I believe that, if there IS an afterlife, going about it by keeping the “paranormal” in mind is the wrong approach. (Going forward, I will state my position using the Assumption that the afterlife exists, so I don’t want to hear “oh you’re so naïve” or blah blah, because I’m simply stating the case, not an affirmed belief.)
I believe the possibility for the afterlife could be best evidenced from our, as yet, insufficient understanding of the origin of consciousness. The popular belief is that consciousness stems from development of the brain and a cognitive function that starts from “0,” at the time of our conception. This is probably (and most likely) the case, but there is the possibility that the human brain is simply the medium for connecting an infinite consciousness to the bodies we inhabit. (Humor me here, for a moment.)
If this were the case (of which no scientist could, as yet, tell you with any certainty it is not) then we have to give in to the possibility of consciousness continuing after our connection to our physical bodies has been severed.
This has nothing to do with a Heaven, a Hell, a God, Angels, or anything of that nature. It is simply the mystery of sentience.
Most mainstream scientists refuse to look at the afterlife as anything but “paranormal,” so I think there are very few that realize that the ambiguity of consciousness is a Very Good canvas too look at the possibility of the afterlife, because people are constantly attaching “paranormal” terms to it, such as souls, spirits, ghosts, Heaven, Hell, etc.
As an aside, let’s look at one example of the “debunkery” of the concept of ghosts:
Here is an article that was posted on CNN. You don’t have to read the whole thing. I’ve cut out the only section that really relates to this subject:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/27/vampire.s...e.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It may be the season for vampires, ghosts and zombies. Just remember, they're not real, warns physicist Costas Efthimiou.
Obviously, you might say.
But Efthimiou, a professor at the University of Central Florida, points to surveys that show American gullibility for the supernatural.
Using science and math, Efthimiou explains why it is ghosts can't walk among us while also gliding through walls, like Patrick Swayze in the movie "Ghost." That violates Newton's law of action and reaction. If ghosts walk, their feet apply force to the floor, but if they go through walls they are without substance, the professor says.
"So which is it? Are ghosts material or material-less?" he asks.[/b]
As soon as I read this, I was like “What?? That’s the best example of the “impossibility” of “ghosts” that a physicist chose to outline for this article? I had a rebuttal before I was even able to get through the article:
IF a “ghost” were to be looked at as the continuation of consciousness, after the death of the physical body, such an explanation wouldn’t even hold water. Consider this: What happens when we dream? Or even better, when we lucid dream? We are able to do Both: We can walk on the ground, but also pass through walls and floors as if they weren’t there. A ghost “walking among us” would walk among us because, in “life,” the person is conditioned to take the ground as a solid. When we dream (even lucidly) we walk on the ground because we are Conditioned to treat the ground as if it is really there. It is in our programming. However, putting an effort into trumping that conditioning, we are able to pass through solid objects as if they are not there. This breaks no law of action and reaction because, to a consciousness that views the dream world as simply a dream, walking on the ground is simply a habit. We are not confined to it. Using this logic, a ghost “walking” among us is not exerting force on the ground, it is creating the illusion of exerting force on the ground when it really isn’t. Therefore, whenever convenient, the ghost would be able to overturn that illusion by choosing to treat a solid as if it didn’t exist because to a consciousness not confined to physical reality, it doesn’t.
THAT, from a physicist, was a very weak argument.
Reading The Holographic Universe (I'd suggest anyone seriously interested in subjects like this to spend the $14 I did to at least check it out) provided me with more considerable arguments for the continuation of consciousness than anything I’ve read (from nearly any source I’ve come across) for its impossibility. Consider this excerpt from it:
"For Pribram the many similarities between brains and holograms were tantalizing, but he knew his theory didn't mean anything unless it was backed up by more solid evidence. One researcher who provided such evidence was Indiana University biologist Paul Pietsch. Intriguingly, pIetsch began as an ardent disbeliever in Pribram's theory. He was especially skeptical of Pribram's claim that memories do not possess any specific location in the brain.
To prove Pribram wrong, Pietsh devised a series of experiments, and as the test subjects of his experiments he chose salamanders. In previous studies he had discovered that he could remove the brain of a salamander without killing it, and although it remained in a stupor as long as the brain was missing, its behaviour completely returned to normal as soon as its brain was restored.
Pietsch reasoned that if a salamander's feeding behaviour is not confined to any specific location in the brain, then it should not matter how its brain is positioned in its head. If it did matter, Pribram's theory would be disproven. He then flip-flopped the left and right hemispheres of a salamander's brain, but to his dismay, as soon as it recovered, the salamander quickly resumed normal feeding.
He took another salamander and turned its brain upside down. When it recovered it, too, fed normally. Growing increasingly frustrated, he decided to resort to more drastic measures. In a series of over 700 operations he sliced, flipped, shuffled subtracted, and even minced the brains of his hapless subjects, but always when he replaced what was left of their brains, their behaviour returned to normal.*
These findings and others turned Pietsch into a believer and attracted enough attention that his research became the subject of a segment on the television show 60 Minutes. He writes about this experience as well as giving detailed accounts of his experiments in his insightful book Shufflebrain."
* Paul Pietsch, "Shufflebrain," Harper's Magazine 244 (May 1972), p. 66
[/b]
IF this experiment actually happened, it says A LOT. (granted, Salamanders and Humans may have a different physiology)Considering that it took So Much mutilation to the salamander’s brain before it fell into a “stupor,” but even then preserved it’s basic desire to feed, says that the connection from the cognizance of the need to feed to the ability to do so, physically, may only display the inability for that consciousness to effectively control the motor skills of the salamander. It doesn’t display that the consciousness itself was diminished in any way, whatsoever.
If the “afterlife” exists, I believe it exists simply as the continuation of an infinite consciousness – not having anything to do with souls, spirits, an astral realm, silver cords, or any other new-age/religious/paranormal terminology that people may want to attribute it to.
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