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At 7/10/08 09:02 PM, CherinoGears wrote: (athiests) beilive that onece your dead, your mind dosnt function so your conciusness is destroyed.

Atheism only means a belief that there is no god, not a belief that there is no afterlife.

At 7/10/08 09:22 PM, agustana wrote: I always wondered where that whole "You see a white light." before you die thing came from. It just never made sense to me.

That's the result of the powerful entheogen DMT being released into your brain.

I think it's completely possible for consciousness to be destroyed. On a scientific basis only assuming that our consciousness cannot proceed once our brains have deteriorated (which they obviously do).

I think it's also possible for there to be an afterlife, but in my opinion only two possibilities make sense to me.

The first being that we all go to the same place when we die, no heaven and hell, just another place. The second is reincarnation, because imagine the afterlife, there's 6.6 billion people on the planet right now, but man there have been a fuckload of humans over the years, if there's an afterlife that contains every single human soul that has existed since the beginning of time it would be overcrowded as fuck.

At 7/10/08 09:41 PM, OhThisGuy wrote: I'm sure I'm very ignorant on the matter considering my specialty in educaton

The part of the post of yours I quoted had nothing to do with a psychological argument. Are you like, a first year student or something who didn't go to class?

At 7/10/08 09:22 PM, agustana wrote: I always wondered where that whole "You see a white light." before you die thing came from. It just never made sense to me.

death causes nerves in the eyes to fire up, creating the illusion of a tunnel and a bright light

At 7/10/08 09:48 PM, Zerok wrote:

At 7/10/08 09:41 PM, OhThisGuy wrote: I'm sure I'm very ignorant on the matter considering my specialty in educaton

The part of the post of yours I quoted had nothing to do with a psychological argument. Are you like, a first year student or something who didn't go to class?

You do realize that we study physiological and neurological processes

At 7/10/08 09:51 PM, OhThisGuy wrote: You do realize that we study physiological and neurological processes

You do realize you still have made no argument for yourself other then boasting an education that you have in no way proven you actually have.

At 7/10/08 09:04 PM, BlackFyre wrote: According to Newtonian physics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, merely "changed" from one form to another. With this in mind, it would be possible for the aftertlife to exist, if human spiritual energy behaves like it would in the physical world. In death, that energy might be released, but into what form, noone really knows.

I...was about to post that.

I guess it's the energy released what we call "soul". It's not a ghostie, it's the energy you release when you die. What does it do we also don't know.

Woah Im just gonna stay outta this one.

At 7/10/08 09:30 PM, Zerok wrote:

At 7/10/08 09:23 PM, OhThisGuy wrote: however nowadays we have better knowledge of how the brain works and it just isn't like that
/thread

At 7/10/08 09:27 PM, Michaelas10 wrote: Energy is always the same, a charged movement of molecules capable of spreading out and focusing into different substances. There's no such thing as "spiritual energy", because for that to exist, there needs to be a "spiritual matter", which is just ridiculous.

When you die, the energy spreads out in form of heat. That's all.

You people's ignorance, close-mindedness and naivety is just astounding, you know that? I'll assume you're young and shit... odds are in you favour at least. Fuck.

Mind elaborating, sir? From Wikipedia:

"Chemical energy is the energy due to associations of atoms in molecules and various other kinds of aggregates of matter. It may be defined as a work done by electric forces during re-arrangement of electric charges, electrons and protons, in the process of aggregation. If the chemical energy of a system decreases during a chemical reaction, the difference is transferred to the surroundings in some form (often heat or light); on the other hand if the chemical energy of a system increases as a result of a chemical reaction - the difference then is supplied by the surroundings (usually again in form of heat or light)."

The energy in our body is chemical energy, released in cells during the chemical process of respiration. The energy is then used to synthesize ATP through which it fuels most of the cells processes, including biosynthesis, locomotion and transportation of molecules across cell membranes. Eventually that energy evaporates from the skin in form of heat.

When an organism dies, the process stops. Energy stops forming within cells, both meaning they stop doing their basic functions, and communicating with other cells, killing their overall sense of unity. That sense of unity of neurons in your brain is your consciousness.

So basically, when your brain dies, it dies. There's no such thing as a specific second when the cells are dying. As the chemical process stops, the sense of unity is gone, your consciousness is gone. That's it.

At 7/10/08 09:51 PM, OhThisGuy wrote: You do realize that we study physiological and neurological processes

Aye, Rideo.

Going back to the comment that inspired this little exchange, I shall point out now that in the history of SCIENCE, let alone psychology, no one has (and likely never will) conclusively prove (or even show vast support) for the notion that consciousness CANNOT persist after a brain dies. It is a matter of philosophy.

Also, if you were a good psychology student (or at least past first year) you'd be versed well enough in statistics to abandon the idea of thinking in black in white (i.e. stating with confidence that consciousness cannot exist after death).

Of course one could quibble over the operational definition of "consciousness" but I think it's pretty clear what the OP means.

At 7/10/08 09:46 PM, Rideo wrote: That's the result of the powerful entheogen DMT being released into your brain.

"If DMT is smoked, injected, or orally ingested with an MAOI, it can produce powerful entheogenic experiences including true hallucinations."

You can buy it?

At 7/10/08 09:56 PM, Michaelas10 wrote: Mind elaborating, sir? From Wikipedia:

I'm not refuting basic chemical processes. I'm expressing exasperation at the dire certainty these folks have of something that they could not possibly know.

As far as our instruments can tell, energy dissipates in the form of heat, blah blah, fine. But the perception of such a thing is unknowable until you experience in full and you can't exactly explain it to anyone else now, can you?

To say that once you die, you die, that's it, no more possible form of consciousness or being is just as frustratingly bull headed as some orthodox religious person claiming everything is because of God, no exceptions. Same attitude, different belief. Sure, there's controlled experimentation that backs up the OUTSIDE perception of necrosis and all that jazz, but in the grand scheme, we just. Don't. Know.

To refuse to consider other possibilities, alternatives to God or "nothing you just die" is the exact OPPOSITE of what science is: trying to make sense of the world. Ironic, huh?

When you die your brain stops working and you cease to exist.

You become the same state that you were before you were born.

Nothing.

At 7/10/08 10:01 PM, agustana wrote: "If DMT is smoked, injected, or orally ingested with an MAOI, it can produce powerful entheogenic experiences including true hallucinations."

You can buy it?

Yes you can buy it, it's very rare though. The DMT you smoke is usually different from the DMT you receive upon death, but it is also available (and probably even harder to find). I don't recommend you use DMT without having explored other, milder psychedelics first and/or having done some reading on the subject (check out DMT: The spirit molecule by Rick Strassman)