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Is It Possible There Is An Afterlife?

lightcreatedlife@hom said:
I talk about "eyes" you pick something without eyes. The connections that life shares is more visible when looking at other high forms of life. The experience started before the brain, before the body, and before life.
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No, I pick another life form, you are the one that limited to only ones with eyes. And no, experience for a person and/or any other being does not start before the brain, before the body and before life.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
lightcreatedlife@hom said:
The word has been here, and will continue to be debated, that is where I will spend my time-even while on the beach.
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You mean the bible as the inerrant word of god?

As far as christianity is concerned I admit I have a bit preference for Roman Catholicism, because of a very important legacy of saints, rituals that have some style, and the cathedrals are pretty nice to look at. What good ever came out of Evangelical Christianity? You've got Fred Phelps and Jerry Falwell, and they are complete losers compared to catholic saints.
 
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I was drawn to post on this forum because of an article I read somewhere concerning Randi’s strong belief in no possibility for an afterlife.

I disagree with this and pose what I believe is a logical argument for there being a possibility that an afterlife from our perspective could indeed exist. I have not found anyone here willing to make a reasonable attempt to discuss this possibility or any of the interesting ideas that might result from that possibility.

That such could be possible is very different from it being provable. It is not provable but it is logical. To me this makes it more worthwhile to discuss than something which is not provable and not logical.

It is extremely probable that are lives are exactly as we can show them to be through a preponderance of supportive proof. That is why we build things according to science and not according to some un-provable belief.

I feel like there is a strong closed mindedness on this forum that is just as strong or maybe even stronger than religious forums I have occasionally posted on in the past. It seems like the primary goal is to shoot down someone’s idea without any attempt to consider any level of possibility. Only one truth is allowed!

But, you see, if I am to relate myself to any religious style name, I would call myself a “Born Again Skeptic” with very strong leanings towards science.

Being such a strong skeptic, I will, at least on occasion, point that skepticism towards anything claiming to be 100% true with giving an absolute zero possibility that anything else might be possible.

I hope I do not come across to people as closed minded to any ideas that differ from my ideas as it feels is the norm for this forum.

I think I might have upset Edge and/or Thoth108 with my comments about hallucination and delusion. But, a part of the point I was trying to get at is who is to say for sure what is real and what is hallucination?

This is probably a bad forum to expect any open-mindedness towards what might be logically possible even if not yet provable.

My real point was to throw the idea in Randi’s direction that it is logically arguable that there is some possibility, however small it might be, that there could be an afterlife from our limited point of view.

As to exactly what that might mean if it were true is a matter of philosophical pondering, hopefully backed by some logical and rational thought, over the many different possibilities that while un-provable still have some remote possibility of being true.

The lack of interest in considering other peoples point of view makes this forum less and less interesting to post on. I wonder what other forum Thoth108 went off to post on?
 
Why I'm not 'open-minded' on the subject of an afterlife

Oppressed said:
I was drawn to post on this forum because of an article I read somewhere concerning Randi’s strong belief in no possibility for an afterlife.

I disagree with this and pose what I believe is a logical argument for there being a possibility that an afterlife from our perspective could indeed exist. I have not found anyone here willing to make a reasonable attempt to discuss this possibility or any of the interesting ideas that might result from that possibility.

...
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I'm not interested in logical possibilities, only real-world possibilities.

So, I'm not interested in whether we might be living in some virtual reality.

The only consciousness we have observed has a material substrate.

The only way we have of observing consciousness is observing ourselves or others. We can correlate this observation with what we observe of the physical brain, through autopsies, x-rays, and imaging studies.

We know that there are alterations in consciousness with every physical alteration of the brain. The alterations are injury, poisoning, drugs, stroke, tumors, magnetic stimulation.

From this it is possible to observe the modularity of the brain. It is possible to see that removing or injuring a particular part of the brain will likely result in loss of a particular function.

From this, we can see that there is no deep unity to a person. It frequently happens that a person is diminished by some loss of function, but retains other functions. Consciousness is not monolithic, it is modular.

So this leads to my oft-stated thought experiment.

Where is the person if each part of the brain is removed or destroyed, progressively?

This is not merely ghoulish, it happens to everyone, eventually.

If you read Oliver Sacks, you may recall his article "The Last Hippie"--about someone who first goes blind because of a tumor, and then loses most of his frontal lobe function.

You'd have to admit that his personality is destroyed, although there are remnants. He is literally not the man he was.

The fact that life performs this experiment on people all the time, and that there are people who are partial remnants of themselves, to me is evidence that when the brain is destroyed, the whole person is gone.

