Why so many people–including scientists–suddenly believe in an afterlife

Simple, everybody accepts some form of higher power when there is fear of death.

reply to post by wildtimes


Wow! My thoughts exactly. One of the greasons I'm so deeply opposed to immortality, and most eloquently phrased too. If I live long enough, I will eventually have all the answers I want. How do I then move on? The short answer is, I wouldn't. And being alive when I'd rather be dead scares me more than anything else. The simple truth is, I'm more afraid of life than death.

Having had NDE's, I guess that qualifies me to speak on this topic a bit!

I think the topic of "life after death" is quite the interesting one. Being how I am, I have also thought of different processes where such things could actually occur. The only questionable facet I have run into (for my own perspective) is that the brain-based perspective lives on entirely intact, as if simply walking through a door and into another room. Not to say that isnt what happens, but it doesnt seem logical or in line with my own experiences. I guess there is a sense of irony in that...

In that sense, it is a drastically different experience. Its "life," but not "as we know it."

Going into how I think the actual process works, in current cultural terms, would be quite a long post. Not that I am opposed to that as my history will show...

Its quite a funny thing to be told by a doctor "You really, really shouldnt be alive. Obviously you are supposed to be here."

reply to post by Serdgiam


And we're glad for that.

reply to post by Serdgiam


Hi Serdg!

I'd love to hear about your experiences beyond the 'veil'.
Thanks for chiming in!

aerial
i DONT know about that one, all I see is a link "amazon" . Doesnt really prove anything.
People just trying to push their religious agenda as usual, thats how I see it.
They're just trying to make a quick $$$ off the gullible

.

Brain is excellent at creating illusions through drugs and even death once it shuts down.
Now the funny part is ONCE iT SHUTS DOWN for good, thats when the illusion
of hell and heaven stops existing. I dont think theres been any actual studies
of people coming back to life after a day to few days, where the brain finally
shut down.

Here's one to think about then, suppose because you are filled with so much empty space and everything is more tangible than you are, then maybe life is an illusion?

Your whole life is remembered in your brain. Sure, you have DNA that shows your eye color or whatnots and where your ancestors came from, but since your whole life memory resides in your mind alone, then it's all illusion? And your conscience, being as it is only in your mind, may create the illusion that you are sitting at your computer reading words on a screen. But that's in binary then html. All an illusion because the binary and html had to be decoded for you to understand it.

Movies are an illusion because it is merely a manipulation of light and the persistence of vision makes you believe all those 72 fps of still images are actually moving. Have you felt a little ill? Recognize there..ill is the first part of illusion.

As we are 99% empty space, then we don't really die at all. Life is the illusion. If we are 99% empty space, then everything else is more tangible and real. And since we are 99% empty space, then it's our soul that keeps us alive, because that 99% relies on electro-chemical processes, but what makes those electro-chemical impulses fire throughout our bodies? Your brain then seems to be alive, as long as it gets the impulses and since the brain has the power to contemplate itself, then the brain is telling you that this illusion of life is real, when it actually is nothing more than a response. But the conscience has the power to create within you a personality that does not result from electro-chemical processes. You might say it is all just energy, only the electro-chemical process is energy.

Only 1% dictates that we can feel and move, but the 1% is noting compared the non-tangibilty of what we perceive as the rest of us. But the 1% is what responds to the impulses. So what is it about the other 99%? It is dictated by the elitist 1% that wants to live and keeps responding to the impulses. Why dismiss NDEs when this present life is an illusion anyway? Perhaps that world is more real than this one.

I am sleepy as I write this because it is my first thing in the morning. All this rambling came about because my body responded to an elctro-chemical process that woke it up. But it took my mind to think and sit at a tangible keyboard and make a statement that will go across the world, through satellite, into your computer for you to read. Illusion of electricity to make you believe that a real person sat and typed this, but it would not be understood in your mind unless your mind believed it. And since your mind believes the illusion of another intelligence, then what is your mind comprised of? Nothing at all.

