What happens to us when we die?

[Robert-Nielsen]

This answer correlates with my earlier post under Philosophy of Religion, Theism and Mythology - Why did God create the world and man? In the answer below, man is assumed to have a soul.
Excerpts from Glossary of God Reveals the Mysteries of Creation
DEATH - NONEXISTENT
Unless there is Pure Death, there is no Spiritual Death. A subdivided portion of the Supreme Power, operating at a low vibrational level in the form of a Spirit (Soul) temporarily loses its ability to further increase its vibrational level because of losing its entity source, (body) which is material and is destructible. When not occupying an entity source it is not possible for a Soul to gain (or lose) in vibration. This condition is inappropriately termed as death. It is only an interruption in the process of the development of a Soul in one way or another. For further development, a new entity must be inhabited (see Death-Pure).
Answer – It appears that Souls desire to return to the Supreme Power and share in all Its Glory.

DEATH–PURE
A condition where a Spirit Entity, not heeding proper spiritual advice, forfeits its opportunity to gain in Spirit Vibration sufficiently to reach the Vibration of Mind Force (see Law of Reconversion) – in such case the natural reconversion to the One Single Highest Vibration occurs, and it is absorbed into It without memory of any kind. That condition is termed, Pure Death (see Death - Nonexistent).
Answer – A soul that forfeits the opportunity to gain in vibration sufficient to return to the Supreme Power becomes controlled by the inherent Law of Reconversion and is reabsorbed into the One Single Highest Vibration; without memory of any existences. It experiences Pure Death. (See Law of Reconversion).

LAW OF RECONVERSION
A lower vibration (not necessarily a Soul) is destined to follow a predetermined path leading to increasing vibrations until reaching the one Single Highest Vibration. The exception is for lower vibrations of subdivided Spirit entities – they have the alternative of raising their Spirit Vibrations to the level of Mind Force, thereby returning to the Supreme Power with full consciousness, but that must happen before the inevitable Law of Reconversion takes place, in which case they are absorbed into the One Single Highest Vibration without memory (pure death).

[Scribbler60]

Forty-six pages, almost 700 replies.

I'm probably repeating a response somewhere, but here's my take, backed by evidence:

Life and consciousness are not "things" in the sense of nouns. They are verbs; processes, actions.

When we die, the process of life and our consciousness ceases. Our awareness does not go anywhere, it just stops. Our bodies stop metabolizing, our heat dissipates into the surrounding environment and our DNA starts to break down.

If there were a way for one's consciousness to be transferred to some ill-defined "spirit energy" that existed somewhere, there would be evidence for it. Particles would interact, there would be a cause-effect relationship somewhere that we could measure.

But there is no such evidence. It's just not there.

As for people telling stories about "after death experiences", well, people don't come back to life after they die, so nobody can rationally speak of "after death experiences". Anecdotes about lights and meeting dead relatives and visions of heaven etc. are all very nice but they can be artificially induced. That tends to support the theory that such experiences take place entirely within the brain, specifically the temporal lobe; no spirituality necessary.

(Quick aside: two of the most famous books about "after death experiences" have been shown to be, at best, somewhat trumpian with the truth. The first, written by the ironically named Kevin Malarkey and entitled The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven eventually admitted that he made the whole thing up. The other, written by Dr Eben Alexander entitled Proof of Heaven has been refuted by experts, and Dr Alexander was, apparently, not entirely forthcoming in his accounts of his experience. Colour me shocked.)

I have never had such an experience, but my father did. And when he "came back," he was adamant: nope, there's no afterlife, no survival of consciousness post-death, nothing beyond the material.

Unless and until there is evidence to the contrary, it's pretty clear that once you're gone, you're gone. What will you experience? Same thing you experienced in the years before you were born.

[Hereandnow]

"But there is no such evidence. It's just not there."

