Theory of Natural Eternal Consciousness

[simmerdown]

I've been reading about a theory from Dr. Bryan Ehlmann which supports a "natural afterlife." Basically, he suggests that if non-existence follows after death, then we will be forever locked in a state of experience comprising of our very last moment. He uses the following thought experiment:

"You’re totally engrossed in watching an extremely exhilarating movie. Then, without knowing, you unexpectedly, without any perceived drowsiness, fall asleep. For you the movie has been unknowingly paused, while in reality (that for others) it continues on. Until you wake up, you still believe you’re watching that movie."

He suggests that because we will never perceive any indication that our consciousness has ceased when we die, we will continue this final state of consciousness forever and that in this state, time will become infinite.

I'm not doing the best job at articulating it, but one of his papers on the topic can be downloaded here:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _Afterlife

Some of my thoughts on the topic:

- There will no longer be a self to consciously experience this last moment, so how can it be that this moment will continue forever?
- How specific is this static moment? Is it an everlasting experience of the second before we die? A millisecond? This quickly becomes an irrational thing to discuss.
- What if we die in some horrible way and are suffering until our last moments? (e.g., burned alive, suffocation, etc.) If we take this theory seriously, then that provides some pretty daunting implications. An eternity of extreme pain locked into a single moment? Yikes.

Overall, I don't know what to think about the plausibility of this theory. It makes sense to me that without a transferred state to let me know that I am no longer conscious, then from my point of view, I won't know that my final moment of consciousness has ended. But as mentioned, how can consciousness exist without an entity to experience it?

What do you guys think?

[roydop]

"But as mentioned, how can consciousness exist without an entity to experience it?"

Consciousness is the entity. Nothing makes sense until consciousness/awareness is placed as fundamental and physicality as derivative, as proposed by Maxwell Planck.

Consider: Have you ever had the experience of not existing? If not, then the idea that at some time you will not exist, is speculation, conjecture.

[planetlonely23]

Professor David Chalmers believes one possible answer to the hard problem is a view known as panpsychism. It sounds spiritual, but it isn't.

According to panpsychism, consciousness may be a fundamental property of reality in the same way as space and time.

"We're not going to reduce consciousness to something physical ... it's a primitive component of the universe," he said.

"But that frees us up to search for the fundamental principles that govern it. In physics, we don't try and explain space and time in terms of more fundamental things. We just find the laws that govern them."

In my opinion consciousness can be defined as something technological, that is integrated and engraved as model in our brain with some particular patterns for feelings, emotions and thoughts. Beyond the death you soul and mind search the fact of being in the void of nothingness, where the existence might be eternal only under the projection of our imagination out of the existence of yourself.

[epistemicmind]

I agree with your first concern about his idea. The analogy that he makes with the movie doesn't exactly follow, mainly because when you fall asleep you don't "think the movie has paused", you're not even aware that there is a movie, or that you exist for that matter. The movie is nonexistent in your consciousness. I find it to be a very strange argument, don't you?

[commonsense]

How is the problem of actual death v near death to be handled? Does memory exist after death, or is memory the same thing as awareness?

[11011]

i would say to this doctor, why then don't we experience this when we go to sleep?

yes, there is a continuation of conscious of some sort (awareness of our imagination while we sleep for example), but it is not of the moment before falling asleep, it is something else our mind has conjured up in sleep state; if it is about the moment prior, it's insignificant because it's not always the case, usually it's not

so why would death be any different?

if there is continued consciousness after death, and that's a big if to the extent the mind depends on the brain to exist or at least percievably exist, wouldn't it be more like an eternal dream? doesn't this seem more plausible based on how our mind acts while we sleep?

[A_Seagull]

It is pure wishful thinking. No doubt it emanates from a natural fear of death.