Afterlife possible from secular POV

[Moralnihilist]

A problem that I have with some atheists is that they claim assertively "once you die that's all there is", but IMO this is a faith based belief - and not from a 'religious' POV either.

Basically, while it's true that human consciousness "in general" is caused by brain activity - what causes SPECIFIC people to be 'born in their bodies' isn't explained away that easily. For example why where you born as "you" instead of as your brother (and vice versa)? That can't just be explained away by brain waves.

So while a specific brain and set of memories does end upon death, saying that there is no 1st person consciousness after a certain physical death is just taking a guess, since science hasn't advanced that far yet.

Not to mention lots of other 'theories' - for example, what if 10,000 years from now an alien race is able to re-create everyone from their DNA? That might be sci-fi but it's totally valid to think about since it deals with future possiblities, not things which 'can be disproven' - so in that situation, you'd actually 'wake up' 10,000 years later in a new body instead of just 'be gone'.

Point is the honest answer is for atheists to say "I don't know" what happens after death, since anything else is just a belief based on faith.

Aside from the complete lack of any evidence to suggest that an afterlife exists, your "idea" that an afterlife being "possible" is the same as trying to argue that god is possible from an atheistic viewpoint. Yes, is some fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a minute possibility that something an afterlife does exist there still remains ZERO supporting evidence to make such a claim. Therefore it is more logical to hold a lack of belief in it than to suggest that it is possible. It may be, in theory, possible but the likely hood of it being true is close enough to zero for me to feel comfortable stating that for all intents and purposes it is zero.

Many things are hypothetically possible, however it does not mean that they actually exists.

[doorknob]

I believe that when the brain dies your consciousness dies with it. There for there is nothing after you die. But now I do believe there is a life energy with in each person some kind of life force. That energy might get passed on to other life. In that sense we might  have an after "life" but is it really us at that point? No I think not. So there is no verifiable after life.

Science would point out that there is nothing after death. No evidence to the contrary.

[Mermaid]

I'll venture that this does apply to thinking animals such as chimpanzees. To a mosquito or a worm with no cerebral matter? Probably not.

Well, let's stick to mammals for the sake of discussion.

What is a "thinking" animal? What distinguishes them from non-thinking animals?

[Mermaid]

Admit it, you love me and want me.

Admit it: You wish.

[Mermaid]

That's not elitism, that's my understanding of science - from what I can tell consciousness is dependent on having cerebral brain functions. A single-celled organism might be a form of 'life' but it's not 'alive' in the since that a mammal is - that's why animals (even non human animals) have some rights, but tiny organisms, plants, etc don't.

"Rights" are granted by humans and are human-centric, they are not a biological construct. They are all in context to humans. 

[Mermaid]

Which is why worms instinctively engage in their behavior - despite not having any cerebral matter what so ever, therefore no ability to "learn" at all.

Are you sure? How do you know that?

[GSOgymrat]

Point is the honest answer is for atheists to say "I don't know" what happens after death, since anything else is just a belief based on faith.

I think "I don't know" is the most honest answer but many people don't find that answer satisfactory. I can't claim to know with any authority that everything about me will cease to exist after I die. I don't really know how "I" got here and I can't say where "I" will go, and thanks to various ailments "I" can go before my body is even dead. To say with certainty that there is nothing after death is to be confident that humans really understand consciousness, the nature of the physical universe and how the two interact, and I don't think we are there yet. For example: is space and time eternal and infinite? If it is then there are a possibility that all the factors that led to my existence and consciousness have happened before and will happen again. Is there a multiverse? Could consciousness be associated with physical laws of the universe that we haven't identified yet? Is death like Schrödinger's cat? Who knows. I still feel at this stage in human evolution we still don't know everything we don't know. The bottom line is I don't know if there is anything else after I die, that is my honest answer.

Many people don't like that answer. I sometimes think some people are so uncomfortable with uncertainty they create a theory that fits with their current view of life just to ease their anxiety. In the book Life of Pi the main character says:

I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Doubt isn't my philosophy of life but I think we need to accept that sometimes we don't know, and while we may know in the future, for now it is a mystery. Because I believe we don't know what, if anything, happens when we die my strategy is to live for now and not for heaven, hell, reincarnation or oblivion. We will each learn the answer eventually.

[Unbeliever]

But take 2 identical twins with identical brains - each has a separate consciousness despite idential brains - so if you had an identical twin, how could you explain why you were "born in your body" instead of your brother's? And vice versa.

That can't be explained away that easily. I've heard that consciousness is a concept that exists on a 'quantum level', so I believe the concept transcends mere individual brains.

Sure you may not 'float out of your body' when you die, but how do you know you won't take on the 1st person consciousness of another physical body in another life (or that you haven't already done so in 'past lives')?

Identical twins may have the same DNA, but they don't have the same microbiome. Also, they may well have differing epigenetics.

[Unbeliever]

Reincarnation is very real. I was Chuck Norris is my past life.

Wow, so was I! What a small world!

