Belief in the Afterlife

[ufology]

Right, so there's no evidence to support it and it doesn't explain anything. Not a great hypothesis, then.

Saying the computational model doesn't explain anything is not accurate. It provides for the possibility of an afterlife ... which is the topic of this thread. You seem to relate to idea of a WOW character just fine, which is a generated construct. Why is the idea that we ourselves might be something similar but much more detailed so far fetched to you?

Point of Interest:

"Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, together with collaborators in the Virgo consortium, have recently completed the largest cosmological N-body simulation ever performed. This calculation solved for the gravitational interactions between more than 300 billion particles over the equivalent of more than 13 billion years, thus simultaneously making predictions for the mass distribution in the Universe on very large and very small scales."

Full article here: http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/research/current_research/hl2011-9/hl2011-9-en-print.html

 

[RobRoy]

Very cool, although I'm not a WoWer myself (watching The Guild is about as close as I get). What I think it shows, though, is that even if we did get a computer to record and replicate our brains 100% accurately, then the copy that would live on would be just that - a copy. The person that looks out from behind our eyes would still be gone, even though someone identical might be still around.

Saying the computational model doesn't explain anything is not accurate. It provides for the possibility of an afterlife ... which is the topic of this thread. You seem to relate to idea of a WOW character just fine, which is a generated construct. Why is the idea that we ourselves might be something similar but much more detailed so far fetched to you?

Except that's not an "afterlife". I, the original, do not continue forward. A copy of me does. To all others, that copy may seem like having the old RobRoy back, but to the original, I'm no longer living and my conscious self does not continue. The term "afterlife" is defined by my ability, my conscious self, to continue experiencing life, in some way, after I shrug off this mortal coil. A "computational model" does not meet that criteria. As Squeegee Beckenheim pointed out, an avatar in WoW might act in the exact same way after my death as it did prior, but that's not me controlling it, and while a crude form of the "computational model" the parallel is correct. It's not afterlife, it's a mimic.

 

[Resume]

Folo, the construct hypothesis is just sophistry until there's a way, even in principle, that we could distinguish whether we live in a construct or we live in the reality as it seems to us. Without being able to distinguish between the two, you're just multiplying entities, or hypothesizing at best.

I think he's hypothesizing at worst.

 

[Paul2]

Not exactly. What I've done is show that the progressive brain destruction rationale as illustrated in your video does not apply to the possibility of an afterlife within a computational model of existence.

The content of that video has nothing necessarily to do with whether your ideas about the construct are a sophistry or not. If the content of the video has some connection to your stance, your stance could be evaluated without reference to the video anyway.

I've shown further that serious scientific minds take the computational model seriously . . .

Irrelevant. Help me out, JREFers, what's the name of the fallacy?

and that there is scientific circumstantial evidence in favor of the hypothesis. The computational model does not rely on a supernatural being or religious belief.

Irrelevant for whether your stance is sophistry or not.

Just because some data are consistent with the construct doesn't do it.
The only thing that will prevent your stance from sophistry is some way imaginable that we could distinguish whether our world is the construct or not. If every piece of data can be explained via the construct or not, then you don't need the construct.

 

[Paul2]

Folo, allow me to backtrack a bit on my post above, if only in tone.

If science already has a way to distinguish between a construct hypothesis and a "reality" hypothesis (for lack of a better word), I'm all ears.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Saying the computational model doesn't explain anything is not accurate.

No, I'm afraid it is accurate.

It provides for the possibility of an afterlife ... which is the topic of this thread.

There is no evidence an afterlife exists, so it does not need explaining.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Irrelevant. Help me out, JREFers, what's the name of the fallacy?

Appeal to authority.

 

[ufology]

Except that's not an "afterlife". I, the original, do not continue forward. A copy of me does. To all others, that copy may seem like having the old RobRoy back, but to the original, I'm no longer living and my conscious self does not continue. The term "afterlife" is defined by my ability, my conscious self, to continue experiencing life, in some way, after I shrug off this mortal coil. A "computational model" does not meet that criteria. As Squeegee Beckenheim pointed out, an avatar in WoW might act in the exact same way after my death as it did prior, but that's not me controlling it, and while a crude form of the "computational model" the parallel is correct. It's not afterlife, it's a mimic.

