Do You Believe in 'Life after Death'? - General

[QUOTE=Zenreon117;43709291]I honestly think this is just an issue of your understanding.[/QUOTE] I emphatically do not think so, and I think that how often I've seen qualified physicists and mathematicians complain about how misleading this video is corroborates that fact. Surely at least one would understand the video and be able to explain the concepts in a way other scientists and mathematicians can more easily understand, considering the number of nonspecialists who claim to get it? [QUOTE=Zenreon117;43709291]Go back to your understanding of the branch needing to "come off" the line in a 3d space. The concept of folding is the same. It is coming off the plane in a '3d' space in order to reach a different point in the plane without going through the intermediate points.[/QUOTE] And to do so it must go through the next highest dimension? That is complete avoidance of answering what a dimensions is, which is how many pieces of information you need to specify completely where something is in a space. He just kind of says, "Well, it's the thing you need to go through to get from one point to another without going through the ones in between," which is an awful obfuscation. Well, what if there isn't anything there? It's not there to go through until you put it there, but what is it? You can come up with analogies using low dimensional spaces about adding orthogonal vectors together until you get to three, and then you can't add another one, but you can see how "time" could be considered a new direction an orthogonal vector could point in. Then it becomes easy to see how you can do more dimensions analogously after that, even if you can't actually see them in your head. Why not something like that, which actually explains the concepts involved? His analogies are bad and confusing and don't convince me he actually even knows what he's talking about. [QUOTE=Zenreon117;43709291]As far as compacting the 3rd dimension into a point. There is no reason you cannot do this analytically. If you assign to a point all of the features and states of the universe at a given (planck?) frame, you will end up with something which can be refered to. It isn't to say that the entirety of the universe is actually a point with no dimensions, it's just to say that once you have 3 dimensions there is no 'direction' to go to, and so instead we role with the idea of the 'direction of time' which is thought of as the "Change between two [b]points[/b] in time. [/QUOTE] I think this relies on a very outmoded concept: the idea of the "entire universe at one point in time." This has no meaning in relativity (which is precisely the sort of elegant geometrical theory of extra dimensions this guy seems to mimic and fail to understand). The idea of what happens at a given time depends on the state of motion of the observer. It forms a four-dimensional space in itself, so you can't really just have three dimensions and then add the next one. It works for Euclidean spaces, though I don't see why you'd have the "line between two points" analogy, since it's certainly no better than the undulating snake. That's about the one useful visualization he has in the whole video. Not to mention the fourth dimension is quite special in his use, so his whole cyclical reasoning thing is faulty. Also, he uses these dimensions to get into alternate universes and it really just becomes gibberish by that point. [QUOTE=Zenreon117;43709291]Why should we listen to this guy? Because he is being thoughtful, he is internally consistent and if nothing else he provides an interesting mental tool for talking about places, times possibilities and universes. Furthermore, no-where does he claim it to be 'science', but rather a conceptual model. It's like criticizing venn diagrams because facts couldn't possibly be organized by circles in real life.[/QUOTE] I think if this guy wants to come up with a conceptual model to explain a good way to talk about places, times, possibilities, and universes, he should be trying to make the models we have. I don't get what this "model" purports to model, considering our current models are largely elegant and demonstrably very accurate. This one is at best confusing or misleading, and at the worst possibly wrong. I don't get what all this handwaving about not trying to actually be science is about considering he seems to constant relate it to modern physics. What is this model for, then? I can make my own consistent theory: the first dimensions is a line, the second is a cone, the third is a filled in cone, and then they repeat. What is that point I'm trying to get across, though? I've been suckered into many a late night debate on FP and been up until the wee hours arguing, so I'm gonna nip it in the bud now and curl up with a book and go to sleep. Good night, I'll respond tomorrow if you rebut this post. [editline]29th January 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Zenreon117;43709291]Oh and the reason it is "Folding" and not just switching planes is because at any given moment you theoretically occupy some position on that 2d plane, even if you are above it. This will take some mental acrobatics to picture.[/QUOTE] Like this, minus the wormhole? [IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/345eq1t.jpg[/IMG] i.e. how you can be "above the plane" but still on it because the plane is folded over?

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;43707562]And what makes you believe this is what (majority of?) people will want, to happen? I'm not sure if I would want that. And I don't think that needs to be the case either.[/QUOTE] What part of the existence I described would be insufficient for you? I also agree that most people will probably be prejudiced against any kind of existence other than the corporeal one we experience, but as long as enough rich investors have an interest in extended life in an improved environment then it would probably happen (assuming the technology is possible). Interfaces between the physical world and the virtual one would obviously be desired, so families can visit deceased relatives. [QUOTE]Also it wouldn't be afterlife, would it now? It would be some futuristic life-support if I read that right, constructed by people like any other simulation we've made. And it probably wouldn't last forever, like you said requiring maintenance and/or power, so..[/QUOTE] Well it would be your consciousness persisting after your life has ended, if you restrict "life" to be a property of your physical body. A few benefits are that you only need to supply enough energy to continually iterate the mind, and need not support an entire peripheral body. Imagine all the energy we waste growing food, transporting that food, providing means of transport for people, etcetera. A virtual existence would be hugely more energy efficient, with a much higher expected happiness and minimised expected amount of suffering to boot.

