Cognitive_Shift said:

I agree we are not heading into an angelic realm.  But if you can figure out what part of the brain is responsible for consciousness and experience, then you can change experience into what ever you wish.

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Swyfty Swyf said:

I don't know,

I could get used to the idea of dwelling in a solid state microchip.

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Swyfty Swyf said:

That idea freaks me out less than reincarnation.

I get kind of claustrophobic thinking about the possibility of becoming an infant.

Hell, I would hate to go back to my early twenties,

unless I knew what I know now.

That growing up shit ain't easy.

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Believe it or not, but I do hold open the possibility that we DO have a choice to stay in eternity for "awhile" after we die if we have been "moral"; I believe those who aren't moral are doomed to live their miserable lives over and over again without any choice, solely because they aren't really conscious to begin with. Hence the doctrine of being "saved".

The catch is, once you are ready to go back, you chose to forget everything, so it's almost a moot point philosophically.

Who knows?

Its great fun to speculate though.

albien5 said:

As i guess your writings is at the top of the shroomery.
I have nothing to add or to write just i want to thank

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Thank you for your kind words.

Its nice to know that others resonate with such ideas.

BrainFood said:

Swyfty Swyf said:

I'm quite skeptical of your claim that people reincarnate.

Do you really think that you can lean on your drug experiences as proof for any such theories, even on a subjective level?

I will never understand why so many people who take psychedelics are prone to believe they have found the answers to life's great mysteries within the nuances of their psychedelic experiences.

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I was led to these conclusions. I had the experiences before I was able to understand what they were conveying.

I had to study for years to understand what my trips were telling me. To think that these ideas just presented themselves to me during my trips is preposterous. I am not "leaning" on my trips for support; I have found numerous accounts from the past centuries of knowledge that back up my experiences, including scientific theories. Yet, I am not claiming to know the truth, because truth is entirely subjective.

I had experiences that were later validated by devoted reflection and reading upon relative subjects. As my trips progressed, they became more and more easy to comprehend. I didn't trip and just come to these conclusions.

Of course all truth is subjective, to think otherwise is to only confuse yourself with ego.

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SS32 said:

In the next 25-30 years, processors will be powerful enough that we can essentially upload our consciousness to a computer, negating any need for nutrients.  So if our body gets too old, we'll be able to upload to a new one.  We won't live forever in a biological sense, but our brain/thoughts/consciousness will exist on a computer or a replacement body if we see fit.

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deCypher said:

BrainFood said:

Swyfty Swyf said:

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Interesting.  All of my psychedelic trips combined with philosophical reflection and reading on these subjects have led me to believe that there is no conscious experience after death: your memories, your personality, and everything that makes you 'you' is destroyed when your brain's metabolic processes come to a halt.  Similarly, I do not believe in an objective morality and I think it's quite likely that how we act in this life (virtuously or not) makes not a whit of difference in the grand scheme of things.

Curiously it seems that this realization of inherent nihilism is ultimately more liberating than any attempt to egoistically inflate the Self into God.

BrainFood said:

...

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The rate of technological progression is exponentially increasing.  It will certainly be an interesting race between our 'inevitable' fate on this planet and our ability to circumvent death through the power of human creativity and innovation; in fact I would rather research nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and uploading consciousness into solid-state microchips than throw my hands up in the air and give up by subscribing to such a cynical philosophy as you seem to propose.

If anything, thinking that man possesses an eternal nature is the height of egoistic thinking.  We are finite creatures with finite minds and as of yet still finite lifespans.  The only way to transcend death is to figure out how to continue life.

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To say that how we act in this life makes not a whit of difference in the grand scheme of things makes absolutely no sense. Every action upon this planet is interrelated, no matter how large or small, because we inhabit a closed system. Our actions as human beings most obviously make a difference upon the world; just look at what we have done to the planet. We have acted immorally toward our ecosystem and we are paying the price as a direct result. This occurred due to our estrangement with nature, the root cause of which we metaphorically call ‘the fall.’ Viewed from this angle, morality makes a world of difference when it comes to quality of life and self respectability. This macrocosmic example of how we treat the earth can be extrapolated upon the microcosmic example of our relationships to just about anything.

