An inquiry

[hawkins_anderson]

When all is said and done, what do you honestly think happens after we die? If there is no afterlife, then what do you speculate exists or doesn't exist?

[Marquis de Carabas]

I speculate that my funeral happens, and people better cry.

I figure existence goes on much the same without me as it did with me. For me, there's no happenings, though, because there is no me.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson
If there is no afterlife, then what do you speculate exists or doesn't exist? If there is no afterlife, then all that exists is what is here during life, by definition. Is that what you're asking?

[Ladyhawk]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas
I speculate that my funeral happens, and people better cry.

I figure existence goes on much the same without me as it did with me. For me, there's no happenings, though, because there is no me.


Works for me.

[hawkins_anderson]

A fool's concept though but even when we sleep, we dream and exist, of sorts, in such ways. If there is no afterlife as scripted in the bible, what do you think happens to our sense of human consciousness?

[Dancing David]

Decomposition, memory for others of us, life ends and other life continues...

[TruthSeeker]

hawkins,

I have a question for you. Why does it matter? What will the various possibilities mean for your day to day life?

TS

[hawkins_anderson]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Decomposition, memory for others of us, life ends and other life continues...

Do we exists as a mess of jumbled dreamlike frequencies that only live on so long as the brain lives on before it decomposes? If there is another life that continues, what is that life and how are we made sentient of said life?

[metropolis_part_one]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker

Why does it matter? What will the various possibilities mean for your day to day life?

TS

Nothing. So what? By that logic, we should never listen to music, or look at a painting, because it doesn't mean anything for our day to day life, it isn't needed for us to exist. It's just something to do / think about.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson
A fool's concept though but even when we sleep, we dream and exist, of sorts, in such ways. If there is no afterlife as scripted in the bible, what do you think happens to our sense of human consciousness?
Since the material that forms my sens of human consciousness (my brainmeats) will decompose, there will be nowhere for my sense of human consciousness to exist. You might as well ask what happens to the dozenness of a dozen eggs after you make a two-egg omelette.

[triadboy]

Worms play pinochle on your snout

[hawkins_anderson]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
hawkins,

I have a question for you. Why does it matter? What will the various possibilities mean for your day to day life?

TS

Life, in a sense, is defined by our sense of intellect but that does not always mean we are wise to the true nature of a thing. "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" (Socrates). In understanding the unknown of what is to come is to better understand our respective life situations in the here and now (or so I tell myself. LOL). Just for the sake of argument, what life is there to come and how do our dreams rather than the bible foreshadow said life to come? What is the true nature of a dream?

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

If I am buried in the ground according to my wishes in a simple cardboard box without embalming, my body's tissues, organs and such continue to exist for a short while, offering sustinance to a multitude of organsims

"Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all
creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for
maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but
variable service, two dishes, but to one table:
that's the end...

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a
king, and cat of the fish that hath fed of that worm...

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a
progress through the guts of a beggar..." from Hamlet Act IV Scene iii


From the earth I came, and to the earth I shall return.

[TruthSeeker]

Originally posted by metropolis_part_one


Nothing. So what? By that logic, we should never listen to music, or look at a painting, because it doesn't mean anything for our day to day life, it isn't needed for us to exist. It's just something to do / think about.

No, just the opposite. WE should live our day to day lives to the utmost both in terms of our behaviour and our pleasures. We should not let what comes next determine what we do today. So many people do good and avoid bad because of the hope of heaven and the threat of hell. What I meant to imply was that we should lead equally good and rich lives regardless of whether there is no afterlife, reincarnation, heaven, hell etc.

Does that make sense?

[hawkins_anderson]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker


No, just the opposite. WE should live our day to day lives to the utmost both in terms of our behaviour and our pleasures. We should not let what comes next determine what we do today. So many people do good and avoid bad because of the hope of heaven and the threat of hell. What I meant to imply was that we should lead equally good and rich lives regardless of whether there is no afterlife, reincarnation, heaven, hell etc.

Does that make sense?

The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news. And so I say even without the fear of future consequences for your behaviors and pleasure seeking, what what do you speculate exists in what is to come or not come?

[TruthSeeker]

I have seen no convincing evidence for an afterlife, for heaven or for hell or for reincarnation. I am open to receiving and examining such evidence.

