Its hard to describe how I feel about it, its just so deep and profound...
Consciousness itself, as apart from the behavior and computation that goes on in the brain, is a mystery of neuroscience. So maybe somehow it persists after we die? NDEs kinda shed light on that
RIP up in the stars man
that can only be true if our consciousness does indeed survive. because if we are not conscious of who we are and what we learned during our life on earth then what would be the point of reflecting and meeting others there?
Not only by religions; also by Philip José Farmer in his Riverworld series of SF novels.
As far as I can see all you can explain is that its there, but can't understand why, which suggests its transcendent over what we can see and measure
And what we can see in terms of the physical world is not proof that there isn't more to existence
Take the plant that gains sustenance from the sun and the earth, yet the fact that it has no faculties of perception that allows it to understand those processes is not proof that they don't exist
So perhaps we are like plants in a greater universe? Again, NDE's (near death experiences) are also suggestive of this
And also looking at how Baha'i taught equality of women / men, and the need for independent investigation of truth, and dedicating one's self to helping the poor etc... coming from 19th century Persia that was pretty barbaric and fanatical where women couldn't even show their faces in public much less get educated, and where plundering each other and favoritism was literally the primary engine for their economy... kinda shows that perhaps there is insight in the original Baha'i teachers
Its good to keep an open mind about stuff, and recognize that knowledge of all kinds is only tentative
All of us are finite and ignorant
Perhaps we can someday identify physical artifacts of conscious awareness, but how does that explain the root of conscious awareness? There is a difference between that and showing that conscious awareness is physically plausible, and perhaps even likely, according to experiment alone as opposed to our own personal experiences
Perhaps if we understood more about the brain, that would open our eyes to something we cannot even imagine today that would shed light on this issue
Perhaps science alone has capabilities that are more profound that we can see today, in being able to delve into such issues?
we can measure and calculate the effect, but we can't explain it. at least some attempts to explain it call for particles like gravitons that haven't been found yet. this seems to me just like looking for pixie dust to explain consciousness.