Presently reading Pim van Lommel, M.D., "Consciousness Beyond Life", and Dr Sam Parnia, "The Lazarus Effect."
From Pim van Lommel: "Ultimately, we cannot avoid the conclusion that endless consciousness has always been, and always will be, independent of the body. There is no beginning and there will never be an end to our consciousness. For this reason we ought to seriously consider the possibility that death, like birth, may be a mere passing from one state of consciousness into another and that during life the body functions as an interface or place of resonance."
From Sam Parnia: "Today the question of consciousness, psyche, and soul is a completely new area of discovery that, although an enigma, has thankfully become a point of major focus and interest in science. To better explain the scientific situation we find ourselves in, it is as if we have discovered a wholly new type of substance that we can neither account for nor explain in terms of anything we have ever seen and dealt with before in science. It is not like understanding the science of cell function, or for that matter any other entity we have studied in the physical sciences in the past. Though it is a pure mystery, we know it exists and defines who we are; however, nobody has been able to explain how human consciousness came to be."
Answers & Comments
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Van Lommel is long winded, irrational, and entirely wrong. We can't avoid the conclusion that endless consciousness exists? Really? That's massively idiotic. We can and do avoid that conclusion.
Parnia however is at least honest enough to say that consciousness is an enigma to him and that we don't fully understand it.
Neither one however implies any kind of eternal consciousness with any degree of credibility.
Lommel's claim is not supported by anything close to sufficient evidence, and is therefore false, since we obviously can avoid his conclusion.
Parnia's claim links consciousness and "soul" in unreasonable ways. We also do not "know...it defines who we are." It could be that consciousness is merely an overlay riding on the neural mechanisms that actually define our nature(s). We have not settled such questions.
No, consciousness is not eternal. Simple: it is experienced by some lifeforms and when these lifeforms die, their consciousness ends as well. No spirituality involved.
The fault is in using soul and consciousness synonymously. Only one actually exists.
No. Your consciousness exists solely in your brain and the brain is not eternal.
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