Merged A new argument pro Near Death Experiences

[JayUtah]

No, let's be specific Jay, you said...

Yes, lets. First you tell us we're misrepresenting you because we misstated what you said. Then you tell us we're misrepresenting you because we cannot see your nonverbal communication. It seems you're jumping willy-nilly from one argument to another trying desperately to show you've been misrepresented.

Yes, it took a few posts to navigate your hairsplits between explicitly claiming expertise in the sense of saying it in so many words, and your tendency to post things that make sense only if you were expecting the reader to believe you had more expertise than he. You've made several posts that seem to try to meticulously craft your position into one that demands respect for your knowledge, yet doesn't permit it to be tested or require it to be correct.

Yet in all this alleged confusion of interpretation, look how many posters seem to have mysteriously and mistakenly arrived at the same conclusion as I regarding your approach. It's getting harder and harder to blame your critics for your inability to make your debate method work.

I think the majority of the readers can adequately conclude what your problem is since none of that has anything to do with the topic.

And look how the readers responded. I can't speak for the readers, but this is the third or fourth post you've made insinuating I must have some sort of "problem," perhaps psychiatric in nature. Is it necessary to prove your critics are somehow messed up?

Whether your view of the sciences is accurate is eminently on topic. Whether you call them "opinions" or "assumptions," your argument quite clearly tries to connect emerging science to your predetermined beliefs. More on that later.

It is nonsense now that you've explained what the observer really means. However, you can't separate the sciences using one result from this or one result from that without looking at the implications of those results across the board.

No, that's not how science works. Not all claims made in one science are relevant to others.

And every time you try to instruct someone on how the sciences really should be approached you drop yet another insinuation of expertise. I think you need to quickly come to grips with the fact that no one here respects you as any sort of authority on the sciences, whether the approach that should be taken in general, or specific conclusions that can be drawn in individual sciences. You are not a scientist in any conceivable sense of the word.

As for the nature of quantum measurement, that's yet another elementary concept. You insinuate your ability to connect quantum theory credibly with other scientific principles. How can you expect others to take you seriously when you have so little relevant understanding? More importantly, what obligation do your critics have to satisfy your demands for lengthy evidentiary rebuttals to your statements when you've taken so little thought to formulate them?

Let your conscience guide you if you need affirmation on that one, my opinion on the matter isn't going to change.

And neither is my answer. If you believe you are being personally attacked, report my posts for moderation. Otherwise I don't care to hear your complaints.

[Y]ou are not allowed to insult or attack me because you don't like what I'm saying.

And you are not allowed to impose on everyone else your personal beliefs about what constitutes an insult or attack. If you believe you've been insulted or attacked, then raise the matter with the moderators.

You are posting supernatural claims in a skeptic forum. You should expect a skeptic response. Specifically you should expect to be disagreed with adamantly, and you should expect well-qualified people to shoot you down. The reason we have moderators is to separate the credible accusations of personal attacks from the butthurt reactions of claimants whose claims can't survive a skeptical examination. If I had a nickel for every fringe claimant who, upon having his cherished beliefs contradicted by science and fact, whined about being "personally attacked," I'd be a very rich man.

 

[Nonpareil]

Not at all but when someone states that physics isn't involved in biology then they are incorrect, period.

I have said that physics (meaning the mathematical equations of it) is largely irrelevant to the study of biology, which has its own system rules to follow - and this is perfectly true.

And you have no evidence to support that life doesn't exist after death

Save, again and without hyperbole, literally everything we know about consciousness.

Consciousness is brain activity. We know this.

No there isn't, if you think there is evidence to the contrary then link it. I am not the one typing the word magic in any of my posts

No, just "miraculous". And it is not my responsibility to educate you on the study of consciousness any more than it is my responsibility to teach you the definition of "observer" in quantum mechanics.

You need to study these things before you attempt to use them in an argument, Jodie. It is not your opponents' job to make sure you have the necessary material.

I certainly did question your knowledge by asking if you had ever heard of magnetic resonance imaging.

