I would treat death as a step and not a stop.

Consciousness is unnecessary for life to exist. — Andrew4Handel

Agree, as per my anesthesia example.

Can you demonstrate that any conscious states are identical to brain states? — Andrew4Handel

Heck no, especially since I heavily doubt the accuracy of such a statement. But you make an assertion, I didn't. You didn't answer the question. Can you demonstrate that consciousness is not identical with anything in the brain, or was that just a wishful assertion?

If you think brain states are identical to conscious states then you need to provide examples. — Andrew4Handel

No, if I were to assert that brain states are identical to conscious states, then I would have to provide evidence. But I've made no such assertion.

I mean, what if you suddenly woke up as a different person tomorrow morning. What would that be like? Would you notice?
— noAxioms
You have to define "different person." — Andrew4Handel

Fair enough. You are Andrew one moment, and seconds later you are some 8 year old girl in N Korea singing a song in Korean. That kind of different person. As best as I can describe it using your views, your consciousness gets transferred instantly (or perhaps more subtly during sleep if you balk at the abruptness of the situation) to this very different body, and perhaps the consciousness of that girl switches to the Andrew body so nobody is left a zombie.
Point is, would you notice? Would the song get interrupted? Would you recognize the mother of the body of the girl in the audience?
In short, what do you take with you during the switch, and what stays with the respective body?
You do actually partially answer the question here, but I have questions:

If I woke up and found I had turned into a woman that scenario only makes sense if I had the same stream of consciousness as the night before. It is the severing of a stream of consciousness that would cause a loss of identity I assume. — Andrew4Handel

OK, you say 'found I had turned into a woman' which suggests that you noticed a change, which means your memory of being male is something you take with you. Memory is part of consciousness in your model, not part of the body. That helps narrow down which view you hold. You (the Korean girl) probably won't recognize her biological mother since that ability went to the Andrew body. You don't know Korean (presumably).

I don't know what you mean by "if I had the same stream of consciousness as the night before". Each night is different. I don't think you're talking about having the same dreams, but I don't know how else to parse 'same stream'. It would be a little like the scene changing to a new camera in a movie. Nobody is bothered by that. Longest continuous shot I've seen was a bit over 10 minutes. The scene changes, and it's not an interruption, but it would be an incredible surprise if you take your memories with you because you don't have a memory of that movie-style scene change every happening to you in real life.

In a different model, the memory is part of the body, so the switch isn't noticed at all. This doesn't seem to be how you envision it.

I don't see a problem with transferring an identity across mediums.

Henry the 8th wrote the tune Greensleeves it is thought.

It was turned from music on a lute into some kind of musical notation.

Musical notation has changed over time so the melody was represented in a different notation instructing future musicians how to recreate the tune.

Eventually it was recorded in different mediums including Vinyl and CD. All the while the basic tune has remained recognisable across different mediums on different musical instruments (indeed on ANY musical instrument.)

So it seems very simple to preserve an identity across time and different mediums.

Can you demonstrate that consciousness is not identical with anything in the brain, or was that just a wishful assertion? — noAxioms

I think the burden of proof lies with you if you want to disprove this claim. However In what way can it not be proven?
Nothing I have read about the Brain so far is anything like consciousness or its contents. You can't even detect consciousness in the brain. I have read literature on the search for the correlates of consciousness and literature on brain structure. I see nothing identical with a thought or dream in any of these descriptions.

The closest they come is crude retinotopic mapping which suggests that the shape of light signals to the eyes is recreated in the brain. But it is the equivalent of a footprint in the sand preserving some limited info about a foot.

An afterlife makes sense only in Buddhism (reincarnation, determined by karma).

An afterlife makes sense only in Buddhism (reincarnation, determined by karma). — Agent Smith

:up: :sparkle:

Agreed. But I think is not about "sense" but just faith. Buddhism doctrines promote reincarnation and afterlife as one of the main points of their faith.

I hear ya, but it makes sense in my universe.

But I know nothing about this afterlife - not its characteristics, requirements, rules, form, expectations - nothing. — Vera Mont

But in my question you know that you will continue to exist. The important part is the continuation of your existence.
What happens now when you make plans for the future? If you have children you don't know what the future holds for them or for their hypothetical children and so on.
There is the element of the unknown in all our decision making.

One aspect I think an afterlife can have bearing on is justice.

If you are murdered and no one is prosecuted for your murder then some kind of justice or Karma may happen in the afterlife. If you are considering a murder the thought of afterlife consequences may make you think twice.
I have mentioned Pascals wager in this regard. There seems to be nothing to lose by living as if your existence continued after death.

In the reverse scenario other people claim believing this is their only life make them live it more fully.

I personally find the prospect of personal extinction on death makes life pointless. Something that we will forget like an irrelevance once dead.

I think in the face of the unknown we have to at speculatively and with agnosticism but we are not limited by the unknown but it offers potential.

Can you demonstrate that consciousness is not identical with anything in the brain, or was that just a wishful assertion?
— noAxioms
I think the burden of proof lies with you if you want to disprove this claim. However In what way can it not be proven? — Andrew4Handel

I asked a question. If you think I have made a claim, quote the claim.

Nothing I have read about the Brain so far is anything like consciousness or its contents. — Andrew4Handel

Your reading list is pretty short then. The same could be said of the opposing view.

You can't even detect consciousness in the brain. I have read literature on the search for the correlates of consciousness and literature on brain structure. I see nothing identical with a thought or dream in any of these descriptions.

So the instruments used by doctors to monitor conscious levels or dream states are all fiction. Sure, correlations say the dualists, but they're very detectable. They can detect something like intent before the subject is even aware of it.

Anyway, there is arguably evidence on both sides of the discussion, but that just suggests that neither view has been falsified (as is the case with anything labeled philosophical). The claim is thus unwarranted.
Just as an example, you put memory in the supernatural half, yet if the brain is damaged to say Alzheimer's, the memory should still be intact, it not being in the damaged part. That's evidence against the small bit of functionality which I managed to glean from your proposed view. Almost all the literature for the dualist side tends to avoid such discussion, indicating they know it doesn't hold up.

(..)instruments used by doctors to monitor conscious levels — noAxioms

I have heard of the Glasgow Coma scale.

"The GCS assesses a person based on their ability to perform eye movements, speak, and move their body. These three behaviours make up the three elements of the scale: eye, verbal, and motor. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_Coma_Scale

None of this relies on brain analysis. There is persistent vegetative state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_vegetative_state

"Whether or not there is any conscious awareness with a patient's vegetative state is a prominent issue."

They cannot say for sure what degree if any of consciousness someone is in this condition. It is speculative.

They can detect something like intent before the subject is even aware of it. — noAxioms

This is probably based on the Benjamin Libet experiments that are widely debated and controversial and are actually only coherent on a dualist paradigm.

By dream states are you referring to studies into REM sleep? It is correlated with vivid dreams but dreams have been reported when people are woken from other states of sleep.

I don't know anyone who is arguing consciousness is unrelated to the brain and doesn't interact with it in any way. The argument is against the coherence of describing mental states in only physicalist language. The other alternatives include idealism (the mental universe) Solipsism, Dualism and Panpsychism which all lend themselves easily to afterlife scenarios.

The position with the most evidence is idealism because all humans have to analyse are conscious states. Science creates changing models to explain conscious states. The model of the atom changed several times because it was just a model not proof of a physical reality behind our experiences.

It is not clear how you would describe any unobserved phenomena and what attributes it would have. This is most stark when it comes to colours and pain and sound.