What Do You Think Happens After Death?

[GreySentinel 157]

Yesterday, I lost my 20-something year-old cousin. I only hope my 15 years-dead mother will watch over him in heaven. I.....I............

 

Fluttershy, if you would.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJmpCRBslL4

 

{Quietly cries for several minutes to this music before leaving}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ4x3rQYHbM

 

I brohoofed(this word is now in my Chrome dictionary, after seeing that red line too many times.), because of the feels, by the way. I'm sorry that happened. I would never wish death on a single person.

(unless it saves multiple lives, but I'm still forcing myself into the slammer; whether, "Boris"  and his xenophobic, single-prisoner-cell-requesting self approves or not.

 

 I also hope your cousin is enjoying the afterlife, as your mother shows him the beautiful sights, that we living beings, can only fathom at the time.

[Suukorak 354]

I'm going to wax philosophical on this (very enormous) question, so you can either bear with me or skip. Just a heads-up.

Brace yourselves. Incoming philosophy.

In my view, this question is an application of a related one: what is reality?

I've been thinking about this often, and for some time now. Just my philosophical self, avoiding boredom. When I consider this question, the most important aspect I can think of is that we have a severe lack of experience with reality. Our minds and senses are pretty clearly imperfect, and with the very frustrating inability to exchange minds with someone else, we're pretty much stuck in our own flawed world. The important thing about this is that it means we have no reason to believe there's anything other than that world. The only thing that I am certain exists is my own experience. So, although I don't have anything to disprove an external reality, I don't really need it. It is not essential to my life or how I make sense of my world. Therefore, unless I can get some proof of reality, I don't believe in it.

This has some pretty decisive consequences for the death question. In asking, "what happens after death?" we imply that there is something that might survive after our bodies end. This would refer most naturally to our consciousness, this intangible kind of feeling that we have of thought, sense, and control (at least, internal control). With the "results," if you can call my ramblings that, of the first question, we can reach some conclusions about this question. It's very hard to imagine how the world would work without your consciousness to experience it, if the world is in fact the way I theorized. In such a case, one of two cases is possible.

One, since the world should continue after your death, so must your consciousness. Perhaps there is an afterlife, which I don't have the arrogance to describe without experience, or perhaps some sort of reincarnation, again about which I would have no details.

The other option is much more grim, though it also makes sense: the world is inside your consciousness, and your consciousness does end. Therefore, when you die, the world is gone. I am very much the center of the universe in my understanding of reality, so my death would have to be the end of the world.

Of course, there are myriad implications of these conclusions, but I don't have the space to discuss them all here. Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this further. I don't pretend to lead a life completely consistent with these conclusions (external reality is a rather tempting notion at times), but I try to make myself happy, which seems to me the best I can do. I also try to make others happy - because that makes me happy too.

 

TL,DR:

Reality doesn't exist. Therefore, there are two possibilities: either when you die, the entire world ends because you were the means for its existence, or it is impossible for your consciousness to end and there's some sort of afterlife-ish thing which I have no idea what it might be like (or maybe reincarnation!).

So either very comforting and a little weird, or literally the end of the world. Probably not reassuring, but that's what I've got.

[Wicked Funky 2,955]

Hopefully reincarnation, Id like to be a tree :3

[_GLaDOS_ 102]

I believe there's utter reincarnation, or Heaven and Hell. However, due to the way our bodies are made, there seems to be no signs of something that could been taken to Heaven or Hell. I believe, and have curiousty, that reincarnation is most likely. Reincarnation to another human is what I hope. And that may explain people's knowledge of how to do things however it's only a guess? I have done that once or twice before. Who knows? Nobody has came from Heaven or Hell and back to our world, and none of us on has never died or will be able to tell us what really happens.

[GreySentinel 157]

@Suukorak, interesting theory.

 

Also, I don't know if you've heard of Beyond Two Souls; without going into spoilers, I love how Quantic Dream explored a unique idea of an afterlife.

