Hey everyone. I know alot of people who claim that after death is "nothing" yet when asked what "nothing" is they contradict themselves because nothing cant exist (for the very reason that if something didnt exist it wouldnt exist in the first place to deny). Therefore I was wondering what the rest of the people that hang here on Unexplained mysteries have to say on this subject.

You're seeing a contradiction that isn't there.
The "Nothing" believed to be after death is the same as the "Nothing" believed to be before birth.

Feeling Nothing is the absence of feeling Something, just as Dark is the absence of Light.

Another Friday night with nothing to do Brave ??

To answer your question, I don't think anyone can claim knowing anything about death because obviously once you're dead, you're dead......There's no reporting back home......

But the nothing before birth is something and therefore cant be called nothing. So again how can there be nothing after death?

Who is to say that this physical incarnation is home in the first place?

Well, whatever this existence is prior to death, it ceases to exist once we die and what happens next is anyone's guess.....

I believe a person is always aware, forever. Even if he says he feels nothing, he just believes he is feeling nothing. It is a temporary state. He may actually feel numbness or have an empty feeling. It is still something.
The dark is still something. It is the colour black in one's mind. We are always aware/conscious somewhere. We just forget where we have been.

You're correct. There is something after death! The body and its energy decomposes and returns to the earth from whence it came.
But the consciousness once a product of the body, is no longer there to experience something. Since it does not experience something, it experiences nothing.

Simply an absence of any senses or thought. Why is that so hard for so many to grasp?

quick edit: The above is just my opinion. Do not feel I'm attacking anyone's faith.

Please explain the first part of your post?

How can you be 'something' before your birth (or conception)? Do you have recollection of this time? Were others aware of your existence before you were conceived?

As far as death is concerned, the only thing we can be certain of is the existence of memories of us in the minds of those who knew us.

I respect your views and they are perfectly valid, but why do you think consciousness is a product of the body? Is it a deep, personal belief or more of a logical, scientific evaluation?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

What is this nothing of which you speak??????



The absence of senses or thought is still something.



Even science is completely dumbfounded and cant figure out how the brain creates consciousness which I doubt it does.





Exactly it is still something.

A little of both.
I added a disclaimer to that post, btw.

BRAVE: It's become clear that your views won't change on the matter. You believe that nothing is something just because you can give it a name. I'm fine with that, but there's nothing extra special or important about what you believe compared to what another person believes.

Do you have any recollection of when you entered deep sleep without dreams??? Do you deny your existence then? Maybe that is what it was like before we were born and therefore if it is the case it is still "something". If it isnt this then it is still "something" but that which we do not know.



How can we even be sure of that?

If you can give something a name then how can you call it nothing? If it is nothing then it is nothing with the name nothing and therefore something. Im being philosophical here that's all. How can you expect others to believe nothing exists when it can be described and therefore be something? You could say it is indefinable but even then it is something because it is something indefinable. It requires faith to believe in nothing on the same level as it does to believe in God because there is no mental or physical proof for both.

Brave, if you aren't asleep alone, then others will be aware of your presence. The time before birth is not comparable to sleep or unconsciousness, although you might believe this to be so and, if so, I respect that belief.



Because you remember people who have passed. You believe in self-evidence so this is incontrovertible. What is for your self is for other's self in this regard.

Question for you brave. Why start another thread about nothing?

You have either contributed to or started threads like this in the past and no evidence or debate has changed your view, so why this thread? Are you trying to change other's views or are you looking for something?

Very good question V.

It's friday so give me a few minutes, i'm still thinking about it ...

Brave: It's true that "Nothing" is something. "Nothing" is a Name given to the absence of Something.
The absence of something is what I believe a dead person consciously experiences, similar to an eternal dreamless sleep, and the same thing we felt before we were born. I've noticed that I am *not* consciously aware of my existence during dreamless sleeps, as they feel more like lost time.
-
Nothing can correctly be called Something, but a non-existent consciousness is not there to give a name to anything.

Tell me how they differ?




How can we be sure they will exist when our consciousness isnt there? You cant, it is an act of faith.



Beats being another Jesus, Bible or Christian thread. Im looking for stimulation.

The absence of something is still something in itself though whether the name is there or not.



So you agree that dreamless sleep is the same as what we experience before birth? I'd like to see what Leonardo has to say about that. May I ask why you believe this to be so?


Non-existent consciousness is the consciousness of no consciousness and therefore a form of consciousness. If it isnt there to give a name to then how can we indicate that it is there? If we can indicate that it is there then it is something we can give a name to.

