Continuity of Consciousness

Imagine your brain is like a radio and your self is the music playing through the speakers. If the radio breaks, the music does not die; the signal is still in the air, but the radio just cannot catch it anymore. Some thinkers believe that our minds are part of a big signal that exists everywhere in the universe. Our bodies are just the tools that let that signal talk and play for a while. When the tool stops working, the music simply returns to the air.

If the radio breaks the music does not die — the signal is still in the air. The brain does not generate consciousness the way a factory generates products. The brain may receive consciousness the way a radio receives a broadcast. If you smash a radio, you have not killed the song. You have only destroyed one receiver. The question is not whether consciousness exists after death. The question is whether consciousness exists independently of the brain. If it does, then death is a change of channel. Not the end of the broadcast. And the broadcast never asked for permission to begin.

The filter theory of consciousness (Bergson, Huxley): the brain as receiver rather than generator. Orch-OR (Penrose-Hameroff) proposes quantum processes in microtubules as the basis of consciousness. Death is a change of channel. Not the end of the broadcast.

SOUND: Static between stations slowly turning into a clear melody: the signal finding a new receiver.

SMELL: Petrichor — rain on dry pavement: the scent of something arriving from somewhere else.

TASTE: The metallic tang of a battery on your tongue: the taste of raw signal.

TOUCH: Static electricity making your hair stand up: the field reaching through your body.

SIGHT: A candle flame flickering in a dark room: light that came from somewhere and will go somewhere.

BODY: The feeling of presence in a room even when you are alone: the signal without a visible source.

Music: No Surprises by Radiohead

Part of Death & The End — CONSCIOUSNESS — Education Revelation