Death doesn't make sense according to physics

I don't see how death makes any sense within the laws of physics. We are energy in state of decoherence. So how does your energy die? In order to show that we die you would have to prove 2 things within the laws of physics.

A) That energy can die.

B) That your something other than energy.

If you can't counter these 2 things within the laws of physics, then how can you say we die?

You can say death is an experience just like getting married or having a child but you can't say that our energy doesn't survive the experience of death. That doesn't make sense in light of the laws of physics.

Our energy is generated by chemical reactions within the "meat" you inhabit. When the chemical reactions stop, the generation of electrical impulses stop. And that is what death is.

Since our consciousness is generated within the brain by the electrical firing of neurons, when the neurons stop firing, the consciousness is also extinguished.

There is no afterlife that we know of, and physics can't prove or disprove of this nature. Science does not deal with the supernatural, only that which can be observed and measured.

There's nothing supernatural about death. The only reason why we call it supernatural is because we don't fully understand it. If you were to go back 2,000 years ago and clone a sheep, that would be called a supernatural event.

Life after death occurs naturally. The "meat" that you occupy is energy in a state of decoherence. So again, if energy can't be created nor destroyed, how can your energy die?

I get the feeling you're trying to conflate some sort of Blavatsky-ite definition of energy and the physics definition of energy, which is an unfortunate side-effect of paranormalists using scientific terms.

When you say "we are energy in a state of de-coherence", what does that mean to you? It's tough to answer your question coherently otherwise, pun intended.

I've seen you post this statement before but it doesn't have any real meaning to me, and I actually do this stuff for a living. It looks like you're sort of combining some poorly-understood quantum physics with mysticism, in a string of what look to me to be non-sequiturs. For example:

"We also have the Louis deBroglie who showed that matter has a wave-like nature and he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in physics and it was later proven by Thomson and Davisson. So we have a wave that doesn't die when we die it just transitions to a different energy state."

The first non-sequitur of course, is that you are reading deBroglie with maybe .01% understanding, seeing this "wave" word, equating it with some Blavatsky-ish "wave" or "energy", and claiming some part of your being is a wave of this nature. The mistake may be a natural one, Blavatsky and her contemporaries arrogated a number of scientific terms in order to try to associate their beliefs with science. But matter waves and consciousness aren't related, and nothing says your "spirit" or whathaveyou has a wave-like nature of any sort. So that's an unwarranted assumption, IMO. Finally, you have another non-sequitur in that having made the assumption that some part of your being is 'a wave', that it will behave in the same way as another unrelated phenomenon's 'wave' does.

That's a lot of wild unsupportable leaps.

The short answer of course, is that the energy is sitting right there in your corpus. It's chock full of chemical energy. That's why you rot - lots of critters find you a marvelous source of energy, and eat you.

The longer answer would entail actually explaining deBroglie waves, which is more than likely a fruitless task.

Why not reach a philosophical understanding of your mortality based on philosophy, and not try to bring science in as proof? Because if you're going to do that properly, it's a long row to hoe - you really need to understand physics and biology first, and even then you're going to have to answer "what is the nature of consciousness, the spirit, and the soul - in terms of physics", not just using terms FROM physics, there's a difference.

From what I've seen of it, you can't get any two scientists to agree. It ranges from "you just THINK you're thinking, there is no consciousness at all" to "you are a receiver for some other quantum process" at the other. They all have flaws - for example the quantum process one (Tipler, I think) is pretty Cartesian and ends up with the same regression issue you end up with "homunculi" - and the only answers end up very similar to it being turtles all the way down.

Again, I'm not trying to conflate anything. It's very simple. The 1st law of Thermodynamics states, energy can't be created nor destroyed.

So when you born energy is not magically created and when you die energy is not destroyed. The laws of physics only supports the experience of death. Your energy doesn't die. We exist in a potential reality that's formed from a quantum fluctuation. We are energy in a state of decoherence and our energy doesn't magically disappear when we die. That's hocus pocus physics.

From my understanding this is pretty simple physics. The energy that we are simply transitions into different energy, and disperses into the universe. Insects and animals eat it, plants take it and grow, and a lot of it is lost into the earth. You are correct that it doesn't die though, the thing is that it was never alive in the first place.

1 line no wait 2 dont want a warning.

What happen's when a sun dies ? It goes supernova all that energy now think.

Regard's
Lee

I love science but that just shows that Physics is still flawed. Since things do die. despite everything science has accomplished so far. I still think are egos are to big for our britches. We have a lot to learn and will prove ourselves wrong many more times before we get the real clue..

Originally posted by polomontana
Again, I'm not trying to conflate anything. It's very simple. The 1st law of Thermodynamics states, energy can't be created nor destroyed.

Agree..

So when you born energy is not magically created and when you die energy is not destroyed.

Agree...

The laws of physics only supports the experience of death. Your energy doesn't die. We exist in a potential reality that's formed from a quantum fluctuation. We are energy in a state of decoherence and our energy doesn't magically disappear when we die. That's hocus pocus physics.

I agree that this statement is hocus-pocus physics, although I'm sure that's not what you meant.

1) I'm not sure which laws of physics you're invoking to support your first statement.

