Thread: After you die.

Originally Posted by Loaf

We die, we decompose. Technically we do become something else, but our brains are now gone and we as people are gone too. There is no magical force that can support our consciousness, memories, and everything else.
Think of it like a hard drive. Once a file is deleted, it is removed. It becomes freespace on the disk now, and a new file can be written onto it. But this doesn't mean that it is influenced by the old file, nor holds any of its properties.

I may not be able to prove there is no life after death, but its far more likely and reasonable than saying there is. It is you who needs to prove your beliefs, not the other way around.

Actually, what I'm asking is more simpler than getting you to prove something. I'm asking you to look into the reasoning you're using. I asked you: how does anything become nothing? Even erasing data on a hard-drive doesn't make it non-existent, it transforms it (and does it really become free space?). My point again, to re-emphasis, is that nothing can actually, absolutely, cease to exist. Things can transform, qualities can shift, but anything that can become non-existent is only part of the abstract concept itself and not truthfully. Therefore, death is not the end; non-existence does not allow for transformation, as it negates the nature of form.

Originally Posted by Mario92

That's the part I think is the most fascinating. When you die, you cease to exist. Every concern, every worry, every bad thought or memory, ceases to exist. You won't go mad with boredom thinking to yourself for all of eternity, or getting bored with some fictional afterlife. You just won't be around for anything. Rest in peace is just that...no turmoil, no conflict, no thinking at all. Sounds nice to me.

You're almost talking about two different kinds of death now. If you mean absolute death, then it also means that "rest in peace" and "sounds nice" can't apply either. In that sense, death is not possible, and these expressions only really mean something when talking about ego-death, which is not the common topic in "after you die" discussions. When people talk about "after you die", they're talking about when the body falls over and the 'life' seemingly vanishes. I'm sure you don't mean that at death you continue to exist, only in peace. That means it's not the death that most people argue about. Everybody would be killing themselves, if that were true.

Originally Posted by really

You're almost talking about two different kinds of death now. If you mean absolute death, then it also means that "rest in peace" and "sounds nice" can't apply either. In that sense, death is not possible, and these expressions only really mean something when talking about ego-death, which is not the common topic in "after you die" discussions. When people talk about "after you die", they're talking about when the body falls over and the 'life' seemingly vanishes. I'm sure you don't mean that at death you continue to exist, only in peace. That means it's not the death that most people argue about. Everybody would be killing themselves, if that were true.

I'm talking about stone cold fang dead. Nothingness. No conscious spark, no thinking, no sense of existing, no senses at all. Just nothingness. Silent nonexistence. Peaceful in the sense that nothing is fucking happening and never will, because you won't be around for anything else ever again.

Originally Posted by really

My point again, to re-emphasis, is that nothing can actually, absolutely, cease to exist. Things can transform, qualities can shift, but anything that can become non-existent is only part of the abstract concept itself and not truthfully. Therefore, death is not the end; non-existence does not allow for transformation, as it negates the nature of form.

What poor logic.
Yes, you are right. Technically, we don't become nothing. But we don't remember how things were in our previous form, so we aren't going to remember how things are now in our next. And I can certainly say that whatever our next form is, it probably won't be much more interesting than nothing anyway.

Originally Posted by Mario92

I'm talking about stone cold fang dead. Nothingness. No conscious spark, no thinking, no sense of existing, no senses at all. Just nothingness. Silent nonexistence. Peaceful in the sense that nothing is fucking happening and never will, because you won't be around for anything else ever again.

If you can say its 'peaceful' or 'silent', it's not non-existence. Non-existence = not possible. That's the point, and that's why it seemed like you were mixing concepts of death, because there's no death that actually makes one become non-existent.

Originally Posted by Loaf

What poor logic.
Yes, you are right. Technically, we don't become nothing. But we don't remember how things were in our previous form, so we aren't going to remember how things are now in our next. And I can certainly say that whatever our next form is, it probably won't be much more interesting than nothing anyway.