Therefore, life and you and I are illusions.

reply to post by WarminIndy


Illusion or no, it shouldn't be taken for granted.

Wildtimes:

I believe with every scrap and cell of my earthly being...that death is NOT the end.

Fair enough. That's what you choose to believe and give opinion on. I myself, disagree entirely with it. I choose to accept that physical death is the end, and that upon death's completed process, every single human entity once again ceases to exist, just like they didn't exist before they were conceived and birthed.

Like you, I have studied this subject for many years, decades in my case. I'm in my fifties and began as a teen in the early seventies. I started out from a neutral stance, and remained objective without making a decisive conclusion up until around my late forties.

Why did I take it upon myself to study this subject? First and foremost, I was a reader of books. I like science and philosophy, and quickly learned that the best philosophers are those whom interpret scientific results correctly...we need more philosophical scientists. One particular area of philosophical interest was the 'mind/body' problem, which years later was joined by the consciousness problem, what the Australian philosopher David Chalmers calls the 'hard problem' of consciousness.

Anyway. Assuming post-mortem consciousness is fact (as you do), one would logically seek evidential data to support this opined conclusion. To do this one must ask questions, that is to say the right significant and poignant questions. Questions to ask are...

1) What is 'mind', and what is 'consciousness', how do they interrelate with each other and the physical body, or are they in fact the same thing?
2) what is/are the power (energy) sources for mind and consciousness?
3) what is it that survives the complete physical destruction of the human body?
4) what mechanism allows for survival, and what power (energy) source drives it and sustains it?
5) if we are to use the term 'spiritual', what exactly do we mean, and how do we apply the previous 4 questions to it?

These are questions you cannot ignore, because if you do, you automatically negate your own belief and opinion into the realm of wishful thinking.

I'm not after you supplying the true answers to these questions (nobody can), plausible hypothetical answers will do, but they must be backed up by solid objective logic, must be reasonable, and must not appeal to, or be driven by, emotional already inculcated belief systems. It is important to step out of the comfort box.

I don't mind telling you that I found the subject of post-mortem survival very frustrating, especially when trying to anchor it in the real world. Raymond Moody's 1976 book "Life After Life" seemed to offer tantalising glimpses of a phenomenon that I had first read about in Plato's 'Republic' and the story of Ur. Of course, Moody's book was not a scientific paper. but simply a collection of anecdotes for which Moody coined the term 'near-death experience' (NDE). For me, the poignancy of NDE (especially in the early days) was not it's imputation of an 'afterlife', but the empathetic immersion of consciousness that allowed for true experiential karma to be delivered directly and instantly into the experience of the NDE'er during the so-called 'life review'.

That for me was the crux, the fulcrum around which our existence seemed to revolve. The concept of the life review gave existence purpose and meaning, and placed physical life experience within a tutorial context. It really appealed to me, and I thought to myself (somewhat naively) that if NDE could be proven to be what it imputes, then people living the physical life experience might change how they act and behave and think towards one another? This thought drove me to my self-adopted lay study, which is still ongoing, but not with the same amount of passion.

Studying NDE does affect one's weltanschauung, it certainly affected mine, and I have to say that it did not affect it positively. I ended up with a life similar to that of some NDE experients where it destroys or cuts all the connections one has made with other people, including spouses and family members, relationships become fraught and strained. I was effectively an NDE experient without having had an NDE. To some degree, one's perception of other's actions and behaviour becomes almost nihilistic and off-putting. The conventional goals of society become faults, they become selfish and insular and repulsive. To save my sanity, and to begin to re-enjoy my life, I had to extricate myself from the changing mindset occurring within me, unfortunately the damage had been done, and it left its influence upon me.

The problem was that I became too empathetic, and it wasn't balanced out by actually having undergone a NDE, the experience of which would have validated the empathy I was feeling and trying to live by...all it did was to generate hate and mistrust and suspicion. A situation I am still in.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sociopathic or emotionally unstable. If anything, I am angry at myself for not being able to perceive the direction it was taking me. I was only able to extricate myself by reaching an obstacle within an hypothesis I had come up with on how 'consciousness' was generated through quantum energy correspondence. I could not, and still cannot, uncover the energy mechanism for post-mortem conscious survival?

