Who dies at the moment of death?
- Present awareness
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Who dies at the moment of death?
The memories stored in the brain will disappear as the cells die and our self identity is based on those memories of passed events. The past events themselves have already ceased to exist, so it may not be said that the past dies at the moment of our death. Certainly all future potential dies at the moment of death, but how can that which is not yet born, be said to die?
- h_k_s
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
Philosophy can only question, What is existence?Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
The memories stored in the brain will disappear as the cells die and our self identity is based on those memories of passed events. The past events themselves have already ceased to exist, so it may not be said that the past dies at the moment of our death. Certainly all future potential dies at the moment of death, but how can that which is not yet born, be said to die?
Aristotle called it the soul. This view is ancient Greek and Persian and subsequently influenced the Hebrew writers of the Babylonian period. Prior to this Babylonian period (6th Century BCE) there is no mention of it in the Tanakh (Old Testament).
Thus ancient Greek philosophy taught us we exist independently of our bodies somehow. This Greek world influence crept into early Christianity as well, and Jesus taught these Greek ideas himself.
Whether memory is dependent on our brains alone is hard to surmise. Certainly Alzheimers patients indicate that brain and memory are connected. This does suggest that without our brains and bodies we may be incapable of memory.
Towards the end of her 91.7 year life my mom could not remember anyone or anything. But she could still speak, have fun with other seniors at the memory assisted living center, and she seemed happy every day without any memories, up to the night of her death when she died peacefully in her sleep. There was no autopsy. Speculation was that her heart being old just stopped working.
She did not remember any of us, her adult children, nor of her former spouse who preceded her in death decades earlier.
Based on this anecdotal scientific evidence I am inclined to believe philosophically that memories are inseparably connected with the brain.
This means if we do have a soul, as Aristotle postulates and Jesus teaches, then in the future after death we will be unable to remember anything.
- Angel Trismegistus
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
As I posted recently in the thread entitled "After-life":Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?...
Reductive materialism is a dead end. Pun intended.Well, in death your body is certainly "as dead as a door nail" -- but are you your body without remainder? That is to say, are we bodies and nothing more? And how do you know this?
To paraphrase something C.S. Lewis wrote in his meditation on grief: If in death the person we knew "is not" anymore, then that person never was in the first place -- we merely mistook "a cloud of atoms" for a person.
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm Present awareness » Yesterday, 5:00 pm
The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
The memories stored in the brain will disappear as the cells die and our self identity is based on those memories of passed events. The past events themselves have already ceased to exist, so it may not be said that the past dies at the moment of our death. Certainly all future potential dies at the moment of death, but how can that which is not yet born, be said to die?
I think that when you die, the machinery that generates those memories of who you were, those ideas of who you might be, and your awareness of those thoughts and of the world currently around you now and how you feel about it, that machinery stops working. So those thoughts cease to be. Sadly, then, I fear that when you die, that is a permanent end to present awareness.
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
I think 'present awareness' is what the sense of being a Self amounts to, moment by moment. And as that correlates with brain activity, it's hard for me to believe it continues after brain death. The Big Sleep, dreamless, and no alarm clock.Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
The memories stored in the brain will disappear as the cells die and our self identity is based on those memories of passed events. The past events themselves have already ceased to exist, so it may not be said that the past dies at the moment of our death. Certainly all future potential dies at the moment of death, but how can that which is not yet born, be said to die?
But we don't understand consciousness, so you never know.
- Terrapin Station
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
The person you are at the moment of death.Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
There is no "The might I might be." Once you're dead that's it. So make the most of your life while you've got it.
- Terrapin Station
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
- Present awareness
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
The concept of a soul is an interesting one. One might consider the life force which flows through all living things to be the “soul” of that life form. At the moment of conception, the life force contained in the sperm and the egg are combined in forming a new life form. Similar to lighting one candle with another candle, but what happens to the light when you blow the candle out?h_k_s wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 9:34 pmPhilosophy can only question, What is existence?Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
The memories stored in the brain will disappear as the cells die and our self identity is based on those memories of passed events. The past events themselves have already ceased to exist, so it may not be said that the past dies at the moment of our death. Certainly all future potential dies at the moment of death, but how can that which is not yet born, be said to die?
Aristotle called it the soul. This view is ancient Greek and Persian and subsequently influenced the Hebrew writers of the Babylonian period. Prior to this Babylonian period (6th Century BCE) there is no mention of it in the Tanakh (Old Testament).
Thus ancient Greek philosophy taught us we exist independently of our bodies somehow. This Greek world influence crept into early Christianity as well, and Jesus taught these Greek ideas himself.
