Afterlife possible from secular POV

[Ace101]

A problem that I have with some atheists is that they claim assertively "once you die that's all there is", but IMO this is a faith based belief - and not from a 'religious' POV either.

Basically, while it's true that human consciousness "in general" is caused by brain activity - what causes SPECIFIC people to be 'born in their bodies' isn't explained away that easily. For example why where you born as "you" instead of as your brother (and vice versa)? That can't just be explained away by brain waves.

So while a specific brain and set of memories does end upon death, saying that there is no 1st person consciousness after a certain physical death is just taking a guess, since science hasn't advanced that far yet.

Not to mention lots of other 'theories' - for example, what if 10,000 years from now an alien race is able to re-create everyone from their DNA? That might be sci-fi but it's totally valid to think about since it deals with future possiblities, not things which 'can be disproven' - so in that situation, you'd actually 'wake up' 10,000 years later in a new body instead of just 'be gone'.

Point is the honest answer is for atheists to say "I don't know" what happens after death, since anything else is just a belief based on faith.

[Solitary]

It is not a faith based belief in the least, If it weren't true that there is no consciousness after death, then anesthesia wouldn't work, a hit in the head wouldn't make you unconscious, and people that claim they left there bodies and floated on the ceiling when they die would able to say what is quoted on a partial wall when they look down---no one has gotten it correct yet. certain parts of the brain stimulated can produce any kind of experience that people claim are supernatural, including out of body experiences. Even psychoactive drugs can produce this, as well as meditation. When people claim they or others were dead they obviously were not because rigor hadn't set in. Ever see a person get their head cut off come back to consciousness or from death even if they flop around?  Solitary

[Ace101]

It is not a faith based belief in the least, If it weren't true that there is no consciousness after death, then anesthesia wouldn't work, a hit in the head wouldn't make you unconscious, and people that claim they left there bodies and floated on the ceiling when they die would able to say what is quoted on a partial wall when they look down---no one has gotten it correct yet. certain parts of the brain stimulated can produce any kind of experience that people claim are supernatural, including out of body experiences. Even psychoactive drugs can produce this, as well as meditation. When people claim they or others were dead they obviously were not because rigor hadn't set in. Ever see a person get their head cut off come back to consciousness or from death even if they flop around?  Solitary

But take 2 identical twins with identical brains - each has a separate consciousness despite idential brains - so if you had an identical twin, how could you explain why you were "born in your body" instead of your brother's? And vice versa.

That can't be explained away that easily. I've heard that consciousness is a concept that exists on a 'quantum level', so I believe the concept transcends mere individual brains.

Sure you may not 'float out of your body' when you die, but how do you know you won't take on the 1st person consciousness of another physical body in another life (or that you haven't already done so in 'past lives')?

[trdsf]

I don't have a problem with stating there is no afterlife, in exactly the same way that I state there is no caloric, phlogiston, or luminiferous ether: it's a theory that's not supported by evidence, and before I have to admit it as a postulate, I need something beyond "you can't prove it's not there".

In any case, if I were re-created from my DNA 10,000 years in the future, the 'me' that would inhabit that mind would be quite a different person from the 'me' that inhabits this one -- he would have completely different life experiences than I, and my DNA does not encode my mind--it only encodes the structure that my mind inhabits.  My DNA was present at my birth, and did not prefigure the events that guided my development -- it provided a framework with certain biases for them to develop in and around.

So while 10,000 years down the line, you might get a dark-haired gay man with weak eyes and a roving intellect, you would not get me, even though I am a dark haired gay man with a roving intellect.  You would get someone shaped by the experiences he has 10,000 years from now.

[Mike Cl]

But take 2 identical twins with identical brains - each has a separate consciousness despite idential brains - so if you had an identical twin, how could you explain why you were "born in your body" instead of your brother's? And vice versa.

That can't be explained away that easily. I've heard that consciousness is a concept that exists on a 'quantum level', so I believe the concept transcends mere individual brains.

Sure you may not 'float out of your body' when you die, but how do you know you won't take on the 1st person consciousness of another physical body in another life (or that you haven't already done so in 'past lives')?

