How does one experience Heaven?

[lemondiesel]

This argument is related to the Mind and Brain, and does a Mind exist outside the body. Here is my argument for why I believe we can never experience Heaven.

My 3 assumptions are:

1. Our minds are products of our experiences (conscious and subconsciously) and develop over time. It is based on a good and bad experiences, which turns us into certain directions.
2. The Mind and Brain are One. Our brains are thought processing machines. Since our minds are products of our brain, bound to the brain, there is no way to experience heaven.
3. If the brain dies, the mind ceases to continue. Your personality and the organ you think (experience) with remain in the brain, in your body.

Even if you disagree with those, there still remains the issue of similar brain structures in animals. All the parts found in a chimpanzee brain, along with other mammals, are found in humans. If we are going to say the exist outside the body, then we must also suspend judgment for the chimp. We have the exact same brain structure, so we can not through out them having some sort of soul or spirit.

Why? Because our experiences are based on language. Without it, we can even express our feelings. We wouldn’t even have inner dialect! Language is what separates us from the example of the chimpanzee.

 

[fhansen]

This argument is related to the Mind and Brain, and does a Mind exist outside the body. Here is my argument for why I believe we can never experience Heaven.

My 3 assumptions are:

1. Our minds are products of our experiences (conscious and subconsciously) and develop over time. It is based on a good and bad experiences, which turns us into certain directions.
2. The Mind and Brain are One. Our brains are thought processing machines. Since our minds are products of our brain, bound to the brain, there is no way to experience heaven.
3. If the brain dies, the mind ceases to continue. Your personality and the organ you think (experience) with remain in the brain, in your body.

Even if you disagree with those, there still remains the issue of similar brain structures in animals. All the parts found in a chimpanzee brain, along with other mammals, are found in humans. If we are going to say the exist outside the body, then we must also suspend judgment for the chimp. We have the exact same brain structure, so we can not through out them having some sort of soul or spirit.

Why? Because our experiences are based on language. Without it, we can even express our feelings. We wouldn’t even have inner dialect! Language is what separates us from the example of the chimpanzee.

My question has always been, where does the life go? One moment a person lives, the body is animated, and the next moment the body is lifeless and we can see what’s happened to it, but the “animated part” is gone with no seeming explanation. In any case we’re finite, physical beings but with God all things are possible-including the experience of heaven.

 

[Julian0404]

You/us/humanity are composed of a duality body & soul. You cannot separate them using an arguement of mind vs brain priority. Our bodies ( which include our mind/brain ) will die and thus be separated from our souls to stand before JESUS and be judged eternally - forever - period : As Father Corapi is fond of saying.
Our bodies will eventually catch up to our souls and be reunited with them at some time in the future, but when we die, we experience - through our souls - heaven or hell - forever - period.

The premise of your arguement is sublimly sinister in that the reciprocal position of your arguement is that “there is no hell”. If we cannot experience heaven, guess what no hell either.

St. Padre Pio was informed by a guy that there was no hell based upon the same premise that you purport, i.e. because “I simply do not believe in it”, to which St. Padre Pio advised, you will believe in it when you get there.

Do not work so hard at finding ways to avoid heaven, it will happen by default unless you choose otherwise.

 

[GEddie]

Even granting that everything that OP said is true, (and I’ll NOT get into the chimp issue), this does not disprove Heaven.

The reason being, that we will receive a resurrection, that will restore our bodies and heads to us. Even if there were no classical “soul”, the resurrection will ensure that at some point our minds come back on, and we would then experience Heaven.

Heaven is never described as a “head-trip without a head.” We inherited such a paradigm from classical philosophy, however Scripture always presents Heaven as an embodied state of being. And our LORD established this by walking HIS human body out of death and back to Heaven.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[GEddie]

My question has always been, where does the life go? One moment a person lives, the body is animated, and the next moment the body is lifeless and we can see what’s happened to it, but the “animated part” is gone with no seeming explanation.

The “life” is not part of the body, it is a process held and expressed by the body. When the body is whole, it holds life. When the body is too broken (maybe visibly, maybe at the microscopic level, in a natural death) to be able to hold life, life ceases, at least in time.

The law of entropy requires that our bodies will in time deteriorate beyond the point of holding life. But “Eternal Life” is not bound by time.

In any case we’re finite, physical beings but with God all things are possible-including the experience of heaven.

