The Loss of Conciousness After Death

Discussion in 'Philosophy' started by combat rock x, May 28, 2006.

  1. Has anyone else found it absolutely horrifying at the realization that (assuming there is no god) after we die our conciousness ends? You and your mind are lost for the rest of eternity, never to be alive again. Never to think again. Anyone relate to this? It's this fact alone that almost pushes me over to being religious.
     
  2. I feel you.

    But i tend not to think about it.

    I dont belive in afterlife neccesarily.

    Ima ill belive when i see type of person.

    I wont become religious unless i see proof.

    I dont think about dieing.

    I think about living.

    Live everyday to the fullest.

    Because you dont know when itll be over.

    I like gettin buzzed/fucked up.

    So i do it everyday.

    Because it oculd be my last time.
     
  3. Nah i dont think that would ever happen i think that there is an after life more then there is a heaven or hell.
     
  4. Yeah i try and keep focused on the one life i got, but sometimes it's just like "shit, my life doesn't mean shit in the long run".
     

  5. *ahem*

    Nihilism
     
  6. Can you really put your finger on the moment your consciousness began? Was it when you were born? When you were a child? It's something that kind of gradually developed, but developed from what? If it didn't have a distinct begining, so how can it really have an end?

    Of course, your "identity" will come to an end, but in reality by giving yourself a name and a personality you're just trying to give a tag to something that is neither permanent nor really distinct from its surroundings. When did all the protein and fibers stop being dead chickens and plants and become your body? When you die, nothing really ends. Nothing is lost. All the energy that had concentrated itself to form "you" will ripple on and eventually take other forms.
     
  7. interesting enough I talked on this exact subject with my dad a few hours ago and told him that if someone scienfe proved that death doesn't mean the loss of life (consciousness or whatever you want to call it) then the world would be a happier place and I sometimes wish that religions were true jsut for assurance of that.
     
  8. Yeah this is kind of how religion started. It plays on everyone's most basic, primal instinct: fear. You solve fear by having a safety net. Enter religion.

    I dunno man I always think way too much about this stuff so thats as far as Ill go hah
     
  9. Exactly, that's what i came up with as the reason for the beginning of religion: People were scared of death, and religion stepped in to sweep them all up.

    But really our "conciousness" is only our brain and how it's evolved. We've evolved into this organism with such a complex brain that we have this idea of conciousness. When our brain dies, we die. We're just animals really, if you're ever in class, or walking a busy street, take a step back and look at all the animals around you. We're all just animals, just more evolved.
     
  10. as mysterious as that post was presented, science kinda destroys it.

    the average age of children when they are "conscious" (i.e. aware of the world around them, aware of their existence, and the memory faculties are developed) is around age 3.

    so there ya go.

    and yes, ive had the acid trips that make me realize that we are all interconnected forms of energy. but dude he was talking about consciousness. it does scare me sometimes.

    but i try to live my life in a way to impact others that they will remember me after im gone. make some footprints in this world man, whether you lead or follow, tread a path that fulfills your goals and will leave you with more fond memories than regrets.
     
  11. Well it's a very mysterious subject, isn't it?

    Anyways, although awareness and memory certainly seem to be part of a developed consciousness, I don't think you can limit its definition to just the faculties that are developed around early childhood.

    Are babies unconscious? Toddlers don't suddenly grow a conscious overnight, and even at the age of 3 or 4, children aren't as aware as we are now. Anyone who's ever been knocked unconscious will be aware of the first few seconds upon waking up. At first only blurs and weird sounds, the blurs become colours, colours become shapes, shapes become people and sounds become voices. It felt to me like the condensed process infants must go through as they slowly make sense of the world.

    What I'm getting at is that it seems to me like consciousness is something very liquid: it grows and ripples and waves around. I don't think you can't draw a line in between when you have it and when you don't.
     
