We all know the biological reason we age and die. Our bodies break down and are discarded like an old car or a worn-out pair of jeans. No one escapes the ravages of time. Or do they?
The big question is why is the universe this way to begin with? Of all of the possible ways the universe could be structured, why are the laws of nature the way they are? Why do things become less ordered (see the second law of thermodynamics which states that entropy or chaos in the universe increases over time), rather than more ordered? Why do systems deteriorate -- and life die -- rather than stay the same?
Equally relevant, is the question of why out of all of existence -- out of everything possible in the universe -- all you get to be is, say, a plumber or a hairdresser. And that's it! -- followed by nothingness for the rest of eternity. You'll never get to travel in a spaceship to distant stars, or to live in a world without cancer or war. Scientists say it's all an accident. If you're dealt a bad hand, oh well, it's just tough luck. You'll die soon enough.
Our inability to comprehend the true nature of life shouldn't come as a surprise, considering our DNA differs from apes and monkeys by less than 2 percent. We primates -- whether scientist or macaque -- have significant cognitive limitations. Like a mouse or a gerbil, we open our eyes and the world −- as if by magic -- is just there. We think it's a thing, a hard object. But this is inconsistent with hundreds of experiments carried out in the last century.
Reality is observer-determined -- it's a spatio-temporal process, which fortunately, means that things must change. Could you imagine always and forever being a toddler? Diapers and lollipops would grow tiresome. Or forever being a senior? The laws of nature are structured so that we grow and change, and get to experience the full spectrum of biological existence.
That part of the equation is easy to understand: First we experience life as children, then as middle-aged adults, and finally, as senior citizens. But we can't connect the dots beyond that. You're a shoe-maker for a few years and then it's into the void of nothingness forever. Stephen Hawking summed this viewpoint up quite accurately: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers."
This is the limit of our primate comprehension. Still, at some point, virtually everyone has wondered: "Is this all we are, is there nothing more?"
Fortunately, there is more. In Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," the great philosopher explained how space and time are forms of human intuition. Indeed, everything you see and experience is information in your mind. If space and time are tools of the mind, then we shouldn't be surprised that at death there's a break in the connection of time and place. Without consciousness, space and time are meaningless; in reality we can take any time -- or any spatial plane -- and estimate everything against this new frame of reference.
Death is simply a break in our linear stream of consciousness. Indeed, biocentrism suggests it's a manifold to all dimensional potentialities (see "What Happens When You Die?).
Time is the inner sense that animates existence, not just our thoughts and feelings, but the spatial representations we experience from birth until death. It's just the way we connect things, not an invisible, continuous matrix with people and particles bouncing around in it. Consciousness isn't created or destroyed -- it only changes forms. It's like a bubble machine that creates spheres -- spheres of space and time, which we carry around with us like turtles with shells.
Physics tells us observations can't be predicted absolutely. Rather, there's a range of possible observations each with a different probability. According to one interpretation, each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the "multiverse"). There are an infinite number of universes (including our own) that comprise everything that can possibly happen. Thus, death doesn't exist in any real sense, since all possible universes exist simultaneously regardless of what happens in any of them.
True, you age and die, but there are always bubbles (universes) spanning the breadth of eternity. Some may not travel very far, but others will float off into the horizon. Perhaps you'll get that space-trip to the stars after all.
"The first step to eternal life," said Chuck Palahniuk "is you have to die."
Robert Lanza has over two dozen scientific books, including Biocentrism, which lays out his theory of everything. You can learn more about his work at www.robertlanza.com.
Paul Loeb: Life Lessons From a Dying Friend
Transcending Death § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
World Religion: This gives hope in transcending death?
Inevitably you are Alive because it is due time for you to exist, it is time for you to Pray for the Grace of God To Fall Upon you, it is time for you to Awaken Spiritually, it is time for you to be saved from darkness and oblivion. Do not allow this one of a kind and only Opportunity to be lost for ever, as you only have one chance to reach Spiritual Awareness, to Pray and become one with God! By the immediate Grace Of God, we are meant to exist, it is our time, we are complete individuals, “Fortunate” that By The Grace Of God; we are unique and contained within our own souls, and have the opportunity to be Saved.
this statement is false. as long as one stays in the confines of materialism, religion or agnosticism of course this statement will be valid in their minds. this evidence cannot be provided, it must be sought. to provide someone with evidence; it will only be rejected outright. the paradigm effect is that powerful.
both science with its paradigm of materialistic scientism and religion with its god made in the image of man will not find or even seek this evidence.
read comment below about the back to zero rule. or not. :-)
interesting choices we humans have boxed ourselves into.
how does one move beyond these choices? one can choose to reject all of them with a back to almost zero move, mentality painful to the ego but effective; or the universe will choose for you. ie serial experiences gives us time and throw in the law of karma and many lives and the day arrives that we become sincere seekers and not paradigm defenders.
There is no provable way to transcend death in the mind. Once a brain shuts down, the life it was attached to doesn't keep processing information.
That if it can't be duplicated in the laboratory, it doesn't exist. Right?
That the consciousness of man also came out of that primordial soup. Right?
That thinking is nothing more than that soup with a little s & p added and stirred. Right?
That man is a flawed machine that will eventually rust out his existence. Right?
And your evidence, which is mandatory, is ..... Genes? DNA? Body Organs?
Do not Paris, New York City, Rembrandt, Astronauts, Michelangelo, Beethoven, Einstein,
S.Hawkin, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Pyramids, The Internet, Flowers, Bears, Oceans, Air,
Ideas, transcend death? And you're only willing to let "the products" of consciousness live on,
not consciousness itself--the creator of all of those "things"?
Interesting.
A similar comment was probably already made, I haven't read them all.
I am standing upon that foreshore, a ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, "there! she's gone!"
"Gone where?" "Gone from my sight, that's all", she is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at that moment when someone at my side says, "there! she's gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "here she comes!"
And that is dying.
Bishop Brent
Hugs, hugs and more hugs to you....
I looked it up, and sure enough, there are a lot of hits. Here's my favorite, with a reasonable conclusion:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp
My belief system, my faith is Born Again Christianity. I had an experience that defies all logic and science. An experience with the Holy Spirit of God. If you are familiar with the Bible, you will know that the Apostle Paul also had one of these. When God first created us and our visible universe, it was perfect. he did not want a race of robots, so He gave mankind freewill. We really fouled things up, but God has given us a second chance for perfect life. That chance comes through faith in His son Jesus Christ. For Believers, death is a passage to a perfect life that lasts forever. For non believers it is death and ti's ending a lasting and fiery destruction. If I were you I would study the Bible and engage God in prayer, asking Him to increase your faith and knowledge. Death for you will no longer be something to fear. Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship with your Creator who loves you so very much and wants you back.
I wish more people of your faith would admit, as you have, that their belief was based on faith alone. Trying to define, with science, that which cannot be defined is a fool's folly.
So what was your message. . .perhaps an e?
At least you admit it to be wishful thinking.