I like the Empire State Building analogy: ten people jump off a the Empire State Building and nine plunge to their deaths. One flies away. I am interested in the one. It's like this: If a friend, someone you've known for years and trusted as much is possible to trust, one who was a die hard skeptic who derided at any hint of extravagance in thinking, came up to you and told you about a near death experience she had had, and absolutely insisted on its validity, what would you think? Probably you would dismiss it as some maligned brain state. Not me. I give this prima facie believability. How is it possible that a person like that could believe like that? Only answer is that they shouildn't. But they do. I've taken the time to listen to these NDE'ers, and they just shouldn't believe as they do in the world of justified belief standards that science gives us, but they do.

One question is this: what is it that makes you toe the line when it comes to naturalism? And by this I mean, the mentality of empirical science. Is this an absolute? Have you given due thought to the foundational claims of empirical knowledge? What have you read that might bring a serious challenge to this? do you know what a Kantian Copernican Revolution is? Have you read the pragmatists? Kierkegaard? Phenomenology? Have you read Otto, Buber? Can you refute Idealism as it is rigorously defended here? So much here.

I'm not trying be a name dropper, but there is a point: It takes a lot deconstructive reading to see how thin the justification is for applying empirical theory to understanding the world qua world (not the world in a narrow and selective field), and in the wake of this deconstruction, and it should be made clear, this is personal: an analytic taking apart of an individual's belief system at the ground level (what else is there?); there emerges a loss of faith in the empirical sciences. These will continue to be great for flights to Mars, but for understanding human dasein? Forget it. It is right out the window, and this is because it tells you nothing about foundational matters.

But this annihilation of foundational thinking is just part of the argument. You have to deal also with the metaethical argument, as well, which defends the thesis that ethicially, the empirical, or naturalistic, as Husserl would call it, world is not sustainable. In other words, we live in what is first and foremost an ethical world, that is, a world "made of" value. This claim takes time to explain. Not here.

So there are three parts to this. One is the Empire state building analogy; another is the loss of deconstructive loss of authority of empirical science; and the third is the metaethical argument, which I have not presented because it would take too long. This last is inspired by Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics.The first is most accessable; but the undoing of science's hold on one's beliefs in foundational matters, that takes work.

[Tamminen]

I'm not trying be a name dropper, but there is a point: It takes a lot deconstructive reading to see how thin the justification is for applying empirical theory to understanding the world qua world (not the world in a narrow and selective field), and in the wake of this deconstruction, and it should be made clear, this is personal: an analytic taking apart of an individual's belief system at the ground level (what else is there?); there emerges a loss of faith in the empirical sciences. These will continue to be great for flights to Mars, but for understanding human dasein? Forget it. It is right out the window, and this is because it tells you nothing about foundational matters.

But this annihilation of foundational thinking is just part of the argument. You have to deal also with the metaethical argument, as well, which defends the thesis that ethicially, the empirical, or naturalistic, as Husserl would call it, world is not sustainable. In other words, we live in what is first and foremost an ethical world, that is, a world "made of" value. This claim takes time to explain. Not here.

An excellent summary of what philosophy is, or should be. I must take that Wittgenstein's lecture to my reading program.

[Tamminen]

Wittgenstein's lecture on ethics is on the web and I just read it, it is not long and I recommend it for everybody. I am not sure if I can fully agree with him when he says that ethics cannot be expressed with words. As I have said elsewhere, there are many ways of using language, and many of us on these forums, including myself, have spoken about the unspeakable. Why not be a bit poetic sometimes? Why not say that our existence is paradoxical? Or that it is a great wonder that there is a world around us? If they convey some change of attitude in us, why should we not use those nonsensical phrases. Poetry has its own kind of truth.

[Scribbler60]

I like the Empire State Building analogy: ten people jump off a the Empire State Building and nine plunge to their deaths. One flies away. I am interested in the one.

I like the analogy, but it fails on its main point: nobody has ever actually jumped off the building and flown away. It's just never happened.

Had it happened only once, in the history of the human race, we would have to look at that with due consideration. But since it never has, it's my contention that we can discard the flying human as a non-starter.

Same goes with post-death experiences.

