Thread: Life After Death... What do you think?

Hello Everyone.
This is my first post here at TheScienceForum, so I'll make it something interesting.

I have always wondered about Life After Death, Near Death Experiences, Out-of-Body experiences, etc. Where do you go after you die? Is there eternal life?
I do not know enough to believe there is or there isn't. I would like to get some other knowledgable ideas and perspectives on this idea.

Speak up!

Originally Posted by Wellz

Where do you go after you die? I

most people go 6 feet under, unless they're cremated, then they go in a vase on the mantlepiece

Haha nice

I don't know. I believe there is a kind of life after death, many things have suggested that. But I can't say with absolutle certainty that there is.

Originally Posted by marnixR

Originally Posted by Wellz

Where do you go after you die? I

most people go 6 feet under, unless they're cremated, then they go in a vase on the mantlepiece

Haha lol. True. Maybe my body will.

Originally Posted by Wellz

Hello Everyone.
This is my first post here at TheScienceForum, so I'll make it something interesting.

I have always wondered about Life After Death, Near Death Experiences, Out-of-Body experiences, etc. Where do you go after you die? Is there eternal life?
I do not know enough to believe there is or there isn't. I would like to get some other knowledgable ideas and perspectives on this idea.

Speak up!

I think we should stress the notion of life *after* death.

I also think we should stress the notion of Life too!

How can we say life after death?

If there was existence after death then it wouldn't be like life as we know it in physical form.

maybe the question should be : is there anything after death, or is death the final word ?

And as always, we perhaps could consider the notion that "you" the entity is dependent upon life, making it meaningless to talk about 'you' going anywhere after death. Or certainly in the same league as asking "What happens to the words after you rub them out with an eraser?"

Originally Posted by sunshinewarrior

And as always, we perhaps could consider the notion that "you" the entity is dependent upon life, making it meaningless to talk about 'you' going anywhere after death. Or certainly in the same league as asking "What happens to the words after you rub them out with an eraser?"

Good point!

There seems to be a common thread through a lot of religious and non religious beliefs that we simply dissolve back into the 'all' or the 'one' etc

And i can see an element in truth in this perhaps.

For example the words that were rubbed out are not there any longer, but the graphite still remains in existence albeit stuck to the rubber now or as the dust we blow off from the paper, but it still exists.

I say jokingly (or maybe not cos it's a nice idea) that i would like to be buried beneath a cherry tree when i die so that my body can feed the tree as it grows and then my body will become the tree, and if my grandchildren visit and eat a cherry off the tree they can say they are eating Grandma!

But perhaps this is not so far from the truth.

Our bodies go back into the all of earth or the air. Even when cremated our bodies produces gases which contribute to the atmosphere.

The question is what happens to consciousness after we die.

Do 'I' still exist?

Can our consciousness exist without the brain?

I'm not sure about these mediums who say they can see and talk with a dead relative. I don't believe we stay our 'selves' after we die.

But then there has been numerous accounts of reincarnation that are difficult to explain.....so?

??????

Hi, this is my first post too and this is a subject I have thought a lot about.

I'm guessing from my experience of living for the past 50 years that some people do naturally think about what comes next after we die. But I also think for a lot of people this question hardly ever enters their head. Sometimes being confronted with death itself, maybe in the family, makes people think, hold on, 'where's my mum gone?' For others, like myself, the question always seems to have been there.

Having what I can only term as an enquiring mind, I took myself off to college thinking somehow the answers to life's questions could be found in books and in other peoples teachings. On my educational journey I studied, theology, philosophy, psychology, sociology . . . and I came to a strange conclusion! There are NO answers! All I discovered was a whole lot of people struggling to find answers to the same questions I had in my own head. I include in these 'people' the great thinkers, philosophers, religious leaders . . . ALL trying to come up with the answers to age old questions.

Now, I can tell you what it is like in New York because I went there this year. BUT, I can't tell you what it is like after we die because I havn't been there! I can buy a tourists guide to New York but I can't buy one for the place we go after we die.

So what do I believe about life after death? On a simple level, and as someone has already mentioned, we could indeed carry on after we die. We die, either we get buried or we can be cremated. Either way we go back into the soil, back into the oceans, back into the atmosphere, in that sense, after death we carry on as part of the universe we lived in, and indeed we carry on living in. And, our actual characters, the people we became, carry on in the minds and consciousness of others who knew us. As far as I'm aware these are the only 2 ways we could go on after we die.

All my lessons and discussions in college brought me no answers to such questions as where do we come from and where do we go?? Once I'd come to that conclusion I decided to concentrate on what I will do while I am HERE! And I became a special needs teacher. Though I thought I'd left the ultimate questions behind me, my experience as a special needs teacher brought those questions back to the surface with a vengence in some cases.

