Death doesn't make sense according to physics

Originally posted by polomontana
Azoth, Tom has not denied anything I have said.

It still stands that energy can't be created nor destroyed. I have explained it thoroughly.

Yes, and energy can be tranformed.

Of course, the body and its processes produces energy while it's alive, the heat we give off is a direct indicator of that very energy. What happens after you die, you cool down, a sign that the body processes have stopped functioning.

The body cools, begins to decay, and is consumed by lower lifeforms, thus transfering any energy contained within. The energy is not 'destroyed'. Consciouness is not energy (as in the physicalforce), but a product of processes in your brain.

It's a very simple matter, I can't believe how long this has gone on.

Good find thebandit. Pim Van Lommel published a very good paper on NDE's.

Our memories and everything we do is stored by the universe like I said earlier. Check this out:

Seth Lloyd, a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, is among the pioneers of quantum computing: he proposed the first technologically feasible design for a quantum computer. If humans ever build a useful, general-purpose quantum computer, it will owe much to Lloyd. Earlier this year, he published a popular introduction to quantum theory and computing, titled Programming the Universe, which advanced the startling thesis that the universe is itself a quantum computer.

Technology Review:In your new book, you are admirably explicit: you write, "The Universe is indistinguishable from a quantum computer." How can that be true?

Seth Lloyd: I know it sounds crazy. I feel apologetic when I say it. And people who have reviewed the book take it as a metaphor. But it's factually the case. We couldn't build quantum computers unless the universe were quantum and computing. We can build such machines because the universe is storing and processing information in the quantum realm. When we build quantum computers, we're hijacking that underlying computation in order to make it do things we want: little and/or/not calculations. We're hacking into the universe.

You can read the rest of the interview here:
www.technologyreview.com...

Originally posted by polomontana
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?

First, energy isn't "alive", so point "A" should be changed to "Energy cannot be destroyed". And your premise about life after death falls apart in point "B". Because in fact you are NOT energy. If anything, you (as in the specific personality and consciousness that you are) are INFORMATION, not energy. And there is no law of physics that prevents information from falling apart irreparably.

Don't believe me? Send me your hard drive. I'll shred it up in a big wood-chipper, burn the remnants in a blast furnace, and send you a bag of the smoke and ash that's left over. I guarantee it will contain every last atom that was contained in the original hard drive. Even the information will be there, albeit broken down and scattered hopelessly.

You won't send me your hard drive? Why not? Matter and energy cannot be destroyed. How can you lose?

The soul remains after death (my belief). Nothing is truly destroyed, only changed.

So, should it be said that death doesn't make sense according to physics, or that the concept of a "soul", an energy which remains after death, makes sense according to physics.

If there is no death, then why can we question are own existence?Why6 do some psychics know certain things that we knew? Some people have had experiences. If we one dimensional, then why can we dream and remember it when we awake? How can one understand death, when one doesn't understand life?

[edit on 15-9-2007 by malakiem]

Originally posted by depth om
The soul remains after death (my belief). Nothing is truly destroyed, only changed.

So, should it be said that death doesn't make sense according to physics, or that the concept of a "soul", an energy which remains after death, makes sense according to physics.

Good point, I was just making an argument reductio ad absurdum.

Physics is limited by the human mind and intellect just like maths is limited. As the OP says paranormal and supernatural is really NATURALLY NORMAL to the universa, its just not understood to us humans with our limited equipment and knowledge and our EGOS help hinder our progress. But as time gos on with theory and experiment, we find out more, and paradoxs occur. All truths are but half truths etc.. (my sig)

So beyond physics comes quantum physics and metaphysics, beyond psychology lies quantum psychology and parapsychology. Now just because someone is a physicist, doesn't make them an expert in psychology. Which I would say is a needed component if we are truly going to branch out of our mental 'box' into the 'greater reality'.

ALL IS ONE.. its all connected on the sub-atomic levels (or planes if you prefer, spiritualism) See this word spiritual is just more hindrance to REALITY.. word problems, semantics? we sholdnt be drawing a line between spirit and science because its all the same thing!!!

