What happens when you die?

[bagochina]

religion is an unnecessary attribute within mankind.

Wow... I dont even know what to say to that. I dont subscribe to a particular religion per say but the hope, warm feelings, and calming I get from prayer/meditation is one of the most necessary staples of my life. I do agree religion can be very problematic but when the tides shift, religion will be one of the biggest solutions for troubled times.

Peace,
Seedless

 

[Portillo]

Death is only the beginning.

Agreed.

 

[frozen diamonds]

It really frustrates me when people accept physical reality as the be-all end-all of existence. Just because chemical reactions take place in your body brain which keep it alive does not mean that you are your body or these chemical reactions. One thing science has never explained is consciousness itself, the origin of awareness and thought. What makes one think these things do originate in the brain/body? To me, this seems entirely illogical. Which is another thing to note, you cannot prove anything simply on the basis of logic or reason - one thing I've learned in my life is that there are many different kinds of logic and also even the most delusional things can be "proven" with some form of logical or rational thinking. Back to the point at hand, however, it confuses me how so many people seem to think your thoughts are chemical reactions in your brain. Just because there are activities in your brain which occur when you think does not mean that your thoughts are these activities. This is a concept which seems fairly obvious to me. Clearly physical matter is not thought. I mean hell - you're on the internet right now, and that can't be physically measured. I mean you can measure the bandwith it operates on, etc., but this information right here which we are all reading has absolutely NO physical basis. We are simply accessing it. Which is what I would argue our brain does; not create thought or experience but rather simply allows the physical body to access it. It is like a router between planes, connecting the realms spirit to material reality. Which brings up another way in which science is limited - by what our bodies can sense. Bees can see UV light and plenty of animals sense the magnetic fields of the Earth - who is to say that far more information exists at every moment which we simply have no means of measuring? Just because we have tools on our bodies for (at least) five senses does not mean these are the only stimuli/phenomena which exist.

Hopefully I've provided something interesting for everyone to think about... peace and love, in life and death.

 

[romsoccer12]

your conscious made your brain, not your brain made your conscious

 

[Philoscybin]

your conscious made your brain, not your brain made your conscious

???

 

[Jerry Atrick]

I have not read this thread, but I will say one thing: worm dirt

 

[romsoccer12]

???

instead of your brain producing your mind, your mind creates your brain and your surroundings. its a spiritual theory. scientists say chemicals in our brain create the thoughts and emotions, but its the mind that creates the brain to produce the chemicals!

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ You're on the right track, but just to geek it up a bit, what you're describing is a philosophical position within ontology called Idealism -- the idea that mind is the only thing that definitively exists. It was last a popular position in academic philosophy in late 19th century Britain and Germany, and although it's still quite popular in less high profile philosophical venues, I see no signs of it making a comeback in academic circles anytime soon. This is a shame, because I think taking mind as foundational to reality has some promising practical applications in psychology, medicine, educational theory and praxis, and politics.

But I'm getting way off topic.

 

[Bardeaux]

It really frustrates me when people accept physical reality as the be-all end-all of existence. Just because chemical reactions take place in your body brain which keep it alive does not mean that you are your body or these chemical reactions. One thing science has never explained is consciousness itself, the origin of awareness and thought. What makes one think these things do originate in the brain/body? To me, this seems entirely illogical.

Chemicals dictate your mood, emotions, and even sense of reality. My reality may be entirely different from yours because I may have a slightly different chemical make up than you. Just because neuroscience isnt advanced enough to answer the ultimate questions doesnt mean we have a foreign/supernatural intelligence running through our brains.

... Which brings up another way in which science is limited - by what our bodies can sense. Bees can see UV light and plenty of animals sense the magnetic fields of the Earth - who is to say that far more information exists at every moment which we simply have no means of measuring? Just because we have tools on our bodies for (at least) five senses does not mean these are the only stimuli/phenomena which exist.

Humans arent limited to our 5 senses, we can measure UV light and magnetism through the technology we have invented. There will always be phenomena that humans can't explain at the moment, but that isnt to say there is no possible way to measure such things or that they will not be explained through science in the future.

I think man still has much to learn, no one has ever been able to answer these questions with absolute certainty. The more we learn the more questions will be raised but personally I believe there is a scientific answer and explaination for everything even if we havent found it yet.

 

[MrM]

When you die things will be like before you were born. You remember what that was like?

I'm with you on this one.

I think it's interesting that people (generally) are much more frightened or worried by ceasing to exist after they die than they were by the fact they didn't exist before they were conceived. The two would seem to be the same to me.

