What do you believe happens when we die

magicbastarder · 07-12-2021 12:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118283175#Comment_118283175

that's be an ecumolecular matter.

smacl · 07-12-2021 1:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118283437#Comment_118283437

According to Flann O'Brien, the atoms are "as lively as twenty leprechauns doing a jig on top of a tombstone" and those of us that regularly ride bicycles over poor roads through the course of are lives risk becoming more bicycle than person through the ongoing exchange of same. So to circuitously circle back to the opening question of what happens to us when we die, while our human remains may get recirculated ad nauseum, our bicycle selves may yet travel around the pale and beyond a while longer.

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/comedy/flann-obrien-splits-atom

Peregrinus · 08-12-2021 1:54am

So if I borrow somebody's bicycle I will absorb some of their molecules while they are still alive! This is stuff that happens to us even before we die!

I think we need to give serious thought to the moral, political and spiritual implications of bikesharing schemes.

robindch · 08-12-2021 1:32pm

So if I borrow somebody's bicycle I will absorb some of their molecules while they are still alive! This is stuff that happens to us even before we die!

It's a moral dilemma which attracted the attention of none other than Myles (Flann, Brian) na gCopaleen (O'Brien, Ó Nualláin) in his seminal study, The Third Policeman, where he ruminated at length upon the nature of guilt when above-average degrees of molecular transfer were suspected of having taken place. Ruminations which were summarized neatly in Philip Coulter's thesis (https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/downloads/m900nv94z?locale=en), thusly:

The first story concerns Gilhaney, who stole a school-mistress's bicycle and left his own for her. The immorality of this action was compounded by the fact that the woman took Gilhaney's bicycle and rode it herself. Because Gilhaney's personality was diffused between the man and the bicycle, there was doubt as to which contained more of him, and thus doubt as to who or what was guilty of immorality. Similarly, Pluck's great-grandfather rode a horse, which was eventually shot for molesting young girls. However, as the Sergeant points out, "if you ask me it was my great-grandfather they shot and it is the horse that is buried up in Cloncoombe Churchyard". Later, MacCruiskeen tells the narrator about a man named MacDadd who killed another man. Both MacDadd and his bicycle had to be arrested for the murder, and the Sergeant found the bicycle guilty and had it hanged because it contained the greater part of MacDadd.

magicbastarder · 08-12-2021 1:38pm

should read more than one post up!

robindch · 09-12-2021 12:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118289823#Comment_118289823

Unfortunately, upon a request to do so, this splendid update to boards does not drop one at the last unread post in each thread (as did the previous version), but instead, drops one at some random point within the thread, challenging anybody to recall where they'd been some days or weeks before.

I, for one, applaud the responsible developer(s) as this can only require our brains to work far harder and more reliably than they used to.

Hotblack Desiato · 09-12-2021 3:11am

If you install the Boards Enhancement Suite (desktop) the date stamp of the first unread post is in bold.

The people complaining about scrolling all seem to be mobile users though.

Zak Flaps · 09-12-2021 4:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/114505036#Comment_114505036

Who arranged this test?

Who decides whether we have been good or not? What defines good? Does the person in charge have some sort of list?

If we are bad, do we end up in some sort of spiritual jail?

Hotblack Desiato · 09-12-2021 12:38pm

Nice or naughty, present or lump of coal?

smacl · 09-12-2021 6:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118293929#Comment_118293929

When reading the OP state "I used to believe in nothing for so long but then I realised it’s naive to think nothing exists after we die. There has to be more to life than just living and dying" I wonder if they understand the notion of conformation bias. Believing something to be true because you would like it to be true, or cannot bear the alternative, strikes me as rather naive. Of course things exist after we die, but I can't think of any good reason why our continued consciousness would number among those things.

Kaybaykwah · 09-12-2021 9:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118283564#Comment_118283564

Flann O’Brien was also responsible for the mental transmogrification of John Duffy’s brother into a train, while he was alive. That took quite some doing.

Man Vs ManUre · 09-12-2021 10:46pm

Let’s have less molecules and more ghost stories on this thread please.

briany · 18-02-2022 12:33am

Some believe that when you die, an intangible part of your being, often called your spirit or soul, separates from your body and goes to a realm of sorts that is separate from our reality - Heaven, or Hell, or some place in between. Different places called many things by many different cultures, and where you go is often believed to depend on how you have comported yourself in this realm we currently find ourselves. In short, something happens.

