Where does our consciousness go when we die?

[Martn]

Jesus said rocks would cry out if the people withheld their testimony. His insight reveals how mere rocks have consciousness, even though they don't have physical or material brains. Luke 19:40

This is a traditional (that is, historical) Jewish understanding of nature by the way, that all matter and all energy contains consciousness, at each and every level. Likely Jesus was speaking from familiarity with this, his own religious tradition, as well as from a superior understanding of nature.

Consciousness does not require a brain, or even a body, therefore. The only reason we have brains and bodies is to limit consciousness. Otherwise we would have unlimited consciousness, and nothing would be hidden from our view.

Brains and bodies get in the way, which can be a good thing some say. Such are what give us our individual (limited) personalities. Without such, one's individuality or personality would eventually fade away, unless maintained or reconfigured through some other or new miraculous process.

Of course dissolution of personality is exactly what happens during death, though not necessarily immediately or altogether at the same time. Like an ice cube removed from its tray, certain aspects of personality can maintain shape to varying degrees throughout the beginning stages of death.

At any rate, one's consciousness itself is not diminished and broadens toward infinity (unless or until brought back). All scientists at least should understand this inasmuch as it has been a long documented fact in science that energy of any sort cannot be destroyed or diminished in the slightest --it merely changes form or speed. E equals MC squared, for example

Therefore, what-so-ever G0D makes shall exist for ever. Nothing can be done to alter or diminish it. Even The Preacher, pessimistic though he may have been, was compelled to admit as much. Ecclesiastes 3:14

And still, from this same Preacher we dare cite another text as seeming to claim the very opposite, that the dead know nothing. Ecclesiates 9:5

Indeed, that part of us which does die does know nothing. Still, even in death we ourselves are not unconcious. Rather, we become subconcious (or, as some prefer to call it, superconscious) just as we do when we go to sleep each night.

Jesus described death as sleep. In fact he preferred to call it sleep instead of death. For in sleep, while we are not ordinarily conscious of the world around us, we do become conscious on other levels which we recall later in dreams.

When Jesus was told that a little girl had died, he flatly denied it. The little girl was not dead (not dead), he plainly informed them in no uncertain terms. Instead she was sleeping, he said, and then he proceeded to resurrect her, proving that her body at least really was dead even though she herself was not. Mark 5:35-43

Death, then, cannot be a dreamless sleep as some have claimed. If it were, then it would be truly death and not sleep at all.

If the dead were not conscious on some level then to whom could Jesus have been speaking when he commanded them to rise?Talking to the dead is something he did often.

[Martn]

Jewish Bibles have three distinct sections. The first is called The Torah or Law and is the most authoritative of the three. The second is called The Prophets or Testimony.

All things are to be judged according to The Law and The Testimony. Isaiah 8:20

Nothing is said there of the third section, which in Jewish Bibles is called The Writings. This is because in Judaism, whether Orthodox or Reform, books which are found among The Writings have never been considered authoritative, including books such as Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and even Daniel. Their place in the Hebrew Bible is much the same as that of the Apocrypha in Christian Bibles.

Adventist teaching on the state of the dead is founded almost entirely within The Writings, while everything elsewhere in scripture is made to bend accordingly. Completely the reverse of how things should be.

In the same place where it says the dead know nothing it also says they have no more reward or portion among the living, ever --allowing them not even so much as a resurrection or any sort of afterlife, ever. Ecclesiastes 9:5-6

This is exactly what the Sadducees taught, and Jesus said their doctrine was false. Not only did they reject the possibility of resurrection, they also denied the immortality of the human soul.

Obviously the text is false, because it is contrary to what we find written in The Law and the Prophets. Since the second part of the text is not true, how can we be so certain that the first part is true?

To The Law and to The Testimony, yes.

To The Writings, no.

[aldona]

My father-in-law has an elaborate theory about [where the dark goes]. We call it the "Theory of the Dark-Sucker."

That globe-shaped object hanging from your ceiling has a misleading name. It is not actually a light bulb. It is a "Dark-Sucker."

When you flip the switch, it sucks all of the darkness out of the room.

If you follow the sucked-out darkness along the wires and cables, and then to the high-voltage power lines, you eventually come to a place (in our case, about 150 miles east of Melbourne in the Latrobe Valley) where there is a big hole in the ground. Look down into the hole and you will see lots of black stuff. This is all of the darkness that has been sucked out of homes everywhere by millions of dark-suckers.