My hypothesis on consciousness generation would be valid for post-mortem consciousness, in that the energy mechanism would be the same, but it is the transition from the physical body to whatever other body that cannot be accounted for. I am quite aware of the various layers of bodies of which man is supposedly comprised of, but there is no energy source on which they can draw their sustaining or maintenance. Just as their is no energy source that can sustain and maintain a fully disembodied consciousness, one that does not have the 'silver cord' connecting to the physical body. Bear in mind, these are all hypotheses. They have no scientific validation.

reply to post by elysiumfire


Thanks for that thoughtful reply. Interesting that we are on the same "timeline" - my 'search' started in my teens as well, back in the 70s...and has continued to this day.

I wonder, have you read any of the books I linked? Especially 'The Physics of Consciousness' by Evan Harris Walker? Yes, quantum mechanics have a lot to do with it.

As far as being "too empathetic" - well, I have that quality myself, and it has gotten me into some predicaments that were painful to extricate myself from - but I wouldn't wish it away.

Sorry for your feelings of hatred, distance, etc. I don't find that to be my experience at all! But, I've not had a formal NDE on which to base my own beliefs, and yes, some people (PMH Atwater, for one) had trouble "reintegrating" after her three events. She became "in love with everyone", and it upset her family - her daughter told her, "I don't WANT you to 'love everybody else' just like you love us. You are our mother! We are supposed to 'trump' other people when it comes to your affection and empathy.

So, I see how it would be disruptive for some people who hadn't expected what they discovered/experienced. Perhaps it has to do with whom one chooses to be surrounded by (social circle of choice or 'created' families).

Thanks again. I don't know that it'll be solved in my lifetime, but, like I said above, I don't necessarily WANT to know ALL the answers, I am a life-long learner. A study-bee, not a worker-bee. A thinker-bee, not a drudgery-bee. I'm 55 now. And still learning, still healthy, and going strong; luckily I now have a situation where I can devote myself to learning, studying, philosophizing, writing, and contemplation.

Cheers!

AfterInfinity
reply to post by wildtimes

 

Wow! My thoughts exactly. One of the greasons I'm so deeply opposed to immortality, and most eloquently phrased too. If I live long enough, I will eventually have all the answers I want. How do I then move on? The short answer is, I wouldn't. And being alive when I'd rather be dead scares me more than anything else. The simple truth is, I'm more afraid of life than death.

edit on 3-11-2013 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

I love the way you expressed that AI. It makes a wierd sense, but, sounds like that riddle, wrapped in a conundrum...alive when you'd rather be dead, but more afraid of life than death, and 'deeply opposed' to immortality...

Å99

reply to post by akushla99

I love the way you expressed that AI. It makes a wierd sense, but, sounds like that riddle, wrapped in a conundrum...alive when you'd rather be dead, but more afraid of life than death, and 'deeply opposed' to immortality...

Thank you. It was nothing but sincere and heart-felt.

reply to post by elysiumfire


You say that we did not exist before our conception, so then we do not exist after we die? Our only known world is premised upon "I think, therefore I am"?

Did I have the power to think at my conception? If I exist solely within this realm of reasoning, then do I no longer exist because I don't have the power to reason? You posit that we only exist within our lifetime, but have you known people who have died and you retain their existence in your memory? You remember them as living and you might say that is their former existence, that they ended with their grave. But if they no longer exist at all, and since nothing means nothing, then even your memory of them should not retain them in your reasoning. But your parents live on in you, you carry the DNA of ancestors that once existed, and exist in you.

You could say that the physical body no longer exists, but then again, what is the physical body comprised of? Physical DNA. If you have DNA passed to you from your parents and their parents and so forth, then they do exist in you.