Death destroys every brain.

There are no technical fixes to this--and I'd be astounded if there were fixes to this in my lifetime (I may live another 40 years.)

So no afterlife.

Consciousness is never disembodied.
 
Oppressed said:
I was drawn to post on this forum because of an article I read somewhere concerning Randi’s strong belief in no possibility for an afterlife.

I disagree with this and pose what I believe is a logical argument for there being a possibility that an afterlife from our perspective could indeed exist. I have not found anyone here willing to make a reasonable attempt to discuss this possibility or any of the interesting ideas that might result from that possibility.

That such could be possible is very different from it being provable. It is not provable but it is logical. To me this makes it more worthwhile to discuss than something which is not provable and not logical.

It is extremely probable that are lives are exactly as we can show them to be through a preponderance of supportive proof. That is why we build things according to science and not according to some un-provable belief.

I feel like there is a strong closed mindedness on this forum that is just as strong or maybe even stronger than religious forums I have occasionally posted on in the past. It seems like the primary goal is to shoot down someone’s idea without any attempt to consider any level of possibility. Only one truth is allowed!

But, you see, if I am to relate myself to any religious style name, I would call myself a “Born Again Skeptic” with very strong leanings towards science.

Being such a strong skeptic, I will, at least on occasion, point that skepticism towards anything claiming to be 100% true with giving an absolute zero possibility that anything else might be possible.

I hope I do not come across to people as closed minded to any ideas that differ from my ideas as it feels is the norm for this forum.

I think I might have upset Edge and/or Thoth108 with my comments about hallucination and delusion. But, a part of the point I was trying to get at is who is to say for sure what is real and what is hallucination?

This is probably a bad forum to expect any open-mindedness towards what might be logically possible even if not yet provable.

My real point was to throw the idea in Randi’s direction that it is logically arguable that there is some possibility, however small it might be, that there could be an afterlife from our limited point of view.

As to exactly what that might mean if it were true is a matter of philosophical pondering, hopefully backed by some logical and rational thought, over the many different possibilities that while un-provable still have some remote possibility of being true.

The lack of interest in considering other peoples point of view makes this forum less and less interesting to post on. I wonder what other forum Thoth108 went off to post on?
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I see the same thing that you do, but there are some advantages to living in the world of "not". They (and most everybody) defend a position from a particular point of view. Like it or not, it comes with the view.
The man does not have to answer the question for you to know that science will be able to do anything it puts it mind to. Some people have trouble putting things they don't like into words. Don't expect a pat on the back here, and don't leave me.
 
Paulhoff said:
No, I pick another life form, you are the one that limited to only ones with eyes.
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You know that organic gave rise to inorganic, that mammals appear to show the most emotions? Well the mental/emotional nature of life, of the process, can best be seen through them. At some point, something that "didn't", gave rise to something that "did".l


lolurigeller said:
You mean the bible as the inerrant word of god?
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No. The bible is not the word of God.


As far as christianity is concerned I admit I have a bit preference for Roman Catholicism, because of a very important legacy of saints, rituals that have some style, and the cathedrals are pretty nice to look at. What good ever came out of Evangelical Christianity? You've got Fred Phelps and Jerry Falwell, and they are complete losers compared to catholic saints.
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And you find nothing wrong with the fact that they make saints? I hope they are doing a better job at that than they were at protecting children.
 
lightcreatedlife@hom said:
You know that organic gave rise to inorganic, that mammals appear to show the most emotions? Well the mental/emotional nature of life, of the process, can best be seen through them. At some point, something that "didn't", gave rise to something that "did".l
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You just like to ramble don't you.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
lightcreatedlife@hom said:
You know that organic gave rise to inorganic, that mammals appear to show the most emotions? Well the mental/emotional nature of life, of the process, can best be seen through them. At some point, something that "didn't", gave rise to something that "did".l
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Evolution doesn't really work that way... that's like saying at some "moment" you became 5 feet tall... growth happens slowly while you sleep... at some point you pass the 5 foot mark and then shrink below it due to gravity during the day, and then you have more and more moments over the mark with less and less time below it, until you pass it.

A better explanation is that something that had primordial "emotions" gave birth to something that had a smidgen more emotion... It's a little hard for creatures with relatively short life spans to comprehend eons... but the DNA leaves a nice record... as does the evolution of brain parts and vestigial structures. Science can teach you a lot when you don't presume you already know something. Species don't give birth to new species and if you want to know what came first, the chicken or the egg, you have to have a really strict definition of what constitutes the "first chicken".
 
articulett said:
Evolution doesn't really work that way... that's like saying at some "moment" you became 5 feet tall... growth happens slowly while you sleep... at some point you pass the 5 foot mark and then shrink below it due to gravity during the day, and then you have more and more moments over the mark with less and less time below it, until you pass it.


