AN INVINCIBLE ARGUMENT FOR THE AFTERLIFE (PART THREE)

I would respond that I cannot show them what is in fact true about the ‘I’ beyond the grave. I can only conceptually show them that if consciousness does not cease to exist at death, it may continue in the form of an artificial reality that might be different than the one currently experienced.

Certain definitions can point directly to the world we interact in, such as “consciousness”, which in the case of discerning whether or not mind-independent objects exist, focuses primarily on visual perception. A person looking upon the world in which we interact will see that the world consists of the person’s subjective experience, as the world only appears when the person is awake and attends to it. The aspect or part of the interactive world viewed by the individual disappears when the individual no longer attends to it.

If a person touches a tree, the person discovers that the way the tree feels is basically only the experience the person has when he or she touches the visual object. This experience is distinct from the brain, which itself is another visual experience composed of the person’s experience of the experiential brain (if seen in medical and neuroscientific context).

If one believes brains create consciousness, the seeming existence of death and sleep indicates that the world in which we interact is an artificial reality created by the brain. Mind-independent objects and events are not created by the brain, do not depend upon the brain in order to exist, and do not cease to exist in response to malfunction or non-function of the brain. So the world in which we interact is an artificial reality regardless of whether or not the brain creates consciousness.

These observations define the world the individual actually exists and is involved in. They point directly to it.

A person demonstrates everything I have described in ‘the world of words’.

No.

No. But the fact remains there is no evidence of a mind/body relationship.

The assumption demonstrates the actual things we choose to do from day to day. So the dots are connected there. The assumption cannot demonstrate the fate of “I” on the slab.

The assumption demonstrates the actual things we choose to do from day to day. So the dots are connected there. The assumption cannot demonstrate the fate of “I” on the slab.

Everything other than subjective experience is conjecture supported by faith.

Okay, you are making what you construe to be an invincible argument. But so much is at stake with regard to death, many will inevitably want more than that. And if you are ever able to provide them with it, I hope you’ll start with us here.

That’s fair as many people, including those who think death is the eternal cessation of consciousness, are probably interested to know if there are adequate counterpoints that could or might make them re-think their position.

But as I say now and have repeated before, I can’t show you, or anyone, the afterlife, as we all only experience the current artificial or “virtual” reality of the world that appears before our eyes. So it is patently impossible for me to open a portal into the afterlife to show you or anyone and say: “See, there it is”.

The only thing I can do is like a defense attorney provide reasonable doubt regarding the logic and existence of the common objects, relations, and procedures of commonly believed godless mythology. And by that reasonable doubt induce an individual’s entertainment that the afterlife is possible if not probable. That’s it.

So here’s the thing. Those who do not believe in an afterlife do not just rest upon the belief: “there is no afterlife” without some sort of explanation as to why they believe this. To explain the belief, they must produce a mythology regarding the way things work and the way things are, and these deny the eternity of consciousness. In the typical or usual mythology of “what’s really going on”, there is an organ in the body called the brain that has been “pinpointed” or that is believed to be the source of our experience of the world and our experience of real consequences for doing this or that in this world.

But if the brain is behind the world we experience, the brain is producing an artificial or “virtual” reality that is the world of “the here and now”. Either way you cut it it’s an artificial reality. It’s gotta be an artificial reality because it shuts on and off during dreamless sleep and death (if there are such things). In commonly believed godless mythology, the artificial world beams out, like holographic Princess Leia from R2D2, from a mass of flesh trapped in a skull, to seemingly hover outside the skull and body.

But even so it would be sorta weird to think the external world only contains floating mind-independent brains that collectively beam out artificial realities in the form of different persons or first-person subjects of experience experiencing the same world from their own individual reference or point of view. Thus cometh not the Iceman, but the mythology of something to support the existence of the arbitrarily existing experiential objects and events appearing in the artificial realities beaming from brains.

Thus cometh the mythology of mind-independent doppelgangers of the things we see in the artificial realities. These invisible, intangible objects (because they are outside and not part of the artificial reality beaming from our brains, as we are and can only experience the artificial reality beaming from our brain) are not part of the artificial realities but are imagined by us within the artificial reality (as they must be imagined as we can’t experience anything that is not the artificial reality beaming from the brain) as larger-than-the-brain-and-body objects and events that cannot and do not reside within the body or skull, but must somehow send signals to the body and brain that is routed to and strikes that part of the brain that luckily, just happened to have a neural circuit sitting in it that purportedly produces an artificial reality subjective image of just that object that just happened to send the signal to the body and brain at that moment.

What does any of this have to do with the afterlife or providing more than just an argument for the afterlife?

Well…if I can conceptually show how preposterous it is for this big, large world we see–which seems to hover in front of us and seems to hover in front of us outside our skulls and brains—to have once either not existed at all or to have been folded and curled up like an airbag years before the fact to suddenly spring like a deployed airbag from tiny neurons trapped in a skull; if I can conceptually show how preposterous it is that neural circuits in the brain happen to have the ability to beam out experience of the future before the future even happens—

(Yes ladies and gents in case you didn’t know it the brain, if brains create experience of the world, can predict the future, as the brain must have neural circuits sitting in the brain waiting years before the fact (as presumably neural circuits capable of producing the experience of what one will experience, say, 30 seconds from now cannot have the neural circuits responsible for this soon to happen experience forming in the brain in less than 30 seconds prior to the experience, as the experience is showing up in 30 seconds) capable of producing experiences of the future in order for us to have experiences of the near future. That is, neural circuits responsible for immediate and far future experience must “know” what future states the external world is going to come up with before the external world unknowingly and accidentally (because there are no gods) produces them.)

–if I can show how preposterous it is to hold that neurons, in the same way God caused light to exist ex nihilo in some interpretations of the Book of Genesis, can cause experiences that do not exist to come into existence, and for experiences to somehow go out of existence (rather than simply transform into new experiences); if I can show how preposterous it is for mind-independent doppelgangers of mountains, computers, chairs, stars, and movie celebrities to have anything to do with the artificial reality containing a person’s first-person experience of these things when they are not one and the same thing (as one is created by the brain and the other cannot fit within the brain in order to come forth from it)—

—I can cast reasonable doubt on the common mythology regarding consciousness and death…I can conceptually cause the listener to infer that the entire mythology is make-believe (as one can only experience one’s the artificial reality of one’s experience and not the mind-independent fictions purportedly existing outside the artificial reality). If the mythology is ultimately just a made up, consisting of made up objects that supposedly lurk behind the one existence we can and do see (one’s own consciousness)…consciousness is not necessarily produced by brains and does not necessarily come into and go out of existence. Rather, given that consciousness is the only thing that shows us it exists, rather than make-believe physical energy in the First Law of Thermodynamics being the thing that ‘is neither created nor destroyed but only changes it’s form’, it’s consciousness that does that instead, as it may be that consciousness is the only thing that exists.

