Do You Believe in an Afterlife? Why? Any Evidence?

[LuckyR]

Two things:

1) Regardless of whether life after death exists, human psychology finds it extremely comforting, therefore it is guaranteed that humans would postulate it.

2) Again regardless of whether life after death exists, it is likely impossible to prove it exists. Therefore the absence of proof of it's existence is NOT evidence of it's non-existence.

[chewybrian]

Two things:

1) Regardless of whether life after death exists, human psychology finds it extremely comforting, therefore it is guaranteed that humans would postulate it.

2) Again regardless of whether life after death exists, it is likely impossible to prove it exists. Therefore the absence of proof of it's existence is NOT evidence of it's non-existence.

I think human psychology also finds it comforting to "know" things, and uncomfortable to admit we cannot know something.

[Gee]

‘The real question of life after death isn’t whether or not it exists, but even if it does, what problem this really solves.’
Wittgenstein.

Welcome to the forum.

That is a good question, whether Wittgenstein's or yours, so I will try to answer it with another question.

What do we actually know about consciousness, because that is what afterlife actually is -- consciousness after death. This topic has been argued and debated for thousands of years and studied by religions for tens of thousands of years, yet we still know very little.

Most people will tell you that consciousness is thought and it is produced by the brain. They will tell you that science tells us this, but does it? The development of a brain is way down the line of evolution (according to science), and thought appears to come from the brain (according to science), so it is patently obvious that thought, consciousness, and all reality had to initially come from some other brain/mind -- "God's" mind -- so this is a religious idea, not a science idea. Besides religious ideas, this also gives us illusion ideas and solipsism, because everything comes from a brain. I even read one article where the author tried to convince me that the Universe was one big brain because obviously the brain had to come first in order to create everything else.

Not only is the above invalid logic, but it also is impossible. Thought has no power and can do nothing on its own. Take the greatest thoughts known to man and write them down or store them on a disc and put them in a drawer for a week, or a year or a thousand years. You will find that they do nothing, they influence nothing, because they have no power. Thought is just a product of consciousness, consciousness is awareness -- not thought.

In order to understand consciousness, we first need to explore what it is, which includes thought, and awareness, and also emotion. All life is conscious, but all life does not have a brain, so there is more to consciousness than just a brain and thought. Where does awareness come from? How does it start? What causes it to end? To answer these questions, we need to seriously study the beginning and ending of consciousness, which means studying death.

Gee

[Gee]

We need hard, empirical evidence, that there can be consciousness independent of a physical body, if we are to begin to entertain the idea that consciousness survives death of a subject. No such hard evidence has ever been provided.

A few thousand years ago, when we first learned that the moon pulled the tides in and out, what do you think the "hard evidence" for this was? Maybe a large hook that came down from the moon? Maybe the people who testified that they were almost washed away by the incoming tide? Or maybe it was simple observation and a disinclination to believe in coincidence?

If we continue to keep our eyes closed, put our hands over our ears, and hide in the closet, then we will never learn anything!

Gee

[UniversalAlien]

Gee wrote:

In order to understand consciousness, we first need to explore what it is, which includes thought, and awareness, and also emotion. All life is conscious, but all life does not have a brain, so there is more to consciousness than just a brain and thought. Where does awareness come from? How does it start? What causes it to end? To answer these questions, we need to seriously study the beginning and ending of consciousness, which means studying death.

But what if I'm right when I postulated in an earlier post
"There is No such thing as Death"

https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... =4&t=17971

In which case we are always dealing with transition of existent state

That said, I would consider the possibility of the existent

From the very famous psychic healer Edgar Cayce

EDGAR CAYCE ON THE AKASHIC RECORDS
When asked about the source of his information, Edgar Cayce replied that there were essentially two. The first was the subconscious mind of the individual for whom he was giving the reading and the second was the Akashic Records.

The Akashic Records, also known as "The Book of Life” or “God’s Book of Remembrance,” can be equated to the universe's super-computer system--or perhaps what today would be called cloud computing. They are the central storehouse of all information for every individual who has ever lived upon the earth. These records contain our every thought, deed, word, feeling, and intent. They have a tremendous influence on our everyday lives, our relationships, our feelings, our belief systems, and the potential realities we draw toward us. Edgar Cayce referred to the records this way:

Upon time and space is written the thoughts, the deeds, the activities of an entity – as in relationships to its environs, its hereditary influence; as directed – or judgment drawn by or according to what the entity's ideal is. Hence, as it has been oft called, the record is God's book of remembrance; and each entity, each soul – as the activities of a single day of an entity in the material world – either makes same good or bad or indifferent, depending upon the entity's application of self ...