Well I guess that's down to your own opinion whether it's interesting or not, and memory doesn't really mean anything either, as these aspects of our personality tend to create perspectives that are reducible to inaccurate assumptions.

Originally Posted by really

If you can say its 'peaceful' or 'silent', it's not non-existence. Non-existence = not possible. That's the point, and that's why it seemed like you were mixing concepts of death, because there's no death that actually makes one become non-existent.

What arbitrary silliness. Silence: lack of sound. Peaceful: not disturbed by strife or turmoil or war. If you have no brain, no consciousness, and basically cease to exist, both of these are true. You won't be thinking so, because you can't, because you're dead. You won't perceive death as being silent or peaceful. You just won't exist. You won't have the means to detect sound, and you won't have the brain to process war or any sort of inner turmoil, which died when you did.

Originally Posted by Mario92

What arbitrary silliness. Silence: lack of sound. Peaceful: not disturbed by strife or turmoil or war. If you have no brain, no consciousness, and basically cease to exist, both of these are true. You won't be thinking so, because you can't, because you're dead. You won't perceive death as being silent or peaceful. You just won't exist. You won't have the means to detect sound, and you won't have the brain to process war or any sort of inner turmoil, which died when you did.

Silence is something that exists whether sound is present or not, just like peace prevails whether there is war or not. The former essentially contextualizes the latter, and both derive from existence. You cannot "play" silence, nor you cannot "create" peace, but both actually exist in either case, regardless of belief or viewpoint.

If non-existence was absolutely true, there'd be nothing to possibly ascribe to what it is. If you ceased to exist, there'd be nobody to perceive anything, nothing to be true, nothing to report and nothing to be possible. If anything, you can only talk about emptiness, but emptiness is an existent reality that includes both consciousness and arguably, to an extent, observing.

Originally Posted by really

and memory doesn't really mean anything either

Oh, I think it does. The afterlife is all about living on. When we die, even if we live on in a different physical form, we have died as people.
If you told me I would die and my memories, personality, and everything about me would die except my physical form would be recycled so technically I would become a frilled lizard, it wouldn't be any better than dying.

We are not living on. Our bodies are (technically) living on. Humans want to know that when their body perishes, there is somewhere for us as people to go. Not the other way around.

Originally Posted by Mario92

The problem with hypnosis: false memories. And more false memories. The human brain is an amazing thing...if you want to believe something, you can make yourself believe it. This is called delusion. Remembering past lives as a result of hypnosis or even under meditation holds about as much validity as the claim that I consumed three pounds of nails for breakfast today.

There may be inaccuracies and false memories, but past-life research isn't ordinary hypnosis. The hypnotists don't program you with special, arbitrary memories, but direct you to re-experience unique past happenings in vivid detail. Memory and interpretation seem like a very touchy subject; as if discussing the afterlife wasn't enough.

Also, when I said 'this is more of a result of becoming aware of Karma and the intangibility of consciousness', I did not mean by specific meditation on past-life memories. I meant that it comes about as an indirect consequence of higher spiritual investigation, and not intellectually. Proving or disproving what has actually happened is therefore hard to do in some cases, particularly those that are not controlled and especially those that precede birth.

In addition to this, there's the phenomena of Out-of-Body Experiences. Have you heard of the Monroe Institute? Furthermore have you watched Thomas Campbell's Big Theory of Everything? See this thread for more relevant info on debating consciousness, but especially the first shown post by Xaq (contains Youtube video/series link). It is well worth watching and it is easy to draw links to this topic.

More experiences include those known as Near-death experiences, which are different than OBE's. These experiences reveal that one's consciousness is indeed not a product of the physical body. Again, not provable/disprovable, yet not arbitrary or inconsistent either. All of these experiences no doubt complement each other.

Now...you claim that there is validity in spiritual practices, most of which basically exist outside the realm of testability and provability.

The validity is self-fulfilling and you can even find out for yourself. The proof, as I said, is something that I cannot provide. We're speaking of two different paradigms of confirmation.

