Origin of Denial of Death

[Roadwalker]

Fellow Beckerites,

Do we have any ancient historians in the house?

Does anyone know who or what society initiated the idea that human consciousness is separable from the human brain and hence susceptible to being "brought back to life" in an afterlife??

In my layman's way of thinking, the ultimate in Denial of Death is to believe that death is essentially meaningless because a perfectly preserved consciousness of a person will be restored to life at some future time.

Thanks.

/ Bill Penner /

[Daniel Liechty]

As difficult as it is for us to understand how people could think
otherwise, ancient people did not generally associate consciousness or
the Symbolic Self with the brain at all. They were much more likely to
locate the "seat" of the Symbolic Self in the chest, the heart, or
even the bowels, than the brain. The Egyptian mummifiers, as typical
examples here, would go to great lengths to preserve all of the body
they could, including little separate jars for the mummified heart,
liver and stomach. But the brain was simply sucked out through the
nose, along with all the other sinus snot(!) and fed to the dogs. It
is a total anachronism to assume that ancient people had the same
brain=self connection that we do, as even a cursory reading of the
biblical Psalms makes clear. It is interesting to think that future
humans may look at our fixation on the brain=self with much the same
humor that we look at the ancients' connection of self to the chest,
heart and bowels.

BTW, here's an interesting game to play with a child. Ask the child
"Where is the REAL Johnny? - Is he here?" (point to the foot, leg,
arm, ears, hands, etc.) The response will likely be No, even when
pointing to Johnny's forehead. The Yes responses for young children
also tend to center in the belly region, not in the head. It is mostly
only when children have started to read silently that they associate
their "real me!" in their head.

A good book to review in the regard is Julian Jaynes The Origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind.


----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Illinois State University RedbirdMail

[Michael Baumgardner]

Well, I’m not an ancient historian by any means, but I recently read James Breasted’s “Dawn of Conscience” (1933) and made a few notes on some passages:

"...the domestication of wild wheat and barley completely transformed the life of prehistoric man, as he shifted from the wandering existence of a hunter... The imperishable life of the frutiful earth, which died and ever rose again many times multiplied, was personified as a dying and ever rising god... Osiris ... and many local gods were believed to have lived, died, and risin again. ...Over and over again the rising of Osiris is reiterated, as the human protest against death found insistent expression in the invincible fact that he rose."

"Among no people, ancient or modern, has the idea of a life beyond the grave held so prominent a place as among the ancient Egyptians...
the Egyptian, like ourselves, could not dissociate a person from the body as an instrument or vehicle of sensation... In beginning the new and untried life after death, the deceased was greatly aided by a protecting guradian spirit called the ka, which came into being with each person, followed him throughout life, and passed before him into the life hereafter."  

"The pyramids of Egypt represent the culmination of the belief in material equipment as completely effacious in securing felcity for the dead. They are the imposing final manifestation of the age-long struggle for the conquest of purely physical forces - a struggle which had been going on for perhaps a million years.  ...That the conception of a celestial paradise, later universal in the Christian world, had its origin in the same enormously old Egyptian belief can hardly be doubted.”

Then there is Spinoza who is known for the idea that human consciousness is NOT separable from the human brain.  "The mind can neither imagine nor recollect anything save while in the body” (Spinoza, Ethics, 1677).  Decaying bodies all around perhaps led to the idea of a “Godly” resurrection.  Somehow a miracle I guess.

To your point, I would suggest that some of the thinking of Alan Watts is a modern world interpretation of human consciousness separable from the human brain.  The way I interpret Watts, because we are the universe, we are God.  Sort of like bubbles of God’s consciousness in the form of human beings so at death our consciousness simply reintegrates with that which we truly are - God.  Sort of like the “leaves on a tree” metaphor where the leaf dies but we are really the tree.  

Personally, I remain convinced we are trapped within the limits of reason that Kant expounded and can’t answer these questions.  I see no path out of that.  Mankind was born into a kind of enchanted forest that we have been trying to understand ever since.  There is good and there is evil, beauty and terror surround us.  The fairy tale of man is certainly a fascinating story if one steps back far enough from the spectacle.  I’m wistful I won’t see how the story ends since I’m getting up there in years..

Just a few random thoughts from your question FWIW.

[Gordon Shephard]

Some of the indigenous cultures in the Americas saw individual members of a species (a deer, for instance) as only a temporary incarnation of a spirit (the "deer spirit," in this instance), which is why they would thank the spirit for sending this particular incarnation for them to eat.  The particular incarnation would perish, but the spirit would continue, indefinitely.  Not an unreasonable story in a world in which deer appear, season after season...a beneficent spirit at that, considering the needs of the hunter.  Thus, the great circle of life.

On the other hand, the need to deny death comes before the need to justify denying it.  A "human consciousness" separable from the human body is not any less a "reasonable" story than the "circle of life," though its effects may be different.

--

For Peat's Sake: www.upfromthebog.com

[Doug Mounce]

Rank was familiar with the literature on primitive cultures, and there was a fair amount generated in his era.  I would keep Lewontin's advice in mind about how much of the evolutionary record is lost to us, and thus much of what we will ever know will always be speculation. 

[Doug Mounce]

The mouth and the bowels also provide primitive symbols for breath or spiration (life) as well as the cave opening to the spirals of a labyrinthian death.  Mankind literally examines his navel and liver as the seat of life.  Certain parts of the liver were given names such as fissure, mouth, and finger, while others are called the mountain, street palace and gate of the liver.