I said that dreamless sleep is similar to what we experience before birth. During a dreamless sleep, you don't know yourself, but others know you. Before birth, you don't know yourself, and nobody else knows you.
-&
I never said non-existent consciousness was there. It's non-existent, after all. And surely it is not conscious of its own lack of consciousness.
Feel free to get spun around by the semantics as much as you want, but not everyone who falls into that trap gets stuck there for so long.

When we think there is, or experience, 'nothing', it is just a temporary state when the consciousness is at rest and not particularly doing or perceiving anything.
The universe is made up of energy, space and time and is probably infinite. How then could 'nothing' exist in the universe. Would it be like a bubble of 'nothingness' floating around? If so, it would still be something - an enclosed, finite space.
Brave is right - it is just a concept, an idea, with the label 'nothing' attached.

What is the fundamental difference? When you are unconscious you are unconscious and the same goes for before birth. Unconsciousness isnt devoid of consciousness


If it is non-existent then how come we can name it? You cant name that which doesnt exist yet we can name non-existent consciousness. Therefore it exists just as much as existing consciousness because both exist.

Because other self's are present before and after [sleep and unconsciousness] and acknowledge the continuity of your self.



Only if you don't believe in self-evidence. Do you accept that other self's exist? Or is your belief in this regard entirely solipsist?



Stimulation or learning? If you wish simple stimulation about nothing then review your previous threads. If you wish learning then look to yourself to find out what it is you wish to learn and approach this topic with an open mind rather than fixed beliefs.



Show this to be so. Without quotes but simply using logic show how the non-existence of anything can equate to an existence of something. If the only answer you have is "It's a paradox" then this is no answer and your speculations are unfounded on any reason or self-evidence.



Dreamless sleep is not the same state of mind as purportedly exists before birth or after death. Experiments have shown the mind is active even if not dreaming. There is still consciousness. This cannot be shown for any being prior to it's birth (or conception, rather) or after it's death.



False logic. Inventing a word does not give a 'thingness' to the concept the word is invented to portray.

Ahh, so you admit that non-existent consciousness exists.
The truth is, the concept of a non-existent consciousness does very well exist.
But the non-existent consciousness itself is just as its name describes it; Non-Existent.

So it both exists and doesn't exist at the same time, in different ways.
The whole thing's really not all that worth arguing about.

So I'm dropping out for now.
Please try to take a step back and not get too caught up in words.

-Farewell!

But you arnt aware of this during the actual sleep. You only have faith consciously or unconsciously that everything will be as it will once you wake.


What is the self? We think we are the body in waking state, we think we are a different body in dream states and we have no body or aware of the world in dreamless sleep. Which one is us? If all three are then does that mean there are three selves? If not then does that mean that it is our nature to have a body and no body?



I am being open minded.



The logic is that you cant show something that doesnt exist. Because of this you cant name it or give it form in ANY way. Hence anything we can name or give form to does exist because if it truly didnt exist then it wouldnt exist for us to name and indicate.



Only to those who are awake. But do you feel active in deep sleep? Can you even prove in deep sleep that you exist or that a world exists?



What is the difference betwen what we see and what we think? What we see is a thought in the brain just as much as what we think is a thought in the brain. However the brain too is a thought. So therefore all that exists is thought. Anything that can be thought exists. Anything that cant be thought doesnt exist. What doesnt exist doesnt exist therefore we cannot think what does not exist.

Everything in reality that we can sense exists as concept. If it didnt exist then we wouldnt be able to conceptualize it. And saying that non-existent consciousness does exist is saying that it EXISTS. Therefore it is truly not non-existent.



So it does but doesnt exist. What does exist and doesnt exist both have existence underlying them. Ya it is fun to debate about though.



I know words very well

Hi Brave.
In another forum i peruse, a poster named Glenn, whom is the site admin sent forth the following post.
I reprint it here.
Interested in your comments.

Glenn wrote:

I'll try to keep my responses as short as possible, but I will need to discuss my thinking in detail.

Until 'spirit' is unitised from the background Source during the formation of the physical human form in the womb, it is no more an individualised aspect of the Source as a drop of seawater is no more a individual droplet while it remains in the sea (this being a well-used cliched analogy, but serves my purpose well)...they both have to emerge from their respective Sources. Let's take this analogy further, because in a way, the unitisation of spirit out of the Source, can be likend and understood by the mechanism of precipitation.

As you know, warm moist air over the seas and oceans rises into the atmosphere. When this moist warm air meets with the cooler layers of air the vapour condenses onto what are called 'condensation nuclei', free-roaming particulates that are kept high in the atmosphere by convection air currents. It is to this particulates that the vapour attaches. Once these vapour/particulate condensations reach a certain mass weight they will fall to the ground. There is more to precipitation than this, but the important aspect for my reasoning is the attachment of vapour to the particulate, for this is when the droplet forms...it becomes 'unitised'.