A proof here is meaningless because the "afterlife" and "Karma" confirmed in experience and not in linear data. It is like me asking to prove to me that you know that you're alive: Let's say I ask you for proof that you know of life and existence. What can you prove to me? Even the phrase "I think, therefore I am" doesn't cut it because existing precedes thinking. Do note that this is not the same category of experience as whether a person can perceive or conceptualize something, as it does not appear within such normal realms of unreliable human experience.

What you have created is an unfalsifiable claim. Could you be right? Sure. But I highly doubt it. There are simply far too many variables. Any claim that there is something we can't observe or explain accurately creates more variables than necessary. If you can't observe it reliably, why should it have to exist? Why does karma have to exist? It doesn't. It isn't necessary for anything. You can believe it if you like, but I think you're delusional. You're seeing something that isn't there. Now, I do not need to supply evidence for why karma doesn't exist. That's like asking me to supply evidence of why a teakettle is not in the asteroid belt. You are making the positive claim. The burden of proof rests on your shoulders.

There's no burden if you understand what I mean by not requiring proof. All spiritual phenomena are experiential and not concrete or perceivable. The very fact that you exist is a spiritual concern, but you cannot totally explain or prove it to anybody. If somebody says, "Oh you're alive because your heart is beating" - does that fully encompass the knowledge of existence and life, as it is to you? Looking into the afterlife goes in the same direction.

Now I must ask you again. Would you like to supply the evidence for your claim? Or more importantly, why should I believe non-existence is possible? What we're debating here is not so much whether every spirit incarnates again (because that is not set in stone for everyone) but rather, whether your life persists after death in this lifetime. This means, simply that you exist as an entity and have the likelihood to incarnate again or not, and to evolve further beyond this lifetime. Going back to your argument: I would think that if we can see that non-existence is not possible, then the possibility of an after-life, in this sense, is far more promising than you might expect.

Originally Posted by juroara

All memories are 'false'.

Haha good point, although what I think Mario means is that memories are false in the sense that they are completely wrong, having never occurred.

Originally Posted by Loaf

Oh, I think it does. The afterlife is all about living on. When we die, even if we live on in a different physical form, we have died as people.
If you told me I would die and my memories, personality, and everything about me would die except my physical form would be recycled so technically I would become a frilled lizard, it wouldn't be any better than dying.

If these facets are just part of the body, then who's to say what's better than dying or not?

Originally Posted by really

There may be inaccuracies and false memories, but past-life research isn't ordinary hypnosis. The hypnotists don't program you with special, arbitrary memories, but direct you to re-experience unique past happenings in vivid detail. Memory and interpretation seem like a very touchy subject; as if discussing the afterlife wasn't enough.

A psychologist doesn't have to implant arbitrary memories to unwittingly convince people of false ones. If a person goes in with a preconceived notion completely the product of their own mind, and under hypnosis intensify this self-made memory, voila, you have someone convinced of past lives. Repeated sessions lead to greater confidence and more vivid details, all self-developed.

Also, when I said 'this is more of a result of becoming aware of Karma and the intangibility of consciousness', I did not mean by specific meditation on past-life memories. I meant that it comes about as an indirect consequence of higher spiritual investigation, and not intellectually. Proving or disproving what has actually happened is therefore hard to do in some cases, particularly those that are not controlled and especially those that precede birth.

Why is spiritual investigation a good thing? How is it any different from delusion? You can "investigate" all you want, but in the end, you'll end up seeing what you want to see.

In addition to this, there's the phenomena of Out-of-Body Experiences. Have you heard of the Monroe Institute? Furthermore have you watched Thomas Campbell's Big Theory of Everything? See this thread for more relevant info on debating consciousness, but especially the first shown post by Xaq (contains Youtube video/series link). It is well worth watching and it is easy to draw links to this topic.

Out of body experiences...an unexplained phenomena. How is this evidence of the afterlife? Is it supposed to show that consciousness is separate of the body? Because there are other, equally reasonable possibilities with exactly as much evidence to back them up.

