Afterlife

Could it be that the body and the lifeforce/soul are two seperate entities?
When you die you, "Give unto god what is god's and give unto caesar what is caesar's"
The body rots away here on Earth in the matterial existence while the lifeforce/soul is spread back out onto the universe.
 
Incream,

No books or other speculative articles please.

If you can point me at any accepted scientific papers recognized by any respectable scientific authority or university then that would do fine. Complete with independent verifications and peer reviews of course.

As far as I know at this time, no NDE has ever been recorded under scientific conditions. No alleged haunting has ever been recorded under scientific conditions that resulted in a conclusion other than unexplainable. And no one has ever been able to contact anyone, under scientific conditions, who has died.

I have also met with clairvoyants and spiritulists here in the SF Bay Area. When I have presented them with precise questions about anything that I could not possibly know and which they claim their guides should know they have always come up with nothing. Also their claims for my past life regressions were entirely fascinating but I had no way to differentiate their stories from pure fantasies.

So unless you can provide any independent responsible scientific evidence then as far as I can see you have nothing but imaginative speculations and when humans die they are nothing more than worm food.

Cris
 
Skull,

Define lifeforce/soul.

It sounds fine but why is such a thing needed and how does it operate?

Current research in the field of neuroscience shows that our memories and thoughts are entirely material and many clinical studies show that these realities can be destroyed, interrupted, or manipulated by physical damage or surgical procedures.

Where is the alleged soul in all of this and why should a soul exist at all?

Cris
 
I was really only attempting to be accomodating in using the term soul, as I feel the term is closer to Lifeforce.
To explain the existence of Lifeforce I site the fact that;
A person can have mortal injuries and dies on the operating table, those injuries can still be fixed. You can even keep that body functioning, although not independantly. But once the Lifeforce(for lack of a better term), is gone. No science can bring it back. That to me implies to me something special is involved somewhere along the line.:confused:
 
Cris-- I saw something on the cover of Discover magazine a while ago about perhaps finding the "departure of brain function" from the body and towards something else. However, I don't know if I believe it myself and don't have the article...
 
Skull,

BTW, welcome to sciforums.

A person can have mortal injuries and dies on the operating table, those injuries can still be fixed. You can even keep that body functioning, although not independantly. But once the Lifeforce(for lack of a better term), is gone. No science can bring it back. That to me implies to me something special is involved somewhere along the line.
Click to expand...
Once the brain has begun to decay or rather the integrity of the neuronal connections begins to degrade, then effectively the person will cease to exist. Repairing other bodily damage, e.g. the heart, after the brain has been starved of oxygen for too long will not permit the person to be revived. What we can’t do at the moment is to repair damaged brain tissue, at least not for anything other than relatively trivial repairs. But the repair of widespread brain cell damage due to oxygen starvation, or similar, is currently beyond our abilities.

So if this ‘lifeforce’ is the brain patterns unique to every individual then I agree this ‘lifeforce’ will be irretrievable and will be lost forever if the integrity of the brain is compromised.

Similarly if this ‘lifeforce’ is considered to be the electrical energy that is present in all brain activity and the brain cells begin to decay then this energy will simply dissipate into the surroundings consistent with the transfer of energy well known in the science of physics.

So the question remains: What is this thing called a lifeforce/soul/spirit? If it is a representation of the mind and memory of a person then how could it survive in an alleged afterlife without a supporting material brain? If the brain dies then the person dies, what we call the mind and memories of that person is the person, and these activities simply dissipate as the brain decays.

Cris
 
GB,

I searched the Discover Magazine website but couldn't find any relevant references. Do you have a date?

Discover often has some imaginative provocative titles, but the substance of the articles are usually far more mundane.

Cris
 
This kind of discussion is old and boring fast. Basically there is no way to prove this sort of thing with science. People like Cris and myself only care about scientific evidence. A lot of people don't. A lot of threads in here are like

"okay this is what I believe in".

Skeptics: "There is no evidence to support your theory"

Well duh !!! This is pretty much it. Frankly I don't see any point arguing this kind of stuff with science because the end result is obvious so why even bother.

Maybe in a different universe the laws of physics are different. I don't need to get in here and tell them they are wrong. From my experience it doesn't accomplish anything except to boost your ego when you prove someone else wrong. After awhile it becomes a skeptics or athiest's lip service. I would rather sit back and let them talk amoung themselves using their imaginations and see what interesting things they can come up with.

Is there an afterlife? I will find out really soon. Maybe 60 years.
 
Thank you for the welcome Cris...


