The Afterlife

@xris,

xris;146079 wrote:

Is that all, that stops you believing in the possibility, surely its more than just that? If it was just that simple.

There is more of course, but to prevent being washed out by a long explanation of how I see our reality as mortal beings, I have to stick directly to the previous point I was making about Alan's interpretation of a ever changing timeless realm of existence.

I don't see how my memories would carry on to another existence. If my memories were intact after this life ends how are they contained? It makes no sense to me that they would be contained in some other form and intact. Along with that, at just what point are they intact? Because my memories of events fade over time, so would these memories be as clear as day? You would recall things that you never remember doing? I just can not fathom on how these memories would be tactile, let alone stored. If they were stored outside of my brain in some other form then why is it when we lose memories during this life, that other form doesn't kick in to recover the loss? It shows a weakness in the consistency of the logic.

For me, and like I have said many times on these kinds of discussions. Every day we use rational experience to make decisions for our reality. We would be a complete mess if we constantly were at the mercy of our imaginations. Everything that could go wrong would prevent you from doing anything at all if you relied purely on imagination rather than rational understanding. So why is it when it comes to these other things, people give their imagination all the credit and tell the rational mind to shut up? It makes no sense at all.

If after I am dead, I find that I am wrong so be it. Where I find myself, I don't care either because I won't be me. I don't see how I could be me. Think of all the absurdities...

Many things you do in this life, define you as a person. The career you have, the hobbies you enjoy. The people you keep company with all define you. Without these things you wouldn't be the person that you are. So in an after life you are only an echo, a shadow of that former self. I wouldn't want to be such a thing let alone existing that way for ever.

The greatest thing about life, is that it is not permanent. My greatest fear is that I will exist for ever. I am not afraid of it because I do as I please with my life, but because there is absolutely NOTHING I would want to do for eternity. It would cheapen every single wonderful experience I have had in this life.

This life would become nothing but a distant memory if a memory at all if there is an after life, it cheapens this one.

@Amperage,

Amperage;145768 wrote:

Depends on if you subscribe to the notion of a soul/spirit. I think in some ways free will(for those who subscribe to the notion) implies we have a soul/spirit. That being the case what is a soul? Is it energy? If so energy can never be destroyed. Is it something beyond the material world? If so, I see no reason to think ones soul would cease to exist anymore than a number can cease to exist or anything else which exists beyond the material. After all many people contend that "they" are not their bodies nor are "they" their minds.

Belief in God is another great reason to believe in the afterlife. If you can buy that God exists, well then how does He exist? As energy? An entity? Or something beyond the material? It would seem completely reasonable to me to conclude that if God can exist beyond the material then other things could as well.

In my opinion God=Existence and Existence=God

@Amperage,

Amperage;145768 wrote:

Depends on if you subscribe to the notion of a soul/spirit.

Belief in God is another great reason to believe in the afterlife.

Neither is my reason, though =)

I merely believe life is an ilusion, or not true, or a passing state, etc. Therefore then I die I will just go somewhere else. Off course this means there is an afterlife only for me, other minds dont even exist, or, at least, I cannot ever know if they are other minds.

xris;146079 wrote:

Is that all, that stops you believing in the possibility, surely its more than just that? If it was just that simple.

If it is not logically possible, then how can he believe on it?

Emil;146090 wrote:

No thank you. I have no reason to believe discussion with you will be fruitful, and if I looked, I would probably have evidence of the opposite. But if you want to know the evidence, I suggest you read the article to which I linked to before, by K. Augustine. If you're more to older texts, you may want to read Hume's essay On The Immortality of the Soul.

Hume's "Essays on Suicide and Immortality" (Hume Archives)

Hum, that is rather rude, then have I failed so bad to discuss properly?

I didnt read the whole article, but I did read a few parts, incluiding the beggining of ever (Except the moral part, that has no relevance. What morals should have to do with whenever there is an afterlife or not?) and it became clear to me that it does not disprove the possibility of afterlife, although it does disprove the possibility of an ever-living soul.

