Thread: Lucidity after death?

Originally Posted by Universal Mind

I will do my best to argue for eternal lucid dreaming after death. I don't exactly all out agree with this, but here's the concept... When you die, your brain dies, but the totality of existence continues eternally. So, the universal mind, which is what all of our minds are part of, continues dreaming for eternity. The only mind is the universal mind, but it comes in many particular forms. It never dies. Therefore, your mind's particular form dies, but what your mind is does not. Where does a wave go when it crashes?

How is this helpful at all though?

Word it how you like, for all effective purposes your person dies.

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

How is this helpful at all though?

Word it how you like, for all effective purposes your person dies.

I agree with this statement. The person known as "you" ultimately parishes. Your consciousness and memories all disappear..."you" cease to exist.

What it means is that there is one mind, expressed in many different forms (one of them being you). When "you" die, that particular form is erased but what was in it (the mind, consciousness) continues on and survives the death of "you".

So really, it doesn't matter if the identity that you have now survives death...the consciousness from which you were able to experience that identity while alive is what survives, and that's what matters.

What is consciousness without a brain and experiences, though? If you forget everything at the end of your life, what good is it? Your consciousness wouldn't even remember dreaming, yet alone lucid dreaming.

Originally Posted by Captain Sleepalot

What it means is that there is one mind, expressed in many different forms (one of them being you). When "you" die, that particular form is erased but what was in it (the mind, consciousness) continues on and survives the death of "you".

So really, it doesn't matter if the identity that you have now survives death...the consciousness from which you were able to experience that identity while alive is what survives, and that's what matters.

This.. is problematic.



"the consciousness from which you were able to experience that identity while alive is what survives, and that's what matters."

You're acting as if somehow the mind is "consciousness" experiencing and looking at "your experiences and memories and personality", or your "identity". You're seperating an experiencer out of the mind, that is, you're creating a seat inside the mind "consciousness" which experiences the rest of the mind.


This, boiled down, is a theory based on a Homunculus argument. A homunculus argument is very simply a fallacy which relies on the assumption that there is some kind of "thing" within the mind "looking" at the experiences and memories created by the mind. Sadly this is fallacious as it creates a problem of infinite regress.

You aren't trying to explain the mind, I understand that, but you are proposing a theory which is based on a certain model of the mind. That model relies on a fallacy, that is the homunculus idea.

What you dub "consciousness" (which you have explicitly stated to in some form be "seperate" from the rest of the mind, see: "the consciousness from which you were able to experience that identity" ) is the problem here. You act as if the consciousness is a person who is experiencing the rest of the mind. Of course the problem then occurs that how exactly does the consciousness experience the rest of the mind, which in turn experiences the rest of the world?

Gotta quote Gilber Ryle here bro, in reference to this topic:

Originally Posted by Gilbert Ryle

According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything intelligently, his act is preceded and steered by another internal act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to his practical problem. . . . Must we then say that for the agent's . . . reflections how to act to be intelligent he must first reflect how best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion.

OK, so that isn't the easiest language to understand so I'll try and paraphrase what that quote is really about:

>The idea states that when an agent [us] does anything intelligently, his act is steered and created by another act inside our mind, which controls the exterior. You referred to this as consciousness.

>So where then do this agent's intelligent actions root from? And where do those root from in turn?

>This creates what's called an infinite regression, which is ultimately fallacious.


So consciousness should not be viewed as a 'step back' from experiences and memory of whatever else you're defining "you" as. The reason it is so easy for us to slip into this mindframe however is because we use language in a very decieving way.

That is we use words like "mind", "consciousness", "idea", "thought" in the same way we use words like "body", "driver", "book", "chair". With this model it makes it so easy to say things like, "consciousness seperate from brain" And that sentence makes perfect sense. Because it works in exactly the same way as we'd say "page seperate from book". This kind of language mix up is very very tricky and causes alot of the arguments we find.


Consciousness should not be considered a "thing". It is a massive simplification to talk as if consciousness is a thing or viewer or experiencer that somehow watches things like thoughts and memories and emotions externally. These things are not seperate. What we refer to as the mind is not a collection of things. It is a process. A process cannot be split up into seperating parts, because it is not a collection of "things". It is an entirely different animal altogether.

The stomach and surrounding organs create a process known as 'digestion'. Digestion is not a thing, like stomach or liver though. Our talk of seperating mind from brain or consciousness from identity is like saying "The digestion leaves the stomach". It is senseless, but this is hidden by language which gives it superficial sense.


You are thinking in far too a material way (believe it or not). The concept of there being "one mind" which is "split up" etc. You're using the same kind of language one would attribute to water, or beans. This cannot be done. The mind is a very unique and very special thing, and noone is fully sure how it works really. But we have ruled out over the last few hundred years in philosophy certain theories of the mind, like the cartesian model of mind and body as distinct, and by extension the model you are propogating here.