In the meantime, I try to live my life in such a way that, regardless of what happens next, I can be proud of my actions and feel that I lived my life.

[hawkins_anderson]

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
I have seen no convincing evidence for an afterlife, for heaven or for hell or for reincarnation. I am open to receiving and examining such evidence.

In the meantime, I try to live my life in such a way that, regardless of what happens next, I can be proud of my actions and feel that I lived my life.

Please entertain the mere notion for a moment. What could it hurt? THis is a topic that has no boundaries and discusses behaviors and pleasure seeking. Without defining such things through the scripted scenarios provided for us about the afterlife as mandated by the bible, what do you think is to come or not come? For instance, let's say it's like with dreaming. We are unconscious in our sleep and yet we live, so to speak, in our dreams. What is the true nature of a dream and how might such fleeting things determine what is to come?

[The Don]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson


The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news. And so I say even without the fear of future consequences for your behaviors and pleasure seeking, what what do you speculate exists in what is to come or not come?

Depends what you mean by bad. I've not killed anyone but I've stolen small value items. I try not to hurt people physically but have deliberately hurt someone's feelings.

The thing that modifies my behaviour and limits my transgressions to what I consider minor ones is not fear of retribution in the next life but fear of consequences (direct and indirect) in this one. Some of my worst decisions relate to times when I failed to take into account consequences and did something because I was mad at someone or thing.

Some people don't do this and are classed as immoral (if they should know better) or amoral (if they shouldn't) of course these classifications are relative to society's current standards. Behaviour which is quite acceptable in the UK sould be unthinkable in Saudi Arabia and vice versa.

I am certain that there is no afterlife and that as Traidboy so eloquently but it "Worms play pinochle on your snout".

[TruthSeeker]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson


Please entertain the mere notion for a moment. What could it hurt? THis is a topic that has no boundaries and discusses behaviors and pleasure seeking. Without defining such things through the scripted scenarios provided for us about the afterlife as mandated by the bible, what do you think is to come or not come? For instance, let's say it's like with dreaming. We are unconscious in our sleep and yet we live, so to speak, in our dreams. What is the true nature of a dream and how might such fleeting things determine what is to come?

Dreaming is created by a functioning nervous system perhaps to aid in memory consolidation and learning, perhaps to express forbidden impulses or longed-for scenarios or our deepest fears and anxieties (many theories...). The dead do not have a functioning nervous system. I do not see how dreaming informs about the afterlife. Perhaps I am slow. Sorry.

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson


Do we exists as a mess of jumbled dreamlike frequencies that only live on so long as the brain lives on before it decomposes? If there is another life that continues, what is that life and how are we made sentient of said life?

Welcome HA! I haven't greeted you before.

I am not the one to ask the question, I do not believe that any of the evidence for life after death has passed my criteria for evidence.

[rachaella]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson


The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news.

Can I nominate this for the Run on Sentence of the Month Award?

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson


The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news. And so I say even without the fear of future consequences for your behaviors and pleasure seeking, what what do you speculate exists in what is to come or not come?

You would think that but I beleive that it is not fear of punishment that keeps people from doing wrong.

It is very easy to break the law and people do it all the time, in speeding for instance. Yet most of us do not take more than one newspaper from the machine.


And so I say even without the fear of future consequences for your behaviors and pleasure seeking, what what do you speculate exists in what is to come or not come?


What, ? :)

I anticipate that the choices I make will have consequences for the future. this is the karma of the buddha, the words i speak live beyond me as do my acts.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by rachaella

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by hawkins_anderson


The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Can I nominate this for the Run on Sentence of the Month Award?
You could do so, but if I were you, which I'm obviously not, the sentence I would nominate would be the one I am typing right now, well, right now as I type it, not right now as you are reading it, because this sentence is longer and more convoluted than, "The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news," which is a long sentence in its own right, but short enough to fit inside this sentence, which qualifies this one as much more fitting, in my opinion, for a run-on sentence of the month nomination, if such a thing exists, which I'm not very sure of.

