>When we go to sleep we know we will wake back up in the morning. Sleep is a tremendously interesting thing to me. The fact is, you *don't* know you will wake back up. You have an expectation that you will, which amounts to an inductive conclusion based on your memory of having awoken from sleep in the past. But there is no certainty you won't die in your sleep this very evening. >If we knew we would not wake back up ever again we would try to resist sleep for as long as we can. I think that's right. >But that is my logical conclusion with the evidence i have seen. I have to ask, in principle, what empirical evidence could you possibly hope to obtain about the afterlife? Consider something for a moment: whatever your imagination tells you might *count* as 'evidence' for proof of an afterlife would have to be scientific, no? Okay, let's say that's something like irrefutable proof of a spirit apparition or ectoplasm, or whatever. Consider now what science takes itself to be, or rather, what it defines for its domain of explanation. If it found evidence of a spirit or ectoplasm, instantly this evidence becomes part of the natural world because science refutes the supernatural *a priori*. No matter what it discovered, it would always work to dispel whatever science defines itself *against*. Since science includes methodological naturalism, anything that it studies becomes scientifically natural and can be explained away by scientific materialism as what now belongs to man and not to God. >Have you ever heard of DMT? I think that might be the true reality and that this is the dream world. This is interesting, but not for the reasons you'll probably want to hear. DMT is a compound. It is a chemical which has structural analogs in both dopamine and serotonin, and it interacts with dopamine receptors and the 5HT-2a serotonin receptor primarily. Because it is a neurotransmitter, this means it has its effects through the very same structures and processes that cause your regular experience of reality. This forms the basis of my question: throughout an entire life of your regular, sober experience of the world, you say that you haven't found any 'evidence' of higher reality (though you admit that you are not certain death is final). Why, then, would introducing an outside neurotransmitter (that creates an experience through the very same material pathways) cause you to *gain evidence* of ultimate reality that you trust as true evidence? Do you see the logic of my question? I'm not sure that I'm being clear. If you cannot trust your regular experience to tell you something about ultimate reality, why would altering that experience with a chemical suddenly reveal ultimate reality to you? Logic is not sufficient to convince you of the reality of a necessary being, but a psychedelic experience is trustworthy evidence? >And that the entities people see are the “gods” or “angels” of our reality. I'll be a little more charitable and entertain it's possible that you're right. I just wanted to mention that the Kabbalistic tradition believes that directly adjacent to the level of reality we experience, is a strange reality called Yesod which is basically a world of spirit and potential, but one where many spirits reside. The human soul returning to God must pass through this level on its ascent, but the spirits here are many, and some are neutral toward man while others are malevolent. It's an interesting thought to consider that certain substances by way of their effects on brain states could give a person a glimpse of that reality, and that people do witness spiritual beings this way. The fact we are told DMT is secreted and released upon death makes it more interesting, but I don't know whether this is true or myth. At any rate, I'm not inclined to think that recreational or even mystical use of DMT is advisable. I personally don't believe that any good can come of it, and that whether the reality of the contents of DMT-experience is that these are mere hallucination or a peek 'behind the curtain', there is no possibility epistemologically for these to serve as any kind of evidence. There is certainly no good reason to treat the subjective contents of an inner mental experience on drugs as a better case about the truth of reality than logical investigation. It amazes me that you'd put more stock in something like a drug trip that literally anybody could have by drinking a cup of Ayahuasca, versus the logical discoveries of some of the most inarguably brilliant minds to have ever existed (Aristotle, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Anselm, William of Ockham, etc.). In effect, you're giving more authority to Joe Rogan to tell you about ultimate reality than Aristotle. That's worth reconsidering. EDIT: I'd just point out that your whole case highlights something I consider interesting, which is that it capitulates to a *modern* echo of the need for religious experience: Truth must be *given to us*. On the one hand, science becomes a sort of objective third-party instrument that interfaces between us and reality, giving truth to us by way of measurement discovery. On the other hand, we can be given the internal 'religious' experience through the cryptic chemical. It all reinforces the fascination with esoteria, or peeling back the layers of reality. Whether it's mysticism proper or science or DMT, you want something to *happen to you*. On all fronts you've rejected as least valuable the power of the human intellect to ascend to the Truth. In other words, Truth must be revealed. This is interesting. @PS @KingOfWhiteAmerica