@Krumple,

Krumple;146104 wrote:

There is more of course, but to prevent being washed out by a long explanation of how I see our reality as mortal beings, I have to stick directly to the previous point I was making about Alan's interpretation of a ever changing timeless realm of existence.

I don't see how my memories would carry on to another existence. If my memories were intact after this life ends how are they contained? It makes no sense to me that they would be contained in some other form and intact. Along with that, at just what point are they intact? Because my memories of events fade over time, so would these memories be as clear as day? You would recall things that you never remember doing? I just can not fathom on how these memories would be tactile, let alone stored. If they were stored outside of my brain in some other form then why is it when we lose memories during this life, that other form doesn't kick in to recover the loss? It shows a weakness in the consistency of the logic.

For me, and like I have said many times on these kinds of discussions. Every day we use rational experience to make decisions for our reality. We would be a complete mess if we constantly were at the mercy of our imaginations. Everything that could go wrong would prevent you from doing anything at all if you relied purely on imagination rather than rational understanding. So why is it when it comes to these other things, people give their imagination all the credit and tell the rational mind to shut up? It makes no sense at all.

If after I am dead, I find that I am wrong so be it. Where I find myself, I don't care either because I won't be me. I don't see how I could be me. Think of all the absurdities...

Many things you do in this life, define you as a person. The career you have, the hobbies you enjoy. The people you keep company with all define you. Without these things you wouldn't be the person that you are. So in an after life you are only an echo, a shadow of that former self. I wouldn't want to be such a thing let alone existing that way for ever.

The greatest thing about life, is that it is not permanent. My greatest fear is that I will exist for ever. I am not afraid of it because I do as I please with my life, but because there is absolutely NOTHING I would want to do for eternity. It would cheapen every single wonderful experience I have had in this life.

This life would become nothing but a distant memory if a memory at all if there is an after life, it cheapens this one.

Why because you cant imagine, can you deny the possibility. I could debate each of your concerns and I have before, but they would not convince you or you me that there is no chance of this after life. Once again I have no evidence to convince you but me and certain others have what we may call convincing experiences, that compel us to examine the possibilities. You can scoff, deny or ignore but I have had to examine them and try and make sense of them. I may be delusional, hopeful or just plane mad but what else can I do but be honest with myself and to you? You know I dont believe in god or have the need , my logic destroyed him. At times I have to try and be logical with impossible quandaries, thats why I never condemn others experiences even though I dont necessarily believe them.

@xris,

xris;146216 wrote:

Why because you cant imagine, can you deny the possibility. I could debate each of your concerns and I have before, but they would not convince you or you me that there is no chance of this after life. Once again I have no evidence to convince you but me and certain others have what we may call convincing experiences, that compel us to examine the possibilities. You can scoff, deny or ignore but I have had to examine them and try and make sense of them. I may be delusional, hopeful or just plane mad but what else can I do but be honest with myself and to you? You know I dont believe in god or have the need , my logic destroyed him. At times I have to try and be logical with impossible quandaries, thats why I never condemn others experiences even though I dont necessarily believe them.

xris at least you have left the door of your credulity a little open to the possibility of our consciousness surviving death. Literally thousands and thousands of people have had near death experiences that I would not just dismiss as illusions or hallucinations or delusions. Why would anyone lie about it?

@Alan McDougall,

i think some achieve afterlife and others not
i also think afterlife is not to be understood now
it is an-other "dimensie", more than Time itself

Pepijn Sweep

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;146363 wrote:

xris at least you have left the door of your credulity a little open to the possibility of our consciousness surviving death. Literally thousands and thousands of people have had near death experiences that I would not just dismiss as illusions or hallucinations or delusions. Why would anyone lie about it?

