Afterlife

[Anonymous No.15857111]

Is their any scientifically sound reason to believe in an afterlife? Because the more I look into it, the more convinced I am that consciousness is created by the physical brain and once the brain dies, our consciousness also dies. This makes things like the mind-body problem very easy to solve.
And yet people, even educated ones, keep acting like this is still up for debate. What am I missing? Are the educated believers in an afterlife just grifting? I'm not afraid of an eternal dreamless sleep, but if there is a valid reason to believe that there is something beyond this existence that I can take part in, I would love to know.

[Anonymous No.15857116]

>>15857111
>Is their any scientifically sound reason to believe in an afterlife?
No
>Are the educated believers in an afterlife just grifting?
Sometimes. Other times, it's just years of religious brainwashing

[Anonymous No.15857135]

>>15857111
>Is their
Fug

[Anonymous No.15857150]

>>15857111
Well, even though it’s likely, you’ll have to definitively prove that the brain is the sole engine for consciousness alone. Until then, the minuscule chance of qualia being generated by an outside force remains open

[Anonymous No.15857177]

>>15857111
>What am I missing?
You can't explain why my subjective experience is tethered to THIS brain in particular. For an afterlife to not exist, this tethering would have to persist even after my brain has been destroyed. Otherwise, there would be nothing preventing my identity from just entering a different brain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertiginous_question

[Anonymous No.15857179]

A mechanism for how quantum immortality could work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jdcvSOOjI

Other mechanisms for how an afterlife could exist:
https://alwaysasking.com/is-there-life-after-death/

[Anonymous No.15857188]

>>15857111
>consciousness is created by the physical brain
There's your problem: using atheist words to hide the religious thinking that there's an invisible ghost in the machine.

[Anonymous No.15857200]

>>15857111
i had this debate with my girlfriend a while ago

consciousness is electricity and since energy only changes forms and cant really cease to exist it would sound like it makes sense that the afterlife is the electrical energy freed from your body since brain isnt working anymore but i think the energy that becomes electricity in our brain stops being transferred when we die and theres nothing after

i dont know if im making scientific sense its just my deduction

[Anonymous No.15857204]

>>15857111
not science
>>>/x/

[Anonymous No.15857276]

>>15857177
>You can't explain why my subjective experience is tethered to THIS brain in particular
Because -this- brain -is- your subjective experience, there is no outside force creating your consciousness, it's just the manifestation of physical interactions, it's like asking why the electron has a charge, it's just a basic law of reality which dictates its behaviour, there is no components to further divide to, same applies to the conscious experience, just matter reacting. In essence "you" do not exist and are whatever physical components decided to come together and start interacting, more simply put the universe experiencing itself, a bacteria, a bug, a rabbit, a human, doesn't matter, all manifestations of the same thing, just at an increasing rate of complexity and thus capability to collect and process more information and make deductions based on the millions of inputs you are receiving every second, it's all an endless cycle with no escape.

[Anonymous No.15857288]

>>15857204
Asking if something has any basis in science IS science.

[Inversion No.15857310]

>>15857111
I eared MIT are trying to explore the consciousness alternate state realm using DMT.

[Anonymous No.15857319]

>>15857204
parapsychology is science. It's not a very respected kind of science and often isn't carried out very well, but it is science none the less. A number of universities fund their research and sometimes other kinds of academics will do research into the paranormal/supernatural. Like this research into Near Death Experiences by a medical professor, which was of course inconclusive
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/aware-nde-study

But this site is probably the most scientific research you'll find on this kind of stuff. And while they do use scientific methods they tend to not really try to outright prove/disprove something, they often do all their analysis with statistics which results in probabilities of things occurring and this ends up not really resolving anything in terms of whether something is a real phenomenon or not
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/categories

[Anonymous No.15857325]

>>15857276
>there is no outside force creating your consciousness
Probably not. But maybe. Quantum entanglement is probably the best example, where particles communicate with no apparent mechanism able to be detected. This is extremely strange and means either every particle can be connected across infinite distance, or that they actually are communicating via some kind of unknown mechanism that allows communication that is instantaneous. And that alone opens up a lot of possibilities. Obviously it's not really appropriate to start assuming every idea could use this mechanism in some way, but I think it does mean that ideas like dualism can't exactly be ruled out with what we currently know

[Anonymous No.15857331]

>>15857325
You obviously don't understand quantum entanglement if you think it can possibly imply dualism.