It's like this: If a friend, someone you've known for years and trusted as much is possible to trust, one who was a die hard skeptic who derided at any hint of extravagance in thinking, came up to you and told you about a near death experience she had had, and absolutely insisted on its validity, what would you think?

I would think that the person involved was under extraordinary stress, and as a result of that, perceived something that actually wasn't there. This does not make them weak-minded or easily led or anything of the sort, it simply means that in a time of extreme stress our perceptions are not what they would otherwise be.

One question is this: what is it that makes you toe the line when it comes to naturalism? And by this I mean, the mentality of empirical science.

Naturalism is not a starting point or a line to toe; it is a conclusion based on the evidence of every experiment ever done. Could it be wrong? Yes, it could. But it would require some pretty strong evidence to suggest that it is.

I'm not trying be a name dropper, but there is a point: It takes a lot deconstructive reading to see how thin the justification is for applying empirical theory to understanding the world qua world (not the world in a narrow and selective field), and in the wake of this deconstruction, and it should be made clear, this is personal: an analytic taking apart of an individual's belief system at the ground level (what else is there?); there emerges a loss of faith in the empirical sciences. These will continue to be great for flights to Mars, but for understanding human dasein? Forget it. It is right out the window, and this is because it tells you nothing about foundational matters.

No, it's not out the window. Humans are made up of the very same components as the rest of the universe. We're atoms, molecules, compounds. There's nothing different about us than there is, say, a rock or a flower or something swimming under the icy crust of Europa (I'm hoping for that, anyway).

... we live in what is first and foremost an ethical world, that is, a world "made of" value. This claim takes time to explain. Not here.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, though the sense I get - and perhaps I'm wrong - is that you may be reaching for the fallback "if there is no god then there is no foundation for ethical morality". That's nonsense, of course, because it makes certain presuppositions for which there is no evidence.

That said, I might be misinterpreting your argument on that.

[Hereandnow]

Scribbler60
I like the analogy, but it fails on its main point: nobody has ever actually jumped off the building and flown away. It's just never happened.

Had it happened only once, in the history of the human race, we would have to look at that with due consideration. But since it never has, it's my contention that we can discard the flying human as a non-starter.

Same goes with post-death experiences.

Well, how is NDE like the one who flies away? First, there are many, many NDE's, not just one, and this is not a failure of the analogy but a reinforcement of it in that it raises the level of believability to make it difficult to simply dismiss: one story that confounds common sense can be ignored, objectively. But agreement between many is a challenge.

And this brings the matter to making NDE confessions more believable, hence, more like the one who flew away before your eyes. So there is the consistency of reports, the testimony of many health care people; see Raymond Moody books. I haven't read them, only parts here and there. But the rest of the argument drives the point that we really should be taking better notice of these things accounts to make the case for the one who flew away. See below.

I would think that the person involved was under extraordinary stress, and as a result of that, perceived something that actually wasn't there. This does not make them weak-minded or easily led or anything of the sort, it simply means that in a time of extreme stress our perceptions are not what they would otherwise be.

Certainly this is true. But with NDE's they are dead. You know this right? Near death only is apt because they recovered; but they in fact recovered from death. No oxygen to the brain for longer than fifteen minutes in some cases. But forget this. It's really not the point. rather, it is about the quality of the NDE, not the content of, say, a grandfather showing up. Clearly such a thing is an act of interpretation: interpreting what stands before you as real, your actual grandfather in ghostly form. Or maybe its a beautiful meadow, no matter. What I find important is the talk about more real than real, and this is consistent throughout testimony, along with a profound sense of love and bliss. These are interesting because dthey are not part of an interpretative event; they are givens, you know, you may be mistaken about the one you love, say, but you cannot be mistaken about being in love: the feeling, the six inches off the ground, and so forth. These are not interpretations.

So you go under the knife, they put the anesthesia to you and when you fall under, your heart stops and you have these more real than real encounters and the feeling of infinite love comes upon you (forget the love of God: they pften say this, but this is an interpretative rendering of the event, and as such is not reliable). A bloodless brain delivering more real than real? And love? Of course, you can say the brain does strange things when you're dying, or short of oxygen, I know. But the very measure of real in not in logic; it's in the felt sense of real. How do I know this is all happening now, sitting here at the computer if not the intuited sense of it. One could argue that intensity of this kind translates into greater reality.