This is relatively straightforward.

The opposing view is that nothing happens. In a strange way, nothing is a more interesting concept to think about, for me, because true nothing would be so nothing, you wouldn't even notice it. I could, as I type this, technically experience a quadrillion years worth of true nothing and be completely unaffected. So, to say that after death there is nothing is meaningless in my opinion, because your consciousness, having dissipated, will be unable to appreciate this nothingness and so being dead would offer no peace. From one's own perspective as a conscious being, there can only be somethingness. It may be closest thing we get to 'experiencing' nothingness (which cannot be experienced because it is nothing) is from deep sleep, under general anaesthetic, transcendental meditation maybe or some powerful psychotropic drug perhaps, but in all these experiences, you still come out of the other side knowing that you had this experience and that you lacked the ability to perceive time passing within that state.

But in physical death of your body and your consciousness, if and where there is nothing, and you have no more consciousness, there is no other side to come out on to be able to go 'ah yes, I went through some nothing, just there'. And because you no longer have a consciousness, you would not be able to know you are dead, are going through nothingness or that you had ever even been alive because there is no longer a 'you' to know any of this.

The more I think of this kind of true nothing, the more it just seems like a non-concept. That is not to say I think there's something, but that as a conscious being, I can only ever perceive and have awareness, from my own perspective that is. As I said, true nothingness would surely be unnoticeable because it is, well, nothing...

So, where does that leave me in the 'nothing' model of death?

1) Whatever time I get alive is actually non-existent since all conception of the universe dies when I die, *from my own perspective*, and I won't be able to remember anything or remember that I can't remember anything or have a mind to not remember that I cannot remember anything. From my perspective, as a non-entity, it was as well not have happened.

2) Being that, as a conscious being, I can only really be in the now (the past is memory, the future is imagination), the now I experience at the point of death may last, from my perspective, what feels like an eternity (probably only a second or two in real terms), and in this now you have some quite vivid dreams that you may think are an afterlife, but are really just emanating from your brain, but this is obviously only speculation and probably overestimates the brain's capacity to warp one's perception of time.

But, still, being that one cannot experience the non-experience of nothing, the consciousness being pushed over the line of death I liken to an object going across the event horizon of a black hole. It goes past the black hole, but from your perspective remains upon the event horizon, because light cannot escape from inside the line.

3) You die. You longer have a mind with which to process the passing of time. In this non-state from your perspective as a formerly conscious being, any length of time has no meaning. It's essentially all the same. It could be an instant for all you care whether it be a nanosecond or googolplex years, since there is no you to be aware of time passing. In the fullness of time, or even the fulness of reality itself, where your body and mind are really just a biological machine with no supernatural uniqueness to them, then must it be that any set of circumstances, no matter how unlikely or unique will eventually come around again, including you, on the same Earth, made of the same atoms and electrons , in the same place, with the same ancestors, etc. living every possible outcome of your life? Sort of reincarnation, but without the mystical Hindu aspects.

TL;DR - Whether there is a God or not, or whether there is a classical afterlife or not, I, and each one of us, from our own perspective as aware consciousnesses can only ever experience being, since experiencing true nothing eternally is a non-concept and having no consciousness would surely be unnoticeable, and the concept of death ultimately only has meaning to the living who have to undergo grief and missing loved ones.

P.S. didn't mean to write an essay.

_Marshall_ · 18-02-2022 12:46am

I have a hunch all this is deeper and more complicated than our ape brains can figure, although we have done a lot of work on the Lego aspects of it all.

Started out indoctrinated catholic.

Lost faith.

Found Hitch's Horsemen and thought that was the end of the discussion...

But now.. after a lot of death over some years ... I feel there is something going on. I know not what.

smacl · 18-02-2022 9:47am

So, to say that after death there is nothing is meaningless in my opinion, because your consciousness, having dissipated, will be unable to appreciate this nothingness and so being dead would offer no peace.

Essentially, as I see it, the proposition is that individual human subjective consciousness has limits with respect to time. While it can be an uncomfortable proposition for many, to my mind it seems reasonable and any counter arguments I've come across are essentially unsupported fantasy born out of emotional rejection of the inevitability of subjective annihilation. In some cases death can be an end to suffering. If continued living is solely a cause of pain with no potential for positive improvement, then death may offer peace. Offs topic, but this is the essential, and in my opinion reasonable, argument for euthanasia.

That all sounds rather glum, but another way of looking at it perhaps is that we come from infinite chaos, we have the outstanding luck to enjoy a brief subjective existence and we then return to infinite chaos. Better to celebrate that luck and enjoy life to the full rather than lamenting you were not luckier still, which is essentially winning the lotto and being pissed off that it wasn't the euromillions ;)

smacl · 18-02-2022 10:35am

But now.. after a lot of death over some years ... I feel there is something going on. I know not what.

Also lost a couple of people very dear to me in recent years and it has a marked impact. They certainly don't stop being an influence on my life and I often imagine what they might say or how they might react to a given situation. At the same time, I don't believe they have an independent subjective existence, just that they have helped form my mind and how it works, and continue to do so.

18-02-2022 11:07am

To the child in a mother's womb half way through pregnancy they are all alone ..never having set eyes on another world outside of THEIR world. For me I find it inconcevible that there is nothing .I believe as intelligent as we think we are there is something else after we die that we do not intellectually understand as of yet.it would be on the same plane as me showing a dog a maths problem from my kids homework and expecting him to understand it.the world is far too complicated for humans to understand it.id imagine even an atheist on his death bed would be praying for something more than "close your eyes and that's it"....we are not as smart as we think we are!

That's my two cents .

briany · 18-02-2022 11:26am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118651367#Comment_118651367

If there is nothing after death then death could offer no peace to the dead person since their consciousness would be obliterated and therefore lack any capacity with which to perceive peace as we understand the word as conscious beings. Without the ability to notice, all is unnoticeable. However, death could obviously offer some peace to relatives still living and possessed of awareness, that they no longer need witness their loved one in a state of physical duress, causing emotional pain. The closest we can get as conscious beings to appreciating true nothingness is after the fact when we regain awareness to note that time had passed around us while in a state of non-awareness, but this transition would feel like one instant to the next from an individual perspective.

As for infinite chaos, I can as easily say that perhaps it is true that in infinity, an infinite number of things will happen an infinite number of times and that it is not necessarily lucky that any individual is here, but inevitable in the fullness of time, and this is what I suppose the Indian philosophies are getting at - that you are bound to exist an endless number of times and you can make that fact either a blessing or a curse by choosing, in the now, to have a time that you consider enjoyable.

But whether events are cyclical or not cyclical, all I know is that knowing is all I can know. Whether that be a classical afterlife, or just the temporal lifespan returning to infinite chaos, or cyclical reconstruction of the matter which forms my unique consciousness, I cannot go beyond the bounds of being aware since not being aware cannot be perceived. You can look upon a dead body and say it is unaware, but you're saying that from the perspective of your own awareness, but death will not be perceived by the dead without any instrumentation by which to perceive.

smacl · 18-02-2022 12:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118652024#Comment_118652024

Peace can be defined as "freedom from disturbance; tranquillity" or "a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended". It doesn't demand subjective appreciation of this state. Death, by those definitions, clearly does offer peace. Interestingly, peace is defined in negative terms as the lack of something, e.g. conflict or turmoil, much as atheism is defined as the lack of belief in a god or gods.

smacl · 18-02-2022 12:45pm

id imagine even an atheist on his death bed would be praying for something more than "close your eyes and that's it"....we are not as smart as we think we are!

It is interesting that you place the praying atheist on their deathbed here rather than in the whole of their health. This suggests they are acting out of desperation motivated by fear of death as opposed to rational belief. It does nothing to support the possibility of an afterlife. Wanting a thing to be true does not make it any more likely to be true.

briany · 18-02-2022 1:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118652487#Comment_118652487

If peace can be defined, then it must require a conscious appreciation to write that definition and apply it. That is, at least, how we've arrived at every definition in the dictionary so far. Conscious beings can know peace, as we define it, but peace is still something. I.e. if peace is a lack of war, that's still people going about their daily lives without fear of an army trying to kill them. If peace is a feeling of tranquillity, that's still a feeling, which is still something. Even taking your example of atheism, not believing in gods does not imply believing in nothing. It just says there is no belief in a supernatural aspect to the universe, but still leave plenty of room for the philosophical and metaphysical ramifications of what happens when one dies.

So, yes, a dead person can absolutely be seen to be at peace by those still living and conscious (they lie still and tranquil. Knowable and definable), but it's not going to matter for the dead person, since there is no longer a person for it to matter to, in the case where nothing supernatural happens after you die. It's either just one instant to the next for that former consciousness if it can get back here in some natural way, or one instant to the never, in which case the life bit may as well not have happened from their non-perspective since they would have neither a current consciousness to recognise their state of nothing, which cannot be recognised by a consciousness since true nothing would have no value, and be unable to remember the life bit owing to the shutdown and eventual decay of brain structures which house human memory.

18-02-2022 1:04pm

Hmm...I will stay the optimist rather than a pessimist..if there is bad there is the opposite which is good ...if there is a hell there must be an opposite which is heaven....

I've had afew good experiences in my life that have brought me in this direction ..maby the atheist has had no enlightenment ?

To me the atheist has decided that there is no god and that's that ..no changing his mind....therefore you cannot teach him anything...to the optimist there will always be hope and belief and he will live a far more enriched life for without prayer ,compassion and faith there is nothing.

smacl · 18-02-2022 1:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118652674#Comment_118652674

While I can only speak for myself, I don't believe in gods or an afterlife as I've yet to see any remotely rational argument to support their existence, regardless of how much you or I might want them to exist. That isn't to categorically state they don't exist, merely that I haven't come across any reason to suppose they might. I reserve my faith, hope and compassion for those that I know and love and enjoy a full and rewarding life in doing so. I consider myself an optimist as I look forward to whatever the future might bring. As for closing the mind to teaching new possibilities, I would suggest religious dogma has that in spades, where we still have the likes of creationists denying evolution on the basis it is contradictory to their understanding of the bible. I don't doubt that many religious folks feel enriched by their faith but to suggest that those of us that don't share that belief are unenlightened pessimists with an inability to learn says rather more about your mindset that theirs.

18-02-2022 1:47pm

No offence was intended to you or your beliefs ...nor am I here to convert you...my faith is very strong ..we will just agree to disagree :)

smacl · 18-02-2022 1:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118652955#Comment_118652955

Nor any intention to offend here and I fully appreciate and respect that faith is both central and enriching to many folks.

smacl · 18-02-2022 2:59pm

If peace can be defined, then it must require a conscious appreciation to write that definition and apply it. That is, at least, how we've arrived at every definition in the dictionary so far.

Not seeing your logic here, writing the definition of a word is entirely distinct from the definition itself. Nouns do not demand a subject, things can exist regardless of our conscious appreciation of their doing so.

So, yes, a dead person can absolutely be seen to be at peace by those still living and conscious (they lie still and tranquil. Knowable and definable), but it's not going to matter for the dead person, since there is no longer a person for it to matter to, in the case where nothing supernatural happens after you die. It's either just one instant to the next for that former consciousness if it can get back here in some natural way, or one instant to the never, in which case the life bit may as well not have happened from their non-perspective since they would have neither a current consciousness to recognise their state of nothing, which cannot be recognised by a consciousness since true nothing would have no value, and be unable to remember the life bit owing to the shutdown and eventual decay of brain structures which house human memory.

I agree for the most part, though as per my previous example, if death marks the end of suffering, it can still be considered finding peace much like falling into a permanent and dreamless sleep. As for life mattering, this too is a function of time. Our lives matter to us when we are alive, not before nor after. Our lives may well also matter to others while they are alive, but that is something else again.

Hotblack Desiato · 18-02-2022 7:08pm

id imagine even an atheist on his death bed would be praying for something more than "close your eyes and that's it"

To me the atheist has decided that there is no god and that's that ..no changing his mind...

Bit of a contradiction there Ted.

Dakota Dan · 18-02-2022 7:10pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/114504211#Comment_114504211

Interesting, how long were you dead for?

Dakota Dan · 18-02-2022 7:15pm

When Clint Eastwood was asked one time if he thought there was life after death he replied, I’m not sure but I’m in no hurry to find out.

nozzferrahhtoo · 25-02-2022 11:36am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118652674#Comment_118652674

Time and time again in this forum I have seen theists suggest that we atheists have "decided" there is no god.

I am endlessly fascinated by this. Mainly because I am entirely unable to "decide" to believe, or not believe, anything at all. So I am fascinated by people who claim to have such an ability. I often wonder just how labile their credulity is under application of this ability. For example can you look at your empty hand and simply "decide" to believe it is full of money? I have tried. I can't.

All I know is I lack that ability. If there is good evidence for a claim, then I helplessly believe the claim. I can not simply decide to withhold belief. I am compelled to belief by the evidence.

Similarly. If there is no evidence for a claim at all, I can not simply decide to believe it. It is just not an ability I have.

So the simple fact is that there is a claim. The claim is often essentially, in one form or another, that a non-human intelligent and intentional agent is responsible for the creation and/or ongoing maintenance of our universe.

I at no point "decided" to not believe that claim. The claim is simply unsubstantiated. Not a single iota of argument, evidence, data or reasoning is being offered to me, least of all by theists on this forum, to lend credence to the claim. This is not my failing. It is theirs. Nor is it my decision.

For me therefore when I see a line like "You can not teach the atheist anything"..... I just see it as a disingenuous, insulting, petty, passive aggressive cop out. It is not that you can not teach the atheist anything. It is that you have decided not to try and/or are simply incapable of doing so yourself. But rather than admit either of those things.... you engage in projection and essentially denigration. Painting it as some flaw or lack on the part of the atheist. When it is anything but.

So you can keep your "prayer" and "faith" that you close your post with. But let us not move at any point to pretend that "compassion", which you also mention, is somehow outside the purview of the atheist. Compassion and empathy is every bit as much in our wheelhouse as yours. As is optimism. Perhaps even more so were I bothered to consider the question.

smacl · 25-02-2022 1:31pm

Similarly. If there is no evidence for a claim at all, I can not simply decide to believe it. It is just not an ability I have.

Depends very much on the nature of the claim and who is making it as far as I'm concerned. If I trust someone and they make a reasonable yet unevidenced claim I have no problem believing what they're saying is true. I suspect this is true for most people, particularly as children growing up learning from parents and teachers. It is unreasonable or extraordinary claims that are the issue, or those made by people I don't trust. Personally, I find claims of the supernatural to be unreasonable and extraordinary and I don't trust the clergy. Historically, there have been, and still are, plenty of people who have been brought up with the idea that belief in the supernatural is reasonable and that the clergy are a trustworthy source of knowledge.

nozzferrahhtoo · 25-02-2022 1:57pm

^ I think for me that is just a minor linguistic difference. If a trusted source makes a claim I will functionally often act AS IF I believe their claim. It is not that I actually have formed a belief in the absence of evidence, or have suddenly developed this ability I have lacked all my life so far to "decide" to believe them.

But I can functionally respond and even act in ways indistinguishable from belief. Especially if doing so is inconsequential in any way. So for example I was once told from an otherwise trustworthy and often correct source that Dogs do not see in color and the quack of ducks does not echo. I lodged those claims in my brain in a way similar to believing they were true because it was inconsequential either way. But I can not say I ever actually believed them. They were just lodged without challenge. Think of it like a kind of "pending buffer" in the brain. Again.... for me. Your brain may differ :)

Before in any way implementing those beliefs, or repeating them myself however, I did move to verify them. I found the claims to not really be true and so I dropped them from my brain.

So.... again for me at least..... actively believing an unsubstantiated claim..... and functionally accepting a claim for a period.... are very different things but might appear on a surface level very similar.

But the point I was making to the now deleted user above..... is that once I get to the point of evaluating or challenging the claim in my brain...... if I still find the claim unsubstantiated it no longer sits in that "pending buffer" and I am intellectually unable in ANY WAY whatsoever to simply "decide" to believe it anyway.

Yet I have lost count of how many times theists have told me directly, or implied indirectly as the user above did here, that as an "atheist" (though I do not self identify with that term) I have "decided" not to believe in god. Quite often they will then go on to tell me the reasons I made that decision. They truly are psychic it seems. The usual reason I am given is that I want to act in some kind of immoral fashion and I do not want to feel I am judged by this god. So I simply "decide" that said god does not exist so I can continue with my wanton immorality.

But it is like being accused of flying without the aid of technology. I am being told I have done something I not only know I did not do.... but know I am personally absolutely incapable of doing. And I find it fascinating and always want to talk to the theist about it. Unfortunately now deleted, that will not be happening with this particular theist :)

gormdubhgorm · 25-04-2022 4:46pm

In the poll I ticked ‘other’. Practically I believe we become food for the worms.

However, beyond that there is some form of legacy. Maximum (unless famous) people who died will be remembered for about 120-140 years. Until the youngest generation that remembers a person, dies.

After that each generation continues on those legacies even a small piece of the dead have contributed to it.

I believe at whatever level in some small way. A persons life is influenced by those they interacted with in life. It is magnified by close family and friends. A legacy of interaction.

In death I think of a continuing legacy, for those left behind. Similar to the way many family and friends walk and talk the same. What continues on is an intangible legacy which future generations build on.

Kaybaykwah · 26-04-2022 2:48am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118975111#Comment_118975111

Who TF knows? A hundred fifty years from now, Charlie Chaplin might be remembered as the most lethal dictator the Twentieth century had experienced.

johndaman66 · 27-04-2022 12:42am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118977207#Comment_118977207

I think in fairness 20th century history is documented well enough to ensure that won't happen in 150 years time. It's hardly like there would be slim pickings to choose from to take that accolade either.

Kaybaykwah · 27-04-2022 3:45am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118981998#Comment_118981998

There’s more than a slim chance many will mistake Mia Farrow for Nancy Reagan, and vice-versa. They just won’t be part of the zeitgeist.

john123470 · 27-04-2022 4:01am

Consciousness cannot be explained. It is not simply the result of brain activity. You may call it this and I that, but best we can do is assume

It can be argued that Consciousness precedes - is even accountable for - matter.

I "believe" Consciousness interfaces with the brain - brain is the medium, the brain draws on Conciousness - and that Consciousness will continue beyond death.

How this all translates into how well / poorly one has lived a life, I simply don't know

Basically, we know nothing. That is the extent of our wisdom on the subject

We can only marvel at our ignorance

nozzferrahhtoo · 27-04-2022 4:49am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118982090#Comment_118982090

I see a contradiction in your opening paragraph. Firstly you say that it can not be explained. I agree with that to a point for sure. We have not got a full theory of consciousness or have explained it fully.

But you then go on to declare "it is not simply the result of brain activity".

You simply do not / can not know that to be true. And the fact you open by saying it has not been explained..... shows that. You have taken something we are relatively ignorant about and made a declaration about it that is not warranted based on the evidence available. That is trying to have your cake and eat it too. Pleading ignorance with one hand and then claiming knowledge with the other.

I guess I have always been wary about the phrase "it can be argued" because in my experience when someone uses it they use it in lieu of actually arguing something at all. The phrase "it can be argued" when I read it, reads as "I am not actually about to argue or defend said position at all".

There is every possibility that consciousness is an emergent attribute of the activity at the level of the brain. There is currently no evidence I am aware of that it is anything else. That does not mean we "know" it is a product of the brain or that we have explained it. It just means that the evidence we currently have points that way.... and no evidence I am currently aware of points another way. It is still an open question worth our attention as a species.

That is kinda how science works, or at least how it should work. When all the evidence points to one conclusion we should not claim to "know" this conclusion is correct. We just acknowledge all the evidence points at conclusion A at this time.... no evidence points at conclusion B C or D at this time..... and so we proceed functionally under the rubric of knowledge until other evidence arises to warrant doing otherwise. Which, yes, will occasionally mean we proceed falsely. Science is like a light in fog sometimes. It can help, but the wrong light in a thick fog can actually hamper rather than help visibility too.

So I think we know "little" rather than "nothing" as you claimed above. But we should acknowledge that relative ignorance and not yet make sweeping declarations about what consciousness can or can not be. We should not preclude things we have no reason to preclude such as consciousness being entirely brain based and emergent.

But we also should not over state our ignorance. While our evidence set is incomplete I am unaware of any evidence whatsoever to suggest consciousness precedes the brain or in any way acts independent or external to it.... or can survive the death of the brain..... as if the brain is just some of radio receiver for some external energy it is relaying and accessing. A pretty narrative perhaps, but without any evidence I have yet seen.

El_Duderino 09 · 27-04-2022 10:04am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118982090#Comment_118982090

Ah, we can marvel at ournugnorance, but we don't have to make things up to celebrate our ignorance.

Do you have any evidence that consciousness is separate from the brain? And even if you could establish that consciousness is separate from the brain, what evidence do you have that it has its own life and can survive independently of a body?

smacl · 27-04-2022 10:37am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118982665#Comment_118982665

In addition to the above, it is worth considering why we might assert than consciousness is separate from the human brain. Fear of mortality and a desire for our consciousness to continue on after death seem like probable factors here, which in turn amounts to cognitive bias in favour of the assertion in addition to the lack of any supporting evidence. The rather large gap between what may be true and what we would like to be true is a great place to pitch your stand if you're in the business of selling snake oil.

john123470 · 27-04-2022 11:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118982665#Comment_118982665

Both the above posters (El Duderino) and Nozzferrahhtoo) are on point. I have absolutely no "proof" that Consciousness precedes or survives death.

The OP question is "What do you believe happens when we die"

Im my (poorly worded, sorry) post above, I am trying to answer the OPs question - I can simply express a gut feeling - my "belief" is that we are more than a sum of parts but, it is true, I cannot prove a "hunch".

Anecdotal evidence from my own humble life experiences that lead me to "believe" my gut instinct will not count for much here and I am by no means 'religious'

However clever our semantics, we cannot explain this mystery of life.

Language, science, religion, of themselves, may not be adequate to explain

Science itself is by no means sacrosanct

Meanwhile, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

El_Duderino 09 · 27-04-2022 11:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118982995#Comment_118982995

I wasn't asking about proof. Just some evidence. Do you have any evidence of the claims you made or are they just hunches?

If they're just hunches, what are the hunches based on or motivated by? For example, if they're based on evidence, that's a good start. If they're motivated by wishful thinking, that's not a good start.

john123470 · 27-04-2022 11:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118983029#Comment_118983029

Similar to Smacl's point above, i wishfully think that when i draw last breath, that's the bloody end of it all

"Something" tells me it is not

If you paid me good money, i cannot explain this 'something' to you

But i'm working on it

El_Duderino 09 · 27-04-2022 3:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118983054#Comment_118983054

Fair one. I wouldn't buy a car from you based on this level of detail. But cars definitely exist so the stakes are higher when buying a car than buying the idea of life after death.

smacl · 27-04-2022 4:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118983054#Comment_118983054

Kind of the reverse for me actually, if, after drawing my last breath, my consciousness extended on somewhere else, barring a bad version of Dante's Inferno, I'd be pretty chuffed. The point is that I have no reason whatsoever to think that this might happen. Various notions of an afterlife to me appear as peddling fantasy to a rather desperate audience using carrot and stick tactics. Planting a seed in a young child's mind that an afterlife categorically does exist, that dead loved ones live on elsewhere and the possibility of eternal damnation if you're bold, is perhaps the source of this desperation. I suspect that having a faith and losing it is rather worse in this regard than never having had one to begin with.

john123470 · 27-04-2022 7:15pm

Tis surely a privilege to discuss the unknown / unknowable with such learned men

I am honoured

smacl · 27-04-2022 10:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118985241#Comment_118985241

A bit of banter is always good, no right or wrong so much as playing with ideas and arguments. Usually works better with a pint in front of you rather than at a screen but needs must.

El_Duderino 09 · 27-04-2022 11:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118985241#Comment_118985241

Ah, don't be like that. I don't claim any great knowledge, but that's the advantage in this discussion. Separating what we have evidence for, from wishful thinking, is important.

This whole area is only a hot topic for discussion because we have evidence for mundane claims such as 'consciousness is an emergent property of brains', and no evidence for fantastical claims like 'consciousness is independent of brains' or, better still, 'consciousness can live on after the brain dies'.

So the "learned men" in your scenario, will know how much as we know and put the rest down to fantasy.