I am the sum total of my ancestors. I exist because they existed and through DNA they still exist. My mtDNA Haplotype is T2b, and even though I didn't exist in Syria, a woman did, a woman whose DNA resides within my body. She had the DNA while she existed and so passed the existence down the line to me.

I have no children, so it ends with me, however, my sisters do have children, so it goes on further. And I have 2.9% Neanderthal, and people say they are extinct, but here I am in 2013 with Neanderthal DNA. How interesting is that?

Existence isn't just this lifetime.

Wildtimes:

I wonder, have you read any of the books I linked? Especially 'The Physics of Consciousness' by Evan Harris Walker? Yes, quantum mechanics have a lot to do with it.

I hadn't heard of Walker before, so I 'googled' his book on Amazon. I see that it has been associated with Capras' book - which I have. I'll do a little bit more research and might download on Kindle. Thanks for the reading matter.

As for the negativity I associate with being too empathetic, it's a complex situation. I'm a realist by nature, many may find me bullish and abrupt, and perhaps a little abrasive, none of which are aspects of my true character. Let's put it down to a defence mechanism. We are a very predatory species, not just towards other animals, but especially to our own species. My own life experience certainly bears that out. I have learned to trust on merit, but I no longer give benefit of the doubt, so I am quite guarded with people. Add in my English reserve, and I suppose people may consider me somewhat distant. It's just an outer-shell, that's all.

Regarding a quantum mechanism for consciousness generation, it is something I am utterly convinced of. Of course, cellular mechanisms play a vital role in the moderation of consciousness, as do the electro-chemical mechanisms; but also, the very form and structure of our body is equally a moderator that determine the type and expression of consciousness.

Consciousness is not a thing or object, but a condition. What we term 'mind', is nothing more than the quale perception of that condition. Of course, there are layers to consciousness: the ever-present conscious state (condition), and beneath that, the sub-conscious state, that which we are not self-sentiently privy to...and for good reason. What (according to my hypothesis) imbues the organic organism with consciousness?

Quantum particles interact through the fields surrounding their nucleus. The actual pieces of condensed matter themselves do not come together. As their surrounding energy fields begin to interact, a number of 'effects' arise, which we are all familiar with. However, I hypothesise that within these effects, a non-noticed 'resonance' arises which in energetic terms is the sum of the interaction. That is to say that the sum energetically equates to the intrinsic energy values of each particle, and also includes the energy wave or 'instance' that caused the interaction in the first place.

This 'resonance' lasts only as long as the interaction. Once the energy wave that caused the interaction has gone, the particles revert back to their rest energy phases, and no longer retain correspondence with each other, and thus the resonance dissipates. This resonance is the energy that places the organism into the conscious state (condition), because the very same mechanism operates at quantum level within the very fabric and matrix of our bodies.

At some point along the evolutionary line, the faculty of memory became active in life forms. It is this that really sets our species apart from other species, and it cannot be emphasised enough just how important this attribute and faculty is. Without memory, there is no 'entity of person-hood', and when we discuss post-mortem conscious survival, we are referring to the survival of this entity. If post-mortem survival is fact, the physical body is nothing more than the incubator of the entity, whose true existential nature goes way beyond anything we can imagine. Maybe NDE does impute something of it?

The body and brain do not generate consciousness, they moderate it, along with all the electro-chemical mechanisms. Even when we sleep, we are still to some degree conscious, because the mechanism is still ongoing, chemicals in our brain simply dampen the motor circuits, and of course, we dream, for physical positional shiftings, psychological cleansing and assimilations of experiences into memory - which is the subconscious.

From birth to death, the entity (the person) emerges as a psychological construct held in long-term memory, and evolves in tandem with the physical body, but whereas the physical body is accountable to entropy and the 2nd law of thermodynamics, the mental construct isn't, which is why we in our fifties, perceive ourselves - in mental terms - in our twenties. The body tires and grows old, but the entity doesn't tire or grow old once adulthood has been reached.

