Explaining What Happens After Death

[Mr.wizard]

I am not sure if I'm posting in the right thread or forum here, but I have some questions. I still consider myself an atheist, but until recently I held the false notion that consciousness was localized to the brain. I had a limited definition for consciousness. I now realize that consciousness is a great mystery and nobody can really sufficiently explain it, and apparently it extends beyond the mind; I still don't really have a firm grasp on what consciousness really is. So, no longer can I assert with any confidence that when you die and your brain dies that your consciousness is eradicated. I used to think it worked that simply. It's got me thinking I really can't provide a sufficient explanation as to how the brain simply dies and you're gone. Of course, there's more to selling the idea of how there's no afterlife, but this is one crucial part of it.

 So, as an atheist, how do you explain to others that when we die we simply cease to exist through explainable science and that we don't migrate to any kind of afterlife? Can it be explained scientifically how we simply are no more - how the essence of what was you is gone - without the absence of consciousness, if consciousness indeed (or the lackthereof) plays no role? What do you think the consensus definition of consciousness is?

 What does consciousness have to do with being an atheist, you can be an atheist and believe some part of you carries on after you die. I can't be certain about what happens after we die but what I do know is that all the information that we do have, suggests that everything that makes up your personality comes from a physical brain that dies with the rest of your body.

[sdelsolray]

...
I'm saying my definition on what consciousness is has changed. I am not saying emphatically that it can live outside your body. Logically, I would think that it could not. But since the definition is so varied, I can't seem to pin down a consensus idea of what consciousness is.

First things first.  What is your current definition of consciousness?

[chimp3]

Does a chimpanzee's consciousness continue after death? A dog's? A rabbit's? A squid's ? Where and why do you draw the line?

[Minimalist]

Bottom line is that whether it is an NDE or a permanent death there is not an inch of difference as far as the consciousness is concern.

Yeah there is, dickwad.  In one case you are fucking dead.  In the other case you are not.

Try to get that through your thick skull.

[Angrboda]

[Succubus]

[Minimalist]