In a similar sense, we can allude that spirit precipitates out of Source during the formation of the physical human form. However, the difference is that spirit does not attach to the physical material, but is already insitu in the material that comes together and combines to produce the physical form. Spirit is energy, energy is spirit, and is the primary bedrock of all that arises (ie, condenses) out of it. Thus, nuclei that form the atoms, and atoms that form the molecules, and molecules that form all the diverse compounds that come together in their various ways out of which organic life emerged...all are condensations of spirit/energy (note: not spirit-energy).

When we discuss consciousness, we are talking about 'human-type' consciousness, and of course, for this type of consciousness there needs to be the relevant structure in which it can emerge, and this is the physical human form.

I have already described in a earlier post how both spirit and the physical form undergo a simultaneous and parallel development. This is not to suggest that the two are separate and distinct from each other, but to simply emphasize polar aspects of the one object. You are quite right to say that spirit is the 'animator' of the body, its 'vital' force. It is this aspect of spirit that is part of the correspondence that occurs between spirit and the denser physical structure of the body. Spirit has no sense organs, and I suspect that (for explanation sake) if we were to isolate spirit from a developing foetus, we would have a globular cluster of energy with a singular wavelength frequency. What I am meaning to be understood by this is that the physical life experience imbues in spirit a spectrum of frequency wavelengths (ie, memory resonances) by which it can correspond with other spiritual entities whom equally hold similar resonances...like comprehends like. I'm getting way ahead of myself here though.

As spirit corresponds with the physical form in the process of animating it, the physical form corresponds with spirit by its intake of energy (environmental radiation) input through the various sensing organs. This has the effect of awaking spirit to other frequency wavelengths and into a spectrified consciousness. You see, to my way of thinking, consciousness in spirit arises out of the correspondence with the physical form as virtual resonances whose frequency wavelengths cover the spread of frequencies that the physical sensing organs are attuned to. Bear in mind that it is only spirit that is conscious, not the physical form or brain. If the body had a plethora of sensing organs attuned to a plethora of frequencies, more than it currently is, our consciousness would be much more than what it is. Nature, however, has decreed that 5 primary sense organs and two extra subtle ones are all that is required for the human form. In effect, the physical human form is the womb of the 'soul-of-self'.

I have discussed a speculative mechanism of consciousness production in other postings, so will not go into too much detail here. In order to become conscious, spirit must first 'unitise' out of Source, and it does this during the formation of the physical human form in which it is embedded (or insitu) already in the materials that combine to create the body. It needs a structure with which it can interface (correspond) and assimilate other frequencies as memory resonances. it cannot do this as spirit, it has to gain them through interfacial correspondence with an outer-shell attuned to some of Nature's other wavelengths. The life experience is simply about spirit assimilating frequencies of reality other than its own (probable) singular frequency.

Spirit, in its own natural state of one frequency cannot possibly be sentient or conscious, for it requires a minimum of two or more frequencies to awaken it into consciousness...hence the necessity for the physical body. Always remember, that consciousness is about correspondence, spirit cannot correspond with itself, it has to correspond with something other than itself in order to become conscious and sentient. "

Further...he also posted a great read about "time" as it relates to the above:

Glenn wrote:
"Time. We can't grasp it, we can't stop it, we can't move it backward, nor can we move it forward; we are caught, it seems, in time's flow like autumnal leaves carried upon the surface of a river or stream...but is this actually the case? Are we caught in time's drift, or does time not actually have any motion at all?

I have discussed in past postings mine own thinking on time, stating speculatively that 'time' holds no existentialism of its own. I based this thinking on my equally speculative hypothesis on 'consciousness' being a quantum wave-field resonance arising out of the correspondence between spirit and the physical human form. This hypothesis led me to further speculative conclusions on our perception of time (as I believe that time and consciousness are very intimately linked - you cannot have one without the other), and I proposed that our perception of time, is nothing more than our conscious perception of 'events' occurring in spatial vectors.

I defined these events as 'motions of occurrences', and that they described spatial disturbances of any size in our perception field. It is important to realise that our perception field does not only relate to spatial disturbances in the outer-environment of the physical human form, but also, within the physical human form...proprioception being such a inner perceptive field.

Why and in what way are time and consciousness linked, and what does it impute for time?

