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Stranger Registered: 07/09/09 Posts: 96 Last seen: 12 years, 2 months |
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Really want to know? Only one way to find out. If there is, see you there soon.
-------------------- Take a bite out of reality
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Stranger Registered: 07/09/09 Posts: 96 Last seen: 12 years, 2 months |
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Why is it that, if you know that you are clinically insane, will not and can not conform to societies values rules and ideas, that you aren't legally allowed to kill yourself?
Perhaps the same reason abortion is looked down upon Organized religion exists when we are suspended in space Retarted and people agaisnt societies views and or those who have a mental illness can successfully breed and raise children I can't kill people who deserve to die, myself includes Why do most people think we are more than advanced animals? Fuck your god/idol. Have you ever truly loved someone? Conrats, you IB'd oxytocin. Think positively or negatively... Lie to yourself or be upfront.. Your "soul", brain, any memories or friends you made in your lifetime? They will be gone. Any drugs you ever did? Sorry, might as well never have done them in 100 years. What you do now reflects everything this highly advanced race will do in the future. Fuck tv technology for most reasons people currently use it for? I'm on a pill underdose of noclue xxxxmg right now so maybe I'm a little crazier than normal Or maybe I'm one of the only truly sane fucks on this planet Zen and nospeed -------------------- Take a bite out of reality
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Man of Science Registered: 03/15/05 Posts: 1,974 Loc: Hogtown |
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You sound like you need some help. Maybe you need to vent?
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Big Moissanite shill Registered: 02/06/02 Posts: 92,921 |
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The idea of one life and then its over seems implausible to me, based on my beliefs spiritual and scientific.
Its like a hydrogen atom floating through space, telling itself: "I am unique. One of a kind. If I die, there shall be no hydrogen again." You may be an only child of have some siblings. If your parents had an infinite number of children there would be an infinite number of you. ONE is infinitely more that ZERO. You are one, you are infinite. We humans move from 10 PM to 11 PM. That is how we perceive the universe. But thats not what the universe is, the universe is ALL TIME ALL AT ONCE. At 11 PM, 10 PM is gone from our perception, but it isnt gone from the universe. 10 PM still exists. It is equally real as the 11PM you are in now. There are no Langoliers devouring the time that was, the universe that was. Its all still there, only our perception moved away from it. When you die, our perception may be lost. When it does, we are freed of the bondage of the passing of time. 10 PM is as far away as 11 PM. Time, distance loses its meaning. Once you are truly dead, being born again is the only option. Who knows when, because you are out of time, who knows where, because light speed does not limit you. A billion years ago, the Mona Lisa could have been painted, and so can it a billion years form now, in a far corner of the Universe. Why? The Mona Lisa is a product of the natural laws of the universe, permeating it all. The Mona Lisa is a bit of code in the computer that is the universe. You are like that too. Because it is no longer manifest, does not mean its potential does no longer exists. The Mona Lisa is infinite and has no bounds, except at some times it exists as paint on a canvas and at other times it exists as a possible manifestation of the Universe. -------------------- personal empowerment for the world Onehomemission.org truly make a difference Edited by Asante (08/02/09 09:46 AM)
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yes Registered: 08/09/08 Posts: 4,245 Last seen: 13 years, 6 months |
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only if they sucker you into it ![]() im not coming back here... look to see me just as i am right now.. only in a different place.. a new world.. just like this.. you'll b there 2
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--------------------- All my posts in this forum are strictly fictional. They are derived from an acute mental illness , from which i am forced to lie compulsively. I have never induced any kind of mind altering substance in my life and i have no intentions whatsoever of doing anything illegal. If I have ever suggested such a thing it would have most likely been , due to my personality disorder and i probably do not remember it at all..
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Registered: 02/10/08 Posts: 56,232 |
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Life after death will be just like life before birth... nonexistent.
Embrace the freedom gained by realizing this is all you've got and all you'll ever have.
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yes Registered: 08/09/08 Posts: 4,245 Last seen: 13 years, 6 months |
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I see that more as a limitation.