More experiences include those known as Near-death experiences, which are different than OBE's. These experiences reveal that one's consciousness is indeed not a product of the physical body. Again, not provable/disprovable, yet not arbitrary or inconsistent either. All of these experiences no doubt complement each other.

NDE's...like the tunnel with the white light at the end? The same one that can be replicated via oxygen deprivation, with the individual nowhere near death? I'd call this more a response of the mind shutting down than the soul leaving the body.

The validity is self-fulfilling and you can even find out for yourself. The proof, as I said, is something that I cannot provide. We're speaking of two different paradigms of confirmation.

A proof here is meaningless because the "afterlife" and "Karma" confirmed in experience and not in linear data. It is like me asking to prove to me that you know that you're alive: Let's say I ask you for proof that you know of life and existence. What can you prove to me? Even the phrase "I think, therefore I am" doesn't cut it because existing precedes thinking. Do note that this is not the same category of experience as whether a person can perceive or conceptualize something, as it does not appear within such normal realms of unreliable human experience.

What you're dealing with is a vague and mysterious world. Here's the thing: people who investigate this stuff on their own obtain different results. Who am I to believe? The guy who says he's been to heaven? The guy who has seen Jesus in an OBE? The man in harmony with the universe? The person who claims to have been a snake in a past life? You can't draw any solid conclusions. You can't say with confidence that karma actually exists. If your personal experiences have led you to believe so, bully for you. I think you're delusional.

There's no burden if you understand what I mean by not requiring proof. All spiritual phenomena are experiential and not concrete or perceivable. The very fact that you exist is a spiritual concern, but you cannot totally explain or prove it to anybody. If somebody says, "Oh you're alive because your heart is beating" - does that fully encompass the knowledge of existence and life, as it is to you? Looking into the afterlife goes in the same direction.

Is it a spiritual concern? Why can't it be a run-of-the-mill physical concern? When I look at myself, I see a series of self-sustaining chemical reactions. Nothing more, nothing less. My thoughts, memories, experiences, all driven by chemical reactions. If you want to find out if I'm alive or not, check to see if all my reactions are performing normally. There are hundreds of ways to test this...heartbeat, EEG, CAT scans, blood pressure, temperature, reflex, and so on. From the results you collect, you can determine within a very reasonable degree of certainty whether or not I'm alive.

Now I must ask you again. Would you like to supply the evidence for your claim? Or more importantly, why should I believe non-existence is possible? What we're debating here is not so much whether every spirit incarnates again (because that is not set in stone for everyone) but rather, whether your life persists after death in this lifetime. This means, simply that you exist as an entity and have the likelihood to incarnate again or not, and to evolve further beyond this lifetime. Going back to your argument: I would think that if we can see that non-existence is not possible, then the possibility of an after-life, in this sense, is far more promising than you might expect.

You're concerning yourself too much with this concept of nonexistence, and are placing variables where they do not belong. Why shouldn't consciousness be the sole product of the human mind? And if it is the sole product of the human mind, of the chemical reactions within the brain, then you don't have to worry about nonexistence. When the reactions stop (in other words, when you physically die or go brain dead), your consciousness basically dies. It stops working. It doesn't go anywhere but the ground. Matter and energy are not being created or destroyed. Your consciousness isn't some precious physical entity that evaporates into nothingness. It is a product of chemical reactions, and when those reactions cease, consciousness ceases, too. Adding spirits or external sources of consciousness only create more problems than necessary. Where do these spirits come from? What happens if there aren't enough to go around? Why are humans so special that we need an entire invisible world of conscious entities to give us consciousness? Why in tens of thousands of years have we been unable to obtain one single solid strand of evidence for the existence of any form of any afterlife?

Originally Posted by Mario92

Out of body experiences...an unexplained phenomena. How is this evidence of the afterlife? Is it supposed to show that consciousness is separate of the body? Because there are other, equally reasonable possibilities with exactly as much evidence to back them up.