 

My older sister and I loved playing the game, and she kinda regrets how we bum-rushed the the game, and got done in less than two weeks. (Implied advice, ho!)

[Suukorak 354]

@@GreySentinel, thanks!

I don't know if you were asking me or someone else about the game, but I've never heard of it. I read quickly up on Wikipedia about it, but I'm unlikely to be able to play it, since I have neither a console nor a TV. So you can tell me the theory if you want.

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

When you die, your body rots and your energy is dissipated into the environment. You cease to exist, so this is not bad for you. Death only exists when you don't... but death is bad because of what it does to the people around you. This is why we have funerals. It's not for the dead. It's for the living.

[Suukorak 354]

When you die, your body rots and your energy is dissipated into the environment. You cease to exist, so this is not bad for you. Death only exists when you don't... but death is bad because of what it does to the people around you. This is why we have funerals. It's not for the dead. It's for the living.

Accurate enough. No one can deny this is what happens to the body. But I think the question was more of what happens to the mind (not the brain, but the essence of thought - eg., consciousness, or if you want to call it that, a soul). We can easily describe what happens to the body. But the mind is a more difficult question.

Unless, of course, you meant to imply by your statement that the mind and the body are the same, which is certainly an interesting and valid stance to take. However, if you did mean that, it could use some elaboration.

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

Accurate enough. No one can deny this is what happens to the body. But I think the question was more of what happens to the mind (not the brain, but the essence of thought - eg., consciousness, or if you want to call it that, a soul). We can easily describe what happens to the body. But the mind is a more difficult question.

Unless, of course, you meant to imply by your statement that the mind and the body are the same, which is certainly an interesting and valid stance to take. However, if you did mean that, it could use some elaboration.

The mind can't exist without the brain, and the "spirit" can't exist without the mind. So...

 

The brain dies when the body dies. This is also when the mind and spirit die. No body means no existence.

[Suukorak 354]

The mind can't exist without the brain, and the "spirit" can't exist without the mind. So...

 

The brain dies when the body dies. This is also when the mind and spirit die. No body means no existence.

I've always wondered what that would feel like. Slipping away into nonexistence.

Not that I'm eager to perform an experiment, mind you.

[rarity1 461]

I hope that nothing happens after death.

[speedyblupi 75]

I've always wondered what that would feel like. Slipping away into nonexistence.

Not that I'm eager to perform an experiment, mind you.

It would be like falling asleep, but without dreaming or waking up.

 

It would be like what we felt before we'd developed enough inside the uterus to be able to process information about our surroundings and recognise our own existence.

[Suukorak 354]

It would be like falling asleep, but without dreaming or waking up.

 

It would be like what we felt before we'd developed enough inside the uterus to be able to process information about our surroundings and recognise our own existence.

 

Maybe. But without having experienced it... how can we know?

[The Real Minty <3 217]

My belief states there was a savior, his name was Jesus Christ, and that no amount of good can get you to heaven, only you accepting him as you're Lord and Savior will get you there and if you don't its Hell, literally.

 

Christianity.

 

Jesus covered our sins by his blood.

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

Maybe. But without having experienced it... how can we know?

Because people with damaged brains don't act like normal people. Their consciousness doesn't work the same way, if at all.

 

So, what happens when the brain rots should be pretty self-explanatory there.

[speedyblupi 75]

Maybe. But without having experienced it... how can we know?

Well, we don't necessarily need to experience it directly. We have a good enough understanding of how the brain works and how to interpret things like fMRI scans to be able to work out that this is almost certainly what happens. We can never be sure that there isn't some way we can go on feeling, but considering that sensation requires a specific sequence of chemical messengers and electrical impulses in our nerves it's basically impossible for death to be like anything else, and without evidence indicating that anything else happens after death we can safely assume that we simply stop feeling.

[Suukorak 354]

Because people with damaged brains don't act like normal people. Their consciousness doesn't work the same way, if at all.