Believing that one day everything will end ... that you will not exist anymore. I see freedom only in realizing the infinite nature of ourselves , as well as everything around us. This is not in some physical sense that i say... im not saying that matter is indestructible , therefore WE SHALL REMAIN ... Im saying.. that I.. as well as YOU.. will keep on experiencing more and more of this individuality. Further getting to know our identity... our creativity. A baby born with aids , dying only a week after birth... considering what you said to be true... an event like this would surely bring doubt to peoples minds about any deeper meaning to existence , thus springing them into a life of pursuing pleasure over pain... constantly waging a war against that which brings discomfort.. to a mind driven by belief systems that only now how to segregate experiences into two basic categories.. perpetuating duality at its finest. Like you said once.. it is kind of retarded to lump all emotions into two categories. And also.. like you said more than once.. how can anyone claim to know anything about existence after death , with certainty ? Look at the words you have shared.. Do they come from certainty ? Or uncertainty ? Do they come from knowing ? or doubt ? --------------------
--------------------- All my posts in this forum are strictly fictional. They are derived from an acute mental illness , from which i am forced to lie compulsively. I have never induced any kind of mind altering substance in my life and i have no intentions whatsoever of doing anything illegal. If I have ever suggested such a thing it would have most likely been , due to my personality disorder and i probably do not remember it at all..
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Registered: 02/10/08 Posts: 56,232 |
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Just like you, I offer only a theory. Anyone who claims certainty about the afterlife should not be trusted, and I certainly do not claim certainty about something that is this important. I do, however, claim that the existence of an afterlife is very, very improbable.
I have come to this way of thinking not only through science but also philosophy and my personal experiences both meditative and entheogenic. I believe the brain and the mind are ultimately different aspects of the same fundamental thing (otherwise known as neutral monism), and as a result one's consciousness is irreparably affected if the brain is changed and vice versa. We can see the slow, inevitable personality degradation of an Alzheimer's patient (changes in neurochemistry producing changes in mind) just as we can see the power of positive thinking and meditation induce synaptic growth (changes in mind producing changes neurochemistry). More accurately of course this would be stated as change to a single substance produces noticeable effects in both mind and matter. As a result, anything that changes the metabolic, neurobiochemical process going on within the brain will also change the mind: if someone applies a hammer to your frontal lobe then you will no longer be able to reason abstractly or have complex thoughts. If someone lesions your amygdala then you will no longer be able to experience fear. If someone stimulates your reward center (either through an electrode or by the much more popular method of pharmacology) then you will experience overwhelming euphoria. If someone opens up your skull and removes your brain entire with an ice-cream scoop, then you will no longer experience anything because there is nothing there to experience anymore. It simply does not make coherent sense to suggest that somehow you can transcend this material plane after brain death. Your personality, your memories, the way you behave, and everything unique that makes you you are innately and inherently tied to the functional configuration of the atoms in your brain. If this functional configuration becomes nonfunctional, then you no longer exist. Out of body experiences such as those induced by trance states or dissociatives like DXM and Amanita Muscaria only provide evidence that the mind as supported by its biological hardware can slip away and view other parts of the world and not evidence that the mind does not need its biological hardware to exist. ... Now, the usual retort would be to look at past life regression to attempt to prove the existence of an immortal soul. This, however, can be readily explained by other alternatives that do not go against the overwhelming array of evidence we have to back up the formidably complex interlinkage between the mind and the brain. If you would permit me to entertain these hypotheses: Theory #1. There is no afterlife, but certain people do have psychic powers. The mind, after all, is innately psychic: a thought itself has no mass and cannot be seen or sensed, all of which are hallmarks of traditionally paranormal phenomena. The people who report past lives could simply be reaching into the collective consciousness and pulling out remnants of powerful experiences that have made an impression on it, similar to how a powerful enough wave on an ocean can make an imprint on a sandy beach. In fact this analogy is remarkably apt because a thought is not a stationary thing that can be picked up or grasped; instead it relies upon an intricate pattern of synaptic firing waves washing to and fro in the cerebral cortex. If we accept the existence of telepathy and vibe