God IS science, ALL is too big for our dumb little brains to understand ALL... so when we accept that, then we can move on together without debating. EGO....... we have to leash it or lose the plot. EGO is constantly trying to keep its Identity by reflecting on what it knows and fears... and as you know, you are NOT your egos, and everything has to change or it dies, and eventually, with strange 'eons' (certain cycles of time)...... even death may die.


Im an expert in nothing! Just throwing my 2 cents in and this copy and paste job from answers.com >


Metaphysics

A branch of philosophy that studies the ultimate structure and constitution of reality — i.e., of that which is real, insofar as it is real. The term, which means literally "what comes after physics," was used to refer to the treatise by Aristotle on what he himself called "first philosophy."

In the history of Western philosophy, metaphysics has been understood in various ways: as an inquiry into what basic categories of things there are (e.g., the mental and the physical); as the study of reality, as opposed to appearance; as the study of the world as a whole; and as a theory of first principles.

Some basic problems in the history of metaphysics are the problem of universals — i.e., the problem of the nature of universals and their relation to so-called particulars; the existence of God; the mind-body problem; and the problem of the nature of material, or external, objects. Major types of metaphysical theory include Platonism, Aristotelianism, Thomism, Cartesianism (see also DUALISM), idealism, realism, and materialism.


>> Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. --Albert Einstein,





[edit on 15-9-2007 by Sekhemet]

I suggest that you all read the Bhagavad Gita,
It explains death, and explains life, and explains reincarnation, and heaven, and ghosts and everything else that science cant explain.
Just keep an open mind, and open your eyes, meditate, gain knowledge, learn to understand fear, not fear it.

Death is the end of life, plain and simple. Life is the physical self, Death is the end of the physical self. Consiousness existed before you were born, and it will exist after you are born. Death is the loss of all physical things, You loose everything you have gained in this world. The rich, the poor, the good, the bad, they all die, and loose everything. But Consciousness remains.

Of course this is how I have come to understand it, I believe that we are all the same, that is our consciousnesses (is that a word?) is the same, as in the same exact thing. We are not separate consciousnesses, but we are seprate units of experience and memory. When we die, consciousness does not die, just that experience and memory and thought. You once again experience the state of primordial consciousness, or GOD as it were. What happens after that? Depends on Karma.

I had another more mellow theoretical thought.


Life IS a death (change) too how about that one. We are born dying! we get older, reach our physical peak, then decline, thats all a very slow process of dying?

LIVE spells EVIL backwards.. LIVED spells DEVIL backwards, this plan.ET .. spins backwards... and we live in this state of be-LIE-f.. experimenting until we KNOW.....



[edit on 15-9-2007 by Sekhemet]

Our extension into and consciousness of this world is limited. I believe that there is a multi-dimensional core to ourselves that projects and manifests itself into many dimensional realities. The core itself exists in a state that trancends time and space and consciousness in this plane of reality is defined by the adaptation of our spiritual core to the environment provided (earth).

At times we are able to tap into a greater part of this core but for the most part we are shielded from it by the overwhelming intensity of perception and sensation that governs our daily, mortal, lives.

To me, this life and the death that follows it are merely the mask or costume I wear to be present in this world. Although the nature of consciousness in this world dictates the obscurity of life beyond I am sure that it reains, that core, largely unexposed and unexperienced from here somewhat like an iceberg lying mainly beneath the surface.

I love how you state we have to meet two mutually
exclusive statements to prove you wrong.
well first when a person dies who says the energy does?
depends on how you die. does it dissipate as heat?
heart attack would be electrostatic discharge.
a long sickness would be diminished capacitance.
the state of the body would determine how the
energy left the body.
second you may be decoherent but me I'm all kinds of
coherent.



reply to post by polomontana

Originally posted by TheBandit795
I made a thread months ago which shows evidence that consciousness is independent of the brain, which means that the brain does not create consciousness. So when the brain dies, the mind is still out there somewhere Check it out:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'll repost the same response I gave last time to van Lommel' work...

van Lommel didn't actually conclude that consciousness exists outside of the body during NDE in the Lancet article, he just raised the idea. He may believe this to be the case, and much of his writing out of the literature suggests this, but he doesn't seem to actually have the solid evidence to conclude so.

He also raised the other theories based on physiology and suggested they may not be able to account, as they are, for NDEs because they should expect all people pronounced clinically dead to report one.

