dougsmith - 26 February 2012 07:30 AM

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 07:26 AM

dougsmith - 26 February 2012 07:17 AM

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 07:15 AM

... I am not a believer in god but still believe consciousness will exist after death.

Why?

By why do you mean why would we exist if there is no god ?
What if there is no god like religion has taught us. Religion might have come out of our necessity to have a logic to everything. If we exist there might be some creator. What if we just exist just like religions say god just exists without beginning and end.

No, I mean why do you think that consciousness would exist after death? There is no evidence for it, and all the evidence we have is that the brain is responsible for all mental processes. Hence no brain, no mental processes.

Its just what I think. What is important for me is that how my thinking will affect me at the moment of death. If you read above what I said is that if consciousness would not exist after death, I would ..... This means I am open to both possibilities because this ideology would provide me with most happiness until I die and even at the moment of death.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 07:50 AM

Its just what I think.

That goes without saying. The question is whether you have any reason to think that, or not. If not, then you should not think it.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 07:50 AM

What is important for me is that how my thinking will affect me at the moment of death. If you read above what I said is that if consciousness would not exist after death, I would ..... This means I am open to both possibilities because this ideology would provide me with most happiness until I die and even at the moment of death.

So what you’re saying is that believing a falsehood might make you happier at the moment of death, so you decide that you should believe it?

dougsmith - 26 February 2012 07:54 AM

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 07:50 AM

Its just what I think.

That goes without saying. The question is whether you have any reason to think that, or not. If not, then you should not think it.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 07:50 AM

What is important for me is that how my thinking will affect me at the moment of death. If you read above what I said is that if consciousness would not exist after death, I would ..... This means I am open to both possibilities because this ideology would provide me with most happiness until I die and even at the moment of death.

So what you’re saying is that believing a falsehood might make you happier at the moment of death, so you decide that you should believe it?

It might not be just at the moment of death. If you practice buddhism you can actually experience happiness much before death. You can experience consciousness after death even while you are not dead. You can experience happiness and consciousness after death without dying. Much like gut feeling which is proven by authors such as Jonah Lehrer in his book how we decide, consciousness has to be experienced not explained.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:02 AM

If you practice buddhism you can actually experience happiness much before death.

No matter what you practice you can experience happiness before death. I’m not sure how this is relevant to our discussion, though.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:02 AM

You can experience consciousness after death even while you are not dead. You can experience happiness and consciousness after death without dying.

I don’t know what this means. If you are not dead, then whatever you experience is not relevant to the issue of whether or not you are conscious after death.

What is relevant is studies on the brain, which tell us that consciousness is solely dependent upon the state of the brain.

Edward, if the belief in life after death is so important to your happiness I recommend you keep it to yourself to avoid being challenged. Especially on this forum. This forum is for skeptics, you know?

dougsmith - 26 February 2012 08:06 AM

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:02 AM

If you practice buddhism you can actually experience happiness much before death.

No matter what you practice you can experience happiness before death. I’m not sure how this is relevant to our discussion, though.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:02 AM

You can experience consciousness after death even while you are not dead. You can experience happiness and consciousness after death without dying.

I don’t know what this means. If you are not dead, then whatever you experience is not relevant to the issue of whether or not you are conscious after death.

What is relevant is studies on the brain, which tell us that consciousness is solely dependent upon the state of the brain.

How can you study a brain after its dead ? Maybe we are looking at the wrong place. Its like removing water from the bucket and saying look there is no water in the bucket. Ofcourse there is no water there. Its moved somewhere else. It evaporated formed a cloud and rained again. The water is still there, its not there in the bucket.

George - 26 February 2012 08:25 AM

Edward, if the belief in life after death is so important to your happiness I recommend you keep it to yourself to avoid being challenged. Especially on this forum. This forum is for skeptics, you know?

Thank you George. Maybe I didn’t explain properly. My happiness is not dependent on that belief. My happiness is dependent of not being attached to anything. To be an observer to everything happening to me.

Well, I don’t really understand what that means, but if you’re fine with your beliefs being challenged then this is the right place for you. Please carry on…

edwardlobo,
Religion might have come out of our necessity to have a logic to everything

This may be your problem, “our logic” does not create anything. When we discover something about the universe it usually can be logically explained. But without evidence no logic can be applied at all.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:37 AM

How can you study a brain after its dead ?

Huh? You do by looking at it, like you do any other physical thing.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:37 AM

Maybe we are looking at the wrong place. Its like removing water from the bucket and saying look there is no water in the bucket. Ofcourse there is no water there. Its moved somewhere else. It evaporated formed a cloud and rained again. The water is still there, its not there in the bucket.

