Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

Some recent threads about heaven/hell. But I'm not sure what continuity we're supposed to assume between earthly consciousness and eternal consciousness.

Do we still have our memories? What about the huge % of our consciousness that is composed of chemical affective states? Does it make sense to talk about emotional gratification without social conditioning and human context? Does it make sense to talk about "pleasure" without nerve endings and a functional cerebral cortex?

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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Some recent threads about heaven/hell. But I'm not sure what continuity we're supposed to assume between earthly consciousness and eternal consciousness.

Do we still have our memories? What about the huge % of our consciousness that is composed of chemical affective states? Does it make sense to talk about emotional gratification without social conditioning and human context? Does it make sense to talk about "pleasure" without nerve endings and a functional cerebral cortex?

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I would think not - I think any afterlife is non-physical and pretty much inconceivable to us.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

Who needs a cerebral when you can use ***magic***.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

Difficult to say without confirmed experimental evidence leading to a solid model for the process of continual existence after death.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

Most religions assume that there is an essence to self. I.e., a soul. I think most religious people believe that this essence is what continues on to the afterlife from life.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

only one way to find out....

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

I sort of imagine our consciousnesses hovering in some dimension, and interacting with each other in some way that's impossible to understand. No real way to get pleasure, but also no burdens either. The entire condition is a more pleasurable one. Maybe even the more content you are with your animal life, the more pleasurable your condition will be. But that's just my comforting little theory based on absolutely nothing.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

Watch Casper. Should answer most of your questions.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

No more sex? Why God, why?!

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

Not sure if this is necessarily a reply to me, but just to be clear, I do not believe in a "God." I just think dying has to be OK for some reason. Maybe it's just that the experience is so pleasurable. But I think the idea that our consciousness "graduates" to some new state (which we can't fathom in our current condition) is at least possible. It's irrelevant to think about, but I think it's possible.

And you wouldn't need sex if you were in a constant state of euphoria.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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No more sex? Why God, why?!

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Channel Whoopie Goldberg and all your problems are solved.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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And you wouldn't need sex if you were in a constant state of euphoria.

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Does not compute.

Bigdaddy - are we talking heaven or hell, here?

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

I'm talking about neither. I was just sharing my "non religious" idea for some comforting possibility. Not sure what you're trying to say, or why you're hung up on an idea that is admittedly based on nothing other than the figments of my own imagination.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

I'm in the "nothingness" camp. It's entirely possible that once it's over, it's over.

That gives me a great incentive to extend what I have now to as long as possible.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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I'm in the "nothingness" camp. It's entirely possible that once it's over, it's over.

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Yes, certainly, most on this board share this stance. No doubt.

But I was trying to hear more from people along the lines of ALawPoker:

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I sort of imagine our consciousnesses hovering in some dimension, and interacting with each other in some way that's impossible to understand.

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If "afterlife consciousness" is impossible to understand in terms of "life consciousness", wouldn't by definition there be absolutely no continuity between the two?

If there is continuity, it would have to be at least describable right now, yes?

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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Channel Whoopie Goldberg and all your problems are solved.

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Ditto

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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I'm in the "nothingness" camp. It's entirely possible that once it's over, it's over.

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Yes, certainly, most on this board share this stance. No doubt.

But I was trying to hear more from people along the lines of ALawPoker:

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I sort of imagine our consciousnesses hovering in some dimension, and interacting with each other in some way that's impossible to understand.

[/ QUOTE ]

If "afterlife consciousness" is impossible to understand in terms of "life consciousness", wouldn't by definition there be absolutely no continuity between the two?

If there is continuity, it would have to be at least describable right now, yes?

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Yeah, I guess I didn't help you out much.

The one thing I can say is that I am not sure we can be aware of ourselves without our memories.

If we passed on to another "afterlife conciousness" without our memories, I don't see how we could continue to be who we are today. As a matter of fact, if this were true, I don't even see the point of worrying about it.

However, this seems to be consistent with the belief that when we die, our bodies are simply carbon material that will blend into the earth.

So I suppose for those who believe in the afterlife or heaven or different planes of conciousness, one would need to retain their earthly memories to make than transformation relevent (to them). It would be pretty pointless meeting your dearly departed loved ones in heaven if you couldn't remember who they are.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

I've always been fond of this quote from Heraclitus: "There await men after death such things as they neither expect nor have any conception of."

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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What about the huge % of our consciousness that is composed of chemical affective states? Does it make sense to talk about emotional gratification without social conditioning and human context? Does it make sense to talk about "pleasure" without nerve endings and a functional cerebral cortex?

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This is why I think it is extremely unlikely that there is any sort of "afterlife". While it is impossible to prove that there isn't some part of us that survives the death of our bodies, an objective look at available evidence suggests to me that most likely our existence ends at death and all beliefs to the contrary constitute wishful thinking to avoid that unpleasant reality.

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

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I've always been fond of this quote from Heraclitus: "There await men after death such things as they neither expect nor have any conception of."

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Did he mention how he knew that?

luckyme

Re: Continuity between life and afterlife?
 

we can experience the afterlife in this life through shamatha meditation. It's my understanding that awareness and consciousness are not the same thing.
However, we need our conciousness to recognize our ground awareness. We need 1 to recognize the other.
This type of meditation brings our mind into contact with our 'ground' or base awareness. It's much like never ending space etc...
To be aware after death requires us to train our mind so we can recognize our ground awareness...
... maybe lol