Death doesn't make sense according to physics

Our bodies ARE just meat. While the bodies are alive, our consciousness is held in them. When the body dies, the consciousness dies and the body returns to being just meat.

I find it comforting. When it's done, it's DONE. No more stress, no more worry, no eternal boredom. Poof! The long dirt nap commences and I can finally relax.

[edit to clear up a vagueness by inserting two words]


[edit on 1-10-2007 by MajorMalfunction]

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Our bodies ARE just meat. While the bodies are alive, our consciousness is held in them. When the body dies, the consciousness dies and the body returns to being just meat.

I find it comforting. When it's done, it's DONE. No more stress, no more worry, no eternal boredom. Poof! The long dirt nap commences and I can finally relax.

[edit to clear up a vagueness by inserting two words]


[edit on 1-10-2007 by MajorMalfunction]

I dont know why, but thats the scariest thing Ive EVER read.

Why is it scary? What I said about the nonexistence of an afterlife, or my nonchalance about the fact that I know I'm going to die someday and I'm fine with no "survival of a soul"?

What makes up my mind?
If I were to be eaten by a shark, I'm pretty sure the worst part would be not the pain or the mutilation or the actual dying and so forth, but rather the thought balloon over my head with the words, "I'm being eaten by a (expletive) shark!"


The Mystery of Consciousness. It's one of the biggest unknowns, right up there with the origin of life. ... It's all very exciting, with the one catch that no one can really agree on what the mind IS.

I don't know if anyone will ever pin down exactly what the human mind is, but I think most of us will agree that it's more than just a physical, chemical operation.

I don't think that's true. Many people BELIEVE there is more than that, except for people in the sciences and people without religious beliefs.

There are quite a few of us who DO feel this way. Most of us don't appear to be as vocal about it as I (and a few others on the board) are.

People have a need to feel special. Many people still seem to think the entire universe was created just for their tiny, insignificant benefit. Just because people WANT to feel special and BELIEVE they will live after their body dies, does not make it true. It just makes it an unprovable belief amongst all the others.

Originally posted by dbates
I don't know if anyone will ever pin down exactly what the human mind is, but I think most of us will agree that it's more than just a physical, chemical operation.

Wouldn't that be nice? But Daniel Dennett thinks there isn't a mind at all.

Fun video here..., he has several books you might like to read.

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
I find it comforting. When it's done, it's DONE. No more stress, no more worry, no eternal boredom. Poof! The long dirt nap commences and I can finally relax.

[edit to clear up a vagueness by inserting two words]
[edit on 1-10-2007 by MajorMalfunction]

You know what Major? Let's assume YOU are right. That is EXACTLY what happens to us when we pass away. You know what, I would hope that you are right. And what you say is true. I'd be more afraid of you being wrong. Because I would much prefer the dirtnap with everlasting relaxation over "whoknowswhat" is waiting for me on the other side. I'm afraid of pain. That's my biggest fear. Dying in immense pain.

It's entirely possible that at the moment of death, everything you are sensing at that specific instant is imprinted on your mind, causing you to continue to experience those sensations until your brain has decomposed to the point where it can no longer register the sensory information.

So if you get shot, and the last thing you feel is your chest bursting open, you might die but your brain will continue to feel that pain until its significantly rotten.

( suppose that does little to ease the worries of the poster before me.. Sorry bud)

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.

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.

This can be explained in a wery simple way:
Your "body/mind/machine/you" need air to "exist/live". The air is then your fuel/energy for living. When your lung/heart stops breathing/pumping, your access to fuel for thoughts is lost. Thus your "soul" doesnt go into another state, it just stops workgin after the last "fueling"..

When your car goes empty for fuel, it stops. It doesnt go in to another dimension ..

Originally posted by mattifikation
It's entirely possible that at the moment of death, everything you are sensing at that specific instant is imprinted on your mind, causing you to continue to experience those sensations until your brain has decomposed to the point where it can no longer register the sensory information.

So if you get shot, and the last thing you feel is your chest bursting open, you might die but your brain will continue to feel that pain until its significantly rotten.

( suppose that does little to ease the worries of the poster before me.. Sorry bud)

That's alright. I just keep in mind this very saying "This too shall pass."

I have been away for awhile and after reading some of these posts I see that some people don't understand Metaphysics. Without metaphysics you can't explain the nature of reality. I was glad to hear Dr. Michio Kaku on Coast to Coast AM radio program talk about how physics is catching up to Metaphysics.

It's funny to see people try to debate a metaphysical point with secular beliefs. Metaphysics applies logic, reason and philosophy to physics and other sciences as it relates to the nature of reality. A metaphysician will also take Theology into account and some take what's labeled paranormal events into account.

