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[Atramental]

Because our brains cannot comprehend non-existence, does that mean that the seconds before our brains shut down will feel like an eternity?

 

[racerx]

That's pretty funny. Can't seem to find a rolleyes.gif big enough for that one.

Debating with you is like debating a brick wall. You're not going to change your views no matter how much evidence to the contrary you are presented. It's a futile exercise.

Sorry to say, but that 's how I feel conversing with you. I tried time and time again explaining my ideas, but you never understood. Am I bad explainer? possibly.

 

[teh_pwn]

I believe it's possible. Although consciousness as we understand it is linked to the physical and chemical functions of the brain I don't personally think they alone sum up the phenomenon in its entirety. We measure the part that's measurable as best we know how, but there are dimensions to even our own existence which are immeasurable by our standards. That some aspect of us could persist independent of our bodies doesn't strike me as wholly unreasonable, even if we don't yet have a way of quantifying it. Unfortunately it's such a loaded subject that there's bound to be people on the one hand reading all sorts of specifics into it and on the other dismissing it outright. I guess we'll all find out one day, or not.

You worded it far better than I could.

 

[Zaptruder]

This makes no sense. This isn't proof of an afterlife, it's just saying that we can't imagine not being able to think.

Which is why we cant imagine there NOT to be an afterlife, if you read the whole posting.

Your counter-example of "i cannot imagine the 4th dimension, there it doesnt exist - thats stupid" is actually highly interesting. Tell me: What consequences does something have on our existence that we cannot imagine? The answer: None.

It´s the same with a hypothetical afterlife: If there is none, it bears no importance for us. Because we cannot imagine not to exist, to think. Therefore, it makes no sense to assume that there isnt some kind of afterlife. At least, I´d call it non-sensical to say there´s no afterlife, when one cannot imagine it.

You could say that just because we cannot imagine something, it still can have influence on us. Well, I dont think so. For example, if we take your example and assume there´s a 4th room dimension. To have influence on us, it´d need to interact in a 3-dimensional way...which we can imagine very well. So, to take the analogy to the afterlife-theory, if there is no afterlife, we have to be able to experience it for it to have influence on us. But that´s paradox. If there was no afterlife, we could never know that, never experience it, not even imagine it because of our, in our mind, eternal thoughts. Therefore, it bears no meaning.

Of course, you can shrug this all off and say "but it´s still possible for there to be no afterlife", and you´d be right. But the only thing you gain by doing so is a very depressive outlook of the future. And when it comes down to a person´s excistence, I´m willing to think positive. Both because it´s better to live that way and because you cannot imagine otherwise. Only believe otherwise. (and im normally a very scientific person, but when it comes this kind of topic I WANT to think like that. Because if everything ends just like that, we could all die just now, and spare our potential children the fate we have to suffer through).

What the hell is this shit man. This is the worst logic in the thread so far, by far.

By your reckoning, I can't imagine non-existence, ergo I can't imagine existence before birth, ergo existence before birth is an impossibility.

Seriously? Really?

 

[Price Dalton]

Because our brains cannot comprehend non-existence, does that mean that the seconds before our brains shut down will feel like an eternity?

I'm kinda leaning toward that. Dreamtime can feel like an eternity already (ever notice how external sounds, like car horns, are seamlessly integrated into dreams, as if the entire narrative was building up toward it from the start?) but it "elapses" in seconds in "real time." I imagine those last few seconds are a bit like a dream.

 

[Rentahamster]

Sorry to say, but that 's how I feel conversing with you. I tried time and time again explaining my ideas, but you never understood. Am I bad explainer? possibly.

Understanding != agreeing with you. I understood what you were saying just fine.

 

[innervision961]

There are those that believe that life exists because time is infinite which means life ventually had too... Well if I subscribe to that thinking, then shouldn't I eventually be reborn because time is infinite and that is just a possibility and any possibility can and will happen in an infinite universe?

 

[KHarvey16]

There are those that believe that life exists because time is infinite which means life ventually had too... Well if I subscribe to that thinking, then shouldn't I eventually be reborn because time is infinite and that is just a possibility and any possibility can and will happen in an infinite universe?

Who said it was possible?

 

[GallonOMilk]

The concept of dreams is pretty fucked up. I mean, it's your brain that decides to generate random stuff, and you have no control over it. Your brain has total control over your mind when you think about it. It almost feels like we are just renting processing power or something :lol

This all depends on how you look at it. Technically, you (as a consciousness) ARE your brain. If we could simulate all of the neurotransmitters, pumping blood, etc. all you'd need is your intact and functioning brain and you would be the same conscious person, without a body. So, I see dreams as more of a phenomenon where we learn more about ourselves (because it's our consciousness showing us something).

 

[silverbullet1080]

Did this guy just assume the brain losing it's shit implies a connection to an afterlife?

 

[Drkirby]

Because our brains cannot comprehend non-existence, does that mean that the seconds before our brains shut down will feel like an eternity?

It could, but I think it would be more like a dreamless sleep without getting up.

There are those that believe that life exists because time is infinite which means life ventually had too... Well if I subscribe to that thinking, then shouldn't I eventually be reborn because time is infinite and that is just a possibility and any possibility can and will happen in an infinite universe?

This only applies to things that CAN happen. If you could come up with some hard science on a sequence of highly unlikely but still physically possible events to occur for you to be reborn, then yes. But only something that is possible can ever happen.

But there is a second part, in that time is not infinite, nor is the universe. This means that in the end, for things with low enough probabilities, they will never happen in the universe.

 

[KHarvey16]

I don't understand why some accept this non-comprehension of non-existance as some kind of truism.

