Bruce,
You must see the shortcomings of the first sentence, don't you?
That death means the end? Well, frankly, no. That is what death means.
Behind it is, as you stated, the assumption that there is no experience without the life that you defined.
Are you talking here about memory?
First of all, I, for instance, don't accept Webster's definition in broad terms.
The definition is perfectly fine. The real issue here is that you want to define death to mean something entirely different. Perhaps you should have begun with how you perceive death or how you want it defined.
Second of all, even our natural knowledge does not come near claiming to ever be able to understand the brain's functioning.
You sound like the people who defined the atom as the basic particle that could never be split any further. Well we have split it and are still splitting. You are on very dangerous ground when you try to state that science can NEVER do something when the history of science shows that science is continually discovering things once thought impossible.
I also have the impression that you see the brain as some infinite mystical black box beyond the comprehension of the human mind, but really the brain is a finite mesh of cells that connect together in a fairly simple manner but which create a complex network. The best parallel is with the internet. If you think of each neuron as a simple computer which communicates with other computers then you can see how the internet is very similar. Now does anyone fully understand the internet? It is now quite complex but we know how it works and to a large extent we know how the brain works but we haven’t yet deciphered a great deal of the complex network. I don’t see any real obstacles to what is essentially a reverse engineering project that is going to take some time.
We certainly know enough t be able to connect a video camera to the visual cortex at the back of the brain and allow the blind to see, although the images are fuzzy, it shows we are making significant progress.
What reason do you have to suggest that the brain will always be beyond our comprehension?
Third you seem not to believe in any surviving essence but others do, so the question does make sense.
Or that others have the same irrational perception as you that the END doesn’t mean the end. But of course I know what you mean, and the phrase ‘after death’ is common place, but my point here is that it doesn’t make sense regardless of how many use the phrase. If somehow “you” don’t die when your body dies, then you are not dead. The only way you can survive dying is not to die. And after-death means there was no death.
Kat
