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This is a Baha'i Prayer I like to say for people who pass on to the next life Its hard to describe how I feel about it, its just so deep and profound... Consc

This is a Baha'i Prayer I like to say for people who pass on to the next life Its hard to describe how I feel about it, its just so deep and profound... Consciousness itself, as apart from the behavior and computation that goes on in the brain, is a mystery of neuroscience. So maybe somehow it persists after we die? NDEs kinda shed light on that RIP up in the stars man https://www.bahaiprayers.io/prayer?id=204020 https://www.bahaiprayers.io/prayer?id=204020

__m 2y ago
Just because we can’t explain it yet doesn’t mean there is some voodoo involved
- spoonfeeder006 2y ago
  One does beg the question of where awareness comes from. I can't see that any particular physical arrangement could explain it. I mean, maybe a fundamental particle or fundamentally different form of matter could be found to be what plays the role in producing consciousness, but then what would cause that matter to have or produce awareness? Perhaps that matter has behavior we can measure, but how would it produce conscious awareness? Would it be possible to understand? As far as I can see all you can explain is that its there, but can't understand why, which suggests its transcendent over what we can see and measure And what we can see in terms of the physical world is not proof that there isn't more to existence Take the plant that gains sustenance from the sun and the earth, yet the fact that it has no faculties of perception that allows it to understand those processes is not proof that they don't exist So perhaps we are like plants in a greater universe? Again, NDE's (near death experiences) are also suggestive of this And also looking at how Baha'i taught equality of women / men, and the need for independent investigation of truth, and dedicating one's self to helping the poor etc... coming from 19th century Persia that was pretty barbaric and fanatical where women couldn't even show their faces in public much less get educated, and where plundering each other and favoritism was literally the primary engine for their economy... kinda shows that perhaps there is insight in the original Baha'i teachers
  - __m 2y ago
    Before you can explain the effect of interconnecting 89 billion neurons, it‘s too soon to search for pixie dust.
    - spoonfeeder006 2y ago
      Well it is true that I am only supposing that explaining an observable process in and of itself cannot intrinsically explain conscious awareness Its good to keep an open mind about stuff, and recognize that knowledge of all kinds is only tentative All of us are finite and ignorant Perhaps we can someday identify physical artifacts of conscious awareness, but how does that explain the root of conscious awareness? There is a difference between that and showing that conscious awareness is physically plausible, and perhaps even likely, according to experiment alone as opposed to our own personal experiences Perhaps if we understood more about the brain, that would open our eyes to something we cannot even imagine today that would shed light on this issue Perhaps science alone has capabilities that are more profound that we can see today, in being able to delve into such issues?
    - em-bee 2y ago
      don't we have the same problem with gravity? we can measure and calculate the effect, but we can't explain it. at least some attempts to explain it call for particles like gravitons that haven't been found yet. this seems to me just like looking for pixie dust to explain consciousness.
em-bee 2y ago
the afterlife has been described by religions as a place where we will not only reflect on our life but also be able to mingle with our ancestors as well as seek out any other individual who has ever lived. that can only be true if our consciousness does indeed survive. because if we are not conscious of who we are and what we learned during our life on earth then what would be the point of reflecting and meeting others there?
- CRConrad 2y ago
  > the afterlife has been described by religions as a place where we will not only reflect on our life but also be able to mingle with our ancestors as well as seek out any other individual who has ever lived. Not only by religions; also by Philip José Farmer in his Riverworld series of SF novels.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    fascinating. adding this to my reading list. thank you!

__m 2y ago

Just because we can’t explain it yet doesn’t mean there is some voodoo involved

spoonfeeder006 2y ago
One does beg the question of where awareness comes from. I can't see that any particular physical arrangement could explain it. I mean, maybe a fundamental particle or fundamentally different form of matter could be found to be what plays the role in producing consciousness, but then what would cause that matter to have or produce awareness? Perhaps that matter has behavior we can measure, but how would it produce conscious awareness? Would it be possible to understand? As far as I can see all you can explain is that its there, but can't understand why, which suggests its transcendent over what we can see and measure And what we can see in terms of the physical world is not proof that there isn't more to existence Take the plant that gains sustenance from the sun and the earth, yet the fact that it has no faculties of perception that allows it to understand those processes is not proof that they don't exist So perhaps we are like plants in a greater universe? Again, NDE's (near death experiences) are also suggestive of this And also looking at how Baha'i taught equality of women / men, and the need for independent investigation of truth, and dedicating one's self to helping the poor etc... coming from 19th century Persia that was pretty barbaric and fanatical where women couldn't even show their faces in public much less get educated, and where plundering each other and favoritism was literally the primary engine for their economy... kinda shows that perhaps there is insight in the original Baha'i teachers
- __m 2y ago
  Before you can explain the effect of interconnecting 89 billion neurons, it‘s too soon to search for pixie dust.
  - spoonfeeder006 2y ago
    Well it is true that I am only supposing that explaining an observable process in and of itself cannot intrinsically explain conscious awareness Its good to keep an open mind about stuff, and recognize that knowledge of all kinds is only tentative All of us are finite and ignorant Perhaps we can someday identify physical artifacts of conscious awareness, but how does that explain the root of conscious awareness? There is a difference between that and showing that conscious awareness is physically plausible, and perhaps even likely, according to experiment alone as opposed to our own personal experiences Perhaps if we understood more about the brain, that would open our eyes to something we cannot even imagine today that would shed light on this issue Perhaps science alone has capabilities that are more profound that we can see today, in being able to delve into such issues?
  - em-bee 2y ago
    don't we have the same problem with gravity? we can measure and calculate the effect, but we can't explain it. at least some attempts to explain it call for particles like gravitons that haven't been found yet. this seems to me just like looking for pixie dust to explain consciousness.

em-bee 2y ago

the afterlife has been described by religions as a place where we will not only reflect on our life but also be able to mingle with our ancestors as well as seek out any other individual who has ever lived. that can only be true if our consciousness does indeed survive. because if we are not conscious of who we are and what we learned during our life on earth then what would be the point of reflecting and meeting others there?

CRConrad 2y ago
> the afterlife has been described by religions as a place where we will not only reflect on our life but also be able to mingle with our ancestors as well as seek out any other individual who has ever lived. Not only by religions; also by Philip José Farmer in his Riverworld series of SF novels.
- em-bee 2y ago
  fascinating. adding this to my reading list. thank you!