Whether memory is dependent on our brains alone is hard to surmise. Certainly Alzheimers patients indicate that brain and memory are connected. This does suggest that without our brains and bodies we may be incapable of memory.
Towards the end of her 91.7 year life my mom could not remember anyone or anything. But she could still speak, have fun with other seniors at the memory assisted living center, and she seemed happy every day without any memories, up to the night of her death when she died peacefully in her sleep. There was no autopsy. Speculation was that her heart being old just stopped working.
She did not remember any of us, her adult children, nor of her former spouse who preceded her in death decades earlier.
Based on this anecdotal scientific evidence I am inclined to believe philosophically that memories are inseparably connected with the brain.
This means if we do have a soul, as Aristotle postulates and Jesus teaches, then in the future after death we will be unable to remember anything.
- The Beast
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
- Count Lucanor
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
You should ask what is implied in the statement "the man I was". Because that ultimately defines for you who dies.Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
- h_k_s
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
What you said sounds like Buddhism.Present awareness wrote: ↑August 12th, 2020, 11:49 amThe concept of a soul is an interesting one. One might consider the life force which flows through all living things to be the “soul” of that life form. At the moment of conception, the life force contained in the sperm and the egg are combined in forming a new life form. Similar to lighting one candle with another candle, but what happens to the light when you blow the candle out?h_k_s wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 9:34 pm
Philosophy can only question, What is existence?
Aristotle called it the soul. This view is ancient Greek and Persian and subsequently influenced the Hebrew writers of the Babylonian period. Prior to this Babylonian period (6th Century BCE) there is no mention of it in the Tanakh (Old Testament).
Thus ancient Greek philosophy taught us we exist independently of our bodies somehow. This Greek world influence crept into early Christianity as well, and Jesus taught these Greek ideas himself.
Whether memory is dependent on our brains alone is hard to surmise. Certainly Alzheimers patients indicate that brain and memory are connected. This does suggest that without our brains and bodies we may be incapable of memory.
Towards the end of her 91.7 year life my mom could not remember anyone or anything. But she could still speak, have fun with other seniors at the memory assisted living center, and she seemed happy every day without any memories, up to the night of her death when she died peacefully in her sleep. There was no autopsy. Speculation was that her heart being old just stopped working.
She did not remember any of us, her adult children, nor of her former spouse who preceded her in death decades earlier.
Based on this anecdotal scientific evidence I am inclined to believe philosophically that memories are inseparably connected with the brain.
This means if we do have a soul, as Aristotle postulates and Jesus teaches, then in the future after death we will be unable to remember anything.
Aristotle and Jesus did not comment on Buddhism.
I appreciate some of the rules of Buddhism, like the 5 forbidden professions.
Other than that I don't comment on Buddhism because I have not studied it in depth nor am I interested.
The general gist of all the Eastern Asian philosophies is to go with the flow and fit in. This is merely environmental. Places in Asia like India and China have always been teeming with masses of people therefore it is natural for those views to have crept into the Eastern Asian philosophies. I however have no use for them.
- Present awareness
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
The implication of “the man I was” is that what we call the past, is gone, already dead so to speak. Who we were does not die at the moment of death, since who we were is already gone.Count Lucanor wrote: ↑August 12th, 2020, 5:48 pmYou should ask what is implied in the statement "the man I was". Because that ultimately defines for you who dies.Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
- Present awareness
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
I agree! However, as the body goes through the death process, the person you are is constantly changing. Perhaps when the last living brain cell sends out one final electrical impulse, could it be said that we have really died?Terrapin Station wrote: ↑August 12th, 2020, 7:28 amThe person you are at the moment of death.Present awareness wrote: ↑August 11th, 2020, 12:00 pm The man I was, no longer “IS” and the man I might be, not yet here, so whom is it that dies at the moment of death?
There is no "The might I might be." Once you're dead that's it. So make the most of your life while you've got it.
- Terrapin Station
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Re: Who dies at the moment of death?
There's no good reason to believe that consciousness still obtains after one reaches a state where death would be pronounced. That wouldn't be the state where we've decided to pronounce death otherwise. In other words, we wouldn't pick a state where there are good reasons to believe that conscious experience still obtains as the state where we should medically pronounce death. So you'd only be dead where, among other things, consciousness ceases.Present awareness wrote: ↑August 12th, 2020, 10:07 pmI agree! However, as the body goes through the death process, the person you are is constantly changing. Perhaps when the last living brain cell sends out one final electrical impulse, could it be said that we have really died?Terrapin Station wrote: ↑August 12th, 2020, 7:28 am
The person you are at the moment of death.
There is no "The might I might be." Once you're dead that's it. So make the most of your life while you've got it.
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