[QUOTE=Ziks;43710358]What part of the existence I described would be insufficient for you? I also agree that most people will probably be prejudiced against any kind of existence other than the corporeal one we experience, but as long as enough rich investors have an interest in extended life in an improved environment then it would probably happen (assuming the technology is possible). Interfaces between the physical world and the virtual one would obviously be desired, so families can visit deceased relatives. Well it would be your consciousness persisting after your life has ended, if you restrict "life" to be a property of your physical body. A few benefits are that you only need to supply enough energy to continually iterate the mind, and need not support an entire peripheral body. Imagine all the energy we waste growing food, transporting that food, providing means of transport for people, etcetera. A virtual existence would be hugely more energy efficient, with a much higher expected happiness and minimised expected amount of suffering to boot.[/QUOTE] It still wouldn't last forever, which is one of the main points. It's not a magical and most importantly an [i]eternal[/i] realm of afterlife, but something totally different. And like I said, you're not speaking on behalf of all people. Who's to say people don't wanna take some other approach in prolonging their lives? Like gene-modification? Although yes I have to give you that with your described existence, we would be able to house entire civilizations without them taking up any actual space, but instead being ran in a simulation of sorts. And even then, there might be people outside of that, along with the automated maintenance bots that you spoke of.

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;43712531]It still wouldn't last forever, which is one of the main points. It's not a magical and most importantly an [i]eternal[/i] realm of afterlife, but something totally different. And like I said, you're not speaking on behalf of all people. Who's to say people don't wanna take some other approach in prolonging their lives? Like gene-modification? Although yes I have to give you that with your described existence, we would be able to house entire civilizations without them taking up any actual space, but instead being ran in a simulation of sorts. And even then, there might be people outside of that, along with the automated maintenance bots that you spoke of.[/QUOTE] Sure, it's not an eternal or supernatural afterlife, but it is a non-trivial extension to your subjective experience after the death of your body. Assuming a stable and constantly maintained supporting environment it could potentially extend your life for millions of years, something that I certainly wouldn't pass up if I was given the chance. I can't think of any better methods of life extension unless you are particularly attached to your physical existence; it's more energy efficient, fail-safe (backups of your mind can be regularly stored in case of disasters), and flexible than continued corporeal existence through genetic alteration.

[QUOTE=Ziks;43712632]Sure, it's not an eternal or supernatural afterlife, but it is a non-trivial extension to your subjective experience after the death of your body. Assuming a stable and constantly maintained supporting environment it could potentially extend your life for millions of years, something that I certainly wouldn't pass up if I was given the chance. I can't think of any better methods of life extension unless you are particularly attached to your physical existence; it's more energy efficient, fail-safe (backups of your mind can be regularly stored in case of disasters), and flexible than continued corporeal existence through genetic alteration.[/QUOTE] I can imagine a lot of people are attached to their physical existence or appearance, and there's nothing wrong with that. And with improving on that end. And you can't really say if either or any of these things will ever actually come true, and you can't even really say which one is more energy efficient with equally as sophisticated technology around.. [editline]29th January 2014[/editline] Although I'd say your described existence is probably more likely to become true, especially if we can't solve the speed of light problem, and if corporeal existence turns out to be too.. boring.

I wish I hadn't considered the idea, it's painful knowing that it's just out of reach and we can't guarantee that we'll be able to achieve it within our lifetime.

You're still saying like you have it all figured out, so that it either happens exactly like you think it will happen if we're smart/efficient enough from today's point of view, or it doesn't, which is pretty much always wrongful thinking. You can't predict the future, like at all. There are so many things today which none could have predicted to happen even 50 years ago. Come year 3,000 and this language we are even using right now will be long, long extinct. And there are just unspeakably many factors in play regarding our future so.. welp. Some quite unimaginable shit could still happen within our lifetimes, too. Who knows. I think it all boils down to the question 'can we live forever?' which has kinda struck me, the idea.. and the novel. [url]http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm[/url] It's a pretty interesting read (unless you've read it? its kinda related)