NDE's...like the tunnel with the white light at the end? The same one that can be replicated via oxygen deprivation, with the individual nowhere near death? I'd call this more a response of the mind shutting down than the soul leaving the body.

to be fair, just because you can recreate something one way, doesnt mean there isnt another way for it to happen. Everything else you said I agree with though.

and on obes, I dont believe there is an actually credible theory as to how they all work. But it is one of the more intriguing things about our body to study, besides consciousness itself.

Originally Posted by Mario92

A psychologist doesn't have to implant arbitrary memories to unwittingly convince people of false ones. If a person goes in with a preconceived notion completely the product of their own mind, and under hypnosis intensify this self-made memory, voila, you have someone convinced of past lives. Repeated sessions lead to greater confidence and more vivid details, all self-developed.

I'm not going to be arguing about whether memories are true or not. They're but one example, and like I said - a touchy subject. Take it with a grain of salt for now.

Why is spiritual investigation a good thing? How is it any different from delusion? You can "investigate" all you want, but in the end, you'll end up seeing what you want to see.

I'm also not going to sway this thread into a lecture about meditation because you're so closed minded about it. Perhaps you just see what you want to see.

Out of body experiences...an unexplained phenomena. How is this evidence of the afterlife? Is it supposed to show that consciousness is separate of the body? Because there are other, equally reasonable possibilities with exactly as much evidence to back them up.

Can you actually answer my questions? I wasn't kidding; maybe what I just brought up can actually address and answer your own questions.

NDE's...like the tunnel with the white light at the end? The same one that can be replicated via oxygen deprivation, with the individual nowhere near death? I'd call this more a response of the mind shutting down than the soul leaving the body.

You're already jumping to conclusions. The point is that the experience confirms that death is impossible.

What you're dealing with is a vague and mysterious world. Here's the thing: people who investigate this stuff on their own obtain different results.

If you look into the real-deal spirituality (E.g. see Advaita or the Bhagavad Gita), actually you'd find that they do not present different "results." Hence when I said "...not provable/disprovable, yet not arbitrary or inconsistent either." Karma and the afterlife are not random, uncommon or arbitrary ideas.

Is it a spiritual concern? Why can't it be a run-of-the-mill physical concern? When I look at myself, I see a series of self-sustaining chemical reactions. Nothing more, nothing less. My thoughts, memories, experiences, all driven by chemical reactions. If you want to find out if I'm alive or not, check to see if all my reactions are performing normally. There are hundreds of ways to test this...heartbeat, EEG, CAT scans, blood pressure, temperature, reflex, and so on. From the results you collect, you can determine within a very reasonable degree of certainty whether or not I'm alive.

In essence you're telling me you'd rather just see it your way. I'm not going to try to change your mind, but just consider for a moment that you're missing the bigger picture. You don't actually know these things at heart. Like everybody else, you only really know of existence - that is not a scientific conclusion now is it? It is experiential. You can't say "Oh no but what grounds do I have to believe in that.." etc.

You're concerning yourself too much with this concept of nonexistence, and are placing variables where they do not belong. Why shouldn't consciousness be the sole product of the human mind?

Because non-existence is an invalid abstract concept, in the end. Therefore, if consciousness was a "sole product" of the human mind, it would have to negate the authority of existence by some act of magic. Reality is not an independent existence in consciousness, and if you agree that consciousness is a "sole product" of the mind, you are mistaking the paradigm difference and giving authority to superficial ideas instead of self-evidence.

And if it is the sole product of the human mind, of the chemical reactions within the brain, then you don't have to worry about nonexistence. When the reactions stop (in other words, when you physically die or go brain dead), your consciousness basically dies. It stops working. It doesn't go anywhere but the ground. Matter and energy are not being created or destroyed.

This is contradictory because if matter and energy are conserved, then so is consciousness. If you say we die and cease to exist, then from whence did we come? Did we become alive out of non-existence? I highly doubt that.