There is absolutely no doubt, and certainly no argument from my side that, for want of a better word, 'spirit' does emerge at birth and matures at adulthood. It did not pre-exist its birth, and is unique to the body in which it emerges. As the physical body grows and matures, so does the spirit (entity) and it is flavoured and expressed through the emergent personality and character that arise out of life experience assimilated and captured in long-term memory.

The question is: does this entity survive the destruction of the physical body which houses it? Based upon my study, no it does not...it simply dissipates, because the power source that sustained it is gone.

reply to post by wildtimes


I have only talked about it with one person, a very dear, and "mostly atheist" friend. In the end, words were far, far too limiting. My friend said to me that perhaps it is a personal experience, and in that, a true representation of the grandeur of what is.

Everyone will find out for themselves, sooner or later.

I find the inclusion of quantum mechanics quite interesting in this field though. It would involve a great deal of effort to explain fully, but having just woke up, Ill talk about how I feel the actual process of such a transition works.

First, I believe that the physical, material universe is a medium. I essentially refer to this medium as space-time, and in that way, it is a medium like water with its own specific attributes/celerity/density (of sorts) etc. When we view things in the quantum (such as the double slit experiment, LHC, and several others) we are starting to look just outside of the medium of space-time. I visualize this a lot like being in an air bubble inside of water (I like thought experiments!).

Inside space-time, time is relevant. Outside... not so much. I think that one force that pervades both is magnetism. But, as magnetism goes through the medium of space-time (like a bullet through ballistic gel), it creates friction when it is fully inundated in the medium. This friction happens at the celerity of the medium, or the speed of light. There is a lot more to all of this, obviously, but simply put; this is how I feel the mechanics in place are working.

In an induced electrical field, we also "pull in" a magnetic field that accompanies it as they are, roughly speaking, the same force. The induced electrical field of our own body would have to be included in this. There are many variables that affect the efficacy of this generated field, but that part is going on a tangent of sorts.

In this way, I think that the "spirit" is the induced magnetic field that is given form by the electrical field that induced it. In much the same way as a harddrive in a computer, it can "store data" using this method. Though, the data that is stored is a combination of the multitude of electrical fields from the human body, and not just the mind. Because of this, the experience is vastly, vastly different. In the human body, everything is "parsed" by the brain. While the other parts of our body are always there, this makes up the vast majority of our experience. When things like OOBE are experienced, I feel it is essentially using the brain to parse the magnetically stored data, and I think it is much like what happens in an NDE.

Well, thats a portion of how I think it operates, anyway. Hopefully it was at least entertaining, and at best, intriguing.

reply to post by WarminIndy


Do you know of Bill Bryson? WONDERFUL author of nonfiction. I own nearly (if not) all of his books.

One is titled "A Short History of Nearly Everything" (

reply to post by wildtimes


Yes, I have heard of Bill Bryson.

As for Elysium's assertion that the physical body is required for the spirit to thrive and continue, I have to ask this..have you ever experienced this, you are driving with someone in your car and you drop them off somewhere, but you still feel their presence in your car? I have felt that.

And when you remember a passed love one, or even an enemy, aren't feelings raised in you toward that person? They still have the power to cause you to feel something about them. But since that is only in the mind, what about the many people who have reported seeing their loved one come back and give them a message, only to leave again?

Mothers with children know their children need them, when the children are not physically present.

WarminIndy:

You say that we did not exist before our conception, so then we do not exist after we die? Our only known world is premised upon "I think, therefore I am"?

I do not make the assumption that seems to be implied in what I quote of you, that because we did not pre-exist our birth that we must therefore not continue to exist after we die. That is not what I have stated. You need to rewrite what you mean or revisit your logic.

Our experience of the world is not predicated on Descartes' confused logic. Quale perception is in fact the last part of the experience, it is not separate from it...Descartes made the same error-filled distinction, by separating the 'observer' (himself) from the 'experience'. Such separation is a mental mirage due to latency in informational processing in the organism.

Did I have the power to think at my conception?