[QUOTE=Bat-shit;43718214]You're still saying like you have it all figured out, so that it either happens exactly like you think it will happen if we're smart/efficient enough from today's point of view, or it doesn't, which is pretty much always wrongful thinking. You can't predict the future, like at all.[/QUOTE] I'm not treating it as being certain, only possible. However it is something extremely desirable for me, so I'll naturally have some bias towards wishing it to be so. [QUOTE]There are so many things today which none could have predicted to happen even 50 years ago. Come year 3,000 and this language we are even using right now will be long, long extinct. And there are just unspeakably many factors in play regarding our future so.. welp. Some quite unimaginable shit could still happen within our lifetimes, too. Who knows.[/QUOTE] All true, yeah. [QUOTE]I think it all boils down to the question 'can we live forever?' which has kinda struck me, the idea.. and the novel. [url]http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm[/url] It's a pretty interesting read (unless you've read it? its kinda related)[/QUOTE] I knew which story that would be a link to from those first two sentences. It really affected me too, I've had it bookmarked for a while now and kind of share it like a holy text. Knowing that the final death of the universe will always be there, getting unavoidably closer, for some reason affects me more than knowing that the end of my own life is inevitable despite the colossal difference in time scales. I'd still prefer an extended opportunity to explore the universe, the longer the better. Even if it must only be finite.

I do not fear death even if it is the void. I fear this damn human body, this weak and frail human body with its own built in doomsday counter. I fear age and I fear dying of disease and dying of random shit like a blod clot. I fear being hooked up to machines and getting cut open just to save this fucking weak body. I want to die someday but on my own terms. I don't want to lose this consciousness, this existence, this life in such a short amount of time. Sure I may get lucky and live to 80, 90, 100 but by then this body will have forsaken its own running program.

My 18 year old cousin keeps posting atheist shit on Facebook. To be honest, we don't fucking matter and we haven't been here as a species for long at all. And we shouldn't act like we know what we're talking about. Nobody can be sure of whether or not there is or isn't an afterlife. There's an afterlife according to NDE's but of course that isn't the best evidence. I'm just agnostic. And I really dislike anybody who boasts whether they're religious or not. I don't give a shit.

Any kind of conscience state after death would be more interesting than just being dead and totally gone.

Nobody is suggesting that life after death wouldn't be a good thing. We're just disagreeing on whether it exists.

[QUOTE]Nobody is suggesting that life after death wouldn't be a good thing. We're just disagreeing on whether it exists.[/QUOTE] [quote]Any kind of conscience state after death would be more interesting than just being dead and totally gone. [/quote] Personally I would rather not exist than be conscious in a place of suffering or in a place where I am unable to do anything except worship 24/7. The former is torture and the latter is a much milder torture. Though I guess the latter depends on what a 'Heaven' is defined as. I'm not sure if I replied to the OP itself yet but I don't believe strongly either way.

There is no life after death in the way most people are thinking. However, when my body decays surely that same matter is reused in another thing. I dont believe that the body has this 'energy' that floats around and changes into a ghost when we die. I think that person doesn't really know what energy is, by the sounds of it its like hes talking about some magic energy that coincides with a soul or something. scientists throw around energy to refer to heat or movement. It is easy to arrive at outlandish conclusions when you have a word incorrectly defined. The energy that we have in our bodies are just heat and movement. I have long let go of this dualist belief that our consciousness is something outside the physical realm. our consciousness is nothing more than an effect of neurons firing off and electrons flowing around. if your neurons are connected differently or in a different shape that affects your thinking incredibly. there is a theory on how people are able to remember things and the basis for why people are able to memorize things has to do with the shape and pattern that the neurons form in your head. when you are decaying those neurons are dying and connections to other neurons are disconnecting therefore your consciousness disappears. The energy of the flowing electrons is not your consciousness, its the combination of the electrons and the neuron connection combinations that determine your thinking. The brain can change physically when people experience traumatic events, that just shows that your 'consciousness' is merely an effect of whats going on in the brain physically.

It's not a question of whether there is life after death but rather, what matter of life?

Standing on the scientific knowledge mankind accumulated so far, there's no "afterlife". Brain stops working, you are gone from that moment on. Not like you'd notice it though.

[QUOTE=gudman;43856017]Standing on the scientific knowledge mankind accumulated so far, there's no "afterlife". Brain stops working, you are gone from that moment on. Not like you'd notice it though.[/QUOTE] And that's where suicide comes from people.

[QUOTE=IceWarrior98;43856070]And that's where suicide comes from people.[/QUOTE] Please elaborate, I am not entirely sure I follow.

[QUOTE=IceWarrior98;43856070]And that's where suicide comes from people.[/QUOTE] I think you're trying to say that people who commit suicide do so because they see life as nothing but mechanical and that people who value life find life worth living and never kill themselves however, if this is what you're saying it's wrong. Simple as that. It's wrong. Plenty of people who see life after death as a reality kill themselves.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43856298]Plenty of people who see life after death as a reality kill themselves.[/QUOTE] As well as people who don't see it as reality, because they think they will be void of every possible negative feeling after death, because there'll be nothing there.

