Life after death
Discussion
Read an article in the paper this morning on a new Netflix series on life after death. I won’t be watching as such programs usually irritate me with their wishy-washy approach, allowing people to make spectacular claims without pushing them to provide sufficient evidence (on the basis that outrageous claims demand outrageous evidence).
I struggle to see how anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of science could believe in life after death. Makes about as much sense as believing in witches or faeries.
I struggle to see how anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of science could believe in life after death. Makes about as much sense as believing in witches or faeries.
At a purely scientific level, the issue with death is that we haven't yet been able to precisely define what life actually is!
Honestly, this is one of the unsolved scientific problems of our time.
We broadly understand the biology and bio-chemistry that makes live, er, alive, but we can't precisely define why or what.
That makes the question of "life after death" somewhat difficult, because we haven't sorted out the life bit yet...........
Honestly, this is one of the unsolved scientific problems of our time.
We broadly understand the biology and bio-chemistry that makes live, er, alive, but we can't precisely define why or what.
That makes the question of "life after death" somewhat difficult, because we haven't sorted out the life bit yet...........
Max_Torque said:
At a purely scientific level, the issue with death is that we haven't yet been able to precisely define what life actually is!
Honestly, this is one of the unsolved scientific problems of our time.
We broadly understand the biology and bio-chemistry that makes live, er, alive, but we can't precisely define why or what.
That makes the question of "life after death" somewhat difficult, because we haven't sorted out the life bit yet...........
I understood the definition of life was simple. Reproduction.Honestly, this is one of the unsolved scientific problems of our time.
We broadly understand the biology and bio-chemistry that makes live, er, alive, but we can't precisely define why or what.
That makes the question of "life after death" somewhat difficult, because we haven't sorted out the life bit yet...........
eldar said:
I understood the definition of life was simple. Reproduction.
At a macro scale, that’s right. Reproduction, consumption of energy, excretion of waste, response to stimulus - all signs of life. But at a micro scale, what actually makes us alive? We understand how the brain works, but we can’t wire one up and just “make it alive”. We can’t even meaningfully simulate it in software.
For the avoidance of doubt, I think that life is just mind bending amounts of complex chemistry, rather than some religious concept.
Esceptico said:
Read an article in the paper this morning on a new Netflix series on life after death. I won’t be watching as such programs usually irritate me with their wishy-washy approach, allowing people to make spectacular claims without pushing them to provide sufficient evidence (on the basis that outrageous claims demand outrageous evidence).
I struggle to see how anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of science could believe in life after death. Makes about as much sense as believing in witches or faeries.
Our scientific understanding of life is tiny. We cant create life (apart from reproduction) and our scientific understanding of death is mostly biological.I struggle to see how anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of science could believe in life after death. Makes about as much sense as believing in witches or faeries.
I guess why dismiss it with our limited knowledge. Otherwise this is it!
Esceptico said:
Read an article in the paper this morning on a new Netflix series on life after death. I won’t be watching as such programs usually irritate me with their wishy-washy approach, allowing people to make spectacular claims without pushing them to provide sufficient evidence (on the basis that outrageous claims demand outrageous evidence).
I struggle to see how anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of science could believe in life after death. Makes about as much sense as believing in witches or faeries.
I've never understood how a scientist can say there isn't life after dead. Of course there is life after dead. Everything that makes you, you is reused. there is only a finite energy and matter resource on this planet and it is continually recycled.I struggle to see how anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of science could believe in life after death. Makes about as much sense as believing in witches or faeries.
If you mean taking your consciousness from one construction to the next then I agree, Far more likely you will be re-constructed as inanimate rather than sentient.
However if you are reconstructed as sentient then the way that brain is constructed gives to a programmed start with some of the knowledge of the species you have been constructed as, which I guess is a form of reincarnation.
Logically I have told be wife when I die I want to be cremated, and then sprinkled on food and ingested. No point being buried as the length of time it will take for me to be broken down and then back into the food chain to be merged with a sentient being would just be wasted time.
I suspect though she might sprinkle me on our cats food rather than hers.
"What does Reincarnation mean?"
A guy once asked his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Your life has reached its end.
They comb you hair, and wash you neck,
And clean your fingernails,
And lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails."
"The box and you goes in a hole,
That's been dug into the ground.
Reincarnation then starts when
You’re planted beneath a mound.
Those clods melt down, just like your box,
And you who is inside.
And then you’re just beginning on
Your transformation ride."
"In a while, the grass'll grow
Upon your rendered mound.
Till some day on your worn out grave
A lonely flower’s found.
And say a horse should wander by
And graze upon this flower
That once was you, but now's become
Your vegetative power."
"The flower that the horse did eat
And with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed,
But some is left that he can't use
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground
This thing, that once was you."
"Then say, by chance, I wander by
And see this upon the ground,
And I ponder, and I wonder at,
This object that I found.
I think of reincarnation,
Of life and death, and such,
And come away concluding: mate,
You ain't changed all that much
A guy once asked his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Your life has reached its end.
They comb you hair, and wash you neck,
And clean your fingernails,
And lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails."
"The box and you goes in a hole,
That's been dug into the ground.
Reincarnation then starts when
You’re planted beneath a mound.
Those clods melt down, just like your box,
And you who is inside.
And then you’re just beginning on
Your transformation ride."
"In a while, the grass'll grow
Upon your rendered mound.
Till some day on your worn out grave
A lonely flower’s found.
And say a horse should wander by
And graze upon this flower
That once was you, but now's become
Your vegetative power."
"The flower that the horse did eat
And with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed,
But some is left that he can't use
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground
This thing, that once was you."
"Then say, by chance, I wander by
And see this upon the ground,
And I ponder, and I wonder at,
This object that I found.
I think of reincarnation,
Of life and death, and such,
And come away concluding: mate,
You ain't changed all that much
rxe said:
At a macro scale, that’s right. Reproduction, consumption of energy, excretion of waste, response to stimulus - all signs of life.
But at a micro scale, what actually makes us alive? We understand how the brain works, but we can’t wire one up and just “make it alive”. We can’t even meaningfully simulate it in software.
For the avoidance of doubt, I think that life is just mind bending amounts of complex chemistry, rather than some religious concept.
Is a virus “alive”?But at a micro scale, what actually makes us alive? We understand how the brain works, but we can’t wire one up and just “make it alive”. We can’t even meaningfully simulate it in software.
For the avoidance of doubt, I think that life is just mind bending amounts of complex chemistry, rather than some religious concept.
You cannot kill a virus but you can kill a bacteria
TUS373 said:
eldar said:
A virus reproduces, hence alive. Been a bit of that in the news recently.....
No. Viruses are not alive. For starters, it is cells that get infected that get hijacked that amplify the virion. https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-i...
While the hard problem of consciousness still exists, I’m open to the idea that the brain is a receiver rather than the originator of consciousness. That would make life after death possible. But it’s clearly my fear of death that drives my optimism.
In a world where eyeballs are the only commodity, this kind of woo woo s
te performs.
In a world where eyeballs are the only commodity, this kind of woo woo s
te performs.Chebble said:
TUS373 said:
eldar said:
A virus reproduces, hence alive. Been a bit of that in the news recently.....
No. Viruses are not alive. For starters, it is cells that get infected that get hijacked that amplify the virion. https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-i...
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