# GQ as GD: Facts vs. opinions re: the afterlife and other unprovable stuff **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 3, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876 "2010-12-03T23:30:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/81 "2010-12-04T22:39:40Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Which is the same strawman you posted earlier. > > Can you get though just one post without using a blatant, provable logical fallacy? God, Blake, that’s all you’ve been doing. You think it’s not probable but possible. That’s all you’ve said and THAT is a provable logical fallacy. Most others are saying it’s SO unlikely it’s not possible. Cite some proof that it IS possible. So far we’ve learned that: The brain stops functioning, consciousness ends. Afterlife is based on old wives tales and fiction. Blake still thinks it’s possible. Shouting “fallacy!” is not proof that it’s possible. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/82 "2010-12-04T22:43:11Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Simple question: do you have evidence to support your claim or not? Use a mirror when you ask that again. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/83 "2010-12-05T01:39:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > We can _prove_ consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, therefore it can’t exist without a brain. You give consciouness as an example of an emergent property. What are other examples of an emergent property? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/84 "2010-12-05T02:19:12Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > You give consciouness as an example of an emergent property. What are other examples of an emergent property? Living things in general. Governments, ecologies, religions and economies. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/85 "2010-12-05T02:20:00Z")
For an interesting take on the plausibility of an afterlife, I recommend Martin Gardner’s book _The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener_, specifically chapters 17 (“IMMORTALITY: Why I Am Not Resigned”), 18 (“IMMORTALITY: Why I Do Not Think It Strange”), and 19 (“IMMORTALITY: Why I Do Not Think It Impossible”). In discussing ways that things might work to allow a person to survive physical death, he mentions to the model presented by William James in _Human Immortality_ that our true self is in another world, and our earthly body a “shadow self,” with our earth-brain transmitting sensations and experiences to our true self. And he mentions the idea presented by Balfour Stewart and Peter Guthrie Tate in _The Unseen Universe: or Physical Speculations on a Future State_, that the world we know is is embedded in a higher dimensional world, a la _Flatland_, and “our solid brain is a three-space ‘surface’ of our higher four-space body. Death is the shuffling off of our three-space mortal coil.” He then concludes by saying > [@](#): > > For my part, I believe that none of the models presented in this chapter is true. I am persuaded that the truth about immortality is as far beyond our grasp as the ideas in this book are beyond the grasp of a glowworm. I believe that no model we can frame does justice to the truth. … As John Hick has said, “We must each wait and see—or, as it may be, wait and not see!” By faith, I hope and believe that you and I will not disappear forever when we die; that we will find ourselves “alive” in a way that will be superior to anything we can now imagine. Speaking of guys who knew their shit, Gardner was tremendously knowledgeable about philosophy, theology, mathematics, and science, and was a noted skeptic and debunker of pseudoscience and woo. Having died a few months ago, he now gets to see, or not see, for himself. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/86 "2010-12-05T02:28:28Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > You give consciouness as an example of an emergent property. What are other examples of an emergent property? Probably the one most relevant to this discussion would be the “hive mind” behaviour of certain insect colonies. It’s a function of the interaction between the individual insects, but not dependent on any one of them. Wikipedia has a good article on emergence, which I’d link to if I weren’t posting from my phone. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/87 "2010-12-05T02:37:02Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > Wikipedia has a good article on emergence, which I’d link to if I weren’t posting from my phone. [Here you go.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence) ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/88 "2010-12-05T02:40:31Z")
Wait, so we have _absolute scientific proof_ that all religions that feature an afterlife are wrong/impossible? I’m surprised we don’t hear it more often from the atheist side. Maybe I’m not reading the right things, but I’d think that it “should” have gained the penetration where even I would hear it by now… (IE, to take a slightly different tack, I hear all the time “ghosts don’t exist,” but I rarely hear “we’ve proven scientifically that ghosts cannot exist.”) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/89 "2010-12-05T02:56:52Z")
Proposition: The spacetime beyond the event horizon of a black hole is described by the Schwarzschild metric. Is that proposition a fact, opinion, or something else? Nobody’s ever crossed the event horizon of a black hole to check, and even if anyone ever does so, they would be unable to communicate their findings to anyone who has not crossed the event horizon. Yet, a person could do the experiment themself, and determine whether the statement is true or not. ---
