Consciousness without a body?

• Posted by VeritasLux January 27, 2011 - 1,200 views

  

  Can consciousness exist outside or without a physical body?-Without a brain?

  Consciousness is information that is organized or filed in a certain way or coded into programs that process other information. It can be thought of as similar to the bits of information formed into the files, folders, software, operating system, and hardware of a computer, with the addition of self awareness, emotion and intelligence.

  It is also potential, it is energy, it is awareness- of self- of it's surroundings- of time- of experience and memories of experience- of imagination and creativity- of choice- intention- purpose- of it's own thoughts- of knowledge- of emotions- of belief systems- of others- of separate subjectivity- of objectivity and connectedness - Oneness-

  All of this information must be processed through some type of operating system that keeps it all organized- but is capable of changing the information- rearranging it...etc

  Maybe the operating system is the sense of self- subjectivity- separateness- time- space- matter- emotion... which is all just information also.

  We assume that the brain is the hardware- the motherboard- processors- hard drives- screen.. and the body is the extensions of the hardware- those that gather information- express or transmit information- and create.

  All of the information is made up of, stored and processed by chemical and electrical signals traveling through vast networks of neurons.

  What is the awareness of self? or Imagination, creativity, personality, belief systems like an afterlife or God? Is it a program made up of information? Who wrote the program? Are these all things we learn? Is our brain a blank slate when we are born?- rapidly absorbing as much information as fast as possible in order to create itself – to create a Consciousness?

  Most of this would imply that without the brain consciousness would not exist. But then what is the soul? Can it exist without the mind- without consciousness? I can't imagine how since any intelligent life force implies that it must be conscious. What would your soul be if it were not conscious, aware,able to think? -We would not exist.

  So if you remove the concept of a conscious mind outside the realm of the material world, or at least separate it from the brain. How would it exist and what would it be?

  Can the information even remain intact? What would organize, process and experience it? How?

  If much of what consciousness is... who we are, can be expressed and or broken down into Information then is that all that is needed to survive in order for us to still exist?

  Information- energy- (potential- intention- emotion- awareness, could all be expressed by the first two I suppose) Virtually Everything can be broken down into or expressed as information.

  Scientists state that information can never be lost, it can be broken apart and scrambled until it is unrecognizable but if we can calculate all the details of how it was broken down and essentially rewind time, we can reconstruct whatever that information originally expressed, be it matter or an idea or whatever. This was established with the argument of something falling into a black hole and being lost from reality and existence forever, which breaks this fundamental law. So it was settled by stating that the object, space-craft, person.. that falls into the black hole is torn apart and all of its information is smeared across the event horizon like a wave. And this information could in theory be used to reconstruct the object or person.

  Another fundamental law of physics states that Energy cannot be destroyed.

  So if these two aspects of our consciousness cannot be destroyed it implies that it could still exist when the brain dies.

  But what holds this information and or it's energy together and organizes it? Allows it to receive and express (sensory) information? How does it experience itself and any outside information? How different would that experience be from what we experience as conscious reality in our corporal -physical bodies? Where would we be experiencing it all from?... there are so many questions about this idea and if it is even plausible.

  I personally believe that it is not just plausible but a fact. It is a much higher less constrained, non-flawed and unrestricted level of existence. I believe that it is an experience that is so much more vast and rich than this physical illusion of reality, that we don't have the language or ability to understand it with our narrow perception that the brain and our senses allows us to experience reality with.

  But there are plenty of people who have experienced this realm of existence to some extent through the use of powerful psychedelics found in nature, particularly DMT and on a milder level Pilocybin. And a very large number of people who claim to have had a near death experience, which often has a lot of similarities to the DMT experience.

  Still as far as I know all near death experiences happen when a persons heart stops for a few minutes at most, but they are not clinically dead until they are Brain Dead... no electrical activity in the brain that can be recorded, so are they really out of their bodies or just hallucinating from a rush of certain neurotransmitters thought to be released in huge quantities right before death, and DMT is now thought to be that very neurotransmitter. Can either experience be proven to be coming from outside the brain somewhere that we are incapable of measuring in any way... yet?

  In my opinion, based on the descriptions of these profound experiences Something from outside ourselves even outside our three dimensional reality must be influencing, producing, projecting or transmitting this information into our consciousness somehow. Or the subjects consciousness/soul either really leaves the body and goes there, maybe it just blinks back and forth between realities at a very high frequency. Or we, our consciousness- our souls can exist in two or more places at once... or it expands and part of us stretches out and breaks through into this other dimensional realm during these experiences.

  I don't know... and I don't think any of us will ever know how this could work, what it would truly be like or even scientifically prove that it's even possible.

  And I believe that is because this experience of physical death and immortal soul exists in such a profoundly bigger and vastly different context than we are capable of comprehending. 

  But for me, to say that this is not true or even possible is unthinkable. If this physical life is all there is, then what's the point of conscious, intelligent life that is capable of such a wide range of thought and feelings, that is capable of conceiving and contemplating about the “Soul” an after-life or God, capable of Love... what would be the point if we just blink out of existence for ever into nothingness when our physical bodies die after a mere 70-90 years? That would be a cruel waste of sentient life.

  I guess I'll find out for sure one day(unless I do blink out of existence because then there would be nothing to form the thoughts saying “Damn... there really is Nothing Else. I don't even exist at all now.”

  In the mean time I would Love to get my hands on some DMT and experience what an out of body experience would feel like. Done with respect, reverence, and awe.. in the right set and setting.

  DRAFT

  STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION......