So when my time is up and my remains get burnt (probably) as that takes up less space and my desire for a shallow grave under a young cherry tree is probably too difficult to arrange when I'm not around to direct things. What do I have to look forward to?

I don't consider sitting on clouds playing harps and preening my wings is likely just as shovelling coals under ground for less than mininmium wage with restricted rest-room breaks too likely either.

Do 'we' have the option to just stop - to cease to be - enter the void and become part of it?

Do 'we' get a score based on performance this time round and get allocated the next free body for another go, I have an image of a rollercoaster queue as I write this line.

Can I roam Bangkok, Rome & New York unseen kicking Coke cans in a Patrick Swayze type way at will?

Gather with other dis-embodied 'souls' in TV studios and play guess what I'm thinking with John Edwards?

Play Godfather to a relative that I consider needs a watchful eye? And make crop circles at weekends.

Do I finally get to see the reality of finger electrons only touching space bar electrons even though the electrons in the center of the bar are smoother electrons than those at either end?

If my worth is 1.89x10⁹ KW of power, is that enough to 'accend' to the next level, and do I get to keep the Red Key and the BFG do battle the spikey monsters?

Should I be collecting whole grains, honey and a small army of followers to carry me on the journey with the ferry man, or keep a good warm jacket and some funny stories to hand when I feast in Valhalla?

Anything is possible.

I think you should just go and get pissed now and stop dwelling on the end.

All that awaits is worms and dust.

See signature.

I think Bags is probably correct, but there is always the possibility that intellect may survive in some other form. Unlikely, but no-one can say impossible. (Don't mistake this observation as meaning I subscribe to it - I don't. But at the least it is less fantastic than the notion of an omnipotent creator.)

So when my time is up and my remains get burnt (probably) as that takes up less space and my desire for a shallow grave under a young cherry tree is probably too difficult to arrange when I'm not around to direct things. What do I have to look forward to?

being an earthling you have a multitude of options to look forward Cuban. to select one all what you have to do is change your creed. we germanic Klingons have a rather limited and boring outlook. it's either hanging around in StoVoKor drinking Bloodwine and listen to each others bragging about brave deeds in battle or the occasional visit to neighbouring Valhalla to get drunk on Met and fool around with Valkyries. the option (i'm not quite sure whether it exists) that we embrace Islam is not very enticing. dealing with virgins day and night sounds like hard labour and who wants to work in his afterlife?

......But at the least it is less fantastic than the notion of an omnipotent creator.

Hmmm.... That's an interesting link to consider, and ties a few loose threads together in my mind. Moving on from this plane of existance means going up a level in so many faiths, maybe one's thoughts became god. Or rather join the god collective.

It could explain why God is both good yet also unable/willing to prevent 'wrong' but is seen within small events, acts of saviour against the odds: 50kg mother being 'given the strength to lift a fallen car from her child. Although that would require some interaction between planes and maybe there's a dimensional thing happening.

No Klingon bloodwine in the Cuban drinks cabinet, however I will be finishing the last of a bottle of homemade German farm brandy (can't remember the correct name) I was given a few weeks ago. Maybe these spirits will help me understand other spirits?

I will be finishing the last of a bottle of homemade German farm brandy (can't remember the correct name) I was given a few weeks ago. Maybe these spirits will help me understand other spirits?

= a good basis for serious thoughts

An interesting question. We all know that a person loses something when they die (apart from the ability to tell you to <deleted> off). There is a "life force" that departs from the body on death which is why people often say that the dead person before them maybe the body of the deceased but it it not the person. Some people may call it the soul but whatever you think of it there is no doubt it is an intangible presence, life force or energy. Now one of the laws of physics is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can be changed in form but not destroyed. A match has energy (potential) in it's head and the timber shaft, striking it releases that energy and the match burns but when it extinguishes that energy still exists as a microscopic increase in temperature and a few photons of light. Therefore, if we view life as an energy, death does not, and can not, destroy that energy and thus it continues but in another form.

The question is ; what is that form?

The other, follow on, question is ; any more of that brandy left?

An interesting question. We all know that a person loses something when they die (apart from the ability to tell you to <deleted> off). There is a "life force" that departs from the body on death which is why people often say that the dead person before them maybe the body of the deceased but it it not the person. Some people may call it the soul but whatever you think of it there is no doubt it is an intangible presence, life force or energy. Now one of the laws of physics is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can be changed in form but not destroyed. A match has energy (potential) in it's head and the timber shaft, striking it releases that energy and the match burns but when it extinguishes that energy still exists as a microscopic increase in temperature and a few photons of light. Therefore, if we view life as an energy, death does not, and can not, destroy that energy and thus it continues but in another form.

The question is ; what is that form?

According to a Hollywood movie that "life force" weighs 21 grams. I think is is more likely a loss of fluids that accounts for any discrepancy in weight.

What disappears upon death is electrical activity in the brain which is normally fuelled by blood flow. That flow is maintained by a muscle (heart) which itself is maintained by oxygen from the lungs. The ultimate energy source for the body machine is oxygen. That energy is still out there, the body just suffers a mechanical breakdown and is no longer able to utilize that source. It's like an electrical circut being turned off.

