Proof There is an Afterlife

john/nyc, what's missing after death is a functioning brain. The heart, liver, other organs and tissues can be transplanted hours, days, or weeks after death and function perfectly. The body can be kept on life support indefinitely. But if the brain is deprived of oxygen for more than 6 minutes, it starts to deteriorate and cannot be repaired.

tcis:
The answer to the proposition you have rightfully raised in your post (i.e. , if you know you would have an after life, and particularly with expected rewards), would logically be that our human conduct would improve thereby.
However, human nature is such that the elements of self-preservation, greed, possession,
territorial maintenance,cultural preservation, etc.,etc., will always be dominant . The executives of Enron,and all other Wall Street types
are church going religious God-fearing people, I am
reasonably certain, (judging by the polls showing the number of belivers in the U.S.A. ) .
Do you really think that you (we), would
become a "better" person if we believed all that
stuff that theists believe? If it was even remotely
possible then the multiplicity of religions on this planet would have by now made this a much better
world.

Terry:
Your postings are a delight. Now if I only new what part of this planet you are located in
to-day, (not necessarily tomorrow), it would make my day.

alikimr, right now I am located about twice as far from you as Boston is, in roughly the same direction.

Religious beliefs may have a positive effect on some people, but are not necessary for those who are enlightened nor sufficient to overcome the evil tendencies of those who are not.

Terry, I knew you understood more than you revealed (up to now). Yes, by Mind I refer to something that I cannot grasp intellectually. But it IS something like "the fundamental interconnection" (well put) and interdynamics-interdependence of everything. By Mind I do not wish to suggest a mind writ large. But it IS a kind of "Intelligence", but one that transcends our experience of human awareness and smarts. Intelligence is used here as a metaphor for whatever comes to your mind when you reject the notion of Reality as just brute matter, organized a la Newton according to blind mechanical principles (no, not principles. That implies a form of Cosmic Logic. I should say "meaningless mechanical regularities"). At the same time I am not talking about a Super Mind like Plato's Celestial Architect of all meaning. It's more like a kind of Pantheism, without the theos, a kind of life in all things, somewhat akin to primitive animism, but not quite. I do not believe in souls. They are, as I said, no more than extensions of ego. Fantasies. If I believed in the ontological reality of egos, I might be more receptive to the notion of individual souls. Ultimately, my use of the phrase World Soul or Mind transcends the notions of mind and intelligence as we experince them and the dichtomy of Mind and Matter. That dualism is a cause of much mischief. The universe does not consist of the mental and/or physical in their familiar forms. It goes beyond them. It is Mind above mind and Physics above the physical. Just like Tillich's God above god. Ultimately it is mysterious. And I should not attempt to say anything about it.
Alikimr, much of the above is also in response to your thoughtful post. You say that:
"I am of the opinion that we arrive at the same destination with our respective mental journeys , wether we arrive there materialistically
or idealistically. As we said in an other post on this
thread, the existence of a God, or the existence of
an afterlife would not change our lives one iota. The same applies to the existence ov a Cosmic or
Universal Mind or Universal Intelligence.
Would you not agree? "
Yes, I agree. That is a sound Pragmatist insight. As absolutes, they make no difference in practice. When I refer to the Universal Mind, Atman, Brahma, and so on, they are only "spiritual" references. They are of no value to anyone who has a radically different perspective and of no need for one who has the appropriate perspective. I'm just making talk.
Let me make one correction of what I've said. I agree that absolute materialism and idealism make no difference in our actual life practices, but the ability to transcend the dichotomy, to see that life is both and neither, is of considerable psychospiritual value to a person. He or she will continue, nevertheless, to behavior in all situations AS IF they contained both physical and ideational properites.

Even if I should succeed in articulating my perspective (and assuming it is valid), it would result in failure. I put here a major qualification that I just posted in the thread, "Progress in Consciousness."

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The most accurate and detailed description of Reality is the greatest obstacle to its mystical or direct realization. It's better to be confused (to suffer a "Great Doubt") than to meditate with the comfortable assurances of an understood profound philosophy.

Afterlife?
Afterlife seems to me to be more of an idea than anything that can be "proven". What would happen if nothing had ever been proven, would anything then exist to you? Of course it would, therefore proving something is just a reassurane of an idea. Also, afterlife seems to be somewhat of an oximoron to me. If it is common belief that one cannot think without life, and after life comes death, than there is no concsiousness after death.

