10 sats \ 9 replies \ @kytt 27 Dec 2023 freebie \ parent \ on: What's a mystery humanity can solve, but choses not to? Ask_SN
What do you believe happens when you die? By that I mean, do you think your consciousness doesn't exist at all or do you think there could be some form of an "afterlife"?
What is most likely is that our consciousness is an emergent property of neural computation and when you die the lights essentially go out.
I don’t want that to be true, but given the facts that seems most reasonable. No amount of wishful thinking can change reality.
There could be an afterlife though. Unlikely, but who knows?
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Could you expand on "consciousness is an emergent property of neural computation and when you die the lights essentially go out" ?
Interesting.
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Like the surface tension of water being an emergent property of hydrogen bonding. The polar water molecules are like tiny magnets which link up. Zoom out trillions of trillions of molecules and you can see how water clings and acts strange, sometimes defying gravity.
If consciousness is really the result of unimaginably complex processing by thousands of layers of neural networks - then if that network breaks “you” vanish. Imagine going under anesthesia. If you had a soul, then why do you lose consciousness? Do the drugs affect your soul? No, they affect your reticular activation in your midbrain. We know how to stop someone being conscious by our technical understanding of the brain via science. When you die, your brain dies and your experiences vanish with it. There’s no brain to experience anymore. There’s no you.
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Solid, makes sense.
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Personally, I think if the facts you've seen only point you to this belief, the. you havent looked hard enough and/or with an open mind, but that I just my opinion.
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Was a Christian for 25 years. I did all the studying. It’s easy to assume someone you disagree with is wrong. I do it all the time
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Well, there are people who report that there is indeed something after you die, and others who say that there's nothing but darkness.
Make of that what you will, the human mind is a strange thing.
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There are also remarkable incidences, thousands, of children reporting past lives and being incredibly accurate. There are those who can willingly have out-of-body experiences (astral projection) and report conversations or descriptions of objects distances away, as well as those who can "see" things further away without leaving their body (remote viewing; CIA declassified as well).
There are other incidences I've had personally that have shown me this universe must have been created. By what, I don't know. Those are personal to me.
I say this as a previously dogmatic atheist who is disappointed with my formal self and the things I said to believers in the past. Although I don't agree with religion and see it more as a divisive mechanism, I do see the common ground between us.
All that being said, I urge you to keep a very open mind. In the grand scheme, we all know nothing.
Some interesting readings:
- The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot
- Anything by Ishtak Bentov
- Before by Dr Jim Tucker
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True, and I indeed am open to these things, for there indeed have been instances as described by you above.
The human brain and conscience is a remarkable mystery.
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