Science Saved My Soul

[edgray]

My guess was that he was saying that on the brink of death it's good to have a higher being to believe in lol

Riiiiight. What will that do then?

 

[KimmyCharmeleon]

Apparently it makes you stronger lol.
Doesn't work for me though, they let you down too much lol. I think religion just keeps coming up with too many excuses for everything...why did he/she die? "Because it was their time". Why wasn't my prayer answered? "It'll come in a different form". Wow something great happened "Oh it's a miracle from God". Yadder yadder yadder lol.

 

[edgray]

Apparently it makes you stronger lol.
Doesn't work for me though, they let you down too much lol. I think religion just keeps coming up with too many excuses for everything...why did he/she die? "Because it was their time". Why wasn't my prayer answered? "It'll come in a different form". Wow something great happened "Oh it's a miracle from God". Yadder yadder yadder lol.

lol.

I guess this really just answers everything. Reality is just too scary for some, they need the lies to feel safe and secure. Sad really. Reality is just an amazing place. If there is a God, I'm sure he'd rather people lived fully in reality and enjoyed his creation, rather than ignoring it and listening to fables.

 

[KimmyCharmeleon]

A couple of years ago, I had a friend who thought that when we died we just returned to dust, and that's it. It made me a little sad really. Now here I am and I believe it too now. I guess a lot of things contributed to that belief I have now, I feel much better off believing that when I die, I just die, it happens to everyone. The sad thing about death is you leave people behind who matter to you, but when you die, you won't feel anything anymore, you won't realise you are dead and you left people behind. I know that sounds bad, but that's what I think happens anyway.

 

[edgray]

A couple of years ago, I had a friend who thought that when we died we just returned to dust, and that's it. It made me a little sad really. Now here I am and I believe it too now. I guess a lot of things contributed to that belief I have now, I feel much better off believing that when I die, I just die, it happens to everyone. The sad thing about death is you leave people behind who matter to you, but when you die, you won't feel anything anymore, you won't realise you are dead and you left people behind. I know that sounds bad, but that's what I think happens anyway.

This is the thing. After you die, your matter lives on, and takes on other forms. You're still part of the living universe, just in a different form.

I find that fact amazing. And you could see it as the reality behind reincarnation myths.

 

[KimmyCharmeleon]

This is the thing. After you die, your matter lives on, and takes on other forms. You're still part of the living universe, just in a different form.

I find that fact amazing. And you could see it as the reality behind reincarnation myths.

Ahh I see what you mean there. That is quite true. As they say, energy cannot be created or destroyed, just changes form

 

[edgray]

Ahh I see what you mean there. That is quite true. As they say, energy cannot be created or destroyed, just changes form

And matter too

 

[edgray]

the guy that made the video in the OP is just so awesome, everyone should watch all of his vids, so interesting and mind blowing and amazing.

 

[KimmyCharmeleon]

If you watch them with me <3

 

[edgray]

If you watch them with me <3

awesome! I'm buffering some now... you should do the same

 

[KimmyCharmeleon]

awesome! I'm buffering some now... you should do the same

Oh oh, I see what you did there

 

[Minor Axis]

A couple of years ago, I had a friend who thought that when we died we just returned to dust, and that's it. It made me a little sad really. Now here I am and I believe it too now. I guess a lot of things contributed to that belief I have now, I feel much better off believing that when I die, I just die, it happens to everyone. The sad thing about death is you leave people behind who matter to you, but when you die, you won't feel anything anymore, you won't realise you are dead and you left people behind. I know that sounds bad, but that's what I think happens anyway.

When people die, the body turns to dust. Yes that person died as far as we can tell, but what do we know? If you are open to the concept of "spirit", I would debate there is not enough info to determine what constitutes the end of consciousness with any certainty.

 

[Tim]

When people die, the body turns to dust. Yes that person died as far as we can tell, but what do we know? If you are open to the concept of "spirit", I would debate there is not enough info to determine what constitutes the end of consciousness with any certainty.

People like to believe that death isn't the end and that's the reason we hope and believe there is a spirit that carries on. But where did that spirit come from? Did it just appear out of nowhere? I mean it can't be reincarnation with the total number of people in the world, the numbers would never work-out.
So if that means that your spirit just began during conception or birth, what makes you think it's something that's everlasting? It just doesn't make any sense at all. And to just go by stories that are nothing more than refined superstitions into an organized religion is silly.

I personally don't believe in an everlasting soul. If you want to label our "life force" as a soul that's fine, but I believe that it ends the moment our brain ceases function.

 

[Minor Axis]

People like to believe that death isn't the end and that's the reason we hope and believe there is a spirit that carries on. But where did that spirit come from? Did it just appear out of nowhere? I mean it can't be reincarnation with the total number of people in the world, the numbers would never work-out.
So if that means that your spirit just began during conception or birth, what makes you think it's something that's everlasting? It just doesn't make any sense at all. And to just go by stories that are nothing more than refined superstitions into an organized religion is silly.

I personally don't believe in an everlasting soul. If you want to label our "life force" as a soul that's fine, but I believe that it ends the moment our brain ceases function.

