What do you think happens when we die?

[MuddyBoots]

One possible avenue is to investigate out of body experiences (OBEs) or astral travelling, where people claim to leave their body whilst alive and to not only visit other places on earth, but other astral realms where spirits of the dead are also present. The problem is that these (like near-death experiences) are subjective and don't provide objective evidence to convince sceptics and scientists (although there may be some research into remote viewing, and there's reports that intelligence agencies have experimented with it.)

I've had a couple of OBEs myself, clear enough to make me open to the possibility of life after death and other dimensions but of course I can't prove that it wasn't some kind of dream.

[stewamax]

These are, of course, near-death experiences. What happens after death may be completely different.

[1nvest]

Grey's never die. They at worst just roll back to their last backup (upload of their consciousness).

Biological life evolves according to its environment. Environments are varying and unstable and AI (advanced intelligent life) would have to evolve into a technological life in order to realistically survive/travel. 100 light years journeys for a device that can slow its internal clock to one tick per year ... is less than a 2 minute journey away.

To expand outward involves initial subliminal/slow speeds, but once reached might have others conveyed at light (communications) speed. Fire a small device at high subliminal speed, that upon arrival is designed to construct a 'replicator and communicator' and thereafter things/beings might also be conveyed at light speed to that location.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element throughout the universe. Metal hydrogen has never been seen, but if scientists make it they'd be able to conduct electricity without resistance, or have a superfluid that defies gravity. Room temperature superconductivity. Believed to exist inside giant planets like Jupiter the closest that scientist come has been to squeeze hydrogen between two pieces of diamond and seen it transform into a lustrous, shiny thing - what you expect for a metal. Predictions suggest metal hydrogen may even be metastable - remaining solid even after the crushing pressure is removed.

The commonly believed grey alien bodies are ... basic/simple humanoid containers formed according to our local biology/environment. Others might take the form of a dolphin or suchlike. Initially a empty vessel that then has a conscious 'uploaded' to it from a distance at light speed communication speeds. Its memories/diary are then recorded and the conscious 'downloaded' and communicated back. For such AI there is no death, as are distances trivial. Biological life such as humans ... are seen as trivial/irrelevant, of passing interest, little different to a nest of ants. Ants may have their own ant-heaven and believe their soul moves into some other plane. AI might feel no need to believe in such religious matters. But belief and communities are a good thing for biological beings - helping others. Just a shame that so many have died in arguments about which belief/religion is the 'better'. Very much like fleas arguing about which flea owns the dog.

[BellaHubby]

Grey's never die. They at worst just roll back to their last backup (upload of their consciousness).

Biological life evolves according to its environment. Environments are varying and unstable and AI (advanced intelligent life) would have to evolve into a technological life in order to realistically survive/travel. 100 light years journeys for a device that can slow its internal clock to one tick per year ... is less than a 2 minute journey away.

To expand outward involves initial subliminal/slow speeds, but once reached might have others conveyed at light (communications) speed. Fire a small device at high subliminal speed, that upon arrival is designed to construct a 'replicator and communicator' and thereafter things/beings might also be conveyed at light speed to that location.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element throughout the universe. Metal hydrogen has never been seen, but if scientists make it they'd be able to conduct electricity without resistance, or have a superfluid that defies gravity. Room temperature superconductivity. Believed to exist inside giant planets like Jupiter the closest that scientist come has been to squeeze hydrogen between two pieces of diamond and seen it transform into a lustrous, shiny thing - what you expect for a metal. Predictions suggest metal hydrogen may even be metastable - remaining solid even after the crushing pressure is removed.

The commonly believed grey alien bodies are ... basic/simple humanoid containers formed according to our local biology/environment. Others might take the form of a dolphin or suchlike. Initially a empty vessel that then has a conscious 'uploaded' to it from a distance at light speed communication speeds. Its memories/diary are then recorded and the conscious 'downloaded' and communicated back. For such AI there is no death, as are distances trivial. Biological life such as humans ... are seen as trivial/irrelevant, of passing interest, little different to a nest of ants. Ants may have their own ant-heaven and believe their soul moves into some other plane. AI might feel no need to believe in such religious matters. But belief and communities are a good thing for biological beings - helping others. Just a shame that so many have died in arguments about which belief/religion is the 'better'. Very much like fleas arguing about which flea owns the dog.

Which AI tool did you copy that from?

bh

[ursaminortaur]

One possible avenue is to investigate out of body experiences (OBEs) or astral travelling, where people claim to leave their body whilst alive and to not only visit other places on earth, but other astral realms where spirits of the dead are also present. The problem is that these (like near-death experiences) are subjective and don't provide objective evidence to convince sceptics and scientists (although there may be some research into remote viewing, and there's reports that intelligence agencies have experimented with it.)