The fact that you thought I might honestly not know what this was is hilarious even without getting into the fact that it is, again, entirely irrelevant to the discussion in hand.

And whether you want to ignore it or not, the theory that mankind will eventually reach a singularity where we will one day blend with machines is relevant to this discussion, however you ignored it.

Because it is science fiction. If you want it to be part of the discussion, you need evidence, Jodie. You need to show that it is actually possible.

The question is does consciousness survive death.

And the answer is no.

I could be right. None of you have provided any evidence that I could be wrong because that evidence doesn't exist.

No, we haven't provided you with links, because no one cares enough to go and dig up scientific studies telling you that there is no evidence for anything supernatural involved in dreams or any other part of consciousness. Particularly when you haven't put in the effort to provide any evidence yourself, or even to do the most basic possible research on the subject.

If you aren't even going to put forth the slightest effort, and just spout nonsense that you assume carries as much weight as the actual science, no one here is required (or particularly inclined) to act as your summer school teacher.

 

[Mojo]

And you have no evidence to support that life doesn't exist after death

Neither do I have evidence to support that fairies don't exist at the bottom of your garden.

 

[JayUtah]

And I still think physics is the crux of all other sciences...

Yes, physics is a foundational science. However that relationship is often grossly misunderstood among non-scientists. To say that physics is a foundational science, for example, is not to claim that an expert in physics is automatically an expert in all the sciences that depend on it. Nor does it mean that every finding in physics is germane to all sciences. Nor does it mean one has to master physics in order to understand other sciences like biology. As a medical healthcare provider, I assume you have some prodigious understanding of aspects of biology, physiology, and so forth. And you have acquired this without needing to be an expert in physics.

...and it will eventually describe what in old religions was thought of as the spirit realm. It might take another couple of thousand years if we survive as a technologically advanced species.

And this sort of rhetoric is alarming. Most fringe claimants in this particular genre adopt the position that science is marching toward a validation of their spiritual and other subjective beliefs. This clearly-stated bias is likely what's driving you to make connections between your beliefs and the physical sciences that aren't supported by the science.

Your predetermination that the ancient religions were somehow correct and that science has to "catch up" is a crippling predisposition. It seems to be blinding you to an alternate explanation: that the ancient religions just made stuff up out of fear and hope, and that science is finally freeing us from such superstitious nonsense.

What is a Jabba brush? If I'm tentatively being insulted I'ld like to know what that is.

Report all allegations of insults to the moderators. I wager we're all getting sick of listening to you whine about allegedly being maligned.

That said, it didn't come across to me as an insult. Jabba is another poster at ISF. For examples of his style, read the "Proof of Immortality" and Shroud of Turin threads, where he most often posts.

Graphically he has a distinctive posting style that prefixes each statement with a dash "-" in the spirit of a bullet point. Part of his style also is to give a partial answer and promise to "be back." That's what theprestige was alluding to.

The salient point was, as I said, your characterization of your opinions and assumptions as "circumstantial evidence." Jabba took part in a lengthy thread trying to show how his opinions and assumptions could somehow also be "circumstantial evidence." The conclusion there, which applies here, is that what you (and he, and many others) seem to think constitutes circumstantial evidence is not at all it. Further, it is a legal concept only, having no application in science.

The prestige is merely noting a similarity between Jabba's arguments and yours.

 

[JayUtah]

I could be right. None of you have provided any evidence that I could be wrong because that evidence doesn't exist.

You're asking people to prove a negative by an evidentiary argument. You have the burden of proof. Your critics don't have a burden to prove the null, certainly no obligation to do it by an affirmative argument.

As to whether you're right, that depends. By the arguments you've made so far, you are not right. This is because your critics are able to see the flaws in your argument. If you want to prove you're right, you'll have to do it by some other argument.

I'm lashing out at the insults that result from you because you don't like it when I point that out to you.

