Oh, please. Even not all non-testable claims are equal;claiming that aliens probably exist a billion light years away isn’t testable, but it doesn’t ignore physical laws unlike claims of gods and afterlives. Those “different standards” aren’t for merely untestable claims, but for claims that violate physical laws and logic.
And as it happens an afterlife is testable. If there was an afterlife, then drugs and brain damage shouldn’t have the effect it does; when we lose brain matter, we lose function. And drugs can distort our thinking. If mind could survive without a brain, that shouldn’t happen. And no, the brain-as-antenna theory doesn’t work either since it is out thoughts that suffer damage and distortion, not just our control of our body.
So yes, there is evidence on the matter - but it is evidence against there being an afterlife.
That’s a silly comparison. Love violates no physical laws; it isn’t even rare. And certainly there’s evidence; simply watch her behavior.
Hardly, it would have to obey the physical laws of this universe or it could never affect or be affected by our universe, including our brains. Physical laws are how such interaction occurs in the first place.
And of course such claims only make it more implausible, not less.
Contrary to popular belief, science doesn’t deal in facts, it deals in probabilities. If something is tested *x *times we can say that there is a y% chance that it does or does not occur under those conditions. But that doesn’t make it a fact. It just makes it a data point in the bigger picture.
In the everyday world, when we say that something is a fact, we mean that it is supported by a preponderance of evidence. So it is a fact that an apple falls to the ground. It is a fact that this is due to gravity. Science tells us that, due to quantum mechanical effects, there is a tiny chance that an apple can fall upwards all the way to the Moon if it wants. But we still say that it is a fact that an apple falls to the ground and it is a fact that the fall is caused by gravity.
When it comes to topics like love or the afterlife, the concept of fact becomes even more blurry. While we all agree on what an apple is and what the ground is, and we mostly agree on what gravity is, it is hard to find two people who agree on what love or the afterlife actually are. So making statements of fact on these issues is even more difficult.
Moreover these concepts can’t be tested. Gravity and apples are both concepts that are open to testing. You can take a thousand apples and drop them, and they will or will not all fall down. That is a test and can be used as a basis of a statement of fact. But you can’t perform such tests on most concepts of the afterlife. You can’t take a thousand souls and do anything at all. You can’t take a thousand loves and do anything. Those things are, by their nature, intangible, unobservable and hence untestable.
Yet despite that most people are quite prepared to say that they love their SO as a matter of fact. And most people are prepared to say that the afterlife exists, as a matter of fact.
Absolute nonsense. You didn’t even think about this.
I have an Access database here that scans tree-copy data and analyses that data for me.
If I damage my CPU, do you think that will affect the function of my database? Do you think it might produce odd distortions in the way the software perceives the outside world, how it processes and responds to data? How it then communicates that information to me?
Yet when the CPU fails completely I can take a copy of that database off the hard drive, and install it onto a machine with a functioning CPU, and it will have no distortions, correct? It will perceive the world perfectly and produce perfectly valid outputs, correct?
So the software, the thing doing the analysing and percieving and interpretation of data; the thing doing the thinking. That entity will survive the death of the CPU, correct? And after that death it will function perfectly, correct? Despite the fact that the damaged CPU was causing it to suffer from distortions of perception and analysis?
Why? because the CPU is just an “antenna”. It is just something that recieves instructions from the code and interprets them and gives information back for the code to process later.
Your claim that damaging the CPU can’t damage perceptions and analysis in of the software is pure bunkum. Of course it can. And if the software is then removed and given a new receiver, it still works fine. If the human brain is just an antenna for the “soul”, just an interface with the physical world, then we would always expect that distortion in the antenna would distort any interaction with the physical world.
No, you just didn’t think very much about what you believe. If a brain is an antenna, then we would usually expect damage to the brain to suffer damage and distortion to thought and response. That would be the rule, not the exception
Typical Der Trihs behaviour.
He posts loud, emphatic, hyperbolic, absolutist claims.
And then when they are shown to be ridiculous claims, claims that he himself obviously doesn’t live by, he wants to move the goalposts.
So we went from
“It’s **only **when it comes to things like gods and the afterlife that suddenly these special definitions of “impossible” and “facts” come into play”
to
It’s **only **when it comes to things like gods and the afterlife and that also violate physical laws that suddenly these special definitions of “impossible” and “facts” come into play".
Well now we can move onto the next point.
What is a *physical law *Trihs? Where are these laws written? Are they immutable, or do they change depending upon human perception? Which laws does the existence of the afterlife violate?
In short:
CITE!
You love to use absolutist terms like “always” and “only” and “law”, but I have never known you to have any ability to actually stand by them. Instead you use them to try to bully those you think are less knowledgeable than yourself. And as soon as you are challenged you weasel away.
So come on Trihs, what are these laws, who wrote them and where can I find a a copy so I can check whether the existence of an afterlife violates these laws?
Looking at a corpse that’s decaying, doesn’t seem like there’s an afterlife does it?
There might be an afterlife.
There might be a chance I get into Hogwarts and become head of the Gryffindor House.
I find these statements to be equal. Most people get ideas from a book on afterlife, why can’t there be the same possibility I go to a wizard’s school from a book? Hell, they’re talking about eternity, I’m only hoping for four years and meeting my own Hermoine. (Rowl!)
Why do you say that? Looking at a corpse that’s decaying, it seems like something that used to be there, isn’t there any more (a soul?). That’s certainly not incompatible with a belief that the soul that used to inhabit that body (or however it works) could still exist elsewhere.