There is perhaps a kind of analogy that would make them bleed into each other. For that I would use the Buddha's own example when he renounced severe austerity as a precondition to enlightenment as taught by Mahavira. It became clear to the Master that mind/body must be in balance because IT is the launching pad, the umbilical cord to the awareness he was striving for. It's that sublime physicality in full collusion and equilibrium with its profoundly human quest which offers the 'escape velocity' for that oddessy of insight to occur. The seated positions of the Buddha are to me one of its most remarkable and potent signatures when the body itself seems to recede into an almost impermeable peace - it's inner transcendence. An especially powerful metaphor of this is the image of him under the Bodhi Tree when his hand cleaves the EARTH for total anchor and absorption INTO the wisdom of it and by extension into ALL that which contains it as though announcing "this is the cornerstone and geodesic from which my journey will commence." This generation of insight (as opposed to revelation, which comes from without,) is really a fugue, imo; it begins with the complexity of the body and crescendos into affirmation of spiritual power but only if they consistently embrace for each is requisite to the other. One pushes the other pulls. Usually and at best we perceive only shades of duality; this may be the real illusion. Could it be we're flipping the same coin? Also, in Quantum theory, particles come in pairs that usually annihilate to release energy.

Hope this doesn't sound too unclear. I despise koans. There's enough mystery and seeming paradox to contemplate in the natural world without having them artificially manufactured by the "enlightened".

To the original questions - No and No.

Proof is the domain of science dealing with our reality. The afterlife is the domain of faith dealing with metaphysical realms.

I can't see science and faith interesecting on this one for a long time at best.

Science has proven that while there might not be an afterlife, there is at least a half-life.

Cav. My atoms will half remember your comment for a long time.

NottooSwift. Very well put--good focus on the Buddha's transcendence of dualism, without jumping into non-dualism as an absolute alternative. Yes about koans (go Soto, if you have to go Zen). Unfortunately, you quoted the least serious part of my post. But thanks for reading and considering it.

Soul's do exist, whether or not you call it a soul or a french fry.
We are made up of energy. Energy can't be destroyed, only changed. So the energy we are must go somewhere or change into some other form.

The "soul" exists. The question is at what level. When we die, is our afterlife just a blob of energy bouncing all over or do we have a form of consciousness and a place to go? Hmmm....

I don't believe in a soul either, or life after death, but the question was still valid. To use an imperfect analogy: if a car is deprived of gas it will cease to function but give it fuel and it will be brought back to "life." That was the point in saying the parts are all there.

I have since googled around and found out that brain cells when deprived of oxygen don't merely "shut down." If they did just cease to function, but otherwise remained intact, then my question's validity would still be intact.
What does happen is that brain cells commit suicide in order to prevent the replication of imperfect copies (at least that is what I think I read).

"After"life? Jeez, I'm not even sure if I have a present life!

And to answer your question, We just don't know, and probably will never know. No way to prove it, so just live it up know and hope for the best.

As an aside (in regards to the suicide of braincells)

Presently a technique of chilling blood is being developed to help save heart attack victims.

When you have a heart attack the real danger is from the failure of your blood to reach your brain with sufficient oxygen. Your brain cells suicide when starved.

But it has been demonstrated that brain cells hibernate (sort of) when cold rather than suicide in a low oxygen environment (which is why people who drown in cold water can be revived even 1/2 hour later)

So far it looks promising that someone can be deliberately chilled soon after a heart attack to prevent brain damage and allow surgeons time to fix the problem.

Re: Proof There is an Afterlife


How many boats did NOT crash because of the presence of the lighthouse?

(An old proving-the-negative chestnut)

To me, the question is not so much one of whether or not the energy that we are made of/that consists inside of us as a soul/animus/whatever continues to exist, but whether the pattern continues. If the energy returns to it's natural, unpatterned state(chaos), the soul could very well dissipate upon death.

Cycloptichorn

The ultimate irony!
That depends on whatever I want it to be NOW and that depends on how my day is going! I probably won't get the chance LATER because I could actually be dead "from here to eternity" with not even a thought of "those were the days". When you're alive you can think forwards or backwards. When your dead, you're stuck in the middle.

Re: Proof There is an Afterlife


I think near death experiences have a lot to say on the subject of afterlife. Don't know whether anyone is interested or not?

Love

Interesting you should say that, I have a link with a lot of explanation on it. It was a surgery that lasted about 2 hours while the patients brain had no blood at all.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

Love