All I know is that my Dad had the right idea about death..."fuc_k them all but six and save those bastards for pallbearers."

Pious 'fight death the hardest'

People with strong religious beliefs appear to want doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive as death approaches, a US study suggests.

Researchers followed 345 patients with terminal cancer up until their deaths.

Those who regularly prayed were more than three times more likely to receive intensive life-prolonging care than those who relied least on religion.

The team's report was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It suggests that such care, including resuscitation, may make death more uncomfortable.

Just over 30% of those asked agreed with the statement that religion was "the most important thing that keeps you going".

full story = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7949111.stm

There is nothing after you die, you are just no longer there. All that remains are the memories of you held by others.

i agree... IF there is anything that survives after death (energy, spirit, whatever), it is not going to be able to experience the world like we do as humans, with our brains and hearts and 5 senses to interpret things for us- because we leave those things and the shell of our body behind. therefore, to me, it seems impossible that there can be life after death.

but as thaddeus says, anything is possible. i am agnostic for that reason, i don't feel we can adequately prove or disprove religious notions, and there is a lot out there that is greater than our understanding.

Have any of you ever been hypnotised to see if you have lived in another time? Or is that all googledygook?

Have any of you ever been hypnotised to see if you have lived in another time? Or is that all googledygook?

yep. i was living in a tree and had two tails. one of them was very long

'And the other very short. Hence the demise of your species.

Regards.

How did you get from this:

Now one of the laws of physics is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can be changed in form but not destroyed. A match has energy (potential) in it's head and the timber shaft, striking it releases that energy and the match burns but when it extinguishes that energy still exists as a microscopic increase in temperature and a few photons of light.

To this:

Therefore, if we view life as an energy, death does not, and can not, destroy that energy and thus it continues but in another form.

The first bit is hard science - the law of conservation of energy. The second is just vague mystical stuff about viewing 'life' as 'some kind of energy.' Mixing the two together is entirely misleading. Even if your theory is somehow correct, it just means we would continue our 'life' in the form of heat. I can't imagine that would be much fun.

How did you get from this:

Now one of the laws of physics is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can be changed in form but not destroyed. A match has energy (potential) in it's head and the timber shaft, striking it releases that energy and the match burns but when it extinguishes that energy still exists as a microscopic increase in temperature and a few photons of light.

To this:

Therefore, if we view life as an energy, death does not, and can not, destroy that energy and thus it continues but in another form.

The first bit is hard science - the law of conservation of energy. The second is just vague mystical stuff about viewing 'life' as 'some kind of energy.' Mixing the two together is entirely misleading. Even if your theory is somehow correct, it just means we would continue our 'life' in the form of heat. I can't imagine that would be much fun.

Then, why are you posting in outside the box?

Heat is energy. How much energy is used by the brain to calculate billions of calculations per second?

A rhetorical question, 'cause I 'ain't got a clue meself.

Don't shoot people down. Expand on their stupid ideas. How many of the best chess solutions begin with a Queen sacrifice? A totally outrageous notion? "Outside our sensibilities"....is the name of the game.

Regards.

Don't shoot people down. Expand on their stupid ideas.

It's not my intention to shoot anyone down. Far from it. If someone wants to put forward any idea, no matter how outrageous, that's all good with me. My issue is with using a basic, well-established scientific law in an attempt to lend credibility to an argument which is entirely conjecture. If Phil wants to maintain there's some kind of 'life force' and that such a force exists independent of any human physical or biological considerations and continues to exist as 'some kind of energy' after 'death' then that's all well and good. But he should just state that is his belief, and not attempt to offer an existing scientific law as some kind of evidence. That's misleading.

hmm interesting

when my grandfather died, my uncles father ( who talked to dead people, but no one belived him ) rang my grandmother about 1 hour after he died and just said on the phone, dont worry, i have just spoken to him and he is at rest in the garden with his brother.......

now there was no way of him knowing about this death, only my grandmother had just found out

after this, we took the guy a bit more serouis

When a friend of mine's father died his phone rang and there was no one on the other end. He found out that his father had died at the exact time of that phone call.

The day my father died i knew something was wrong even before i got that awful phonecall. And that's from Edinburgh to Geneva. Maybe he popped in to say something. Shise, I hope i wasn't naked or drunk or anything like that!!!

Don't Jump...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/...aking-long.html

That's a mad link james!

What a mistake. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Being aware of Hiesenberg's theory: Energy can be created from nowhere and destroyed briefly in time, (don't ask) I asked on a QP forum...."Can energy be destroyed"?

Answer 1: you are making two mistakes here. First of all, virtual particles only arise in QFT because of second quantization. The mere fact that a change in vibrational modes of a field (you know going from energy level 1 to level 2) corresponds to a particle of certain momentum and energy is a QFT thing.

Secondly, in QFT, virtual particles can arise in two distinct and completely different ways. Virtual particles can arise as the force mediators between matter particles. In this case they carry a distinct momentum value and due to HUP, they are everywhere in space (not in spacetime!!!). These are the analogon of what we call virtual transition states in QM, because these virtual particles also directly arise from perturbation theory in QFT. Then, you have the vaccuum fluctuations or the zero point energy (ZPE). These two ways of 'generating' virtual particles are totally different in nature...That is my point

Answer 2: Then, you have the vaccuum fluctuations or the zero point energy (ZPE). These two ways of 'generating' virtual particles are totally different in nature...That is my point. These guys have all got points!

I see marlon. But the vacuum fluctuation is a result of energy time uncertainty and the zero point energy is a result of momentum position uncertainty. And vacuum fluctuation is the case where virtual pair are created and these pair annihilate after a short time. The ground state field is always there.

Maybe I should have asked if there was life after death....."<deleted> off weirdo"....Ok, that I understand. Thanks.

Regards.

I have followed this one for some time and must say I am very reluctant to post my experiences.

I have never believed in ghost/spirits whatever you call it but I have had a very strong experience a few years ago when my father died.

I was in Thailand at the time to give some lecture and was called and informed my father was ill and needed an MRI scan or CT scan whatever but had to wait until the coming Thursday and hear the result on Friday. Friday the results came in and had cancer throughout his body and had not long to life was told.

He was given a bed in the hospital waiting for further treatment in the weekend to come. Mother told me not to worry and finish my lecture first and then come home. Brother calls on Sunday and tells me I better make it quick as the situation deteriorated. So I found a flight back to SG on Monday. On the plane I felt into a light sleep and dreamed my father asking me if he had to wait for me, in the dream I told him that if he was in great discomfort he could go. I was woken by a short but very intense ammonia kinda smell and new he had passed, I just knew. On the ground in SG I directly called and it was confirmed.

After the funeral I had to go back SG and during my week back I had "Contact" with my father, I could see and hear from his viewpoint and felt his panic and stress, it was very intense I can tell you. During my sleep when I had this experience all communication was very clear, I could hear and see the nurses and family members, I experienced this a few times so I started taking notice of colors and conversations and remembered it all when waking up.

It was all a bit of a traumatic experience as during the daytime I kept thinking about it so I decided to tell this to my mother and she confirmed everything, type and color of clothes, who was there, just surreal. I decided to call my brother as I remembered from my dream that he took the nurse apart and asked her if she could give my father some more Morphine and he confirmed asking me how the heck did I know as he took her one on one besides my fathers bed.

Therefore I think that when the body/organs stops functioning the spirit remains somewhere in a form and place we do not know yet. And an idea I have is that that spirit will guide/help/protect a living human progress in live and if that human dies, the first one/spirit will somehow be implanted/transferred in a new to be born human and carry with him/her the lessons learned as a spirit guardian and as a previously died human.

And it makes sense, look at newborn baby's, soon you can see a character develop, even without being able to talk, the child behaves in a certain way and different than others. Even you can easily distinguish it in animals like cats and dogs in a very early stage.

Fascinating stuff!

After I had this experience I remembered some experiences I had before and they started to make sense where I first just thought of it as being rubbish and coincidences, I think now I know better.

This really happened to me and from my experience a lot of people just tell me I made it all up but I would never do that, this is about someone I loved dearly and still do, and my family knows what I experienced is real and is something that cannot be explained yet by science.

Thanks all for reading.

Alex

Not related to the death question but I thought it worthwhile to have a look at this site and check out some of the clips.

http://www.oddee.com/item_91848.aspx

This shows some extra ordinary capability's humans can have and that science cannot really explain.

I was tempted taking the lighthearted/nihilistic approach and just post "lights off" but Alex Lah's post made me think a bit...there are two things that I want to report:

A friend of mine (whom I consider very down to earth and not goofy wahtsoever) has seen the "ghost" of a friend's father just in the moment this father died - 100s of km away from where the ghost appeared.

Just after my grandmother died, my sister got a baby. The wife's reaction: of course the baby is born now, the grandmother needs a new body to reincarnate. Perfectly logic!

I wabba be reincarnated as a boar.

30 minute orgasms, no arguement.

Not related to the death question but I thought it worthwhile to have a look at this site and check out some of the clips.

http://www.oddee.com/item_91848.aspx

This shows some extra ordinary capability's humans can have and that science cannot really explain.

Perhaps it is related! In my humble opinion we know so little about ourselves and our world. The site above brings into question that of what our true capabilities are.

Interesting that people often wonder what lies beyond this life but rarely question where we were before it! Hmm . . . Or, since we sleep on average of 1/3 of our lives where do we go during that time? Hmm . . .

I'm a sucker for the likes of the laws of thermodynamics and the law of conservation of energy. Quantum physics.... I'm not educated enough to comprehend, but I wish I did.

Steven Hawking is one of my idols. (David Attenborough is another, as is Ben Harper, Lennox Lewis, and Nat Young (being a longboarder)...just so you don't pigeon hole me yet )

Nonetheless, I have experienced supernatural stuff. Very very convincingly. Precognition and deja vu.

I can't be bothered giving details now.....but I do believe there is alot more out there than science can even guess at.

@ the OP....nice bit of writing.