In brief, consciousness arises when two or more wave fields correspond and exchange energy with each other. This occurs when an external energy wave passing through the locality of our two wave fields forces our wave fields towards each other, squeezing them into a correspondence that their charges want to repel. What arises out of this energy exchange between the two wave fields is a 'resonance' that lasts only as long as the presence of the impinging energy wave...once it has passed, the resonance is gone, and our two (or more) wave fields are no longer in correspondence. It was this brief resonance that I identified as the consciouness resonance, and that it is this that is assimilated as 'long-term' memory onto spirit

Why did I identify the resonance as being the resonance of consciousness? Well, to state it simply, the presence of the resonance signifies a heightend state...which is what we are in when we are conscious. Once I accepted this to be a plausible mechanism for consciousness production, other problems I was also pondering on began to fall into place...one of which was the enigma of time, or rather, our perception of it.

I realised that all that I was pondering upon are actually interrelated to each other...that they arise and flow out of each other once their primary foundation is in place...and their primary foundation was/is consciousness...consciousness is the key...but always, underlying consciousness...is spirit.

The events (or motions-of-occurrences) that imbue in us a sense of time, are what make us conscious. However, because we are perceiving these events through the sense organs of the physical body, there is a slight lag in the computation of the event, and as the event is undergoing computation in the brain (ie, electro-chemical activity in the form of the flow of energy waves through the neuronal network), another event also ignites the computational pathways, almost overlapping the first...and so on. It is this lag that imbues the passage (ie, motion) of time...it is where we get our perception of time from. Time, is the lag in our computation between each event that makes us conscious.

Unfortunately, I realised it could not just be as simple as that. We actually perceive two time frame references, slightly out of phase with each other, and they are...in order as they arise, the time reference arising at the moment an event imbues consciousness, and the other reference of time arises out of our sentiency, and it is this time reference we are pertaining to when we talk colloquially (ie, in general terms) about time. There is a reason for two time references which I'll discuss in another post.

The imputation of all this is that time has no self-existence of its own. It is simply the quale experience of events. Thoughts?

Source:

http://www.nderf.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=803

Thoughts?

Blessings



Blessings

And this is the best you can come up with on a Friday night ??

I'm sorry sweetness, I feel like picking on ya tonight.....

The thing here is that if all is spirit then how can there be any form of duality whatsoever? Why do we need to evolve out of spirit and into human consciousness in the first place if spirit is all? If spirit isnt conscious or sentient then it isnt unconsciousness either because spirit transcends all oposites as well as pervading them all. So that would conclude that spirit is greater than consciousness would it not?



I agree here that time is an illusion. It exists insofar as thought exists therefore making them both the same thing.

You're on the right track, I think... We are recyclable. Nature dictates new life comes from death... However, I don't believe we return to the earth (except by burial rituals), from whence we supposedly came. Nature is full of evidence, imo. All we need do is observe. The fact that we're, as embryos and fetuses, encased in water seems to dictate if we came from anywhere it's water...not soil.

Yes this is the best I could come up with.

Hiya Mum! Hope you are feeling well, is baby kicking the crap out of you, thats always a fun feeling (not).

This is all very interesting, what was the question?? How do we explain nothing after death if nothing is actually not nothing but something? I look at it as not nothing but non existence, the end of existence, which is something. Your topic seems to relate to people who have labeled the end as nothing but is that really how it is? In using the word nothing I think they mean non existance, not literally...nothing as in a state that has no label or thought pertaining to it therefore doesn't exist as anything.......geez now I'm confusing myself.

"Since life and death are each other's companions, why worry about them? All beings are one." (Chuang-Tzu)

What if the issue is, trying to make sense of something that is destined to happen to all of us, is the problem. Because we're relating from human emotions, to what we will never know when the human senses that subjectify our existence, are no longer working once we're dead.

I think what may be said is it doesn't make sense to think we know what happens when we die. That's why what is proposed, asks to be taken on faith. We simply can not know. And that's not a concept, or a faith in itself. That's reality. Which ceases to exist, as far as our understanding of that, as soon as we do.

I do not care what happens when I'm dead.
It's simply pointless to waste my energy, on what is absolutely unknowable when the human mind is dead.

No that is a concept. It is a concept that we dont know which is also something. Anything we think is reality whether we know or not is a concept.



If it is absolutely unknowable then how can you know that the human mind is dead?

Nice reply

The only sure way for one to find out is for one to experience death, itself, instead of wordy words and book knowledge to describe it. Alas, death will come to all, sooner or later. And even then, is it really death..., or just another dream-like state?

