What do you believe?

[Dani]

Things are not. Things are seen.

The verb to be without a predicate adjective means to exist. Things, by definition, exist. Even concepts exist.

The verb to be followed by the past participle of the main verb is an auxiliary used to form passive voices.

This is either wrong or semantic gibberish.

 

[caniswalensis]

Yep, we have plenty of objective evidence.

Since we know how cognition occurs, can see it is based on the biological brain, if the brain cells die, cognition ceases.

Now if you want to imagine a magical world, you can imagine any fictional outcome after death that you desire. Just don't confuse that with "objective proven fact".

No need to get snarky. I don't believe that cognition continues after death.

I only asked because it seemed to be a bare assertion to me at the moment. I should have considered better.

As you say, we can observe that that cognititive thought ceases if the pertinent section of the brain is damaged, even in the living. That is pretty strong objective evidence.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No need to get snarky. I don't believe that cognition continues after death.

I only asked because it seemed to be a bare assertion to me at the moment. I should have considered better.

As you say, we can observe that that cognititive thought ceases if the pertinent section of the brain is damaged, even in the living. That is pretty strong objective evidence.

I wasn't being snarky. I was being factual. If one looks at the evidence, cognition ceases at death. If one concludes it does not or might not, that would be based on magical thinking, not scientific evidence.

Can you drive to the store without a vehicle? Are you sure? We can see the objective evidence that driving to the store requires a vehicle.

The problem with cognition is people can't let go of the lingering myth it must be magical. Maybe cognition is separate from our biological self? Why not consider it?

The problem is akin to (but different from) the god of the gaps. We've chipped away enough to see cognition is just as biological as metabolism. Time to draw a more general conclusion, no god of the gaps hypothesis will ever be valid and magical cognition outside of our biological brains is a nice fantasy but nothing more.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Has anyone linked to Kevin Costner's speech in Bull Durham yet?

 

[Trent Wray]

Has anyone linked to Kevin Costner's speech in Bull Durham yet?

Or Steve Martin's in "Leap of Faith" ?

This isn't meant to sound like a sugar-puff analogy, but I *usually* believe that what others believe is more important than my own, because I like chasing rainbows to see what's at the end of them and I like doing that with others. I always find something ... and sometimes even what I consider to be a pot of gold. I also like getting to pick and choose some of the rainbows I'll chase down, without feeling obligated to one type of chasing over another. I love the way that mystery and ambiguity seem to want to dance at times, but I don't always dance when asked.

I don't view this as fence riding and cherry picking .... I view it more as calculating risks while surfing.

 

[Craig4]

I believe that everyone dies for a reason and that they know what it is after they die.

That reason is that time is a drug and the overdose is always fatal.

(hat tip to Terry Prachet).

 

[I Ratant]

Is that really an objectively proven fact, or is it just the belief that makes the most sense?

.
Based on no evidence to the contrary, death stops everything.
The sole reason to believe anything occurs after death other than decomposition is ego.

 

[slingblade]

"What do you believe?"

Oh, none for me, thanks. I'm trying to cut back.

 

[caniswalensis]

I wasn't being snarky. I was being factual.

I am not the topic here, there is no reason to address a comment at me like this:

Now if you want to imagine a magical world, you can imagine any fictional outcome after death that you desire. Just don't confuse that with "objective proven fact".

I consider it snarky. If I can't ask a simple question without getting this sort of remark tossed at me, there's no point and no fun in discussing this.

 

[caniswalensis]

.
Based on no evidence to the contrary, death stops everything.
The sole reason to believe anything occurs after death other than decomposition is ego.

I agree with you actualy.

 

[Sledge]

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

"What do you believe?"

Oh, none for me, thanks. I'm trying to cut back.

Let me know when you reach Nirvana.

 

[Cainkane1]

There are the religious ones, the materialists, the dualists, the agnostics, the (insert any belief system here)... and I'm curious about what do YOU believe?

I'm highly skeptical, in the real sense, this is, I doubt we can have something called "knowledge" in the first place. That said, there are some labels I can live with (because, in the end, language is a boundaries game).

1) Instrumentalist; the belief about science is about successfully predicting facts, not about describing an objective reality.