transmission then it makes sense to also accept the existence of telepathy into the past: reading the memories and experiences of people long passed away. Theory #2. People do not like to think about their own mortality. Across all cultures and all times humans have always dreamed and fantasized about life after death; we cannot bear to think that we are merely finite beings doomed to a seemingly pointless end. Experiences during altered states of consciousness such as hypnotic trance used for past life regression and/or the psychedelic experience as prompted by ingestion of entheogens are enormously effective at amplifying whatever thoughts the experiencer is currently having, and perhaps even giving life to his or her subconscious motivations. The innate desire to transcend this material world and to live after death is therefore amplified by such experiences and the mind willingly and happily reflects back the perfect solution to these worries: the experience of an entity such as God telling you that everything will be alright in the end, or the seemingly certain and dogmatic knowledge that so many true believers claim to possess about the afterlife. The mind's beliefs are very easily altered, and who is a better metaprogrammer of the human biocomputer than the human biocomputer itself? Going into a mushroom trip with the preconception that this world can't be meaningless and that there has to be some kind of ultimate point will ultimately only reinforce your preconceptions, and does nothing whatsoever to prove the veracity of your claim. Either one of these theories is more plausible than assuming that the mind does not need the brain. ... Now on to your response! ![]()
What does this even mean? I experience my own identity, my own creativity, my own nature as well as the nature of everything around me all while I'm still alive. I just don't see my continuing to do this after I'm dead, simply because there will no longer be any 'me' to speak of. And what do you mean by our 'infinite' nature? When I look at you or me, or any other human being on this planet of over six billion, I see only finite creatures. I am comprised of a finite number of atoms, a finite number of molecules, a finite number of tissues, and a finite number of organs. I am comprised of a finite number of perceptions, a finite number of thoughts, and a finite number of permutations of those thoughts. My personality and my behavioral dispositions are likewise finite entities, and ultimately even the biomechanical process that gives me life, consciousness, and energy is finite. Now granted, these processes and entities are still enormously large: we have billions of neurons, trillions of synaptic configurations, and an exponentially larger possible set of thoughts. Also I will grant you that believing one has infinite potential is incredibly helpful towards one's self-confidence: nevertheless, I cannot force myself to believe the untruth that I am infinite.
1. I think any search for a deeper meaning to existence is a fundamentally deluded search. What would this even entail? Are you expecting some kind of overarching plan or guidebook that gives ultimate satisfaction upon following its directives? Fuck that; if such a thing existed then I would be happy to rebel against it. Find and produce meaning from yourself and not from something external. Happiness is much easier to attain subjectively as opposed to objectively.2. Why not pursue pleasure over pain? I would prefer to be happy rather than unhappy, as would the majority of the human race. Should we never change our circumstances or situation if we find ourselves in discomfort? I mean, we might as well abolish amusement parks, hospitals, and marijuana if we're upset about the duality of positive versus negative situations. There ain't nothing wrong with this kind of categorization... you imply that I have disagreed with this before, and that's not quite true. What I did disagree with doing was renaming all emotions as either Fear or Love, and this I still believe ignores the complex spectrum of human emotion exactly because it eliminates all other emotions in favor of two major ones. Categorizing all emotions as either positive or negative does not eliminate what makes each particular emotion unique; instead it adds further descriptive information that allows us to conclude whether or not a particular emotion is worth feeling. Ultimately I feel that belief in an afterlife is motivated by fear of death, subconscious or otherwise. Transcend this rejection of reality; accept your finite nature. Love yourself as an imperfect being. You are not God (at least not yet). Recognize your power to create meaning in your existence, and embrace the meaningfulness and unique character to your existence, for it will never be duplicated again. Edited by deCypher (08/03/09 08:01 PM)
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Man of Science Registered: 03/15/05 Posts: 1,974 Loc: Hogtown |
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Registered: 05/19/08 Posts: 10,305 Loc: The Astral Realm |
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Have you ever read any of Robert Monroe's accounts of astral travel? Specifically in his book Ultimate Journey. What do you make of his LifeLine program in which astral travelers assist "lost souls to the park"? Do you dismiss everything you encounter in the astral planes as subjective, or do you think there is something more to this?