In one can accept the possibility of that, and if one can accept the possibility that mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception do not exist and that brains do not create consciousness—

(The brain can be entailed in theological explanation to be a symbolic metaphor of what actually produces consciousness, with the brain, its function, and seeming correspondence with conscious states instilled by God as part of a game of logic or logic-game he plays with man, in which a human choosing to play discerns the illogical nature of the brain’s “relation” to consciousness and from this deduces that persons are actually non-embodied spirits)

—one may infer that if consciousness is eternal and only or can only form persons that do not cease to exist at death (as persons cannot can cease to exist but only transform into another person or a different version of their former self according to a ‘First Law of Psyche’ that replaces the First Law of Thermodynamics) an afterlife is possible, given the eternal and transformative nature of consciousness.

The upshot being I hope to provide argument for the afterlife that causes a person to discern its logical possibility and the logical impossibility of godless mythology.


(Note: Despite the logical inconsistencies of mind-independence and relation between mind-independence and consciousness, belief in godless mythology and cessation of consciousness at death may still be saved by Ernst Mach’s Phenomenalism, if one abandons mind-independence and materialism.)

Points, yes. But to the extent that the points are only about other points comprising particular definitions and meanings, it’s still just a world of words.

Consider for example the Manhattan Project: “a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons.”

No doubt these folks exchanged many, many points regarding the science involved in grappling with the creation of atomic bombs. But sooner or later the points had to be connected to actual physical/material/phenomenal interactions such that someone could actually manufacture this bomb. The bomb itself confirmed the objectives truthfulness of one set of points rather than another.

But suppose another group of folks got together to discuss whether or not those killed by the bomb went on to exist beyond the grave. Lots of points in lots of arguments could be made here too. But one set of points either leads to actual hard evidence that they did in fact continue to exist beyond the grave or it doesn’t. And if the evidence isn’t there to confirm one or another rendition of consciousness/life after death that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the end of. Down the road, others may come up with new points leading to new discoveries. But the new discoveries either demonstrate the existence of life after death [for any particular one of us] or they don’t. But will the evidence here be the equivalent of the actual existing bomb in the first project?

And, as in any number of criminal trials, “reasonable doubt” can become a particularly slippery slope. It’s not like the jury can hold it in their hands like a rock to confirm beyond all doubt what the objective truth is.

As for how the brain is to be understood here as mind or the mind understood as “soul”, we just don’t have a precise understanding of that. Or, rather, I certainly don’t.

What’s “weird” here goes all the way back to why there is anything at all. And why this particular something and not another one. Weirder still [perhaps] have been attempts to explain existence through “logic”. What is inherently logical about the existence of existence itself? To the best of our knowledge, the universe had been around for billions of years before matter evolved into life evolved into consciousness evolved into self-conscious entities. Like us. But we’re not even really certain if what we are conscious of isn’t all that we could only ever have been conscious of.

In the interim being able to think yourself into believing in life after death can only be that much more comforting and consoling than thinking yourself into believing the death of “I” equals oblivion.

Unless of course you no longer wish to exist at all. And then finding out that, to your horror, “I” really does continue on for all of eternity.

And this is an excellent metaphor of what you seek behind mere “argument for an afterlife”. The physical, material “bomb” or actual, “look it’s there” proof of the afterlife is not one and the same as argument for an afterlife which is comprised of just words expressing an idea without immediate or eventual connection to a hands-on “bomb”. Got it.

When it comes to the afterlife, unfortunately, there is no “actual existing bomb”, so all we have on this side of the grave are words, thoughts, and ideas for and against.

There are certain things, like bombs, for instance, that by the very premise of the idea of a bomb is an idea of something that can present itself to human sensory perception. Then there are things that are ideas of things that cannot present themselves to human perception. The afterlife, the Multiverse, and mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception are of the latter.

The Afterlife in terms of the idea of what it looks like is usually thought of from the third-person, but any third-person idea is seen from the point of view of the person having the idea. But the true idea of the afterlife should be considered in regard to the existence or non-existence of the person who died and may or may not be experiencing it.

Why?

Because the afterlife is an idea derived from and is an extrapolation of the “actual existing bomb” of an actual first-person subject of experience. You have an “actual existing bomb” of your first-person subjective experience and I have an “actual existing bomb” of mine, as I sit and type at 5:10am in the morning on a keyboard in Austin,Texas.

But from my point of view (solipsism be damned as it makes its point), your consciousness to me is simply an idea or “point” that may or may not exist for all I know, as I can only experience my own consciousness. I cannot render the objective truth of your consciousness or anyone’s consciousness save mine, there can be no connection between points given in support of the existence of your consciousness and the actual, hard evidence of it, as it is something I cannot experience and can only believe objectively exists.

The afterlife, if it exists, comprises the consciousness of everyone that has deceased from the beginning to end of man. In the same way I cannot experience your consciousness, the living cannot experience the consciousness (if they exist) of those that have “gone on”, and can only have and express ideas for or against the survival of these consciousnesses that we can never experience. The point being, there can never be any new discovery that can demonstrate to oneself the consciousness of another person (one could make an argument for isomorphism, in which two beings share the same identical experience, but this would be “identical twin” experience from two separate perspectives and points of view, not one person intermittently becoming another person, such that only one experience between persons exist).

Thus any connection between points and the objective truth concerning the afterlife may never manifest in sensory perception. Why? Because the metaphor between the bomb and the idea of the bomb does not apply to the idea of the existence of the consciousness of another person and the ability to see another person’s consciousness from your consciousness. One will not be able to produce or objectively demonstrate the consciousness of another person, living or dead.

Thus the metaphor fails, and will continue to fail, when asking for a demonstration of the afterlife because when asking for a demonstration of the afterlife one is asking for demonstration of the subjective experience of other persons, whose subjective experiences are commonly believed to have ceased to exist. But this is the same, really, as asking for a demonstration of the subjective experience of a living person.

The bomb is a sensory object that presents itself in the (believed to exist) artificial realities of several persons who have built the bomb and are looking upon the sensory object. The afterlife is the idea of the first-person experiences of persons and what they invisibly experience in the afterlife if consciousness continues after seeming cessation of the brain, itself another aspect and event of the artificial reality that is human consciousness. Asking if the evidence of the bomb is equivalent to evidence of the afterlife is like asking if evidence of a bottle of water is equivalent to your evidence of my consciousness.