Ace, I agree with you in that I cannot claim that when I die that is it.  What I say is that when I die, then I'll know what happens.  Or not happens.  I do think that when I die that will be it--eternal sleep.  But that really is unknowable right now.

As for why I was born as me and not one of my brothers, that, for me, is pretty easy to explain.  Happenstance is basically why.  Well, happenstance, genes and environment. 

[leo]

Reincarnation is very real. I was Chuck Norris is my past life.

[Mike Cl]

Reincarnation is very real. I was Chuck Norris is my past life.

Oh God!, Leo!  I am sooooo sorry for you!

[leo]

Oh God!, Leo!  I am sooooo sorry for you!

Why you said that ? Being  the reincarnation of chucknorris practically make me a god. In the case you aren't
familiar with the Chuck Norris facts , you should check them out.  Sure Chuck Norris is a bigot asshole . If Yahveh and allah can be a big time assholes , I don't see why Chuck Norris can't be a asshole.

[Munch]

                                                                                                                                                    Why you said that ? Being  the reincarnation of chucknorris practically make me a god. In the case you aren't
familiar with the Chuck Norris facts , you should check them out.  Sure Chuck Norris is a bigot asshole . If Yahveh and allah can be a big time assholes , I don't see why Chuck Norris can't be a asshole.

Lets put it this way, if god was real and I came faced with him, I'd put a bullet though his head for all the people he killed. If I came faced with chuck norris, I'd not go to that level, but I would do to him like in the movie Hannibal, only it would involve kicking his worn out ass into a pen of ravenous bears not before coating his limp dick with honey. 

[trdsf]

But take 2 identical twins with identical brains - each has a separate consciousness despite idential brains - so if you had an identical twin, how could you explain why you were "born in your body" instead of your brother's? And vice versa.

Here is where you completely undercut your own statement:

if 10,000 years from now an alien race is able to re-create everyone from their DNA[...]you'd actually 'wake up' 10,000 years later in a new body instead of just 'be gone'.

This is very much trying to have it both ways.  In the initial post, you posit that DNA is mind -- i.e., that upon being re-created in a hypothetical future, the 'you' of now would be re-created as well, and then you go on to point out that identical DNA does not mean identical identity.

An excellent (and slightly brainmelting) discussion of exactly this is in Douglas Hofstadter's I am a Strange Loop; I recommend it highly.  I haven't the space here to go into it in tremendous detail, but there's an excellent section exploring the ideas of self and identity using a hypothetical world where everyone is a twin and the notion of self implicitly means both minds together rather than each mind individually -- the twins together are the fundamental unit of individuality and self, referred to as a 'pairson' or a 'dividual' (I love a good pun, and I love a bad one even more ).  It does rather force a head-tilting re-examination of what one means by 'self'.

Like I said, brainmelting -- it hurts, but in a good way, like chili.

[aitm]

For example why where you born as "you" instead of as your brother (and vice versa)?



since anything else is just a belief based on faith.

Uh you were born you for the same reason you were born "here" and not there, or you were born a human and not a horse (I am assuming).  While I understand the thought as we have all had it to a degree, it is much more interesting to wonder why you are what you are before you are…get it? Once you are you the idea that you are you is only due to certain restraints is kinda arrogant. You are because if you are not, you wouldn't be you at all.

Now regardless of your "thought" you would have to grant that this concept to all the animals right? After all, surely you are not thinking that only humans are privy to this idea that we can only be us, because if we weren't then ,,er,,,,whatever. And I might add we have to grant this same idea to plants because after all the only difference between all of us and animals and plants is a few simple little dna switches.

Put aside your human arrogance and wonder why all living things cannot express the very same "thought" you are having.

[Mermaid]

Do animals have the same sense of self?

[Mermaid]

Oh, goddammit, Aitm, I didn't read your post before I asked about animals. GMTA and all that, I spose.

[Brian37]

Any argument that humans matter in "all this" is bullshit. If one is ready to accept that the utopia of woo and myth you rightfully reject already, then why would you be any more important? How about this ride being finite?

[Ace101]

Do animals have the same sense of self?

I'll venture that this does apply to thinking animals such as chimpanzees. To a mosquito or a worm with no cerebral matter? Probably not.