-- Edgar Cayce Reading 1650-1

When Cayce accessed the Akashic Records of an individual, he had the ability to select the information that would be of the most help to that person at that particular time in his or her life. Frequently, a reading might suggest that only a selection of the available material was being provided, but that the individual was being given that which would be "most helpful and hopeful.”.......

Quote source:
https://www.edgarcayce.org/the-readings ... c-records/


Of course this does no prove the continuation of life after death - But postulates that it is recorded forever.

Whether one could come back to life or maintain consciousness because of a complete recording of its existent state
is highly speculative.

[Gee]

There's no doubt that afterlives happen, though not to everyone. The question is how long they subjectively last. Generally, a clinically dead person has a number of minutes of oxygen in their brain. So, yes, the people are dead to the outside world but they still living a life in a final dreamworld.

Actually, I suspect that it does happen to everyone, it is just that everyone does not remember, or maybe does not want to remember. I have been studying this for decades and think that life, death, and reincarnation are all part of the process that we call evolution. I know that idea is kind of "out there", but if one studies all of the different aspects of death/consciousness, it starts to make sense.

The question of how long they subjectively last is a good one. The answer, I think, relates to bonding. The brain, I think, takes six minutes to completely die, but other organs take longer and the body as a whole can take hours or even days for all cells to die depending upon the circumstances of the death. When does subjectivity end? With the death of the brain, the death of the whole body, or the demise of the chemical make up of the body? It is interesting to note that religions that believe in everlasting heaven try to preserve the body, but religions that believe in reincarnation tend to want to terminate the body to release the subject, often burning it. Is this because they suspect a bond between the subject and the body?

It is also interesting to note that the people who witness paranormal phenomenon regarding death also tend to witness it within a few hours or a few days of death -- which matches the breakdown of the body. Interesting. Also note that people, who have interactions with "spirits" are mostly people, who are at the scene of the death or people who have a bond with the deceased.

Sightings of "spirits" or "ghosts" after the first few days are almost always associated with a location or a person, who has a relationship with the deceased, or is in a bloodline, family, of a person who is deceased. All of this implies bonding with something physical. It does not imply an other dimension, although I suppose that is possible.

Gee

[gheinz]

There are many religions and occult traditions that postulate an afterlife - Defined here as the continuation of 'consciousness'
and self awareness after the biological self is deceased.

There is 'anecdotal evidence' to support this view, but as far as I know no empirical evidence has ever proven without a reasonable
doubt that conscious life exists after biological death.

What do you think

I believe there is an amazingly simple and clear answer:
It is as a result of our selfishness/self-centeredness that there are subjectively meaningful boundaries. In contrast, there are (would be) no limits to the state of selflessness.
In the state of selfishness we are not impartial observers; in the state of selflessness we are objective observers and see things as they actually are.
Boundaries are fooled by our selfishness.
We are led to believe that physical death is supposed to be a limit. But it is'nt.
See also my posts:
Is our reality just a construction?https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... 76#p411976
Re: Is our reality just a construction? https://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums ... 43#p432343

[godblog]

Let’s use some logic here.
1: the past is over and DOES NOT EXIST anymore.
2: the future DOES NOT EXIST yet
3: only NOW ever exists
Now after now after now it will always be and has always been NOW
We have FAITH NOW in our memories of the past
We have HOPE NOW for a better future
We have LOVE we must use NOW to create our next better now

[Count Lucanor]

2) Again regardless of whether life after death exists, it is likely impossible to prove it exists. Therefore the absence of proof of it's existence is NOT evidence of it's non-existence.

First, if it's likely impossible to prove it exists, why would someone believe it exists? This person would not be able to prove it to his/her own mind, so there is no good reason to believe it.

Secondly, even if absence of proof is not a definite proof of its non-existence, it certainly adds to the rest of the evidence and it makes it more reasonable to believe it doesn't exist. There's no evidence of a disembodied consciousness before death, why would we expect there could be a disembodied consciousness after death? Can water exist in any other state of matter that is not liquid, solid or gas? We don't know that it can, so that's it.

[Count Lucanor]

We need hard, empirical evidence, that there can be consciousness independent of a physical body, if we are to begin to entertain the idea that consciousness survives death of a subject. No such hard evidence has ever been provided.

A few thousand years ago, when we first learned that the moon pulled the tides in and out, what do you think the "hard evidence" for this was? Maybe a large hook that came down from the moon? Maybe the people who testified that they were almost washed away by the incoming tide? Or maybe it was simple observation and a disinclination to believe in coincidence?

If we continue to keep our eyes closed, put our hands over our ears, and hide in the closet, then we will never learn anything!

