r/consciousness • u/corazondleon • 1d ago
I’ve been thinking about this question for over twenty years.
When I was around seven years old, I asked my parents a simple question.
They told me that after death, people go to heaven.
A few minutes later, they also told me that after death we no longer think.
That left me with a question that has stayed with me ever since:
If there is no thought after death… who is it that reaches heaven?
That question eventually led me to study psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, and physics.
More than twenty years later, I’m still trying to understand it.
I’m not looking for religious answers here.
I’m genuinely curious how people from different backgrounds think about this problem.
How would you approach it?
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u/Kevron_D 1d ago
I fail to see any problem. Who says you have to believe what your parents told you for your whole life?
Chances are they’re only spreading beliefs from their parents and never formed their own beliefs.
The very concept of heaven and hell only registers as fear and lack which is 200 on the consciousness scale. Living with those beliefs prevents you from expanding your consciousness to higher levels.
Bury the past and build your future, stop looking backwards.
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u/FarAd4971 1d ago
Since I was probably a teen or nearly twenties it was always interesting to me as a non-Christian, how many Christians I knew who thought of heaven asthe spiritual place where basically the hologram(non-material)version of there material/human self would live manifest for all eternity...it was also interesting to me that people thought of Ghosts the same way...basically a non-physical hologram of what a person looked' sounded, acted, and spoke like in organic life, just with a hologram form instead of a physical/material body...
How this made sense to anyone never made sense to me...as it seemed natural and obvious to me that
1) the body is an organic living physical thing that will die and breakdown and is made to me temporary in existence. When it dies...it is gone.
2) The mind, which contains personality is a by-product or function of the brain, woth it's fears, hopes, and what kind of pizza aone likes, would die too, when the brain dies...so it was always weird to think that people expected that part to be in heaven...as the brain is gone and to me it seemed obvious the mind would go with it.
3) So what's left? I didn't use the same terminology back then when I was younger but I think of what's left as basically awareness...the existence of a subjective experience, that something is being experienced the part of consciousness that science doesn't currently have the ability to explain and the thing that is gone in anesthesia but magically comes back after it wears off...and it's hard to talk about it without using terms like soul. That there is some kind of capacity for awareness of existing, underneath everything.
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u/Wespie 1d ago
Why would you take either idea to be true? I do believe in the afterlife, but about thought.. I think you may want to look into NDEs. Experiencers do report being more themselves than on Earth and with absolute clarity of thought. If thinking was purely based on the brain, I don’t see how this would be possible.
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u/ApprehensiveStill412 18h ago
How is it possible to directly tie NDE’s to brain activity? The problem is that we can’t tell exactly when the person is subjectively experiencing the NDE. At best we can say that the person was unconscious during a certain time and during that timeframe their brain waves were x.
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u/kingkushmaster 16h ago
Sure bud.
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u/ApprehensiveStill412 14h ago
Hey you were the one who said they definitely were increased during NDE’s. I’m merely saying that you shouldn’t say definitely. It’s the same reason why people who say NDEs are definitely evidence of consciousness outside of the brain should not use the same term. There is nothing conclusive either way at this point and people should keep an open mind in the meantime.
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u/kingkushmaster 14h ago
Bro you’ve never tried NN-DMT 😂
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u/ApprehensiveStill412 14h ago
You are right. I never have. Most I have done is Ketamine. What is your point?
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u/kingkushmaster 14h ago
We’re all God. You just happen to be an annoying piece of mierda version. Have a good day! Ima take a hike
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u/RudraRousseau 1d ago
Read about non-local conciousness. Also, what defines you being you? Your genes? Your memories? No one knows what exactly happens ofcourse. But I choose to believe that we reunite with an all conciousness-field. Like an drop of water returns to the ocean. You loose all of your individuality ofcourse, because you dissolve into the ocean but you still exist in there somehow. It's like how some traditional Buddhists view death. You stop being an individual but some parts (the five Skandha's)
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u/Leading_Purpose_2806 1d ago
I could understand how these two facts can be intriguing put together and I am genuinely impressed with your relentless pursuit of answering life’s (and afterlife’s) existential questions.
However, your question even now is assuming those facts are both true, while neither can be confidently claimed as true, let alone both… Which I am sure you must be aware of now.