The analogy to “water in a bucket” is the chemical energy put out by the brain, which when it is properly organized, is the mind. That energy eventually radiates out and becomes part of the background heat signature of the universe. But it’s no longer coherent as a mind, any more than the heat signature that radiates out from a Beethoven concerto is itself music.

Experiments with the brain show conclusively that if you kill off sections of it, you reduce mental capacity. Eventually all you have is unconsciousness, and eventually that is just death. Death is unconsciousness.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:41 AM

My happiness is not dependent on that belief. My happiness is dependent of not being attached to anything.

OK, fair enough. But then why are you defending the proposition that your consciousness outlives your brain?

And are you attached to your non-attachment?

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 08:41 AM

George - 26 February 2012 08:25 AM

Edward, if the belief in life after death is so important to your happiness I recommend you keep it to yourself to avoid being challenged. Especially on this forum. This forum is for skeptics, you know?

Thank you George. Maybe I didn’t explain properly. My happiness is not dependent on that belief. My happiness is dependent of not being attached to anything. To be an observer to everything happening to me.

Ah, I believe I am beginning to understand. You see your consciousness as an observer apart from your thoughts. This is false. Your consciousness emerges from your thoughts (mind) and is an “internal” conversation. Just because we can imagine and even experience an apparent out-of body- experience does not make it so. It’s all internal. I believe it is called your super-ego.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego,_and_super-ego

Hearing “voices” does not mean a metaphysical event, even as you may not recognize the voice or the speaker. But it’s all you, your own creation and cannot be experienced by others. This is the problem of people hearing god or the devil speak with them. It’s you talking to yourself.

Huh? You do by looking at it, like you do any other physical thing.

So you are “studying” a dead organ for sign of life/consiousness? Strange.

The analogy to “water in a bucket” is the chemical energy put out by the brain, which when it is properly organized, is the mind….
Experiments with the brain show conclusively that if you kill off sections of it, you reduce mental capacity. Eventually all you have is unconsciousness, and eventually that is just death. Death is unconsciousness. 

No the analogy I gave is consciousness. The water is consciousness, the bucket is the mind.

OK, fair enough. But then why are you defending the proposition that your consciousness outlives your brain?

And are you attached to your non-attachment?

The consciousness is outside of the mind. Its always there. You can cut parts of the mind and know that other parts form the consciousness. Only when you destroy the mind completely that consciousness has no way to show itself. If you cut parts of mind, the other parts bring the consciousness forward. When you destroy the mind its not longer capable of bringing the consciousness forward but its still there.

@write4U - thanks
I am not hearing voices nor experiencing out of body experience however I’ll go thru the link you gave to understand what you mean. I got the gist of what you are saying.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 02:16 PM

Huh? You do by looking at it, like you do any other physical thing.

So you are “studying” a dead organ for sign of life/consiousness? Strange.

You’re the one who brought up studying a dead brain, not me. I simply said that as a brain dies, so too dies consciousness. This we know from literally centuries of studying people with brain injuries.

And those brains you study ... by studying people with brain injuries.

Some people lose the ability to speak after having a stroke. That doesn’t mean their ability to speak has leaked out and is floating off somewhere near Alpha Centauri, it means that their ability to speak has been destroyed, the same way you can destroy a computer’s ability to do certain functions by taking an awl to its motherboard.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 02:16 PM

No the analogy I gave is consciousness. The water is consciousness, the bucket is the mind.

I know the analogy you were trying to give. My point is that it’s a bad analogy. Consciousness is not a physical substance like water, and it is even less a mental substance like a ghost. It is a process, akin to the process that goes on in your computer when it’s working.

edwardlobo - 26 February 2012 02:16 PM

OK, fair enough. But then why are you defending the proposition that your consciousness outlives your brain?

And are you attached to your non-attachment?

The consciousness is outside of the mind. Its always there. You can cut parts of the mind and know that other parts form the consciousness. Only when you destroy the mind completely that consciousness has no way to show itself. If you cut parts of mind, the other parts bring the consciousness forward. When you destroy the mind its not longer capable of bringing the consciousness forward but its still there.

This doesn’t answer either of my questions.

And it doesn’t make sense. Viz.:

What do you mean that your consciousness is outside of the mind?
How far outside the mind does it exist?
Does this mean that the mind exists without consciousness? If not, what does it mean?

And how do you claim to get all these insights? Where is your data?