When you turn the switch off, the dark-sucker ceases to suck and this allows the darkness to once again fill the room.

How does this theory alter the theology of the illustration?

AJ

[Martn]

Very good post! Brain matter is much too slow to account for human consciousness, and probably plant and animal consciousness too.

[onlyhumanme]

I agree with your wife.. Ecclesiastes 12:7 Genesis 2:7

Acts 17:26

[Textus Receptus]

Are you an Adventist? Reincarnation? If you're not, then I say welcome. If you are, I will pray for your church. The Adventist have a long established doctrine concerning the dead.

(See Hebrews 9:27)

[JawgeFromJawja]

I'm glad that you have mind dynamics totally figured out. Most neurophysiologists do not have it figured out. They can semi-quantize consciousness by the Glascow Consciousness Scale, but no neuroscientist yet is foolish enough to state what consciousness is.

Personally, I currently take consciousness to be the "spirit", the "soul", the "psyche". For me presently, that means "the consciousness", whatever that is. Consciousness is not currently defined by any credible authority, be he scientific, theological, or philosophical. They wouldn't dare try to define consciousness. My Bible tells me in John 4: 24 that God is a spirit. All too many materialist theologians define "spirit" as the breath. This ole retired doctor does not conceive of God as a breath; I know God too well and personally to perceive Him as a puff of air. It just ain't so. And since Genesis 1: 27 informs us that male and female are made in the image of God, then we, mankind, male and female, are basically spirits.

Furthermore, no current neurologist or neurophysiologist has been able to scientifically relate the material, that is the physical, function of the brain to consciousness in any way.

But they keep trying.

Jawge from Jawja

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Consciousness is not "life." I don't equate consciousness with "spirit." When one is unconscious, the thing that changes in the brain are the brain waves, as seen on EEG. When one is dead, no brain function is seen. To me, that is when the "spirit" has left the body; I believe that God holds the "spirit" (or Biblical "breath") in His hand, to be given back at the time of the resurrection. And no, I don't have proof texts. It's just my own opinion and what I conjecture from my own knowledge of God..

[JawgeFromJawja]

If scientists and philosophers do not know what consciousness in, then they cannot say what it is not. How then, can you say that consciousness is not life? By the way, there is also no adequate definition of what life is.

There is no specific brain wave pattern for unconsciousness. In sleep, the brain waves are extremely active. Even so, the gold standard for death is absence of brain waves.

Is it death when the spirit leaves the body? Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12: 1 - 5, writes of an event that could only be styled an "out of the body experience" if indeed the man's spirit left the body. Paul explicitly leaves

determination of whether the man's spirit left his body up to God. But certainly Paul did not deny the possibility.

And again, "spirit" in The Bible is not necessarily "breath".

Joh 4:24 God is a spirit, and the ones worshiping Him must worship in spirit and truth.

Is your God a puff of air?

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

You need to observe a sleep study..

[puff of air...]

You mean, like flatulence?

[Bravus]

The word 'pneuma' in Greek (and its Hebrew equivalent which I can't remember) is translated both 'breath' and 'spirit', but clearly means something much more than a puff of air. Do you think that's all God did when he blew the 'breath of life' into the nostrils of a clay sculpture and made the first human? Clearly the word means 'life' in some deep and holistic sense, though perhaps metaphorical rather than literal. As in, Adventist theology says Adam 'became a living soul', not 'was given a living soul'. The breath/spirit/pneuma is not something separate from the body but dust + spirit = body/mind/soul/self... in which no separate dust or spirit can be found.

[Tom Wetmore]

That spark of life so hard to define, isolate and something we seem unable to replicate in a lab apart from anything that already possesses it. If we could, we could animate and give life to our own man-made objects.

How does this spark of life differ from the spark of life that is found in plants? Plants live and die also. But the life in a plant seems to depart differently than it does for humans.

One big difference would seem to be that quality we are discussing - consciousness. Breath, spark of life are only part of it. That quality includes an awareness of oneself and ones environment and I think reason and memory. Anything else?

What about animals? How is their consciousness different from humans?

[Textus Receptus]

This is a good video by a Scientist who attempts to answer the question about death.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2955772937079328440#

[abelisle]

I think this is an excellent question about the animals. Do they have the same capacity for self-reflection as we do? Do they have souls? Souls that are worthy of redemption?

Alex