We can go back to Parmenides who said all things are just an appearence of one single reality or Being. This ties into entanglement and Non Locality and the fact that at a certain level everything is an undivided whole. He said this back in the 4th century B.C. He also said:

Parmenides claimed that the truth cannot be known through sensory perception. Only pure reason (Logos) will result in the understanding of the truth of the world. This is because the perception of things or appearances (the doxa) is deceptive. We may see, for example, tables being made from wood and destroyed, and speak of birth and demise; this belongs to the superficial world of movement and change. But this genesis-and-destruction, as Parmenides emphasizes, is illusory, because the underlying material of which the table is made will still exist after its destruction. What exists must always exist. And we arrive at the knowledge of this underlying, static, and eternal reality (aletheia) through reasoning, not through sense-perception.

en.wikipedia.org...

Just Awesome!

Look at Plato and the Allegory of the Cave and the Holographic Principle.

I started with the premise that energy survis death - true

I then talked about how the universe is a quantum computer - true

I then talked about events like psychic ability that are backed by reason. When 20 year police veterans vouch for psychics who draw sketches of criminals before police even have a suspect then you have to follow reason over belief system. I think psychics have access to our timeline where everything that will happen has happened. I think this is tied to synapses. Like I said I think psychic ability occurs naturally just like we survive death naturally.

Here's a thread I made about testing psychic ability:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

When the material body dies the experience still lives and is part of the Infinite Whole that experiences these potential realities that we observe.





[edit on 9-10-2007 by polomontana]

[edit on 9-10-2007 by polomontana]

Originally posted by polomontana
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.

The molecules that make up your body have existed for billions of years before you were "assembled". And when you die they will continue to exist for trillions of years just like the wooden table. There are probably amino acids in my body right now that were once inside a velociraptor and water molecules that were once buried under ancient glaciers, and these molecules will more and likely end up in some kind of micro-organism after I die.

But does that mean I will live on? I don't think so. "I" am not made of energy, but of matter, neurones and neurotransmitters. A product of brain activity. I will exist as long my brain lives, but once my brain dies and rots away, how can I exist? The complex neuronal system that once generated my thoughts will no longer exist, even if all the molecules that made me will still be there.

Originally posted by polomontana

It's funny to see people try to debate a metaphysical point with secular beliefs. Metaphysics applies logic, reason and philosophy to physics and other sciences as it relates to the nature of reality. A metaphysician will also take Theology into account and some take what's labeled paranormal events into account.

Metaphysics as a term used by philosophers is a different term when used by new-agers or theosophists. Sort of like the way you try to use "energy" both ways but you clearly don't understand it isn't the same term.

A philosopher uses the academic term describing philosophies that attempt to elucidate the underlying principles of the universe. A theosophist uses the popular term as you do - ghosts, goblins, and magic. They use the same word, but with two very different meanings.

We can go back to Parmenides who said all things are just an appearence of one single reality or Being...

Just Awesome!

He also said something which was attributed as "Kiri-kin-tha's first law of metaphysics" on a Star Trek movie : "Nothing unreal exists"

Like metaphysics, in the popular term.

Look at Plato and the Allegory of the Cave and the Holographic Principle.

More like Socrates. Later, when questioned heavily on the point of whether a real world of pure forms existed (rubbish) he backed down on it. The entire piece was a political essay anyway - read the entire thing with your spiritual gain turned down a bit so you can get past the metaphysics. He's saying that politicians are unfit to rule because they're not enlightened, as the students of his school were, and thus so aptly fit to govern Greece. It didn't work for him.

I started with the premise that energy survis death - true

I then talked about how the universe is a quantum computer - true

The first is either a non-point or an inaccuracy, depending on whether you're attempting to use a physics or theosophic definition of energy. That your consciousness or soul is some energetic state which survives in an ordered and functional fashion you were never able to address, as it is not one.

The second point is a non-sequitur.

I then talked about events like psychic ability that are backed by reason. When 20 year police veterans vouch for psychics who draw sketches of criminals before police even have a suspect then you have to follow reason over belief system. I think psychics have access to our timeline where everything that will happen has happened. I think this is tied to synapses. Like I said I think psychic ability occurs naturally just like we survive death naturally.

I'd say that I thought it was hogwash, but many tests have failed to demonstrate its existence.

When the material body dies the experience still lives and is part of the Infinite Whole that experiences these potential realities that we observe.

There is no conscious "Infinite Whole". You do not still live, although the matter and energy of your body are left behind. In a purely physical sense.

both Tom Bedlam and polomontana are correct but polomontana if im understanding him correctly is thinking of us as energy means that thought aka our soul is energy. Thought does use energy but as bedlam is pointing out it uses energy its not energy itself.

polomontana remember the other laws of thermodynamics such as decline and return. The body is one big biomechanical engine , much like a car or anything else mechanical it needs fuel to live/run. When it stops receiving fuel or if a major component fails it quits running. For example your heart quits pumping and a fuel pump goes out both you and the car die. In the case of a human the energy is transformed into another form such as heat and some of that energy remains in the body to be transformed during decomposition. The energy is never destroyed it just transforms into another form.