A better explanation is that something that had primordial "emotions" gave birth to something that had a smidgen more emotion... It's a little hard for creatures with relatively short life spans to comprehend eons... but the DNA leaves a nice record... as does the evolution of brain parts and vestigial structures. Science can teach you a lot when you don't presume you already know something. Species don't give birth to new species and if you want to know what came first, the chicken or the egg, you have to have a really strict definition of what constitutes the "first chicken".
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Yeah, I meant what you have provided there. The process reached, and crossed, artbitary lines as it moved in the direction of, more and more complex forms of matter, energy, and information.
And the egg came first.
 
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thoth108 said:
Yes I would change my mind. If you could be shown that the experience is not, and can not, be explained as a mental phenonmenon, then would you accept it ?
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Yes of course, hey, if you can show that the world is not spheroid (round) then I will accept it. That's a given. I'm a skeptic and critical thinker. I only need evidence. The problem is that there is too much evidence to seriously spend any time on the notion that the world is flat.

Same is true for out of body travel. There is just too much imperical evidence. There really is. It's past the point of being exciting for neuroscientists. The can cause out of body experience. They can predict it. They can easily convince believers that it is an organic phenomenon.

Still, some people would like to hold on to the notion that the world isn't round because it's comforting. They've never been to outerspace and they have not circumnavigated the earth so why should they accept boring science? Why should they not trust their own senses?

I know nothing of Susan. :confused: Do you have a link for Susan Blackmore ?? I'm curious. It's easy to blow off experiences of soul-travel as "dreams" because of the nature of the experience.;)
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:) Agreed. However, it wasn't at all easy for Susan. She dedicated much of her life and resources to prove out of body travel.

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/
 
edge said:
I have had enough shown to me to know and I have talked to some one, and I get answers, and I have been on the other side.
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There is a guy on this forum who KNOWS that Joseph Smith is a prophet of god because he has had a personal witness from god.

Get V.S. Ramachandran's A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness:

He documents intelligent and rational people who know things that are not possible (irrational). There are people who know that there birth mother is not there birth mother (when they see their birth mother that is, on the phone they know that the same person IS their birth mother).

Human knowledge is very, very fallible, even for otherwise intelligent, sincere and rational people.

Yes I have read her stuff, or some of it RandFan.
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Have you read why after spending many thousands of dollars and years of her life trying to prove out of body experiences were out of body she changed her mind?
 
RandFan said:
There is a guy on this forum who KNOWS that Joseph Smith is a prophet of god because he has had a personal witness from god.

Get V.S. Ramachandran's A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness:

He documents intelligent and rational people who know things that are not possible (irrational). There are people who know that there birth mother is not there birth mother (when they see their birth mother that is, on the phone they know that the same person IS their birth mother).

Human knowledge is very, very fallible, even for otherwise intelligent, sincere and rational people.

Have you read why after spending many thousands of dollars and years of her life trying to prove out of body experiences were out of body she changed her mind?
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We have a True Believing Mormon on this forum?
 
articulett said:
Yes, right after I wrote that... and wasn't he sly with his proselytizing efforts?

"Say, everybody let's read a religious book and follow it's instructions...?!?"
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:D

It's funny though, I can easily slip into a state of mind that can emphasize with him. I was a true believer.

We understand from a neurological POV why people who follow religious tenants, read scripture and pray become devout. That it works is clear and there is nothing special about any brand of belief.
 
RandFan said:
:D

It's funny though, I can easily slip into a state of mind that can emphasize with him. I was a true believer.

We understand from a neurological POV why people who follow religious tenants, read scripture and pray become devout. That it works is clear and there is nothing special about any brand of belief.
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I find some of the former Mormons among my favorite skeptics. It is weird finding out that there is more than one guy claiming to be god's infallible spokesperson. (I was raised Catholic)-- what to do? what to do?

Humankind has had eons to evolve some pretty interesting proselytizing techniques, I must say.
 
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articulett said:
I find some of the former Mormons among my favorite skeptics. It is weird finding out that there is more than one guy claiming to be god's infallible spokesperson. (I was raised Catholic)-- what to do? what to do?

Humankind has had eons to evolve some pretty interesting proselytizing techniques, I must say.
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So true. Daniel Dennet has some great stuff on the evolution of religion and why it is so successful.
 
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