After Death

[ONeill]

Always interested in the statement that 'faith gave me the strength to carry on'.

Two things - maybe you would have anyway but, secondly, it's a good reason to have it then - a form of psychology.

Also interested in our atheists' views of an afterlife. I was talking to a 70-year-old atheist soon after his wife died, a smart man, and he was the first I met who believed in some form of existence after we expire. Not in a spiritual sense - a matter of matter.

[omaghjoe]

Always interested in the statement that 'faith gave me the strength to carry on'.

Two things - maybe you would have anyway but, secondly, it's a good reason to have it then - a form of psychology.

Also interested in our atheists' views of an afterlife. I was talking to a 70-year-old atheist soon after his wife died, a smart man, and he was the first I met who believed in some form of existence after we expire. Not in a spiritual sense - a matter of matter.

Just sounds like he believed in plain old science, the molecules we are made from will probably mostly hang around for a few centuries or millenia before breaking down, but then in turn the atoms that they are made from will hang around forever, well at least until they come into contact to some force that is strong enough to break them down too, which will likely be our sun burning up, so in that sense we have a while to go yet. But until that time the matter that we are made from will continue to form new things and new people, a form of reincarnation I suppose.

Nothing really new, unless he believed that consciousness was somehow attached to that, he wasnt really going outside the realm of physics.

[Eamonnca1]

We go back to the elements we came from. In fact the physical material you're made of now is completely different from the stuff you were made of seven years ago.  This reminds me of an old FB post I wrote a while back, lemme resurrect it...

Here it is, sorry for the long post:

Just recently watched the end of David Tennant's tenure as the Doctor in Doctor Who.  Seems to be that when a Timelord regenerates, he actually dies but is replaced by a new body and new mind that retains the memories of the old one, so he has a sensation of impending death if he knows he's about to regenerate.

I've often wondered about this in Star Trek.  Every time someone steps onto the transporter, he is scanned, disassembled, each particle is converted to data, that data is beamed electromagnetically to another location, and a machine at the other end receives the data and reassembles the body.  So does he die every time he steps onto the transporter pad only to be replaced by a copy at the other end?  If so, would we ever know?  The "thing" that is reassembled at the other end has all the memories of the old body, so it's not like anyone would be left to tell the tale of what it was like to die on the transporter pad.  The only person with any sense of dying would no longer be around to tell the tale because that person is destroyed at the old location.  "You" are destroyed on the transporter pad as you beam out, and "you" have no sense of a continued existence.  The person being assembled at the other end is not "you," it's a carbon copy of you, but it happens to have your memories of everything that happened up to the point where you were transported, so who's going to know to raise the alarm that someone just died? 

Or is it "you" that was destroyed?

Depends what we mean by "you".  Are you the physical body or the memories?

How about the old "you are what you eat" axiom?  The physical matter that makes up our bodies comes from the food that we eat and the water we drink.  The physical material in your body is gradually replaced throughout the course of life, like the calcium in your bones that's being replaced at the same rate as it's destroyed, keeping it in balance and creating the illusion of a piece of solid material that stays unchanged throughout your life.  The actual matter in your body today is completely different from the matter that your body consisted of seven years ago.  But you're not a completely different person from the one you were seven years ago, are you?  So what's the difference between having all the matter in your body replaced over a seven year period, and having all the matter in your body replaced in a split second at a different location?

After a bit of googling on this it seems like there's something called Theseus's paradox that deals with the same idea:

"The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, in so much that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same."
—Plutarch

Every component on the ship was replaced.  Was it still the same ship?

It seems like even the ancient Greeks were pondering this stuff and they hadn't even seen Star Trek or Doctor Who or any other sci-fi show.

I've often wondered the same about some of the bikes I've had over the years.  I've replaced wheels, handlebars, saddles, you name it.  Then I swapped all the components onto a new frame (the Vitus frame that some of you have seen).  Was this a new bike or just another slight modification of the old one?

