Debate with a crypto-buddhist

‘How many of you agree with the theory that our consciousness ends when we die?’

A commentator: (There’s of course nothing called ‘Soul’ of a person that goes on to live forever in afterlife. I’m an atheist. I person believe that when we die, our brain and the entire body shuts down, and we meet an end. Those of us who experienced anesthesia knows how it feels when our brains are inactive.)

M. I for one do not agree. Bodies decay and die not so consciousness. The whole is greater than the part, and that whole can be called ‘life’, ‘existence’, or ‘consciousness’ – none of it reducible to the physical or material. All bipolar concepts, such as life-death, good-bad, one-many, mind-body, ‘you and I’ (‘me and the other’) are false in themselves– just concepts. There is only totality (‘what is’), namely, existence or being – not many existences (existents), but one existence; not many loves, but one Love . And all of us are in essence, that is, in reality, existence and love – they are not ‘two’ (love being Plato’s ‘higher Eros’ or desire) once plurality is ‘seen’ for what it is: a deception or narrow vision.

S. Consciousness seems to be a word that gets tossed about a lot both in scientific circles and philosophical ones. Many serious neuro-scientists have begun to doubt the existence of something called consciousness as there is not a shred of evidence that it exists. But we use the word to signify something, and that something seems to be our subjective way of referring to ourselves. Many neuroscientists now believe that there is no real self but activities that create the appearance of there being one. The creation of the narrative of our person who is having experiences, both inwardly and outwardly. All of this exists due to the information passed to the brain from the sensory doorways of our bodies, such as eyes, ears, touch, etc.

Since we cannot have any control over what passes into the brain, it is purely autonomous; consciousness seems to arise with the brain’s interpretation of these sensory inputs through images and language. Apart from this activity, we would not know that we are conscious or even alive. Only the brain keeps telling us we exist as our narrative.

Surely this narrative does not survive the death of the body. The elements, matter, which are not something personal go on to transform into other forms, none being amartingarcia. Why are you so convinced that there is something called consciousness aside from our subjectivity when the overwhelming evidence says it doesn’t exist? Or, perhaps you come to all of this as a Monist who wants to believe that there is something eternal to look towards or believe in? Science also wants to understand this but will not prematurely identify something that may not be there. All this talk about the ‘hard problem’ could be mental deception, imagination. We are such good creatures at projection. Truly creative and extraordinary and we believe our stories!

… Will continue.

 

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