 

So, what happens when the brain rots should be pretty self-explanatory there.

True enough. That's not to say that it'll necessarily feel the same to die as it does to sleep. But I get your point.

[Admiral Regulus 2,769]

True enough. That's not to say that it'll necessarily feel the same to die as it does to sleep. But I get your point.

What it feels like to die kinda depends on how you die, I would think.

 

I've researched this before, but I'm too lazy to go dig up what I found so many years back.

[Sunwalker 981]

Well, we don't necessarily need to experience it directly. We have a good enough understanding of how the brain works and how to interpret things like fMRI scans to be able to work out that this is almost certainly what happens. We can never be sure that there isn't some way we can go on feeling, but considering that sensation requires a specific sequence of chemical messengers and electrical impulses in our nerves it's basically impossible for death to be like anything else, and without evidence indicating that anything else happens after death we can safely assume that we simply stop feeling.

 

The keyword here is "evidence". What kind of evidence would be necessary in order to show a supernatural reality? Science, by definition, works within the constraints of the natural laws; therefore it cannot say anything, one way or another, about why the natural laws exist and why they are the way they are. Science just does not have the tools to either prove or disprove the concept supernatural as a whole, and the soul isn't something that can me measured, but Science is far from being the only way to get knowledge about reality.

 

If you presume that only natural explanations and evidences are acceptable, they you are excluding a priori any supernatural explanations. And if you use those evidences to conclude that there is no supernatural, then your conclusion is one of the premises. In other words, it is a circular reasoning, which ultimately proves nothing in logic. One cannot just presume that supernatural must not exist when analysing whether it exists or not.

 

Though I do not think that it is possible to get to any definitive conclusion, one way or another, about the existence of the soul; it still sounds for me a more plausible hypothesis that it exists. I am a Chemist, and I was trained to look at objects and try to understand and explain them as an arrangement and interaction of atoms. When I think about the brain, I do not see how matter could suffice to explain someone's individuality.

 

One could try to explain it by the atoms and molecules that constitute the body, yet our cells are constantly dying and being replaced for new ones. This means that after some time the atoms and molecules of your body are replaced for new ones, you can effectively say that you got a another body, yet you still remain the same individual. One could also try to explain the individuality by the arrangement of the atoms of the body, but this also changes through life. Since conception and after you born, you body keeps changing, even the brain which isn't fully developed until mid-twenties. Yet you still remains to be the same individual ( I don't mean here to think the same way through all your life, but to be the same person all your life, or "self" if you like). All of this suggests to me that it must exist something beyond matter and energy that defines one's individuality.

 

Also the fact that you are capable of noticing when you are not "you", for example, when you are not on your "right mind" also suggests that there is something that goes beyond the body, especially considering that some emotional problems are due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, causing it to not work properly.

 

The fact that you can measure someone's electrical brain impulses and correlate it with a certain type of thought also does not contradict with the idea of soul, correlation is not causation. The brainwaves are a representation of one's thoughts, but not the thoughts themselves, in a similar way that a picture of you is not you but a representation of you. It can be that either that the electrical impulses cause the thoughts, or that the thoughts causes the electrical impulses. In order to be completely sure of one way or other, it would be necessary to directly measure the thoughts themselves.

 

But this is not possible, the one reason that you know that you know that you have a mind (i.e. you can think and is self-aware) is because you experience it firsthand. However, you cannot prove beyond any doubt to another person that you have a mind, and other people cannot prove to you that they have a mind too. Even then, I am more inclined to think that it is your mind that causes your brain activity, not the other way around, because of free will.

 

Free will means the capability of choosing the outcome of a certain event, which does not fit with neither the concept of deterministic event nor of random event. It is debatable whether true randomness exists, but even then the events in our universe are governed by the natural laws. One can say that free will is a third type of event, one in which you can (to an extent) choose the outcome, so it is not completely limited by the natural laws. Therefore it should exist something here that goes beyond nature.

