Why do you assume you need intelligent life or human beings in order to have consciousness? And how do you recognize intelligent life when you see it?
You cannot return to any state if “you” are dead.
They do not complain about being dead, because there is no “them” in the body anymore. You cannot be “dead”, there is no you to experience non experience. The reason people fear death is because they don’t know what comes after, for all we know the next life could be worse or it could be better.
You cannot assume that there is no next life because you look at a body and see that it is dead…just as you cannot assume there is no sentience in someone because you look at their brain and cannot see their thoughts. How did you know the consciousness stream did not continue elsewhere? You already know your consciousness stream generated at your birth for no apparent cause or reason. You are using cheap empirical methods to debate consciousness and sentience discussions which is rather laughable.
That is a coping mechanism to help me get to the end of this life so up until then it is true
If after that it turns out I have been entirely wrong I will accept this with zero reservation
Though right now I have no desire to start thinking about something I have no control over
I will wait and see and take it a day at a time while patiently waiting for death to take me
Yes I am going to die but that is as far as my knowledge extends right now so I accept that
Why are there so many old people, just waiting to die, at ILP? 
We have control over our life, or at least we have the illusion of control. When I tell you to not eat paper, you have the choice to not eat paper. The universe is helping you, through me, to programmed in the right way, to make the right choices. So the universe is telling us (through me, I am it’s Body and Holy Vessel) that you should make the right choice, because choices may affect the outcome of the afterlife. And the right choice is, to insist that Science do more serious research on consciousness and the afterlife. And in order for science to do that, the first step is to upgrade everyone’s brains.
That is all very well but what I am specifically interested in is getting to the end of this life
You want to upgrade your brain then go ahead and do it but that has nothing to do with me
I am just waiting to die and passing the time till death finally decides to come and take me
Well then go to a cold dark place and wait, why bother with activity?
insert *we welcome our alien overlords we welcome the smoozesummoner devoured> trope
I need to keep myself occupied as doing nothing is out of the question
I do not fancy just staring at empty walls for the next thirty odd years
Because if that is all I shall be doing then I might as well die right now
Didn’t you know that death is a contrarian? Death may just decide to leave you alone until that moment when you see something worthwhile about living. Then Death will take you. And take care not to try to fool Death. It sees right through you.
How to resolve the conundrum?
Are you at least enjoying passing the time on some level?
This sounds to me as if you are very sorry for yourself for some reason. But I don’t believe you. I think that every creature clinges to life (and if you’re getting upset now, you prove me right 
).
To the OP:
If the human spirit doesn’t mirror God’s eternal essence, then Sartre was right - we make our own; we are like the river you never step into twice, a conscious one that chooses which way it goes. However…if the human spirit does mirror God’s essence, we are not dealing with a changing river, but an infinite well. We can choose to be filled from that well, or be dry wells ourselves. And we will become exactly what we choose.
I’m not waiting to die. I have poems yet to write.
duplicate
That’s good. 
So life is worth living and doing, it does have meaning and a point for you.
Why has your fish got feet?
I think you are missing the point. Do you know what Ixthos stands for?
The ichthus w/ feet is for me a symbol of theistic evolution. See biologos.org/questions My last post stands regardless.
Theism is a medieval myth. It contradict evolution, obviously.
Define what you mean by “passing the time”.
You must be a real pain on road trips. 