In the two scenarios which you describe it is possible that there is no difference. So, it may be that the idea of an afterlife, which often is associated with the idea of God plays a major factor. Personally, I am inclined to think that the question of life after death matters more than the existence of God. I admit that I have spent more time wondering about the various possibilities of life after death. That is because if one doesn't continue in any form what is the significance of God in relation to one's own personal identity. It becomes rather abstract and more about being known in 'the mind of God'. — Jack Cummins

I appreciate your interest in this, for it weighs on my mind as well. But thoughts here get so bound up in extraneous and historical content that has no business in this matter of God. Before moving forward, onw has to ask what God IS first, and then a great deal of what troubles this issue simply vanishes. So what do you think God IS?

You seem to be suggesting that our memories could be copied to another form and re-attached to our souls after death.

Sure, this is logically possible, but it's an ad hoc hypothesis that lacks supporting evidence. If this is something that occurs, I wonder why the deity bothers at all with brain-storage of memories, and why she fails to help out dementia patients with access to this resource.

The medical evidence demonstrates that memories are "stored" (in some sense) in the brain. Disease and physical trauma can result in memory loss. So even if a "soul" lives on, if the individual's memories are absent, it seems irrelevant to me. I regard myself as the person who was shaped by my experiences, including the memories that were formed along the way. — Relativist

I agree with that logic, but I am not sure that we know all there is to know.

Years ago, someone I PM lost her husband, and I had a strong urge to ask her if the words "red" and 'bucket', meant anything to her. She wrote back "no". Then, a few days later, she said her husband used a red bucket in his room as a trash can. I have no reasonable explanation for that.

When a neighbor died, after her funeral, I got on the elevator and it would not go up, but the lights began flashing. I almost ran off the elevator, but everything returned to normal, and I went up to my apartment.
Obviously, that was an elevator malfunction, and it is just a coincidence that it happened on the day of her funeral. So what if in over 15 years, nothing like that happened before or after. Now I could buy that, but having to ask my PM buddy if the words "red" and "bucket" meant anything to her is harder to explain away.

Yes, in thinking of the idea of God, it is worth considering what that would entail. When I was a teenager (Catholic) I conceived of it as the Trinity. This 'mystery' involved The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God was the invisible source, the Son, was God embodied as Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit as the invisible force giving rise to the manifestation of Christ, and Christ-inspired action, or healing. I can remember a school teacher, a feminist, challenging this masculine conception and referring to God as 'she'. Many pupils and parents were shocked by this and my own conclusion was that God was beyond gender, apart from Jesus being a man.

I also came to see the idea of Brahman and Atman in Hinduism as important. Even though there are many gods in Hinduism, Atman is the supreme godhead, with the human (Brahman) who realises the presence of Atman. With an interest in comparative religion, I also came to recognise the idea of The Tao, the Supreme Reality behind everything.

Now, when thinking about God and the question or meaning of such existence, I see it as being fairly fluid in human conception, but as the potential, or force, underlying all manifest existent forms in the universe, and possibly beyond.

Perhaps there was a telepathic event as the man was dying, that planted the words in your mind. Or perhaps you received it telepathically from his wife's subsconscious, stimulated by her mental state. These seems more plausible to me than your receiving this cryptic message from him, after his brain ceased functioning.

I appreciate your interest in this, for it weighs on my mind as well. But thoughts here get so bound up in extraneous and historical content that has no business in this matter of God. Before moving forward, onw has to ask what God IS first, and then a great deal of what troubles this issue simply vanishes. So what do you think God IS? — Constance

According to Spinoza God is the universe. God is nature. God is all that is and ever will be. We are made of by nature, and nature is God. We are not separate from nature/God.

Epicurus is correct to see the gods as representing moral ideals. This is the foundation of mythic reality. Within Christianity, for example, the 'imitation of Christ' and discipleship has been prominent. It may have got lost, or been ignored, by some individuals in history, who got caught up religious imperialism.

The question is whether the immortality of God and, any form of mortality, is about symbolism and archetypes, for humans to follow. Even cultural figures, like Jim Morrison, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe may have a 'God-like' symbolic quality, as significant beings who existed and continue to be inspirational icons. Jesus existed as person, and so did Krishna, but the foundation of all gods may not be based on an actual person, or as something living on in the 'heavens'.

