The Heaven & Hell Thread

[skywalker]

perhaps as your brain is dying, percieved time slows down. conciousness is all that exists, so therefore you could be in this "concious" state for percieved years while only minutes go by. note that I am not saying time slows down; rather, the thoughts speed up so it appears time slows down.

[SquidDNA]

Perhaps as noted in "American Beauty," there's a moment before you die when your life flashes before your eyes, but instead of it being an instant, it's that sort of crystallization and integration you've mentioned, drawn out into an eternity.

Of course, from a neurological perspective it doesn't make a damned bit of sense because after you're dead the machinery for accessing memories has broken down...

And then there's the people who die in their sleep.

I suppose it's possible, OneRed, but until we get a high-resolution PET scan on someone at the moment they die I doubt we'll have the first clue.

[oneredpanther]

but until we get a high-resolution PET scan on someone at the moment they die I doubt we'll have the first clue.
woah yeah, that'd be something worth seeing.

[Tygre]

Sounds like something the Nazis would have done in pursuit of science: gas someone in an MRI scanner to see what their brain does.

I think you're on to something, panth. Like "hell" would be the experience of the exact last moment of someone dying while regretting something in their life being drawn out by the brain slowing to a complete stop. (Those who die having sex, however...) Conversely, those who die while in a state of indifference or pleasure would sense it drawn out to what seems to their mind like infinity in "heaven"...since it is.

I'm not sure how it connects or if it does at all, but this idea seems to relate to the effects on time to an astronaut watching a clock while being sucked into a black hole. As he speeds toward his doom in all that gravity and sh*t the last second on the clock takes an infinite amount of time.

Teh win?

When you're not stoned off your ass, you can think pretty well, apparently.

[Walker]

WTF? Where'd my amazingly lucid and useful post go?

it was deemed 'useless' and thus deleted --- soul

[IgnusDei]

But what if the brain gets pulverized? i doubt you could have any lasting "thoughts", especially when you die instantly.

[Mac_Bug]

psst remember your brain neurons fire at speed of light or some shit like that...

time dialation!

[Nesher]

here's what I think...

yes, Heaven/Hell DO exist as REAL..."places". I use that word instead "state of being" or "final thought crystaliztion".

I belive that humans (and possibly animals, but who can say) exist as dual natured creatures...and that our primary existance is "ethereal" or "astral" or "spiritual" or whatever term you like, and our second existance is, of course, flesh, blood and bone. Our "spirit" can (and does) exist without our bodies, but not vice-versa. We begin as "spirit"...we are "born" into our present existance, and when the body dies, our "spirit" returns to the "other side" So, when the body dies the "spirit" being real, goes to a real "place".

The commonality of all the "near-death" experiences that I know of always fall into what could be termed either the Heaven or Hell catagories.

For me though, any discussion on WHY ppl go to Heaven or Hell is impossible without discussing religion.

As to how they are percieved...again that's difficult to discuss in much depth without delving into "religion"---because if you really think about it, the concepts of a Heaven and a Hell are based on oraganized belief systems--'religion'.

it's late at night when I'm writing this but I THINK I've made some sense.

[ionfish]

Hi. Speed of transmission between neurons ("speed of thought") can vary between approximately 0.5 metres per second and 120 metres per second.

Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D. (a Research Associate Professor at the University of Washington (http://www.washington.edu)) has kindly created a page entitled Neuroscience for Kids (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html), which includes a section about conduction velocity (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/cv.html).

- ion -

[Vaarok]

Y'know, they've explained the "light at the end of the tunnel" phenomenon.

As you die, your brain starves for oxygen. The optic cortex loses function from the peripheral vision areas first, resulting in a effect similar to redout or tunnel vision experienced by fighter pilots.

As the center of the vision is all that remains, the neurons overstimulate in their deat throes, resulting in a percieved bright light. Simultaneously, the brain dumps endorphins and painkillers into the body, resulting in a strong sensation of well-being.

Voila. Doom on that long-held preachy theory.


Oh- the only reason to watch Event Horizon is for the decompression scene. Excellent. The best scientifically-accurate rendition I or anyone I know has ever heard of. Rest of the movie is utter rubbish, though.

[SquidDNA]

Yeah, but it's fascinating rubbish. It has to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Plus I'm a big fan of Sam Neill.

Now that it has been firmly established that there's no scientific explanation for the actual afterlife, we have to leave it at that-- the line between science and mysticism has been drawn and has expanded to separate them.

Now, speaking mystically, perhaps it is possible that there's something about the end of your existence that causes your consciousness to loop and feed upon your memories, so that, as Mac Bug implied, the eternity of your afterlife is spent in the remaining seconds of your life, in much the same way that dreams are assembled with extreme rapidity during sleep.

Wow, what a load of horsehit. :D

[Rent-a-Zilla]

Event-Horizon is really annoying.

The set-up and the initial contact/exploration of the ship are very well done; it's all very realistic and genuinely scary.