There is a mind, and that mind exists purely as a process integrated perfectly into the world around.




I'm sorry for wall of texting you, I try to avoid it, but please please read everything I've said here and try and really see where i'm coming from before responding. Let's not make this argument about "winning", rather understanding.

And just to add to Carousoul's post (which I wholly agree with)...
http://www.consciousness-brain.org/

Much research is presently being done on human consciousness and conscious thought, and we are slowly breaking it up into its component parts. There is very good evidence that the "source" of consciousness is the human mind, and very little evidence backs up the alternative(s). As our understanding of the human mind grows, I'm rather sure that we'll be able to locate the ultimate source of consciousness, and I would be extremely surprised if it originates from any source outside the human mind.

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

I'm sorry for wall of texting you, I try to avoid it, but please please read everything I've said here and try and really see where i'm coming from before responding. Let's not make this argument about "winning", rather understanding.

No no, I thank you for making such a thoughtful and in-depth reply to my post...and I am actually very much open to your ideas.

My mistake, I believe, was including the word "mind" in the same category as "consciousness". They are two separate things, though I do agree that both are products (or processes) that arise from physical organisms.

But then all of this is an argument being carried out by the inherently flawed system of language, isn't it?

To put it bluntly, though: no, the individual manifestation that is "you" can and will never be in a permanent state of lucidity after physical death because so much of what is considered "you" is dependent on physical manifestations.

Lucidity, however, will continue, and be born anew with each new physical being that is created and fully manifested into this world.

Originally Posted by yuriythebest

well, buddhists believe that if you "gain lucidity" after death by realizing you are dead and everything around you is actually part of you/generated by you then you can achieve the state of nirvana

Exactly. The brain is just an interface that connects our mind to the perceived world, but our bodies are ultimately just our mind's projection, not the ultimate reality. People believe too much in the real-ness of their bodies.
Dying is just like changing dreams. You actually enter a dreamless state for a while and if your mind is not trained to stay there and recognize it as your true nature, then you fall into a kind of hypnagogic imagery and you end up choosing a dream (a life) and enter it again and again.
Mind is not generated by brain, brain is generated by mind. Only if you perceive things from this perspective, life and death, dreams, lucid dreams and shared dreams, will start making sense. There's no other theory around that can explain all of this.

The key question is "What is belief?" Is it any arrangement of words that one pleases, or is there a convention, independent of man, which establishes an order?

Can a name be conventionalized without any referent?

The answer is obvious, however, why is it never used as a reference point for those daydreaming gibberish?

DOA.

Our mind projects our body, but then it must also project all perceptual data, nice way of saying "I am God!" Wow, welcome to the microwave injury ward. Life is an exercise in mental masturbation, wonderful.

Amazing how someone can talk about that which is unknowable but cannot say anything worth shit about what is under their own nose.

A claim that reality is our own projection, means that one is the stupidest thing in creation, as one never knows anything other than these self inflicted projections. So, I will grant that in this case as it is impossible, from the very premises to perceive anything at all.

Is there some kind of contest in the Universe, Who can create the most fanciful self-referential fallacy? Or the most effective potion to insure brain death?

There are so many ways to express the worship of one's own death, the question is Why would anyone have any desire what so ever to do it?

Originally Posted by Majestic

Dannon, I've always linked this too:

1.) conscious
2.) subconscious
3.) unconscious/ collective unconscious/ collective subconscious

Being aware of all three could be considered "Nirvana", or universal consciousness, but is extremely hard to do seeing as how deep and long you must meditate.

Which raises a question, why DO we continue to sleep so deeply that we are unaware during a dreaming state?

It seems to work the reverse way with melatonin, the less melatonin, the less deep the sleep, the more aware you are. Hence why it's easier to recall dreams with melatonin.

I'm thinking this has something to do with mental AND physical stress and fatigue over the years?

What's also interesting is that scientific evidence confirms that memory doesn't reside in one area of the brain. The mind might actually exist within a morphogenic field. From Sheldrake:



It doesn't surprise me this isn't mainstream.

My theory is that we dream every second we are asleep, even in deep sleep. In those dreams we are unaware of the physical, but totally of the dream state. Those are more like the state of being in 'the afterlife.'

So, now let us ask ourselves, "What is the difference between mind and brain?"

Theres no theory that can be put to this. Its common sense isnt it? Your brain stops functioning the moment you die. Thats it. Nothing can happen in the brain once its dead. You explain this as if lucid dreaming is another world. When its not. Its all in your brain.

Originally Posted by Lucidness

Its all in your brain.

I would say you gave a compliment.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

So, now let us ask ourselves, "What is the difference between mind and brain?"

Manipulation : manipulatative system:: Mind : Brain.

Mapping : Ocular system :: Mind : Brain.

Body sustenance : Digestive System :: Mind : Brain.

Or, by definition which includes all of the 'sacred' seven.

An environmental acquisition system of the human body is that system which must acquire something from the environment, process that which it has acquired for a product that maintains and promotes the life of the body.

Plug in mind,

The environmental acquisition system of the human body which must abstract from experiences with the environment those forms of human behavior such that that behavior maintains and promotes the life of the body.

Or the Mystery of the Beast 666

"To shutter (regulate the coming and going of self) so as to turn the past into the future and bring the future to pass."

The mind can only perform this function when it knows, in a metaphor, The Spirit of Truth.

Why not ask what is the difference between seeing and the eyes. shit.

I Dont understand what you mean by that philosopher.

Originally Posted by Lucidness

I Dont understand what you mean by that philosopher.

Nobody really does. I'm guessing he's saying the mind is the product of the brain, much like seeing is the product of the eyes. I agree with that statement.

But the mind and the brain and eyes are not seperative thing's. There not detached lol. Unless you mean it in a metaphorical way.

Read Rupert Sheldrake and what physics say about conscience being in the origin of all we consider real, including our bodies and brain. Materialism is such an outdated paradigm.

Originally Posted by Mario92

Nobody really does. I'm guessing he's saying the mind is the product of the brain, much like seeing is the product of the eyes. I agree with that statement.

His polarities are founded less on the dichotomy of action and object than upon the enshrinement in some fundamental, ontological strata, of the duality of sacred v. profane. This approach posits that the majority of experience as incarnate entities (to say nothing of all that occurs at a distance from conventional sentience) is 'fallen,' and requires 'The Word,' and in this case a most rarefied version, 'The True Word,' a grammar accessible to only the most dedicated pursuants, to render it into the keyhole glimmer of true-seeing attainable in this world. It's Plato's Cave taken to the point of absurdity, with the added absurdity that the light paints a specific narrative on the walls.

That does not at all follow from the Law of Conservation. The "electrical energy" in your brain (which is hardly much more significant than the electrical energy in the rest of your body) will be conserved in the sense that it will not literally wink out of existence. This is also true of the heat contained in your body. However, once it is evaporated into the capacitance of the world around you, it will be impossible for that energy to represent anything like human consciousness.

Your consciousness is, as far as we can tell, an emergent phenomenon arising from the complex interplay of neurons, the individual cells making up your brain, which are themselves quite complex. Without that tremendous superstructure, there is no reason to think that energy would be "you," anymore than the waste heat generated by your body's decomposition would be "you."

If that were true, it would mean that our understanding of the world is so utterly flawed, that you may as well not appeal to science at all.

EDIT: Somehow I forgot to go to the next page. I thought I was replying to THIS post:

Originally Posted by slash112

We were actually talking about the electrical energy in the brain (the signals which make us think).

That in fact makes it very possible.

Originally Posted by immaia

Read Rupert Sheldrake and what physics say about conscience being in the origin of all we consider real, including our bodies and brain. Materialism is such an outdated paradigm.

I am willing to acknowledge a debate about the validity of materialism, but Sheldrake's reasons for opposing it are not the legitimate reasons one might find in an honest and academic discussion. Also, it is only his opinion that Materialism is "outdated."

Anyone who accuses skeptics of being "dogmatic" either doesn't know what the word "dogma" means, or doesn't understand skepticism. That, or he is being cynical and dishonest, but I never assume malice when ignorance will do.

What if your eternal dream was only an instant? Like, dreams are like that aren't they. They are really short but time can pass by in dream time in a different way than time does outside of the dream world. So rather than worrying about matter, or the possible usage of the brain maybe its just a matter of that instant, though only being an instant is in itself eternal, but only to you.

Originally Posted by Trods

What if your eternal dream was only an instant? Like, dreams are like that aren't they. They are really short but time can pass by in dream time in a different way than time does outside of the dream world. So rather than worrying about matter, or the possible usage of the brain maybe its just a matter of that instant, though only being an instant is in itself eternal, but only to you.

actually, research has found that dream time and real time are virtually identical.

This^

It can sometimes seem as though dreams last longer than the time which passes while you have them because of the discontinuity of dream events, and because of false memories.

I remember one dream I had that, as I woke up, I thought I had been in for about two weeks, but in fact I only experienced about three minutes or so of dream dime, but the dream started with vague memories of having been in that location for a long time.

Many times, because there is no real explanation for how you get from one location/situation to a totally different one in the same dream, your brain just assumes that there was some length of time during which you transitioned, even if that wasn't the case.