The BBC's classic comedy show Only Fools and Horses once had a go at this paradox too.  Trigger, not the sharpest tool in the box, talks about how he still has the same broom as appears in a 20 year-old photo even though it has had "17 new heads and 14 new handles" in all that time.  Is it the same broom?  He says it is but everybody else laughs at him.  But does he have a point?

Frankly I think our material is all recycled. What I think is very cool is the fact that all the material we are made of was once inside a star. In the beginning the universe was all hydrogen. It took nuclear fusion inside stars to create the heavier elements, including the organic matter like carbon that we're based upon.

As for the non physical, we have a chance of living on in the form of memories of other people. Life is ultimately about relating to others and the effect we have on others. If our experiences and our ideas can continue to affect others after we're gone, surely that's as close to immortality as we're likely to get.

But the idea of a living conscious hereafter is a bit far fetched in my  opinion, and I think it's a product of people's inability to comprehend what it's like to be dead, or unwillingness to face the fact of death. I also have my doubts about how seriously anyone really believes in the afterlife in the religious sense. If they did believe it then grief as we know it would not exist. If you truly believed that your loved one was just gone to another place and waiting for you to catch up, then bereavement wouldn't be the emotional trauma that it is. When people ask me where I think I go after death, I tell them I go back to the same place I was before I was born, i.e. nowhere. If there was a time in the past when I didn't exist, what's so unbelievable about a time in the future when I don't exist?

[omaghjoe]

Thats interesting Eamon that we basically purge all material tho does it really include all bones and everything? Begs the question then how we get old?

But it inadvertently bumps into another question as regards consciousness. If all our cells-molecules-atoms are replaced why do we still feel like we are a continuation of the same person? Where is all the data in our brain held because if everything is replaced we should lose it?

The only feasible answer to these questions from a physics point of view is that consciousness is an illusion

[muppet]

Where would an after life be, in the context of the known Universe, and how would we get there (speed, distance, time etc)?

Since its primarily of a spiritual nature (ie non-physical) why would you presume it lies within the known (ie physical) universe.

I would have thought that it is much more of a leap to presume it is something that no one has ever had any evidence of?

[seafoid]

Always interested in the statement that 'faith gave me the strength to carry on'.

Two things - maybe you would have anyway but, secondly, it's a good reason to have it then - a form of psychology.

Also interested in our atheists' views of an afterlife. I was talking to a 70-year-old atheist soon after his wife died, a smart man, and he was the first I met who believed in some form of existence after we expire. Not in a spiritual sense - a matter of matter.

Faith is a placebo. Our brains are wired to follow leaders and their thought paradigms, most of which are shite. If you listen to a catholic mass an awful lot of it is BS. Do not consider what we truly deserve FFS. Religion is another sector completely unprepared for climate change.

[J70]

Always interested in the statement that 'faith gave me the strength to carry on'.

Two things - maybe you would have anyway but, secondly, it's a good reason to have it then - a form of psychology.

Also interested in our atheists' views of an afterlife. I was talking to a 70-year-old atheist soon after his wife died, a smart man, and he was the first I met who believed in some form of existence after we expire. Not in a spiritual sense - a matter of matter.

I was asked by friends after the funeral of one of my parents (who died suddenly, and not at an advanced age) whether the whole experience had made me question my atheism.

It was actually something I'd wondered myself before that happened, but it turned out not to be a factor at all.

I am simply comfortable with the reality that this life is all we have. Make the most of it for that reason, do what you can for your family and friends, and you'll live on in their memory. No further "reward" necessary.

Afterlife, religion and so on is simply wishful thinking.

[omaghjoe]

Where would an after life be, in the context of the known Universe, and how would we get there (speed, distance, time etc)?

Since its primarily of a spiritual nature (ie non-physical) why would you presume it lies within the known (ie physical) universe.

I would have thought that it is much more of a leap to presume it is something that no one has ever had any evidence of?

There is no scientific evidence of the human spirit that's true but there is intuitive, instinctual and rational evidence of it.