But then Sam Neill goes nuts and it turns into a stupid B-grade slasher flick, complete with buckets of fake blood and 'rocket man'.

Oh, afterlife an all that - dunno

[Langy]

Some almost-dead guy should volunteer to die in an MRI or something. That would be interesting.

Anyways, the after'life' is what follows for three lines:



That's right. Nothing. Afterlife=nothingness. Now, what people would percieve it as is, well, nothingness. However, what they would percieve while dying is completely different. People might get this huge boost of fun due to hormones and all that. Or they might suddenly remember how they killed their cat and so get really upset. Or other stuff. Personally, I have no idea. I'll wait a century or so and then try it out.

[SquidDNA]

Langy, belief in the afterlife is based on emotion, and not necessarily just fear. There's no proof for, but there's no proof against, either, and it will always stay that way. You cannot make scientific claims about alleged phenomena for which proof is inherently impossible.

So while we've been talking about possible explanations of modes of afterlife, your hard-line stance that there is no afterlife is logically equivalent to a hard-line stance that there is one. There's equal evidence for both positions.

Now a lack of evidence for an idea doesn't automatically make it true by any means, but these aren't scientific issues, and we're back to science vs religion again, which I suppose was inescapable... :P

[Nesher]

we're back to science vs religion again, which I suppose was inescapable

too true...and THAT debate has been going on for hundreds of years..

as for 'Event Horizon'...I agree with Rent-A-Zilla, the first part is done really well...but the latter half wasn't much more than Freddy Crouger meets Sigourney Weaver...well, not even that good.

[sajuukar]

I never saw the move "Event Horizon", could someone give me a little summary???

Have you wondered why it is that we die??? Cells are supposudly capable of regenerating themselves and completely reforming the body, so pretty much, you have a totally new set of cells doing stuff in you in probably less than every month! If this is so, what is it that causes us to "age" and eventually die??? If we conintinually reproduced cells, wouldn't that lead to us keeping the same form we were in when we are maybe 21 or something, and maybe getting wrinkles from so much movement in the skin??? Death has no reason to exist, so why does it??? Death should die...

[Manticore]

Originally posted by Silver Quasar

Have you wondered why it is that we die??? Cells are supposudly capable of regenerating themselves and completely reforming the body, so pretty much, you have a totally new set of cells doing stuff in you in probably less than every month! If this is so, what is it that causes us to "age" and eventually die??? If we conintinually reproduced cells, wouldn't that lead to us keeping the same form we were in when we are maybe 21 or something, and maybe getting wrinkles from so much movement in the skin??? Death has no reason to exist, so why does it??? Death should die...

A: Because if death didn't exist, the population of our ancestors' species would get too high and the world would never be able to support it.

B: There is a bio clock on the end of DNA or chromosomes, as far as I understand, as well as in the cell-propers. This allows only a limited number of dividing before self-destruction. That's part of what makes cancer so terrifying--unlimited cell production

C: The most important cells in the human body, our neurons, don't divide much. This means that they don't have a replacement and ultimately wear out.

D: Humans are a very delicate and complex system of systems. If one part is compromised (say the lungs), another is (the brain would die), which leads to another part being compromised (the heart, the respitory system, etc.).

Ack, that's longer than I expected!

[SquidDNA]

I need some sort of "Squid signal" for people to shine into the night sky for threads like this.. :D

Cells aren't "supposedly" capable of regenerating themselves ad infinitum, they are. Bacteria, for example. Fungus, for another. Anything single-celled in fundamental nature (whether or not it is at an advantage by forming colonies) can divide indefinitely. Moreover, it has. That's why life has been around for aeons.

The catch with more highly organized multicellular situations, like humans, is that in order to benefit the entire organism, cells specialize. A vague, holistic approach to answering the very complex question is that in the process of specialization (as more complex multicellular organisms evolved) it became harder and harder to maintain a system whereby any and all damage to the organism could eventually be repaired, because the entire system was increasingly complex, and each cell in that system was devoting its resources to a more specific set of tasks.

However, there's one situation wherein we have not lost the capability to divide ad infinitum, and that's as embryos. As a small, undifferentiated ball of cells, we can live forever so long as we're properly fed, protected from harm, and kept from entering differentiation. (Of course, in that state, we're really more like microbes than anything, anyway.) Our own aged, run-down bodies are capable of producing those embryos because the tissues we have which are responsible for producing gametes are kept in prime condition from day-one.

Mac_Bug: From a scientific standpoint, there's no proof that the Earth is a happy, well-oiled machine like a cell. Also, Earth doesn't make new Earths, as far as we know. :D

But it's a happy thought.

[Mac_Bug]

yeah but you see, what happens when Earth is gone? It's returning to the materials that made it Earth in the first place. Eventually gravity will take its course and another planet will be formed, and then life begins again.

[SquidDNA]

That's kind of interesting, but that happens on a stellar level, not a planetary one. Birth, death, and regeneration are themes throughout the universe, is this what you're getting at?

Oh.. we've.. uh.. moved beyond the afterlife here. Ah well.