Interesting question, but with all due respect, what has it got to do with anything? Your brain wasn't formed at conception, and was still forming at birth. The only experience you had whilst in utero was of the sensations of being in utero. These sensations along with sound will probably aid in forming the connective neurons that conjoin to form the structure of the evolving brain. The fact that foetuses show 'rapid eye movement' (REM) makes some scientists believe that they dream. These cannot be dreams like yours and mine, the embryo has not had the experience of interactions with others (and no, twins don't count either, before you go down that route).

You posit that we only exist within our lifetime, but have you known people who have died and you retain their existence in your memory?

What a silly question of obviousness. In January of 2012, I sat beside my mother's hospital bed for the last six hours of her life. Yes, I retain her memory, but does she herself survive the death of her physical body, not as a memory in my subconscious, but as an independent surviving entity in her own right, separate and distinct from my memory of her? I do not accept that she does. She has gone for ever and now ceases to exist, except as a memory in me, and those of my brothers.

...if they no longer exist at all, and since nothing means nothing, then even your memory of them should not retain them in your reasoning.

Lol. Pray tell, how does this compute, and from whence did it arise in you? Seriously, your logic cannot be this demonstrably flawed?
Question: How does the deaths of my parents act upon my memory of them like an erasure?

You could say that the physical body no longer exists, but then again, what is the physical body comprised of? Physical DNA. If you have DNA passed to you from your parents and their parents and so forth, then they do exist in you.

The physical body is a veneer of dimensions. Quantum, atomic, molecular, cellular. DNA forms at the molecular, but all this has nothing whatsoever to do with the entity my mother was, for instance. It merely means physical organic characteristics are passed on...the entity isn't.

Existence isn't just this lifetime.

In terms of one's own individual entity, it is. There is nothing after death, but by all means, choose what you want to accept, even if it flies in the face of logic and reason.

RothchildRancor
Simple, everybody accepts some form of higher power when there is fear of death.

I've never bought that one. A friend of mine says I couldn't possibly fear death as much as he does if I believe I survive this life consciousness wise. Yet I know no one that is more freaked out by death than myself. So what if I believe in an afterlife? I still have to die. What does or doesn't happen afterwards has no bearing on my fear of dying. I still have to die and for me, it's mainly the idea that physically, something will kill me. I derive little if any comfort from believing that my consciousness will continue. The fear of death for me is just something I have and that's about it. It feels the same now as it did before I believed in an afterlife.

reply to post by thebtheb


It seems to me that you are not afraid of death. You're afraid of not knowing how it will happen.

Okay, folks...what about THIS case? Just found it this morning, about a woman who received a heart/lung transplant from a teenaged young man, and when she awoke, began liking the things HE liked, which she'd never liked before.

She even looked up his family and introduced herself.

Evidence that the "brain" is not the 'seat of consciousness', I guess?

One of the strangest cases in the history of dream research is described in the documentary, The Secret World of Dreams. It describes the amazing story of a woman named Claire Sylvia, a 47-year-old drama teacher from Boston and former professional dancer with several modern dance companies. In 1983, she was diagnosed as having primary pulmonary hypertension - an often fatal, rare progressive disease which causes blood vessels in the lungs to collapse. Her health slowly deteriorated until she was forced to give up her job and became home bound. She was also dependent on oxygen and could only move around in a wheelchair with great difficulty. A heart-lung transplant was her only hope and the risks involved were considerable.

Soon after the transplant, she began having strange and incredibly vivid dreams about a young man she didn't recognize. Eventually, Silvia realized that the young man in her dreams was the 18-year-old organ donor whose heart and lungs resided in her chest. Through her continuing dream contacts with her donor, she learned a lot about him including his name. She then decided to do some research to find out if this "heavenly" information was correct. Her research proved that it was indeed correct. Silvia then met the young man's grieving family and Silvia shared with them the amazing story of her contact with him through her dreams. Claire Silvia died in August of 2009 from a blood clot in her lung; 21 years after her heart-lung transplant. The following is the detailed account of her amazing story:

Evidence of the Afterlife / Dream Connection (SELECT ITEM 5 if this just takes you to the top of the page, though)