Ideas are ideas, but what do ideas represent? Do they represent things that can appear to the senses, that can appear before an observing first-person subjective point of view and reported by other first-person subjective points of view as the thing observed by the first? Or is the idea about the first-person subjective point of view itself, and what that point of view experiences for itself that cannot be reported as observed by other first-person points of view? The afterlife is of the latter.

Does this mean the latter cannot or does not exist because the experience of a first-person subject of experience in the afterlife, if the person and afterlife exists, is incapable of demonstrating its existence and experiences to those still inside the artificial reality of having a biological body in an artificially contrived world containing experience of the body? No. To deny the existence of persons surviving death and their experiences following death is akin (in principle) to denying the existence of the consciousness of another person.

Existence just is. It exists for no other reason than that it happened to exist. Things exist for no other reason than that, out of everything that could or might have existed in its place, the thing that exists happened to win the “lottery” of existence.

As consciousness is an artificial reality with nothing behind it to ground it (according to my belief), the age of the universe is an imaginary fiction invented or placed in the mind by something, other persons, or a Person outside the human mind. I don’t think matter can evolve into consciousness, as it involves a magic in which that which is not subjective experience suddenly stops being what it is to magically transform into something it previously essentially was not. I don’t think that sort of magic exists, nor do we need that magic or the magic of creation ex nihilo to arrive at consciousness.

I think subjective experience doesn’t have to come from something that wasn’t subjective experience, and that we don’t need subjective experience to start from something or have anything to do with something other than itself. It can simply be eternal, and can easily eternally exist for all time in the form of a Person that imagines other persons, that themselves while residing in the mind of the Person bear the substance of this naturalistic Novelist* (borrowing the Novelist’s own subjective experience which inwardly forms their own).

Those imagined by the Novelist come into existence when the Novelist happens to invent them within the mind, with the substance of the Novelist forming a “consciousnesses within a consciousness” (as it is commonly believed that the people we imagine or dream about are philosopher’s zombies without an inner consciousness of their own) that have their own private experiences within the Novelist and die when the Novelist closes their individual stories and stops thinking of them. An afterlife in this simple scenario of the eternity of consciousness would entail the Novelist ceasing to think of certain persons as punishment for the person’s evil within the mind of the Novelist, and to eternally think of a joyful existence for those who please the Novelist within the Novelist’s mind.

(*Novelist=Judeo-Christian God)

Even if we can’t prove soul stuffs and spirit, there’s all kinds of miracles and wonders of inexplicable origins that only a higher power could’ve fashioned. Love from God builds a better vehicle for giving us ecstatic views of the beyond and, if God could give us a vision, then all of the heavenly fruits and treasures would be opened to us.

Okay, and some accept this because it’s better than nothing at all. But it still comes down to words that prompt someone [anyone] to go beyond them. To connect the words to experiences, experiments, behaviors etc., that make the afterlife something that we can all believe in more substantively.

The bottom line: thinking that something is true is not the same as demonstrating it.

And that is really the only distinction we can make with regard to things that are not able to be demonstrated as true for all of us in the either/or world.

In other words, that critical gap between “you are making an argument here at ILP about the existence of an afterlife” and “your argument here proves that an afterlife does in fact exist”.

It’s like that James Randi wager. He offered a million bucks to anyone who could demonstrate the existence of that which most of us call the “supernatural”. Believing in its existence is not the same showing us its existence.

In fact it would be interesting if some billionaire would offer, say, a ten million dollar reward to anyone who could in fact demonstrate the existence of the afterlife.

If you google “reward for proving life after death” you get this: google.com/search?ei=2odgXM … c6up7kSVDg

Sure, all of this “metaphysical speculation” can take us anywhere. Do we really have the capacity to know for certain that “I” is not just a manifestation of a sim world or a dream world or a matrix…or of solipsism or of a wholly determined universe?

Back again to those things that we consciously believe to be true “in our head” and attempts to demonstrate that in fact they are true.

This and any possible limitations imposed on philosophers here in delving into it.

This part:

Okay, demonstrate to us how, if the afterlife does in fact exist, it is in fact comprised of this.

Instead, in my view, you merely assert this to be the case if in fact your argument for the afterlife turns out be demonstrable. Thus [to me] it is basically a two-part intellectual contraption:

1] there is an afterlife
2] this is what it consist of

Also, you make certain assumptions about the profound mystery that would seem to be embedded in matter either evolving or not evolving into minds becoming conscious of itself as matter evolving or not evolving into minds in what may or may not be an existence created by God.

As I see it, the demonstration of an existing afterlife is the first order of business before we can explore the nature of subjectivity with respect to particular contexts.

Until then, your assessments are [to me] truly sheer speculation.

And this [substantively] tells us what about the existence of existence itself? It is no less a profoundly problematic mystery to us now then it must have been to philosophers centuries and centuries ago. Only we have access to the knowledge that scientists have provided us in regard to the very, very large and the very, very small worlds.

Fitting “I” into all of that [either before or after the grave] would appear to be even more daunting a task for us here and now. The more we learn the more there seems the need to learn.

We can only imagine you taking this to forums populated by physicists or neuroscientists. And in imagining how they might react to it.

What there would you be able to demonstrate to them? Few of us here at ILP are sophisticated enough to grapple with the points you make. All we can do is note the extent to which you are in fact able to demonstrate the existence of an afterlife on a level that we could understand. For example, by experiencing it ourselves.

Okay, provide us with the most convincing evidence of this.

So here’s the deal. If we ever stopped existing in the past or the future, we wouldn’t exist right now.

Let me try to explain THAT even better.

If I stopped existing at any point in the timeline, then I have stopped existing at every point in the timeline, thus, I wouldn’t be here right now. The fact that we are here right now, shows that we haven’t unexisted at any point in the timeline.

You talk about the afterlife.

The gods have something called the “seamless”, where you travel from one dimension to another without realizing that you’ve already died.

Existence is stranger than you imagine currently, I’m going to teach you: understand in every moment that you have already died and you are in your afterlife. This will help you wake up more.

Life is a dream until you’ve interpreted all dreams, then, you are awake.

I agree. Thinking something is true is certainly not the same as demonstrating it. That goes for the afterlife, the multiverse, mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception, and the evolution of unconscious matter into a subjectively experiencing person.

We know for certain that we exist in the form of something that is a manifestation of a sim or dream world or “Matrix”. And we exist in the form of something that is of solipsism. One experiences it now.