Fair comments but there are a couple of issues. In the computational model, everything including your consciousness is a part of the data, therefore it is a part of you ... and consequently if you die here and are reconstituted from your data in another realm, you are still you. The only time the issue of a copy would enter the picture is if two of you were created at the same time, each with independent consciousness. Otherwise the issue of copying and continuity of consciousness is still as intact as it is in our everyday lives. For example cells in your body are being copied and replaced even as you read this. Some years from now you will literally no longer the same person. Even some brain cells formerly believed to not regenerate are now being found to have regenerative properties and capable of self-replacement and repair. For those that don't regenerate, they die off, again making you different. You're never quite the same person after a night of heavy drinking. And our continuity of consciousness lapses every night when we fall asleep. The next morning we reboot out of sleep mode and even more cells have been copied and replaced. A lot of repair work goes on while we sleep. So you see, in every meaningful way, the computational model allows for life after death. Lastly if the computational model is correct, it also solves Zeno's Paradox. Movement is an illusion. What is actually happening is that with each new coordinate corresponding to movement, we are being redrawn by the rendering mechanism ... essentially erased, buffered and redrawn in a new location ... for every step you take, every blink of your eyes, every keystroke. There is essentially no difference between that and simply having you data set erased here in some manner we interpret as death and redrawn someplace else we interpret as an afterlife.

 

[Almo]

It makes sense superficially, but let's read between the lines here. it means that somebody who does not believe in the Afterlife can say:

BUT… I can face it! I know I’m going to cease to exist when I die and I can face up to it! The 'ordinary inferior people' need this comfort-blanket myth of an Afterlife, but I have the strength, the courage, the manliness and general superiority to get through my day without that crutch!”

It does not mean that someone who doesn't believe must think this.

My tack is "I have to face it." Whether I face it well or not is another matter.

 

[Resume]

Saying the computational model doesn't explain anything is not accurate. It provides for the possibility of an afterlife ... which is the topic of this thread. You seem to relate to idea of a WOW character just fine, which is a generated construct. Why is the idea that we ourselves might be something similar but much more detailed so far fetched to you?

Point of Interest:

"Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, together with collaborators in the Virgo consortium, have recently completed the largest cosmological N-body simulation ever performed. This calculation solved for the gravitational interactions between more than 300 billion particles over the equivalent of more than 13 billion years, thus simultaneously making predictions for the mass distribution in the Universe on very large and very small scales."

Full article here: http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/research/current_research/hl2011-9/hl2011-9-en-print.html

What does the linked article have to do with your afterlife hypothesis?

 

[RobRoy]

Fair comments but there are a couple of issues. In the computational model, everything including your consciousness is a part of the data, therefore it is a part of you ... and consequently if you die here and are reconstituted from your data in another realm, you are still you.

You'd have to go further to proving that consciousness itself, not just the data, is capable of being copied, and thus transferred. Right now, I'm seeing that as an insurmountable obstacle to either an "afterlife" or some kind of immortality. In the case of consciousness, we are all more than the sum of our parts/data. No matter how mundane and average my wit, wisdom, intelligence and creativity, I am still the one, only and unique RobRoy, just as you are the one, only and unique ufology. As mentioned previously, while the data, based on experience and interpretation, that makes me up could be copied, my own consciousness cannot. For all intents and purposes, even in a "computational model" only the data could "live" on, I would cease to exist.

Thus, there is no "afterlife" in this case.

Of course, if consciousness can be transferred, then it's still not an "afterlife", it's just this life with better parts.

 

[RenaissanceBiker]

I actually admire atheists who can conceive of their own death, and not be scared by the thought of being here one minute, and completely gone the next.

Thank you for your admiration. Part of it comes from knowing that it happens to everyone and every living thing. I'm sure you are aware that I am a hunter. I kill things and eat them. Sometimes I watch them die and sometimes they run just out of sight and I hear them fall over. I don't expect any better when my time comes. I have personally euthanized a pet (humanely). I have watched people deteriorate with age, some were still of keen mind and others lost their mental faculties. I have no reason to expect anything different. I don't know for certain there is no after-life, but the idea seems such a remote possibility that I cannot act as if there is. When I die, my energy will dissipate according to the laws of thermodynamics, my body will similarly decompose and I will simply be gone.

I think the idea of an after-life is based on a belief in souls. Know one seems to know exactly what a soul is, where they come from and what happens to them when a person dies. Personally, I don't believe in souls either. Like a lot of other silly notions, no has been able to prove a single thing about them.

 

[RobRoy]

Thank you for your admiration. Part of it comes from knowing that it happens to everyone and every living thing. I'm sure you are aware that I am a hunter. I kill things and eat them. Sometimes I watch them die and sometimes they run just out of sight and I hear them fall over. I don't expect any better when my time comes. I have personally euthanized a pet (humanely). I have watched people deteriorate with age, some were still of keen mind and others lost their mental faculties. I have no reason to expect anything different. I don't know for certain there is no after-life, but the idea seems such a remote possibility that I cannot act as if there is. When I die, my energy will dissipate according to the laws of thermodynamics, my body will similarly decompose and I will simply be gone.

I also, if I remember correctly, know that you've got me by about a decade or so. Perhaps all that life (and death) experience has helped inure you to those realities. Or perhaps you, individually, are better geared towards that vast acceptance of flat-out death. The ultimate end according to atheists.

I either haven't gotten that far, or I'm not geared toward such acceptance.

