No part of human consciousness survives death.

Actually; does that include works of your own authorship such as say robots you create? Books you author? Children you imprint? In that sense your will continues to exist, and may even continue to examine itself; dispersed across multiple points of view.

I don't count creative works as part of one's consciousness. At least none so far that I've seen.

I considered the same thing before voting, Anselm, but I decided that one's consciousness (or one's soul, if you're religious) is something that can't be externalized. It can be described and illustrated, and it can influence one's creations, but it can't actually continue to exist after death.

I believe our bodies are what we use to gather data for our souls in the afterlife. If you believe your consciousness will survive your body's end it will.

I would love to believe that it did... But it i just cant.

Are we so confident that even in a scientific rational self that our boundaries are so discrete? For example is there a possibility that a group of fruit flys could collectively achieve consciousness if say part of some scientific experiment? If so, could one of those flies die; yet the pattern overall retain consciousness? Therefore is it not possible that there is a kind of consciousness which is not within ourselves but is our contribution to a meta-organism? And if so is it possible that that consciousness is imbued with some of our own nature? And if that is true; then in fact, is not some portion of our own awareness and reflection upon ourselves - broader than ourselves and indeed dispersed through the community of beings around us?

I certainly don't experience that. I communicate with other beings as discrete entities. And while the communication affects my consciousness, I don't think part of other people's consciousness joins mine in my head directly.

Even given these comments I feel the strong assertion "no part of" is untrue. And I still don't feel comfortable with the claim being made. It isn't just that consciousness is ill-defined. Or ideas about the soul. And not that it is rare: shared by monkeys, parrots, dolphins and the like. But that one can imagine even other things like say replacing neurons with transistors, or a seizure that lobotomizes half the brain - anything that lets some portion of the wetware die but the mind continue. What I am struggling with is the phrasing "no part of". A "part of" consciousness undoubtably does survive; a persons will, interests, interpretation of reality, if not the full blown active "operator in the loop" sense of ongoing self-reflection and apprehension of existance.

I side with Anselm.

Peirce argued that the "Scientific Method" does not even acknowledge one of its own crucial steps: the logical process of abduction by a human intellect. I'd rather proceed with dubious caution about claims made on behalf of the scientific rational self.

Once the heart stops beating, the brain stops. Once the brain stops, consciousness stops.

I don't know, I never died.

I can think of few questions that matter less.

Worry about how you live and your death will take care of itself.

Oh well... I like to think that free will truly exists, so I'll take the safe option in support of that...

Actually, I can't imagine how "it" could not survive.

I mean, there are plenty of theories, even scientifict results, about how we think, feel, etc but no real thing to explain the very "thing" that thinks, feels, etc. Even explaining what I mean by making this difference is very hard...

If human conciousness is just a pattern, then that same pattern could be represented again anywhere in the universe at any time.

A pattern in 5 space.

I'm not entirely certain that the exact same conciousness survives sleep.

This is patently untrue.

When Packers dies I will remember (should I survive her) that she had very bad taste in comedy programmes.

Surely quite a lot of survives in others. This is some people's view of heaven and hell... the ideas you leave behind about yourself.

Anselm; I don't think you were being far fetched. There is a lot of research being done these days on genetic memory at cell level. That would definately qualify as collective consciousness of a sort.

CB rings true; it's how you live that truly defines you, not what happens after you die

Nic you stalker!

[puts binoculars away] No, no. I wasn't watching you.

There may be a higher level of consciousness that we are part of but not aware of. Just as each cell in the brain is not aware of the concioucness that is helps create. We know that when you put 100 billion simple processors together something remarkable happens. Well, there are all sorts of systems in the universe that are analogous to networks of simple processors and human society is one.

Hey its hard to know but I'd like to think part of our consciousness continued its existence...

If you will consider for the moment this analogy of the television set, it electronically produces the image we see, but the image is not the television, the image is merely produced by the television set, the image is in fact energy. The light energy emitted from the television should continue to travel at the speed of light eternally,even after the television set is unplugged and even after it is destroyed!

I would argue that the brain biologically produces consciousness, that our consciousness is not our brain, and that that consciousness is in fact energy! There is evidence of that energy being produced in the form of eeg's. If in fact our brain waves are in fact our consciousness, Then it would seem our consciousness is energy. I maybe wrong but isn't there a law that says energy can not be created or destroyed? If in fact your consciousness is energy and it can not be destroyed then what happens to it after you die?

I recognize that energy can be transformed into matter and visa versa, but after the energy of your consciousness is transformed from matter into energy by the biological processes of your brain, what if anything can/could or would transform the energy of your consciousness back into matter after it is produced? or even after your brain no longer produces this energy?

Or perhaps this consciousness or energy is in fact spiritual in nature, what if in fact our brain produces our soul, then what could destroy this spiritual energy if it is a part of god?

Yes...yess I like the mayor of Jyte.... You truely understand more then most...

DRAGONS ARE DEFFINATELY ON YOUR SIDE

Robert; that's a similar thesis to that film 'Powder' ... I liked that idea as well.

ITT we solve the mind-body problem once and for all

......C'mon, I'm waiting :(

Consciousness doesn't arise from energy, it arises from structure.

kybernetikos I have no problem with your statement in fact I think my analogy imply's that the structure creates the energy.

@claim: I have no idea. There have been the odd story like Pam Reynolds' Near Death Experience, but those are also refuted fairly well by sceptics. There's also the Eastern (?) concept of re-incarnation. Again only anecdotal 'evidence' such as this.

I like the idea of reincarnation myself because it provides reasonable explanation to 'talent'. That's just prejudice because I don't like the idea of people just appearing on the planet with a head start on others.

Either way, the safest assumption is in agreement with the claim, but unlike say the existence of god, I think the validity of this claim should be demonstrable at some point, but to my knowledge the claim still stands as only a very plausible assumption.

I died. I'm still self aware. False. QED.

If you died we wouldn't have to put up with you here.

I didn't _stay_ dead.

But I have been dead.

I didn't say you were dead.

No one can know for sure.

We agree with the above colors.

ROLIES! ROLIES! ROLIES! You're back and we missed you SOOOO much, we have claimed and claimed about you and now you are back!...

Colours is a cool cat eh?

ghosts are real, remember? the electrical energy in your nervous system creates a magnetic field after you die.

Depends on your definition of death. It is conceivable that consciousness will eventually be transported to other bodies to elude death or even completely artificial environments.

Copies of parts of our consciousness will continue to run in the brains of others, when they remember us or imagine how we would behave.

Maybe consciousness is the primary phenomenon, and what we perceive as physical reality is the epiphenomenon.