I agree. The only thing that actually demonstrates it exists is the current experience of a subjectively experiencing person.

A person and that which the person currently experiences is the only thing that has ever bothered to show up to the party of existence. Everything else threw away the invite and stayed home. Thus everything other than a living person and that which the person is currently experiencing is indeed only “in the head”…but they are “in the head” only as far as the person can see and experience.

Does this mean, then, that things that are “in the head” definitely, irrefutably does not exist? Not at all: it simply means they are of a nature that they cannot demonstrate their existence, if they exist. For example, when it comes to unconscious matter, one has “in the head” a concept of something that is not subjective experience nor any subjectively experiencing person. Unconscious matter, therefore, cannot demonstrate that it exists because existence only manifests in the form of a person and that which the person subjectively experiences and unconscious matter is not any person and that which any person experiences. Indeed, it is not subjective experience itself.

When it comes to the afterlife, if the afterlife exists, the term ‘life’ in ‘afterlife’ implies the concept of life, and life, as it empirically or actually demonstrated itself, exists in the form of a person and that which the person experiences. An afterlife, then, is an “in the head” idea of a person and that which the person experiences existing after a previous experience of being a certain person in what seems to be a biologically operating body composed of the person’s consciousness.

Therefore, given that an afterlife is conceived as the experience of a person, unlike unconscious matter that can never demonstrate it exists and therefore can only be imagined to magically transform into a person, the concept of an afterlife may be conceived (and is conceived) as something that, if it exists, is something that does not yet demonstrate it’s existence.

I can’t demonstrate it, as we are currently in the current artificial reality comprised of our subjective experience. The idea or concept of the afterlife, the form the idea takes, is one of the survival of the consciousness of all deceased persons. This is the form of the idea. It is an idea that could be true for all we know, can or cannot demonstrate, or believe or not believe. It is futile, therefore, to ask me to demonstrate it as it is merely an idea that could be true for all we know outside the artificial reality that is our current consciousness.

True.

The point of the assumption is that empirically, that is, from the starting point of the ‘actual existing bomb’ that right in front of us in regard to the nature of existence is subjective experience, and that in the form of oneself and that which one is currently experiencing, that did not exist prior to one experiencing it “now” and that does not exist after one no longer experiences it. This is the ‘actual existing bomb’ of existence as it just happens to really exist. Matter or unconscious matter is an idea “in the head” of something that is the polar opposite of that which really exists (subjective experience and a subject of experience).

When one speaks of matter evolving into minds, one merely speaks of something that is not that which really exists and consistently and constantly demonstrates its existence magically transforming, slow or fast, into that which currently demonstrates that it exists. One even goes so far as to actually believe the thing that does not demonstrate that it exists actually exists outside that which demonstrates it existence. Touche. Turns out I do the same thing in regard to God and an afterlife whose content is governed and directed by God rather than unconscious matter.

Unconscious matter, then, is in the same boat as the afterlife in regard to the need for someone to demonstrate it in order to substantiate their argument regarding the evolution of matter into mind. Otherwise it, too, is entirely speculative. I think its easier that subjective experience is eternal but transforms, rather than having to go to all the trouble of getting it from something it isn’t.

The assessments are sheer speculation, as an existing afterlife cannot be demonstrated by a living person. My point, the entire point of the argument for an afterlife is not to demonstrate it, as this is existentially impossible, but to argue that an afterlife, despite it being sheer speculation “in the head” may despite the speculation objectively exist.

It tells us the only thing we can know about existence: that it simply exists, and does for no other reason than it happens to exist.

But the knowledge that scientists provided us in regard to the very large and very small worlds are only things composed of the subjective experience of persons that occur in the artificial reality of human consciousness. Science tells us of nothing about what exists outside the artificial reality that is a person and that which the person experiences.

I would love to do that.

I would conceptually demonstrate, asking the physicists and neuroscientists to use their own consciousness to demonstrate my point, that the world they perceive and in which they interact is empirically comprised only of their subjective experience, and as such must be an artificial or virtual reality composed only of their consciousness…if, given they believe the brain creates and produces consciousness the entire body of their knowledge, everything they have learned about the world and how it works, is just part of an artificial reality that “air bag deploys” from a mass of flesh inside their skull.

If their knowledge of the world and how it “really” works is just a “Matrix” that comes from something inside a skull and is not anything existing outside a skull, then everything they have thought and believed about the world is a “put on” created by the brain…as things that lie outside the brain and body if they exist cannot reach into the skull (without destroying it and the brain) to influence or instruct their shape, form, and behavior to the brain inside the skull.

As an afterlife is an idea of something that exists outside a person and that which the person currently experiences, it cannot be demonstrated. It is conceived as something that you could experience for yourself but by the power of a person(s) or unconscious but composed of consciousness mechanism, if the person(s) or mechanism exists, lying outside human experience.

The only thing I can do is present the idea of the afterlife and argue—not that I can demonstrate it— but that even if it is sheer speculation it is conceived to be comprised of something that actually exists and is demonstrable (subjective experience), and as such may objectively exist as an addition or extension of the thing that actually exists and as such, given that it is an existential segue rather than something that must conjure subjective experience from non-existence or magically and arbitrarily stop being something other than subjective experience to mutate into or transform into a person and that which the person experiences….more logically exists outside consciousness, as an afterlife is an idea of ‘more of the same’ (consciousness).

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1BpJyMv9Gs[/youtube]

It depends on how far you take this.

And always it comes back to our actual interactions with others. Here there are things that we believe are true in our head and there are things that we can demonstrate that others ought to believe are true in turn. Before or after the grave.

What else is there?

We can make arguments to defend what we think we know is true. And in particular contexts that may well be as far as we need to go.

But with regard to the existence of the afterlife the stakes are absolutely enormous. Arguments alone just won’t be enough for some of us.

You admit that you cannot demonstrate it. Then it is back to arguments like this:

Sure, this might all turn out to be true. But what I keep waiting for in venues like this is the thread entitled, “INVINCIBLE PROOF FOR THE EXISTENCE OF AN AFTERLIFE”

All I can do in reacting to conjectures of this sort is to fall back on that which is of importance to me in discussions like this: How ought one to live?

Take this assessment of yours out into the world of human interactions and explain to others why it is relevant to the the lives that they live. It may be fascinating to ponder here at ILP but what impact might it have with regard to “the human condition” as it is experienced from day to day.

But, sure, that is just what is important to me. Others may well have entirely different reasons for following threads like this.

But you have no way in which to demonstrate this. Here we are all in the same boat.

We have experiences from day to day construed subjectively by “I” as that which we think ourselves into believing are true. But this can only go back to whatever is “behind” or explains the existence of existence itself. Is there a reason for it? How on earth would/could we know?

We have bodies and minds and thoughts and feelings. We have experiences. Beyond that philosophers and scientists and theologians and others grapple to make sense of it. To make it all meaningful.

Still, in my view, this can only come down to how far one takes it. We embody subjective experiences from day to day in a universe that appears to be bursting at the seams with unimaginably vast interactions that go on with or without us.

If…

So, you need to go to those forums, make your points, and come back here with their reactions.

In the interim…

I read this and wonder: How is this relevant to the life that “I” live? On this side of the grave, on the other side of it.

I can appreciate the time you spend pondering these things and I can only wait to see if and when you are able to make the arguments more…weighty.

Absolutely true. There are things we can demonstrate that others ought to believe are true in turn, but the things that we demonstrate:

  1. Only occur to or before a conscious person who is alive and awake.

  2. The thing that is demonstrated appears only in the form of how it appears to the point of view of the demonstrator, and the demonstrator can only observe the bodies of those to whom the thing is believed to be demonstrated. He cannot see how the thing being demonstrated appears to those to whom it is demonstrated.

  3. Given that the thing that is demonstrated appears only when the demonstrator is looking upon it or contriving it, and no longer appears when the demonstrator no longer looks upon it, and given that the demonstrated appears only as it should appear to the point of view of the person looking upon it, the demonstrated depends, in order to appear, upon the existence and attention of the demonstrator and propositionally, those observing the demonstrator “demonstrate” the demonstrated.

  4. If the demonstrated, in order to appear before the demonstrator, depends upon the demonstrator’s presence and attention, and if brains create consciousness, the demonstrated is a construct that “airbag deploys” from the brain in order to appear before the demonstrator: as the brain “airbag deploys” conscious experience out from tiny neurons that phase through the bony skull to appear before the person (in the ridiculous mythology of brains creating consciousness), the demonstrated is and can only be a phenomenal “hologram” that hails from the brain and as such must be made up of the demonstrator’s consciousness.

  5. One sees only the body of those to whom the demonstrated are demonstrated, and they behave toward the demonstrated in a way that causes the demonstrator to believe they are currently observing the demonstrated and are in awe or recognition of it. They also speak and behave in a way that causes the demonstrator to believe that they have come to the same existential and philosophical conclusion as the demonstrator that one should logically arrive at upon seeing the demonstrated.

  6. But if the brain creates consciousness, and existence is a division of things that “airbag deploy” from the brain and things that exist and has always existed outside the skull and thus are not creations of the brain, and if we can only experience that which comes from the brain (as the brain is responsible for each and every instance of consciousness that exists in the universe, such that no consciousness can exist that is not created by a brain), the observers of the demonstrated are only observing, if solipsism be false, a phenomenal “hologram” that, because the same area and relative group of neurons are firing in the observers as are firing at the same moment in the demonstrator, appear as the same “hologram” of an object or event that appears and is contrived by the demonstrator.

  7. No one sees a mind-independent version of what’s being demonstrated, as it is not created by the brain and persons can only see and observe and interact with their own consciousness emanating from the brain.

  8. That which is demonstrated to be true, therefore, is only a “hologram” made out of the person’s own consciousness, that floats before the individual, as part of an artificial reality that comes from the person’s brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).

The stakes are enormous, I admit, but I apologize if arguments alone aren’t enough. The afterlife, as an idea, is just something one must wait to find out exists. If it does not, one will “discover” only a return to the death-before-life that existed before birth.

In short, the afterlife cannot be demonstrated: it is something that, if a God or gods exist, he/she/it/they are the only ones that can show it to you. One can say that, given the way things actually appear in the artificial reality of one’s consciousness and the limitations that actually appear within it, if a Deity or deities exist there is a law of existence, or it can just be his/her/it/their stubborn, inflexible and arbitrary will, that a human cannot demonstrate the afterlife to another human or humans and that this honor is reserved only for themselves. In terms of a law of existence governing even what deities can and cannot do, the afterlife can only be demonstrated by deities.

The afterlife, therefore, is something only they can show you, and something only you can find out for yourself, if it exists. That’s pretty much it. From this side of the grave, the brain (if brains create consciousness) or a God or gods instills the idea of the afterlife, and instills belief (and disbelief) in its existence, if Ernst Mach’s phenomenalism is false and consciousness comes from or is created by the brain or an external world dwelling Person or persons.

Believe me, I’ll be among the first to scramble to see what it says if someone should create such a thread. I however cannot and in good conscience (and philosophical and existential honesty) will not.

(Unless, of course, it turns out that a law of existence does in fact exist that allows me to demonstrate an afterlife. But even then it will be a “hologram” or aspect of the artificial reality coming from and composed only of the person observing it.)

Well, when faced with the above conjecture one can observe the conjecture is what’s currently on the table, with the subject of how one ought to live something that is beside the point and an entirely different subject from that which is being discussed.

Nevertheless, I would admit to persons in the world that the subject above is admittedly not relevant to what they are experiencing in the here and now and the human condition, and is not relevant to how they ought to live in terms of telling them how they ought to live. That being said, the above subject does inform them that the human condition and how they ought to live, in case they didn’t know it, is only (a) an artificial reality created by their brains if brains create consciousness; (b) are ‘constructions of sense-data’ in the godless realm of Ernst Mach’s phenomenalism, or; (c) granted to or autonomously imposed upon them by a Person or persons in the external world that happen to be able to form and control human consciousness and experience.

If they didn’t require or do not care for a tour of the engine lying beneath the hood of the human condition and the question of how we ought to live, they can tell me to bug off.

But our existence and our reason which surfaces in regard to the intuited randomness by which we were “selected” or won the lottery of existence leads to inference that existence exists for no other reason that it exists. It’s not something that needs demonstrating, its merely an intuitive inference about the nature of existence.

True. How can we know? We are only a victim of our experience and what will or will not appear within it, regardless of what we do or do not believe. The culprit, as you said, is whatever is “behind” existence.

And these vast interactions that go on with or without us vitally depend upon the existence of mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception, potential visual perception, or inaccessibly visible mind-independent existence. Stuff that in the mythology that brains create consciousness, are stuff that does not appear to and within consciousness because they are imagined to exist outside the skull and thus outside the brain as they are not created by the brain, and are such merely ideas created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness) that one thinks are true and chooses to believe. Imaginary and fictional cousins of God and the afterlife, I suppose.

I shall when I find the time.

It is relevant only in explaining the apparent “nuts and bolts” lying under the hood of how one lives, as how one lives on this side of the grave and possibly on the other side of it is composed only of subjective experience.

Thank you. I have always appreciated critical analysis of my work as it allows me to test whether or not it withstands intellectual scrutiny.

All of this may or may not reflect what is actually true about the relationship between a demonstrator and that which is being demonstrated. After all, who am I to say how to pin this down in order to reflect the whole, essential truth.

All I can do is to suggest that, in my view, this “general description” is in need of a context. Who is demonstrating what? In what set of circumstances? Either in regard to human interactions on this side of the grave or the fate of “I” on the other side.

But there is no need to apologize to me that this is not enough. What’s far more important is the extent to which it is enough for you. I’m certainly not arguing that you are wrong. I am only pointing out my reaction to it. It is not the sort of demonstration that I am looking for. Not yet anyway.

You, me, or anyone currently alive, if one has demonstrated or will demonstrate something to another person or other people in real life, are what is meant by the term “demonstrator” in the existence-analysis above.

The thing a person on this side of the grave demonstrates to others, regardless of what is being demonstrated and regardless of the set of circumstances in which the demonstration takes place, the person demonstrating it experiences that which is being demonstrated from one’s own first-person point of view. He or she does not experience that which is being demonstrated from the point of view of the persons attending the demonstration, as they (if solipsism is false) have their own private, invisible (to the demonstrator) first-person point of view or reference of that which is being demonstrated.

That which is demonstrated manifests or appears only when one (the demonstrator) is present and attending to it, and disappears when the demonstrator (and presumably, those to whom the demonstrated is being demonstrated) no longer looks upon it. It’s very appearance before the demonstrator and the demonstrated, therefore, depends upon the existence of their consciousness and attention. It cannot appear in any other form than something looked upon by a conscious person and how it appears to the point of view of the conscious person, as existence actually manifests and only manifests in the form of a person and that which the person experiences, from the individual’s first-person point of view.

As it appears only when the person experiences it and disappears when the person no longer experiences it, it may be deduced that that which is demonstrated, as its presence or absence depends upon the observer, may actually be something that is a part of the observer that “comes out of” or exudes from the observer, rather than something that is not the observer that exists outside of or independent to the observer.

That which is “demonstrated” (as one cannot experience the experience of other persons, and therefore must have faith that other persons and their consciousness exists), therefore, in order to be experienced must materially consist or be composed of the subjective experience of the experience that looks upon it (a person is fundamentally an experience), as the “demonstrated” only appears within existence as something experienced by a person, and only appears within existence in the form of something seen from the person’s first-person point of view.

But I digress. The explanation remains the same and shall always remain the same, as it is how existence actually manifests or appears.

As to what’s on the other side of the grave—if “I” continue after loss of perception of one’s body and loss of perception of “this” world—on this side of the grave exists only in the forms of an idea (if thoughts are not telescopes into that which lies outside consciousness, in “hypocrisy” of criticism against Direct Realism).

Within the idea of the afterlife, it may be presumed that an afterlife essentially and rationally takes the form of a first-person subject of experience and that which appears before the subject’s first-person point of view.

(If there is a law of existence in which existence can only take the form of a person and that which the person experiences from its point of view)

Fair enough. I simply point out that the concrete aspect of existence is what one currently experiences in the here and now, in the form of current and evolving sensory perception and internal thought and emotion. Anything other than this, “to us” or as existence manifests in the form of oneself, exists only in the form of one’s internal thought in the form of an idea.

However, if solipsism is false something exists that is not you and what you currently and will ever experience in sensory perception and internal thought and emotion. What these “not-you” things are, well, one cannot experience them as they are “not-you”. But one can have one’s thoughts form, using David Hume’s process of accessing past sensory experience and taking bits here and there of the content of past sensory perception to “Frankenstein Monster” a mental imagine of something that does not reflect the content of actual sensory perception that one calls, entertains, or believes is a replica of what some “not-you” thing that may or may not exist outside your consciousness.

My entire spiel, if you boil Phenomenal Graffiti’s philosophy in regard to metaphysics to the bare minimum, is that:

  1. “Not-you” things are probably, given the existence of consciousness, not things that are not composed of consciousness (given that, if solipsism is false other consciousnesses exist and presumably appear to those having them just as your consciousness appears to you), such that the existence of your consciousness, if you are not the only thing that exists (solipsism), may in terms of material substance be the only material substance in and of existence, such that anything that exists must be made out of consciousness, and can only manifest in the form a person and that which the person experiences.

  2. “Not-you” things that we are aware of (because we have formed an idea of the concept of the thing by using our thought as clay to shape the thing’s appearance using David Hume’s process of taking bits and pieces of past sensory experience and “jigsaw puzzling” them to form an imaginary object, place, and person) could exist outside one’s consciousness in the external world exactly in the shape and form one imagined and shaped them in one’s thought (with this appearance being entirely coincidental or even caused by the “not you” thing, that arbitrarily has power to control one’s consciousness and that which one experiences or imagines [as it “just so” happened to exist with this capability]). That is, there really is nothing preventing a “not you” thing that you imagined from coincidentally having objective existence.

  3. Anything that objectively exists outside a person must be composed of consciousness, and must exist only in the form of another person (in new estrangement from belief in mental particles and the “God-Man Machine” in psychic particle form). If, however, something outside all persons is composed of something that is not consciousness, it cannot rationally cause or have anything to do with the existence of consciousness, and cannot rationally have anything to do with the form in which consciousness appears.

From my frame of mind this is yet another “general description” of a hypothetical context in which a demonstrator demonstrates the act of demonstration itself to someone. Entirely in a world of words.

There is no actual “thing” being demonstrated.

To wit:

One can either demonstrate how to perform an abortion or not. But how does one demonstrate that abortion itself is either moral or immoral? How does one demonstrate the manner in which either performing or having an abortion effects one’s fate on the other side of the grave? Instead [to me] this post is basically just an “academic assessment” of demonstration itself.

But what on earth does this demonstrate? To me, only that this “general description” in turn is something that you have thought yourself into believing is true “in your head”. Beyond that it is just sheer conjecture to someone like me.

I see “autodidactic” narratives like this as linked by and large to a psychological boost that one receives in believing something like this. It is a frame of mind that is able to comfort and console particular individuals when confronting, among other things, death and oblivion.

That it “works” for you [in this regard] is the whole point of its existence.

Or so it seems to me.

You simply go on and on in the same “scholastic” vein:

I have absolutely no idea how to make this relevant to the life that I live from day to day. Either on this side of the grave or in regard to the fate of “I” on the other side of it.

Actual consciousness and how it operates is operationally described in the quote above, with the person reading the description using oneself as the model to demonstrate to oneself that consciousness operates exactly as described in the quote.

I can’t demonstrate my consciousness to you (as you have your own consciousness and can only experience your own consciousness: you only believe my consciousness exists due to the hyper-convincing nature of your consciousness as your consciousness assumes the form of what you construe to be my reaction to and actions toward you): for the quote above to actually demonstrate how consciousness operates, you must use your consciousness to demonstrate what is contained in the above quote.

The existence of everything, including eternal oblivion at death, is sheer conjecture, as the only thing that can be demonstrated to exist is one’s own consciousness.

B-but we don’t confront oblivion. We never have. When we see a dead person, we only confront a visual, etc. perception of a body that no longer moves or responds to external stimuli. We cannot know if the consciousness of the person has ceased to exist, or for that matter if consciousness can cease to exist, as we have never experienced the person’s consciousness to know whether or not it is gone or persists outside the body, which from our side of things is just made up of one’s subjective experience within the virtual reality that is one’s consciousness.

It indeed “works” for me and is comforting. But its more than just psychological consoling, as we have no evidence that consciousness ceases to exist at death. From a philosophical standpoint, the afterlife is a hypothetical and more than that, logical, possibility of what happens to consciousness following cessation of perception of one’s body and the world that may be true for all we know, as we have no evidence that consciousness ceases to exist at death.

One can only believe and have faith, brothers and sisters…that consciousness is not eternal and must cease to exist at death. Can I get an amen?

It’s safe to assume you believe that upon death there is eternal oblivion, as you believe that consciousness can cease to exist. But this belief is derived from things we have no evidence for and cannot be demonstrated. Just as one believing in an afterlife that cannot demonstrate the afterlife is only believing in the existence of something that is “in one’s head”—one believing that consciousness ceases to exist also believes in the existence or occurrence of something that is only “make-believe” or “in one’s head”, as it cannot be demonstrated that there are external world dwelling brains, that these external world dwelling brains creates consciousness, or that consciousness ceases to exist.

Content of consciousness certainly ceases to exist in the sense that content of consciousness: what a person experiences at time x as opposed to future time y, ceases to exist in the sense that experience x transforms into experience y

…but does consciousness qua consciousness cease to exist entirely?

Can consciousness cease to exist rather than merely transform into another form of consciousness?

Can we demonstrate that consciousness ceases to exist, given that one can only demonstrate one’s own consciousness and not that of another?

How do we know the consciousness of a deceased person has ceased to exist, given we cannot experience the consciousness of another person?

We believe energy cannot cease to exist a la the first law of thermodynamics, and we buy that hook, line, and sinker given that there is no evidence for the existence of anything save consciousness. Why should consciousness be different?

It follows that one only believes and have quasi-religious faith that consciousness ceases to exist in the first place, and eternally ceases to exist at death. We cannot confront oblivion as an irrefutable truth, as we have no evidence that oblivion is what happens at death. There’s only one’s observance of an non-moving body, and the body of the deceased person before you at the funeral home is, I must remind you, just an object composed of your subjective experience as an aspect of the virtual reality that is your consciousness—if there are no mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception in the external world.

You probably believe in the existence of “not you” things, such as things outside your consciousness that are not created by your brain and that would continue to exist if your brain were to cease function. So that’s relevant according to the life you live from day to day in the sense that the objects surrounding you in day to day existence are “not you” things that persist despite your consciousness.

Consciousness itself is relevant to day to day living, I suppose, as one must have consciousness in order to have day to day life.

The very fact that one’s consciousness is the only thing that can be demonstrated to exist (and that to no one except yourself) is an underlying fact of existence that defines day to day life, although this is a “looking under the hood” of the “car” of your existence. The quote above is, in essence, just a description of day to day life as it may look “under the hood” of day to day existence. Maybe it’s not relevant to what’s happening when the hood is closed, but given that the only thing for which there is evidence of actual existence is consciousness, it’s sorta relevant when one chooses to think deeper and look beneath the waves of day to day life. I think its okay to ruminate about what is or could be under the hood from time to time, when one is not preoccupied with the matters of this here artificial reality.

I think one of the hardest things in dealing with such discussions is to get the other person to be consistant with their doubt and skepticism. They often don’t know the paradigm they are swimming in. Here you point out that the common, based on science supposedly, sense of what happens after death is ‘in your head’ just as much as the afterlife idea.

But it is actually even deeper than that. The tools of the skeptic are just as much faith based and paradigmantically laden with assumptions. But most people think that they are not making assumptions because they are following an authority. Here scientific ones. Scientists tend not to be philosophers and do not tend to realize that their assumptions are assumptions. That while their data may be correct their models are not merely research results, but attempts to simplify and understand a lot of different phenomena.

So Iamb, for example, thinks he can confidently separate out what is radically speculative - objective morals - from things that we can be much more confident with ‘current scientific models’ which are metaphors for reality. That is, metaphysics.

When he comes at your model, he comes at it with the metaphors and images of current -or more likely of twenty or thirty years ago or more - models. Those models have repeatedly been found to be highly incorrect and the metaphysical level.

Technically, this might be right on the money. But until this abstract assessment of consciousness is linked to a considerably less abstract demonstration of the afterlife, it’s still just a bunch of words defining and defending other words to me.

Just more of the same “analysis”. The logic of it is embedded internally in the assumptions that are made about the meaning of these particular words put in this particular order.

Take them to flesh and blood human beings interacting in a particular context and sooner or later your speculation about consciousness and the afterlife is something able to be substantiated beyond the analysis itself or not.

I agree. But here we are interacting with others from day to day. And there are clearly things that can be demonstrated such that to the extent that we are able to grasp reality going back to the existence of existence itself, lots and lots and lots of things seem to be true objectively for all of us.

And the afterlife may well be one of them. But “analyzing” it into existence is just not sufficient for some of us.

Yes, we see the actual dead person. We grasp that unlike those of us who are not dead, the dead person seems entirely inert. Responding to nothing. And, sure, we have no way to know for certain if the dead person’s consciousness [or, for most, the soul] is still around “somewhere”.

And all we can do is to extrapolate here so as to imagine our own fate when we die.

But: where is it demonstrated here that consciousness – “I” – does continue to exist beyond the grave?

So, it’s back then to the argument, the analysis, the world of words.

Back to the part where these things alone are able to bring you some measure of comfort and consolation.