It might be very exciting if there was a life after death or consciousness was independent of the body. But the time to believe such things are true is after the evidence has been discovered. Absence of evidence might not be evidence of absence, but how on earth do you get from absence of evidence for a claim, to belief that the claim is true?

nozzferrahhtoo · 28-04-2022 8:18am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118982995#Comment_118982995

Like El D above I also do not really look for "proof" on any of these things. Especially as I prefer the scientific meaning of the word "prove" rather than the vernacular. Which are very different. In science to "prove" effectively means "to test". Whereas the more vernacular meaning is more along the lines of showing something to be true beyond most doubt (like in court).

In fact over the years I have developed and refined a sentence I use when asking people about such things.

So whereas as a petulant teenager I would say "Can you prove there is a god?" I now say "Have you any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning that can lend for me any credence whatsoever to the claim that our existence in this universe is explained by the machinations of a non-human intelligent and intentional agent?".

See how I changed something like "proof" to something like "any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning that lends any credence to your idea"? I find that modification less standoffish and more open to hearing what the response might in fact be. And it sets the bar for conversation lower. I am not demanding them convince me beyond any and all doubt! I am merely asking them to open the road to credence.

But it would seem that, like theists who think there is a god, your position is based on your intuition or gut feelings? I can understand that at least, but unfortunately I can only dismiss it out of hand. It is not a response I can use in any way. And anecdotal verification is really awful as we tend as a species to notice the anecdote that verifies our preconceptions and simply miss and ignore the rest. Not just in religion and the paranormal... but in everything.

Look at the people who think the number 23 controls everything for example. There was a Jim Carey movie about them for instance. If you go out in the world with the idea that 23 is behind everything, you will find TONS of anecdotal evidence to support and verify it. I tried it myself. It works. It will work for you too I am sure.

Problem is.... it works for pretty much every other number too! (A mathematician once informed me, for reasons I do not understand, that it is especially so with prime numbers like 23). In fact I have been surprised in the past myself at how often the number 27 appears in my life. Before I rationalised it and realised it is that my mind (probably because my house number growing up was 27) notices instances of 27 while not noticing all the others.

The bible, Matthew I think, in fact tries to exploit this human trait. The bible is in fact a great work of marketing and consumer psychology long before either discipline was invented I think! The oft cited phrase "Seek and you shall find". Exactly! You definitely will! Confirmation bias is powerful indeed.

You are right there is much we can not explain. But that does not warrant us to simply make stuff up to fill the gaps. Which again is a very human tendency. The final sentence of your post is empty and meaningless in fact as it can be said about anything at all, that you simply make up on the spot. So a cliché that pretty much means everything.... effectively means nothing. It's a phrase I have heard 1000s of times. But it seems more empty and meaningless and intellectually bankrupt every time I see it (a comment about the phrase! Not you personally for using it!).

john123470 · 28-04-2022 11:14am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118986831#Comment_118986831

Thr OPs question - "What do you believe happens when we die ?" - can be dismissed as a fallacy itself in that case unless we can provide "arguments, evidence, data .."

I have already stated, I cannot.

As for "dismissing my gut feelings out of hand.. " - be my guest. I am trying to answer the OP question in the spirit it was asked

As for "anecdotal verification", - as you say - " .. it is really awful" ..

i already mentioned in my posts above that I am not offering any anecdotal evidence, so I'm not sure why you have to bang on about your feelings about "anecdotal evidence" and then bang on some more about Jim Carrey movies and "tons of anecdotal evidence".

I repeat, for sake of clarity I am not offering "anecdotal evidence"

Equally, I did not mention the bible. I proclaimed myself to be non-religious.

So, don't know where you're going with that one either

Frankly, I am not sure what your entire post is about.

The problem with discussions like this are that they turn into a "Who dunnit ?" "Show me the money " ..

Who are you to claim that "gut instinct" is not part of the human psyche - a possible first step in asking - as the OP has done - 'Is this it ?'

In the words of Albert Einstein

"The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. It is like a little child entering a huge library .... the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books …a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects ..."

Our little vain attempts at semantic wizardry here and the ample detective abilities from the posters on display on Boards are simply not enough to satisfy me re. the Ops question.

"Language and Reasoning" may simply not be enough though I understand your need for an explanation and "I want it Now !!"

Anyhoo, this is where I put it to bed.

I am simply trying to answer the OP question according to my very limited ability but i must say my "hunches" have grown in strength if anything from these little exchanges.

For this, I am grateful

Peace out

What do you believe happens when we die

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