[QUOTE=xZippy;43859043]As well as people who don't see it as reality, because they think they will be void of every possible negative feeling after death, because there'll be nothing there.[/QUOTE] yeah i'm getting to the point where I believe you're not reading anything I say I was talking about how that isn't a good metric to use because people of all mindsets commit suicide so bringing up how one set sees life as mechanical as a somehow damaging view is just simply not true. suicide is not exclusive to that mind set as said earlier.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43856298]I think you're trying to say that people who commit suicide do so because they see life as nothing but mechanical and that people who value life find life worth living and never kill themselves however, if this is what you're saying it's wrong. Simple as that. It's wrong. Plenty of people who see life after death as a reality kill themselves.[/QUOTE] If this is indeed what he was trying to convey then I'm going to be very-very sad and dissapointed. That kind of argument is so not new that I can hardly even say that it is just "old". It is ancient.

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;43860943]yeah i'm getting to the point where I believe you're not reading anything I say[/QUOTE] I didn't say what I said to disprove or scrutinize any point of yours. Regardless, you have done that same thing to me. Mainly with hypothetical questions I've asked in this thread.

Well i'm spiritual (And somewhat of an christian mystic) so i believe in a life after death. I believe that when people die you go to the astral plane (the state of conciousness that you get when you Astral Project or have Near Death experience).

it would have been awesome if we went into a forever lasting dream state, like a heaven that we can do whatever we want but in reality its more likley to end in a void, emptyness with no thought but i don't know, but am more wondering if we should be happy that we can die, that death is gift and not a curse we should fear for. what do you think?

To the thread title: Yes, but... The problem with saying "Is there a life after 'death'", is that people are idiots, and don't well define the word "life", instead just leaving it as an ill defined muddy thing that causes questions like this to be difficult to answer. Life as most people refer to it, is simply how human-like something is, making humans absolutely alive, and things that act like humans, quite alive (animals). Most people don't realise that they are defining the word like this, but it really is how people define it. A corpse doesn't act like a human anymore, and so it is said to be dead, like a piece of wood. It will rot and turn into something fuzzy and grey. It is less human-like than a human, but still cannot be said to be infinitely different from a human, therefore, to some degree... it is alive. So yes, the collection of quantum particles known as a corpse is alive, but much less alive than a collection of quantum particles known as a human. The end. Thread's over, everybody go home. Don't argue with this. Goodbye.

It depends on how you define life. I do not think that burning in the depths of Hell or living in eternal happiness in Heaven can be considered as life. I don't think that roaming Purgatory can be considered as life. No, I do not think there is life after death. If you are a christian, you either go to hell, heaven, or spend some time in purgatory. And none of those things are life. What Heaven lacks, Hell has, and what is not in Hell, is in Heaven. There is grieve and pain in life, but there is also happiness and pleasure. Then again, those worlds might not exist. It might be like endless sleeping. You are surrounded by darkness, nothingness, but you don't even know it's there. You are like that for an eternity, but you don't even realize it. You are below nothing, you don't even know you exist. Time passes like in a dream, but it never ends. That is the worst fate of it all. Hell, Heaven, Purgatory, they are nothing compared to this. And it is the exast same reason I stopped thinking about "life" after death. Who knows, maybe all people go to Heaven. Or Hell. Maybe all are judged by Osiris. Who knows. But none of those fates can be considered as life, none of hem have all the emotions and feelings real life has. All of them are equaly as depressing. I stopped thinking because I fear the idea. If I was to live in Hell or Heaven, I would have to have my humanity stripped down from me. Which is why I don't consider it as life. I want to live now and not find out what is after death. At least not very soon. Though reincarnation doesn't sound that bad.

i like to think you die then the world plays out and restarts again so this could be the billionth time i've lived this life and typed this sentence are you tired of it yet congrats, this is the 7 billionth time you've read this message. glad to have impacted your life so much.

[QUOTE=Punchy;44165537]i like to think you die then the world plays out and restarts again so this could be the billionth time i've lived this life and typed this sentence are you tired of it yet congrats, this is the 7 billionth time you've read this message. glad to have impacted your life so much.[/QUOTE] Nice thought, but do you think it is true?

[QUOTE=Punchy;44165537]i like to think you die then the world plays out and restarts again so this could be the billionth time i've lived this life and typed this sentence are you tired of it yet congrats, this is the 7 billionth time you've read this message. glad to have impacted your life so much.[/QUOTE] Ah, okay so the entire World/Universe revolves around a single person, which is either you or me. And we've been through this a thousand times.. And time never even moves on because like we established, we're typing these same messages till the end of time.. which isn't even.. I don't.. See? Kinda conflicting idea to begin with.