Does the Mind Survive Death?

Does the conscious mind survive death? If so does it ALL survive death, or just our "core" self?

 

Consider that the brain is closely tied to conscious experience. And we know that upon death, the brain disintegrates and dies. With it goes all of our memories and things we've learned, like how to ride a bike or do algebra.

 

But what about things of a more personal nature? When you think about what's really important, you're probably going to lean towards matters of the heart. Psychic phenomena and interpersonal connections cut to the core of who we are a lot more than algebra or calculus does. Is it possible that interpersonal, emotional part of our being survives death? Do the connections between a mother and child exist outside of time and space?

 

Thinking about the mind, it seems like my core "inner" self, what we call "I" exists unchanging throughout life. Yes, tastes may change and you may learn something new like how to speak French or ride a skateboard and form new memories. Learning French might make you more interesting at a party or useful on a trip to Europe, but does it fundamentally change who you are? The answer seems to be no. You are still you after learning French. These extra things, like learning French seem to be tied to higher parts of the brain. But maybe consciousness resides somewhere else.

If the higher parts of the brain are involved in learning complicated activities, maybe its the lower centers, the limbic system say-that's involved in the generation of conscious experience.

 

One interesting theory is that the brain doesn't actually cause consciousness. Instead its a receiver of some sort--just like a radio receiver. In this view, consciousness exists as part of the universe as a whole.  Or maybe saying its a "part" of the universe isn't accurate, maybe its woven into the universe at a fundamental level. The brain, or at least some part of it, taps into consciousness by somehow receiving a signal from the universe at large. In this theory, your soul or conscious mind transcends time and space and is not separate or distinct from the universe at large. Its manifested in the physical here and now by the receiver, which is the brain structured to "tune in" to your consiousness the way a radio can be tuned in to a particular frequency, and then picking up a specific radio station.

 

The part of the brain that does this must be in the so-called lower centers. "Knowing" (learning French or calculus) isn't the same as being more conscious. A man who doesn't know calculus is equally as conscious as a man who does, although the latter has more knowledge. This applies whether comparing two individuals or the same individual through time. In other words, I am equally conscious before and after learning French, its the same "me" even if I'm able to chat with people who don't speak English that I couldn't converse with directly before. I feel as if I have the same "me" inside that I did at age 5, age 12, and age 20.

 

If the conscious reciever of the brain is in the so-called lower part of the brain, this would indicate most if not all animals are conscious. Yes a rabbit can't speak French, but that doesn't mean the rabbit doesn't experience its life, along with happiness, excitement, or fear, the way you and I do.

 

Something else that's interesting about viewing the brain as a receiver is that death becomes irrelevant. If you smash up the radio on your desk, that radio can't pick up 98.3 FM anymore, but the signal generated by 98.3 FM is still there-all around you and ready to be picked up by another radio that tunes into the station's signal. Is your consciousness always there, able to be picked up if only the right receiver is constructed? This makes the possibility of reincarnation make sense from a physical perspective. Or another idea: a synthetic reciever could be constructed somehow out of some currently uknown technology that could do the same thing. Then a persons mind could remanifest in the physical. Certain people such as Ray Kurzweil have proposed that a person's mind could be "downloaded" to an advanced computer system allowing for a type of immortality. 

 

Right now our scientific knowledge on these topics is limited at best.