Q: What are some scientific arguments for consciousness being able to preserve itself after the death of the body?
A (Martin): There are some ‘facts’ or experiences by individuals in favor of what goes under the name of NDEs (near-death experiences) and LAD (life after death), but I will restrict my answer to the teachings of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta – and my convictions (for what they are worth). And that, without holding a belief in the naive or popular notion of reincarnation, that is, reincarnation of the body
Consciousness (aka awareness), being the only or ultimate (exclusive) reality from the metaphysical viewpoint, does not need to preserve itself at any time. It simply IS, and is beyond the time dimension, which is an unreality for IT. This means that there is no death – of anything or any being – only apparent transformation of phenomena properly so-called. ‘I’ (‘you’) am not a phenomenon. ‘I’ am consciousness, pure, indescribable, and immutable. Obviously, by ‘I’ I don’t mean this body-mind.
Q (MH): Experiences reported by individuals are not facts and do not contribute to any form of scientific argument.
Similarly, your beliefs regarding consciousness are not scientific arguments. Attempting to use faith-based philosophical statements in place of scientific arguments is like trying to use colors to describe flavors. Even if it makes sense to you, it’s non-transferable and definitively different.
In other words, your statements may be interesting but did not address the question that was asked.
M. Agree about ‘facts’ and scientific arguments. You will have noticed that I wrote ‘facts’ between apostrophes. Secondly, I also said that the viewpoint from which I wrote my answer derives from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, therefore it is philosophical. Do you think that all philosophy is irrational, or non-rational? That would include philosophy of mind, phil. of science, of mathematics…
Also, I did address the viewpoint of science re. NDE, etc., given that there is continuing empirical research in these areas by brain scientists and neuro-physiologists. They work with data and, obviously, with some theories.