[Anonymous No.15857337]

>>15857331
particles are communicating via some unknown mechanism. This mechanism could be literally anything. The could be using some other universe or other dimension or just anything like that. If that's the case, then maybe the conscious mind is being transmitted instantaneously from some other location. You can't really say that's impossible because nobody knows.

[Anonymous No.15857338]

>>15857337
...to clarify, i'm not saying consciousness is using entanglement, but that if something like entanglement exists then some other phenomena like that might exist

[Anonymous No.15857340]

>>15857337
There's nothing unknown and there's no mechanism underlying quantum entanglement other than quantum mechanics itself.
>nobody knows.
Speak for yourself, moron

[Anonymous No.15857361]

>>15857340
Ok, if nothing is unknown about how communication in quantum entanglement is achieved, then tell me how entangled particles are communicating

[Anonymous No.15857363]

>>15857340
>there's nothing unknown
Then explain, retard.
>inb4 it's just is what it is

[Anonymous No.15857367]

>>15857361
>>15857363
Entangled particles don't communicate and neither can they be used to communicate, you misinformed idiot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem

[Anonymous No.15857371]

>>15857367
lol, you're a spastic. If you move one particle the other moves. I'm not talking about data transfer, i'm talking about the nature of the simultaneous movement. Explain how you can move one particle and the other moves

[Anonymous No.15857375]

>>15857363
This

[Anonymous No.15857377]

>>15857371
>If you move one particle the other moves
No it doesn't. Stop talking about things you don't have the faintest clue about, you moron

[Anonymous No.15857380]

>>15857340
>moron
>>15857367
>idiot

Why don't you use your superior intellect to stop being a bitch?

[Anonymous No.15857390]

>>15857377
are you joking or something?

[Anonymous No.15857400]

>>15857288
no it isnt. you need to go back.

[Anonymous No.15857401]

>>15857380
>>15857390
Vapid, pointless posts.

[Anonymous No.15857403]

>>15857319
sure, but OP is asking about the scientific basis of afterlife. Which isnt in the realm of science. You people need to gatekeep science to its actual definition and method or the schizo threads will continue.

[Anonymous No.15857410]

>>15857377
Hello retard. Would you care to explain how gates in quantum work without changes in entangled states ?

[Anonymous No.15857413]

>>15857410
>quantum
*quantum computers, of course

[Anonymous No.15857416]

>>15857111
No.
And any concievable way to possibly test for an afterlife, in any scientific capacity, would be shot down by """WHAT ABOUT MUH ETHICS!?!?!""" Because killing people for science is bad, regardless of how beneficial the research. But killing people for profit is okay, so long as you put a warning label on your product.

[Anonymous No.15857429]

>>15857177
If you believe that consciousness is an emergent property of a physical living brain, you don't need to explain the mechanism by which it is tethered to the brain, anymore than you need to explain how a wave is tethered to a body of water, or how the color of an apple is tethered to the apple. These are merely properties, and the existence of properties are dependent upon the existence of the things to which they belong. If the existence of a property is reliant upon energy, that energy will continue to exist, but I don't think you would argue that energy and consciousness are the same thing. I'm not saying that dualism is impossible, but physicalism requires fewer unjustified assumptions based on our current scientific knowledge. Also, the more we understand about the brain, the fewer unknowns we have to attribute to a non-physical soul. It's kind of like the god of the gaps, but in this case, it's the soul of the gaps, and it just keeps getting smaller.

[Anonymous No.15857433]

>>15857410
Quantum gates work by operating on all the qubits at the same time you moron. Are you just spouting off random garbage you "learnt" from chatgpt?