As for the metaphysical nature of immortality, beyond the human imagination, it does depend if heaven (and hell) are seen as having an objective foundation. The belief in immortality, beyond role models, depends on how this is seen.

Heaven and hell exist in the human imagination, and may be experienced in this embodied life, but as to whether they are an experiential reality in it's own right is open to question. Some see near death experiences as pointing to such forms of immortality but it is hard to know if they are simply brain states of the person, while still embodied. So, the immortality of God(gods, angels and human spirits) depends on whether there is a dimension beyond embodiment. Ultimately, arguments for and against it are a matter of speculation.

↪Athena Perhaps there was a telepathic event as the man was dying, that planted the words in your mind. Or perhaps you received it telepathically from his wife's subsconscious, stimulate by her mental state. These seems more plausible to me than your receiving this cryptic message from him, after his brain ceased functioning. — Relativist

I have been watching an explanation of Spinoza and I like all is God. For me, telepathy means there is an energy that is different from our other forms of communication, which are all physical. If there is another energy other than physical energy, that makes life after death possible, doesn't it?

Now, when thinking about God and the question or meaning of such existence, I see it as being fairly fluid in human conception, but as the potential, or force, underlying all manifest existent forms in the universe, and possibly beyond. — Jack Cummins

It does lead thought to a very strange affirmation about the world, these basic questions. The Tao famously tells us to refrain from speaking, as does the Buddhist's censure when insight is taken up in thought by the clueless neophyte. It is argued that the real trouble lies in the way language is taken for a means to to truth, which it generally is, of course, but what is most often not understood is that while language speaks amidst a world, the speaking and all of that out there that constitutes the presence of a world have to first be understood as very different things. As Rorty put it, truth is a function of propositions, and there are no propositions "over there" on that hill or wherever. The proposition is here, in this utterance, and the hill over there. This is a strong position, Rorty's: a complete discontinuity in a naturalistic, causally determined world, between all things.

I don't mean to go this way here, but it does relate to the matter of God: when we speak of God at all, can we ever hit, however "fluidly" or obliquely, the target of divinity's Being? Or does language inevitably take that divinity and impose a concept, a description, a definition on it, thereby bringing God to heel in a finite system of thought? So the only way to be free is unhinge language and thought from God. This is what meditation is essentially about, I argue, and what the Hindu concept of maya is about: the illusion lies in the everydayness of language habits. Kierkegaard said as much in the Concept of Anxiety: when we engage in the world, and we give our thougths and feelings to all the things language articulates, the various cultural institutions in our daily lives, we thereby turn away from God (unless one has mastered the terms of the knight of faith, which K himself confesses he cannot do, who can do both).

For me, telepathy means there is an energy that is different from our other forms of communication, which are all physical. — Athena

If telepathy is real, why wouldn't it be physical, given that both sender and receiver are physical? To assume there's something nonphysical means the brain can have a causal relation to the nonphysical. More assumptions = weaker justification.

Obviously, I am sure that many people in philosophy circles would scorn the process superstition. For those who pray, it is to whichever God one believes in but prayer is central to the Judaeo-Christian tradition. — Jack Cummins

That is a tricky business since you are doomed if you don't believe in the correct God!

If telepathy is real, why wouldn't it be physical, given that both sender and receiver are physical? To assume there's something nonphysical means the brain can have a causal relation to the nonphysical. More assumptions = weaker justification. — Relativist

Yes you are right, but that is not the whole story.:starstruck: You got my youthful thoughts all excited and I feel young and alive in the moment. In the past, I got all the information I could about what some call consider non-scientific thinking.

Do you know people's hearts can synchronize? Why and how does that happen? For sure, there is an emotional cause.

Reach for the hand of a loved one in pain and not only will your breathing and heart rate synchronize with theirs, your brainwave patterns will couple up too, according to a new study.
https://www.aau.edu/research-scholarship/featured-research-topics/holding-hands-can-ease-pain-sync-brainwaves#:~:text=Reach%20for%20the%20hand%20of,according%20to%20a%20new%20study.

I have to use AI here because (bad word) it is necessary information.

Electromagnetism is the fundamental force describing the interaction between electrically charged particles, encompassing both electricity and magnetism. It explains how moving electric charges create magnetic fields, and how changing magnetic fields can, in turn, generate electric fields. This force is responsible for everyday phenomena like static cling and magnets sticking to refrigerators, as well as holding atoms and molecules together, forming the basis for chemical bonds. https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+electromagnetism&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS990US990&oq=what+is+electro&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqEAgAEAAYkQIYsQMYgAQYigUyEAgAEAAYkQIYsQMYgAQYigUyDQgBEAAYkQIYgAQYigUyDQgCEAAYkQIYgAQYigUyDQgDEAAYkQIYgAQYigUyDAgEEAAYFBiHAhiABDIMCAUQABhDGIAEGIoFMgYIBhBFGDkyDAgHEAAYQxiABBiKBTIMCAgQABhDGIAEGIoFMgcICRAAGI8C0gEJODE2M2owajE1qAIMsAIB8QUnuNeVOJFJjvEFJ7jXlTiRSY4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

I think this next explanation explains telepathy, my messages from the dead.

Electromagnetic waves have two physical components: a propagating electric field and a magnetic field. These fields are perpendicular to each other and also perpendicular to the direction of the wave's travel, forming a transverse wave. The fields oscillate in phase and are in a fixed ratio of strengths, creating a disturbance that carries energy through space. https://www.google.com/search?q=what+are+the+physical+components+of+electromagnetic+waves&sca_esv=f67f5be7214373bb&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS990US990&sxsrf=AE3TifMOu1HVsffl-x3KoT3wD51UccnPDg%3A1756751983807&ei=b-i1aN2HMYbw0PEPuZ-bkA4&oq=what+are+the+physical+components+of+electrom&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiLHdoYXQgYXJlIHRoZSBwaHlzaWNhbCBjb21wb25lbnRzIG9mIGVsZWN0cm9tKgIIBzIHECEYoAEYCjIHECEYoAEYCjIHECEYoAEYCjIHECEYoAEYCjIHECEYoAEYCjIFECEYnwUyBRAhGJ8FMgUQIRifBTIFECEYnwUyBRAhGJ8FSPOIAVCAEVidUnABeAGQAQCYAV-gAbUHqgECMTG4AQHIAQD4AQGYAgygAucHwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICChAjGIAEGCcYigXCAgUQABiABMICBhAAGBYYHsICCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFwgIIEAAYgAQYogTCAgUQABjvBcICCBAAGKIEGIkFmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcEMTEuMaAHiWGyBwQxMC4xuAfiB8IHBjAuMS4xMcgHKw&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

According to quantum field theory, the "non-physical" or abstract causes of electromagnetic energy arise from the fundamental properties of the vacuum itself. These are phenomena that are not the result of moving or accelerating physical, charged particles but are intrinsic to the quantum nature of space. The main non-physical causes include: https://www.google.com/search?q=none+physical+causes+of+electromagnetic+energy&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS990US990&oq=none+physical+causes+of+el&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCQgDECEYChigATIGCAAQRRg5MgkIARAhGAoYoAEyCQgCECEYChigATIJCAMQIRgKGKABMgkIBBAhGAoYoAEyBwgFECEYqwIyBwgGECEYqwIyBwgHECEYqwIyBwgIECEYjwIyBwgJECEYjwLSAQoxOTIwOWowajE1qAIMsAIB8QVCzvEybOpHy_EFQs7xMmzqR8s&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Have you heard of people using shrooms having the same hallucinations? I have been watching history videos, and it appears some people had sacred cities and, evidently, huge gatherings where psychedelics were used. For some, using shrooms is a spiritual experience that is life-changing. I think Western prejudices have kept us ignorant. It was the prejudice that killed my interest, but here we are, and that interest is rekindled.

Obviously, I am sure that many people in philosophy circles would scorn the process superstition. For those who pray, it is to whichever God one believes in but prayer is central to the Judaeo-Christian tradition. — Jack Cummins

AI says this.

Research shows prayer and meditation can increase certain brainwave patterns, such as alpha and theta waves, which are associated with relaxation and emotional experience.

I think this information needs to go with the information about electromagic energy. What are these brain waves? What creates them? Music can effect our brain waves, but exactly why?

Alpha waves (8-14 Hz) are brainwaves associated with states of deep relaxation, calm, and focused attention, like meditation or daydreaming. Theta waves (4-8 Hz) are slower brainwaves linked to light sleep, deep relaxation, heightened creativity, and memory processes, often occurring at the threshold of sleep. Both types of waves are neural patterns of electrical activity in the brain that change with different mental states and activities.

THANKS, JACK, FOR THIS THREAD. I AM ENJOYING IT SOOOO MUCH. :hearts:

I have been watching an explanation of Spinoza and I like all is God. For me, telepathy means there is an energy that is different from our other forms of communication, which are all physical. If there is another energy other than physical energy, that makes life after death possible, doesn't it? — Athena

There is, you know, an inroad into telepathy that perhaps you haven't thought of. It is a philosophical inroad, not from empirical science. It begins with a question: How does an object, event, person, etc., make its way into my mind such that my thoughts about this are indeed about it? The light shines on my cup, some parts of the spectrum are absorbed others reflected, those that are reflected make their way to the eye, through the lens, back to the rods and cones in the back of the eye where they are converted into neuronal stimuli via the optic nerve brings them into the brain turning them into mental events and seeing is complete, roughly speaking. But note: all of these physical relations are causal, and causality has nothign epistemic it; that is, in any model you can imagine of a causal sequence, there is nothing of cause that survives in the effect. light reflects off the cup, but reflected light is nothing at all like a cup, aso according to this physicalist thinking, the system of relations that deliver an object to the brain are completely absent of the object. And this applies to any and all thinking about causal sequences.

So if the good scientist is going explain knowledge, she fails before she even begins, because science's bottom line is causality, and causality simply does not deliver knowledge. BUT: it is plain as day that I do know this cup is here, on the table, just as I know the sky is clear, the trees green, and so on. Clearly I DO reach beyond the horizon of what a physical brain can do, so how is this possible?

Simple: perception is not localized in a brain. To think like this leads to madness (See the argument Hillary Putnam has with Richard Rorty, where the latter insists that Putnam never really has seen his wife, for causally grounded knowledge is impossible. His wife is rather acknowledged and conceived in localized propositions and brain events). It must be the case, in order to explain knowledge relations, that perception itself epistemically "extends" to its objects, beyond the delimitations of the physical.

It is the only way for knowledge to be possible: the perceptual interface with an object must be such that the object is allowed to intimate its appearance in the interface, and thus perception cannot be conceived as impossibly distant from the object. Put simply, the cup is both over there AND intimating its existence to me. This aligns with telepathy in that it is knowledge at a distance, if you will. What makes telepathy so repugnant to most people is that it violates the locality of the brain: how can one enter into another's thoughts and experiences? But it should be evident that this locality leads to a disastrous epistemology, and cannot be right. Once it is abandoned, one has entered into a post, post modern grounding of our existence. To observe at all is to be already IN the locality of the object as well as IN the locality of one's self.

That is very interesting and hits upon something I have been struggling with for years. I have never been correctly indoctrinated into a religion or science. :lol: My thinking is liberal, and what is called pseudoscience gets my attention. I think authorized science is way too materialistic. I had not thought of vision as you explain it, but when we smell something, that thing does not go up our nose. What goes up our nose is coded information, and that must be so for what we see.

I am going to jump to another post and share a video about math and manifestation. I want to hold what I said in reply to you separate, in case I need correcting. I am not sure of my understanding of what you said, and I plan to contemplate it when I go to bed. I am trying to visualize what goes into our eyes that becomes our vision. I have so much to learn. I am sure in my college days we studied how the eye works, but thanks to what you said, I am not sure of how the eye works.

This video really excites me. I don't believe it is 100% correct. In the ancient past, there was sacred math, and that means Turing may not have originated his understanding of math. Whatever, near the beginning of the video, there is an explanation of what I understand to be the spark of life. Math and form/space are everything. Towards the end of the video is an explanation of God's thumbprint, or if you like, the golden ratio.