 

Another thing I could cite as an indicative for the existence of soul is the capability of abstract thought. For example, when you look at an object and understand its parts and basic shapes they are composed. In order to define what a shape is it is not necessary any material object, the definition of circle or triangle, for instance, is an abstract universal concept that goes beyond matter. You don't need a circular object in order to say that circles or triangles exist, nor to understand what they are. Considering that your mind can grasp concepts that are not material, this also suggests that it goes beyond matter.

 

The fact that a brain damage can limit the mind's functions does not necessarily proves that the mind is strictly material and that the soul does not exist. One can say that both the soul can affect the body (for example, with free will), and that also the body can affect the soul. It is possible that during life the soul is constrained by the body's limitations, and once the body is no more it is freed from those limitations. If this is correct, it explains why some people who got very close to death started seeing their whole life, in this case once the soul is no longer limited by the body it can remember stuff since the individual came to be.

 

In short, though I do not think that it is possible to conclusively prove that the soul exists, I still find that the hypothesis that the soul exists is more plausible and has a greater explanatory power than the hypothesis that it does not exist.

[Raito 28]

Science would suggest that, having forfeit the currents in your brain, your subjectivity of being you will vanish, for you your life will end completely, not as a total darkness of course but it'll be a complete lack of feeling, to illustrate this think about whats happening right now behind your head, its not that you see darkness there, its completely absent.

 

BUT, after losing the complete subjectivity of YOU, an experience of something else will follow, a form of sophisticated, timeless reincarnation i'd say, its not really reincarnation in the sense that YOU aren't the one experiencing this anymore, but in a sense that there is still an experience going on and subjectively feeling the next experience is the new you.

 

Short answer:

-------------------

YOU die

but feeling subjective experience does not stop (think of it as losing all of your memories and living life as someone else)

 

While this is what is more probable, we can't know for sure what really happens.

[Guest]

@@Raito, Your post actually makes sense in a way... I've always had that thought in my head. You die, but you live life as some other being.

[Raito 28]

@@Raito, Your post actually makes sense in a way... I've always had that thought in my head. You die, but you live life as some other being.

 

Yes exactly, apart from the 'You' part, because there is no longer YOU, or more specifically when you say 'you' (the person who has your memories, feelings, features, ideas - your brain basically) - this 'you' is definitely dead, but the feeling of being alive as a subjective consciousness still exists for

a different 'you'. <- I think this is what you meant when you said "You die, but you live life as some other "   but I'm just makin' sure in case you didn't.

 

Think of it as you being the universe channeling himself into different minds who have the illusion of having subjectivity though in essence they are the same electricity going through a different mold, It is safe to assume that the universe was everyone already but from a subjective stand point you wouldn't, couldn't feel it.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Raito

[Steel Accord 6,658]

Well no one truly knows, even those who were clinically dead and brought back couldn't exactly be called reliable.

 

I am a syncretic Christian and I have studied many different interpretations of the afterlife. What do I think? All I believe is that the soul endures beyond the body's physical death. Beyond that, I make no guesses.

[Guest]

 

 

Think of it as you being the universe channeling himself into different minds who have the illusion of having subjectivity though in essence they are the same electricity going through a different mold, It is safe to assume that the universe was everyone already but from a subjective stand point you wouldn't, couldn't feel it.

 

This really does make sense...

[CoconutCola 48]

I believe in reincarnation, where you can be reincarnated into any other universe aside from the one you just died in. Honestly, this is just because I like to think that one day, I too, could be a fictional character that someone considered their favorite, but hey, how can I be sure I'm not the main character of a TV show or comic in another universe, and this is just some kid's high school AU they made up because they liked me so much? Guess I'll never know...

 

I also like to think that reincarnation works in another way, where you have to live every life that has to be lived until you've lived every life in one universe, and you either move onto the next or ascend to godhood. That would be cool.