Just my thoughts, BARCUD

Originally Posted by BARCUD

So what do I believe about life after death? On a simple level, and as someone has already mentioned, we could indeed carry on after we die. We die, either we get buried or we can be cremated. Either way we go back into the soil, back into the oceans, back into the atmosphere, in that sense, after death we carry on as part of the universe we lived in, and indeed we carry on living in. And, our actual characters, the people we became, carry on in the minds and consciousness of others who knew us. As far as I'm aware these are the only 2 ways we could go on after we die.

Barcud

Welcome to the forums.

Nice points, well put!

cheer

shanks

Originally Posted by BARCUD

Now, I can tell you what it is like in New York because I went there this year. BUT, I can't tell you what it is like after we die because I havn't been there! I can buy a tourists guide to New York but I can't buy one for the place we go after we die.

That's a very good point and one i had considered before.

What we call life and the actual reality of living only exists in the moments and seconds of consciousness.
It doesn't exist in the past or the future, it exists right now.

So therefore as you rightly pointed out, it is difficult to describe to someone what a place such as New York is like because in the now it might be different to when you experienced it.

The same can be said for people, which is why it never feels right to me when we describe and label others as 'this' or 'that' because it's a false reality.

You are not the same person you were yesterday or a moment ago and nor am i. A person could spend part of their life being selfish, but then in a second could completely change because of a sudden realization, and become generous from that point forward.

Originally Posted by BARCUD

All my lessons and discussions in college brought me no answers to such questions as where do we come from and where do we go?? Once I'd come to that conclusion I decided to concentrate on what I will do while I am HERE!

Absolutely! The hippies coined the phrase 'be here now'....so they weren't all spaced out all of the time![/quote]

Originally Posted by BARCUD

Just my thoughts, BARCUD

Thank you Barcud and thought provoking thoughts they are!

Another thing that intrigues me is this.

If someone were to die for longer than they should and then be revived, their brain would be damaged and so they would be a totally different person.

But would they?

Would they still have the same consciousness that they had before?

Would they still be the same person?

That is an intriguing question and something that has had ne thinking for a while but in a different context. To me there seems to be so many people with dementia. These people are kind of like the ones you are talking about. Outwardly they look the same from month to month, but boy, behaviour and characteristics change like you are experiencing life with another person! I wouldn't like to believe that inside they are the same person before dementia set in and they continually spend the rest of their lives screaming to get out. Do you know what I mean?

As a connected subject, I have read recently about near death experiences. These are similar to what you talk about but the brain hasn't been starved of oxygen. I can't remember where I read it, but there has been funding to fund study into near deathexperiences in hospitals. Basically, people have stated that for a short period they experienced dying and found themselves looking down on themselves. These people have been able to provide certain details about their experience but now in certain hospitals an experiment has started. Objects are being placed on top of shelves around the room which can only be seen from above! So anyone experiencing near death and find themselves looking down would be able to see these objects. I found that quite interesting. What do you think?

I tell you what I don't want to happen after we die! Try this one, when we die we meet all the people we have known in our lives that have passed on. Then, all these people are congregated together to watch a film of every second of your life! Imagine it, how embarrassing would that be?

Sikhism? I'm hoping you will share your question.

BARCUD

Originally Posted by BARCUD

That is an intriguing question and something that has had ne thinking for a while but in a different context. To me there seems to be so many people with dementia. These people are kind of like the ones you are talking about. Outwardly they look the same from month to month, but boy, behaviour and characteristics change like you are experiencing life with another person! I wouldn't like to believe that inside they are the same person before dementia set in and they continually spend the rest of their lives screaming to get out. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah...wouldn't that be hell!??!!

I think that is probably the case for people who have had accidents and say, paralyzed from the waist down, and having to have someone do everything for you, feed you and put you on the toilet etc etc etc, but still having the same conscious awareness. That must be awful!

To be honest i think that true consciousness exists as a 'something of nothingness.'
I think consciousness begins as the ultimate experience of the all that mystics describe.
A baby can't distinguish anything as separate from it initially and gradually develops an awareness of things existing outside and apart from itself.
So this baby consciousness is perhaps the same as the type of awareness mystics seek in union with the Divine.
As we develop, this awareness fills this void, and replaces this feeling of oneness with division. The ego further separates itself from everything else as identity develops.
And maybe dementia is a return to this type of awareness. Perhaps then it isn't as scary as we imagine from our awareness?

I do think that this idea of existing after death with the same consciousness as we have now is the ego talking and wishful thinking perhaps.
Identity and personality is a fragile structure that can readily collapse with brain damage.

Maybe when we die, our awareness dissolves back into the 'all' again and we become 'one' with everything as is described in mysticism. And only the essence of us remains as the essence of life itself, the spirit, but without the identity we formed here on this physical plane.

