LIfe After Death

Surely to discuss whether there is life after death, we must first define life itself. It is always an interest point to think about that we consider we as humans, along with other animals and plants, are alive. But take apart any living thing on atom at a time and there will be no magical ingredient left over as to why we are alive and yet a rock apparently isn't.

We can definatively say there is life after death, we know the atoms that make us up have been through stars, plants and at one time or another been other poeple. So while you may not be aware of life after death it does exist. To answer the actual question asked though - Personally I do not believe there is an afterlife, the consciousness that is me will end upon the death of my physical being.
 
Personally, I think the substance dualism debate is at the heart of the supernatural world, the existence of a god/gods or an afterlife.

If (like me) you remain unconvinced regarding the existence of two kinds of substance (for the reasons I mentioned a few posts back) - then the default stance will be one of vigilant scepticism.

I agree it's a hugely complex debate with real world ramifications (as the state of the brain being entirely physical also undermines in part other philosophical concepts such as free-will).

One thing which I've always found strange - is people who believe in at least one supernatural element (be that ghosts, gods, reincarnation, mind readers, star signs, the afterlife) who then insult people for holding views based on essentially the same line of reasoning.
 
Castiel said:
The conceptual value of Life After Death (as in a myriad of ideas and propositions) is not the same as considering some gnome who lives in a bubble...such facile comparisons only illustrate a failure to understand the underlying nature of the concept itself. It is easy to evaluate a specific narrow hypotheses based on a broader concept, it is not so simple to dismiss the entire concept...particularly when the concept has such broad interpretive value.
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There is no broader concept. There is zero evidence to suggest that an afterlife or anything relating to it exists.
Everything pointing towards an afterlife is based on myths, legends and personal tales made by people with questionable health or motives.
So yes, I think I can dismiss the entire concept of an afterlife as being as silly as my Earths core "gnome" theory until more substantial evidence is presented.
The correct attitude would be to take the agnostic approach, the unknown. But why bother. There's countless things we both don't believe in based on lack of evidence, so what makes the afterlife special?
The fact that a large group of people irrationally have a belief in it doesn't change anything.
 
I love to speculate on this question, it's a fascinating debate. I have often wondered whether the biggest issues arise because we are trying to contemplate life via the five sense, and this is what leads to confusion. For example what if our physical brain is only created to understand what we call physical reality. So in itself it does not conceive of anything at all, it only perceives. The firing synapses in the brain is the core intelligence, the core consciousness which is not restricted and defined to one place at anyone time. It literally only activates the brain so it can perceive reality and just that. Ideas, imagination & creativity is all generated via you're consciousness and not via the physical brain iteself.

So what if it's merely logic that holds us back as a species, as we can only speculate on what we can touch, smell, taste etc... But the fact that we experience emotion is a subtle indicator that there could be more to our being than we realise.
 
airrunner said:
So what if it's merely logic that holds us back as a species, as we can only speculate on what we can touch, smell, taste etc... But the fact that we experience emotion is a subtle indicator that there could be more to our being than we realise.
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A little off topic.

Do you believe that if you could relive your exact life again, that any decisions you make in this new life would be any different to the ones you have made so far in your old life?

I say no. Your brain and your decision making would be identical. The same chemical reactions would occur and the same electric currents would trigger at the same time and pass through the same brain cells, thus your body would react exactly the same.
Your actions in your new life would therefore be predetermined, so your consciousness is nothing more than a natural occurrence of how your brain has been wired. We are then like a computer program running a series of calculations and when we die it'd be like a computer running a program and losing power. The data doesn't go anywhere, the energy just dissipates.

maybe?
 