Indeed. God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[GEddie]

1. Our minds are products of our experiences (conscious and subconsciously) and develop over time. It is based on a good and bad experiences, which turns us into certain directions.

This does not argue against Heaven. We could be placed in this world, in our natural forms, so as to gain expereinces, which would then be ported to the heads of our resurrectional bodies in Heaven.

1. The Mind and Brain are One. Our brains are thought processing machines. Since our minds are products of our brain, bound to the brain, there is no way to experience heaven.

.

No, your mind and your brain are not the same. Your mind is a process that resides in your brain. It won’t work unless the brain is intact and provided with breath-filled blood. But that does NOT prevent GOD providing a new host system, ie head/body, on the other side of time.

Presumably, you wrote your piece on a personal computer of some type. If it were destroyed, you would perforce be offline. But only until you were able to replace the system. Likewise your mind. The system does not restart in this world; but GOD can restart it in Heaven.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[5tunate]

1. What if you say that our mind is what processes sense impressions, memory, and other data as a function of awareness, that being an aspect of Consciousness that identifies with a vehicle wired to sustain that kind of connection? Then there can be Mind, as the Mind of God, and mind, as the image and likeness of that Mind, as in one can’t know that which they aren’t. Therefore Soul. and not dual, only appearing to be so at lesser levels of observation, particularly of intellectual assertion.
2. Is it more likely, since we experience that thoughts come before actions, that brain and mind are a product of Mind over time?
3. When the brain dies, its contents as personal memory may die with it while the feeling (not sense or reason) patterns of those may be retained in Mind, to be re-constituted, continued, or dissolved over time, the arch-typical patterns nevertheless being retained as part of Mind.

As for heaven? Best way to experience it is be there. But what do you mean by heaven? A place? A personal relationship with God? Going to Jesus? Clouds and harps? Muslim heaven? Nirvana? Happy hunting ground? What?

If “soul” is the animating factor in Man, what might it then be in chimps or amoebas? Or what structures matter? Is there a separate life force for Man and then another for material and all else that lives, moves, and breaths? Unlikely, though we might consider here the idea of degrees and kinds. Life can be said to BE, independent of form, and yet support and include all forms.

And you say some very important things about language. The mind works in symbols. You are one who might enjoy, for a dim start, the Wiki page on General Semantics.

Interesting post. Thanks.

 

[lemondiesel]

The premise of your arguement is sublimly sinister in that the reciprocal position of your arguement is that “there is no hell”. If we cannot experience heaven, guess what no hell either.

No, the premise of my argument is that how can you experience anything (and we experience through our senses) when the organ used to interpreting these experiences is decaying in a casket? The premise of your argument is that we can experience, and know we are experiencing, without the human brain and body. Even dreams that feel so real, are creations of the mind.

This does not argue against Heaven. We could be placed in this world, in our natural forms, so as to gain expereinces, which would then be ported to the heads of our resurrectional bodies in Heaven.

Fair enough, but may I ask if you are implying that this resurrectional body is composed of matter?

Heaven is never described as a “head-trip without a head.” We inherited such a paradigm from classical philosophy, however Scripture always presents Heaven as an embodied state of being. And our LORD established this by walking HIS human body out of death and back to Heaven.

Then why were Jesus, Mary, Enoch and Elijah taken body and soul into heaven? As asked above, is the Bible claiming that matter exists in heaven? If this is so, then heaven should be a measurable place, right?

 

[tonyrey]

1. Our minds are products of our experiences (conscious and subconsciously) and develop over time. It is based on a good and bad experiences, which turns us into certain directions.

If the mind is a product of experiences it didn’t exist to begin with and it cannot be an agent! So what is it exactly? Until you can answer that question your hypothesis remains no more than a hypothesis.

1. The Mind and Brain are One. Our brains are thought processing machines. Since our minds are products of our brain, bound to the brain, there is no way to experience heaven.

Why not thought-producing machines? I’m afraid you haven’t given any reason for that assumption.

1. If the brain dies, the mind ceases to continue. Your personality and the organ you think (experience) with remain in the brain, in your body.

If the mind ceases to exist your personality and experience don’t remain anywhere!

Even if you disagree with those, there still remains the issue of similar brain structures in animals. All the parts found in a chimpanzee brain, along with other mammals, are found in humans. If we are going to say they exist outside the body, then we must also suspend judgment for the chimp. We have the exact same brain structure, so we can not through out them having some sort of soul or spirit.