A simple test is take several extension cords say 1000+ feet , plug one end of the cord in then try to run a drill at the other end. The drill most likely will not run or if it does it will run extremely slow. But if you plug the drill directly into the plug where you plugged the extension cord in the drill will function properly, so where did the energy go in the in the 1000+ feet of extension cord? It escaped in the form of heat, the energy was never destroyed it simply transformed during its journey into another form of energy.


Plants take the suns energy and transform it to energy to live and grow they also use compost aka "dirt". We eat the plants and we eat the animals that eat the plants. We get the energy stored from the plants as well as the energy stored by the animals who ate the plants. We digest the food and flush it away where it breaks down and eventual it becomes dirt for the plants. The energy the plant received from the sun never ceased to exist , it just changed form along the way.

So the zero point energy associated with every particle in your body dies when your material body dies?

I think the problem here is people like Tom and others are trying to go beyond physics to support their atheist or secular belief system. When this occurs it means people are not comfortable in their beliefs because the honest answer is they don't know. That's because physics is incomplete and metaphysics completes what we don't know. Metaphysics means beyond or after physics. Most physicist are comfortable with saying I don't know like Dr. Kaku, Brian Greene or Theresa Randall. Most message board physicist are not comfortable with saying I don't know.

I'm a Metaphysician and I apply reason and philosophia to physics and other fields of science beyond the physics of the day.

Physics is silent on how energy and information relatates to the universal quantum computer after death, yet some hear talk with confidence about this matter and it's truly misleading. This is why I call them message board physicist. They are simply trying to misuse science to back up their belief system.

Metaphysics will look at science, theology and the paranormal and apply logic and reason to what these things mean as a whole instead of fractured parts. Metaphysics will not always be correct in each aspect but you can find the truth within the whole of metaphysics.

First - Energy survives death

Second - how does energy and information correlate with the universal quantum computer after death?

Third - Theologians have talked about life after death and you have to study scripture throughout various religions and cultures.

Fourth - The Paranormal supports life after death and there isn't any reasonable explanation for these things outside that they exist and are beyond current scientific observation.

Look at things like psychic ability which talks about communicating with a persons energy after death. You have twenty year police veterans vouching for physic ability. You also have to look at ghost sightings, near death experiences and reincarnation. All of these things gives you fuller picture about the nature of reality.

Lets go even further. Metaphysics will asks is dark energy and dark matter the soul and spirit that many talk about. Many talk about a non material realm. Well dark energy is non material to our material universe yet it's a form of energy. We could have a body made up of dark energy within our human bodies and not even know it. When you die this energy returns to the Infinite along with all of your experiences and becomes part of the Infinite Being and continues to manifest in different potential realities.

My final point is, metaphysics puts reason over the world of appearences. The world of appearences can be deceptive and this is why physics will give you an incomplete picture of the nature of reality. Most physicist accept this and they will admit when their belief kicks in. You have some though who are desperate to defend their pre existing beliefs and try to use physics to back that particular belief system. Physics is incomplete, metaphysics is not.

polomontana, how can energy or dark energy think? Your thoughts aren't the product of some kind of mysterious energy floating in your head, but of nervous networks. Separate the neurones and no thoughts will occur again.

[edit on 9-10-2007 by DarkSide]

Originally posted by DarkSide
polomontana, how can energy or dark energy think? Your thoughts aren't the product of some kind of mysterious energy floating in your head, but of nervous networks. Separate the neurones and no thoughts will occur again.

[edit on 9-10-2007 by DarkSide]

DarkSide,

First, who said this energy has to think? It's not gonna order a pizza from Pizza Hut but your experience of eating a pizza is still with this energy.

Second, how do you know this energy isn't configured with nervous networks if you can't detect it and the physics of this energy is different from ours? You can have a body similar to our body made up of dark energy and not even know it. It could be what some call a spiritual body.

[edit on 9-10-2007 by polomontana]

Originally posted by polomontana
So the zero point energy associated with every particle in your body dies when your material body dies?

I think the problem here is people like Tom and others are trying to go beyond physics to support their atheist or secular belief system. When this occurs it means people are not comfortable in their beliefs because the honest answer is they don't know. That's because physics is incomplete and metaphysics completes what we don't know. Metaphysics means beyond or after physics. Most physicist are comfortable with saying I don't know like Dr. Kaku, Brian Greene or Theresa Randall. Most message board physicist are not comfortable with saying I don't know.