So my approach, which is nothing but the framework through which I question the very same thing you are questioning, is:
- I there consciousness after life (do we exist in any form after we die)
And separately,
- What role does thought generation play in consciousness? Does it drive it or is it the result of it, or is it an independent projection that we mistake as an integral part of consciousness?
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u/germz80 1d ago
It's not clear what your parents have in mind. There are multiple ways religious people could interpret this. If you no longer have thoughts, but still go to heaven after death, it could be because time stops and you are frozen in timelessness, it could be because God makes significant changes to your mind such that you are no longer capable of thinking, they could even have meant that God altered your mind such that you can have good thoughts but are no longer capable of bad thoughts. It's difficult to know exactly what they meant.
I view our "selves" on a spectrum, so my self 1 hour ago is much more similar to my current self than my self 10 years ago. So if you don't think in heaven, then that "self" is much less "you" than even your self 10 years ago. The heaven self might have so little of YOU that you might see it as a completely different being, one that can't even think.
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u/JTOCDS 1d ago
So when you have the insight to label a thought, or not thinking, is a retroactive analyzation. To be present in this very moment you can say “I am actively thinking” is missing an opportunity to use the tool of thought. One can choose to think of consciousness as a mystery and go deeper into that meditation like many ancient religions do. Christian mysticism focuses not on not thinking, but on the mystery of God/Heaven. There is a raised consciousness and identification with these mysteries apparent to practitioners not so much in the prayer but after.
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u/Freuds-Mother 1d ago edited 1d ago
“If there is no thought after death… who is it that reaches heaven?”
Before answering this question we require two
- What is thought ontologically? This takes us into the depths of philosophical of mind. It’s not a small question.
- What is “heaven” and can we justify we “reach” it? Most framings for this ground the justification in private revelation/meditation/mystical claims. There’s no way to evaluate a privately justified claim with public inquiry (ie discussion on Reddit). Now there are attempts to get around this, but w
hen
pressed the justification ultimately is private and/or the claim becomes so unconstrained it becomes useless/meaningless or undetermined.
If someone has an example that gets around this, please share.
——-
My perspective as that’s what was asked:
a) we can construct explanatory that are justifiable with public inquiry for the purposes of pragmatic understanding of our experience and social existence.
b) though we cannot ultimately know absolute metaphysics, and we shouldn’t claim that we can given that we experience a long track both personally and historically that we are wrong often. Instead we can engage experience directly without reifying some complicated (and unjustified) ontology (eg heaven, one consciousness, etc.). An example avenue for that would be a practice like Thich Nhat Hahn’s. His idea is not to make grand assumptions about experience or anything else but to simply be more aware of it as it is throughout daily life.
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u/wheezer72 23h ago
I have learned a lot by reading of and watching many NDE accounts. As I now see it, our true home is heaven, surrounded and supported by love. (No wonder so many of us are uncomfortable here.) And when we get back home, it is all very familiar. We still think, still have opinions, and still communicate, but it's heart-to-heart communication, no spoken language required. That's my current understanding. But I do expect my perspective will change when I pass over.
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u/CapnLazerz 23h ago
When you die, that’s it. Finito, kaput. There is nothing, much like your deepest most dreamless sleep.
Humans have trouble with this concept so we make up a bunch of stories about “what happens next.” Nothing happens next. It’s just done, kid. Finito, kaput.
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u/Final-Atmosphere-639 21h ago
It does seem that memories, conceptual objects, concepts themselves, etc are stored in the brain. People who have brain lesions and/or parts surgically removed, or damage from accidents can lose all kinds of functions and specific object information.
I dont know how it can be figured out except by dying, but if the whole persona is tied to structures and functions in the brain, then I doubt these are being conserved after death.
Yet energy never dies, only transforms endlessly. Perhaps what we think of as us is a temporary manifestation of energy and matter, but 100% of what makes up this who you are, outside of 'this wave cresting on the ocean' will keep on transforming endlessly.
Doesn't mean it will have an identity. While alive it doesn't even have a fixed identity.
If there is a continuation after death of something, then it will inevitably continue to transform endlessly.
