@Zebeden

The most generally accepted scientific hypothesis for the beginning of space-time is the Big Bang theory — Gnomon

False.

And some believe that I am what I remember. Hence, no remembrance, no Self ...

Some deduce that embodied self-continuity is fundamentally what "I am", and therefore if no embodied continuity (i.e. no substrate functionality), then no self-continuity (i.e no PSM or user/introspection-illusion) and no self-aware identity (i.e. no autobiographical subject). Re: Buddha, Epicurus, Spinoza, Hume ... :fire:

what awaits us when we die — Zebeden

As far as I can tell, all life is inseparable from the physical body. Life is a function of a certain physical arrangement. Why would my life be different?

If the body stops functioning, the body stops living; why would I think there is anything left to live on after this body stops functioning, or why would I think some function of my body (my mind for instance), would be able to persist or be sustained, when the other functioning of my body (my breathing for instance, or my brain activity) stops functioning?

Eternal oblivion is a poetic way of simply saying “not here anymore.”

I am a body. When the body dies and decays, everything about me, everything particular to “me”, is gone.

Life after death would be a miracle.
Because it is by definition physically impossible.

I personally believe in miracles. My cousin just died last week and I hope God saved him from his death as I hope for all of you. But this is a belief in the impossible.

belief in the impossible — Fire Ologist

aka "religious faith"

When the body dies and decays, everything about me, everything particular to “me”, is gone.

Yes; like when an orchestra disbands, their music stops.

:fire:

Yes; like when an orchestra disbands, their music stops. — 180 Proof

If you make an orchestra playing music a metaphor for a human body living and conscious, then yes, I guess an orchestra disbanding would be like a human body breaking down and dying…into eternal oblivion, to round out all the poetry.

Eternal oblivion is a poetic way of simply saying “not here anymore.” — Fire Ologist

Where is the place for the religious belief or faith in life after death?

Where is the place for the religious belief or faith in life after death? — Corvus

Seems like there would be a different answer to that question for every believer.

The same place for a belief that a miracle ever happens.

Just last week was Ash Wednesday when Christians are reminded from dust they came and to dust they will return.

No reason to believe otherwise, unless willing to believe in the impossible.

No reason to believe otherwise, unless willing to believe in the impossible. — Fire Ologist

Believing in certainty and high possibility would be trust. Isn't believing in impossibility faith?

What was his (Plato's) view on it? — Corvus

A close reading of the Phaedo is a start. There is a discussion put forward by Fooloso4 that frames the different reactions to the text made here and elsewhere. All the opinions expressed 4 years ago are regularly repeated here since then.

I do not want to revive any of that in this discussion because that would hijack this OP.

according to the dialogue (Phaedo) knowledge of the good can only be attained in death if at all. — Fooloso4

I recently watched an interesting documentary on Mt Athos, the Orthodox monastery complex. Towards the end, the head monk re-affirms that final union with God can only be realised at death, and that their life-long residency at the monastery is all by way of 'practicing for death' - exactly as Plato says in Phaedo. Then again, Orthodox Christianity incorporated much of Plato early in their development, hence the designation 'Christian Platonism', which especially characterises Orthodox spirituality.

That leaves out the "if at all" which consumed much of that discussion.

Sure. The monks don't entertain such doubts.

Unlike Plato?

Edit to add: Here we are, repeating the discussion of four years ago.

It’s the myth of the Eternal Return

Isn't believing in impossibility faith? — Corvus

It would take faith to believe in something one’s own reason found to be impossible. I only mentioned my belief because there’s an open wound right now, talking about life after death with a bunch of sad folks recently.

But on a philosophy forum, life after death seems like pure conjecture. We can’t even say what a mind is, let alone how it could exist absent a body.

Perhaps so.

I will leave you be.

I recently watched an interesting documentary on Mt Athos, the Orthodox monastery complex. Towards the end, the head monk re-affirms that final union with God can only be realised at death, and that their life-long residency at the monastery is all by way of 'practicing for death' - exactly as Plato says in Phaedo. — Wayfarer

Though unorthodox of me to do so, it's how I like to interpret the Christian jargon of "till death do us (we) part".

Of course, death can also be construed as ego-death. And for those who so uphold, becoming or else being one with the Good - this rather then merely holding any form of understanding regarding it - could viably only occur on the obliteration of any and all dualistic ego.

Yes, ego-death inevitably occurs upon corporeal death to this world. For those who don't subscribe to an instant transcendence from being while alive to a state of absolute nonbeing upon corporeal death, however, what might occur afterwards cannot logically be that of becoming one with the Good for as long as there might yet remain any semblance of a dualistic ego (here thinking of angels playing their harps, kind of thing, which necessitates a dualistic ego wherein there is oneself and other) - this, at least, when associating the Good with the divinely simple neoplatonic notion of the One.