Because it's a well-worn fallacy. You make an affirmative claim supported by little if any evidence, demand an extensive affirmative rebuttal, and play the politics of the gap to make it seem like you've prevailed because you've stumped your critics. This isn't novel. practically every fringe claimant takes this approach.

Your repeated deployment of this fallacy, with no regard to the explanations from your critics for why it's a fallacy, is understandably frustrating.

I won't put up with the insults.

You aren't being insulted.

ut let's be clear about what the real problem is, that the loudest protestants have the greatest psychological need for life to be finite.

And there you go again, claiming your critics have some psychological need or deficiency that prevents them from accepting your conclusion. Your increasingly frantic need to debate the mental makeup of your critics is another source of frustration.

Why is it so difficult to believe that your critics' objection arises from your lack of evidence and lack of competence in the attendant sciences?

 

[Pixel42]

I certainly don't have a great "psychological need for life to be finite", I would love to believe that there is something beyond death. It's just that for me, wanting something to be true is not sufficient reason to believe it. Indeed the more I would like something to be true, the more on my guard I am against fooling myself into believing it without adequate justification.

 

[Jodie]

You are the claimant affirming that life persists after death. You have the burden of proof. If you cannot meet it, you don't get to say you are somehow still reasonable because your opponents did not present an affirmative refutation.

In this particular topic there is no proof for either stance.

I can find several instances in which Nonpareil said that quantum mechanics doesn't have anything to do with claims made by biocentrism. Can you show me where he expanded that to include all biology and all physics?

I could be mistaken, I'll look back, but I recall him/her specifically saying that physics had nothing to do with biology.

 

[Jodie]

I certainly don't have a great "psychological need for life to be finite", I would love to believe that there is something beyond death. It's just that for me, wanting something to be true is not sufficient reason to believe it. Indeed the more I would like something to be true, the more on my guard I am against fooling myself into believing it without adequate justification.

OK, that's understandable.

 

[ehcks]

In this particular topic there is no proof for either stance.

There doesn't need to be. I need no proof that magic doesn't exist to say that magic doesn't exist.

Life is the product of chemical reactions inside and between cells. When all the cells die, there is no life left. There's no magical other thing that escapes the corpse to keep doing stuff. The body was where all the life was. When the body dies, there is no life left.

 

[Jodie]

Count me in as a poster who objects strongly to Jodie's attempts to invoke science she does not understand in support of her fantasies, and who has previously made that clear. The only reason I haven't done so recently is that you've been making the case far better than I could.

Never let other people speak for you.

 

[Jodie]

There doesn't need to be. I need no proof that magic doesn't exist to say that magic doesn't exist.

We aren't talking about magic.

Life is the product of chemical reactions inside and between cells. When all the cells die, there is no life left. There's no magical other thing that escapes the corpse to keep doing stuff. The body was where all the life was. When the body dies, there is no life left.

OK, I can work with that definition of life, and I agree with it. So what happens to consciousness? No one agrees on a theory of consciousness and without that definition you can't say what, when, where, or how it exists. There is no evidence for either stance.

 

[Jodie]

You're asking people to prove a negative by an evidentiary argument. You have the burden of proof. Your critics don't have a burden to prove the null, certainly no obligation to do it by an affirmative argument.

It's not a concrete topic with any evidence whatsoever.

As to whether you're right, that depends. By the arguments you've made so far, you are not right. This is because your critics are able to see the flaws in your argument. If you want to prove you're right, you'll have to do it by some other argument.

I am right that there is no evidence for either stance.

Because it's a well-worn fallacy. You make an affirmative claim supported by little if any evidence, demand an extensive affirmative rebuttal, and play the politics of the gap to make it seem like you've prevailed because you've stumped your critics. This isn't novel. practically every fringe claimant takes this approach.

Well you can think what you like but that doesn't change the fact that there is no evidence for either stance being right or wrong.

Your repeated deployment of this fallacy, with no regard to the explanations from your critics for why it's a fallacy, is understandably frustrating.

I'm sorry that the truth doesn't seem to fit into the debate format you choose to use.

You aren't being insulted.

