What happens after we die?

[Aurelio]

That question has been asked since millenia. So, what do you guys think?

I don't say I believe anything, I only think something is possible or likely.

Well, I've heard about the idea that we live in a virch and the simulators will respawn us in their or another world after our end in this world here.

[extherian]

The electromagnetic patterns that make up our consciousness cease firing, and the neurons they once ran on are consumed by bacteria.

[Aurelio]

The electromagnetic patterns that make up our consciousness cease firing, and the neurons they once ran on are consumed by bacteria.

And then? What happens to our consciousness?

[Worldtree]

in a similar way to a hurricane dissipating or a body decomposing, once the matter the system is made from dissipates,
The pattern of matter and energy that results in the phenomenon we call consciousness no longer exists. The individual bits of matter still exist, but they're no longer arranged into anything that can produce behaviors like a -beating- human heart, or a conscious mind.


Of course, in OA, we're metaphysically neutral on the topic beyond what we understand from science.

Spiritual afterlife
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/483b29e0e6563

so while we might not have any scientific evidence that a metaphysical soul exists beyond death, billions of sophonts in the terregan sphere still might hold this belief in one form or another

also, sophonts have certainly made many efforts to make this a tangible reality

Technological Afterlife
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/45e4f015a38b4

[Rakuen07]

I don't know.

[Aurelio]

I don't know anything, too. And I try to don't believe anything. I just think something may be possible, likely, impossible or very unlikely. But I like the idea that we live in a virch and the simulators will respawn us after death.

[extherian]

The electromagnetic patterns that make up our consciousness cease firing, and the neurons they once ran on are consumed by bacteria.

And then? What happens to our consciousness?

It ceases to exist. It cannot exist without some kind of physical substrate to run on, in this case the brain, which is no longer functional. You might as well ask what happens to a fire once it's burned up all its fuel.

[The Architect]

With the current state of science, there is no scientific answer of course, but that is not to say there will never be. Some people claim to have demonstrated that certain individuals have memories of other individuals who lived shortly before they were born. I don't know how reliable they are, I have never investigated. In the eventuality that there might be any truth to this, then the extensive data collection we are doing today might eventually be able to create connections one day. This scenario is explored in the movie I Origins.


The Buddhist scriptures explain how a person can get memories from their past life. There's only a little catch. You have to give up on sex and any form of hedonism first. It is achieved through mindfulness and the texts claim anyone Buddhist or not can do it. In India, there are many such people who live like monks and practice mindfulness in connection with Hinduism and they say the same thing.

I can provide a link to a serious place where they claim to teach the way to get those memories, although that is not their goal (which is nirvana) but rather a tool on their path. In this book, on page 184 (page 200 of the pdf file), there is a section "How to discern your past life". It is not very accessible because it is all in Buddhist technical lingo, which is the only way they know how to describe it. In the subsequent pages, they give examples of what some of their "yogis" (people who go there freely to practice according to those instructions) experienced in terms of past life memories, specifically what provided the link between that life and the present life.

I'm not saying all of this is necessarily 100% true, all I can say is that I've been there, met those people and I can say one thing, they are not liars. The beauty of the thing is that anyone can go and try for themselves if they are interested. But there is so far no evidence outside of personal experience.

Maybe, there are areas of knowledge that are difficult to attain with the scientific method, but are attainable via other methods.

[stevebowers]

 
Of course, in OA, we're metaphysically neutral on the topic beyond what we understand from science.

Spiritual afterlife
https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/483b29e0e6563

so while we might not have any scientific evidence that a metaphysical soul exists beyond death, billions of sophonts in the terregan sphere still might hold this belief in one form or another

Perhaps I should add some mention of my own contribution, the imaginary religion Ipsemism.
https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/529e5f9dde12d
Ipsemists believe that every sophont exists in an infinite number of iterations, assuming an infinite universe. Some of these infinite iterations will continue to exist after the death of the iterations that exist in our own local universe. This means that every sophont will probably have an immortal counterpart somewhere. Indeed, a virtual sophont might very well exist in a real-life environment somewhere else in this hypothetical infinity of possibilities. So any given sophont in such a universe can expect to live on in some other iteration even though that existence could still be entirely mundane and quotidian.