Scientific afterlife hypothesis

[HbroChris]

Did you not read about Cheddar Man living over 9,000 years ago who was found in a cave? The body was excavated in 1903 and his DNA is a perfect match to two school children living in Cheddar village.

 

If humankind can ‘appear’ once you cannot say it cannot happen and thanks to DNA it may be that people and families will know and recognise each other?

 

I'm putting it forward as a theory and I'm not prepared to argue about it.

 

Cheddar Man was different. It was a match in mitochondiral DNA, which is identical (with the exception of mutations) up the maternal line (ie. your mitochondrial DNA will be *exactly* the same as your maternal great-great-grandmother's).

 

His DNA didn't just come to life again, he was their direct ancestor's sibling.

 

Although you are quite right in your earlier post; DNA is a very stable molecule, especially as it's wound up in a cell (it only unwinds into its helix in order to replicate or be repaired). Teeth and bones are particularly good at protecting the DNA in marrow cells.

[fake]

We simply don't know everything and never will. And being open to the way of thinking that things are possible outside our realm of knowledge is NOT solipsism

 

Given that logic? then 1 + 1 could also be 100 and it could also be possible to travel faster that light, even though science seems to prove that both are impossible. One of the reason you need to define what you mean by afterlife.

 

Anything is possible but its whether its probable that counts.

 

Graham;

 

If humankind was wiped out from this planet it could appear again given the right set of circumstances but, that does not mean any afterlife.

[HbroChris]

Up to now, I'm liking the quantum entanglement idea - where are the other pairs though? Across the other side of the universe? like a relection in the axis?

 

I don't think it matters. My quantum physics is a little rusty (truth be told, it was never entirely free of oxidation!) but I think the quarks have to have been a pair originally, and then that pair maintains their connection. It's very tenuous reasoning on my part, but the thread is all about possibilities.

 

I honestly believe in the near future (say 50 yrs) we will be able to model an actual brain in a computer, including all the pathways. As far as the model is concerned it will be alive and thinking, it will do everything a physical brain does, I'd say this is afterlife.

 

Exactly so. It's just a question of computing power, although I imagine the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle would stop you creating an exact copy of any particular brain's state it might well be possible to simulate a full brain and allow it to develop as a human's would.

[HbroChris]

Given that logic? then 1 + 1 could also be 100 and it could also be possible to travel faster that light.

 

Well, 1+1=2 isn't really a cause and effect thing, so I doubt it counts (heh, sorry).

 

You can travel faster than the current speed of light in one of four ways:

 

1. You have zero mass

2. You use infinite energy

3. You alter the speed of light (effectively warping the curvature of spacetime, I imagine this involves gravity)

4. You do it in another continuum, where the speed of light is different.

[flamingjimmy]

I apologise for trying to bring any scientific thinking to this thread, I was misled by the title.

[Grahame]

Cheddar Man was different. It was a match in mitochondiral DNA, which is identical (with the exception of mutations) up the maternal line (ie. your mitochondrial DNA will be *exactly* the same as your maternal great-great-grandmother's).

 

His DNA didn't just come to life again, he was their direct ancestor's sibling.

 

Although you are quite right in your earlier post; DNA is a very stable molecule, especially as it's wound up in a cell (it only unwinds into its helix in order to replicate or be repaired). Teeth and bones are particularly good at protecting the DNA in marrow cells.

 

All I was doing was making the point that DNA are building blocks that form the basis of evolution and the material is already there.

 

[HbroChris]

But it is a huge leap, one made without any justification whatsoever.

 

The field strength you generate is pretty puny and pathetic, it could not contain 'you' or your 'soul' or anything daft like that.

 

Yes, I absolutely agree.

 

But what if? The amount of information that can be gathered from a pattern of energy is not related to the intensity of the energy itself.

 

My point was that my EKG is different to your EKG and both can be detected from outside our bodies. However small the effect, in a very real way our minds are affecting the air around us and in a different way.

 

Can I download your mind just by standing near you? No, clearly not, at the moment. Can I infer your likely emotional state from a sensor held very near your head. Yes, I can.

[HbroChris]

All I was doing was making the point that DNA are building blocks that form the basis of evolution and the material is already there.

 

Yes, and at the risk of monopolising the thread, I've been thinking about your point.

 

The (initial) structure of your brain is determined by your genes. The structure of your brain determines how you think and react and therefore might have some bearing on this soul concept (I say that because I think we're talking more about essence of consciousness than a Soul in the classical sense).

 

So maybe your DNA can (after you are dead, or even before) be used to infer how you might think and react. What do you think?

[Grahame]

Yes, and at the risk of monopolising the thread, I've been thinking about your point.

 

The (initial) structure of your brain is determined by your genes. The structure of your brain determines how you think and react and therefore might have some bearing on this soul concept (I say that because I think we're talking more about essence of consciousness than a Soul in the classical sense).

 

So maybe your DNA can (after you are dead, or even before) be used to infer how you might think and react. What do you think?

 

Seeing as genes are contained within the DNA I imagine all the information is there?

 

We can forget the body and the brain because they have rotted away but if my understanding is correct the genes and the DNA remain? If they have consciousness or became conscious perhaps due to electromagnetic energy? or something similar, then I suggest we may have what people call the soul?

 

[HeadingNorth]

So maybe your DNA can (after you are dead, or even before) be used to infer how you might think and react. What do you think?

 

I'm not sure if that's true even in theory, but if you take the molecular composition of the body as a whole, it is; the DNA on its own might be enough or might not.

 

The practical point, though, is that the calculations are flatly impossible to perform in any other way than having the person there in front of you and observing what he does. Quite literally, impossible; a computer the size of the entire Universe, made of components each the size of a subatomic particle, and running a program for the entire history of the Universe, still wouldn't have enough time to complete them and give you the answer.