You certainly did.

And there you go again, claiming your critics have some psychological need or deficiency that prevents them from accepting your conclusion. Your increasingly frantic need to debate the mental makeup of your critics is another source of frustration.

If you aren't dealing with the argument at hand and you are attacking my style, expertise in a field, etc. then what other conclusion can I draw? Are you now agreeing with me that posts on a forum aren't an indication of behavior?

Why is it so difficult to believe that your critics' objection arises from your lack of evidence and lack of competence in the attendant sciences?

It very well might be from other posters but you seem to take it to a personal level that isn't warranted IMO.

 

[Jodie]

Yes, physics is a foundational science. However that relationship is often grossly misunderstood among non-scientists. To say that physics is a foundational science, for example, is not to claim that an expert in physics is automatically an expert in all the sciences that depend on it. Nor does it mean that every finding in physics is germane to all sciences. Nor does it mean one has to master physics in order to understand other sciences like biology. As a medical healthcare provider, I assume you have some prodigious understanding of aspects of biology, physiology, and so forth. And you have acquired this without needing to be an expert in physics.

And you've acquired your stance by not being an expert in any field , other than physics, that might even remotely be involved in what consciousness actually is to be able to define its limitations.

And this sort of rhetoric is alarming. Most fringe claimants in this particular genre adopt the position that science is marching toward a validation of their spiritual and other subjective beliefs. This clearly-stated bias is likely what's driving you to make connections between your beliefs and the physical sciences that aren't supported by the science.

Oh you aren't alarmed Jay, you were enjoying the derogatory remarks that you were making towards me earlier and now that I've called you out on your bad behavior you are back pedaling.

You might have had a legitimate point if either one of us were involved in these kinds of studies, but we aren't. You read studies and draw your own conclusions, I do the same. So far, the study of life after death will escape both of our biases.

Your predetermination that the ancient religions were somehow correct and that science has to "catch up" is a crippling predisposition. It seems to be blinding you to an alternate explanation: that the ancient religions just made stuff up out of fear and hope, and that science is finally freeing us from such superstitious nonsense.

Now hold on a minute there, I've never said that religion was correct about anything.

Report all allegations of insults to the moderators. I wager we're all getting sick of listening to you whine about allegedly being maligned.

I imagine that you're just irritated because I called you out on it.

That said, it didn't come across to me as an insult. Jabba is another poster at ISF. For examples of his style, read the "Proof of Immortality" and Shroud of Turin threads, where he most often posts.

Never heard of him, most of those types think I'm a blasphemer anyway

Graphically he has a distinctive posting style that prefixes each statement with a dash "-" in the spirit of a bullet point. Part of his style also is to give a partial answer and promise to "be back." That's what theprestige was alluding to.

Oh Ok, I thought you guys were equating me with Jabba the Hut.

The salient point was, as I said, your characterization of your opinions and assumptions as "circumstantial evidence." Jabba took part in a lengthy thread trying to show how his opinions and assumptions could somehow also be "circumstantial evidence." The conclusion there, which applies here, is that what you (and he, and many others) seem to think constitutes circumstantial evidence is not at all it. Further, it is a legal concept only, having no application in science.

Inferential hunch then, but without those then it would lead to an ever narrowing path of inquiry. Most research that I read in the medical field is rarely repeated because everyone wants to be the first one to establish evidence for an exploratory idea. No one wants to confirm research unless it's related to developing medication. Science is not the be all and end all that you guys seem to think it is, it has it's abuses, and I see a trend here were science is not treated as a process but more as a belief system itself.

The prestige is merely noting a similarity between Jabba's arguments and yours.

Well if the Jabba is that bad then that is an insult.

 

[JayUtah]

Never let other people speak for you.

This is how you deal with someone who smashes your fantasies about me being all alone in my opinion of your approach.

 

[JayUtah]

You certainly did.

Then put your money where your mouth is and report it. Come back when you have an argument that isn't you applying armchair psychoanalysis to your critics and whining about how badly you're being treated.