Besides doesn't scientific evidence rely on our senses to interpret what's out there? Its a fair old leap to presume that what we are made up  off can give us an accurate picture of whats out there.

In fact to hide the anomalies of that picture that it gives us we have to use reason and logic to come up with quantum physics to make sense of it, (and we still cant fully) which as it turns out is actually nothing like the picture we see thru our senses. But then if the picture we are getting in the first place is wrong in the first place its a false assumption to assume our understanding of that picture is right.

As I mentioned before science uses logical deduction to rationalise the world but its starting point uses induction, thereby throwing a question mark over whether or not it really is an accurate picture of the world

[muppet]

Where would an after life be, in the context of the known Universe, and how would we get there (speed, distance, time etc)?

Since its primarily of a spiritual nature (ie non-physical) why would you presume it lies within the known (ie physical) universe.

I would have thought that it is much more of a leap to presume it is something that no one has ever had any evidence of?

There is no scientific evidence of the human spirit that's true but there is intuitive, instinctual and rational evidence of it.

Besides doesn't scientific evidence rely on our senses to interpret what's out there? Its a fair old leap to presume that what we are made up  off can give us an accurate picture of whats out there.

In fact to hide the anomalies of that picture that it gives us we have to use reason and logic to come up with quantum physics to make sense of it, (and we still cant fully) which as it turns out is actually nothing like the picture we see thru our senses. But then if the picture we are getting in the first place is wrong in the first place its a false assumption to assume our understanding of that picture is right.

As I mentioned before science uses logical deduction to rationalise the world but its starting point uses induction, thereby throwing a question mark over whether or not it really is an accurate picture of the world

Can you give me an example of the rational evidence that put forward the case for an afterlife?

[omaghjoe]

Where would an after life be, in the context of the known Universe, and how would we get there (speed, distance, time etc)?

Since its primarily of a spiritual nature (ie non-physical) why would you presume it lies within the known (ie physical) universe.

I would have thought that it is much more of a leap to presume it is something that no one has ever had any evidence of?

There is no scientific evidence of the human spirit that's true but there is intuitive, instinctual and rational evidence of it.

Besides doesn't scientific evidence rely on our senses to interpret what's out there? Its a fair old leap to presume that what we are made up  off can give us an accurate picture of whats out there.

In fact to hide the anomalies of that picture that it gives us we have to use reason and logic to come up with quantum physics to make sense of it, (and we still cant fully) which as it turns out is actually nothing like the picture we see thru our senses. But then if the picture we are getting in the first place is wrong in the first place its a false assumption to assume our understanding of that picture is right.

As I mentioned before science uses logical deduction to rationalise the world but its starting point uses induction, thereby throwing a question mark over whether or not it really is an accurate picture of the world

Can you give me an example of the rational evidence that put forward the case for an afterlife?

Well if you have an instinctual feeling that death is not the end, the next step in reasoning that feeling is an afterlife.

[omaghjoe]

Always interested in the statement that 'faith gave me the strength to carry on'.

Two things - maybe you would have anyway but, secondly, it's a good reason to have it then - a form of psychology.

Also interested in our atheists' views of an afterlife. I was talking to a 70-year-old atheist soon after his wife died, a smart man, and he was the first I met who believed in some form of existence after we expire. Not in a spiritual sense - a matter of matter.

Faith is a placebo.

No faith is an intuitive feeling that we have a spiritual aspect

Our brains are wired to follow leaders and their thought paradigms, most of which are shite.

Huh? Wired to follow leaders? Is there specific neural pathways that we are born with or what?

If you listen to a catholic mass an awful lot of it is BS. Do not consider what we truly deserve FFS.

I listen most weeks and dont think that, I find it insightful and thought provoking

Religion is another sector completely unprepared for climate change.

I am all ears on this one, Im sure they are probably to blame for it too. How many years does humanity have left now?