I’m pretty sure that “Well, just look” arguments aren’t going to get us very far toward settling the issue.
I’m too tired to get into this in earnest although I would like to, so I just want to point something out that was triggered by the mention of Buddhism earlier.
I think we need to realize that we can be limited by our own rationality. Buddhism technically believes that this world is both real and not real as well as neither real nor not real. In other words, the nature of reality, it’s “true” nature, cannot be captured by words but only though enlightenment.
Now the idea that logic and reason are sometimes limiting factors will be anathema to most. It was to me when I was first exposed to the idea. But I think it’s a bit of hubris to think that our tiny minds are capable of comprehending everything. Do you think that you can understand the universe on the same level as say Steven Hawking? Maybe you can, but most of us would admit that is unlikely at best. Of course you can say that Hawking still uses reason and logic, but what proof do you have that it is capable of allowing us to understand everything that is currently unknown? Absolutely none except to extrapolate from past experience. And while that may be a convincing argument for things we observe everyday, it’s less so when you are talking about the evolution of human knowledge.
I’d be more willing to accept an afterlife if our bodies just vanished. Since they don’t, the decaying, putrid mess of flesh complete with worms and other forms or vermin around our remains, looks like it points to NO form of afterlife. Just like the dogs and the bids and the road kill, we can say that our “afterlife” is really nurturing the planet, but no, we’re not given any form of consciousness.
Lack of evidence =/= possibility.
Just because we lack evidence of an afterlife means there’s still a possibility?
Just because we lack evidence of Sirens existing in ancient Greece means it’s possible they led ships to their death anyway?
If we’re going to say we lack evidence of afterlife but it’s still possible, then there’s still a chance of me going to Hogwarts even though we lack the evidence.
No, there is no afterlife.
No, I’m not going to Hogwarts.
No, Sirens didn’t exist.
…then obviously the essence of life that animated the dust and ashes must no longer be present. It must have gone elsewhere. Right?
At least, that’s what the ancients believed. The evidence that you think points to an absence of the afterlife was the very same evidence that they used a proof of the afterlife.
That intelligent life exists on islands?
That intelligent island species became extinct on this planet in the recent past?
That intelligent lifeforms use sounds to deliberately shipwreck boats?
None of this speaks to probability, but I would be interested in hearing why you think it is impossible.
Cite!
This is GD. If you make an absolutist statement you need to be able to support it.
Would this be the “afterlife” that exists in “another dimension”? This is merely sticking one unprovable in the shell of another unprovable.
And to those who have trouble imagining that our “energy” just dissipates when we die-has anyone ever reported seeing the ghosts of dead Duracells?
The essence of life ended. End of story. It doesn’t go anywhere, it stops. If by essence of life you mean our heart and brain and lungs working, it stops. If you mean something else by “essence”, then that’s another spiritual debate.
I’d ask for a cite on the ancients, but since they’re ancient and didn’t have the knowledge we have, don’t bother. There are people in the US who think that WD-40 stops arthritis. I’d believe them before some ancients WHO ALSO lack any evidence.
Of course the physical body exists. And then it disintegrates. The reason I said I’d feel better if we just vanished is because it goes with our most frequently heard versions of an afterlife in a heaven. You will be there. Your mom will be there. How will I know? I’ll see her standing right in front of me. Since we break down into filthy waste instead, after getting through the fancy gates we’d get another? A clone? That’s more fairy tales that need even MORE evidence than a possibility of an afterlife.
It’s fiction made my human imaginations. It’s a story. Afterlife is a story. Until there’s evidence, it’s all a lovely story.
Well, gollleee gee. I googled yet nothing came up! Since you believe it’s possible, please cite your evidence it IS possible. Not some deluded yet published opinion, cite the evidence.
Unfortunately, Stoid, I think you summed it up there. I’ve seen nothing to convince me, but even the sources and opinions you provided still don’t convince me. I’m saying no for lack of definitive evidence.
Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. It is created by the brain and exists only in the brain. It is physically impossible for consciousness to continue without a brain. Ergo, surviving consciousness after the death of the brain is physically impossible. It is a fact that there is no such thing as an “afterlife.” That’s not an opinion, but a factual statement about physical possibility. It’s no more unreasonable to say that consciousness ceases after brain death than it is to say the light from a light bulb ceases to exist after the bulb is broken.
Of course I did, and so have many others. Do you think that this argument hasn’t already been rehashed over and over? I’m hardly the first to point out the significance of brain damage.
That analogy doesn’t work since the brain contains both data and processing; there’s no neat separation between CPU, memory and software. Nor is it some passive database either. Nor are you claiming that the database never, ever affects the CPU in a detectable way, nor are you claiming that the database exists without the need of a physical substrate, for that matter.
“Typical Der Trihs behavior”? Well, I find your behavior to be typical of the behavior of religious apologists; distorting and mischaracterizing what their opponents say. I didn’t move any goalposts, you just tried to compare two things that are nothing alike. As well, there’s no “also”; all supposed gods and afterlives that I’ve ever heard of violate physical laws. Or are the sort of things that most people wouldn’t call a god or an afterlife in the first place (aliens pretending to be gods and such).
The laws of electromagnetism for one, since it postulates something that magically is connected to our brains while somehow leaving no evidence of that connection. Then there’s the claim that there’s something that all that information is transferred to, that it is stable, yet that it is neither matter nor energy.
As for what a physical law is, they are the principles that the universe operates under, they aren’t written anywhere.
That the ancients were ignorant and had no conception of things like chemical reactions or molecular structure.
