Suddenly Psychic

What happens when we die?

Does our spirit surf the bardo realms of the great beyond……or do we simply cease to exist altogether?  We’ve debated that here on a few occassions, and of course…..MY belief is that life simply continues uninterrupted, as a new journey begins.

But obviously….LOTS of smart people out there believe differently.  And many make persuasive arguments to support the idea of the extinction of the “spirit” at the moment of death, with any idea of an afterlife being wishy washy mental midgetry.

On the other side of the spirtual street, many scholars argue equally as passionately that THIS life is only one small piece of the larger puzzle that is YOU. 

Here is a great article that highlights the debate between two super smart scholars, with diametrically different opinions – Deprak Chopra, the famous author, doctor and philosopher, and Michael Shermer, a well known and respected “skeptic” argue the merits (or lack thereof) of whether life after life is feasible……or FOOLISH! 

Check out the full article at the link below – I promise, you’ll learn a thing or two for sure! 

The ancient Hebrew word for soul is nephesh, or “life” or “vital breath”; the Greek word for soul is psyche, or “mind”; and the Roman Latin word for soul is anima, or “spirit” or “breath.” The soul is the essence that breathes life into flesh, animates us, gives us our vital spirit.

Given the lack of knowledge about the natural world at the time these concepts were first formed, it is not surprising these ancient peoples reached for such ephemeral metaphors as mind, breath, and spirit. One moment a little dog is barking, prancing, and wagging its tail, and in the next moment it is a lump of inert flesh. What happened in that moment?In 1907 a Massachusetts physician named Duncan MacDougall tried to find out by weighing six dying patients before and after their death.

He reported in the medical journal American Medicine that there was a 21-gram difference. Even though his measurements were crude and varying, and no one has been able to replicate his findings, it has nonetheless grown to urban legendary status as the weight of the soul. The implication is that the soul is a thing that can be weighed. Is it?In science we define our terms with semantic precision. I define the “soul” as the unique pattern of information that represents the essence of a person.

By this definition, unless there is some medium to retain the pattern of our personal information after we die, our soul dies with us. Our bodies are made of proteins, coded by our DNA, so with the disintegration of DNA our protein patterns are lost forever. Our memories and personality are stored in the patterns of neurons firing in our brains, so when those neurons die it spells the death of our memories and personality, similar to the ravages of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, only final.

Skeptic » Reading Room » Debates: The Great Afterlife: Michael Shermer v. Deepak Chopra