I do believe there are planes of existence, and this physical form is just one amongst several.

Originally Posted by BARCUD

As a connected subject, I have read recently about near death experiences. These are similar to what you talk about but the brain hasn't been starved of oxygen. I can't remember where I read it, but there has been funding to fund study into near deathexperiences in hospitals. Basically, people have stated that for a short period they experienced dying and found themselves looking down on themselves. These people have been able to provide certain details about their experience but now in certain hospitals an experiment has started. Objects are being placed on top of shelves around the room which can only be seen from above! So anyone experiencing near death and find themselves looking down would be able to see these objects. I found that quite interesting. What do you think?

I have heard that too, and it will be interesting to see the results.

My theory above collapses at the evidence of people coming back and being able to grasp and recount what they experienced.

It also probably collapses at the evidence of reincarnation experiences

Originally Posted by BARCUD

I tell you what I don't want to happen after we die! Try this one, when we die we meet all the people we have known in our lives that have passed on. Then, all these people are congregated together to watch a film of every second of your life! Imagine it, how embarrassing would that be?

Yes it would be!

It's bad enough thinking that dead people might be able to see you sitting on the loo or getting up to all sorts of things you wouldn't want them to!

Maybe it's more forgiving and chilled out in the after-life and they don't really care what you do. Let's hope so!

Originally Posted by BARCUD

Sikhism? I'm hoping you will share your question.

BARCUD

Oh I am intrigued why the first Guru, Guru Nanak and Sikhism in general now, advocates that guidance can only be got from God (the Guru) and following a human Guru is discouraged.
Yet there was a lineage of ten Gurus which had the authority to instruct the Sikhs.
I was puzzled by that because it contradicts.

Originally Posted by BARCUD

I tell you what I don't want to happen after we die! Try this one, when we die we meet all the people we have known in our lives that have passed on. Then, all these people are congregated together to watch a film of every second of your life! Imagine it, how embarrassing would that be?

That, funnily enough, is what I was actually thinking about yesterday morning in the shower. I was idly pondering the idea of death (we went to Florida 10 years ago and I was thinking "at least it wasn't 40 years ago" and that got me thinking about the fact that in 30 years, I will be close to death and then I was wondering what happens when you die). Anyway, having read this thread, I would love to think that "I" stay around as a floating entity able to travel the world without the bounds of a physical body, able to see and hear everything, possibly even travel through time and space. However, I think it is more likely that our consciousness, although not lost completely, goes back to something like it was before we were born.

Death will be like it was before you were born. The physical world existed, but you did not. All that time passed, but you knew nothing of it and that will be the same again, nothing will happen, but you will not be aware that nothing is happening because you will not exist. To be honest, I don't like the idea of it, but it's not like it is going to upset me. It's just wierd to think that I will not "be" any more.

Of course, the event of being born may have created something which is now not able to be "lost" and so it might not be the same as it was before birth, but whatever it is, I don't think it will be enough for us to carry on as we were, so my answer is no, there is no life after death.

(ps, I am also a new forum member)

T1GER, ah yes, when we die there is 'nothing'. ( and like you, I don't like the idea of this at all )This is what many people assume and I think this is one of the many reasons why religion came into being. The questions are, where did we come from? why are we here? and where are we going? I believe one of the reasons religion came into being was in response to these questions. This thread concerns the 3rd question and many religions have their own different answers as you know. If only we could pick and choose ! And surely the law of averages says one of them must be getting near to the truth.

Does the world exist without our consciousness ? mmmm, I'm not sure about that one. Did the world exist before we were born ? Will the world exist after we die ? If we are not conscious of the world and not experiencing the world then does/can it exist ? As is often the way, questions throw up questions that throw up questions . . .

BARCUD

Barcud, I agree, people did want answers to these questions and religion is one way to get an answer. However you have to "believe" that the answer is correct and it knows it can not prove it. In fact religion does not have to prove anything because it works on the concept of belief alone.

As for the world existing without us ("us" being the human race in general) then, yes, I do think it would exist. The reason is because there are consciousnesses out there which are not a humans. All animals have some sort of conscious and there will no doubt be other life forms beyond our planet which display some amount of conscious. This is of course if the world exists only because of a conscious mind, which I do not believe is required.

If you want "life after death", you may as well want to prove people wrong, people who wished you were "dead".

I guess you are too young to understand that.

What else can I think, given your question??








.

There is possibility of astral travelling, evidence of an invisible finer body in the physicaal body. The best is use sleep, because of during a sleep the astral body go out itself. Tested regularly travel in the mind before falling asleep. Preferably in a well-known places for verification.
And tere are practices like magick evocations, proving the existence of that power the world, angeĺs, demons, pagan gods, natural spirits... but the evocations of human spirits is a problematic, so I think that after death is majority a reaincarnation and people could be in next life born in many various worlds. Eastern texts of Yoga, like Shiva samhita says, that people who takes a supernatural powers siddhis may have born in worlds of a natural spirirs, or angels and gods, or demons too.

I believe in scientific reincarnation.

The point of being aware to dead to aware again will be instantly, relative to your own experience of time. So death is just the process of change and since you cant perceive time when unaware it will be an eternity of life.

Ofcourse the person i am now will be gone since the next time i am aware the knowledge of the past life will no longer exist.

In a depressive way i believe our lives now are nothing else than a super advanced biological process. I consider life as being a sentinent lifeform able to perceive the reality around us.

If existence of sentinent life is always true, then unliving matter will always become living matter at some point and thus reincarnation will hold true.

Its extremely hard to explain what i mean. But to put it simple, you are living matter aware of your own existence. When the body you experience life from dies - it will be inevitable that you will experience it again if the universe is cyclic (as i believe).

If you do a bit of investigation into yourself, in psychology and the mind, you will see that the world is actually quite different from what you read in the newspapers. Quite different. I've found the more you look the more different it seems. Why, should death be any different - why should death as described in the newspapers not turn out to be something quite different.

For instance, people think they are their body, when actually there are a lot of other organisms living in this structure (bacteria, parasites). But in ordinary life people are unaware of this.

People think they are doing this and that, when actually their motivations are perhaps unconscious. It's not what it seems.

The question:
a)are the body/brain and soul one? is the soul just a product of the body/brain like the voice is the product of our mouth? is the soul just a part of the body/brain? is the soul an independent entity?
b)do the soul/spirit and body/brain die at the same time or is the soul/spirit separate from the body (does it live after the body is dead or can the soul live again (after death of a person) in another body/living creature or...).
c)is the soul determined/written/dependent by/in/of the DNA-genes-zygote (=>leads to the brain-body)? What is it with clones in the "pure" meaning? Two persons with the same DNA/genes, should be with same looking brains and bodies...what is with their soul? is it the same or different? If it is the same, then one can live again by "pure" cloning and the soul is written by the DNA/genes/zygote and is a product of the DNA/genes/zygote instructions. If it is different, then it seems that the soul is separate/independent from the body and DNA. Why do some twins speak of telephaty experience (they have similar but not the same brains and DNA)?

My understanding is that life as we know it has never ceased. If consciousness is the byproduct of the interaction of matter, or lack there of, than it would seem that life as a whole may never end. What was once a mere molecule managed to become a human which believes itself capable of self awareness. It seems our little molecule has made something greater than itself which can in turn continue the cycle. What's to say the little molecule didn't have the same awareness?

If our consciousness is not a result of chemistry, than it must come from somewhere else. If it does than it would seem it's existence is not dependent on the flesh. Maybe it could move around. But why not move around in life? So it would have to be somehow attached. Would it want to be attached or is it forced? Or maybe it's just under the same illusion as the flesh is. It recognizes itself and believes itself in control but, in truth is is stuck.

I think I've lost myself.

Is there life after death?

It's kinda like asking can the Devil ever walk with God. If you don't believe in that stuff the question's meaningless.

If there is no life after death, then there is not death before life.

If there is no life after death, then who is going to take Hitler to the court for his crime.
He should be punished for his crime.

I think time travel is real, but has built in mechanisms to prevent contradictory timelines from being possible. If that's the case, then you never really die, because the moment of your death is eternally accessible. A time traveler from any time in the future could go back to that moment and *kind of* save you. They have to do it without creating a contradiction, so you must still *appear* to die.

I guess I choose to believe that some future generation will decide to be generous and take pity on their poor, mortal, forebears.

So why is the afterlife so confusing? Think about where they take you after they save you. Probably it's the far future. You or I would feel about as out of place there as a cave man might feel at Starbucks.

There iare two views in our life toward this problem and explanation of our life in the world:

1. We are a point in this world, we start a day and we will end in some near future.

Usually when we argue about life we do our arguments in this model.
But there is a second one theory that most the times unconsciously we are in this type of the world.

2. The world starts with me and will end by me.

So I am somehow immortal, since as time exists I will exist.

Seemingly, besides many reasons, immortality that we usually discuss about is a type of reconciliation
between these two models.

In the first model we extend the life such that the immortality in the second one be preserved.(*)

I wish to say that the above approach(*), eventhough we usually do it automatically, is logic also.
Since, seemingly there is no way to decide decesively we are either in the first model or in the second one
so it is rational to have a model that satisfies both of these models.
Hence, to have immortality in the second one we should have a life after death.

Therefore:

"At least, the life after the death is fully plausible theory."

Moreover,

"This theory is more plausible than the theory of mortality of human being."

Even when we have no special belif or religion , it seems the above two statements are true.