I think the idea of an after-life is based on a belief in souls. Know one seems to know exactly what a soul is, where they come from and what happens to them when a person dies. Personally, I don't believe in souls either. Like a lot of other silly notions, no has been able to prove a single thing about them.

I don't know that it's so much silly as it is a romanticized way of dealing with death (or souls and such are real). The draw to believe in such things, to think that this isn't all there is, that there is something more, better, greater, longer-lasting, is quite obvious to me. But I would say it goes the other way around: that belief in souls is based on belief in an afterlife. The consciousness of an individual, all that is within their grey matter, their particular chemical and biological systems, the sum that is greater than the parts, is gone with death. To think that it "goes" somewhere is not just appealing, but, to some extent, realistic from a primitive point of view.

Of course, then some jerks go and wrap an entire religion around the whole affair, and here we are.

 

[Paul2]

Appeal to authority.

Doh! I knew that, someone I respect very much told me about that fallacy, so I believed him. . . .

 

[ufology]

What does the linked article have to do with your afterlife hypothesis?

It's a point of interest related to supercomputing models of the universe based on physics principles rather than as an art from someones imagination. The more detail we can pack into a universe simulation, the closer we get ourselves to creating a VR universe capable of being inhabited by VR intelligences ... which can die in the VR universe and be resurrected at will. Basically we're looking at the baby steps in these supercomputer models toward having that ability. A thousand years from now, assuming computer technology continues to advance at the rate it has been for the last 50 years, I don't see any reason why such a system with such capability could not come into existence ... maybe even sooner. In this respect it's sort of a thought experiment based on real science that is analogous to what some people propose is the way it is for us now in our present existence ... and as I've mentioned before, this would enable the possibility of an afterlife.

 

[ufology]

You'd have to go further to proving that consciousness itself, not just the data, is capable of being copied, and thus transferred. Right now, I'm seeing that as an insurmountable obstacle to either an "afterlife" or some kind of immortality. In the case of consciousness, we are all more than the sum of our parts/data. No matter how mundane and average my wit, wisdom, intelligence and creativity, I am still the one, only and unique RobRoy, just as you are the one, only and unique ufology. As mentioned previously, while the data, based on experience and interpretation, that makes me up could be copied, my own consciousness cannot. For all intents and purposes, even in a "computational model" only the data could "live" on, I would cease to exist.

Thus, there is no "afterlife" in this case.

Of course, if consciousness can be transferred, then it's still not an "afterlife", it's just this life with better parts.

Well ... being more than the sum of our individual parts is sort of a mystical belief. Not that I don't agree that the effect seems apparent. But in what way do we quantify it? In the computational model, your data set would still be unique to you, no matter where it was manifested. You would not lose your individual identity and you would be no more or less you than you are now.

 

[ufology]

Folo, allow me to backtrack a bit on my post above, if only in tone.

If science already has a way to distinguish between a construct hypothesis and a "reality" hypothesis (for lack of a better word), I'm all ears.

Paul, if you want to backtrack, then backtrack all the way. This entire segment of discussion has everything to do with my first post positing the position that an afterlife is possible and your rebuttal with the skeptic in the video you posted. Based on his construct of an afterlife, he makes sense. However his rationale doesn't apply to my position and therefore does nothing to nullify it. Can we agree on that much at least?

 

[ufology]

Appeal to authority.

Ironic ... the position of the scientific skeptic is an appeal to sceince as an authority ... so are you saying science doesn't count now either?

 

[Akhenaten]

It's a point of interest related to supercomputing models of the universe based on physics principles rather than as an art from someones imagination.

Since you appear to have either forgotten or completeley ignored it, this is from the OP:

Hi, I've not posted for a while, but I've been pondering an issue I thought I'd share: It's about belief in the Afterlife, Life-After-Death, Heaven, whatever you want to call it. I know there are threads here discussing whether it's real or not; I know Skeptics say it's not. I have my own opinions on that, but the point I want to address here is not whether it exists or not, but why do people think it does.

As you can see, this Matrixesque nonsense that you seem determined to rabbit on about has absolutely nothing to do with it.

The more detail we can pack into a universe simulation, the closer we get ourselves to creating a VR universe capable of being inhabited by VR intelligences ... which can die in the VR universe and be resurrected at will.

How is this addressing the reasons that people believe in an afterlife?

<more of the same>

. . . and as I've mentioned before, this would enable the possibility of an afterlife.

And as you've been told repeatedly, it's not an afterlife at all, particularly in the context in which the OP was using the word.

 

[Krikkiter]

Ironic ... the position of the scientific skeptic is an appeal to sceince as an authority ... so are you saying science doesn't count now either?

You didn't say "science" ufology, you said "scientific minds."

"I've shown further that serious scientific minds take the computational model seriously . . ."

Do you see the difference or do we need to add logic and critical thinking to the list of things you don't understand?