[rachaella]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas

You could do so, but if I were you, which I'm obviously not, the sentence I would nominate would be the one I am typing right now, well, right now as I type it, not right now as you are reading it, because this sentence is longer and more convoluted than, "The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news," which is a long sentence in its own right, but short enough to fit inside this sentence, which qualifies this one as much more fitting, in my opinion, for a run-on sentence of the month nomination, if such a thing exists, which I'm not very sure of.

Well, I think that if such an award does not exist, we should most certainly begin it ourselves so that sentences such as "You could do so, but if I were you, which I'm obviously not, the sentence I would nominate would be the one I am typing right now, well, right now as I type it, not right now as you are reading it, because this sentence is longer and more convoluted than, "The funny thing is most people do not avoid doing bad because if they did then most of the laws we have on the books would, like the threat of a future afterlife, would deter them from committing acts of evil and to live soley in terms of our behaviors and our pleasures is to live a life that has no boundaries or true consequences which also in turn explains many of the things that currently are going on in the world today, especially in the news," which is a long sentence in its own right, but short enough to fit inside this sentence, which qualifies this one as much more fitting, in my opinion, for a run-on sentence of the month nomination, if such a thing exists, which I'm not very sure of." could be given the honor and recognition that they truly deserve, not that writing run-on sentences takes too much talent, as can be evidenced by the ease at which I am doing so now.

[Marquis de Carabas]

I guess I'll do the honourable thing and stop the recursive run-ons. :D [/derail]

So, a serious question for HA (whom I also have yet to welcome...so Welcome!)... Do you have, to your mind, adequate evidence for an afterlife of some sort? If no, why do you believe it warrants the devotion of mental time and energy to dream up possibilities?

[calladus]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson
Do we exists as a mess of jumbled dreamlike frequencies that only live on so long as the brain lives on before it decomposes? If there is another life that continues, what is that life and how are we made sentient of said life? Frequencies!?

HA - that word doesn't mean what you think it means! Frequency is a measurement of a signal, not the signal itself.

Our dreams, like our thoughts, are electro-chemical in nature. The last I read of the nature of dreams is that they are sort of a "file cleanup" process that runs to make order our of the saved experiences of the day. (To use a computer analogy.)

Dreams don't show the future, although they can make predictions of it to various degrees of accuracy.

There is plenty of fantasy / Sci-Fi that claims that our dreams are a window into another world, an afterlife, or a meta-life of some sort. I've read that our Earthly life is naught but a dream to those worlds, where we exist here when we sleep there.

But that's just fantasy. In my opinion, thinking otherwise is folly.

[calladus]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson
Please entertain the mere notion for a moment. What could it hurt? THis is a topic that has no boundaries and discusses behaviors and pleasure seeking. Without defining such things through the scripted scenarios provided for us about the afterlife as mandated by the bible, what do you think is to come or not come? For instance, let's say it's like with dreaming. We are unconscious in our sleep and yet we live, so to speak, in our dreams. What is the true nature of a dream and how might such fleeting things determine what is to come?
<shrug>

Doesn't hurt a thing to think about such things. Lots of good fiction starts out that way. But in my opinion, this is nothing more than brainstorming for a creative writing project.

Keep trying though - maybe you can create a work of fantasy that inspires awe and admiration - like The Lord of the Rings. Then again, you could create something confusing and self-contradictory, like some other famous book I might mention.

[hawkins_anderson]

The nature of my questions is purely hypothetical of course hence the continuous statement: "for the sake of argument..."

What comes to mind when I read what you have written is something I read about in a bio class textbook some time back about how there are people who have had heart attack and are pronounced dead, but their nervous system has just slowed down so far the equipment cannot read it. The equipment is supposed to provide us with factual evidence said individuals have died. This in turn leads me to think about exactly how many people per year are pronounced dead but truly are not deceased. Dreams cannot prophesize what is to come in the afterlife. The notion on the table is what if dreams are the afterlife. It’s just a fool’s idea of trying to figure out something for myself. Of course there is no physical evidence to support this theory for discussion. It’s just an idea to be thrown around for a brief moment of entertainment before the discussion journeys onto something new and exciting for the moment on another thread. How far off are the notions of “frequencies” surrounding this topic? Alpha….Beta….Theta….Delta….Brainwaves….Good science fiction sometimes leads to inventions such as an EEG. Brainwaves - who would have thought of it, and here I thought the world was flat. Crazy notions I guess. LOL. Besides some science fiction leads to the development of many of the technologies we as a society utilize today. This in turn is why I asked “What is the true nature of dreams?” No one knows truly knows which is cool. I did not think of this as fodder for a science fiction novel. Thanks. I love Star Trek and how Kirk always contacted his colleagues on his portable communicator which in turn makes me think of cell phones.