Originally posted by Cris
Skull,
Once the brain has begun to decay or rather the integrity of the neuronal connections begins to degrade, then effectively the person will cease to exist.

and

Similarly if this ‘lifeforce’ is considered to be the electrical energy that is present in all brain activity and the brain cells begin to decay then this energy will simply dissipate into the surroundings consistent with the transfer of energy well known in the science of physics.

So the question remains: What is this thing called a lifeforce/soul/spirit?
Cris
Click to expand...

I think you said it better Cris, ...

It has to be electrical, all living things have some form of a registerable current flowing through them... Don't they?
So if that is a given, then actual death is only the dissipation of that electricity.
But then with curlion(Spell?) photograghy, where a leaf can be cut in half and yet the resulting photograghs appear to have a residual, electrical, imprint of the removed section, completing the shape of the whole leaf. Is that not some form of "electical memory" somehow working independantly?
It says to me that there is more going on around us, right under our noses even, and absolutes just don't cut it.
But the energy in question, that we can not duplicate and the same energy that produces a complete image in curlion photography, is simply put. The natural energies of the universe, the energy of the creator, whatever one describes as the energy involved in the existence of this wonderous creation around us. And that I don't fully understand it all only adds to the wonder.
And I do wonder.
 
Maybe in a different universe the laws of physics are different.

There is no evidence to support your theory. ;)

Is there an afterlife? I will find out really soon. Maybe 60 years.

You will let us know, won't you ?
 
Once again I didn't post this thread to argue with my views or others peoples. It's here to just put what you believe in. There is no need for any scientific proof for anything, although all the books I have are written by scientists who have done studies on the subject, but no more of that. Just post what you believe.
 
Originally posted by (Q)
There is no evidence to support your theory. ;)
Click to expand...
Hardly my theory. There are many papers on parallel universes. There is no evidence to prove all of general relativities either. Anti-matter is fiction because we haven't found them yet. The typical skeptic lip service is getting tiresome. You are either trying to be a smartass or you are totally missing my point.

Is there an afterlife? I will find out really soon. Maybe 60 years.
You will let us know, won't you ?
Click to expand...

If the only way to find out is to die, I rather divert my attention to something more entertaining like watching places all over the world exploding and people getting killed.
 
You are either trying to be a smartass or you are totally missing my point.

If clearly defined, I never miss a point, so I must be a smartass. :D
 
Actually, you did miss the point. He said maybe. He didn't say it was true, he said "What if?"
It is entirely possible. Just look at the thoeretical 'Black Hole'. It throws everything we know about everything out of the window. Have you got any evidence to back up that a different universe hasn't got different laws of physics.
 
Actually, you did miss the point. He said maybe. He didn't say it was true, he said "What if?"

No, he said maybe, meaning possibly or probably but not exactly sure. He did not ask, "What if?"

It is entirely possible. Just look at the thoeretical 'Black Hole'. It throws everything we know about everything out of the window.

What exactly is entirely possible ? What exactly is thrown out the window ?

Have you got any evidence to back up that a different universe hasn't got different laws of physics.

Have you got any evidence to suggest there are different universes ? And if so, these universes would need to be similar to ours in order for us to comprehend their existence. If they are so dissimilar to ours, then they may not be considered another universe in the traditional sense. Therefore, how could we even make comparisons ?
 
Here's something that will make you think for days. When we die, we will either go to heaven or hell. but imagine being there forever. What will happen if we get bord of it all? will we start a new life as somebody different, or will we just do nothing for the rest of eternity. What will happen?:eek:
 
I don't believe the "soul" is some separate thing that can leave the body and live happily ever after. I don't even really believe in a soul.
But I do believe in everything we are. I don't think you'll gain anything when you die but I don't think anything disappears either.
I agree with the worm food comment
but is that not an afterlife of sorts?
I believe it is.
I think joining the food chain is a different stage of existence and ,well, it definately is, thats a no brainer.
Thats why I want to be floated out to the ocean when I die as opposed to put in a case and buried in a vain attempt to avoid the food chain. I want to fully experience the food chain and I think the ocean is "hot spot".
Obviously, I don't think you are concious in the afterlife, you can't meet dead people and do things, but you have a general sense of spiritual well being.
Thats why you can't get bored even though its an eternity.
You are sort of "alive" in the spirit of nature. Now when the earth explodes or the sun or whatever, we will still be around, we'll be one with the universe and I agree with the thread starter, we will be a god sort of. If the universe could be considered a god. Everything that has ever been is what makes up the universe. While you are alive you are physically seperated from the system in a way. When you die you'll be back in it and you will have with you everything you became during your life.

This mightn't sound like much to some but I know I'm not fearing my death at all.
All this seems logical to me.
 
Dr Lou-

I felt you put that nicely. I also believe that when we die our mass will be one with nature. Its a cycle in my opinion.
 
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