[AdamF]

Q: Who says we're not in it already? (just a thought to get the ball rolling... )

[Eldar]

A thought I have forced upon myself to live with everyday through misguided curiousity......

[tom mccurdy]

What would a TOE have to do with afterlife... an afterlife discussion should be completly separate from toe discussions, unless your toe is different from TOE as in the theory of everything, the holy grail of physics.

[Robert]

I debated with myself whether to include these forums on a site dedicated to the Theory of Everything. This is still a bit of an open question for me whether these areas are relevant or not. They're here now with the hope of generating some debate on the matter.

My point of view is that if there is an afterlife, if we have some kind of incorporeal existance after we die, it should be explained by a Theory of Everything. I don't think we should compartmentalize reality where the Theory of Everything applies in one reality (physical) and not the other reality (non-physical). Perhaps the non-physical reality, if it exists, is some kind of emergent phenomenon, a new kind of physics; most likely it does not even exist. At least that would simplify matters .

But then it is hard to imagine non-existence and there is anecdotal evidence of an afterlife so people continue to believe that there is some kind of soul that survives death.

I see several directions this discussion might go:

1. It might be an interesting excercise to assume there is an afterlife and see where that takes us.
2. Debate whether there is an afterlife or not.
3. Debate whether we should even debate whether there is an afterlife or not. (Tom's point)
4. What does non-existence mean?
5. What does if feel like to not-exist?
6. Why comment #5 makes no sense.

What direction shall we go?

[yanniru]

Assuming TOE is a TOP (theory of physics), and not the all inclusive thing, then it is possible to theorize about afterlife without having a TOE extant.

Afterlife requires a theory of consciousness, TOC Consciousness is presumably that which survives death. So the requirement, from a physics perspective, is to find a medium that is invisible in which consciousness can exist; and in which your consciousness can exist after death.

I hypothesize that such a medium is a superfluid or Bose-Einstein Condensate BEC or axions or axinos or microleptons (as the Russians call it) or any extremely light (in mass) particle ~ one billionth the electron mass. Such particles, because of being nearly massless, have global size wavefunctions and are superfluids at room and even solar temperatures. Such a medium would be invisible and most likely undetectable. And the physics of such a medium does not require a TOE/TOP. It's all very low temperature phenomena.

The Russians have developed a theory of microleptons. So I do not claim originality. But they have not especially applied it to consciousness. (Ref: http://www.dhushara.com/pdf/ruquist.pdf.).

To extend this thinking to afterlife, it seems logical to assume that some part of your consciousness when alive is that which persists in the superfluid when dead.

So let's look at our common experience of consciousness. It seems to come in two flavors: waking consciousness and sleeping consciousness. It would appear, and Frolich proposed a theory of consciousness based on this, that waking consciousness requires energy. Energy would not be required in a frictionless superfluid. That then leaves sleeping consciousness as a property of the superfluid if my hypothesis is correct.

Anyway without going on and on, the physics of superfluids are reasonably well understood. So a TOE is unnecessary.

What is needed is to detect such a medium. We can detect EM waves associated with dreaming. But I do not believe that these waves are our consciousness. By the way, what we can detect in the laboratory is at most 5% of what is in the universe according to astronomy. So there must be a great deal of mass and energy available that is invisible in which a superfluid could exist.

[mlangleyRN]

Afterlife.....

There are so many theories on what happens when we die. Sometimes I think about it so much it makes me sick. Because almost every idea leaves me freaked out. I do believe we go somewhere after we die. (because the thought of just rotting in a box is unbearable) And we can debate all we want and waste away our life wondering where we go, but no matter what we believe there is only ONE ending, and we all have no clue what it will REALLY be.

Out of all the "choices", reincarnation is the best sounding choice. But it too has its flaws, what if we come back as a roach? or living in a third world country? What is the plus of another life if we do not have the knowledge of our other "chances"? Reincarnation does make the most sense though. It would explain the problem of over populating "heaven". I think there are many many many realms that cover the same area and when you die, you are reborn in another "reality", reincarnated. This would also explain ghosts..... hot spots in the framework of each "reality" could blend in spots, leading to "ghostly" blending. Sounds fun!

From what I've learned about "heaven" it doesn't exactly sound like "my " kind of fun. Singing praises alllllllllllll day long, for ETERNITY? No books, no sex, no scary movies? I don't know If I could handle it!

Any way, maybe if we could talk about the theories on afterlife, like reincarnation, we can have some fun?

Looking forward to it.....
Michelle

[Marketa]

What is after life...I guess that if we want to discuss the question, we should define what the life is. What do we know about life?

Some people believe that life was created or that it came from somewhere in the cosmos; scientists claim that life arose from the chemical material many years ago . At first we must find out what ‘life’ means. We usually think that living objects are those, which are breathing, moving (or at least growing) etc.

Well, these conditions are nice, but isn’t it a bit selfish of us (people)? We do breathe, we do move etc. but some viruses who obviously behave like living creatures don’t belong to this definition of ‘life’. I can offer you another definition: life are all creatures or objects which have/are kind of consciousness. It means: if a creature or object can “see”, feel or observe and it reacts, it is living. It might sound like nonsense – so do computers live? Let me explain.

“See”, “feel” and “observe” mean conscious activities. Conscious means whatever you see, hear, feel, your thoughts, pain, etc. at a particular time (present). This is what you really are. Usually it’s connected with the “objective” world around you, but not always: if you’re sleeping, you physically can hear, but it’s not part of your consciousness-if you’re dreaming, your consciousness is represented by your dream (so not by the “objective” world around you).

This definition of life is the only proven definition – we ourselves are proof.

That means that there can't be anything "after life".

[Guille]

Originally Posted by tom mccurdy What would a TOE have to do with afterlife... an afterlife discussion should be completly separate from toe discussions, unless your toe is different from TOE as in the theory of everything, the holy grail of physics

A correct holy grail of physics (the T.O.E.) would HAVE to include afterlife discussion. The search for the holy grail, was started by Albert Einstein, and he believed that the thoery would explain everything, including feelings, energy, matter, time......and Afterlife. Everything means everything, including nothing.

And because Einstein started the research, his believing of a T.O.E., is THE correct believing of a what a T.O.E. should have.

[Omni]

All I can really say about this subject is that I once was in hospital because of an accident and had a terrible headache one evening..or night..can't remember. What I can remember is that I had a strange experience. All of a sudden I was apart from my body. Not floathing above it but IN my body and could see my body from within. I didn't feel the headache anymore and what was strange is that it didn't feel strange. It felt like ME. I want to say more but can't remember good enough to say things for certain. I guess it was a trick of the mind to get attention away from the headache but you never know...as always. Didn't feel strange...felt logical as if it was real...very real.

[kennap]

I believe that we do rot, I think alot of these other ideas are sprung from a fear of this reality. What's wrong with rotting? The earth is full of rot that feeds the new lives. Some say there is a split between your physical self and spiritual self and the spirit lives on. I think that this is just a way the self perceives the rotting, the splitting into smaller parts. The physical and spiritual world are one and the same. Not to say the corpses are that valuable, I think most of the spirit is transferred into energy during the actions of our lives. Thoughts are electric impulses(energy), how we percieve the world, and how we make our decisions. and I wonder what is the real importance of belief.