[Alan McDougall (OP)]

Can the final frontier death be solved scientifically?

Alan

[RD]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Near_death_experience
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Afterlife

If there is an afterlife it's going to be very crowded,
particularly if it includes all the dinosaurs who have ever lived.

It's not a harmless to entertain the idea that afterlife is possible :
belief in afterlife is an essential component in some suicides & murders,
the deaths would not have occurred otherwise.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Near_death_experience
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Afterlife

If there is an afterlife it's going to be very crowded,
particularly if it includes all the dinosaurs who have ever lived.

That is a stupid statement, the universe is almost infinitely vast and it would be possible to give every dinosaur that ever lived a billion planets each with taking up .0000000000000000001% of the universe!

[RD]

That is a stupid statement

It was an attempt at humour, ( BTW are insects allowed in heaven ?, collectively they would have a greater biomass than all the dinosaurs ).

... the universe is almost infinitely vast ...

If mediums can communicate with the dead without an obvious propagation delay, then the afterlife must be closer than the moon  []

Dreams & hallucinations which include deceased persons give people the idea there is an afterlife , but there is no objective evidence for its existence.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

That is a stupid statement

It was an attempt at humour, ( BTW are insects allowed in heaven ?, collectively they would have a greater biomass than all the dinosaurs ).

... the universe is almost infinitely vast ...

If mediums can communicate with the dead without an obvious propagation delay, then the afterlife must be closer than the moon  []

Dreams & hallucinations which include deceased persons give people the idea there is an afterlife , but there is no objective evidence for its existence.

Nearly 8,000 posts yet I get this inanity from you? You can do better?

[puppypower]

The human brain has two centers of consciousness. The inner self is the center of the unconscious mind. The inner self is also the center of consciousness that animals use; instincts. Humans also have a secondary center, called the ego, which is the center of the conscious mind.

The brain participates in cellular differentiation control, through sensory nerves near all our cells; two way communication, with the inner self in charge of that task; mainframe part of the brain.

The energy needed for the secondary; ego, comes from the inner self. The ego sort of diverts energy from the inner self, that could theoretically be used by the inner self, to extend life, through better cellular differentiation control.

As an analogy, say your car; inner self, gets say 30 MPG and you can make it to Disney on 3 tanks. The ego is like a trailer you are pulling. This trailer is important because it has your supplies for camping; individuality. However, you can no longer reach your goal in just 3 tanks, because the trailer lowers your range.

The last frontier will be how can you make it to Disney on three tanks, while still pulling the trailer? This may extend life to 150-500 years. Maybe we should not take as much stuff or use more compact stuff. We may need to make sure the tires are new and properly inflated. Maybe we can add aerodynamics to the trailer, and eve tweak the car so it is more fuel efficient. Maybe we can even create hybrid technology where the trailer is built into the car.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

The human brain has two centers of consciousness. The inner self is the center of the unconscious mind. The inner self is also the center of consciousness that animals use; instincts. Humans also have a secondary center, called the ego, which is the center of the conscious mind.

The brain participates in cellular differentiation control, through sensory nerves near all our cells; two way communication, with the inner self in charge of that task; mainframe part of the brain.

The energy needed for the secondary; ego, comes from the inner self. The ego sort of diverts energy from the inner self, that could theoretically be used by the inner self, to extend life, through better cellular differentiation control.

As an analogy, say your car; inner self, gets say 30 MPG and you can make it to Disney on 3 tanks. The ego is like a trailer you are pulling. This trailer is important because it has your supplies for camping; individuality. However, you can no longer reach your goal in just 3 tanks, because the trailer lowers your range.

The last frontier will be how can you make it to Disney on three tanks, while still pulling the trailer? This may extend life to 150-500 years. Maybe we should not take as much stuff or use more compact stuff. We may need to make sure the tires are new and properly inflated. Maybe we can add aerodynamics to the trailer, and eve tweak the car so it is more fuel efficient. Maybe we can even create hybrid technology where the trailer is built into the car.

The propose of the thread was not about extending the life span extension of the human body, but about consciousness, in one form or the other surviving the total death of the organism?

[kasparovitch]

I am not supporting any theory, just participating in trying to answer this question.

According to Dualism, consciousness depends on a substance different from the brain and thus might survive death.

The nature of that substance is something unsettled, as well as the quantity and quality of consciousness that remains after the material component is totally lost.

Until any form of consciousness is created in a laboratory, however simple it is, and this is not even in its pre-embryonic phase, Dualism cannot be discarded or refuted.

I am devising a mental experiment, something like the Chinese room by Searle, to show that Dualism cannot be excluded by just showing that mental actions depend on neural activity and that showing that by destroying a brain area, specific mental functions are lost is as much a strong proof against Dualism as demonstrating that muscular function is lost by cutting a nerve.

My recommended lecture: Damasio's Error and Descartes' Truth by Andrew Gluck. University of Scranton Press. Scranton and London. 2007.

[JimBob]

It  cannot be avoided.  Entropy can be blamed.

Life is combined of ordered chemical processes.