"Focus 23 is often perceived as an area in which certain souls, for a variety of reasons, may become “stuck” following their transitions from physical life. Lifeline participants learn to comfortably make contact with such souls and offer assistance to help them move to Focus 27, the area Bob Monroe described in Ultimate Journey as the Park, or Reception Center, or Way Station. Upon arrival in Focus 27, they are met by loved ones and guides who direct them to the specific areas of the Reception Center most appropriate for their next stages of development." http://www.monroeinstitute.org/l
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yes Registered: 08/09/08 Posts: 4,245 Last seen: 13 years, 6 months |
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This is just another way of saying that there is no 'life after death' Besides.. i have already posted here experiments done on animals , as well as on the cellular level , indicating the possibility that the brain is not necessarily what allows us to live , consciously experience our surroundings .. and.. most importantly.. that the brain is not where the memory is. Actually.. it is not located.. anywhere. There is no brain cell .. that contains a certain memory.
Sure... but how would you explain OBE that occur after death. ? There is no activity in the brain .. whatsoever.. yet many of these patients come back with information that was obtained during the 'flat line' activity , which has been verified by the doctors in the OR . As for the past life regression... My research , along with my experiences of ayahuasca , that has been said to have the ability to induce such experiences.. has lead to me to a conclusion that the validity of ones Worded description of , lets say a past life is debatable , due to the many other explanations we can arrive to through digging into the effects of this amazing plant. But.. some matters still remain troubling. There are many reports of people actually obtaining physical or mental health through such experiences , and be it the minds mechanism to rationalize something we do not yet understand.. the outcome remains. And the rational minds have not yet figured it out... and were they to 'try it' ... they would probably abandon medical school , or pursue alternative method with the knowledge they already have , and end up being ridiculed for it by the rest of the scientific community.
Actually.. i have to agree with you there.. But i doubt that the rest of the six billion 'finite' creatures will.. If you convince the people that they should be searching for a deeper meaning.. or a deeper purpose... and strip that away from them with simply insufficient science that is shoved down their throat as the truth... you have a world of nihilist wannabes ... IN a world of LAW. See.. some things i think i will never be able to fully explain .. I have come rely less and less on structure... I have come to search the essence .. the core. The motive.. behind a consciousness.
Likewise.. i can say that disbelief in an afterlife can be motivated by a deep rooted knowledge and possibly memory of the afterlife , which is being ignored in hopes of evading responsibility during an incarnation. I can also say.. that your finite nature is the Ego. And that you are not just your ego. And.. that you are constantly facing challenges of the ego , which is strictly physical therefore mechanic in nature. Mechanical things operate in a binary mode. Hence the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. Why is it.. that you dont like pain ? I am sorry if i have failed to respond adequately in your eyes , lacking the scientific exhibition of my thoughts... But ultimately i really do believe... that everything is shaped by our beliefs. Someone posted this in a thread.. i read it.. bookmarked it.. and now i will post it again. Forget the buddha stories.. or the bullshit about the teachers .. and whatnot.. simply look at this as a theory... compare this theory to your life experiences.. and then tell me.. Why the fuck wouldnt there be an afterlife ? What makes you so sure that you are alive right now in the first place ? Why wouldnt we dream ? http://www.awakeninthedream.com/ If i were to take everything you said about the way our brains work and react to certain substances as truth... i would still ask you this. YOU... are conscious.. YOU are experiencing ireproducible moments... constantly.. What makes you think.. that all those neurons.. and all those other cells in your body do not experience the same thing ? Not your experiences.. but unique ones of their own. Maybe they are dreaming ? Even the atoms that comprise it ? What about the proton.. the electron.. how much down in scale can we go ? do you know ? no you dont.. because no matter how small you go.. there is smaller. You cannot reach the zero... because that would mean you would have to destroy it.. and we know that matter is indestructible. It is not finite downward... And i have no reason to believe that the same does not apply for going upward. ![]() Some things just cannot be argued about... only curiously exchanging ideas to make the time go by... I KNOW... that this isnt it. How i know... I dont know ![]() look ![]() the plus and the minus are ever present in this realm. look past it. you will come to KNOW as well. The structure will fall... and you will stop copying .. True knowledge... just like the meaning you propose we should find.. comes from within. --------------------
--------------------- All my posts in this forum are strictly fictional. They are derived from an acute mental illness , from which i am forced to lie compulsively. I have never induced any kind of mind altering substance in my life and i have no intentions whatsoever of doing anything illegal. If I have ever suggested such a thing it would have most likely been , due to my personality disorder and i probably do not remember it at all..
