Life after Death

Originally Posted by Teh_Ephy

boomwolf, you're a fucking douche. If you don't want religion shoved down your throat, don't shove atheism down other peoples' throats. Post reported for starting a religion vs science war.

Excuse me? The first god damn post in the topic is more bloody biased than this. Hell, the whole damn topic is you people shoving down religious concepts in the face of anyone who would like any scientific ones

Pardon those of us who don't believe in your religions for using science in an argument rather than just bowing straight to religion

Oh, by the way, he was discussing science. What we know about how the human body works. I'm so sorry if this destroys the magic, but we're basically fleshbags like every other creature on this planet

In fact, you know what? I'm so annoyed at your double standard I'm just going to move this to Medivh's Tower anyway. Feel free to continue there

Also, post some good ghost stories someone

If I may Mecheon, that post was a little intolerant, a bit vindictive of those holding religious beliefs, and furthermore a tad dogmatic on the secular side's account.

I'm not one to speak out, considering that nearly 80% of my last religious thread posts were also highly intolerant, and downright extremist on a few ends

...But I have learned to use scientific reasoning to embolden my faith, and so have many others who hold religious beliefs.

So it might be a good idea to not so blindly state stereotypically that religious people bow straight to religion for answers, or that we are but mere "fleshbags", when scientists have not verified exactly what a conscious mind is, or what drives it, or what happens to that consciousness after the body fails.

It is possible that consciousness is more than a load of complex chemical processes, after all. Contemporary evolution is still vague on that issue.

And it doesn't really matter how biased the first post is, if the rest of the posts are still biased, then all are at fault of mis-posting.

And if I mis-understood your post, and took it to be offensive towards faithful persons, I appologize in advance, and recant my statement.

Originally Posted by Mecheon

Excuse me? The first god damn post in the topic is more bloody biased than this. Hell, the whole damn topic is you people shoving down religious concepts in the face of anyone who would like any scientific ones

Sure, the first post was biased towards the existence of souls, but that set a quiet, innocuous status quo; belief in souls or any aspect of any religion in no way upsets any scientific discoveries (note any, not all; some religious beliefs do clash with science). And then suddenly boomwolf's posts, which were most certainly outright attacks on religion. Also, if I'm not mistaken, while souls aren't exactly scientific, there isn't quite evidence against anything of the sort.

Originally Posted by Mecheon

Pardon those of us who don't believe in your religions for using science in an argument rather than just bowing straight to religion

Another thing I may be mistaken on is believing that science doesn't have an opinion about the afterlife. There is no way for science to retrieve any sort of data towards one theory over another about the afterlife, and any theories based on zero data are hardly scientific. One last, little thing, boomwolf wasn't using "science" in this discussion, he was using a misunderstanding of it to shove random atheism down our throats. I don't necessarily believe in or against religion, but I don't need someone random idiot abrasively telling me what to believe.

Originally Posted by Mecheon

Oh, by the way, he was discussing science. What we know about how the human body works. I'm so sorry if this destroys the magic, but we're basically fleshbags like every other creature on this planet

Um, so what? Correct me if I'm wrong, but science has yet to isolate exactly what chemical processes result specifically in consciousness. We move our muscles by transferring chemical reactions that result in an overall change in electrical charge along our nerves, but why do we decide to move them?

Originally Posted by Mecheon

In fact, you know what? I'm so annoyed at your double standard I'm just going to move this to Medivh's Tower anyway. Feel free to continue there

What double standard? Believing in souls and an afterlife does not affect science, while boomwolf was definitely attacking religion. You don't even need to be religious to have an opinion on the afterlife.

boomwolf could have just dropped by and said that he doesn't believe in an afterlife, or there's no evidence for an afterlife, as opposed to substituting the conversation about afterlives for one about his problem with religion. There is no such thing as an "exact circumstance". Here look, I'm quoting an article from Seed Magazine, June 2008, p.54

Before a measurement [all possible states of a system] exist in superposition, wherein every possible outcome is described at the same time.

Aside from the implied philosophical implications of quantum physics, there's a very simple implication that throws boomwolf's theory out the fucking window; every possible outcome. As in, more than one outcome is possible for each "exact" situation.
Hold on now, Scoreboard:
Ephy's real science: 1
boomwolf's grudge against religion: 0

Originally Posted by Mecheon

Also, post some good ghost stories someone

I'll look some up, and I'll put effort into making sure they're not common. If I do post any, it will be in a new thread. The link will obviously be provided.

P.S boomwolf: an afterlife does not depend on any sort of god to exist. Take your grudge against religion somewhere else.

Basically acording to science our entire personality and being is just a type of computer (the neurons which make up the brain can be linked simlarly to computers although they function in a far more complex way (Evidence for this is the fact that all neural scientists need to study computer since inorder to have taken nural science at advanced levels as they are quite closly related in some aspects)). Thus acording to science you basically stop existing once you die (just like a computer program will end if the hardware executing it is destroyed).

But the more complicated question is, when does a simple nural system (like a computer or fly brain) stop being a collection of things capable of preforming logical opperations and start to become an actual being like all humans are.

I shell describe 3 brains..

1. The fly.
Although you may think it is complex, it basically acts as a powerful computer that does advanced vector calculations from each of its eyes to controle flying and responds to simple stimli as well as obviously managing background processes like digestion. More than that it can not seemto do as flys do not seem to learn anything.

2. A lizard.
Can actually be called a brain as it is a reasonably large cluster of nurons hundreds of thousands times bigger than a fly. Optically, it process far more data and can preform basic object recognition. It controles a large number of muscles to move and responds to stimuli from sensorary nerves. Also runs a large number of background tasks like a fly. The behaviour of a lizard is a lot more complicated than a fly and they are capale of rememboring information of various kinds (like who their mating partner was or which are their young).

3. A Human.
I am sure everyone is well awair of the capabilites of a human brain as afterall, only humans will read this message and everyone who reads this is a human. Vision wise humans are able to recognise a huge number of objects even with random elements applied to them like shape or colour (however a human has less optical input than a lizard and most reptiles / birds so that probably helps). Humans also can respond to movement from any of their sensors. On top of this humans remember an extreem ammount of information, of which most is completly irelevant to their survival (like their first toy). Also while sleeping humans can dream, where it seems a seemingless flawless simulation of an environment in every way at faster than real speed, which shows the shair power of a human brain. Ofcourse like with the other brains it handles background tasks like breathing, digestion and heart rate.

Now basically comes the question, which of those are beings like us where they have an actual conciousness that every human has wondered why they are who they are.

A fly seems purly an advanced computer as far as brain activity so does it have a conciousness?

A lizard seems to be capable of doing quite a bit of what we can, so does that mean it has a conciousness. . .

So what is a conciousness and when does a brain develop one, as it has been proved that a lot of animals can do quite a bit of what humans can (birds talking out colours, apes spaking using sign language).

A conciousness could be explained by being some kind of soul as it would make more sense to most people. It opperates together with a brain to make you feel who you are. However this would mean that almost all living cretures have one (computers even maybe). When you die the brain is destroyed and thus your being is released.

However, I dought your soul would go to a place like heaven as it would make little sense as all your knowledge and personality were lost with the brain when you died. Stopping existing would also not be a nice options as it is too depressing to think about and would seem a waste. Thus you probably are sent to a new brain to be reused (recycled). But due to different numbers of beings existing at once, where would your soul be in the waiting gap if any occur. This I can only think to be a 0 deminsional storage area where time does or does not exist and since your soul has no brain you will experience nothing untill you are reborn.

So thus the moment you fully die, you are reborn as something else, however you remember nothing of your past existances.

This theory sounds far fetched, but science also says that our entire existance could be some kind of advanced computer simulation or even a dream of some ones. Afterall in ones own dream everything appears to be completly real and possiable even if in reality it is not.

The thing about computers is, that there is usually some sort of person to either run it, or at least maintain it...

As for science, imagine what sort of discoveries could be made if a soul "was" discovered to exist.

Mankind would be one step closer to gaining material immortality, for at least a short while.

As for DSG's post about heaven/vs/reincarnation.

What if the soul (hypothetically) contains a back up hard drive, that is only accessible when the main drive (the body) fails?

Perhaps then a heaven or hell could be plausible, as reincarnation would require to some extent, the transfer of an empty soul from one being to another, and has its problems as well, like the question of why? And where does the basic need in a soul to answer life's questions come from? If its a clean slate, it might have trouble essentially activating a body. IE: no bios.

As for consciousness, I believe that perhaps all living things are conscious... it just depends to what extent.

Any computer of life is complex, but perhaps the computer is less limited the further up you go on the food chain. And thus, the consciousness of a soul is more able to manifest itself within that flesh. Like a person using a calculator, up to a person using a NASA computer, still the same soul, just different bodies to use and the limitations with them.

Though I am not making much sense right now, so I'll post tomorrow when I am less sleepy, and have more data.

Originally Posted by Elenai

And if I mis-understood your post, and took it to be offensive towards faithful persons, I appologize in advance, and recant my statement.

[RANT]When we have a solo test, my Orchestra teacher would grade us on "Confidence". This would mean not saying "Let me try" or "Sorry if I screw up." And I agree with him on that. When you apologize in advance, it's really fucking rude. It means you're not too sure it's good enough for yourself, but it's good enough for us? Modest people are just egomaniacs in disguise.[/RANT]

Anyhow, I've been trying to formulate an opinion on what we might experience in the afterlife, but I couldn't seem to find any evidence pointing one way or the other. This could have possibly been attributed to the fact that no one who has seen the afterlife has ever lived to tell the tale.

You know, as far as religious debate goes, Discussing what happens after death has got to be the most useless topic ever. The closest thing you can get to sensible citations is ghost stories.

That being said, the simplest explanation would be that we just stop being.

Originally Posted by Elenai

If I may Mecheon, that post was a little intolerant, a bit vindictive of those holding religious beliefs, and furthermore a tad dogmatic on the secular side's account.

This is me you're talking about. I snap at everything

Anywho, my position on life after death, despite being a lazy agnostic who snaps at everything, is that it's possible, given certain conditions that I can't think of. Ghosts, after all, have some weird origin

However, disproving ghosts and their causes as some other variety of phenomenon somewhat hampers the concept of life after death, so yeah. Some sort of point goes here

As for ghost stories, I've got some good ones on the backburner

I understand completely Mecheon. :)

As far as ghosts go, I think they are simply lingering spirits (using my beliefs here) that just do not heed, or completely refuse the call to go up or down.

Several things could account for this.

The basic: Not finished with a task, concept.

Fear: Knowing that the being will go down, and so they linger. Perhaps this is a case with vengeful ghosts, or ghosts of criminals.

The need to be avenged: Like victimized ghosts, the kind of spirits that haunt murder houses, or genocide grounds.

Cant break out of a mode of emotion: Those that die in the heat of battle, like Gettysburg, or ghosts that are experiencing a huge emotional trauma, "lamenting" ghosts.

At least that is my hypothesis on a religious view.

As for secular, maybe its like that blinking light in your eyes when a camera flash goes off.

Some spiritual things science has not been able to explain.

Like how the one person predectided hittler about 200 years ago and a lot of other prophisies that were fufilled after his death.

Thus the whole spiritul concept could be a science of its own which currently seems completly out of our reach to research, especially since most things spiritual seem to have no effect on the physical environment and only on our conciousness. Maybe due to our advancements in knowledge and information, we have seperated from the spiritual side of existance that more simple animals still are conected with. This could explain why in the old days all those tales occured yet now they seem to not exist.

But really, all we can do is guess as no science currently can prove any of this.

Like imagination made manifest, similar to how the movie "hogfather" is?

You believe in the little lies like the tooth fairy, and they become real, so that the big lies, like justice and mercy can become real as well.

Warning: Religious Content

Well, In my humble little opinion, When we die, our souls await Judgement day.
Rev. 20: 12: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books....