However, it is also just as true that we may expect all people who are pronounced clinically dead should suffer an NDE if consciousness does exist separately from body. Why do only the physiological theories have to be laden with this problem?

He would need to answer why we would expect it to always occur for physiological theories and not for a dualist theory.

What he seems to miss, IMO, is that it is quite possible that the NDE may not have a true correlation to the period of clinical death, but be related to the period of recovery or even as the brain fades, we don't know that time during the NDE relates temporally to the real-world, or even that time passes in the same way as during consciousness. He brings up the denture example as possible evidence that this is not the case, however, this is purely anecdotal, and it is quite possible other reasons underlie this anecdote.

He also assumes that because there seems to be no EEG activity, this equals no brain activity, however, EEG can only measure surface activity of the brain, there could well be much limbic activity (the more emotional areas) occuring and the NDE being an attempt to interpret this activity in some coherent manner.

The idea that consciousness is somehow floating separate from the brain in some way is quite unsupported by the current findings in neuroscience. In fact, they suggest otherwise.

well in a sense we really dont die, we just break down into the most basic of atoms and molecules and become part of the greater Universe as some kind of building blocks for somethng else waiting to be made ie a star, a plant, part of a chain of molecules to form water etc....

So really the energy was never created nor did it die it just became something else.... Everything that ever was will be and will continue to be just in different form.......

Why do people swear science is the explanation to things? Hell, if we have science, to hell with philosophy.

Somethings are out of our jurisdiction, screw science as it has yet to prove all the complexities of life.

It is unbelieveable to have people ponder a reasonable, scientific explanation for the process of death, leave it to the philosophers.. after all, that is where all the theories come from.

[edit on 16-9-2007 by rickzter]

Wow, this thread really is a goldmine of varied perspectives!

I'm going to sidestep the physics debate and present a different angle on consciousness and physical death, an angle which I first heard described by the author George W Meek in his book - After We Die, What then?

I believe our consciousness is who 'we' really are, and that our memories, thoughts and free will is actually contained within a unimaginably complex and as yet unknown form of energy.

In some ways our bodies could be compared to a TV set. When the TV is turned on it is alive with pictures, sound and light, however when the TV is turned off it is blank, silent and dark.

However the TV signal that was being received and interpreted by the TV is still there as energy. It still contains information to produce sounds and light, but it exists beyond our physical perception.


[edit on 16-9-2007 by not_fazed]

Originally posted by not_fazed
I believe our consciousness is who 'we' really are, and that our memories, thoughts and free will is actually contained within a unimaginably complex and as yet unknown form of energy.

In some ways our bodies could be compared to a TV set. When the TV is turned on it is alive with pictures, sound and light, however when the TV is turned off it is blank, silent and dark.

However the TV signal that was being received and interpreted by the TV is still there as energy. It still contains information to produce sounds and light, but it exists beyond our physical perception.

Sounds like a description of what people call the soul... I'm reminded of the poet Wordsworth for some reason. I think he described the 'soul' as some sort of travelling energy..

reply to post by WeaponsOfMassDistraction


That's exactly what I'm getting at. I just didn't want to stir up a metaphysics debate.

I'm a firm believer that physical death is simply a transition, not so dissimilar to a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.

From a physical point of view, energy would not be destroyed nor created.

reply to post by polomontana


It seems to me that there is a flaw in assuming that the human soul is defineable in the terms and parameters you are using.

Or, perhaps it's not a flaw and the soul can be defined as energy, too.

If the former . . . it seems more than a little plausible that there are realities or at least aspects of realities outside our even quantum understanding of physics . . . which result in our rather incomplete comprehension of all that is--including what happens at death; the 'dimensions' of the human soul etc.

If the latter . . . certainly the soul endures forever by God's design. And, He is spoken of as the purest of 'Llight' . . . whatever that means.

Hi guys, this is a pretty sweet thread.

I was considering something a few weeks back, maybe you can help me out and give your thoughts on my theory.

It has to do with the energy consumed by the brain in conciseness and the equation E=MC squared.

I was considering that if we knew how much energy is required by the brain for conscious thought, we could calculate the mass of our soul by said equation.

Does this make any sense or am I barking?

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
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.

I am not a chemical reaction writing around here !