Life after Life

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by lythea, Jul 27, 2001.

  1. lythea Registered Member

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    I know we can't begin to really know unless we've died ourselves and no one can come back to tell us. (I'm not including those who have had near-death experiences because some believe that is merely a function of the brain at death. Although I do not.) But I am struggling with this notion since the death of my mother in Feb. I believe that you go on to the next level, not that you just cease to exist. There are members of my family that believe however, that that's it, you're just gone. I can't accept that. To those who don't believe or can't find evidence of life merely changing form, it is the idea that the "energy" has to go somewhere. Does that make sense? All that was the essence of my mother, all her thoughts, feelings, emotions, her love for her daughters, how can all of that just cease to be within a few seconds? Does this notion present a curiousity to those of you who DON'T believe you go anywhere after death?

    lythea
     
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  3. shaman1301 Urban Anthropologist Registered Senior Member

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    The energy does go somewhere.

    The physical body is just the temporary vehicle of our consciousness. Are we the light or the lightbulb? Our "energy" returns to the source from which it came. There can't be life with out death. We ,again, become ONE with the Universe.
     
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  5. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    Though we can not talk to the people that have passed away, they are always in our heart. The memory of the person is sometimes just as real as the person of yesterday.

    It is also possible that the sum total of a person's experience is not wasted. Nature is very frugal. For the creation to evolve and grow, every bit of information and energy is recycled. It is logical to consider the posibility that if we are sentient at a small scale, there could be one or more universal setience far larger than us and aware of us that is independent of time and space.

    Consider the posibility that souls travel to that plane of existence.
     
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  7. Bebelina kospla.com Valued Senior Member

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    5,036
    The immortal soul

    We never actually die, we just move on to another level of existence. Nothing is ever lost. Every moment, every thought, every feeling is still there. Only that we experience it in a larger context when we are"dead". We get the ability to look upon our physical lives with immense compassion and understanding. And there really is no reason that we canĀ“t do that, before "death" too...

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  8. felix Registered Senior Member

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    What if our 'souls' are just recycled into another human life/body/whatever, to help add to the cumulative knowledge of the entire species, so when we've finally learned enough, we ALL move the next 'level' of existence/conscience/evolution?

    I have to agree that we don't just "wink" out. That just doesn't "feel" correct.
     
  9. kmguru Staff Member

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    That is the Eastern Philosophy that souls are reborn to learn until a time when the planet goes to a longterm iceage to start the process again, while the evolved souls move to a different plane of existence.

    If we can design molecular computers today, it is reasonable to assume that our soul can exist in subatomic level or at a multidimensional level and hence can not be perceived by our normal senses.
     
  10. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    Undoubtedly, energy can never be destroyed, only change it's form, but I don't see how this is relevant to personal death. Even if one goes so far as to assume that the soul (or any other similar term) is just energy, what is to say that this particular manifestation of energy in any way retains it's previous state? Energy of all manifestations always 'tries' to move towards a less ordered, diffuse state; given this tendency, it seems highly unlikely that our 'soul' energy would retain any semblance of it's former 'self'. We're not really talking about death here, what we're talking about is personal death. Individuation is a highly organized, dense pattern of energy; physical death releases this energy and the pattern dissipates.... to be one with the universe.
     
  11. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    Using your own argument, it can be said that organized energy is born from diffused energy - is it not? Then the cycle continues from simple oraganization to more complex? We could be in the middle!

    No oraganization -> simple -> medium -> complex OR

    Universe ->simple ->Universe ->medium ->Universe -> .....
     
  12. Hypnogog Registered Member

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    The Afterness of it all

    Even if you have no belief in the soul the ultimate outcome of existence is to return to the universe. We bury our dead or scatter the ashes of a loved on and attatch a loci to their being. But when you look at the big,big , big picture, once our sun goes nova we all end up scattered into the universal stuff once again. Return from whence we came. Even our physical being becomes as one with the big U, so eventually we're stardust. Which is why I'm gonna be creamated (ease the transistion).
     
  13. kmguru Staff Member

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    11,757
    Whether you are cremated or buried does not matter. The total mass of Earth stays pretty much the same. In case of burial, after few thousand years, the then archeologist may find how we lived and died....

    You are right, the BIG picture is...it does not matter...it is "Maya"...


    Welcome to the sciforum where it does not matter what you do...life will continue or not...you will have fun or not....just kidding in case you are upset or not....
     
  14. [f] Registered Senior Member

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    48
    Re: The Afterness of it all

    I'd have thought you would be made into a beer, so people could drink you LOL

    Basically.....you die, you rot....you grow grass...
    all that other shit is just that....crap added on to make u feel better about dying.

    As sad as it is......that is what happens....its all gone.

