Something. I don't know what it is, but there's something after death. It can't be non-existence because it literally doesn't exist, it's nothing, you can't experience or perceive it, and it would be over in an instant anyway. I'm lazy/too depressed to write a long new comment on this, so I'll just copy my opimion on this topic from one of my replies from an old thread;
Near death experiences and out of body experiences give us a good idea of what might happen after death. I'm guessing it depends from person to person, that's why every near death experience is different. It makes sense, because it's not like everyone expects the same thing to happen after death.
We don't even know where consciousness comes.
- We know how each part of the brain works yet we can't locate consciousness anywhere.
- Children remember past lives.
- Many people remember something that happend pre-birth.
- Clinically dead people who had no brain activity were able to tell what was going on around them.
By the way, saying "I don't remember before I was born so it was nothing" is a bad argument because it's not like we remember our birth, yet we know it happend because we are here. We know that babies are conscious as they can smile, laugh, and cry, but their ego (when they begin to like things and dislike things) gets developed during the first three years of their life. So there's a clear difference between consciousness and the ego. I believe consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe like time and matter is.
Nothingness/Non-existence is not an option. "Nothingness" literally doesn't exist, it's
NOTHING. Even if nothingness "happens" after we die, it would be over in an instant. Because you can't perceive or experience nothing. And assuming that everything came from nothing and became something, if death leads us back to nothingness, then we would eventually become something again anyway.
So here are the possible options:
- Reincarnation in this reality.
- Reincarnation in another reality (the multiverse theory is a well known one).
- Endless dreams (our dreams prove that we don't require a body to do things).
- Astral plane (Astral Projection is legit proof).
- ???
As for heaven and hell, they are definitely fake as they are things made up by humans, so I'm not even going to consider them.
Also, a afterlife doesn't have to do with anything with God. The afterlife would prove that consciousness is immortal, that we are conscious beings in temporary human bodies; not that there's an old magic man in the sky which is absurd.
There are many people who were clinically dead and had no brain activity going on, they were considered dead, but they still experienced an out of body experience during that time where they were able to tell what's going on around them. If consciousness is part of the brain then that wouldn't have been possible because there was no brain activity going on.
Pam Reynolds case:
"Pam Reynolds Lowery (1956 – May 22, 2010), from Atlanta, Georgia, was an American singer-songwriter. In 1991, at the age of 35, she stated that she had a near-death experience (NDE) during a brain operation performed by Robert F. Spetzler at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Reynolds was under close medical monitoring during the entire operation. During part of the operation she had no brain-wave activity and no blood flowing in her brain, which rendered her clinically dead. She claimed to have made several observations during the procedure which medical personnel reported to be accurate. Within the field of near-death studies and among those who believe in life after death, the case has been cited as well-documented and significant, with many proponents considering it to be evidence of the survival of consciousness after death. Reynolds reported that during the operation she heard a sound like a natural 'D' that seemed to pull her out of her body and allowed her to "float" above the operating room and watch the doctors perform the operation. Reynolds claims that during this time she felt "more aware than normal" and her vision was more focused and clearer than normal vision. She reported seeing the surgical "saw" but said it looked like an electric toothbrush, and this is in fact true. She said she could hear conversations between operating room staff, even though she had earphones in her ears which were making a loud clicking noise many times per second in order to monitor her brain function. At some point during the operation, she says she noticed a presence and was pulled towards a light. She says she began to discern figures in the light, including her grandmother, an uncle, other deceased relatives and people unknown to her. According to Reynolds, the longer she was there, the more she enjoyed it, but at some point she was reminded that she had to go back. She says her uncle brought her back to her body, but she did not want to go, so he pushed her in, and the sensation was like that of jumping into ice water."
There was also a study about 10 patients whose hearts stopped and the ones that had vivid afterlife visions were the ones without brain activity while the ones with brain activity didn't have those experiences. Scientists have no explanation for people who experienced out of body experiences without brain activity going on.
The fact that our conscious awareness continues after death in an environment we call the afterlife was proved by four of the top scientists of their time back in the early 1900s:
Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) – Co-originator with Charles Darwin of the natural selection theory of evolution: "My position is that the phenomena of communicating with those who crossed over - in their entirety do not require further confirmation. They are proved quite as well as facts are proved in other sciences."
Sir William Barrett (1844-1925) – Professor of physics at the Royal College of Science in Dublin for 37 years, "I'm absolutely convinced of the fact that those who once lived on earth can and do communicate with us. It is hardly possible to convey to the inexperienced an adequate idea of the strength and cumulative force of the evidence (for the afterlife)."
Sir William Crookes (1832-1919) – A physicist and chemist, the most decorated scientist in his time. He discovered the element thallium and was a pioneer in radioactivity. "It is quite true that a connection has been set up between this world and the next."
Sir Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) – Professor of physics at University College in Liverpool, England and later principal at the University of Birmingham, Lodge achieved world fame for his pioneering work in electricity, including the radio and spark plug. "I tell you with all my strength of the conviction which I can muster that we do persist, that people still continue to take an interest in what is going on, that they know far more about things on this earth than we do, and are able from time to time to communicate with us…I do not say it is easy, but it is possible, and I have conversed with my friends just as I can converse with anyone in this audience now."
The afterlife has also been demonstrated by 100 years of experimental research into quantum physics, including the experiments that won the Nobel Prize in 2022.
"I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness." -
Max Planck, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and the father of quantum theory.
"The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts." -
Werner Heisenberg, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics.
"Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it." -
Pascual Jordan, physicist, early contributor to quantum theory.
This means death cannot end consciousness because consciousness is fundamental and is what causes all of our experiences, including that of having a physical body in a physical world. Consciousness has been demonstrated fundamental, not a secondary effect caused by "matter" and "energy," neither of which exist outside of consciousness.
Consciousness doesn't seem to have physical properties. If consciousness was physical then we would know by now where it is located but we don't. We know what our brain, heart, limbs, and muscles are there for, we can see them, but we can't see consciousness. I believe consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe and is neither physical nor mental.
Interesting enough, the structure of the cosmic web and galaxies are practically the same as the structure of brain cells. Wonder what's that about.
Then there's also the problem of humanity knowing barely anything about the universe. The universe is so immense in size, seemingly infinite, and earth is just one tiny grain of sand among millions of grains of sand. We don't know why anything exists at all.