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Registered: 02/10/08 Posts: 56,232 |
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I've read Far Journeys but not that one. I don't dismiss everything in the astral planes as subjective (after all, any perception of ours is ultimately subjective so I would have to dismiss the entirety of reality ) but the sheer fact that different people have different OBE experiences and different explanations of how life after death works makes it improbable that any one specific account is correct, particularly when coupled with the incredible correlation existing between the material realm and the nonmaterial.
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Registered: 02/10/08 Posts: 56,232 |
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That's because memories are stored in a fractal pattern throughout the entire brain, which makes it possible for memories to survive despite the destruction of a particular fragment of the overall fractal: holographic redundancy at its finest. Anything with a nervous system (including us) learns through long-term synaptic potentiation and depression; biochemical processes that alter the number of available receptors and the rate at which a particular neuron fires in response to its inputs (the threshold function). Memories and experiences therefore alter the functionality and topological connective structure of your brain: literally becoming one with it. Regardless, even if memory is stored by other mechanisms than LTP and LTD (alterations to the DNA of cells may also contribute), it is still evident that memory is significantly correlated to something material, be it the brain or an electromagnetic field surrounding your body, which makes it all the more likely that upon alteration of this material substrate, the mental substrate will alter too.
Ah, I forgot to mention NDEs! These are certainly interesting cases, I'll admit, but their very name belies the futility of using them to peek at life after death: Near Death Experiences. At some point their brain has come back to full functionality, making it quite possible that their brain was never completely off to begin with (suppose our current methods of detecting brain death are imprecise and cannot tell if only a fraction of consciousness is remaining?) This combined with the multitude of evidence towards how closely personality, memory, and this perceptual experience we call living are tied to the brain (as any decent college neuroscience textbook will lay out) makes it very hard for me to buy that this enormously complex consciousness can survive without its underlying biochemical engine. If so, then why do we have brains to begin with? Why aren't we just disembodied intelligences? Occam's Razor would suggest that these meat bags are, in fact, necessary.
I completely agree; there is much that science has yet to understand. I accept many spiritual things without accepting the feasibility of an after life. ![]()
![]() I am confused; where did I say that I wanted to do this? I don't think we should convince the people that they should be searching for a deeper meaning; in fact, far from it! This is what any organized religion, any cult, and quite a few spiritual paradigms attempt to do: convince its believers that the ultimate meaning of life exists and that only it knows the correct answer. Given the prevalence of different belief systems, different monopolies on what's 'right' and what's 'true' and what's 'LAW', it seems much easier to accept that maybe there never really was any grand significance or meaning to be had in life at all. Science is insufficient, yes, but so is any other human-created field taken in isolation. Ultimately mysticism must jibe with what we know about the material world, or else we are basing our world-view on delusion rather than reality. Besides, who says I believe in nihilism? (We believe in nothing, Mr. Lebowski, nothing!) I don't think that any objective meaning to Life, the Universe, and Everything exists. But at the same time I know that I can create my own meaning (and ultimately this is the only meaning that truly matters.) This is not nihilism, this is existentialism and it still has room for as much love and spiritual compassion towards others as you want to throw at it.