Way back in 1933 Nobel prize winner Sir Charles Sherrington pointed out in his Rede Lecture at Cambridge on The Brain and its Mechanism that we have no scientific right to join mental with physiological experience nor to assume that animals are biological machines without a spirit.

Why? Because our experiences are based on language. Without it, we cannot even express our feelings. We wouldn’t even have inner dialect! Language is what separates us from the example of the chimpanzee.

Not only language but free will, rational insight, moral awareness and responsibility, aesthetic sensibility and the capacity for love which transcends time and space… Animals are immensely valuable but they are not persons!

 

[lemondiesel]

If the mind is a product of experiences it didn’t exist to begin with and it cannot be an agent! So what is it exactly? Until you can answer that question your hypothesis remains no more than a hypothesis.

The mind has not always existed, which I never implied. My opinion is that the first cognitive decision making in mammals was just after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The first mammals were nocturnal, which is living in a completely different reality. Now this mammal wasn’t big at all, and survived the extinction. Now without the daytime threats, they explored into new territory. By that I mean, daytime experiences compared to previous night time experiences.

A distinction between the two different realities, and new possible foods and living spaces.

Why not thought-producing machines? I’m afraid you haven’t given any reason for that assumption.

Can you provide an example of a produced thought, that isn’t taken from an interpretation from reality?

If the mind ceases to exist your personality and experience don’t remain anywhere!

Yes, but we are still alive. We just lack what makes us human beings.

Way back in 1933 Nobel prize winner Sir Charles Sherrington pointed out in his Rede Lecture at Cambridge on The Brain and its Mechanism that we have no scientific right to join mental with physiological experience nor to assume that animals are biological machines without a spirit.

Are you saying that just because we are composed of similar parts, it is not safe to assume that we are similar? Sorry, I feel confused after this one…

Not only language but free will, rational insight, moral awareness and responsibility, aesthetic sensibility and the capacity for love which transcends time and space… Animals are immensely valuable but they are not persons!

You are going too in depth. How does one know what any of those attributes are without a language to express them?

 

[PrairieDawn]

I don’t know what Heaven is like, but I hope it has a really big library. (Or the transcendent equivalent).

Prairie.

Blessed Father, in Your infinite wisdom you have made me an incurable nerd. Thank You for DNA. And RNA. And an aesthetic sense that’s stretchy enough to appreciate it.

 

[GEddie]

[M]ay I ask if you are implying that this resurrectional body is composed of matter?

It has to be. The alternative is probably a contradiction in terms; namely, a “bodiless body.”

However, I don’t assume that the biological earth presently wrapped around our minds is the only substance that thinking bodies can be built from, particularly in Eternity.

Heaven is never described as a “head-trip without a head.” We inherited such a paradigm from classical philosophy, however Scripture always presents Heaven as an embodied state of being. And our LORD established this by walking HIS human body out of death and back to Heaven.

Then why were Jesus, Mary, Enoch and Elijah taken body and soul into heaven?

I don’t get this question. If, as I wrote, Heaven is an embodied state of being, why wouldn’t some human beings achieve it in their human bodies?

Death is, depending upon whom you ask, a divine punishment, or a simple human corollary of the law of entropy. It is not intrinsic to the human being. The GOD who made human life (and Heaven) could easily circumvent His laws to enable some human beings to experience Heaven without the hideosity of first being dead.

As asked above, is the Bible claiming that matter exists in heaven?

It either does, or will exist. Heaven lies in Eternity, not in physical time. The Bible says that even the dead human bodies will be raised to live Eternally in Heaven. The fact that we see the eyes roll back and their owner never move or think again, is due to the fact that the person’s reinstatement does not exist in our time. But it does on the other side of time.

If this is so, then heaven should be a measurable place, right?

Not necessarily, to be measured from within our human time. All measurements require time.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

 

[tonyrey]

If the mind is a product of experiences it didn’t exist to begin with and it cannot be an agent! So what is it exactly? Until you can answer that question your hypothesis remains no more than a hypothesis.

You are assuming that the** fundamental **reality is the physical universe which is pointless and thoughtless! How would you justify that assumption?

Why not thought-producing machines? I’m afraid you haven’t given any reason for that assumption.

Can you provide an example of a produced thought, that isn’t taken from an interpretation from reality?

Reality is not restricted to external reality. Thoughts are more immediately real to us than any material object. Interpretation presupposes an **intangible intelligence.
**

If the mind ceases to exist your personality and experience don’t remain anywhere!

