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Belief in the Afterlife

Paul2 said:
Be careful, you are getting dangerously close to understanding the concept of the null hypothesis.
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The null hypothesis can't be applied here meaningfully because of the issue of belief: "There is no belief in the afterlife". One could ignore the issue of "belief" and say: "There is no afterlife", but that would be self evident because the person considering it would still be alive, so naturally for them there is no afterlife ( yet anyway ). So then you might say, "There's no afterlife for anybody else who has already died". Probably, maybe not, nothing about that is certain.
The Skeptic and The Monk:

A skeptic hears of a monk in Tibet who claims to have proof for the answer of whether or not there is an afterlife. So he travels by airplane, and then by train, then by mule and finally hiking all the way to the top of a high mountain where finds the monk sitting on the edge of a cliff looking out over creation. The skeptic says. The null hypothesis is that there is no afterlife, where is your proof that it is false. The monk motions for the skeptic to come and stand next to him so that he may show him the answer. As the skeptic stood on the edge of the cliff looking out over the beauty of the world far below he was overwhelmed with appreciation for the majesty of nature and at last he said, "Great view but is fail to see the answer to the question of the afterlife." The monk replied, "Are you not standing on the very edge of the cliff overlooking creation?" The skeptic again replied, "Yes, but this is not a test of the null hypothesis!" The monk replied, "Take one step forward."
​
 
We don't test for "belief in the afterlife".
We test the claims made by people who believe in the afterlife based upon the evidence they attempt to provide to validate their belief (things such as NDEs, OBEs, Ghost stories etc.).
It is these 'claims' in which the afterlife apparently has interactions with our measurable universe that require the null hypothesis.
Using the word "belief" as a get out clause is no less than anyone will expect, it's not the first time you've used special pleading to shore up your disintegrating argument.
 
ufology said:
Geeze you've gone all serious on me. I thought we could play with the issue of pink unicorns some more.
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Stray Cat said:
That's one of the downsides of the ignore feature.


You don't know what you're missing. :D
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Kind of ironic that ufology's made you invisible, considering the topic of conversation.

Does that mean that because he's made you invisible to himself, you neither exist nor are pink?
 
ufology said:
The null hypothesis can't be applied here meaningfully because of the issue of belief: "There is no belief in the afterlife". One could ignore the issue of "belief" and say: "There is no afterlife", but that would be self evident because the person considering it would still be alive, so naturally for them there is no afterlife ( yet anyway ). So then you might say, "There's no afterlife for anybody else who has already died". Probably, maybe not, nothing about that is certain.
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I retract my earlier statement that you are getting close to understanding the null hypothesis.
 
ufology said:
The null hypothesis can't be applied here meaningfully because of the issue of belief: "There is no belief in the afterlife". One could ignore the issue of "belief" and say: "There is no afterlife", but that would be self evident because the person considering it would still be alive, so naturally for them there is no afterlife ( yet anyway ). So then you might say, "There's no afterlife for anybody else who has already died". Probably, maybe not, nothing about that is certain.
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I too think Paul2 may have been a little hasty earlier...

In order to hold the null hypothesis "there is no afterlife" I don't need to be dead, or previously dead. All I need do is seek out evidence that falsifies that null, i.e. that demonstrates that there is an afterlife. There may be other ways of doing this other than oneself dying and being resurrected.

To be fair, it's a bit theoretical, because I can't think of any way of proving the existence of an afterlife. I think it would take a bit more work than getting out my chemistry set. In that much, I agree with Hitchens: of all the things in the universe that might exist, an afterlife is probably the one thing that it's nigh on impossible for which to find evidence.

Unlike IPUs, which Stray Cat has shown definately do exist. :)
 
23_Tauri said:
Kind of ironic that ufology's made you invisible, considering the topic of conversation.

Does that mean that because he's made you invisible to himself, you neither exist nor are pink?
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That's sort of like asking if it would aggravate me more exposing myself to a personality disordered troll ( mythological Scandinavian being ) because once in a while it's entertaining rather than just ignoring it and getting my entertainment elsewhere. However once in a while I do make a quick scan of the forum pages before logging in just in case I need to alert the real Gods here ( the moderators ), who are also invisible most of the time, but occasionally still meddle in the affairs of mortals.
 
Porterboy said:
I know, I mustn't generalize.:o Skeptics are as much individuals as Woo's are. What I'm doing is reporting my assessment of what I gather from speaking to non-Afterlife-believers and reading Materialist research and commentary.
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But isn't this a generalization: "Skeptics are as much individuals as Woo's are."
 
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Porterboy said:
I was reading a sci-book about that recently; sorry:o can't remember the title. One of the characters was terminally ill and wanted to put his mind onto computer. In that situation you could also produce a copy of yourself, like copying a file, which would mean there'd be two of you, till you died. :eek:
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You could try "Altered Carbon" for a good view of the subject, and why it cannot really count as a supernatural afterlife.
 
ufology said:
... So perhaps the bottom line issue is why believe anything until you can be reasonably certain it's actually the way things are.
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Quite; which begs the question why believe something if you can not be reasonably certain it's the way things are?
 
Resume said:
I think he thinks it's different, therefore better. Jesus, just play the G major already.
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If you think you can waltz in here and play a natural eleven without resolving it to scale degree 3 over a major seventh chord, you've got another thing comin'. Try superimposing an augmented triad from the 3rd mode of the harmonic major over a dominant seventh chord, then we can talk.
 
Paul2 said:
If you think you can waltz in here and play a natural eleven without resolving it to scale degree 3 over a major seventh chord, you've got another thing comin'. Try superimposing an augmented triad from the 3rd mode of the harmonic major over a dominant seventh chord, then we can talk.
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That's all and good but if that cat over there grooves on the ride, and that other cat walks the bass like he knows he should we can bop.

Don't need them rules. Of course you gots to know them rules first.
 
Resume said:
That's all and good but if that cat over there grooves on the ride, and that other cat walks the bass like he knows he should we can bop.

Don't need them rules. Of course you gots to know them rules first.
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We agree, then!
 
"Don't need them rules. Of course you gots to know them rules first."

Right on, now what is scale degree 3 please?
 
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