 

[grumble]

Did this guy just assume the brain losing it's shit implies a connection to an afterlife?

Apparently so. People are trying to find 'afterlife equivalents'. If there is no legitimate afterlife once your brain shuts down and structurally degrades, then the next best thing is a really long time in the last few seconds of your life where you experience an afterlife-type experience. It's also not going to work. Your brain's neurons can only operate at about the speed of sound, which means that there is a limit on how much processing can happen before the brain finally shuts down. Dreams can seem distorted because they're dreams. They're distorted by nature. I'm not saying there isn't an ability to extend time via rapid processing, but anyone expecting weeks of playtime will end up disappointed (not that you can feel disappointment, because you no longer exist. You've died.).

GrotequeBeauty: I get what you're saying about not thinking that the electrochemical functions of the brain are all that there is to consciousness, but what is your basis for that belief? We are constantly figuring out more stuff that the brain is doing, and how it's doing it. It's complicated no question, and it'll take centuries before we've got it figured out (more likely never since our society will probably collapse and our technology and data with it), but there's no indication in any research so far that there is conciousness outside the brain's structure.


NapoleontheChimp: Meditation is a state of altered consciousness, but that is not equivalent to an afterlife. I used to practice meditation, and yeah everything would fade out, I'd get relaxed, start seeing whiteness, feeling calm and all that, but I don't equate that to what happens after you die. Same thing with Shaolin trianing: it is your living brain jumping through hoops, that's all (it's still wicked though).

The philosophical idea of subjective realities has two branches: first branch, that the only thing you know is that you think, and outside of that you base things off of assumptions; Therefore nothing is guaranteed and anything is possible. This is often used as a counter-argument to evidence-based analysis, and while it's logically true, you end up having to make assumptions based on the consistency of the information available to you. If it's an illusion, it's a remarkably consistent and complex one that serves no apparent purpose. Using Occam's Razor, the simplest and most convincing explanation is that this is reality.

The second is that each person interprets the stimuli that they experience in a different way: they assemble the jigsaw of experiences and information and construct a mental image of what reality is. Everyone's construct is different, but it does not go against the idea of a universe free of subjective observance and interpretation. The question 'If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?' refers to this train of thought, but the answer is that based on the evidence that we have accumulated, we must reasonably assume that it does make a sound.

Nothing in life is certain, and we can't know anything 100%. Like I said earlier in this thread, I don't know that you aren't all hamsters. I have to use the evidence I have encountered and make the call; it's highly unlikely that you're hamsters. In a similar fashion, I have to assume that there is no afterlife, because there's no logical reason to believe in one and plenty of reasonable bases to not believe in one. It's possible that there's an afterlife, it's just really unlikely (like you all being hamsters).


Selig: your argument is fundamentally flawed, since you assume that without being able to imagine something it does not exist. This plays into the subjective reality idea, but it's a warped version of it that ends up being logically inconsistent. First, because you can imagine not existing, because you can draw parallels to times you were unconscious or not alive in the past. It's an analogy that opens that spectrum of possibility up under your logical system. Second, under the idea that we have to make basic assumptions about reality outside of our own experiences (I know China exists for example because overwhelming evidence says so), then an afterlife most likely does not exist. If you go first branch, then anything is possible and nothing is certain but have fun trying to base a reality around that. You have to make assumptions somewhere.

 

[BowieZ]

Man why do you sadists have to keep bumping this horrible thread? I don't want to constantly be reminded of my impending eternal inexistence over and over again.

 

[Zaptruder]

Man why do you sadists have to keep bumping this horrible thread? I don't want to constantly be reminded of my impending eternal inexistence over and over again.

Because dealing with the reality of our existence is one the most transcedant things that we can achieve as people.

To face death in its eye, and accept its nature, and to make peace with it and still live on strongly despite it... it really frees you to realise your goals and potential in life.

Well, that's what I'd like to think anyway.

 

[Zaptruder]

This all depends on how you look at it. Technically, you (as a consciousness) ARE your brain. If we could simulate all of the neurotransmitters, pumping blood, etc. all you'd need is your intact and functioning brain and you would be the same conscious person, without a body. So, I see dreams as more of a phenomenon where we learn more about ourselves (because it's our consciousness showing us something).

But lets be real there. That's just semantic hog wash.

Dreams and the way we traditionally understand conciousness are incompatible. Sure, there are cross over rules and all that... but at some point, it gets to the point where we start using the same terminology to describe different things.

At that point, we're pretty much speaking double dutch.

 

[Zaptruder]

I don't understand why some accept this non-comprehension of non-existance as some kind of truism.

It's the kind of weird logic that people come up with when their subconcious is desperately, feverently trying to avoid contradicting something that makes up a large identity of a person.

It's easier than doing the mental work to actually resolve those problems after all.

I know, because I've been there.

A lot of people chance across pascals wager, and that too is a weird bargain and logic that people use to convince themselves of an already established course of action.

Because, that kinda stuff is only really convincing in the framework and context of implicitly accepting those other things (be it religion, or in this case, belief of an after life).

*edit* apologies for bumping this thread 3 times over... sometimes I wish this forum had automerge functions like a lot of other forums around do.

 

[way more]

I don't understand why some accept this non-comprehension of non-existance as some kind of truism.

Nobody accepts that and the person who conjectured it was possibly withdrawing from something.

 

[racerx]

Understanding != agreeing with you. I understood what you were saying just fine.

well, if you understood me, then the most you could say is "racerx, your hypothesis/theory is certainly possible, but there is no way to know until more studies are done in really understanding the mechanism of balding..."