I've had a couple of OBEs myself, clear enough to make me open to the possibility of life after death and other dimensions but of course I can't prove that it wasn't some kind of dream.

There have been tests of out of body experiences in hospitals where patients reported floating near the ceiling and seeing themselves. The researches had placed pictures and other objects on top of high cabinets which would be visible from such a vantage point. As far as I am aware although the patients reported the experience none were able to report seeing any of those pictures or other objects.

[mtk62]

If I remember rightly the objects that they placed on the cabinets were unusual ones - designed to be striking and memorable.
I.e. they were designed to make somebody notice them and think "what's that doing in a hospital?".
I think that these were placed in A&E scenarios - i.e. resuscitation rooms.
Nobody resuscitated mentioned them.

[abbeymeadster]

I remember reading about that test in resuscitation rooms too. Clearly the implication is that although people are experiencing out-of-body sensations near death, their "souls" or whatever aren't actually leaving their bodies otherwise they'd be able to see the items high up.

I have had a number of out-of-body experiences at the start of a migraine. I sense myself leaving my body and watching myself from a high position up above. It's very odd because it feels that I can no longer control my body, it's more like watching a film. There's a disconnect between my thinking self floating up above and my body down below. Sometimes it comes with a very strong sense of deja vu, in that I will know exactly what will be said or done in the next few minutes.

I've always assumed it's to do with bad brain wiring / electrical misfunction in a migraine and I guess the same thing happens near death when the person's brain is shutting down.

[kernelthread]

This guy - supposedly the "smartest man in the world" - thinks he knows:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... ction.html

Some of his papers are here:

https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/ ... e/618/1040
https://www.scribd.com/doc/159745643/Ch ... o-the-CTMU

There's also a longer PDF around, although I can't find that any more. It may have been withdrawn since I notice he now has a book for sale on Amazon.
I have to say when I read the paper (well, some of it - I can't say I made it all the way through) it came across as gobbledegook, but maybe someone else can make sense of it.

[CliffEdge]

My Uncle Jim, who had an IQ somewhere between 301 and 347, claimed that he had determined the answer to the question "Is there life after death?" and couldn't really understand why it vexed so many people as it was really rather obvious. He was a smart man and determined his own IQ from a test in Tit-Bits magazine which he always read assiduously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit-Bits

(Strange synchronicity as this magisterial publication was in many ways a forerunner inter alia of the Daily Mail etc.)

[stewamax]

To backtrack, OP asked What do you think happens when we die? – not what do we think (or observe) happens when we nearly die.
In earlier posts (please forgive my repetition) I was trying to stress that we may not be able to think constructively about this because there is no human analogy of the state after death, although there is ample clinical evidence of the dying process itself.

There are already descriptions – but only in mathematical terms – of (possible) origins of the universe that are impossible to explain in a non-mathematical way. Whether, for example, Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology is correct, no-one knows, but it is something of which we cannot conceive outside of the maths. There are many other examples from both cosmology and quantum mechanics.

So we already have states and processes to which we cannot relate because we have not evolved to relate to them. Maybe thousands of years hence our brains will have evolved to understand (not just use) quantum mechanics, for example.
At that point we may also be able to relate to what happens after death, but at present we can’t.

[ReformedCharacter]

I recently read 'Lucid Dying' by Sam Parnia, it doesn't answer the question 'What happens after we die?' but does address the question as per the OP 'What happens when we die?' It suggests that death does not exactly coincide with the loss of heart function and is a more complex process than we had imagined.

Book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lucid-Dying-Science-Revolutionizing-Understand/dp/0306831287

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl_DxGHR3Z0

RC

[GoSeigen]

The very formulation of the question prevents it from being answered successfully.

"...we..."

That conspiratorial little word beloved of nationalism, racism and religion. Implicit is the idea that there is something special about "us" which elevates us above "them".

I don't like starting from that premise. This is how I think about it: "What happens to a living organism when it dies?" -- and as homo sapiens is merely one unremarkable species among millions I doubt the answer need be particularly profound (it's pretty neatly encapsulated in the last line of this post).

I'd say about as much happens to "us" as happens to an ant that has been trodden on or to a flower that withers in the drought or to a bacterium encountering an antibiotic. Religion-derived notions of consciousness and souls are self-aggrandising deception.


GS

[stewamax]

Implicit is the idea that there is something special about "us" which elevates us above "them"....I'd say about as much happens to "us" as happens to an ant that has been trodden on or to a flower that withers in the drought or to a bacterium encountering an antibiotic.

