From: muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah)
Subject: Re: Proving Life after Death? (was Re: Ayn Rand on Religion [Was: Reply to Wingate])
Followup-To: talk.philosophy.misc
Keywords: Rand Religion Wingate
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 19:27:03 GMT

In article <1992Nov21.081157.22525@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <nyikos.722047409@milo.math.scarolina.edu> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>>a perhaps temporary bit of ignorance.  Of course, if Ayn Rand is right,
>>and there is no afterlife, then the claims of Christianity are indeed
>>untestable in a certain sense (no one will ever know that the answer is No
>>if it really is No) but to say that Christianity makes no testable claims is to
>	I believe that my consciousness will end at death because it
>seems too closely tied to my body. So if my body goes, it will go too.
>
>	But if I wake up in some other realm, then I will have to
>accept the fact that I did, and I will attempt to find out how this
>remarkable event happened.
>
>	In other words,
>
>	I'll believe in it when I see it. But not before.

While, I don't disagree with a lot of what Loren has written, I wish
to speculate on the connection between consciousness and death (my
previous tid bit didn't seem to have reached here).
**************** Leave reality for a minute ***********

Just say that consciousness is some complete unit.  The question is, does
consciousness prevail as it is ?  Does it break up ?  Does it get destroyed ?
Does it get transformed into something else ?  Regardless, *something* happens
to it.  Let me speculate on each of these.

Does consciousness prevail as it is ?

If by consciousness we mean the collective workings of the neurons in
our body, then it would seem that whenever those chemical transmitters
cease to be manufactured, that is the end of the story.  This is what
most skeptics would accept. Now back to the part about the unit.
This would mean that consciousness has gone to nothingness.  Can a 
unit be transformed in this way ?  Now it exists, and then it vanishes;
no decaying, nor gradual wear down.  So no, consciousness doesn't prevail,
but goes somewhere...even to nothingness.

Does it break up ?

Again, speculating, if consciousness has constituent parts, then it
may be that it breaks up into its constituent parts.  Most empirical
observation shows that any physical entity can be broken down into
finer constituents and that observation carries into this realm as well.

Does it get transformed ?

This would seem to be closely connected to the  previous question.
If breaks up, then it must be transformed :-).  But can it get transformed
into some other complete unit  i.e., another consciousness ? That would
seem to be the case if any two or more units are able to coalesce in
by some fancy means.

Does it get destroyed ?

I guess that would be related to what we mean by existence.  Most of
the time when see something, we presume that it exists.  But we never
consider for how long.  Even the universe some say has a life span to it.
The universe exists, and may vanish someday, but not the concept of
the universe (I wish I could throw in something about existential and
universal quantifiers :).  That continues to exist from the time the first 
person thought of it or of its actual formation.  In the same way, can what
we CALL consciousness would continue to exist (presuming it really is 
something) ?  But then individuals don't matter anymore.

***************** Entering reality, ********************

I'm just glad to be alive!!!
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