Yes, but we are still alive. We just lack what makes us human beings.

So the mind is more significant than the body!

Way back in 1933 Nobel prize winner Sir Charles Sherrington pointed out in his Rede Lecture at Cambridge on The Brain and its Mechanism that we have no scientific right to join mental with physiological experience nor to assume that animals are biological machines without a spirit.

Are you saying that just because we are composed of similar parts, it is not safe to assume that we are similar? Sorry, I feel confused after this one…

We are** physically** similar but our spiritual nature is made in the image of God.

Not only language but free will, rational insight, moral awareness and responsibility, aesthetic sensibility and the capacity for love which transcends time and space… Animals are immensely valuable but they are not persons!

You are going too in depth. How does one know what any of those attributes are without a language to express them?

Language implies insight and the power of abstract thought. It is a tool for expressing and communicating truths but it does not produce them. Knowledge precedes language.

 

[lemondiesel]

You are assuming that the** fundamental **reality is the physical universe which is pointless and thoughtless! How would you justify that assumption?

Why is that pointless and thoughtless?

Reality is not restricted to external reality. Thoughts are more immediately real to us than any material object. Interpretation presupposes an **intangible intelligence.
**

There are always more than one way of interpretation. I would argue that the possible obtainment of intelligence presupposes the intangible interpretations.

So the mind is more significant than the body!

The mind is more complex than the body, but without the material make up, the mind does not exist. So they are one.

We are** physically** similar but our spiritual nature is made in the image of God.

My personal beliefs are that we are all gods, because we make up our knowledge. Our human developed language is what our knowledge is.

Language implies insight and the power of abstract thought. It is a tool for expressing and communicating truths but it does not produce them. Knowledge precedes language.

Beauty precedes language which together precedes knowledge. Our language was developed to communicate our thoughts. This was based on the observable environment. I am talking about complex language, because sign motions and cave drawings need words to fully be expressed.

 

[tonyrey]

You are assuming that the fundamental reality is the physical universe which is pointless and thoughtless! How would you justify that assumption?

Is there any evidence that the universe has a purpose and thoughts?
“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless”
– Steven Weinberg

Reality is not restricted to external reality. Thoughts are more immediately real to us than any material object. Interpretation presupposes an intangible intelligence.

There are always more than one way of interpretation. I would argue that the possible obtainment of intelligence presupposes the intangible interpretations.

How is it obtained?

So the mind is more significant than the body!

The mind is more complex than the body, but without the material make up, the mind does not exist. So they are one.

How do you know the mind does not exist without the brain? Is there conclusive evidence?

We are physically similar but our spiritual nature is made in the image of God.

My personal beliefs are that we are all gods, because we make up our knowledge. Our human developed language is what our knowledge is.

A god usually means a being with supernatural powers…

Language implies insight and the power of abstract thought. It is a tool for expressing and communicating truths but it does not produce them. Knowledge precedes language.

Beauty precedes language which together precedes knowledge. Our language was developed to communicate our thoughts. This was based on the observable environment. I am talking about complex language, because sign motions and cave drawings need words to fully be expressed.

How do you recognise beauty? What caused language to develop?

 

[lemondiesel]

Is there any evidence that the universe has a purpose and thoughts?
“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless”
– Steven Weinberg

Of course it does. The matter that makes up everything in the universe works as one. Our bodies, every atom works for a purpose. Working as one.

How is it obtained?

The mind is created once there is recognition of self. “I am” in other words.

How do you know the mind does not exist without the brain? Is there conclusive evidence?

When one has a concussion, the nervous system is briefly under paralysis. The person does not remember anything and is temporarily taken out of reality. The nervous system is what reacts to our senses, which the brain reacts to.

Have you ever thought about lucid dreaming in a coma? Doesn’t that just sound trippy :whacky:

A god usually means a being with supernatural powers…

You can be anything you want. Never let that imagination side of you go, for you will lose sight of true happiness.

How do you recognise beauty? What caused language to develop?

You recognize beauty when you realize existence. When you recognize that, you just want to describe everything around you. Haven’t you realized how big of a chatter box children are? lol

 

[lemondiesel]

It has to be. The alternative is probably a contradiction in terms; namely, a “bodiless body.”

Whatever comes after this life will be the greatest thing. We were apart of history, and made our own histories. It will be infinite bliss.