The zero point energy, as I said something like 18 pages back, is the minimal energy of a quantum system. It's what's left at absolute zero. It has diddly to do with your consciousness. I know it's a trendy term.

I'm a Metaphysician and I apply reason and philosophia to physics and other fields of science beyond the physics of the day.

It might help if you understood something about physics first.

Physics is silent on how energy and information relatates to the universal quantum computer after death.

If you believe that to be true, why are you trying to invoke it to comfort your fears of death?

Metaphysics will look at science, theology and the paranormal and apply logic and reason to what these things mean as a whole instead of fractured parts. Metaphysics will not always be correct in each aspect but you can find the truth within the whole of metaphysics.

This is the popular and not the academic use of the term "metaphysics" - it's the one you can't apply the words "logic and reason" to, as you could the academic one.

First - Energy survives death

First - consciousness is not an energy state, but a process. The term "death" when applied to the physics term "energy" is inapplicable. Energy is not alive and thus cannot die, life and death are terms related to biology.

Second - how does energy and information correlate with the universal quantum computer after death?

Second - is the concept of a "universal quantum computer" actually correct. Some think so but many do not, Kantor denied the existence of a matrix or process in which the computation occurs, as he is the father of it, and has proofs, I'd say it was up for bids. Even if not, you have the unenviable task of proving that it has beans to do with you, or you with it.

Third - Theologians have talked about life after death and you have to study scripture throughout various religions and cultures.

Thor tells me that you're wrong. The bold go to Valhalla and feast forever.

Fourth - The Paranormal supports life after death and there isn't any reasonable explanation for these things outside that they exist and are beyond current scientific observation.

The reason they are unobservable is because they are figments of the participant's imaginations.

All of these things gives you fuller picture about the nature of reality.

Or the nature of the human psyche. Or credulity.

Lets go even further. Metaphysics will asks is dark energy and dark matter the soul and spirit that many talk about. Many talk about a non material realm. Well dark energy is non material to our material universe yet it's a form of energy. We could have a body made up of dark energy within our human bodies and not even know it. When you die this energy returns to the Infinite along with all of your experiences and becomes part of the Infinite Being and continues to manifest in different potential realities.

The terms "dark matter" and "dark energy" refer to specific things. In the case of "dark energy", it's most likely a manifestation of the vacuum energy cosmological constant. So if you think you're going to become part of a math equation, at least that's unique. Dark matter is thought to be matter that's not hot enough to emit detectable photons - like intergalactic black holes - and thus doesn't show up on optical or radio telescopes.

IMHO it's a big wild bogus unsupportable leap to pick a cool new term from physics and claim that's your soul. Then extrapolate to infinity and claim that means it will merge with some cosmic one-ness. But that kind of crap is why metaphysics (used in the popular meaning) is a joke.

My theory instead is - dark matter is how rabbits lay eggs for Easter. It permeates the Easter Bunny, and his love and kindness shape it into the outward manifestation of a colored boiled egg.

My final point is, metaphysics puts reason over the world of appearences.

Reason - I do not think this word means what you think it means.

And I agree with you in a way - it's easy for something totally devoid of meaning and substance to call itself complete. The null set is complete, for example.

Tom,

You are fighting an uphill battle. That's because you are trying to go beyond physics to deny metaphysics. You will always hit a brick wall with this kind of logic.

You can't deny anything I'm saying and your belief system is boiling. This is why you bring up the easter bunny and somehow an easter bunny is the same as psychic ability when you have 20 year police veterans vouching for the psychic. I'm not pulling these things out of a hat. You may want to ignore these police officials with impeccable records but reason will not let me do it.

It would be simpler to say I don't know but I don't accept what your saying. You can't deny it with physics and if your comfortable in your belief it's easier to say you don't know.

Originally posted by polomontana
Tom,

You are fighting an uphill battle. That's because you are trying to go beyond physics to deny metaphysics. You will always hit a brick wall with this kind of logic.

I deny "metaphysics" when used in its "new age" popular meaning.

Philosophical metaphysics is different, but it's not the term you're using, although you're trying to conflate the two. Like you do with the term "energy".

You can't deny anything I'm saying and your belief system is boiling. This is why you bring up the easter bunny and somehow an easter bunny is the same as psychic ability when you have 20 year police veterans vouching for the psychic. I'm not pulling these things out of a hat. You may want to ignore these police officials with impeccable records but reason will not let me do it.

Sure I can. You're combining inapplicable concepts (energy cannot die - a meaningless mouth noise) and trying to claim they're a proof. It's like the Fisher-Price version of Ramon Llull.

And then you're chunking in pseudo-science as added evidence. If your proof consists of something on the order of "dark matter = souls = eternal consciousness = some Infinite Oneness as evidenced by police psychics", you'll have to excuse me while I snicker at you.