[Anonymous No.15857447]

>>15857433
this is basic stuff
>if the direction of one atom’s spin is altered, its entangled fellows will change their spins accordingly
https://archive.is/jsrip

[Anonymous No.15857457]

>>15857111

Sure, read The Physics of Immortality by Frank J Tipler. Once the universe is turned into a supercomputer, there will be a universal resurrection. As long as you think of your whole brain emulation as you, then yes there will be an afterlife for all of us in the far future.

[Anonymous No.15857462]

>>15857447
>linking popsci articles to prove your point
Thank you for confirming that you're a moron. Do you even know what a unitary operator on a hilbert space is?

[Anonymous No.15857489]

>>15857462
Do you? Well enough to explain it to us and not just call everyone names?
This board is called /sci/, not /flex/.

[Anonymous No.15857493]

>>15857325
>>15857331
>but I think it does mean that ideas like dualism can't exactly be ruled out with what we currently know
One interpretation of how dualism could exist due to quantum mechanics is that it is related to wave-particle duality. Mental states are to waves what physical states are to particles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Lb1SR0Dlw

[Anonymous No.15857495]

so if i kill myself am i being tortured eternally or not?

[Anonymous No.15857496]

>>15857493
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ic3qYSSk30

[Anonymous No.15857498]

>>15857429
>emergent property
Emergence is a meaningless concept that says nothing about how a system actually functions.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/8QzZKw9WHRxjR4948/the-futility-of-emergence

>A fun exercise is to eliminate the adjective "emergent" from any sentence in which it appears, and see if the sentence says anything different:

>Before: Human intelligence is an emergent product of neurons firing.
>After: Human intelligence is a product of neurons firing.
>Before: The behavior of the ant colony is the emergent outcome of the interactions of many individual ants.
>After: The behavior of the ant colony is the outcome of the interactions of many individual ants.
>Even better: A colony is made of ants. We can successfully predict some aspects of colony behavior using models that include only individual ants, without any global colony variables, showing that we understand how those colony behaviors arise from ant behaviors.

>Another fun exercise is to replace the word "emergent" with the old word, the explanation that people had to use before emergence was invented:

>Before: Life is an emergent phenomenon.
>After: Life is a magical phenomenon.
>Before: Human intelligence is an emergent product of neurons firing.
>After: Human intelligence is a magical product of neurons firing.

>Does not each statement convey exactly the same amount of knowledge about the phenomenon's behavior? Does not each hypothesis fit exactly the same set of outcomes?

[Anonymous No.15857501]

>>15857495
You could actually be preventing yourself from being tortured eternally.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/N4AvpwNs7mZdQESzG/the-dilemma-of-worse-than-death-scenarios

>Methods which may reduce the probability of indefinite worse than death scenarios (in order of effectiveness):

>1. Suicide

>2. Working on AI safety

>3. Thinking of ways of reducing the probability

>Suicide, depending on your theory on personal identity, may make the probability 0. If you believe that there is no difference between copies of you then there may be a possibility of being resurrected in the future however. As we aren't certain about what happens to the observer after death, it is unknown whether death will make worse than death scenarios impossible. I believe there are many ways in which it could reduce the probability, but the key question is: could it increase the probability? An argument against suicide is that it is more likely that people who commit suicide will go to "hell" than those who don't. This is because an entity who creates hell has values which accept suffering, making life a positive concept which should not be discarded. On the other hand, an entity with values related to efilism/antinatalism (philosophies in which suicide is generally accepted) would not create a hell at all. Of course, this is all based on a lot of speculation.

>There is a risk that the suicide attempt will fail and leave you in a disabled state. This could make you more vulnerable when considering indefinite worse than death scenarios. However, I would argue against this disadvantage because the only potential way to evade an entity powerful enough to cause these scenarios would be suicide, which always has a risk of failing.

[Anonymous No.15857527]

>>15857498
>Emergence is a meaningless concept
What the fuck are you talking about? Emergence communicates that out of two parts interacting a third part emerges. You just can't say nothing about how it actually functions because you don't know and can't use science to explain it.

