is your soul that learns through each incarnation---not your personality in this life time. That is why there is no need to remember past lessons. I have also done Between Life Regressions with many people who had no prior knowledge of what to expect during a session and they inevitably work their way through the spirit realm and have the same experiences.

So...my soul, my true self..is hidden in my subconsciousnes? With other words.. when a person dies he (or she) will return to their true personality (soul) ? Is the soul the result or sum of all previous life experiances. Can the soul remember previous lifes? If it can not..what use would reincarnation have.

Now that I am writing to an expert, I have this question too. Can a died family member choose to return and be born back into the family again?

THx

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
All evidence points to number one. But I think it wrong to assume that it's some sort of 'nothingness.'

Like a broken lyre, when the body ceases it no longer creates the harmony it did when it functioned, and every song it used to play is never played again. If one played nothing but beautiful music while he was alive, his song is sure to be replayed in the memory of others.

Nothingness isn't an option, as the materials of the body always get folded back into the flow of things. The only thing that ends is the song.

If the body is a lyre, who or what is playing it? It's simply an instrument with which to experience the physical.

Since I've had numerous contacts from my long-dead grandmother, I do not believe for one second that there is nothingness after death. I know for a fact there is something else.

Theory 1 for me. Theres no reason to believe any of the others.

What we are is in the brain. When the brain is no more, neither are we.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

When you look at the color red, what do you feel? What do you think? Are these ideas that are conjured at the sight of red ideas that define the color red? Or are these ideas you personally have ascribed to that color?

My point with those questions is that any idea is not absolute. Any idea will make connections to other ideas and then be defined by those connections. Quite often, it's not the idea itself but the connections we make with the idea that gives us comprehension of the idea. That's why it is so easy to control people. Form a connection, break old connections. You've just redefined an idea.

Let's bring this back to your post. You're talking about dreams being recreations...isn't that all we ever perceive? A recreation of raw data. We use someone else's comprehension to form our own impression. Our understanding is only as good as the understanding of those around us. As such, we redefine everything according to our abilities to define. You've seen a child draw a house? That's what I'm talking about.

Recreations? Every word we speak is a recreation of raw data, formatted for communication. And inevitably, some of it is lost. Some of it is colored by our opinion, our bias, our personality. It's a piece of artwork intended to convey an idea between separate minds. What is that but a recreation?

Yes I agree. And that was my point.

If you're interested, read John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. He reasons that no ideas are innate, and that humans are born with a mind like a blank slate that we fill with experiences from which we derive our ideas. I would have to agree with him.

If I dream of a house, it is because I have experienced houses. If that house is gold, it is because I have experienced the color gold. If that house smells like roses, it is because I have smelled roses. etc. etc.

If a blind man doesn't dream in forms, it is because he never experienced forms. Dreams are mere abstractions of waking life and are in no way profound.

Originally posted by AwakeinNM

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
All evidence points to number one. But I think it wrong to assume that it's some sort of 'nothingness.'

Like a broken lyre, when the body ceases it no longer creates the harmony it did when it functioned, and every song it used to play is never played again. If one played nothing but beautiful music while he was alive, his song is sure to be replayed in the memory of others.

Nothingness isn't an option, as the materials of the body always get folded back into the flow of things. The only thing that ends is the song.

If the body is a lyre, who or what is playing it? It's simply an instrument with which to experience the physical.

Since I've had numerous contacts from my long-dead grandmother, I do not believe for one second that there is nothingness after death. I know for a fact there is something else.

I said it's 'like' a lyre, insofar as harmony is concerned, a broken body (dead) cannot produce harmony. I imagine you take metaphor literally more often than you should?

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Form itself is a definition. The purest type of thought is an impression. Something that cannot be communicated through translation, only felt directly. We are always forming reactions, judgments, classifications, references...the moment an impression is made, we have cataloged it and filed it away. We have given it a meaning based on our experienced. Since our experiences are undeniably limited, that means the understanding is limited. If our understanding is limited, that means our perception is limited. And if our perception is limited, then blind men are better off, for they have never worn blinders to begin with.

Is it any wonder that blind men are always represented as wise? They know the value of seeing without the five senses. They know how we put ideas in little boxes, how we define them and then keep those definitions even as our understanding outgrows them. We buy new clothes, buy new programs, buy new cars, and buy new licenses. But we don't get new definitions. We keep the old parameters because we've decided they are good enough. We think our five senses will tell us everything. They don't.