Gee

I hope that a few thousands years didn't just go by for nothing. We know better now. Anyway, your analogy doesn't apply to the case in question, since there was an observed phenomena (the tides) and there was more than enough hard evidence that they were real. It was then open to find the cause. No one was just hypothesizing that they could exist. Not the case with an afterlife, which has NEVER been observed, and cannot be observed, since by definition it can only occur in another supernatural domain to which the living don't have access to. A good hypothesis could be made IF we had observed in this natural domain of the living any hard evidence of a disembodied consciousness, but we haven't.

[Tom Butler]

There's no evidence of a disembodied consciousness before death, why would we expect there could be a disembodied consciousness after death?

Saying "There is no ..." is the first tell of an uninformed person.

To have "disembodied consciousness" it would seem that:

• Psi functioning must be actual. (It is: https://www.deanradin.com/recommended-references)

• There must be a medium of propagation for the influence of thought. Researchers have determined that there appears to be a Psi Field permeating physical space that has decidedly nonphysical characteristics such as nonlocality and our apparent inability to shield from Psi influence.

• There must be evidence of the influence of thought on physical processes (intended order?). Numerous studies using people's apparent influence on the output of Random Event Generators (REG) make it clear that there is a thought-physical process interaction. The formation of EVP is such an example.

There is actually quite a lot of research evidence indicating that consciousness is not bound by the body. Some of these apparently nonphysical characteristics such as the influence of intentionality on REGs and in EVP at least do not preclude discarnate consciousness. In some cases, they suggest the existence of discarnate consciousness.

The task is to formulate a cosmological model that sufficiently addresses known phenomena and known principles to formulate useful hypotheses. That is being done by some very intelligent and well-educated, "informed people."

[Count Lucanor]

There's no evidence of a disembodied consciousness before death, why would we expect there could be a disembodied consciousness after death?

Saying "There is no ..." is the first tell of an uninformed person.

To have "disembodied consciousness" it would seem that:

• Psi functioning must be actual. (It is: https://www.deanradin.com/recommended-references)

No, not Dean Radin again, please! There's no hard evidence of disembodied consciouness in his work, nor Daryl Bem's. He's one of the causes there's a replicability crisis in Psychology.

• There must be a medium of propagation for the influence of thought. Researchers have determined that there appears to be a Psi Field permeating physical space that has decidedly nonphysical characteristics such as nonlocality and our apparent inability to shield from Psi influence.

"There must be" and "there appears to be" is the language of an hypothesis. Not even an hypothesis to explain a well-attested, observed phenomenon, but the suspicion that such phenomenon could exist. That does not count as hard evidence.

• There must be evidence of the influence of thought on physical processes (intended order?). Numerous studies using people's apparent influence on the output of Random Event Generators (REG) make it clear that there is a thought-physical process interaction. The formation of EVP is such an example.

There is actually quite a lot of research evidence indicating that consciousness is not bound by the body. Some of these apparently nonphysical characteristics such as the influence of intentionality on REGs and in EVP at least do not preclude discarnate consciousness. In some cases, they suggest the existence of discarnate consciousness.

Again, lots of speculative language there. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not just something that suggests that your biased beliefs can be justified.

The task is to formulate a cosmological model that sufficiently addresses known phenomena and known principles to formulate useful hypotheses. That is being done by some very intelligent and well-educated, "informed people."

Yeah, sure. Very intelligent, well-educated, informed people often produce theology. We don't want theology here, just facts. There's no known phenomena of disembodied consciousness.

[Tom Butler]

Count Lucanor I rest my case.

[UniversalAlien]

Count Lucanor wrote:

Again, lots of speculative language there. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, not just something that suggests that your biased beliefs can be justified.

Tom Butler wrote: ↑Today, 10:12 am
The task is to formulate a cosmological model that sufficiently addresses known phenomena and known principles to formulate useful hypotheses. That is being done by some very intelligent and well-educated, "informed people."

Yeah, sure. Very intelligent, well-educated, informed people often produce theology. We don't want theology here, just facts. There's no known phenomena of disembodied consciousness.

WRONG

In Philosophy and even in science, point of reference is important.

So for the record and point of reference we are now here

"Philosophy of Religion, Theism and Mythology"

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.

If you want to debate whether certain concepts and/or observations are 'scientific' go to the science of philosophy section of
the forum.
Here we are discussing the speculative and hypothetical first - and its scientific validity will by necessity be questionable

[UniversalAlien]

And for you Count Lucanor and others who want to hold to scientific dogmatism, consider this



First Carl Sagan and now Stephen Hawking, still commucicating from the other side
- Maybe we should add Albert Einstein