The thing is: One should really be honest to one's self, accept one's current limitations, and FLUSH DOWN THE TOILET all the learned (from books and hearsay), pseudo facts - everything which is UNVERIFIED by the self - for one to really move on. If one couldn't even let these useless, book-worm knowledge go, then how could one even let the experience of death go? True, it's hard to let go all these superstitions and mind-bending hearsay created by pseudo-saints and power-hungry mystics and wannabes, especially if one's life is invested in studying their teachings for quite sometime now. I know this for a fact, but thank God, I am not alone in divorcing myself from these useless, archaic teachings..., and yes, it is a constant act and no one knows where this act would lead to, but I believe it is all for the betterment of the individual, even if one's knowledge is in constant change like the infinite God, Itself, and even if one has been studying these things since five years old.

Keep the verified ones, but pray to have the strength, courage, and insight to let go of the nonsense.

Death, in the end, is just another experience, especially if one is back again, or still, on Earth. Death is no different from a dream, in the end, a curious dream, yes, but a dream, nonetheless.

In my current belief system, it is never over, until it is really over, no more death and rebirth. And what I've come to realize (for now) is that only through God's grace this true freedom is achieved. BUT, one has to be in constant vigil since one is still on planet Earth.

Peace to you, always.

Well, I took it from some one else. Thanks anyway.
I had a near-death experience once. So did my husband. It was very interesting.

Good luck with that.

Its not a question of whether the body is dead or the mind is dead.

Its realising or remembering that the 'I' feeling is not located in the mind or body and never was.

How can you say that by calling nothing nothing-that that nothing suddenly gains a substance and therefore makes it something? It's called nothing
(not anything: an indefinite pronoun indicating that there is not anything, not a single thing, or not a single part of a thing) because thats what it is. Brave, by your rational, calling nothing, for reasons of which is stated above, is actually calling nothing something. Think about it. That's not the case. You might as well be here telling people that something actually means nothing and that if something exists there must be nothing to it !

There is only one way to find out for certain what lies after the vessel breaks and it's not very high on my to do list.

What doesnt exist doesnt exist therefore we cannot label, name or think what does not exist.



It is a contradiction either way. This is what I love about philosophy.



I agree that it is never over.

Of course there is life after death.Ancient man believed in it.Why else did even Cro Magnon and Neanderthal man bury their dead and sometimes place things with the deceased?Because they had a belief in an afterlife.Now where they got the concept < I have no idea,but it has been with us since ancient times and always will be.

yeah... it might'v been cause they stank the cave out too

Not sure, think Godess Whispers said earlier somit to do with not knowing, and this is somit loadsa people say about this subject, and i just had a weird thought....aint that an assumption too? Saying we dont know...to saY YOU DONT KNOW IS JUst as much an assumption (illusion) as sayin you do know in it!

yeah...duno how thats relavant so back to the topic anyways

What I dont understand is why is it that when people say they dont know they take on the intellectual stance "Nothing happens". Nothing happening is something happening. Better to say that "something happens but I dont know what" than to say "because we dont know, it is best to assume that there is nothing until proven otherwise." The former leaves open room for exploration while the other becomes more of a closed rigid belief system.

Also the fact no one here on unexplained mysteries has been able to explain what "nothing" is without contradicting themselves shows that nothing cant be explained logically and therefore requires faith to believe in it. Explaing nothing is the same as explaining God. To have faith in anything non-dualistic in nature requires faith because our perception of the world is dualistic.

Saying you dont know is an assumption but anything we intellectually conceptualize is an assumption because of the fact that future (or anceint) proofs expand on our current proofs and so it goes on and on. Everything I have just written now is an assumption. The search for truth is to be free from all assumption including the assumption that you must be free from assumptions to know the truth. Anyway I liked your post

COOOOOOOOOOOL

I like your threads dude

LMAO... Anyone who puts faith into non-dualism is contradicting them selves

It dunt require belief or faith cause its self evident in it! ....i know, i know, i'm talking to my self again LMAO

Firstly, you're generalising and, I think, it's a false generalisation.

Secondly, show that 'something happens' if 'nothing happens'. Use the premise in your second paragraph (quoted below) that "no one here on unexplained mysteries has been able to explain what "nothing" is without contradicting themselves". This includes yourself, obviously.



Quite a statement here. Can you show this to be true? Can you show that no-one has explained nothing without contradicting themselves? Please show us your proof this statement is true.



And this paragraph is simply nonsense designed to look meaningful and profound. If you don't believe it is nonsense then please explain what you are actually saying here without using any from the following list of words:

Assumption
Consciousness
Existence
Non-Existence
Nothing
Something

no one knows what happens after we die . no one can say anything with 100% surity .