 

[Philoscybin]

It really frustrates me when people accept physical reality as the be-all end-all of existence. Just because chemical reactions take place in your body brain which keep it alive does not mean that you are your body or these chemical reactions. One thing science has never explained is consciousness itself, the origin of awareness and thought. What makes one think these things do originate in the brain/body? To me, this seems entirely illogical. Which is another thing to note, you cannot prove anything simply on the basis of logic or reason - one thing I've learned in my life is that there are many different kinds of logic and also even the most delusional things can be "proven" with some form of logical or rational thinking. Back to the point at hand, however, it confuses me how so many people seem to think your thoughts are chemical reactions in your brain. Just because there are activities in your brain which occur when you think does not mean that your thoughts are these activities. This is a concept which seems fairly obvious to me. Clearly physical matter is not thought. I mean hell - you're on the internet right now, and that can't be physically measured. I mean you can measure the bandwith it operates on, etc., but this information right here which we are all reading has absolutely NO physical basis. We are simply accessing it. Which is what I would argue our brain does; not create thought or experience but rather simply allows the physical body to access it. It is like a router between planes, connecting the realms spirit to material reality. Which brings up another way in which science is limited - by what our bodies can sense. Bees can see UV light and plenty of animals sense the magnetic fields of the Earth - who is to say that far more information exists at every moment which we simply have no means of measuring? Just because we have tools on our bodies for (at least) five senses does not mean these are the only stimuli/phenomena which exist.

Hopefully I've provided something interesting for everyone to think about... peace and love, in life and death.

Ontologically speaking, matter (aside from energy and the remainder of physics) is the "be-all end-all" of existence. Thoughts, abstractions, concepts and consciousness exist as relationships between material things (your brain and the rest of existence). They exist in your mind in some physical form, but cannot be interacted by/with someone on that basis (except to destroy them by destroying you). Abstractions do not exist in any other way other than man's epistemological method of perceiving that which does exist, and that which exists is concrete. So universals cannot exist as actual physical entities, because they are not physical or metaphysical but epistemological. You seem to be suggesting the alternative, Platonic Idealism, as a more legitimate concept, in that there are perfect forms of abstractions floating around, manifested in some physical concrete form in some other dimension. But universals are not concretes in any dimension. Any system of belief that holds abstractions like morality, objectivity and goodness as tangible metaphysical objects is essentially primitive logic, due to its susceptibility to idol worship. Don't be a caveman .

 

[dusty___]

Those strange memories, inexplicable deja vue, etc. To some it is "a previous life". To me it is the gentle whispers, the soft tugs of a thousand ancestors who passed me some little piece of their own unique genetic code. My instinct, my genetic heritage.

I am unique. Just a fleeting speck of dust in the eye of time, but still my time is mine alone. I have not lived before, and I will not live again in this sphere of existence, not as a bug, not as a person, not as anything.

I am me. There is not another.

Consciousness is impossible without a brain. It's a very simple fact. When the brain dies, there is no consciousness, therefore no awareness of the self, and therefore no actual life besides leftover energy fueling the last few organs before Papa Death completes his stroke. So consciousness is limited to life within a body. Body dies, and it's all over. Get used to that idea, and do us all a favor and get cremated so there won't be another useless carcass beneath some tombstone taking up space where there could be low-cost housing or a cheap mom-and-pop food market.

iac

 

[orarev]

I think we will probably never find out any of life's mystery's such as this one unless religion is removed for ever then we will have more time on trying to solve these questions instead of hoping that a mystical being brought up by our own fear will determine our fate.

 

[vegan]

Consciousness is impossible without a brain. It's a very simple fact

i think that people posting in a philosophy and spirituality forum would better keep sentences like "it's a fact" out of their vocabulary or use them more carefully than this instance

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

i think that people posting in a philosophy and spirituality forum would better keep sentences like "it's a fact" out of their vocabulary or use them more carefully than this instance

I agree.

And no, this is not a proven fact, since the jury is still out on what 'mind' is, and what its relationship to 'brain' is. It's true that there are lot of studies that appear to lend support to the hypothesis that brain creates mind. But this is far from a settled matter, and this conclusion doesn't sit well with many people, because it goes against their common sense and everything they've gone through life assuming. I know I WANT TO BELIEVE that mind =/= brain.

 

[TouchN' Stuff Blvd]

I believe, at present, the answer is unknowable. Deciding there yes, there is a spirit or , or no, nothing happens but the body disintegrates, is a little arbitrary. Like others have said, you will only be able to find out once, some time after reading this

 

[Mr_Fluffykins]

your heart stops being, you start to decompose, your true identity is lost forever to never be found again,
you only live on threw your accomplishments and your descendants, and the philosophical foot print you left on the universe,

who is to say all those people who accomplished great things on earth for the human race even matter to the universe, the sun will explode one day,

who knows there might be anther big bang, and humans would be wiped off the face of this ?PLANET? universe? solar system, galaxy,

and then more random particles will come together on another ball of cooling magma, and little organisms will evolve, and slowly crawl onto land and evolve and get smarter and build a civilization

maybe that civilization will be better then ours, and found a way to escape our own fate or world destruction

so we should live in the present and enjoy our life to the fullest possibility doing what we love before its to late and were dead and gone and might actually mean nothing

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

Death is only the Beginning. Your soul becomes cleansed of its burdens, and you get remanifested into that which your reality creates.

A friend of mine who has been in a lot of ceremonies in Peru where Ayahuasca is used in a religious ceremony tells me this.

 

[brandonerr]

you have an extremely vivid dmt trip and then, nothing, everything, existance

 

[L2R]

^the dmt theory doesn't really hold much water in the event of a sudden or instantaneous death. severe head trauma would stop any chemical process before it even occurs.