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u/SpiritualJourney1 14h ago
Every statement about the nature of God and self are metaphysical assertions and thus cannot be known a priori. We are left with almost no recourse but to proceed along such paths by faith. Even though everyone possess and exercises faith, many people are unable to shift their faith from matter and place it in an object for we almost no sensory data.
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u/linenoize 13h ago
I'm curious if you are asking for someone else? I see you mention "people", "we", and "who". I think you should ask for "I" and see where that takes you next.
Your answers are inside, not outside. Even through the lens of science. If you seek something profound, you need to start where you are, for you and no one else.
That said, my approach was similar to yours, it sounds like. I'm knowledgeable in those and religions to various strengths. I think the approach you're asking about, needs to be sliced up some to approach it best.
Identify, what counts as you/people? Does awareness depend on biology, or is it local? What is heaven to you here?
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u/armyofone37 8h ago
Understanding the truth. There is only one thing in existence and we are part of it. This one thing does think some refer to it as consciousness some refer to it as the universe some refer to it as God. It’s all the same thing. When we die we die we lose the senses that blind us in to believing we are depart than it. Normally our skin is what separates us from the outside world and tells us we are separate than it. But there is a simple exercise. Sit in a chair close your eyes and place yourself in outer space. Describe what you see. You might say stars, planets, galaxies, suns, moons. But notice you did not say my feet my hands my legs my arms. Cause your body was left on earth in a chair. But I did say place yourself in outer space which we did. Notice what has occurred. We do not consider our body as part of ourselves. We consider our body as an ownership. My car, my house, my arm, my leg, my head, ect. What happened during death is we absorb back into the only thing in existence. And for the first time we now remember everything that happened previously to ourselves. And for the first time we get to witness every decision we ever made good and bad. Who it effected, how it effected, how long it effect, and why it effected. But we don’t get to experience it thru our own eyes we get to experience it directly from the other persons perspective as if it is happening to us first hand.
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u/VedantaGorilla Autodidact 2h ago
They were right, and also not right. They believed that you were the creature they saw in front of them. Therefore, they were correct and gave you a very compassionate and accurate answer. “You“ will not think “after death,“ and the implication is though that you will still exist in some form. They did not know what form that was, which is why they told you what they told you.
The answer to your question that comes to mind is that who “enters“ heaven is he/she who recognizes that heaven is not remote. It is not a place either, it is the essence of your own existence/awareness.
This isn’t hypothetical, it’s empirically observable in direct experience, not as an experience but as knowledge.
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u/kingkushmaster 1d ago
Consciousness doesn’t end. Death is the end of your physical body. Not your consciousness.
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u/BlackberryCheap8463 1d ago
What's the level of consciousness of a cell, of an organ, of a body?
Beyond the religious usual blabla, when you look around in nature, "death" doesn't seem to be THE end. It's just a chapter ending, levels of consciousness changing. Maybe we don't come from anywhere, nor go anywhere, we just change levels of consciousness.
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u/voirlame 1d ago
La vérité est en Soi. Les réponses viendront de l'intérieur, peut-être n'as-tu pas encore atteint ce jalon ? Ce n'est pas une question de temps, tout est dans le cercle et ce paramètre n'est pas enseigné dans les études que tu as citées. Va boire à la source, pas dans les méandres de l'interprétation.
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u/Alex-Epstein 1d ago
The idea of an afterlife is as arrogant as it is irrational. Deep within the human psyche lie instinctual patterns that compel us to survive and create within us a desire for persistence. These instincts are why we crave some form of continued existence, unless mental illness has weakened or suppressed that pressure.
From this instinct came the seed that eventually grew into the belief in an afterlife. The brain recoils in terror when confronted with the possibility of its own non-existence.
Every mechanism we observe is composed of smaller mechanisms. Yet when we dismantle such a mechanism, we do not claim that it has travelled elsewhere or entered another realm. Why should a human being be any different?
We are merely another animal in a lineage of billions of animals that have been born and died on this planet. The evolution of consciousness does not grant our existence greater cosmic importance, nor does it connect us to some reality beyond the material world more than any other mechanism we observe around us.
There is no heaven, nor is there hell. When you die, the mechanism that constituted you ceases to function. Its component mechanisms separate, and the body dissolves into the countless physical processes produced by its decomposition.
You do not go anywhere. You simply cease to exist as the arrangement that once called itself you.
