Stephen Hawking: When we die, our brains switch off like computers

[Meatpie]

Heaven is a ‘fairy story for people afraid of the dark’, Professor Stephen Hawking suggested yesterday.

As well as saying there is no heaven or afterlife, the renowned scientist said that our brains switch off like ‘broken down computers’ when we die.

His comments upset some religious groups, already angry at his statement last year that the universe was not created by God.

Professor Hawking’s latest remarks came in an interview in which the theoretical physicist told how he had learnt to live in the shadow of death since being diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged 21.

The disease, which is incurable, was expected to kill him within a few years. Instead, he said, it ultimately led him to enjoy life more.

The 69-year-old Cambridge University academic said: ‘I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years.

‘I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first.

‘I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.

‘There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.’

Agree or disagree? Please take part in our poll.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ng-Heaven-fairy-story-people-afraid-dark.html

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[feetboy]

oh what does he know. it might be true, it might not be true. you know, let people have their fairy stories. if it gives them comfort when times are dark, let them have it. thats what i say.

 

[Leon]

I agree strongly. Death= eternal darkness, nothing more than that. afterlife? just an excuse that can make human feel better to face death.

 

[Meatpie]

I also believe that once you die you are destroyed and gone from this universe forever. There is no turning back so Stephen is right whether other universes exist - no one really knows the question to that one.

 

[PiercedChest]

I hold the view that your mind (=soul =spirit =whatever you like to call it) is nothing more than the result of your brain cells working. If they stop, you're gone. No ghosts remain or go elsewhere; they cannot exist independently. Quite reassuring, really.

If it were otherwise, science would have shown that by now.

 

[JValdez]

BUT you have to see the death process to truly know the "before & after" status of the body; once the former inhabitant has left, there is a remarkable change, the "spark", "id", "soul"; whatever you want to call it, drives the body, and once it's gone, the body is just that, a collection of tissue, muscle, bones, etc.; the question then always becomes, what is the "spark", & where did it go? Or more importantly, where did it come from? From that initial cell division that produced two cells, then four then eight? If the body is a collection of electro-chemical impulses, where does the first impluse come from? Not to get into a heavy theoretical debate, but . . . (please be gentle, this is my first time) hehe

 

[CamoNoose]

I think that the problem with this debate is always the simple matter that it comes down to whatever you believe that answers the question for you in your own life. For some it is answered by their religous/spriitual beliefs, for others it is pure logic or science and for others a combination of the two. After all, you only get to die once and therefore a little hard to come back and tell us what happened.

 

[Risley Roper]

I suspect that when we die we are turned off like computers,however, near death out of body experiences suggest that consciousness may be possible when the brain is showing no electrical activity.In some near death experiences patients in operating theatres have`flatlined`,and upon recovery seem to have knowledge of events which occurred when they were without the electrical activity in the brain that is said to be required for consciousness.
The above seems to me to be the only rational grounds for hope that we aren`t just `turned off`.
We don`t know how consciousness is produced,Is it possible that forces unknown to us at the present interact with the physical substance of the brain to produce consciousness?

 

[Risley Roper]

I suspect that when we die we are turned off like computers,however, near death out of body experiences suggest that consciousness may be possible when the brain is showing no electrical activity.In some near death experiences patients in operating theatres have`flatlined`,and upon recovery seem to have knowledge of events which occurred when they were without the electrical activity in the brain that is said to be required for consciousness.
The above seems to me to be the only rational grounds for hope that we aren`t just `turned off`.
We don`t know how consciousness is produced,Is it possible that forces unknown to us at the present interact with the physical substance of the brain to produce consciousness?

 

[Lycanthrope]

who cares...death is death