[Anonymous No.15857629]

>>15857489
this board is called /sci/ not /x/ so what the fuck are these faggots doing here

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>15857496
>>15857495
>>15857498
>>15857501

[Anonymous No.15857681]

>>15857462
ok, you're just trolling

[Anonymous No.15857704]

>>15857377
you've never heard of "spooky action at a distance" ? I guess it wasn't spooky after all because you knew how it all worked all along and Einstein should have just asked you

[Anonymous No.15857763]

>>15857338
Not arguing for physicalism but quantum entanglement doesnt involve any communication.
I dont think hidden variables are true but quantum entanglement makes it seem more plausible.
To explain quantum entanglement: imagine having two identical envelopee. In one you put a Red card and in one a blue card. Now seal them and mix them up. Theyre now in superposition and quantum entangled.
Go travel to the moon but leave one envelope behind. Now open the envelope. If you have the red card in it, you know that on earth they have the blue card.
Its pretty much that simple.

[Anonymous No.15857774]

>>15857429
>emergence
Cope. Emergence is just something you say because you dont want to admit you dont understand how it works.
Might aswell say gravity is an emergent property of mass. Time is an emergent property of space and van-der-vaals interactions are an emergent property of atoms. Yes but that doesnt tell me anything.
Thats just refusing to answer the question

[Anonymous No.15857799]

yea

[Anonymous No.15857900]

>>15857763
yeah i understand that. What i was saying that was entanglement is particles reacting to eachother over some distance without any form of traditional communication occurring. If you know the spin of one particle then you'll know the spin of the other without having to look at the other. But knowing the spin destroys the entanglement. But you can send one of those entangled particles through a polarizer to change its spin and the spin of the other will instantaneously change to reflect that, but again you won't know the result until you measure it, but that doesn't mean things aren't changing internally. That is the "communication" part. They're not communicating via electromagnetic waves though, obviously. It's happening as a function of the quantum field. But just the fact that is possible means that there might be other phenomena like that, where the state of one particle is determined by something else non-locally. The main point i'm making is that non-locality exists

[Anonymous No.15857975]

>>15857111
Check the official /sci/ server
https://discord.gg/p67EmCF8

[Anonymous No.15857999]

>>15857457
>As long as you think of your whole brain emulation as you
I do not. Why would I?

[Anonymous No.15858103]

>>15857999
This. A computer simulation of me wouldn't be me. Even if it were to have the same memories and emotions and personality and even the same qualia (its red would be the same as my red) as me, it would still have a different point-of-view. If this simulation were to be created while I was still alive, our life experiences would start to diverge the moment it came into existence.

[Anonymous No.15858305]

>>15857498
>>15857774
>Emergence is an admission that you don't know how it works.
Yeah, so? Admitting you don't know how something works but that you'll keep looking for answers is being scientific and intellectually honest. It's better than saying "It's magic! Just trust me on this one, faggot!"

[Anonymous No.15858308]

it's okay to ask that question but:
>you will know the answer
>even if you knew the answer, you can't do much with it

[Anonymous No.15858657]

>>15858308
>even if you knew the answer, you can't do much with it
Why? Knowing what comes after life changes everything.

[Anonymous No.15858658]

>>15857200
> consciousness is electricity
immediate fuck up

thought is calculation.

consciousness is beyond this realm

[Anonymous No.15858805]

>>15857900
Well if you know the spin theres no more entanglement, changing the spin after that wont change anything about the other particle. Changing the spin before checking also wont do anything as the spin is in superposition anyway

[Anonymous No.15858809]

>>15858103
The Point here is that the simulation only begins to exist after you do. Or the coin toss from SOMA. Basically its one big assumption but since we dont know how consciousness works, one of the proposed ways it does is a continuum of expirience. So if i were to shoot you today but clone your brain 100 years from now it might feel as one continued existance.
Of course as with all things related to consciousness, this is impossible to proce or disprove

[Anonymous No.15858811]

