CULTURAL QA02-2021-19 My notes 1. Being a compilation there may be errors 2.It is a compilation of answers aboutdeath. Those not interested may kindly skip this QA
Q1 What do most scientistsbelieve happens after death? A1 Nine very informative answers are given below:- Answer1 Ian Jenkins,Physician / professor of medicine with an interest in bioethics and religionUpdated March 27, 2016 I will generalize, and recap in my words things I've heard Sam Harrissummarize nicely... Scientists are a rational bunch--that's pretty much the definition--andthey try to form theories based on observations, and test those theories. Problem is with death, no onecomes back to tell you what happened. Some people have near death experiences, and they can tell you what theirbrain decided was happening, but they weren't dead. Deadmeans permanent loss of brain function. So people who come back hadfunctioning nerve cells communicating with each other in an abnormal, nearlydead way, and while coming back from that process, people probably experiencesome odd sensations or visions because the systems for processing data aren'tfully running yet. I wouldn't trust any memories of wonderful things frompeople with near death experiences. People can remember all sorts of thingsthat didn't happen, and it's pretty easy to implant memories in people. That'sanother story. So: how doscientists decide what to believe about death? Well, there's religious theory,that we go to Christian heaven or reincarnate if we're Hindu etc etc. Problem is there's just zero evidence for religion, or anything supernatural. There are some things wehaven't explained yet, for sure, but to claim that means there must be a god orheaven makes about as much sense as it did for ancient Greeks to say God had toexist because they didn't know how lightning worked so God (zeus) must bethrowing it around. Other people say religion is useful, whichdoesn't prove anything, or that it's meaningful and they feltit--problem here is people have these sincerely held beliefs and experiencesand convictions and they're mutually contradictory. God sent me to blow upthose people vs God sent me to stop that terrorist from blowing up thosepeople. Or: God reincarnates us or he doesn't. Jesus is God or he isn't. Godshowed us the book of mormon on gold plates with seeing stones, or he didn't.Clearly beliefs aren't enough to hang your hat on, because they can justifyeverything and contradict each other. So that's out. Most (not all) scientists lookat the universe and say "either there's no god or there's a god who made auniverse that looks just like there's no god." So: now what? Well, let's look at the process of losing brain function. We can watch people lose bits oftheir mind, literally. Phineas Gage had a tamping rod shot through hisfrontal lobes and he became insufferable--great example. Other people lose specificfunctions and we can see on their scan or autopsy what part of their brain wasinvolved. Over time neurology has been able to assign pretty clearfunctions to a lot of our brains. Specific functions (sight,moving your left thumb, speech) are easy to nail down, but we also see whathappens when enough gray matter (cortex) is lost. We know that if you pluck out enough parts over time, whatwe call a person gradually goes away. Dementia is a good example. Nerve cellsdie, sometimesglobally, sometimes more in certain areas (like frontal dementias), sometimesfrom sequential small strokes (vascular dementia). But the effects are similar: memories are lost.Functions are lost. Speech, creativity, relationships, compassion, dreams,interests, all these things slowly go away until your dementia patient gets aninfection or another problem that kills them, or there's so littlebrain left they can't properly swallow, and then they either aspirate some food and die ofpneumonia or they can't take anything in and die of kidney failure fromdehydration. People are pretty frank about this: when a relative finally dies, it'sdefinitely a loss, but they're acclimated to it at least in part. The person they knew was beinglost piece by piece. It's heart breaking. Many people only feelrelief when the process is finally over; the person that connected with them was already gone, andjust the body alive. So what does a scientist think of that? Consciousness, person, whatreligious people call soul--itsan emergent property of brain function. When you take parts of brainaway, you lose parts of function. When you take ALL of it away, the person isgone. Brain death is the end of the person--that's the logicalconclusion. Either that terrifies you or you view it as natural andright that people make way for their children and grandchildren after a while. What would be irrational, and counter to data, would be to suggestwithout any reason other than local cultural tradition and hope, that a person who has gradually lost every function of their brain, andthen loses the LAST neuron and is totally brain dead, reappears somewhereelse in full mental and neurologic health, speaking English and giving thanksto a deity who designed a universe