**Author:** ![Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8baadc/32.png) [@Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nicest_of_the_Damned)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/90 "2010-12-05T04:05:05Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Blake > Please just concede this point and let us move on. Don’t force me to bury you in testimonials on near death experiences > [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > [They can be recreated in controlled conditions.](http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/03/08/1866095.htm) The very last paragraph in that article says: > [@](#): > > At some stage in the future, we might know enough about the brain to fully understand the NDE. But right now, we know that you don’t have to be dying to have one, and that it neither proves nor disproves the existence of an afterlife. So, basically back to what the OP said. There is a doctor named Sam Parnia who is running a test to see if he can get objective evidence of near death experiences. IIRC he has images posted near the ceiling of hospital beds. None of the staff knows what the images are. The idea is to try to get someone who claims to have has a NDE to correctly describe the image. I heard him on a radio call in show. The poor guy was getting it from both sides. The scientists and the religious folks were all unhappy with him. As far as the “prove I don’t have a pink dragon in my garage” argument goes, I think there is a big difference between saying, “It is possible that conciousness survives after bodily death through some mechanism we don’t yet understand” and describing a very specific scenario. It’s like the difference between, “I believe it is possible there is intelligent alien life somewhere in the universe” and “I believe there is a race of aliens on the 5th planet of Rigel that has green skin and three heads, communicates via burping and they all wear sequined leisure suits.” ---
**Author:** ![in\_hiding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c5a1d2/32.png) [@in\_hiding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/in_hiding)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/91 "2010-12-05T04:53:40Z")
Re: the “Brain as antenna” argument: We know the Brain is the seat of our consciousness, because we know how damage to it can change anything from memory, body control, personality, etc. There are ways to measure how abuse or drugs actually physically change a brain that is in development, and we can observe the effects this physical changes have on the behaviour of people. All this proves that we **are** our brains beyond reasonable doubt. Not all doubt, but reasonable doubt. It’s not impossible that our brains are just antennas, no, but it’s very, very unlikely. After all, nothing is impossible in the strictest sense, there just might be the most ridiculous way that something we thought was impossible is actually possible. Objects might decide at some moment that they actually won’t fall down tomorrow for exactly 2 seconds at 5:13pm. It’s just ludicrously unlikely. So unlikely that for all intends and purposes we consider it impossible. Still, it might happen, and there would be evidence to prove it. Now, we do know very well what happens if we, say, move an arm. How the impulse is sent down the nerves. There is a very well understood chain of causes and effects from some point in the brain down to the arm. This chain ends at some point, because the giant network of neurons in the brain makes it impossible to trace the impulse. But we do know how this individual neurons work, we know the physics, the chemistry, all that. We know what neurons can do and what they can’t do in this universe. **If** the brain was an antenna, there would be some kind of **measurable** impact from whatever it is that controls the brain. Measurable, because it would have to influence the very physical and real neurons. It would interact with physical matter, and so it would have to show up in a laboratory. There would have to be **some** force in our brain that has no origin, no reason. But we didn’t find it yet. There is no evidence at all for it. It’s as likely as all the cars in the world spontaneously turning blue tomorrow morning at the same moment. We can’t strictly call it impossible, but it’s not going to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Light\_of\_Marduk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c67d28/32.png) [@Light\_of\_Marduk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Light_of_Marduk)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/92 "2010-12-05T05:01:54Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@me](#): > > > > \human consciousness is far more than simply an emergent property of the brain. > > Cite? Don’t need to cite anything. It’s an emergent property of matter. Not necessary to pursue this in this thread, please pm me if you start a thread on it, although I see no point in arguing against the statement. > [@](#): > > That is not what is meant by the word “afterlife.” I suppose my literal interpretation of the meaning of the word isn’t going to fly. My apologies. I looked at the [wikipedia article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife) and see that my views of the afterlife are not standard (and probably not pertinent to the thread). I will reiterate (this once, and drop it) that my knowledge of the “true afterlife” is pretty straightforward and logical: what we do in our life impacts consciousness far beyond our mortal span. An interesting (_ **Bull-Shit alert** _) idea about a potential afterlife is this: 1. Evolution continues until the point that the computational capacity of our descendants exceeds that required to recreate the universe up til this point. \*I know this means that our descendants’ computational capacity must exceed that of the universe at this point in time, but spacetime is increasing (expansion), eventually they may harvest vacuum particles, or perhaps they will learn to manipulate particles at levels unimaginable today (forming extremely complex single quark processors, etc..). \* 1. They recreate a universal simulation in order to save (as in data) every consciousness that has lived up til this point (or some future point past which it is not necessary to resurrect consciousnesses because all consciousnesses are already eternal due to evolutionary developments). 2. After the recreation, they proceed with the reincarnation faze, in which they place consciousnesses of various levels of (mental) evolutionary development into bodies that are appropriate for their mental development stage, bodies that allow greater mental development than the consciousness’s previous “first evolution” body. The first to be “reincarnated” and educated (to the level required) will slowly take over for the first of the eternals to initiate the reincarnation plan, allowing the retiring eternals to enter a lifetime of bliss, and/or pursue the creation of new types of consciousness with their technology. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/93 "2010-12-05T05:45:16Z")