Naturalism is not a starting point or a line to toe; it is a conclusion based on the evidence of every experiment ever done. Could it be wrong? Yes, it could. But it would require some pretty strong evidence to suggest that it is.

This is where philosophy comes in. Read what I wrote, if you would. Read the existentialists carefully and take the time to understand them. Read Kant first. Don't forget to read Rorty after the early 20th century; and read some Derrida, and before this Levinas is a must. Pick up a copy of Thomas Kuhn's Structures of Scientific Revolutions: We are certainly toeing a line, and it is importantr to see that beneath every scientific assertion there is an epistemiological/ontological abyss.

If you go this route, you may come to understand why someone might become a Cartesian like Husserl, whereby the measure of the real is to found in the proximity of Consciousness. And when consciousness becomes the center of Being, the inner world rises to preeminence and justification for meaning is rerouted. There is only one real int he world, and that is the collective consciousnesses concrete experiences. As i have written elsewhere: science is an abstraction. If you like, can argue this.

No, it's not out the window. Humans are made up of the very same components as the rest of the universe. We're atoms, molecules, compounds. There's nothing different about us than there is, say, a rock or a flower or something swimming under the icy crust of Europa (I'm hoping for that, anyway).

There is no way around this. You need a Kantian Copernican Revolution to come to grips with the world. All philosophy issues from this. Husserl's Basic Problems in Phenomenology is very good.

I know this is not a welcome response. Can't be helped. Belief is made of ideas, which are made of what you are reading. A daily diet of Scientific American is great for many things, but not for studies in ontology.

[LuckyR]

Near death experiences are useful for... telling us what happens when we're near death yet NOT DEAD (by definition). Interesting topic but quite different issue than this thread.

[Sy Borg]

Near death experiences are useful for... telling us what happens when we're near death yet NOT DEAD (by definition). Interesting topic but quite different issue than this thread.

Lucky, by your logic, it is irrelevant to speak about the first second after the big bang when wondering what came before the big bang.

[LuckyR]

Near death experiences are useful for... telling us what happens when we're near death yet NOT DEAD (by definition). Interesting topic but quite different issue than this thread.

Lucky, by your logic, it is irrelevant to speak about the first second after the big bang when wondering what came before the big bang.

Yes, I agree with you.

[Sy Borg]

Yet what better source is there to gain information about something than the closest things we can find to it?

I am most interested in NDEs and, like HAN, find them suggestive that reality is rather more interesting than we assume when observing via our evolved "practical goggles". I especially liked:

What I find important is the talk about more real than real, and this is consistent throughout testimony, along with a profound sense of love and bliss. These are interesting because dthey are not part of an interpretative event; they are givens, you know, you may be mistaken about the one you love, say, but you cannot be mistaken about being in love: the feeling, the six inches off the ground, and so forth. These are not interpretations.

That's describes aspects of my second peak experience well. It's quite extraordinary and I feel grateful for this "taste".

[LuckyR]

Yet what better source is there to gain information about something than the closest things we can find to it?

I am most interested in NDEs and, like HAN, find them suggestive that reality is rather more interesting than we assume when observing via our evolved "practical goggles". I especially liked:

What I find important is the talk about more real than real, and this is consistent throughout testimony, along with a profound sense of love and bliss. These are interesting because dthey are not part of an interpretative event; they are givens, you know, you may be mistaken about the one you love, say, but you cannot be mistaken about being in love: the feeling, the six inches off the ground, and so forth. These are not interpretations.

That's describes aspects of my second peak experience well. It's quite extraordinary and I feel grateful for this "taste".

Again, I agree with you that near death is the closest measurable thing to actual death. That is not debatable. What is completely lacking is any proof or even a clear logical path to suppose that using information from an episode where the primary and secondary information gathering and assessment apparatus is, by definition operating at the very lowest capacity possible, would bear any actual resemblance to what we are trying to describe.