2) Weak Social constructivist; scientific theories do not describe the nature of reality, they are just about the social construction of systems of propositions, methodologies and techniques to solve puzzles about the facts we encounter.

3) Model-Dependent Realist; it is meaningless to discuss about what reality "is", the only thing we can do is to contrast our models with facts, without imagining a concrete ontological status of anything behind them. Furthermore, every model can be from a different world view, incompatible with the others (eg, GR and QM), and this is ok simply because there is no a "final model" to achieve.

4) Advaitin; this is someone who believes there is no duality (subjectivity-objectivity) and that the individual experience is basically a "private virtual reality" or delusion. Everything is one and the same, and it is possible to experience it.

If I want to simplify my view to the max, it can be resumed like this:

Things are not. Things are seen.

Now, to understand why something can bee seen without the need for it "to be something in itself", its the key issue behind this ideas. Notice I don't say that their "being" consists in being perceived, a la Berkeley, who used this logic to say that everything was real but in the mind of god, opposing his idealism to materialism.

I'm saying something very different, things are seen, and this action is all that it is, or to put it in another way, contrary to the everyday common sense, things are the action between what we call the perceiver and what we call the perceived. Things are constructions based on observed facts, and facts are reality.

I believe in the real world our senses perceive.

 

[Bikewer]

Our senses have evolved to perceive the world we live in. There is no evidence whatever to make us think it's some sort of illusion, computer simulation, or "matrix"-like construct.

All evidence we accumulate reinforces this view.

I believe...That the laws of nature are not easily contravened.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Our senses have evolved to perceive the world we live in. There is no evidence whatever to make us think it's some sort of illusion, computer simulation, or "matrix"-like construct.....

Maybe not entirely but we can easily demonstrate how/when/where our senses do indeed distort our perception.

But as for your premise in general, I agree.

 

[Weak Kitten]

I'm a humanist, I believe in people. You'd be surprised how hard that is sometimes.

 

[Lowpro]

Signature...

 

[Squid]

I believe I'll have another beer...

 

[JudeBrando]

From my personal observations, it is impossible for a person to completely divest themselves of all unsubstantiated or incorrect beliefs.

Something always slips past our detectors, or has been in place so long that we do not even question it.

The more a person strives & succeeds in thinking critically, the smaller and more inconsequential those beliefs will tend to be.

I do think we all have something that we believe without good reason. Likewise, I think many believers in questionable topics also apply critical thought to other areas of thier lives.

I think each of us is part skeptic, part believer. The only difference being in the ratio.

I thought this was a good post, so then- I thought this can't go well for you!

Sure enough.

Is that really an objectively proven fact, or is it just the belief that makes the most sense?

A reasonable thought and question... to forward a discussion in part... if reciprocated.. or not... whatever... no big deal.

Now if you want to imagine a magical world, you can imagine any fictional outcome after death that you desire. Just don't confuse that with "objective proven fact".

Whoa! Easy there, killer... Sheez...

Canis ends up trying to be a gracious gentleman in diffusing the situation by giving a deference and credit in again acknowledging the earlier point agreed.. again.

As you say, we can observe that that cognititive thought ceases if the pertinent section of the brain is damaged, even in the living. That is pretty strong objective evidence.

But no. Your tyrannical theocracy must be opposed!

The problem is akin to (but different from) the god of the gaps. We've chipped away enough to see cognition is just as biological as metabolism. Time to draw a more general conclusion, no god of the gaps hypothesis will ever be valid and magical cognition outside of our biological brains is a nice fantasy but nothing more.

See, the problem is.. Canis, your problem was that your response was merely tolerant enough to appear to allow for anything even vaguely somehow misinterpreted as pro somehow, maybe possible, not anti-God enough... therefore apparently you were or might have been allowing for God too much... in reality and/or by misinterpretation... and therefore, for all practical purposes, were immediately deemed worthy of derision and attack as one of the other side.

Imagine if you believed and even dared to say so!

 

[psionl0]

I believe in luck.

If you are lucky, then the God you have been worshiping all your life will turn out to be the correct one, the way you lived your life will be the way God wanted you to and you will be suitably rewarded. A lucky atheist won't have to face judgement day.

If you are unlucky, it will turn out that you haven't been worshiping the right God or haven't lived your life the way He wanted (ie you had the wrong teachers) and He will be very angry with you because of it.