What may differentiate us is that 'we' (homo sapiens) can ask the question. As far as we know, neither ants, nor flowers nor bacteria can.
Whether this materially affects the dying process is unknown: bacteria may have NDEs but cannot tell us, although perhaps tell other bacteria.

[ReformedCharacter]

The very formulation of the question prevents it from being answered successfully.

"...we..."

That conspiratorial little word beloved of nationalism, racism and religion. Implicit is the idea that there is something special about "us" which elevates us above "them".

GS

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

RC

[CliffEdge]

The very formulation of the question prevents it from being answered successfully.

"...we..."

That conspiratorial little word beloved of nationalism, racism and religion. Implicit is the idea that there is something special about "us" which elevates us above "them".

I don't like starting from that premise. This is how I think about it: "What happens to a living organism when it dies?" -- and as homo sapiens is merely one unremarkable species among millions I doubt the answer need be particularly profound (it's pretty neatly encapsulated in the last line of this post).

I'd say about as much happens to "us" as happens to an ant that has been trodden on or to a flower that withers in the drought or to a bacterium encountering an antibiotic. Religion-derived notions of consciousness and souls are self-aggrandising deception.


GS

Interesting belief.

[GoSeigen]

Implicit is the idea that there is something special about "us" which elevates us above "them"....I'd say about as much happens to "us" as happens to an ant that has been trodden on or to a flower that withers in the drought or to a bacterium encountering an antibiotic.

What may differentiate us is that 'we' (homo sapiens) can ask the question. As far as we know, neither ants, nor flowers nor bacteria can.
Whether this materially affects the dying process is unknown: bacteria may have NDEs but cannot tell us, although perhaps tell other bacteria.

You mean humans have well enough developed language to communicate with each other about it? I've no doubt many other organisms ask the question and return the same answer as we do, even if we haven't experienced them telling it to us: "A discontinuation of my ability to reproduce and care for my progeny -- I don't want to die yet, I will strive to survive."

We humans love to think ourselves superior than our sibling and cousin species, and even fundamentally different ("conscious", "spiritual", "able to reason", "in the image of god" etc) when there is no rational reason to believe so.


GS

[scrumpyjack]

We humans love to think ourselves superior than our sibling and cousin species, and even fundamentally different ("conscious", "spiritual", "able to reason", "in the image of god" etc) when there is no rational reason to believe so.


GS

Quite so, and from this irrational belief comes religion, the essence of which is 'faith' which by definition is believing something without any evidence.
In the view of many religion has been an extremely destructive force throughout human history and continues to be so in many parts of the world.

[CliffEdge]

We humans love to think ourselves superior than our sibling and cousin species, and even fundamentally different ("conscious", "spiritual", "able to reason", "in the image of god" etc) when there is no rational reason to believe so.


GS

Rubbish.

[ReformedCharacter]

Quite so, and from this irrational belief comes religion, the essence of which is 'faith' which by definition is believing something without any evidence.
In the view of many religion has been an extremely destructive force throughout human history and continues to be so in many parts of the world.

I don't believe that humans are inherently rational, although some like to delude themselves that they are. Perhaps it's fair to say we all believe things 'on faith', things that we accept to be 'true' but cannot prove for ourselves individually, such as the existence of quarks.

Religion often gets blamed for people doing bad things yet people with no religious faith do them too, obvious examples being Stalin, Mao etc. Wouldn't it be fair to say that bad people do bad things and some of them do bad things in the name of religion?

RC

[Bubblesofearth]

To backtrack, OP asked What do you think happens when we die? – not what do we think (or observe) happens when we nearly die.
In earlier posts (please forgive my repetition) I was trying to stress that we may not be able to think constructively about this because there is no human analogy of the state after death, although there is ample clinical evidence of the dying process itself.

There are already descriptions – but only in mathematical terms – of (possible) origins of the universe that are impossible to explain in a non-mathematical way. Whether, for example, Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology is correct, no-one knows, but it is something of which we cannot conceive outside of the maths. There are many other examples from both cosmology and quantum mechanics.

So we already have states and processes to which we cannot relate because we have not evolved to relate to them. Maybe thousands of years hence our brains will have evolved to understand (not just use) quantum mechanics, for example.
At that point we may also be able to relate to what happens after death, but at present we can’t.

Brain evolution may be slow but the evolution (development if you prefer) of AI has been, and will likely continue to be, very rapid. I'm in the same camp as Douglas Adams when he wrote about the computer 'deep thought'. IMO brains and computers are both information processing machines and there is no a priori reason why computers cannot be designed to emulate, and one day far surpass, brains in this area. Maybe those computers will be able to give us an answer to many questions we have, including what, if anything, happens after death.

BoE