That's the whole problem with ANYTHING spiritual.

I sometimes think too of the whole Hallucinogenic Universe argument that it is sometimes had. So, what if we are not actually 'here', and this is all a game or program of sorts? I guess death as a matter of fact would be voided if it were so? Maybe its all like when you are playing a game on your PC, your character 'dies', but it's sitting somewhere in a stock pile so you or another user can play that character again? Maybe that's where Deja Vu and people that believe they had a past life comes from?

reply to post by AfterInfinity

I agree whole-heartedly. But as I've mentioned, even though they are limited, they are the only way to experience anything. In order to conceive of anything—spirituality, perception, any idea—we must first be able to experience. If there were no senses, there would, in turn, be no spirituality. The senses and the body are the conduit through which we fathom anything. To think of the body and senses as separate from who we are—every memory, idea, experience—is a grave injustice to ourselves.

The blind must be wise in order to make sense of anything while at the same time missing a sense. Now imagine a poor fellow without any senses. His existence would be that of an amoeba. He'd have zero ideas, memories and dreams, and I couldn't imagine what life would be like.

We already know what it's like to be dead.

-All of us have been dead for billions of years already.
--Ask yourself what you were doing, what was it like, and how did you feel 110 years ago?
How did you feel 1000 years ago? What about two years before you were born?

We've been dead once before.
-That is what death feels like

reply to post by canucks555


I'm pretty sure that's what amnesia feels like, not death.

Originally posted by SpearMint

Originally posted by misse2miss
i would like reincarnation personally it is just something i wish would happen.

And I think that's why many people believe what they believe, whether they realise it or not.

Well if 1 is true then it won't make any difference and you'd never know...

Law of Conservation of Energy:
"Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed, but may be changed from one form to another."

I strongly, strongly believe in the above. After you die, your brain ceases working and all that's left is the vessel (aka, the body) that enabled you to perceive your version of reality via your five senses. So there's a constant stream of communication between your brain and your body while you live.

According to quantum theory, atoms are relatively empty space due to the nature of electrons. If atoms are the fundamental building blocks of "matter", then everything we perceive as "reality" (including ourselves) is never truly solid in its ultimate nature. In that way, once your brain ceases to function, I believe that the distinction between "me" and the "external world" ceases to exist (your brain stops working --> your body cannot experience anything via your 5 senses). Thus, if you follow that logic, you (as a person) were never really "created" into existence- the conditions for your presence were already present to begin with, energy in the form of atoms. Therefore, you cannot every truly be "destroyed".

I hope this makes sense. I don't know, I've seen two people die before my eyes and it's hard for me to NOT think about this subject. It's extremely fascinating in the fact that we cannot truly know the nature of death nor can we ever truly know the nature of Reality as a whole.

Originally posted by CashStronomer
I sometimes think too of the whole Hallucinogenic Universe argument that it is sometimes had. So, what if we are not actually 'here', and this is all a game or program of sorts? I guess death as a matter of fact would be voided if it were so? Maybe its all like when you are playing a game on your PC, your character 'dies', but it's sitting somewhere in a stock pile so you or another user can play that character again? Maybe that's where Deja Vu and people that believe they had a past life comes from?

I like this. Living is a game but there is nothing hallucinogenic about it, unless you imbibe, we are real enough in substance and the game itself is real. You can't have a game without a game master who creates the game in the first place and sets the rules and who keeps everything up and running. If you look carefully enough you will see that every living thing is playing the game, they can't help but play because living itself is the game. Its called Big fish - Little fish but its not simply about predators and victims its more the interplay between the two where every predator is also a victim and every victim a predator and in the case of humans there are factors to contend with such as values, ethics, morals, love, justice etc etc to make it all the more 'interesting'.

Anyway maybe I'll do a thread on it sometime.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope

Originally posted by AwakeinNM

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
All evidence points to number one. But I think it wrong to assume that it's some sort of 'nothingness.'

Like a broken lyre, when the body ceases it no longer creates the harmony it did when it functioned, and every song it used to play is never played again. If one played nothing but beautiful music while he was alive, his song is sure to be replayed in the memory of others.

Nothingness isn't an option, as the materials of the body always get folded back into the flow of things. The only thing that ends is the song.

If the body is a lyre, who or what is playing it? It's simply an instrument with which to experience the physical.