You are equivocating when you compare delusions with lying. When people are deluded, they believe falsehoods, and so when they say those falsehoods, they are not lying, they are simply mistaken. With many near death experiences, there is a shortage of oxygen to the brain, and that is known to cause hallucinations. Being surprised about someone having hallucinations in such a case is like being surprised that someone who is drinking heavily is being less coordinated than when sober. Whether someone is fooled by the hallucinations or not is what will make them deluded or not. And, of course, there are mental institutions filled with people who have hallucinations evidently without having their blood supply to their brains being slowed or interrupted, so we know that people can have hallucinations without any apparent shortage of oxygen to the brain.

And as for other cases regarding why anyone would lie about it, when I was young, I was shocked when I heard a couple of Christians I knew who said that they would lie or say anything in order to convert someone. They regarded it as well worthwhile in order to save someone's immortal soul. So there is your motive for lying about such things, and people have, of course, been lying frequently. You must have experienced this phenomenon yourself from time to time.

@Pyrrho,

Wicca is a substitute for Christianity, for some people at least.

@Pyrrho,

To condemn all experiences as delusional or lies without investigation is crude, rude and ignorant. When born blind tell us they have had visual NDEs are we to say they are lying?

@xris,

xris;146216 wrote:

Why because you cant imagine, can you deny the possibility.

On the contrary Xris. I have spent hours and hours pondering it. I don't dismiss it because I don't like the idea or am opposed to some idealistic existence. I have examined it and run through it on many different levels. The problem I have with it, is that I simply can not make the connection between why we would be as we are now, and then later something absolutely and completely different. But I bet that is too hard for you to understand what I mean by different. I can make this post incrediblly long trying to explain how this after life just simply can not work and still maintain the person we are.

Does the soul wear clothes? Or you just imagine some clothes? Does the soul listen to music, or does it just imagine it's favorite music? Does it even care about music? Does it have fashion at all? Does it have hobbies, does it live and work? Does it go on vacations, does it go for hikes? I can go on and on, but the majority of the answers I get is no to all of these. They say that the soul doesn't need these things, it just is always in a state of bliss for ever. That to me is a complete waste of a being. To just be bliss is doing nothing at all. If I had to option to not be anything or to exist in a constant state of bliss without needing to do anything. I would prefer non existence. Why? Because it cheapens this life.

If you die, and live in an existence that is far greater than this life. You just canceled everything that is great about this life. That is why I do not think there is an after life.

@Krumple,

Krumple;146575 wrote:

On the contrary Xris. I have spent hours and hours pondering it. I don't dismiss it because I don't like the idea or am opposed to some idealistic existence. I have examined it and run through it on many different levels. The problem I have with it, is that I simply can not make the connection between why we would be as we are now, and then later something absolutely and completely different. But I bet that is too hard for you to understand what I mean by different. I can make this post incrediblly long trying to explain how this after life just simply can not work and still maintain the person we are.

Does the soul wear clothes? Or you just imagine some clothes? Does the soul listen to music, or does it just imagine it's favorite music? Does it even care about music? Does it have fashion at all? Does it have hobbies, does it live and work? Does it go on vacations, does it go for hikes? I can go on and on, but the majority of the answers I get is no to all of these. They say that the soul doesn't need these things, it just is always in a state of bliss for ever. That to me is a complete waste of a being. To just be bliss is doing nothing at all. If I had to option to not be anything or to exist in a constant state of bliss without needing to do anything. I would prefer non existence. Why? Because it cheapens this life.

If you die, and live in an existence that is far greater than this life. You just canceled everything that is great about this life. That is why I do not think there is an after life.

You make one statement as if it conquers all doubts about the possibility, why should one life diminish another? A state of bliss, doing nothing,favourite music...its your invention not mine. What if this life was an illusion and you woke up to find your real life was much more significant? When I dream its real and this life is the illusion, it can take a certain time for me to adjust, when waking. Is your physical body actually you? when i was child it was me now Im old, its still me. When I remember my friends and family its not their image , that fades much too soon, its their essence, their character, our love for each other.

