They say you are trripping when you are born and tripping when you die ( not like shroom/acid , but a deep overwhelming salvia trip)
for scientific proof go buy raymond moody's "life after life", he clinically investigates hundreds of near-death experiences. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/00...9142/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3508259-0218464?ie=UTF8
"Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment. Philosophers divide consciousness into phenomenal consciousness which is experience itself and access consciousness which is the processing of the things in experience." (Block 2004). We're all going to die one day and that reality can be a fearful one to accept, but I submit to you gentle stoners that it's precisely this feeling that gives life its meaning. If nothing ever died and passed away then its subtle beauty couldn't be recognized and cherished because it would be here forever. I think about what death will mean, an end to things, silence and individual extinction. But this makes every second more precious and valuable than the most precious gem stones or the brightest star. People are always looking for reasons why they don't have to live their lives to fullest, some bit of philosophy, religion, or science perhaps but life can't be quantfied in those terms. You can try because of the way our brains work but the fear will always be present and no amount of thought will take away the implications of our fragile lives. We're all going to die! "^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." ~TheHit~ I think this statement is very important because the preconception of what evolution is supposed to accomplish is somewhat off. Evolution doesn't mean organisms become more complex it means that they change to survive. (Evolution = Change.) Because of the way we think we sometimes forget we live in a universe and not a pocket dimension with one solar system. We're just trying to survive like any other creature no matter how lowly we consider it to be. Defining consciousness doesn't negate it's effect any more than understanding fear means we will no longer feel it. By some agency or miracle of fate our evolutionary changes have made us think and behave the way that we do. The statement above also addresses a type of arrogance that people feel in general, a sense of entitlement over other organisms because we think we're more evolved/better. Life's a split second or two brothers and sisters and though we all feel a common fear about our ultimate fate we're alive right now and that's all that matters. Live passionately, love passionately, and die knowing the difference between that and not living at all. “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.â€<O</O <O</O ~Albert Einstein~ Stay green.
^nice post. i like that einstein quote. and thanks for clarifying my statement there... blah....any books like that are always biased. i have researched this topic and i have come to the conclusion that there is NO scientific proof that consciousness exists after death. there is anecdotal evidence, but nothing scientific. like i said, i have heard of many stories where people see something that happens elsewhere when they are "dead" in a hospital bed...or something similar to this...etc etc etc.....seems hard to believe obviously.....and we all WANT to believe it, of course....but there has never been a real unbiased scientific study with conclusive proof.....so to be honest, IMO, youre getting your hopes up. just like everyone who believes in heaven....or hell... just live with the knowledge that you get one life and it wont last forever....thats all. scary, but true.