  12. ^in general i agree with your post.....except your last 3 words. we are not "more evolved" than any other animal in existence today....we have just evolved differently, thats all.

    and about the original post, yeah, i have had the realizations already. in my view i have already ruled out the existence of any sort of "afterlife/heaven/hell". i badly WANT to believe in reincarnation, but i dont find it logically realistic. our consciousness is simply a result of our overly complex brains. and when we die, the brain ceases to function, and consciousness has to stop. of course, this isnt solid fact, but to me its the dreadful truth that nobody wants to believe....

    this is why living life to the fullest is a must. its a "once in a lifetime opportunity"....LITERALLY ;)

    "one life to live, notice you get no sequel, so i truly got to live this like my last movie"
    ~Jay-Z

    now i just need to put down the chron and start living by my own wisdom....aw shiet :D
     
  13. Well the reason i said "more evolved" is just because i think that any animal can evolve into what we have (economies, written/spoken language, schools, hospitals, etc) given enough time. We were once doing the same thing apes are now, at least that's the way i see it.
     
  14. All the time. Esspecially at night right before bed coming down off a high, its pretty shitty.

    To the consciousness posts, You might want to use the word sentience. Its better describes the difference between being awake and being aware.

    To the animal vs man post, we are actaully more evolved then probably any other animal on the planet. Just becuase they've been around the same amount of time doesn't mean they've continued evolving or evolved at the same rate. Man would appear to be the farthest from its original ancestors. Simply on numbers we have a bunch of biologically unique traits, while most species of animals only have 1 or 2 at the most.
     
  15. yea but...youre wrong. any animal wont necessarily evolve a big brain given enough time. simply put, if that were true, every animal would now have a big brain! the fact is that all lifeforms on earth have been evolving for the same amount of time, given the fact that all lifeforms share a common ancestor. every species is constantly evolving.....and no species can really be said to be "more evolved" than any other.....different species have different biological traits, but that doesnt mean any is "more evolved" than any other.....if you believe that then you dont really understand evolution and how it works...


    you right that just because species have been evolving for the same amount of time doesnt mean they've continued to evolve at the same rate....BUT no matter what, they are ALWAYS evolving. thats a plain fact of life and it will never change. once again, we are not "more evolved" than any other animal! youve got the idea of evolution wrong if u believe this....and yes semantics is important here. what makes MAN appear to be the furthest from its original ancestors?? you are wrong, thats just an illusion. the original ancestor must have been a single living cell. so what makes US unique? to be brief, bipedalism and a big brain are the main attributes that make us different. it doesnt make us any "more evolved" though. dolphins have big brains also, plus they have sonar. so do bats. sharks can detect electromagnetic fields. giraffes have huge necks. elephants have huge noses. i could easily make the argument that they are "more evolved" than us becuase they have a 6th sense or because they have any number of unique traits! but of course, i would be wrong to say that.....

    anyways, sorry for the rambling over semantics. i just thought i should set u guys straight....
     
  16. what is consciousness? some say animals are conscious of their body mass, but is that really consciousness as we are talking about it? what makes us superior in consciousness to animals? alot of people are talking about consciousness but to me it sounds like people are talking about ego. when does a child develop ego ect...

    death as a loss of consciousness? maybe, but thats like saying sleep is a loss of consciousness. death is a loss of ego, we no longer are aware of ourselves as we are. so we fear the loss of our ego, fear stems from death, death is inevitable there shouldnt be fear it was in the contract when we were born.

    "one life to live, notice you get no sequel, so i truly got to live this like my last movie"
    ~Jay-Z
     
  17. I think its much more scary to think, were you someone else before this life, think about if the life you loved so much was erased completely... starting over would be cool, but being a different person without even knowing it.

    Its kinda cool at the same time though... what if youve been a reocurring person for hundreds maybe thousands of years... seen everything.
     
  18. QFT
     
  19. i think that there is most likely an afterlife, with all the studies coming out on near-death experiences where clinically brain-dead people are revived and recount things that were impossible to see when dead. One of the strongest examples for me was a woman who died, and while she was out of her body when she was "dead", she floated onto the hospital's ledge and saw a shoe hanging out of one of the windows. Now she had never been in the hospital before, she was brought there because she was undergoing cardiac arrest. When she was revived, she asked the doctors to go see if there was actually a shoe out there, and guess what, there it was! You couldn't see it from inside the hospital, or from any of the hospital's entrances. Could there really be any other explanation for this incident than one's consciousness survives bodily death?
     
  20. ^ive heard those stories before but i need scientific proof before i believe it.

    otherwise....i t hink when u die youre done...and thats it. yea it is scary actually....
     

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