There is none. I believe consciousness is an evolutionary side effect.
You could, but how much evidence backs up your statement? In a contest between the accuracy of channeled material and the accuracy of what we know about how the material world relates to the mental world, I'll take the latter every time. ![]()
Again I'd like to ask for evidence, but I appreciate what you say about things you'll never be able to fully explain. In some sense I know that you feel this intuitively, just as I feel intuitively that this life is all I'll ever have. In the end we'll both find out who's right, or perhaps that neither of us was right and that we each create separate realities upon death (in this case the disbelievers in an after life are really fucked!) However, I'd like to hedge my bets towards the fate of all humans being the same (being that we all developed from nearly identical strains of DNA) and towards this fate being the nonexistence of life after death. ![]()
We're mechanical animals. Being mechanical doesn't preclude having consciousness or behaving in an analog fashion.
Pain is inherently bad by definition! Pleasure, likewise, is inherently good. These are labels we apply to various emotions that feel either positive or negative... I'm not sure I get your point.
I think our beliefs can help shape reality, but I don't believe (hah!) that our beliefs can help overcome certain inevitable facts of nature.
Why the fuck would there be? I like simple explanations for things (unless the simple explanations don't work). If I have one theory of reality that has an afterlife (and therefore necessarily a whole host of other conceptual entities to explain the nature of the afterlife, the selection process by which we progress into the afterlife, and the mechanism under which our consciousnesses can run without brains to support them) versus another theory of reality that does not, it makes sense to choose the simpler one.
I agree for the most part, and I certainly think it's quite likely that a collective consciousness may exist with us as human beings serving as the neurons (or hell, perhaps the entire Universe is God using every constituent entity and building block as His or Her neurons...) (but neurons still die...)
Absolute certainty can be a trap into dogma, my friend. I don't profess to Know anything, but I certainly have had intense, intuitive feelings that seemed to validate the existence of an afterlife. I choose not to believe these intuitive feelings however because I trust empirical evidence and rational legwork more than an emotional conviction.
Who am I copying? Once I thought I Knew but since then I have come to terms with the fact that I was (most likely) sorely mistaken. Cheers and thanks for indulging me in this discussion!
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Boom Registered: 06/23/09 Posts: 1,860 Loc: america Last seen: 6 months, 25 days |
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THIS^^^
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Registered: 05/19/08 Posts: 10,305 Loc: The Astral Realm |
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Aha! I think I have found the undermining difference in our worldviews, and perhaps Jivvys as well. I tend to see evolution as a side effect of consciousness, or in the least a parallel development. I believe everything has some degree of consciousness, or spirit if you will, from rock to the very individual cells in our body.
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Registered: 02/10/08 Posts: 56,232 |
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As do I; I believe everything has some degree of consciousness. I should have been more specific in that the high level of self-awareness that humans possess is an evolutionary side effect.
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What would this even entail? Are you expecting some kind of overarching plan or guidebook that gives ultimate satisfaction upon following its directives? Fuck that; if such a thing existed then I would be happy to rebel against it. Find and produce meaning from yourself and not from something external. Happiness is much easier to attain subjectively as opposed to objectively.
) but the sheer fact that different people have different OBE experiences and different explanations of how life after death works makes it improbable that any one specific account is correct, particularly when coupled with the incredible correlation existing between the material realm and the nonmaterial.
These are certainly interesting cases, I'll admit, but their very name belies the futility of using them to peek at life after death: Near Death Experiences. At some point their brain has come back to full functionality, making it quite possible that their brain was never completely off to begin with (suppose our current methods of detecting brain death are imprecise and cannot tell if only a fraction of consciousness is remaining?) This combined with the multitude of evidence towards how closely personality, memory, and this perceptual experience we call living are tied to the brain (as any decent college neuroscience textbook will lay out) makes it very hard for me to buy that this enormously complex consciousness can survive without its underlying biochemical engine. If so, then why do we have brains to begin with? Why aren't we just disembodied intelligences? Occam's Razor would suggest that these meat bags are, in fact, necessary.