Your views are the cumulative result of your psycho-physical predisposition and how you act directly corresponds to this predisposed temperament. This can be said of both you as an individual and mankind as a whole. Your view that an inherent nihilism is more liberating than the understanding of universal connectedness is laughable. Nihilism set the stage for the subjugation of the planet and the enslavement of the human mind. Nihilism and immorality go hand in hand. When there is no meaning behind your actions, then who cares? That is pretty much what you are saying. The realization of universal connectedness, or "egoistically inflat(ing) the Self into God" as you so wrongfully put it, attempts to correct this aberration of the mind by imparting the understanding that we are all inherently connected to eachother by our actions, both consciously and unconsciously. By realizing that your Self is the ultimate cause of existence, you are "given" the greatest responsibility imaginable to amend unconsciousness, which ultimately results in morality.

Once again, this is simply laughable. You would rather research those things than learn about yourself? Good luck to those enterprises when the entire technological infrastructure of modern civilization folds under the ever-accelerating stress of climate change and dwindling resources. This philosophy is definitely not cynical and nor is it akin to throwing ones hands in the air. You seem to misunderstand the philosophy entirely. It is an empowering philosophy, because it puts you in a position to not only change how you think about the world, but to actually do something about it. When you begin to realize the ultimate causes of your actions and begin to move in a more moral direction as a result, positive feedback carries you ever higher toward understanding yourself, given that you do not succumb to any temptations along the way. It is a philosophy devoted to self-knowledge, because you must understand your self in order to understand the root cause of your actions and subsequently, all actions.

Believing in mans eternal nature is not the height of egotistic thinking, it is merely the height of human understanding; it is the proverbial ceiling of the human mind. The universe, as understood by Einstein, is an eternal event in which time doesn’t exist and all seemingly separate events coexist simultaneously. In order to transcend our biology, of which time is merely a construct, we must open our minds to this idea of eternity. The only way to “transcend" death is not to continue life; that is merely to prolong the "problem". The way to transcend death is by coming to the unitive understanding that death isn’t even “real” in the way that we view it; it is merely a transition state between being and not-being, it is not the end of our existence. To believe that is actually the height of egotistic thinking; to believe that you are a separate entity from the universe with your own special idiosyncratic existence. That is not the case. We all coexist as one whole which is the eternal universe.

In short, I think you are utterly wrong.

Quote:

BrainFood said: The only way to "transcend" death is not to continue life; that is merely to prolong the "problem". The way to transcend death is by coming to the unitive understanding that death isn't even "real"; in the way that we view it; it is merely a transition state between being and not-being, it is not the end of our existence. To believe that is actually the height of egotistic thinking; to believe that you are a separate entity from the universe with your own special idiosyncratic existence. That is not the case. We all coexist as one whole which is the eternal universe.

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deCypher said:

Quote:

BrainFood said: The only way to "transcend" death is not to continue life; that is merely to prolong the "problem". The way to transcend death is by coming to the unitive understanding that death isn't even "real"; in the way that we view it; it is merely a transition state between being and not-being, it is not the end of our existence. To believe that is actually the height of egotistic thinking; to believe that you are a separate entity from the universe with your own special idiosyncratic existence. That is not the case. We all coexist as one whole which is the eternal universe.

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Unfortunately for your theory, the fact that we are all interconnected (which I have never denied, by the way) does not imply that we are eternal beings.  Naturally we all want to believe that we're immortal and that death isn't really real (look into theories of death anxiety for examples of how the ego tries to convince itself that it is eternal), but an overwhelming preponderance of evidence remains to show that consciousness is fundamentally and inextricably linked to a physical substrate (namely the brain) and that if the brain is destroyed, so too is the mind.  If we alter the brain pharmacologically (ingest a stimulant, a depressant, or even a hallucinogen), we see an alteration in consciousness.  If we alter the brain surgically (lesion a specific area or observe head trauma victims), we see an alteration in consciousness.  If we alter the brain electromagnetically (through transcranial magnetic stimulation and the like), we see an alteration in consciousness.  If we alter the brain through such diseases as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, we see an alteration in consciousness.  Moreover, the connection also works the other way: if we study a textbook or memorize information, we can see changes in synaptic structure and neural growth.  If we meditate or think arousing thoughts, we see an alteration to the physical brain, and so on ad nauseam.