Since I've had numerous contacts from my long-dead grandmother, I do not believe for one second that there is nothingness after death. I know for a fact there is something else.

I said it's 'like' a lyre, insofar as harmony is concerned, a broken body (dead) cannot produce harmony. I imagine you take metaphor literally more often than you should?

Dude I was agreeing with you and expounding a little bit with my own thoughts. Perhaps you are a little more combative than you should be?

reply to post by insightout


Energy can not be destroyed doesn't imply that energy is an entity. Energy cannot be destroyed is not a literal claim, it just means an object always has the possibility, the potential, to do work, i.e move in space, if acted on by a force.

Energy is a concept, a way of describing and measuring how objects move in space.

The body has energy like any object because it does work. Energy is only present when something acts on an object to make it do work. A static object has potential energy, in other words it has the potential to do work if some outside force acts on it, the energy is not a life of it's own. The energy in your body when you die doesn't go anywhere, it is converted to heat for composition, and finally nothing, except for potential energy.

Potential energy meaning the possibly of doing work. There is no actual energy, just the potential to do work, at which point energy is then exerted (work is done and is measurable).

The confusion comes from calling fuels "energy" I think.

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by bowtomonkey
There is a "life force" and this is a neglected area of science.

There is no evidence, and no reason, for us to be anything other than flesh blood and bone. Life is simply a product of time. If something is possible, and life is obviously possible, then given enough time it will eventually happen. In a finite universe life was an inevitability, and intelligent life an extension of that inevitability.

I find this to be limited thinking. Your theory doesn't dissolve the issue of "life energy" because in time this could have evolved too.

reply to post by ANOK

Finally some rationality. I thought I was going to go insane with this 'everything is energy' malarky running rampant here. Saying that something is made out of energy is akin to saying something is made out of volume. It makes little sense.

Yes I agree that everyone is confusing the technical term energy with the common usage, ie. electricity, heat, fuel etc.

Sheesh those are some profound questions.

If I look at various beliefs, religions and in particular other people's experiences like NDEs, "guardian angels", OOBE and similar I cannot simply IGNORE the theory there is "another physical plane" beyond THIS one and this life is only a precursor or some sort of "test".

I am quite aware those are often only "beliefs", but there is a general direction which exists for MANY thousands of years already (back to ancient cultures) - so I cannot simply discount this because many elements are very similar and I think there must be a reason for that.

The "problem" is that those theories cannot be verified...it is therefore in some way pointless trying to find out what the "truth" is.

BUT...if i look at it from a rational, semi-scientific point of view, I *know* that we all once did not exist, that is, before we were born So basically, we all once were dead already.

SOMETHING made us, made "me" born into this world. At some time, at some place etc.
It is therefore "logical" to conclude that this process might repeat after death although I am not big on the classical "reincarnation" theory. Who knows..in the next life we find ourselves on another planet or as an animal?!

From a spiritual view, the idea *makes sense* to me that there is something beyond this physical world, if we believe reports of people who had NDEs and similar. It is now more my belief that life here is a "test" where we need to learn to function as a collective consciousness. I BELIEVE there is a lesson to be learned with the ultimate goal that the ego with all its desires and needs needs to be overcome - a lesson where the ultimate realization is that OTHERS are more important than myself. As long as a "soul" has not matured to realize this, it might re-enter the physical world until this lesson is learned. Once the soul/we have learned that the OTHER individuals and basically everything ELSE is as important and more important than ourselves, we are mature enough to be able to stay in the "other realm" where we may become part of one collective consciousness or maybe realize that we are all, in reality, "one".

Originally posted by Itisnowagain

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by R0CR13

 

You're trying to tell everyone that everything is only energy, that nothing is solid, reality is an illusion and that if people try hard enough, they can walk through walls. Let's just say I'm glad you're not a scientist.

Nothing is appearing to be solid. Emptiness is form.
In a dream there is nothing there but it appears to be 'real', the dream appears to be full of soild things.

edit on 16-1-2013 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

In a dream nothing is solid, however; if you are having an out of body experience you see color, you can eat taste smell have carnal relations and in some cases feel pain (fell off a 20 ft wall woke up and was sore the next day bruises and all). Where was I; in 4D, testing myself? Does one progress from dreams to actual gross matter experiences as learning curves in a higher dimension? or is this attempt (experiment) to try to drag the dense physical form/from 3D into 5.3D?