billions of light years across, full ofuncountable clusters of galaxies with uncountable stars--just to put humans init on one planet, after a brief preparatory period of 13.82 billion years, andwho communicated with all of the continents and peoples of earth (at leastaccording to the great monotheisms) solely by sending inspirations to certainindividuals in a small region in the middle east. Addendum:Goodcomments asked about supporting evidence for my claim scientists believe deadis dead with no afterlife. I turned to google for numbers and found this: Scientists and Belief Scientists are MUCH less religious than the general public, as expected, but I was surprised to see howmany believed in God: 33% (in 2009). That doesn't specifically tellus about what happens at death, but religion is the only way out of the end ofa person; there's noscientific (ahem) explanation for us going on without our bodies, so I assumepeople who don't believe in supernatural things assume death is the end.I mean, their could be a 35 foot tall hello kitty doll floating around pastthe orbit of pluto, but there's no evidence of that, so I am going to say thereisn't one, or that its highly unlikely. How can this be? Scientists believing things without scientific evidence?Well, one, it speaks to the power of upbringing. If you raise a kid by ISIS standards in today'sRaqqa, kid's probably going to believe that stuff. Raise a kid with a broadeducation in reality and the natural world, tell the kid about ISIS ideas atage 40 (while informing them there have been thousands of otherreligions and they can pick from those too), eh, a lot less likely you get anISIS recruit, right? Two, some of these scientists are only nominally religious or speaking inmetaphor. When Einsteinsaid "God doesn't play dice," he did not mean he thought therewas a bearded dude on a throne with one probably blond and blue-eyed middleeastern son who oversees the world. He meant "the natural world isn'tdriven by chance events" (about this, he was wrong--I do love how Einstein admittedhe was wrong about things when it was proven, like the cosmologic constant hestuck into equations that shouldn't have been there). Three, some scientists believe this stuff because they are willing tograde religion on much weaker evidence than (e.g.) global warming (in which 99%believe). Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, is a firstclass scientist and engaging thinker--he gave a great address at my collegegraduation in 1997. But, I saw an interview where he says he's mostly abiblical literalist and devout christian. He said yeah the books areinconsistent and that's what you'd expect from a historical record from thattime. I can't get my head around this; there's nothing in the Bible that isunexpected for the musings of some flawed, premodern humans, which is of coursethe best explanation for its claims. Is there ANY other way Mary could have gotten pregnant?Is there ANYTHING in the old testament some bronze age tribe wouldn't haveknown? Collins is a great scientist who is trying to find some way that his bookisn't false. If he'd been born in Tehran or Beijing or New Delhi he'd probablybe justifying very different myths, and that alone should give us great pause.I guess this really just brings us back to item one. Once a mind is on acertain track its tough for it to jump to a new one. But, the survey at least shows us that embracing a scientific mindsetvastly reduces religiosity.The Zen of Science - Consciousness & QuantumPhysics 2nd answer Jeff Simpson, Softwareprofessional for 30 years, Philosophy amateur Answered March 24, 2016 Firstly, I think that depends heavily on their religion or lack ofreligiosity. I think thatthis question insinuates that scientists lack religiosity and therefore do notthink that anything (in the spiritual or supernatural sense) happens to them. Some, however, believe that they will go to heaven (whatever that meansto them) (Judeo-Christian-Islam) or be reincarnated (Hindus and Scientologists)or achieve Nirvana (Buddhists) or get their own planet (Mormons) or one ofmany, many afterlife theologies. There are many scientists who are devoutlyreligious - however, they all leave their religiosity outside the lab (Inscience there is no "hey, I can't explain this - so God must have doneit" - that just doesn't happen). However, I will tell you onething that all scientists fundamentally wish will happen to them after theydie: They hope that their published research continuesbeing cited. To a scientist, that is immortality. Either way, we're all equally scared of death in oneway or another - scientist or not. That is a built-in primal fear - for goodevolutionary reasons, I suspect. 