2) From the way you state "Your energy" I am moderately sure this is where you are conflating a mystical definition of energy with a physics definition of energy, which is where your problem is coming in. You don't know what "you" are. You are making an assumption that "you" are some type of energy other than that which is normally present in your body, but you're also trying to hook this into physics. Your assumption may be incorrect, and at any rate, in order to define "soul", "spirit", or "consciousness" as a physically definable phenomenon so that you can bring it under quantum physics, you have a long journey ahead. Until you do, (if it's possible, which I doubt) you aren't going to be able to state anything about it in terms of physics, just WITH terms of physics, which I pointed out before.

I don't know about physics but it doesn't make sense to me. Okay, I expect a body to die and rot, but not ME that's inside THIS body. I don't think this is all that I am. There are millions of folk on this planet, animals too, and plants if you want to call them conscious beings. But there's only one of me who sees it all from my perspective. Maybe I'm the only one? My body/container will die but I can't die. There would be no purpose to me being here in the first place. The universe will cease to exist if I die. That surely means I'm taking you all with me? If I die you all go? No?

[edit on 15-9-2007 by wigit]

This is the sort of thing where I think it's more philosophy or religion that's the key.

Until you can show that the soul/consciousness/spirit/whatever is actually some weird manifestation of the strong force or something, it isn't really a physics sort of thing.

Metaphysics explains that which physics cannot.

If one goes by the basic principles of physics, then yes, death doesn't make sense.

But the truth is that we are not meat sacks but souls who are temporarily incarnate in bodies.

Souls cannot be directly detected by electronic devices because the instruments are composed of matter and we do not come from the physical realm. The woe of all parapsychologists.

In other words, unlike electricity and gravity, souls consist of an energy that transcends the physical spectrum when free of matter. That is why our personalities survive the death of our bodies.

Traditional science will always fail to explain that which is beyond their instrumentation to detect, much less measure or replicate.

What's the mysterious stuff physicists talk about? Dark matter or dark energy? What if one of these is pure consciousness and it exists throughout everything and a body is where it can interact with itself?

reply to post by wigit


That is exactly what I think dark energy is. Conscious thought. Consciousness that is keeping the relativistic laws of physics from imploding the Universe.

Of course, this is just a guess.

[edit on 15-9-2007 by Beachcoma]

OK, remember how early computers were? Just a set of on - off switches (the early Altair).

So what computers do that simulates 'intelligence' of a sort, is just do everything -VERY- quickly. Ones and Zeros.

So in the near future when you boot up a PC that uses an 'Interface' like Max Headroom, the interface will seem almost alive to you.

The closer we get to solving the 'Turing Test', the more alive your PC will seem. Move further and drop 'monitors' and move to a 3-D Hologram, and the illusion of 'aliveness' is even stronger.

Turn off the PC and that 'alive' person you were just talking to is gone. Do they still exist in the absence of the PC? No.

Same way for the 'Meat-based Super Quantum Computer' that is you.

When the meat and flesh becomes so disorganized that the necessary reactions can not proceed, the 'you' die.

Is there a 'you' when the 'human computer/brain/neuron net' is gone? Well, by analogy, the answer is the same as with the electronic computer.

2 cents.

But a computer is not aware. I am.

Good questions Wigit. In fact dark matter and dark energy make up around 95% of the universe and scientist don't know what it is or what it's made of. Yet people can tell you that we die? That doesn't make sense.

People will go to far lengths to support death, because death is something they see as certain in a world of uncertainty.

The fact is energy can't be created nor destroyed, it's really quite simple. Birth and death are just different energy states. Your energy doesn't die when your material body experiences death. That would go against the laws of physics as we know them.

Again, in order to show that we die you would have to show that these things are true within the laws of physics.

A) That energy dies

B) That we are something other than energy

In thermodynamics, the first law of thermodynamics is a statement of the conservation of energy for thermodynamic systems, and is the more encompassing version of the conservation of energy. In short, the law of conservation of energy states that energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another, such as when electrical energy is changed into heat energy.

en.wikipedia.org...

How can you read this and say we die? We are energy in a state of decoherence. Energy just changes forms it doesn't die or disapper. That's hocus pocus physics.

Originally posted by wigit
But a computer is not aware. I am.

How does that change the paradigm? Again, I'm asking. The previous post is just one theory.

Who is to say that once computers' processing power is increased to the level that Humans have they can not take over the creation of subsequent computer design and eventually design a 'self-aware' computer?

Maybe it's a paradigm leap and we will see this, and it will remove all doubt that 'self-awareness' is different. Maybe we'll learn the opposite.

Many hope that when this happens (the technological singularity) that we will achieve a type of immortality by uploading all that is human, including our awareness of self, into an android body. Thus, in that sense (if it's possible) the 'soul' or core of identity will be immortal.

However, istm, it will always be unclear if the 'new' awareness is really "Me", or if it's just a new thing that seems to be me, but I 'died' during the transfer into the duotronic android brain?

Originally posted by polomontana
How can you read this and say we die? We are energy in a state of decoherence. Energy just changes forms it doesn't die or disapper. That's hocus pocus physics.

Though interesting, I don't think you've come close to equating 'consciousness/self-awareness' to a type of 'Energy'.

Are you proposing a new type of energy, or highly organized electrical energy, or what?

Though energy doesn't disappear, it can 'dissipate'. So when the electrical energy of our neurons dissipates, it's no longer organized enough to cause this 'illusion'(?) of consciousness. Thus, the "I" no longer exists as an entity.

If the 'energy' still exists, but can't be recovered or utilized, does it really matter that it's out there?

just a thought.