>>15858305
Bruh. Thats my argument.
Saying „its an emergent property“ means „i wont bother trying to figure out“ because thats how its used. Basically „its magic“
Ny argument is: this doesnt explain shit lets look for a non retarded answer

[Anonymous No.15858815]

>>15858811
>Saying „its an emergent property“ means „i wont bother trying to figure out“ because thats how its used.
? How can one sentence mean a completely different sentence? Saying it's emergent simply means you don't need to invent new bullshit to explain it. It's a research methodology which constrains the explanations that you can give

[Anonymous No.15858833]

>>15857200
>since energy only changes forms and cant really cease to exist
Energy in the form of the nutrients that power your brain was not "you" before it entered your body and it also stops being "you" when it leaves your brain as heat and waste products (regardless of death)

[Anonymous No.15858932]

>>15857111
>Because the more I look into it

Then you obviously didnt look into it because materalism was debunked nearly 100 years ago. anyone whos had an OBE, NDE or astraly projected knows with certainty the brain does not degenerate consciousness . You're not going to get good answers on this board as its full of brain washed midwits like this guy. read books on idealism and check out nderf.org

>>15857116

[Anonymous No.15858939]

>>15858932
but there's a bunch of info that explains your NDEs, like this guy is saying >>15858919

[Anonymous No.15858953]

>>15857111
There's no reason to bother yourself with this as we don't know for certain. Just live your life in a way that later, you won't regret your past actions and look back with confidence and satisfaction, it's all that matters.

[Anonymous No.15858967]

>>15858953
thanks anon. I will.

[Anonymous No.15858991]

>>15858932
>OBE, NDE or astraly projected
Are you retarded? You go to sleep every night and your brain is capable of creating entire realities out of nothing, what you are describing are illusions, no different from dreaming or taking psychedelics, just chemical reactions making an image

[Anonymous No.15859045]

>>15857111
>Because the more I look into it, the more convinced I am that consciousness is created by the physical brain and once the brain dies, our consciousness also dies. This makes things like the mind-body problem very easy to solve.
The only mysterious thing about this is why this isn't common knowledge.

[Anonymous No.15859175]

>>15857276
I agree the vertiginous question is wordplay bullshit but what you are describing sounds like some Schopenhauer Will thingy. Like Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung thinking "conscious experience" while locked into a brain per person is divided and "expanding like the universe" between all that exist.

As in memories and individuality end with death but not conscious experience itself. As conscious experience itself operates on a "higher substance level"

[Barkun No.15859176]

>>15859175
This method is more adult. Perhaps too advanced for what you're thinking. There is an alternative childhood version, feeding off the parent life force (it's all done nearly for you). Appreciate the mess, all I'm saying.

[Barkun No.15859179]

>>15859175
This sim was broken, the top of the tower is bent, per se. We're missing vital nature, we have compensated capacity but it's overlook. The break got us

[Barkun No.15859181]

>>15859175
If you know about matter - zenith, try get the zenith layer break seen.

[Anonymous No.15859211]

>using words to break out of a word loop

You quite literally cant describe it, "the limits of my language are the limits of my world" -Wittgenstein

God is real btw.

[Anonymous No.15859544]

>>15858815
That would be true if it were used that way.
But you cant just say consciousness is emergent from the brain thus physicalism is true.
Thats not an argument thats an assumption

[Anonymous No.15859644]

>>15859175
>As in memories and individuality end with death but not conscious experience itself. As conscious experience itself operates on a "higher substance level"
And yet you've got zero evidence to support this

[Anonymous No.15859695]

>>15857111
Boltzmann brain, last thursday-ism, I think therefore I am, there's a million ways to come to the conclusion that you are more than your physical brain, or at the very least, that your reality isn't nearly as tangible and certain as you'd like it to be. However, short of you actually bothering to investigate the millenia-long field of occultism, or just killing yourself, you'll never get any real answer that isn't ultimately flawed in reasoning.

[Anonymous No.15860404]

>>15858953
This. Though I would add that you can be confident that all the mainstream religions are wrong.