It would be akin to weighing the value of a movie review written by a reviewer who dropped acid and fell asleep during the movie, which happened to be in a language the reviewer didn't speak. I suppose it might be "better" than no review at all. But maybe not.

[Sy Borg]

Yet what better source is there to gain information about something than the closest things we can find to it?

I am most interested in NDEs and, like HAN, find them suggestive that reality is rather more interesting than we assume when observing via our evolved "practical goggles". I especially liked:

That's describes aspects of my second peak experience well. It's quite extraordinary and I feel grateful for this "taste".

Again, I agree with you that near death is the closest measurable thing to actual death. That is not debatable. What is completely lacking is any proof or even a clear logical path to suppose that using information from an episode where the primary and secondary information gathering and assessment apparatus is, by definition operating at the very lowest capacity possible, would bear any actual resemblance to what we are trying to describe.

It would be akin to weighing the value of a movie review written by a reviewer who dropped acid and fell asleep during the movie, which happened to be in a language the reviewer didn't speak. I suppose it might be "better" than no review at all. But maybe not.

That's the irony, while the senses are dulled the secondary information processing becomes greatly enhanced. So there are many cases where, approaching death, the blind briefly see and the senile become briefly lucid - a clearer perception that is not limited by the brain's usual filtering.

Note that, in order to survive, we need to be almost completely oblivious to most of existence. We have no sense of travelling about 2 million kms per hour through the cosmos, or the sense of the Earth spinning at 1,000kph. Nor do we see, smell, hear or feel most of the gases in which we are enveloped. We cannot see the very small. Most of the light perceived in space is from the past; we cannot see the present and, as things stand, we cannot quite perceive the present moment anyway due to sensory lags. We do not, and cannot touch anything without destruction, yet it feels that way. Our entire body operates in mysterious ways that we don't, and can't, notice.

With so much filtering, reality must seem pretty interesting and overwhelming when the filters are breaking down. Certainly, those who return from NDEs routinely report being overwhelmed by even soft light and sounds until they return to normal. Of course, the relatively insensitive have always doubted the claims of those who have been sensitised - until it happens to them :)

[LuckyR]

Again, I agree with you that near death is the closest measurable thing to actual death. That is not debatable. What is completely lacking is any proof or even a clear logical path to suppose that using information from an episode where the primary and secondary information gathering and assessment apparatus is, by definition operating at the very lowest capacity possible, would bear any actual resemblance to what we are trying to describe.

It would be akin to weighing the value of a movie review written by a reviewer who dropped acid and fell asleep during the movie, which happened to be in a language the reviewer didn't speak. I suppose it might be "better" than no review at all. But maybe not.

That's the irony, while the senses are dulled the secondary information processing becomes greatly enhanced. So there are many cases where, approaching death, the blind briefly see and the senile become briefly lucid - a clearer perception that is not limited by the brain's usual filtering.

Note that, in order to survive, we need to be almost completely oblivious to most of existence. We have no sense of travelling about 2 million kms per hour through the cosmos, or the sense of the Earth spinning at 1,000kph. Nor do we see, smell, hear or feel most of the gases in which we are enveloped. We cannot see the very small. Most of the light perceived in space is from the past; we cannot see the present and, as things stand, we cannot quite perceive the present moment anyway due to sensory lags. We do not, and cannot touch anything without destruction, yet it feels that way. Our entire body operates in mysterious ways that we don't, and can't, notice.

With so much filtering, reality must seem pretty interesting and overwhelming when the filters are breaking down. Certainly, those who return from NDEs routinely report being overwhelmed by even soft light and sounds until they return to normal. Of course, the relatively insensitive have always doubted the claims of those who have been sensitised - until it happens to them

Seems interesting, though I am having trouble imagining a way of proving that this anecdotal info is accurate.

[Jan Sand]

Since it is most reasonable to presume that a sensory system in the process of closing down would render nerve impulses for sound and sight as becoming soft and less sharp, why infer that this is more than a decaying nervous system?