Is there consciousness after death?

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.
nameless
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Post by nameless »

Felix wrote:I don't think it's reasonable to expect extraordinary human abilities like this to be demonstrated on demand under controlled scientific conditions.
Yet that is the claim, the Menninger Institute?!?! That is certainly "demonstrated on demand under controlled scientific conditions" if anything is! He can certainly do it again.

As I recall, the swami prepared for days for the telekinesis demonstration I mentioned, and he did perform it more than once. If he accomplished what was claimed and it required many years of intense yogic training to develop such abilities, it is unlikely that another subject could be found who could do, or even want to do, what he did.
And he aught to be able to repeat the demonstration, again and again, under scientific conditions.
And maybe I don't need objective confirmation of my subjective experiences. If I have a precognitive vision, I don't feel compelled to rush out and find a team of scientists to verify that it actually happened.
Neither do i, but I didn't know that is what we were talking about.
Belinda
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Post by Belinda »

Not to me! If there is no God I figure the odds of some 'natural' phenomona saving my entity are pretty slim
Belinda wrote:
What has the question of consciousness after death to do with philosophy of religion? Isn't consciousness after death a question about neuroscience?
But even if there is God, this in itself does not indicate that therefore your entity will be immortal.

Anyway, you did not say what the connection is between your consciousness and your entity.Did you perhaps mean 'essence' rather than 'entity'?
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Martin Ekdahl
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Post by Martin Ekdahl »

First of all we need to make a definition of A) "consciousness", B) "after" and C) "life". One definition of consciousness is the existance of something that is aware of how it is like to be something. Consciousness is a type of mental state, a way of perceiving, particularly the perception of a relationship between self and other [or between the self aswell as the other?]. Life is in a narrow definition a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation. In a broader definition it is maybe also able to understand life as "the essence of the biosphere"? In that case consciousness ought to be the essence of the sociosphere! After is simply understood as something occuring at the other side of the end of something else in a one-dimensional timeflow. So, is there then a "after" or a "before" the biosphere/sociosphere? If we see the universe in four dimensions (three space and one time dimension), then life and consciousness certainly possibly are limited occurences. I suspect that the universe isn't limited in four dimensions however. If we play with more than one time dimension, then consciousness aswell as life ought to be boundless.
df544
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Post by df544 »

Consciousness does survive after death.

Consciousness is survived by the creation and maintenance of institutions.
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