 

[Nonpareil]

In this particular topic there is no proof for either stance.

For any functional definition of "proof", yes, there is.

We know that consciousness ends at death the same way we know magic doesn't exist. Consciousness is brain activity; again, we know this. We have conclusive, inarguable evidence that this is the case.

Do we know precisely what parts of the brain produce what parts of consciousness? Not in all cases. Do we know why a system like the brain produces consciousness? Not really. But we still absolutely know that it does, that consciousness is brain activity, and that brain activity ceases on death.

Consciousness ends with death. There is no afterlife. There is no preservation of your consciousness. There is nothing.

And, like it or not, the evidence is on our side.

We aren't talking about magic.

Well, yes. You are.

There is no non-magical mechanism by which consciousness could survive brain death, as consciousness is brain activity. "Consciousness outside of the brain" is itself an incoherent, nebulous concept which relies entirely on magical thinking to work.

Like it or not, you are functionally invoking magic.

No one agrees on a theory of consciousness and without that definition you can't say what, when, where, or how it exists.

I repeat my previous point on the difference between complete and functional definition.

I cannot provide you with a full, technical definition of a car. I can, however, look at an empty street and tell you that no car is present.

Oh you aren't alarmed Jay, you were enjoying the derogatory remarks that you were making towards me earlier and now that I've called you out on your bad behavior you are back pedaling.

No one has insulted you. Multiple people here have, however, been extremely blunt about your double standards, arrogance, and fallacious reasoning.

If you cannot handle that, then you should probably look for another venue of discussion.

 

[Jodie]

Then put your money where your mouth is and report it. Come back when you have an argument that isn't you applying armchair psychoanalysis to your critics and whining about how badly you're being treated.

I've already taken care of the problem myself.

 

[Pixel42]

Never let other people speak for you.

Why not, when they're saying what I would say much better than I could say it?

 

[JayUtah]

I've already taken care of the problem myself.

Then I presume we'll no more puerile whining about how badly you've been insulted. Now do you have an argument that isn't either the aforementioned whining or attempts to psychoanalyze your critics? In fact, is there any argument from you that isn't some form of casting aspersions on your critics?

 

[Jodie]

For any functional definition of "proof", yes, there is.

We know that consciousness ends at death the same way we know magic doesn't exist. Consciousness is brain activity; again, we know this. We have conclusive, inarguable evidence that this is the case.

If you don't know what consciousness is all you can say about it after death is that it definitely isn't here.

Do we know precisely what parts of the brain produce what parts of consciousness? Not in all cases. Do we know why a system like the brain produces consciousness? Not really. But we still absolutely know that it does, that consciousness is brain activity, and that brain activity ceases on death.

Self awareness is the result of brain activity. Consciousness doesn't necessarily equate with self awareness.

Consciousness ends with death. There is no afterlife. There is no preservation of your consciousness. There is nothing.

If you don't know what consciousness is the only thing that you can say is that it isn't here after death.

And, like it or not, the evidence is on our side.

Like it or not, there is no evidence.

Well, yes. You are.

There is no non-magical mechanism by which consciousness could survive brain death, as consciousness is brain activity. "Consciousness outside of the brain" is itself an incoherent, nebulous concept which relies entirely on magical thinking to work.

Once again, you are confusing terms. Consciousness doesn't equal intelligence doesn't equal self awareness.

Like it or not, you are functionally invoking magic.

I don't see it that way.

I repeat my previous point on the difference between complete and functional definition.

All I'm saying is that if there is no agreement on what the theory of consciousness is then there can be no functional/complete definition.

I cannot provide you with a full, technical definition of a car. I can, however, look at an empty street and tell you that no car is present.

Exactly, the car might still be in someone's garage or on another road.

No one has insulted you. Multiple people here have, however, been extremely blunt about your double standards, arrogance, and fallacious reasoning.

I'll be happy to go back and link the insults in a PM for you.

If you cannot handle that, then you should probably look for another venue of discussion.

Or maybe you should.