However, I don’t assume that the biological earth presently wrapped around our minds is the only substance that thinking bodies can be built from, particularly in Eternity.

How amazing will Eternity be? Always part of existence…being one.

I don’t get this question. If, as I wrote, Heaven is an embodied state of being, why wouldn’t some human beings achieve it in their human bodies?

My apologies, yes I agree with the bold statement.

Death is, depending upon whom you ask, a divine punishment, or a simple human corollary of the law of entropy. It is not intrinsic to the human being. The GOD who made human life (and Heaven) could easily circumvent His laws to enable some human beings to experience Heaven without the hideosity of first being dead.

Whatever is responsible for Existence, I praise it by recognizing that I exist. We will have to see what happens then

It either does, or will exist. Heaven lies in Eternity, not in physical time. The Bible says that even the dead human bodies will be raised to live Eternally in Heaven.

Our bodies decompose and the atoms are used somewhere else. Our bodies reunite with the dust (earth) from which we were formed.

Not necessarily, to be measured from within our human time. All measurements require time.

True, and time takes a language to interpret.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA.

No sir, God Bless you. Thank you for giving me insight :tiphat:

 

[tonyrey]

Is there any evidence that the universe has a purpose and thoughts?
“The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless”
– Steven Weinberg

Our bodies work for a purpose but what is the purpose of the universe?

The mind is created once there is recognition of self. “I am” in other words.

What recognises the self before the mind is created?

When one has a concussion, the nervous system is briefly under paralysis. The person does not remember anything and is temporarily taken out of reality. The nervous system is what reacts to our senses, which the brain reacts to.

By “taken out of reality” you mean “taken out of** physical** reality”. How do you know
physical reality is the sole reality?

You can be anything you want. Never let that imagination side of you go, for you will lose sight of true happiness.

The imagination does not always correspond to reality. Few would agree that you can be anything you want!

How do you recognise beauty? What caused language to develop?

You recognize beauty when you realize existence. When you recognize that, you just want to describe everything around you. Haven’t you realized how big of a chatter box children are?

I agree that existence is beautiful but the urge to describe everything doesn’t explain how human beings became capable of creating syntactic language. Animals cannot produce sentences.

 

[lemondiesel]

Our bodies work for a purpose but what is the purpose of the universe?.

To correspond with the mind. The universe provides the physical existence, where the mind provides the interpretation of existence.

What recognises the self before the mind is created?.

When one realizes internally that he is. There is cognitive problem solving in the mind before, but it eventually leads to self recognition.

By “taken out of reality” you mean “taken out of** physical** reality”. How do you know
physical reality is the sole reality?.

Our senses are only our interpretation of reality, but everything that has senses is bound to this physical reality. We all sense the same physical reality.

The imagination does not always correspond to reality. Few would agree that you can be anything you want!.

Well if you mean by casting lightning bolts from your hands then sure, but imagination only exists within the mind. However, imagination sometimes can create new things in reality, much like man’s imagination of flight would lead to creation of the airplane.

I agree that existence is beautiful but the urge to describe everything doesn’t explain how human beings became capable of creating syntactic language. Animals cannot produce sentences.

The beauty of nature is why we have syntactic language. Our language corresponds to reality

 

[tonyrey]

Our bodies work for a purpose but what is the purpose of the universe?

To correspond with the mind. The universe provides the physical existence, where the mind provides the interpretation of existence.

Does the universe** intend** to correspond with the mind? Or is it a coincidence?

What recognises the self before the mind is created?

When one realizes internally that he is.

How can one realize the fact of existence without a mind?

By “taken out of reality” you mean “taken out of physical reality”. How do you know
physical reality is the sole reality?.

Our senses are only our interpretation of reality, but everything that has senses is bound to this physical reality. We all sense the same physical reality.

Do you believe physical reality is the sole reality?

The imagination does not always correspond to reality. Few would agree that you can be anything you want!.

Well if you mean by casting lightning bolts from your hands then sure, but imagination only exists within the mind. However, imagination sometimes can create new things in reality, much like man’s imagination of flight would lead to creation of the airplane.

I agree that you can “sometimes” be anything you want.

I agree that existence is beautiful but the urge to describe everything doesn’t explain how human beings became capable of creating syntactic language. Animals cannot produce sentences.

The beauty of nature is why we have syntactic language. Our language corresponds to reality.

“why” <> “how”!