What happens after we die.

[Reach]

Well, I'm a neuroscientist, which should probably sum up my stance in and of itself, but I will elaborate anyway. Some people here have already taken this stance though, it seems.

The reason we experience anything at all is because of what's happening in our brains. There are no magic processes or spirit within us. Our 'non-physical' minds (i.e. what we experience on a conscious and unconscious level) is just a different manifestation of the physical processes happening in our heads right now.

There are many good reasons to believe this is the case. Consider a drug that alters your perception of reality. How is that possible if experience was something non-physical in nature? It wouldn't be. These drugs work to alter our 'mind' because they alter chemical behavior in our brains which is the same thing as our mind.

Take another example; a paranoid schizophrenic that has auditory hallucinations. Is he 'crazy'? Probably not, since he actually hears those voices. They're caused by unwanted activation of the Broca's area of his brain, which is the same area of the brain activated when he speaks. That is to say, he's talking to himself in a way he can't control.


I could go on, but you probably get the point by now. What's happening in our brain determines our experience. In the absence of a functional brain after death, there cannot be perception. All perception ceases to exist. This is not something you can picture or imagine, because it is the absence of perception. In the same way that you did not exist prior to your birth, you will not exist after your death and reality as you know it will be erased forever without a trace.

(I suppose you could argue nothing ever ceases to exist, because the essence is always preserved; that is, our physical makeup will ultimately live on and be recycled back into the system. This, however, does not mean that we continue to exist after we die though, because the whole of your body is what makes you ...you, not the sum of it's parts).

If one cannot picture nothing, then there is no such thing as nothing

Let me get this straight.

Nothing is the absence of anything. In order to 'picture' something, there must be something there. This means that, by definition, it's not possible to 'picture nothing', because 'picture nothing' is a contradiction.

THEREFORE, there is no such thing as nothing.

You might want to check that logic.

I suppose by that same logic, if I said 'It's bitter sweet!', you would say 'If one cannot bitter sweet, then there is no such thing as sweet!'