[Eamonnca1]

Thats interesting Eamon that we basically purge all material tho does it really include all bones and everything? Begs the question then how we get old?

Cells are good at replacing themselves, but they don't get so good at it as time wears on. Another little mis-firing is cancer. They say that more people are getting cancer because of longer lifespans, the longer the live the more likely you are to get tumors.

But it inadvertently bumps into another question as regards consciousness. If all our cells-molecules-atoms are replaced why do we still feel like we are a continuation of the same person? Where is all the data in our brain held because if everything is replaced we should lose it?

Neurons in your brain, where all the memories are kept, are just cells and they get replaced like any other.

The only feasible answer to these questions from a physics point of view is that consciousness is an illusion

Yes. A very cool illusion though.

[Eamonnca1]

Our brains are wired to follow leaders and their thought paradigms, most of which are shite.

Huh? Wired to follow leaders? Is there specific neural pathways that we are born with or what?

Yes.  Certain basic instincts are "hard wired." They exist in the core of the brain, the bit near the stem, the "lizard brain" as Carl Sagan called it, I can't remember its proper name. It's the part we inherited from when we were a more primitive animal, it's where all the survival instincts come from. Your instinct to care more for people in your immediate family group (a survival strategy for genes), your instinct for cooperation with others, fear of darkness in unfamiliar locations, the fight-or-flight instinct for when you get into a bit of trouble, etc.. Social hierarchy is all handled by that part.

[omaghjoe]

Thats interesting Eamon that we basically purge all material tho does it really include all bones and everything? Begs the question then how we get old?

Cells are good at replacing themselves, but they don't get so good at it as time wears on. Another little mis-firing is cancer. They say that more people are getting cancer because of longer lifespans, the longer the live the more likely you are to get tumors.

But it inadvertently bumps into another question as regards consciousness. If all our cells-molecules-atoms are replaced why do we still feel like we are a continuation of the same person? Where is all the data in our brain held because if everything is replaced we should lose it?

Neurons in your brain, where all the memories are kept, are just cells and they get replaced like any other.

The only feasible answer to these questions from a physics point of view is that consciousness is an illusion

Yes. A very cool illusion though.

So the memories are keep in neurons, sort of like in a hard drive in a computer?
Firstly there is no evidence that the actual memory experience is in the neuron only that the firing of neuron makes us experience the memory.
Secondly when we make a decision to access them what causes the neurons to fire exactly?
Thirdly when we access these neurons where are they projected onto so that we experience them?

But prehaps you already answered that last question if you believe that consciousness is only an illusion. I've a few other queries... do you believe that you really think, in the true sense of the word?
Or that you are just a sort of  complex organism without proper consciousness again in the true sense of the word, who makes decisions based on both natural prewiring and from sensory experiences from the world around you?

[muppet]

Where would an after life be, in the context of the known Universe, and how would we get there (speed, distance, time etc)?

Since its primarily of a spiritual nature (ie non-physical) why would you presume it lies within the known (ie physical) universe.

I would have thought that it is much more of a leap to presume it is something that no one has ever had any evidence of?

There is no scientific evidence of the human spirit that's true but there is intuitive, instinctual and rational evidence of it.

Besides doesn't scientific evidence rely on our senses to interpret what's out there? Its a fair old leap to presume that what we are made up  off can give us an accurate picture of whats out there.

In fact to hide the anomalies of that picture that it gives us we have to use reason and logic to come up with quantum physics to make sense of it, (and we still cant fully) which as it turns out is actually nothing like the picture we see thru our senses. But then if the picture we are getting in the first place is wrong in the first place its a false assumption to assume our understanding of that picture is right.

As I mentioned before science uses logical deduction to rationalise the world but its starting point uses induction, thereby throwing a question mark over whether or not it really is an accurate picture of the world

Can you give me an example of the rational evidence that put forward the case for an afterlife?

Well if you have an instinctual feeling that death is not the end, the next step in reasoning that feeling is an afterlife.

That is the evidence?