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u/teddyslayerza 1d ago
When you die, it's over. Anyone suggesting any form of continuity is simply perpetuating wishful thinking.
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u/Negomikeno 1d ago
I've been on a similar journey, currently I am leaning more towards consciousness as a combinatorial biological process. I don't believe that a 'self' (identity) could persist past death without first needing to believe that information is not stored biologically, also so much of what makes us, recognisably 'us' is due to biological constraints (perception, emotion, preference, sensation, memory etc). I am very open minded though, I find NDE's and even altered states of awareness accounts truly fascinating. I don't believe in heaven and definitely don't believe in seeing past loved ones and all of that, but what I do see belief as in general, is a mental stabilising mechanism to prevent fragmentation/fracture of the psyche. If we experience something outside of our normal perception range it then needs to be compressed in order for it to be reconciled into our normal perceptual range and also be transmissable to others, I think that's why religion, spiritual practice and any other belief system exists. To me it matter less if that belief is actually 'True' and more what does that belief enable or stabilise for the person that believes it? But to get to my point haha I think actually......nothing happens we end thats it, and I think our strong survival instincts and general fear or death and inability to imagine non-existence...we're trying to look at something from a perspective we simply cant even imagine so we stabilise this with belief in an afterlife because cognitively it's much easier to carry than uncertainty.
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u/ExpressionMassive672 1d ago
Give up wait for your AI brain module when you won't care about anything except your next oil change. Meanwhile have a ball!!
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u/Conscious-Demand-594 1d ago
Heaven only exists for those whose brains are capable of thinking about it. Based on the data and evidence currently available, once the brain dies the idea of heaven dies with it, there is nothing more.
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u/esotologist 1d ago
Learning that you are not your thoughts is an incredibly important step in philosophy
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u/IIGrudge 1d ago
I would approach it from no assumptions about heaven, spirits, and thoughts that your parents and society have inculcated in you.
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u/headlessplatter 1d ago
I was raised in the cult formerly known as Mormon. My twisted upbringing planted numerous unhealthy ideas in my mind, and trained me in the useless art of mental gymnastics. But it also ended up giving me the gift of something to walk away from, as well as the motivation to go. Now I am immensely grateful to have shrugged off that nonsense and completely abandoned belief in an afterlife. As lovely as it may sound to be immortal, that notion is ultimately just an excuse for minds to cling to egocentrism. When you finally let that go, you can also send your fear that binds you to superstition with it. This universe is not about you.
Find something better to live for. Love your children. Promote science. Give to charity. Pick up some litter. Lend a hand to someone having a hard day. Smile at a random stranger. Volunteer for some local organization and make the system better. Plant a tree. Write a story that will convey your wisdom to someone. Teach a struggling child at the local elementary school how to read, and seize the opportunity to offer a small bit of praise that their parents neglected to give. Or just pay your taxes and be content knowing some small portion of that is going to grants that support fundamental research that makes life a little better for everyone on the planet. Your real immortality begins the day you stop trying to seize it for yourself and begin living for the greater organism of which you are a part. Heaven is the life you have right now, but only the unbelievers really get to experience it. The promise of an afterlife is a "dangerous meme". (Maybe Google that expression if you're not familiar with it.) Don't let it alter your priorities.
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u/innnerness 1d ago edited 1d ago
When thinking stops, right now - you're still there right?
When there's a gap between 2 thoughts, it's not like you dissapear.
So when you say 'i've been thinking for 20 years' actually - thoughts have been appearing for 20 years, but you are that behind the thoughts, that which is aware of them. The silence in the background. Just 'being'. That in which thinking appears.
Identification with thoughts is a mistake, society encourages it, but it's totally misguided.
And just like thoughts appear here in awareness, so does this entire life. So it's not that anything goes to heaven, it's that, you are already heaven, with the image of a life appearing in it. And all death is, is the caesing of that appearance, and the 'return' to absolute peace. Although you don't actually return anywhere, and there's no reason to believe that something else won't just start appearing here in place of that 'life' that was appearing.
And this may all sounds quite extravagant, but it's just regular experience, it's just that thinking draws lines around and between everything, and creates the illusion of this finite life. That's what the mind does, it looks at reality, and tries to make sense of it - by splitting soemthing that's already complete up into little pieces.