[Aletheia]

Considering the fact that the brain is ever changing, making new connections, old disused cells eventually dying off while new cells are formed, it's not unreasonable to make the assumption that several "versions" of our "self" have died. The newest version always having the memories of the former, therefore no break in continuity from the perspective of the "new self." Even the very idea of our consciousness may not be referring to a single entity at all, but to a cyclic process that is ever changing with multiple steps. This idea of our consciousness being a series of dying off and renewal is no different than claiming our skin is the same, even though cells are replaced and scar tissue from previous injuries are modified slightly as new cells transition. The skin that bore the injuries from years ago has long since been gone, but the new skin kept the "memories" of the injuries - not unlike what brain cells do when maintaining established pathways. 

You wonder about an afterlife when it's very possible that the "you" from years ago has died and the "you" right now is not the same entity. People are so eager to assume their concept of "self" is a continuous entity from birth to death, and wonder if such a powerful thing can thrive beyond death. The concept of "self" is unlikely to persist beyond the cells needed to generate the "illusion."

Verify that consciousness is even a singular "entity" persevering despite our biological restrictions before asking if it can persist beyond death.

[Solomon Zorn]

I have, on several occasions, encountered my own ghost from the future. The memory of it got me diagnosed as schizophrenic. I still don't know what it was. I don't think it was supernatural. But for me to say it didn't happen would be dishonest. To me it is an unexplained phenomena. But to everyone else it is a subjective and unreliable account. That doesn't bother me. I know what I remember, and I know I will never convince anyone it really happened. But I still don't believe in any kind of everlasting Heaven or Hell.

I have, however, wondered if the afterlife could be just a dream in a fetus' brain. How I would transfer from my dying body, to the fetus brain, I have no idea, nor do I need to know. If it is to be it will be. If not, I'll never know. Preparing for it is impossible. But one thing is for sure: death precedes life as well as following it.

My poem about it:
"The Dead"
http://www.solomonzorn.com/the-dead.html

[trdsf]

I think "I don't know" is the most honest answer but many people don't find that answer satisfactory.

"I don't know" is the answer it took me the longest to accept; certainties are much easier.  But I've come to take "I don't know" as a terrifically optimistic and forward-looking answer -- assuming the situation is genuinely one where we don't know.  I always attach a "...yet" to the statement.  :)

The real problem with "I don't know" is that people who want certainties use it as an entry point for whatever their pet theory is, ignoring the fact that "I don't know" is not equivalent to "Anything goes".

So we don't know exactly how the universe began (yet).  But we know something about it, and it rules out certain theories of how the universe began, even if it doesn't rule out all but one of them.  We don't have a Theory of Everything (yet) -- but we know the shape it needs to take and what observations it needs to address.

"I don't know" isn't the same as "No one knows anything about it at all so feel free to make wild guesses that don't actually have any basis in reality".  The purveyors of woo haven't grokked this.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

If I wake up in 10000 years I damned well better have that fucking flying car by then..

[GSOgymrat]

The real problem with "I don't know" is that people who want certainties use it as an entry point for whatever their pet theory is, ignoring the fact that "I don't know" is not equivalent to "Anything goes".

Agreed. What you wrote reminded me of an interview I read today. There is no physical evidence that life exists outside this planet. "I don't know" if there is life elsewhere in the universe however there is reason to suspect there is extraterrestrial life, as Neil Degrasse Tyson explained when asked if he believes in the existence of aliens:

Well, it’s not a matter of “belief.” “Belief” implies that you feel something is true without evidence. I have a strong suspicion that something is true given the evidence, and that’s how I feel about life in the universe. You can look at how long the universe has existed. You can look at the ingredients for life as we know it. You can look at how common those very ingredients are throughout the galaxy and throughout the universe. You can look at how quickly life took hold on Earthâ€"basically within a couple of hundred million years after it possibly could have formed, it formedâ€"and that’s small compared with the age of the Earth, which is 4.5 billion years. And if you look at how many stars there are, and how many planets there are that are likely to be around them based on new data, you add all this up and say, “It would be inexcusably egocentric to suggest that we were the only life in the universe.” That is the posture that informed people take who study this. The prospect of there being life is not an exotic thought.

[Solomon Zorn]

"I don't know" isn't the same as "No one knows anything about it at all so feel free to make wild guesses that don't actually have any basis in reality".

Wild guesses are all we have though, when it comes to postmortem experience (Unless you accept anecdotal witnesses, such as near-death testimonies - which I do not).

I can only imagine something that seems, to me, to describe the transfer process that would be necessary to accomplish any kind of continuity of consciousness, that is, life after death. I imagine that it cannot take place in a vacuum, without a brain to give it functional ability, and that it cannot go on forever. A temporary state is all I can find reasonable. And I will admit that I base it on my own memories and experiences.

But whatever I imagine, it is just that: my imagination; an expression of my curiosity. I don't ever preach it, and I only ever talk about it when someone brings up the afterlife. I wish the religious would accept that their holy book is, at best, the same kind of speculation, done by a much less educated man.