What if God is quantum consciousness, and you are part of it? What if you never died?

So if the good scientist is going explain knowledge, she fails before she even begins, because science's bottom line is causality, and causality simply does not deliver knowledge. BUT: it is plain as day that I do know this cup is here, on the table, just as I know the sky is clear, the trees green, and so on. Clearly I DO reach beyond the horizon of what a physical brain can do, so how is this possible? — Constance

The brain not only uses clues coming from without but also uses clues from within, such as memory and experience in expectation of what is a cup.

... quantum consciousness ...

:monkey:

It is with sadness that every so often I spend a few hours on the internet, reading or listening to the mountain of stupidities dressed up with the word 'quantum'. Quantum medicine; holistic quantum theories of every kind, mental quantum spiritualism – and so on, and on, in an almost unbelievable parade of quantum nonsense. — Carlo Rovelli, theoretical physicist

What if God is quantum consciousness, and you are part of it? What if you never died? — Athena

What if the basis of All is the permanent quantum vacuum and you are a temporary arrangement of it? What if you disperse back unto it?

What if the basis of All is the permanent quantum vacuum and you are a temporary arrangement of it? What if you disperse back unto it? — PoeticUniverse

:up: :up:

when we smell something, that thing does not go up our nose. — Athena

It does; the nose has receptors that can receive some molecule shapes that turn into smells; a dog has many more receptors.

Michael returned, feeling very much recuperated and feeling totally blessed. “I’m back. I’d never known of such pleasant fragrances.”

“Smells alert the ninja in the dark even as much as sound, the sub categories being aroma, fragrance, scent, perfume, redolence, bouquet, stench, fetor, stink, reek, and whiff.”

“So you gave me roses to enjoy the pleasure of.”

“Yes, but I am attracted to you, too.”

“The inverse also applies.”

“Good. Everyone appreciates the fragrance of fresh-cut flowers, but the stench from the paper mill across town is usually unwelcome. Both have a distinctive smell, which is the most general of these words for what is perceived through the nose, but there is a big difference between a pleasant smell and a foul one.”

“You can say that again.”

“That.”

“Ha. What about odours, the British spelling that Austin likes over the American ‘odors’, which somehow has an unpleasant connotation to him.”

“An odour may be either pleasant or unpleasant, but it suggests a smell that is clearly recognizable and can usually be traced to a single source, like the pungent odor of onions, which by the way, should be planted with potatoes since their eyes will water and nourish the crops.”

“Good explanation, and joke. I’ve done aroma-therapy.”

“An aroma is a pleasing and distinctive odor that is usually penetrating or pervasive, like the aroma of fresh-ground coffee, while bouquet refers to a delicate aroma, such as that of a fine wine. Here, have a glass. Don’t forget to swirl, sniff, sip, swallow, or spit if you are just wine sampling.”

“The five S’s. What about the scent of a woman like you?”

“A scent is usually delicate and pleasing, as I try to be, with an emphasis on the source rather than on an olfactory impression, such as the scent of balsam associated with Christmas.”

“I now believe in Santa Claus. I chose a lilac fragrance from my quarters; it reminds me of my early youth in England with Molly McGuire under the fragrant bush…”

“Yes, fragrances can take you back in an instant to their source in a remembrance from the past. Fragrance and perfume are both associated with flowers, but fragrance is more delicate. A perfume may be so rich and strong that it is repulsive or overpowering. Of the lilac it is said:

Love’s first emotion rose from the Lilac,
For it blooms when Nature is first aroused;
It is love’s youngest dream to us come back,
Where it will ne’er again remain unspoused.”

“Indeed, fragrances are among the infinite variations of energy in nature. Energy may be the one thing, but it has many pleasant faces. But then there were the pigs, which, of course attractive to each other in their own way.”

“Stench and stink are reserved for smells that are foul, strong, and pervasive, although stink implies a sharper sensation, while stench refers to a more sickening one: the stink of sweaty gym clothes; the stench of a rotting carcass.”

“Thank you for the teachings.”