My perspective on the afterlife (response to GTF)

I wanted to make a video about my spiritual beliefs anyway so Gothatfunk's video gives a good opportunity to finally do so.

GFT's "Questions for Believers in an Afterlife": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTqhD0fTJyI

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[SkallagrimNilsson]

@BeardedBill86

I'd say that brains and consciousness have developed parallel, influencing one another along the way. As brain functions in early animals became more complex they could accommodate more complex forms of consciousness, which in turn have had an impact on the further development. Also it's possible that sapient beings on different spiritual planes might have watched, possibly even influenced, life on this planet for quite a while.

[BeardedBill86]

@SkallagrimNilsson I see, an interesting theory and quantum physics does seem to deepen the mystery further..

So you think perhaps our brains and other sentient animals are more receptive to conciousness that has arisen alongside anthropomorphic life within the universe which tends to "latch on" to these bodies and then express itself through them?

[SkallagrimNilsson]

@BeardedBill86

If you think about dreams, you can be aware to a varying extent. The more conscious you are in the dream, the more vivid and detailed it is and the more you will be able to recall after waking up. So as I understand it, consciousness exists along a spectrum and is not necessarily anthropocentric.

[SkallagrimNilsson]

@BeardedBill86

That's a good question, and it's tied to the question how did the universe come to be? I tend to look at it like a process of the universe itself becoming conscious in a slow, gradual process. There are even some scientists who have proposed that the universe only exists because it can observe itself (you know, the Schrödinger's cat problem).

Who says consciousness is attached only to humans? It makes sense to think that animals have consciousness, only that they are less aware.

[SkallagrimNilsson]

@lakeb0dom

It's certainly not the only way to achieve but from what I've seen it seems to be the most effective. It's different from prayer in that it involved creating what you want to achieve in your mind as if it already existed, and it needs to be done consistently for a longer period of time. Prayer is basically just wishful thinking. To put it another way, wishful thinking is "I want to be...", whereas visualizing is "I am..." or "I'm on my way to becoming...".

[BeardedBill86]

@SkallagrimNilsson Interesting, but then ofcourse that begs the question from what does conciousness itself arise? And then how and why does this seperate conciousness become attached to a naturally selected brain of one particular species of a planet containing countless others?

[lakeb0dom]

@SkallagrimNilsson Be it so, I would like to know cases where the mind has only limited ability to change the physical world,and in these cases you mentioned, is simply visualizing the goals in your mind the only way(or the best)to realise your goals?If that's so,how's it any different from a prayer?You get up each morning and instead of saying a "Hail Mary" you look yourself in the mirror and say "I want to be a millionaire",as a process of materialising desires from the "vibrational state"

[SkallagrimNilsson]

@BeardedBill86

The way I see is that the brain is not the generator of consciousness but rather the gateway that connects consciousness to its physical vehicle. When the brain is damaged, the link is damaged as well, which means that the consciousness outside of the body would still be fully functional but its interaction with the physical world is impaired.

Reports of people born blind who were able to see for the first time when having an out-of-body experience illustrates this.

[BeardedBill86]

I appreciate the detail that you went into in this video, but it still isn't clear to me how exactly our conciousness can exist without the physical platform (our brain) from which it stems.

If you consider what current scientific understanding seems to confirm, that we have no free will and our idea of "self" is actually an illusion that can be interrupted and changed simply by changing physical aspects of the brain..where does a non-corporeal conciousness factor in?

[SkallagrimNilsson]

@lakeb0dom

Also, every man-made or human-influenced object (including landscapes) has necessarily been created in the mind first. So even though it's made through physical actions, those action need to be driven by consciousness, which has already formed the result on a different level.

I've had lucid dreams before, and I was working on astral projection (haven't gone past the vibrational state yet). I think they are quite powerful. It's amazing how clear, vivid and detailed lucid dreams are.