    All feelings, emotions are electronic signals passed around in the brain....if the body stops living, and supplying the brain with energy......those signals degrade and eventually cease to "be".

    don't try to give value to your mothers life by trying to imagine where she is or why she is there......remember her for what she was.
     
  15. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    8,616
    Welcome to Sciforums, Hypnogog. I notice that you have been here frequently but have not posted much. Getting the lay of the land so to say.

    To be cremated or not. You see to be buried is for your descendants, not for you. It is so that they may come and say this is my ancestor, this is where I come from. This is direct physical proof. It is a reassurement you pass on by simply being there. You are accounted for as part of their linkage. You needed the same too at one point somewhere in your life. Wheither you realize it or not. To some it is a small thing to others quite the opposite.
     
  16. Hypnogog Registered Member

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    To my family I leave..

    Regarding the disposition of my flesh I truly don't think that you can say getting buried is a reminder to anyone. The headstone is a placeholder ,yes, but it's not like anyone is going to dig me up for Halloween parties or something.
    I don't even know if I can say for sure whether anyone is buried in my Uncle's plot, or if it's my uncle. But I'm not going to look. The headstone marks a place for the deceased and that is what any and all communication is with regardless of the actual placement of the body.
    Besides, enviromentally speaking, cremation is much more sound. Many perfectly good parks are ruined by golfer's and the deceased.

    By the way [f] I want to be added to soup so people can just eat me!
     
  17. [f] Registered Senior Member

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    1.
    2.
    Frazer bashing aside....wouldn't putting 1. and 2. together maybe be the best environmentally friendly way to go about it?..well cooked of course..seriously..it reminds me of Dune, where they remove all of the liquid from the dead... so as not to waste any precious water.

    I know that sounds sick in the context of how the thread was started....but many a good thread have moved and evolved into something else.

    I'll just take yer GeForce3 when u move on man 87)
     
  18. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    2,235
    Hi, Hypnogog ...

    Re. the soup bit:

    Might want to read Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land'

    I've read it at least a dozen times over the years (written in '61 or '62 I believe).
     
  19. felix Registered Senior Member

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    Good suggestion, chagur. 'Stranger in a Strange Land' is an excellent book. I like to recommend to EVERYONE.
     
  20. Godless Objectivist Mind Registered Senior Member

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    Re: Re: The Afterness of it all

    Well I happen to agree with you!, humans are very fond of thinking we seice to exist, go on to another dimension, or exist in a different parallel, crap!, we die, period.

    This is why it's called death. It's finito, though the only problem is that we are a race of intellegent beings, we have the know how to defeat death, or at least prolong life, we have been doing that for many years, the average human now lives to be 75 yrs old, as compared to 45-50 yrs old 150yrs ago. Technology in medical science will prolong life as it has been, in twenty years the average life span could reach 100 yrs. The problem i was getting at, is that we accept death!. that's the problem.
     
  21. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    9,199
    Godless,

    Yes humans tend to accept death as inevitability, and that is reasonable because up until now everyone before us has died. No one as yet has managed to cheat death. The assumption is that death is a natural event. But this need not be so.

    Those working in anti-aging research describe death through aging as a disease to be cured like any other. Some organisms on the planet do not age. Bacteria for example do not have an aging process. Theoretically any bacteria that formed several million years ago could still be alive. The only reason bacteria die is if they are directly killed or run out of food. There is also a species of cactus that also has no aging process.

    The results of telemere research, and others, show great promise in being able to prevent human cell aging. In other words a cure for the disease of aging is on the horizon.

    But your real point is that humans have adopted that hopeless fatalistic attitude that there is nothing that can be done about death, and that has prevented many from striving to solve the problem of aging sooner.

    But worse is that religionists see death as a gateway to heaven and as a desire to be acquired as opposed to something that should be resisted with all our energies.

    This is why humanity is not likely to make any rapid progress towards anti-aging until religiosity is significantly debunked, but as it stands religions are the most regressive force that mankind has had to face. Their death wish is a real threat to my and your future survival. It is in our best interests to help bring down and destroy mainstream religions.

    Cris
     
  22. felix Registered Senior Member

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    Re: Re: Re: The Afterness of it all

    That's no more proveable than any other theory. You sound like the religious people that think there couldn't possibly be any other way than what they believe.
     
  23. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,616
    Another Dimension

    Why is it so hard to get we go to another dimension??
    Never heard of nearly death experiences. And people who have out of their body experiences.
    They enter the same dimension, the same entities they see and they feel the same strong, warm love, that you only can feel there.....at home!!

    Where we all go and where we all come from. And in the end if you've lived all your lives you become one of the entities living there. Because then, you've nothing more to learn.
    It's a beautiful place, not to discribe in words.
    Don't call it heaven, for it is not.....
    It is the Cosmos, where only the law of the Cosmos is important and that one law is LOVE....!!
     

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