You are assuming that the soul originates with a person's birth. I don't assume that. The idea is that souls are basically something of our essence that exists in another plane of existence, that is somehow attached to our physical identities. Note I did not say I "believe" in spirits or the soul. I don't claim to know much about it other than I am open to the concept. Yes there could be nothing to it, but I stand in wonder of the universe, something so spectacular, mysterious, and unknown, I'm not about to close off my thinking to what can be proven.

 

[BornReady]

Oh oh, I see what you did there

lol I think she wants to sit next to you Edgray while she watches them.

 

[Tim]

The idea is that souls are basically something of our essence that exists in another plane of existence, that is somehow attached to our physical identities.

But you need to ask yourself where this idea even came from. Was it born of science? Or did it come from the imagination, the age of the superstitious and unknown?

This is where I have a real problem even considering believing something like this. It all stems from stone age times, superstitions, folklore, etc. It's nothing but a concept that has been refined over the centuries.
And if you discount unicorns as nothing more than myths and fairy tales, you should do the same here.
Right?

I mean it all comes down to what you want to believe vs what is real.

 

[Minor Axis]

But you need to ask yourself where this idea even came from. Was it born of science? Or did it come from the imagination, the age of the superstitious and unknown?

This is where I have a real problem even considering believing something like this. It all stems from stone age times, superstitions, folklore, etc. It's nothing but a concept that has been refined over the centuries.
And if you discount unicorns as nothing more than myths and fairy tales, you should do the same here.
Right?

I mean it all comes down to what you want to believe vs what is real.

I agree with you other than we don't know enough to know what is "real". I have such a sense of wonder at living, at seeing the dimensions and wonders of the Universe, that nothing would surprise me. It is prudent to limit beliefs to what can be proven. But it does not mean beliefs are accurate and I understand the argument, it is all we have to go on. But my analogy of living in a soundproof room with no doors and windows does not mean there is nothing outside. Instead of saying "there is nothing there", it would be better to say, "I just don't know." I sense something, don't know what. Could it be real or just wishful thinking on my part? Absolutely. However, keep in mind my wishful thinking is generalized. I have not conjured up a God with rules for me to live by and punishments standing by.

 

[Minor Axis]

I posted this back in October 2012 somewhere on this forum. Recently there was an update published in Newseek:

Read this for fun!
Proof of Heaven.

Although I considered myself a faithful Christian, I was so more in name than in actual belief. I didn’t begrudge those who wanted to believe that Jesus was more than simply a good man who had suffered at the hands of the world. I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally. In fact, I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better than to believe them myself.

In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death.

I know how pronouncements like mine sound to skeptics, so I will tell my story with the logic and language of the scientist

He is a neuro surgeon grounded in science, at least he says he is. : )

Here is the followup article recently published in Newsweek. Scoff or be intrigued : The Science of Heaven.

This not-quite-true story is that the brain produces consciousness. Most scientists accept this as dogma. I certainly did, and it’s why so many scientists still refuse to even consider that I really and truly experienced what I say I did. But we in fact have no real proof of this at all, other than our general distrust of anything we can’t put our hands on. But there are many established scientific facts that we haven’t placed our hands on either. No one has ever seen an electron, or touched the force of gravity. The fact is, most doctors, and most scientists today, are confusing the fact that consciousness and brain activity are related (which they certainly are) with the opinion that the brain actually produces that consciousness.

Many scientists who study consciousness would agree with me that, in fact, the hard problem of consciousness is probably the one question facing modern science that is arguably forever beyond our knowing, at least in terms of a physicalist model of how the brain might create consciousness. In fact, they would agree that the problem is so profound that we don’t even know how to phrase a scientific question addressing it. But if we must decide which produces which, modern physics is pushing us in precisely the opposite direction, suggesting that it is consciousness that is primary and matter secondary.

This may sound absurd to some, but it is really no less absurd than the facts—now solidly established by quantum mechanics—of how we see the world around us right now. Every moment of every day, we completely personalize the data coming in at us from the physical world, but we do it far too quickly and automatically to be aware that we are doing so. Physicists discovered just how completely consciousness is wedded to the physical environment at the beginning of the 20th century, when the fathers of quantum mechanics (physicists such as Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein) established that units of light, called photons, can appear either as waves or as particles, depending on how we choose to measure them. The implications of this seemingly minor curiosity are in fact enormous, for they demonstrate that at a subatomic level, perception itself (our inner consciousness) is so wedded to the world that our consciousness of a physical event—say, a moving photon—actually affects that event. The very nonlocal features of consciousness, so well supported in Irreducible Mind and in Pim van Lommel’s wonderful book Consciousness Beyond Life, are the resounding evidence that consciousness itself is a quantum phenomenon. Refinement in our understanding of this mystery proceeds even today, as the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland for their innovative work in isolating the “collapse of the wave function,” or the exact process by which the conscious mind of the observer paints subatomic reality (hint: Einstein would still be frustrated!).

 

[Catavenger]

I guess you will find out when your dead

 

[Tim]

I guess you will find out when your dead

by the very definition of death, you won't find out anything