If you are looking for evidence then its there but its for you to either dismiss or consider. My personal experiences forced me to consider them, I had no option. I cant convince you as I have not convinced myself BUT I wont dismiss it and as your objections to me are not significant, I will still stay its possible.

@xris,

xris;146583 wrote:

What if this life was an illusion and you woke up to find your real life was much more significant?

If nothing that I knew within the dream was in the real life then that real life would be hell. This is what I know, if it is a dream so what? Oh but I bet you will turn around and make the claim that you get to keep all your friends and family after you wake up right? Everyone you love will get to wake up with you, so in other words you don't really mean it's a dream at all but just another way to fool yourself into believing you will never die.

xris;146583 wrote:

When I dream its real and this life is the illusion, it can take a certain time for me to adjust, when waking.

I never have that problem, what-so-ever.

xris;146583 wrote:

Is your physical body actually you?

Nope, nothing is me. What I am is a make up of many things other than this physical self.

xris;146583 wrote:

when i was child it was me now Im old, its still me. When I remember my friends and family its not their image , that fades much too soon, its their essence, their character, our love for each other.

Yeah but you lose all of that with your dream analogy. But like I said, you'll try to retract it and make the claim you get to keep all the things you love after waking up from the dream. Therefore your dream analogy fails.

xris;146583 wrote:

If you are looking for evidence then its there but its for you to either dismiss or consider.

There is no evidence. If there is, where is it? You can't just say, look, because that is meaningless. Where is the evidence?

xris;146583 wrote:

My personal experiences forced me to consider them, I had no option.

Yeah people convince themselves all the time of what they think they experience as opposed to what they actually experienced. The experience is not always trustworthy, especially in times of distress. Just like your dream analogy, I will use it against you. How do you know your experience was not just a imagined dream? Not real?

xris;146583 wrote:

I cant convince you as I have not convinced myself BUT I wont dismiss it and as your objections to me are not significant, I will still stay its possible.

It is just as possible for flying pink elephants to take over the world.

@Krumple,

As I said I'm not going to try and convince you. Your attitude is beyond a reasonable debate on this subject. You know there is sufficient evidence for the debate to be still open. If you have decided then I'm happy for you, but making snide of the cuff remarks will not encourage debate.

@xris,

xris;146573 wrote:

To condemn all experiences as delusional or lies without investigation is crude, rude and ignorant. When born blind tell us they have had visual NDEs are we to say they are lying?

Please tell us, with the thousands of reports of Elvis sightings since his supposed death, do you dismiss them as delusional or lies, or do you take them seriously and regard them as worthy of investigation?

With near death experiences, there are very mundane explanations that suffice. So they prove nothing. (Please note, that does not mean that they prove there is no afterlife either, as that would be proving something.) Likewise with supposed Elvis sightings.

xris;146627 wrote:

As I said I'm not going to try and convince you. Your [Krumple's] attitude is beyond a reasonable debate on this subject. You know there is sufficient evidence for the debate to be still open. If you have decided then I'm happy for you, but making snide of the cuff remarks will not encourage debate.

By "beyond reasonable", does that simply mean that you are unable to convince Krumple? Do you generally dismiss those who disagree with you as being rude, crude, ignorant, and unreasonable?

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;146634 wrote:

Please tell us, with the thousands of reports of Elvis sightings since his supposed death, do you dismiss them as delusional or lies, or do you take them seriously and regard them as worthy of investigation?

With near death experiences, there are very mundane explanations that suffice. So they prove nothing. (Please note, that does not mean that they prove there is no afterlife either, as that would be proving something.) Likewise with supposed Elvis sightings.

By "beyond reasonable", does that simply mean that you are unable to convince Krumple? Do you generally dismiss those who disagree with you as being rude, crude, ignorant, and unreasonable?

I called you rude and crude not Krumple..As for Elvis I saw him in my chip shop last week.

@alex717,

I do wish you folks would clear this matter up for me. Sadly, death is one of those matters about which Wittgenstein said "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Wisely he also said "Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

Nevertheless we are those for whom the future is a possibility so it doesn't suffice simply to never think about it. Anxiety would seem to be the inevitable result of the human condition aware as we are of our finitude.

@Deacon Blues,

Deacon Blues;146815 wrote:

I do wish you folks would clear this matter up for me. Sadly, death is one of those matters about which Wittgenstein said "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Wisely he also said "Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

Nevertheless we are those for whom the future is a possibility so it doesn't suffice simply to never think about it. Anxiety would seem to be the inevitable result of the human condition aware as we are of our finitude.

Actually, no, anxiety is not "the inevitable result of the human condition aware as we are of our finitude." It rather famously did not bother Epicurus, and it does not bother me.

@Deacon Blues,

Deacon Blues;146815 wrote:

I do wish you folks would clear this matter up for me. Sadly, death is one of those matters about which Wittgenstein said "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

Wisely he also said "Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present."

Nevertheless we are those for whom the future is a possibility so it doesn't suffice simply to never think about it. Anxiety would seem to be the inevitable result of the human condition aware as we are of our finitude.

Anxiety is not the cause of this investigation. Death is the final adventure or the fruition of life's experience. It does not concern me what it may be but the enquiry is essential.

@xris,

Arguing whether there is or is not an after life has never been productive for me. Mostly because it tends to polarize the issue into two mutually exclusive positions. One side says "There is no afterlife, and here's why..." and the other says "Oh yes there is, and here's how it works..." Neither side has any evidence for their position, but both keep flapping their lips, ad nauseum. But I do like to think about it now and then, because I have a son, a wife and dozens of friends who are no longer in this life, and like most people, it sure would be a joy to hook up and hang out with them again in some other life after this one. Despite my wishful thinking, however, it looks like this life is it. So my philosophy is to not get caught up in past lives or future lives but to live as best I can in the here and now of this one. Like Jack Kornfield said: "Live fully, love well and let go." Here's a few more quotes from people who have fed my thinking...

"Skepticism and wonder make strange bedfellows but a good marriage, for one must be open to all sorts of ideas but willing to run them through a rigorous filter. I don't want to believe. I want to know..." --Carl Sagan

"Why is there something, not nothing? But it is necessary to believe in nothing -- that something that appears from moment to moment in the here and now..." -- re: Shunryu Suzuki

"It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true so long as it makes you feel good as it is to not care how you make your money as long as you have it..." -- Edmund Teale

"I don't want immortality through my work -- I want it by not dying..." -- Woody Allen

"Like the moon, death is that side of life turned away from us." --William Blake

Somewhere in the heaven of lost futures, the lives we might have lived have found their own fulfillment... -- Derek Mahon

"We only know what we interpret. We cannot peek over the edge of our interpretations to see things in the raw..." --Thomas Sheehan

@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;146821 wrote:

Actually, no, anxiety is not "the inevitable result of the human condition aware as we are of our finitude." It rather famously did not bother Epicurus, and it does not bother me.

I look for the presuppositions that lead to first premises. If Epicurus were not subject to existential anxiety, he would have no need to "erect" his philosophical school to defend against it. Epicurus thought that the fear of death arises from the false belief that in death there is awareness. It doesn't. Fear of death arises from out attachment to existence itself. The only way to shake attachment to existence is to despair of it totally.

The usual route people take for coping with existential anxiety is death denial. Even the ever popular prescription to "live in the present" is death denial. It avoids looking at the future to escape the anxiety of not being there. Epicurus and his followers practiced a form of death denial. Society is filled with rituals, distractions and institutional compensations designed to keep the ever present threat of non-being unconscious. When those mechanisms are working the way they are supposed to people are unaware that death bothers them at all.

---------- Post added 03-31-2010 at 08:08 PM ----------

xris;146826 wrote:

Anxiety is not the cause of this investigation. Death is the final adventure or the fruition of life's experience. It does not concern me what it may be but the enquiry is essential.

Well, you know what they say, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

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