3rd answer- Javed Aslam,Have spent enough years in scientific disciplines Updated April 2, 2016 The term scientists can be rightfully applied to many differentprofessionals. These days most scientific disciplines have very narrow areas ofexpertise largely because of the immense growth of knowledge and understanding.As a physician with three areas of board certification and fellowship of royalcollege of physicians of Canada, I would never give an opinionconcerning something outside of my specialty. Why? Because specializationvastly narrow one's area of expertise. The reason I point this out is the way you have worded your question, asif saying, "Okay, nowfor the last word and the truth concerning death and the life after, let's askthe final authority, the scientists." Most scientists outside of medical professions, haven't even seen aperson in the process of dying. Ifthere is any scientific discipline whose practitioners deal with death day inand day out, who fight to keep people alive, and who have the chance to be atthe bedside, and hear the last few words of a dying person, who see the agonyand hear the final gasp, ending in a final silence, it is the medicalpractitioners and allied professional like nurses. As an oncologist who stood by the bedside of a dying person many a time,I do not think that I have ever had even the slightestsense of where the person's soul went and what happened to it. Such questions are better addressed to your religious authorities. 4th answer Frank P Mora,Studied philosophy and logic in school. I became enamored with programming, myjob, through HP programmable c…Updated March 31, 2016 Science cannot answer wellcertain questions. That's why we have logic and philosophy. Science cannot, now, answerwhether gayness is biological or not. Gayness, based on overwhelming logic and reason, says it is certainlybiological. Science cannot even ask about things that are non-material. Sciencecannot ask about the supernatural. Logic, however can. Logic may take intoconsiderations scientific laws, such as the second law of thermodynamics inmaking determinations. It may ask questions, such as, is themotivation for believing in life after death the persistence of consciousness? How can consciousness existextra-physical? Even the transmigration ofconsciousness or the soul is wrought with problems such as the persistence ofconsciousness and memory. 5th answer KrishnaKumariChalla, A Ph.D. in Microbiology. An artist who specializes in science based art. A writer, a poet, a designer, anetw…Answered June 29, 2016 Reality! No false illusions. After our deaths and destruction of our physical bodies, we return back to the universe asindividual atoms and energy, to the one body that recycles them and we allbelong to whether we lived with our conscious bodies or existed as inanimateforms. Read the detailed process here: Science tries to strengthen ourminds permanently by making us realize reality! 6th answer- NadirCardaklija, DBA & System Administrator Answered January 15, 2018 Most scientists have observed that after death abody slowly decays and eventually turns, given enough time, into a pile ofbones and dust due to bacterial processes. It can be cryopreserved,though, but it's still dead, it's just decaying a lot slower. This is from a scientists' point of view. Now, if said scientist is alsoreligious, he can believe other things, but this is beyond his"scientistness". 7th answer- AbdullahAlzarouni, i am a human who believe in afterlife ! Answered March 25, 2016 hello there everyone ! all the scientists is mortal and therefore they cannot give answer onthat ! you have to ask supernatural being which is immortal !! what I mean thatalready have been done by ALLAH in his religion books to the earlier human andthe ancient !!!thanx 8th answer Lame Rishab Answered March 24, 2016 After death our soul comes out of our body.Science cannot answer wellcertain questions. That's why we have logic and philosophy. Science cannot, now, answer whether gayness is biological or not.Gayness, based on overwhelming logic and reason, says it is certainlybiological. Science cannot even ask about things that are non-material. Sciencecannot ask about the supernatural. Logic, however can. Logic may take intoconsiderations scientific laws, such as the second law of thermodynamics inmaking determinations. It may ask questions, such as, is the motivation forbelieving in life after death the persistence of consciousness? How canconsciousness exist extra-physical? Even the transmigration of consciousness or the soul is wrought withproblems such as the persistence of consciousness and memory. 9th answer- MartinHogbin, studied Physics at University College London Answered April 4, 2016 One chap that used to post on the science newsgroups a lot put it thisway, 'Science and religion are orthogonal'. To put another way they aredifferent subjects covering different things. Science covers what can be detected and measured; if youcannot detect or measure it it is not science. Religion covers what cannot bedetected or measure; that which requires faith and hope. Some of the word's best scientists were, or are,highly religious; others atheists. In my opinion religion should never try to interfere with science. Whenit comes to detactable, measurable . All the above QA are based onQuora digest to me on 21-2-2021. Quora answers need not be 100% correct answers Compiled and posted by R. 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