I've actually been thinking about this a fair bit recently - my dad died a month ago in a plane crash and it's been very rough going. Having been an atheist since before I knew there was a word for it, I was completely thrown during a few moments of grief, and particularly after a few vivid dreams, by the feeling that he was still around in some form. Looking down from above, a ghost, I don't know and couldn't explain as I was far from being rational at the time - but the feelings were real and strong. If anything this experience has actually reinforced my non belief - we want so much to believe that we'll continue after death and that the people we love will be there with us. But wanting something doesn't make it true, and if I can have fleeting moments of needing to believe in life after death, anyone can given the right amount of desperation. Now I think of it in this way - he's with me now as much as he was when we were apart before he died. Possibly more so as I think about him 10s of times a day. The things he taught me, the interests we shared, the impact he had on my life - in that sense I think we can live on after death.
 
elmarko said:
One thing which I've always found strange - is people who believe in at least one supernatural element (be that ghosts, gods, reincarnation, mind readers, star signs, the afterlife) who then insult people for holding views based on essentially the same line of reasoning
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Well I think you're wrong to say they are "based on essentially the same line of reasoning". They are based on very different lines of reasoning. But putting that aside, I would argue that the universality of a belief in life beyond the material is what gives it more weight than say horoscopes.

People experience the divine in almost every culture throughout history, but horoscopes have a fairly narrow subscription.
 
wickfut said:
A little off topic.

Do you believe that if you could relive your exact life again, that any decisions you make in this new life would be any different to the ones you have made so far in your old life?

I say no. Your brain and your decision making would be identical. The same chemical reactions would occur and the same electric currents would trigger at the same time and pass through the same brain cells, thus your body would react exactly the same.
Your actions in your new life would therefore be predetermined, so your consciousness is nothing more than a natural occurrence of how your brain has been wired. We are then like a computer program running a series of calculations and when we die it'd be like a computer running a program and losing power. The data doesn't go anywhere, the energy just dissipates.

maybe?
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Well it entirely depends if every experience in you're reality was identical to the previous life. You're brain is almost like putty, it's molded to events and choices you have experienced throughout you're lifetime. Every single moment of you're life would have to be intricately the same for that to work. Think of it as a piece of art which you have created from every life decision you have made. I believe life is based on probabilities so in reality your hypothesis is not even feasible. Because this one life you have now is completely unique!
 
I have explained this better before but, this is what I believe:

Consciousness is a universal underlying potential that sits behind all matter. When the right combination of atoms appear like the human sensory system, consciousness is given a keyhole from which it can look through out into the world. The dead matter inside you has been here in one form or another since the dawn of time but now falls into the right configuration to give a window to look out of and a chance for conciousness to see into the material world. When the keyhole fails (death) your energy and matter flow on into other configurations with the potential to once day form another window to see into this world.

So I don't believe personality and consciousness are the same thing. Human personality is a brain function comprised of genetics and environment whereas consciousness is something universal an underlying perspective not dependant on the type of animal or genetic configuration.
 
Hogwash.

You live, you die end of.

No afterlife, no sacred place of space hamsters (booo i miss you)

The sooner and there is no other word for this "CRETINS" grasp this point the world will be a much better place. So SCIENCE can extend our short lives and head to the stars. As 100 years (if your lucky) is bugger all on a cosmic scale.
 
Thompson_NCL said:
Well I think you're wrong to say they are "based on essentially the same line of reasoning". They are based on very different lines of reasoning. But putting that aside, I would argue that the universality of a belief in life beyond the material is what gives it more weight than say horoscopes.

People experience the divine in almost every culture throughout history, but horoscopes have a fairly narrow subscription.
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I never implied they were identical, just simply based on the existence of a substance outside of the physical world - with substance dualism underpinning all of them.

My view is that many belief systems are founded upon a fear of our own mortality, as a side effect of our evolution as our brains developed as did our understanding of our impending demise - this is bound to create stress & problems for the individual.

An afterlife in a way of controlling & mitigating against this stress, it may even have a evolutionary basis & a function in society.

If you don't view conciousness as anything special (without free-will it's just our awareness of day to day experience, a by-product of increased intelligence) then it makes less sense to assume it has properties which transcend the physical world.
 
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