Since no one has yet proven that consciousness does not extend beyond the grave, you are able to think up an argument sustaining the belief that, given your own set of assumptions here, it exists “in your head”.

It has become “philosophically logical” to you that it exists. But only [in my view] as a tautological contraption. The logic goes around and around in circles because it is predicated on the assumption that the definition and the meaning that you give to the words in the argument is sound.

But never are these words connected to the sort of experiments and predictions and replications that are imperative in sustaining arguments that employ the scientific method for establishing things that are thought to be true.

What I think is true about death and oblivion can only be conjecture extrapolated from the experiences that I and others I’ve known have had with death. I see no evidence to convince me of its existence.

Instead, I speculate that, for folks like you, in not wanting “I” to be obliterated for all time to come, and in the absence of hard evidence that it doesn’t, what alternative is there but to “think up” an argument able to give you at least some peace of mind in contemplating the abyss.

I only wish that I could figure out a way to do it myself.

Then I’m back to this:

No, my point is that anything that I believe is predicated only on the assumptions I make about the relationship between “I” and the world around me, taking into account the enormous gap between what I think is true here and now and all that can be known going back to the existence of existence itself.

Just like you and everyone else.

Both the believer and the skeptic are in the same boat here. They think something is true about the afterlife and they are either able to demonstrate that what they believe is true “in their head” is in fact true for all of us or they aren’t.

Until we do grasp a complete understanding of existence itself [either regarding before or after the grave] leaps of faith are the order of the day.

But our “tools” are either capable of nailing things down with hard evidence or they’re not. And then the part about human psychology which seems inherently/genetically prone to one or another defense mechanism allowing for “I” to feel the least discomforted in grappling with before and after the grave.

This is ultimately true regarding science and the really Big Questions. Assumptions galore. But science over the centuries has established so many seeming objective truths regarding the either/or world, that we tend to lend it the sort of credence not readily granted to philosophers or theologians or practitioners of the so-called “soft sciences”.

Can or cannot the “scientific method” be employed in delving into the existence of an afterlife?

Sigh…

What on earth is this supposed to mean about me?

My point is that opinions in the is/ought world are rooted subjectively/subjunctively in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy. At least as much as in any objective assessments able to be provided to us by philosophers and scientists.

Then I insist that this assumption be explored in an actual context.

As for “metaphysics”, there either is a metaphysical truth about the afterlife [rooted in God or in Nature] or there is not. But the same rules apply for me: What can you actually show us is true?

Again: What on earth is that supposed to mean? In regards to the existence of an afterlife or the lack thereof.

What is his own current “model”?

Response to iambiguous:

Humans interacting with each other, if I were to interrupt them and tell them of the content of my quote could experiment using themselves to see (or instantly realize without self-experimentation) that the content of the quote is indeed substantiated: each individual would immediately discover or admit that their consciousness is not those of the others sitting at the table, and that the existence of every other person at the table is in fact just one’s own consciousness taking the form of the others’ bodies and their reactions to the words of each person at the center of the experiment/realization.

The afterlife, meanwhile, given that it cannot be demonstrated remains, like mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception, a matter of faith that one can either believe or not believe.

“I” certainly cannot be demonstrated to continue to exist beyond the grave if we’re talking about the “I” of another person, as one has no evidence of the existence of the consciousness of other people. One cannot demonstrate the existence of one’s own consciousness to others.

Thus:

Only you can demonstrate (or not) that the “I” continues to exist beyond the grave—and can only demonstrate this to oneself.

Absolutely true. These things do bring a measure of comfort and consolation. But the argument and analysis, such as it is, is comforting and consoling not because they “sound good to hear”–but because the subject of the argument is more likely to be true than eternal oblivion, as eternal oblivion relies entirely on the magic of consciousness being able to cease to exist.

  1. No one has proven the consciousness of other people exist.

  2. Given that one cannot experience the experience of other people, one can only prove that consciousness extends beyond the grave to oneself.

  3. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander: anyone who believes the brain creates consciousness and that there are mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception also thinks up arguments “sustaining” this belief and given their set of assumptions in these matters, the existence of external world brains magically conjuring consciousness from either non-existence or magical transformation of non-consciousness into consciousness and the existence of mind-independent distal objects are also only “in their head”. Everyone pulls off the same trick when one finds oneself considering and imagining anything that is not and that exists outside one’s consciousness.

The scientific method cannot establish the existence of anything outside consciousness, indeed, it only establishes the existence of things that materialistically consist of, emerge and originate from, and occur only within the artificial reality of the consciousness of a person. Experiments and predictions and replications related to the existence of the afterlife are impossible as they first require proving the existence of the consciousness of another person.

If it is possible for consciousness to come into existence from previous non-existence, and possible for consciousness to cease to exist while physical matter and energy according to the 1st Law of thermodynamics is the only thing that’s eternal, then despite one’s wish for one’s “I” not to be obliterated for all time the matter is entirely out of one’s hands.

Thinking up an argument that says otherwise will not change this outcome.

But…

  1. Does consciousness indeed come into existence from non-existence?

  2. Can consciousness cease to exist?

  3. Does physical matter and energy (something that is not consciousness or subjective experience) exist?

Peace of mind contemplating “what comes after” is one thing: but one should, in my opinion, put comfort and consolation “in the face of eternal oblivion” aside and clinically and unemotionally consider whether or not one should automatically surrender to the idea of eternal oblivion. One should clinically ask: Does consciousness cease to exist at death? Should it? If it does, how? How do things that exist cease altogether to exist? Why should they come into existence from previous non-existence? How is the brain able to conjure things that do not exist? How are conscious experiences dependent upon the movement of electrons through and across neurons, as opposed to bricks?

Given the huge gaps in logic in scientific and neuroscientific explanation of consciousness, one can ignore the need to be comfort and consoled about eternal oblivion and coldly observe and criticize these astronomic gaps in the logic of godless creation of consciousness and eternal oblivion: one need not quickly surrender to the notion of eternal loss of “I” at death.

This goes over and above “achieving comfort in the face of eternal oblivion”: it’s literally looking at reality as it is (the existence of consciousness) and coming to grips with the notion that given the evidence of consciousness and absence of evidence of the existence of anything that is not consciousness, cessation of existence of consciousness (to be fair, if not cessation of the existence of “I”—but here as a matter of transformation into another form of consciousness rather than magical and inscrutable cessation of existence altogether) may be impossible.

Still, I’m willing to bet you believe in the existence of mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception and that the brain creates consciousness, and that these underlie your belief in the nature of the “here and now” and eternal oblivion.