Since consciousness relies so completely on the brain, it seems absolute folly to think that our consciousness will continue after the brain stops functioning.  If we take out your visual cortex, you will no longer be able to see.  If we perform a frontal lobotomy on you, your personality will drastically change.  If we lesion your hippocampus, you will no longer be able to encode new memories.  If we blenderize the entirety of your brain, the necessary and unfortunate conclusion is that you will no longer have any memories, personality, or any consciousness whatsoever.  We might well coexist with each other in an eternal Universe (assuming that the Universe's expansion outwards continues to accelerate), but death is still very real.

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deCypher said:

Your cosmological model is outdated; the most recent theories show that instead of the Universe ultimately contracting back down to a point, it is instead expanding and accelerating as it expands with no end in sight.  The Einsteinian (more accurately, Minkowskian) conception of space/time does see the space/time continuum as a unified substance with all possible events as part of this substance, but since consciousness relies upon the active metabolic process of neural activity, once such neural activity ceases there will no longer be any subjective consciousness as far as your experience is concerned.  If you claim otherwise, then why am I experiencing this particular moment in my life and not a moment ten years ago or three minutes ahead in the future?  No, instead my neural experience is designed such that I perceive one second per second since my birth until my death, just as it should be.

In short: your consciousness exists as a specific spatiotemporal segment of the whole continuum, but this consciousness is finite in both extent and nature.  You experienced nothing before your birth because there was no 'you' then to speak of; similarly, you will experience nothing after your death because there will likewise be no more 'you'.  Eternal recurrence a la Nietzsche is a fun theory to speculate on but its accuracy is questionable to say the least.

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deCypher said:

The existence of black holes is very well supported; what I find incredulous is your disbelief in these physical phenomena.  Moreover, the cyclic model that you subscribe to is invalidated precisely because it fails to take into account the accelerating nature of the Universe's expansion which has been backed up by evidence such as observation of distant supernova and mappings of the cosmic microwave background.

Until Peter Lynds can take these observations into account, I'll take the more mainstream cosmological theory over his.

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Unfortunately I'm stuck at work today and do not have the time to write a proper rebuttal. Also, I'm going to a festival tomorrow morning, so check back for my response when I get back next week.

I appreciate the discussion.

xFrockx said:

I don't know how I missed this thread.

BrainFood:  You are claiming science will destroy us by using scientific evidence.  Although not directly contradictory, you must realize that if you're going to doubt mainstream conclusions about science you need to doubt your fears which are brought by too much faith in it.  You are speaking of future events as if there is certainty.  Really, we might all be wiped out tomorrow when the evil demon takes a shit, but there is absolutely no sense in forecasting the collapse of human dignity and communalism.  When humans were barely rational even they realized the importance of working together.  I'm not going to pretend I know what will happen though, and it doesn't matter what does because I'm happy with repeating what has happened thusfar.

Yes, I do toy with the idea of eternal recurrence, but you seem to be actually believing it.  The best answer for eternal recurrence, I've found, is "Why not?" because it doesn't change a damn thing whether it happens or not.  We're just loops, then, and all we can do to live in heaven is bring it to ourselves, here, now.  The only way to do that is to make it impossible to be in hell, and that takes a lot of work, but removing your fear of death is the first step.  You seem fanatical, you have a lot of fear to put so much energy into your post.  I'm putting this energy in because you remind me of myself at an earlier time, when I still tried to hold beliefs, and actually argue in favor of them. 

The point is that there is no point.  Relax.  It is what it is, even if it repeats.

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deCypher said:

The existence of black holes is very well supported; what I find incredulous is your disbelief in these physical phenomena.  Moreover, the cyclic model that you subscribe to is invalidated precisely because it fails to take into account the accelerating nature of the Universe's expansion which has been backed up by evidence such as observation of distant supernova and mappings of the cosmic microwave background.

Until Peter Lynds can take these observations into account, I'll take the more mainstream cosmological theory over his.

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