I also find this outlook accordant to at least some Buddhist understanding of possible afterlives - this via my somewhat vague recollections of things I've read in The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

I agree. There is a sense in the great traditions that being born is itself a kind of fall. Plato says as much in a number of dialogues. In Buddhist lore, the first link in the chain of dependent origination is ignorance, which is what leads to birth in the human realm (although a human birth is also a unique opportunity to escape the cycle of re-birth.) Many critics of Buddhism (even highly educated critics) view it as nihilistic, in that the Nirvāṇa of the Buddha is said to be the ‘eternal oblivion’ that the OP speaks about. But a close reading of the texts doesn’t suggest that - they say the Tathagatha passes beyond the dualities of existence and non-existence. In any case, the salient point in all of those traditions is that the sense of separateness, the ‘I and mine’, is the real obstacle to realising the ‘supreme identity’ to use Alan Watts’ term.

Alan Watts says that our apparent individuality is a kind of illusion created by the limitations of perception and conceptual thought. The true nature of reality is an undivided whole in which subject and object, self and world, are not utterly separate but poles in an underlying reality which transcends both. This realization, often associated with enlightenment or awakening, dissolves the artificial boundaries between self and world, leading to liberation from the ego’s illusion of separateness.

(Although suffice to say, the whole subject has become somewhat cheapened by the commodification of enlightenment, a social trend for which Alan Watts, despite his talents, was regrettably responsible for in some ways. But regardless, the best of Watts’ books are very good on these subjects, as he was able to communicate some very deep ideas in an accessible way. Link).

Just last week was Ash Wednesday when Christians are reminded from dust they came and to dust they will return. — Fire Ologist

Nothing solid to work with here, but from the movie Gladiator (I did say nothing solid to work with) I gather the possible motif if not actual ancient saying of "we are shadows and dust" or something to the like. From which could be inferred something along the lines of our selves as personas (masks in one sense) as being the shadows of our nonduaistic egos (itself in pure form potentially being equated to (a current aspect or fragment of) the Good as absolute nondualiistic being. For some this being maybe equivalent with God.

This seems in keeping with a recurrent theme in mythological accounts of us being "sparks" or "emendations" of the divine. Such that "shadows to shadows" and "dust to dust" (here assuming "shadows" to represent our spiritual being and "dust" to represent physicality).

Semi-random musings on the subject of "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust", for what its worth.

Many critics of Buddhism (even highly educated critics) view it as nihilistic, in that the Nirvāṇa of the Buddha is said to be the ‘eternal oblivion’ that the OP speaks about. But a close reading of the texts doesn’t suggest that - they say the Tathagatha passes beyond the dualities of existence and non-existence. — Wayfarer

Interesting: the same can be expressed of the neoplatonic notion of the One (its being beyond the dualities of existence and non-existence). In honesty, my reasoning aside (it gets quite metaphysical), I'm driven to believe that Nirvana (without remainder) and the One / the Good are the same ontic thing expressed in different scaffoldings of thought, with each such applying its own at times disparate mythoi. In only some ways, a bit like how one can be reminded of both Lucifer (the lucid one) and Venus (love in all its myriad aspects) when looking up at the exact same physical star.

It is not oblivion if no one is there.

If the human body, like all other bodies in nature, decomposes and disintegrates into the soil, then no body is there.

That leaves Mind (maybe the body was organically conscious, aware of its sensations, feelings and drives, and that disintegrates with the organs). Mind is the reason we go forward into imaginary time dreaming of an afterlife.

So the question is really, what is Mind? If it's a soul or spirit--there is no evidence of that outside of Minds own constructions--then why oblivion? We construct complex Narratives to suggest it will go on constructing.

But how? As long as there is the organic infrastructure and energy, Mind constructs. How does it continue when the Body is gone?

I think it's not eternal oblivion, because the Mind too just stops.

For the body it's the eternal presence: Nature. There never is an individual experiencer of any Narrative.

For Mind, it's History. That’s what Mind is even while in the living: just the progression of Narrative we evolved to construct, and we do it as a species. So, any individual contribution remains forever in the afterlife of History. Oblivion is irrelevant because the Subject of the body's Narrative was never there, not the experiencer. "I" was just a tool, just stood in for the body, projected as the experiencer in the Narrative. In reality, the Narrative triggered feelings, constructed meaning for sensations, and triggered actions in the body; the only real thing. The body was the experiencer of stories; and it returns from where it always is: Nature
And the stories have made their contributionsto The Story; and like this sentence, there they remain.