Then, it's either off to the new kingdom of God if you accepted Jesus as your saviour...
John 14: 6: Jesus Said to him I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

or.... (Rev 20: 15) Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of Fire.

I personally believe that the spirit is immortal and spends eternity in one of 2 places after death. But most people have simply lost touch with it, being so focused on the body.

Just my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by Vasxazard

I've always been curious about this even though I think my life is useless and unimportant about what is death truely... do we even go to a heaven or hell or do we just... no longer excist, or mabye even does our soul get attached to our body's and we just sit in our coffins for the rest of eternity? In my last example I became so scared from the idea that I decided to be creamated and be set infront of a T.V. for the rest of eternity. What are your ideas on the after life?

Ever read or watched Bleach? ;)

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Yay! First thread ever moved to Medivh's Tower!

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Originally Posted by boomwolf

As sad as it is, we don't really have a choice over anything. everything we say or do, or even THINK is the result of a chemical reaction that has only one option of what way to go.

Lest start with a simple chemical fact:
From every given situation, only one result may occur.
As long EVERYTHING is the same (even the ordering or atoms, and sub atomic partials, the same to every last detail.), the same thing will happen.

Given that fact, our universe, that is a given situation, from the very beginning of time, only one course of events could have happened. given the starting situation of all existence, and the correct formula, you can calculate what will happen when and how, including people's behavior.

Even the fact I have written this down to you was a given fact from the very beginning of time. we are not souls on a quest, there is no "reward in the afterlife", because all we are in the end, is a result of chemical reactions.

Sad but true.

Okay, for the purposes of argument, let's assume that the universe is entirely deterministic, and that what you say is true. (STFU Teh_Ephy D:)

I know. I don't think it's sad, because I still perceive free will while I live.
You have missed my point.

Originally Posted by boomwolf

That's the problem, you assume you are something beyond chemical reactions, but we are not.

Maybe you are, but I know that what I am, is beyond any law of physics we know of.
You see, while our bodies are entirely a chemical reaction, and our brains are nothing more than that, we do something I think a computer does not.

We experience thought. We also experience sight, and sounds and taste, touch. You can imagine a digital camera taking a picture, it detects various wavelengths of electromagnetic waves, compresses them into bits, and stores it on a chip, but does it experience this reaction? Does it truly see as we do? I guess we don't really know if it does or not, but hopefully I'm causing reactions in your chemical bath that result in your realization of yourself, that we seem to be calling "consciousness". Personally, I'd like to find a better word to use.

Originally Posted by Dr Super Good

But the more complicated question is, when does a simple nural system (like a computer or fly brain) stop being a collection of things capable of preforming logical opperations and start to become an actual being like all humans are.

I think the only way we can determine if something has "consciousness", is by making it smart enough to ask it if it has it.

Originally Posted by Dr Super Good

[A lot of stuff.]

Looks like you get what I'm talking about. :D

Originally Posted by MySpaceBarBroke

[RANT]When we have a solo test, my Orchestra teacher would grade us on "Confidence". This would mean not saying "Let me try" or "Sorry if I screw up." And I agree with him on that. When you apologize in advance, it's really fucking rude. It means you're not too sure it's good enough for yourself, but it's good enough for us? Modest people are just egomaniacs in disguise.[/RANT]

There is only so much you can gather from a wall of text, often you will misread what someone writes unless you know them more. Moreso would I say Elenai was not sure of Mecheon's words than anything else.

Originally Posted by MySpaceBarBroke

That being said, the simplest explanation would be that we just stop being.

We only know "consciousness" in one form and one place: Concealed inside the human brain. We cannot even apply existence as a property of "consciousness", the most logical explanation is reincarnation, as that's the only place we know "consciousness" to be.

I don't believe in ghosts for the same reason, and because I have never met a ghost I couldn't explain away.

I can provide a scientific reason that ghosts are plausible, but neither justification nor evidence for the plausibility of that scientific reason.

Here is my opinion. I don't believe in any of this religious nonsense, but I want to point out that of course a lot of things don't make sense with science. Ghosts sure don't. But neither did computers, ro