> [@Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](#): > > As far as the “prove I don’t have a pink dragon in my garage” argument goes, I think there is a big difference between saying, “It is possible that conciousness survives after bodily death through some mechanism we don’t yet understand” and describing a very specific scenario. It’s like the difference between, “I believe it is possible there is intelligent alien life somewhere in the universe” and “I believe there is a race of aliens on the 5th planet of Rigel that has green skin and three heads, communicates via burping and they all wear sequined leisure suits.” Not a good analogy. Life on other planets is a physical possibility. Surviving consciousness is not. Positing an afterlife is positing magic, and all magic is equally implausible. ---
**Author:** ![Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8baadc/32.png) [@Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nicest_of_the_Damned)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/94 "2010-12-05T06:24:06Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Not a good analogy. Life on other planets is a physical possibility. Surviving consciousness is not. I don’t think this has actually been proven. > [@](#): > > Positing an afterlife is positing magic, and all magic is equally implausible. Implausible is not the same as impossible. Isn’t it possible that there is some kind of survival of bodily death that is not magic or an act of God, it’s a natural process based on science we can’t grasp yet? How could you have proven X-rays exist to someone 800 years ago? How many scientific concepts had evidence of their existence long before they were understood? Either people just hadn’t figured out how to interpret the information or the technology to discover it had not yet been invented. I’m not saying I necessarily believe in an afterlife but I believe much like the OP. It can’t be entirely ruled out. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/95 "2010-12-05T07:40:02Z")
> [@Steophan](#): > > If something exists, it can at least theoretically be observed, if not necessarily measured. That’s what existence is. Okay. Since it’s theoretical measurement, the only thing we can say is that right now, with the knowledge and tools we currently possess, we no of no means to measure any of the suggested supernatural statems, beings, whatever. But theoretically we may come up with something that does measure these things we can’t currently measure. Now what? ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/96 "2010-12-05T07:50:14Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > So far we’ve learned that: > The brain stops functioning, consciousness - - ceases to be present within and and expressed through the human meat structure. If the soul has a non-material way of being (I know you don’t believe that it does, but hang on) then it simply stops expressing itself via the body. It wears the body like a dress, then discards it to return to a different state of being, one which we are obviously currently unable to observe or measure, and are therefore unable to know whether it exists at all. But I think your argument might qualify as a tautology, really. It seems you are, in the end, saying that there is no such thing as a supernatural soul because supernatural souls are not possible. And that doesn’t really mean anything. But I havent’ slept in about 40 hours so I’m not hard and fast about any of it. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/97 "2010-12-05T07:56:22Z")
> [@Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](#): > > I don’t think this has actually been proven. Yes it has. > [@](#): > > Implausible is not the same as impossible. I was beiing nice. All magic is equally impossible. > [@](#): > > Isn’t it possible that there is some kind of survival of bodily death that is not magic or an act of God, it’s a natural process based on science we can’t grasp yet? No, it’s not possible. Consciousness is a property of the brain. No brain, no consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/98 "2010-12-05T07:58:44Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Okay. Since it’s theoretical measurement, the only thing we can say is that right now, with the knowledge and tools we currently possess, we no of no means to measure any of the suggested supernatural statems, beings, whatever. > > But theoretically we may come up with something that does measure these things we can’t currently measure. No. we can’t measure non-material things even theoretically. Non-material is exactly the same as non-existent. There is no difference, and no theoretical possibility that magic, non-material spirits can ever be observed. There is no theoretical possibility by which they can exist. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/99 "2010-12-05T08:01:08Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > - ceases to be present within and and expressed through the human meat structure. It is produced by the meat and is part and parcel of it. > [@](#): > > If the soul has a non-material way of being (I know you don’t believe that it does, but hang on) then it simply stops expressing itself via the body. The word “soul” is gibberish and has no theoretical possibility of existence. None. Zero. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876/100 "2010-12-05T08:26:01Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Okay. Since it’s theoretical measurement, the only thing we can say is that right now, with the knowledge and tools we currently possess, we no of no means to measure any of the suggested supernatural statems, beings, whatever. But theoretically we may come up with something that does measure these things we can’t currently measure. Now what? If we will one day have the tools to measure it, it’s natural not supernatural. That’s what is meant by existence - something that can be observed, and that has an effect on other things. So, if you wish to claim the existence of a soul separate from the brain, you need to say how, in principle, we could observe it, and what effect it will, in theory have. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gq-as-gd-facts-vs-opinions-re-the-afterlife-and-other-unprovable-stuff/562876.md?page=6)