As for the length of my sentences, you shall find they are all grammatically correct with the exception of a few typos here and there. I can’t help it if my sentences are not as short as your own sentences. J/K :) Sometimes the best inventions/theoretical notions come from asking such simple questions as these that most dismiss as foolish. In my line of work, I have learned to dismiss nothing and take into account everything. I guess I have a lot more to learn about skepticism.

I thank you for your time, and "Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and good night" (The Truman Show).

[RandFan,Jr.]

We have accomplished all that we have in large part because humans thought about the (seemingly) impossible. No object with mass can travel at the speed of light. This fact does not make such hypotheticals irrelevant.

The problem is that after thousands of years such thoughts of the after life have not produced a single advancement for the human race (as far as I know). Still, if some people wish to think or hypothesize I see nothing wrong with it. Just because it seems like a waste of time to some does not mean it is a waste of time to others. One man's hobby is another man's equivalent to a trip to the dentist.

Welcome hawkins_anderson,

You query is on topic, this a philosophy forum and nothing has stimulated the minds of philosophers more than the question of what happens after death.

[RandFan,Jr.]

hawkins,

Back when I was struggling to hold on to my faith I was very interested in near death experiences. I thought that they truly represented evidence of life after death. Sadly I saw a program that debunked the notion. Experiments showed that the phenomenon could be replicated using electromagnetic fields.

Another problem I had was continuity (see The Personal Identity Game (http://www.philosophers.co.uk/games/identity.htm)). Take reincarnation for instance. What difference does it make whether I lived a past life or not? If I can't remember that life and there is no continuity then for all intents and purposes I didn't live that life. Very few people claim to be able to remember past lives assuming that they are real (I don't) then they only are relevant to those who remember.

Dreams are interesting. I have always felt that sleep could be in effect death, that is if my memories were not continuos. If I had no knowledge of my life's experiences when I woke up then I would have truly died. Dreams are the one thing which might offer some continuity during sleep.

One problem that I have with the notion of after life is that our memories are demonstrably intrinsic to the physical structure of our brains. It is arguable (to a very, very, small degree) that our mind is separate from the physical structure of our brain. It is not reasonable (based on current neuroscience) that our memories are arguably separate from the physical structure. Wipe out specific brain cells and you wipe out memories. I would love to be shown that this is wrong BTW.

This raises the question, what is the point to exist beyond our memories? If you have not seen the movie
Memento (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00003CXZ4/ref=cm_bg_f_1/102-9830635-0888969?v=glance) do so now.

Sorry if I have not responded to your inquiry specifically enough.

Thanks,

RandFan

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by hawkins_anderson
When all is said and done, what do you honestly think happens after we die? If there is no afterlife, then what do you speculate exists or doesn't exist?
Do you remember what it was like before you were born? Well, it'll be a lot like that when you die.

Make the most of what you've got.

[canadarocks]

Yahweh! You took the words right out of my mouth.

[EternalUniverse]

Originally posted by Yahweh

Do you remember what it was like before you were born? Well, it'll be a lot like that when you die.

Make the most of what you've got.

One thing about some religions is that they have us focus on an unproven afterworld. The extent to which this focus detracts us from living this known reality can be considered dangerous. Take Pascal's wager, for example. The real question is whether or not you'll risk "blemishing" (definitely not the right word) what you know you have, to get something that may or may not (heavily on the "may not") happen.

[neutrino_cannon]

Assuming I die in an unfortunate smelting accident, which somehow seems likely, given my personality, I would assume the last few moments will be me cursing at the top of my lungs until the molten metal vaporizes and/or burns the lungs away.

After that, the shock and lack of oxygen in my brain will cause a fading feeling. the sort of fading feeling you get when you get dizzy, only more so and less reversable.

After a few seconds of that, someone will get out the broom, and that will be the end of that.