I always thought so. Our brain has evolved to allow us to not be eaten by lions. Being able to understand how the universe works is only a byproduct of this. I see no reason to assume that we’re equiped to fully understand it. Assuming that “understanding the universe” is even a meaningful concept.
Whats the most (closest to) concrete evidence for the existence or non existence of life after death
And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids.
Even the most rigid of science may be too parochial in its thinking here. Consider that Life may be a universal constant, always present everywhere, like, say, gravity. Gravity is everywhere but manifests itself only in the presence of mass. Similarly, Life may be everywhere, but only manifests itself in the presence of certain molecular configurations.
This is what is known as “not even wrong.”
It sounds a tad like vitalism, which has pretty much been demolished, not only passively (there’s no evidence for it) but actively (some of its predictions have been proven false.)
In days long past, people thought that “organic” compounds were “vital” while inorganic compounds weren’t. But chemists have synthesized tons (literally) of organic compounds, and the “vital elan” of “living chemicals” has been reduced to the same atoms and forces that make up any other chemical. Sugar is not qualitatively different than salt, in that regard.
Against: Look at how people behave differently when they ingest chemicals or suffer from some form of brain damage.
Wouldn’t this suggest that conscientiousness is a wholly mechanical function?
For: In a sense, you yourself are an example of life after death. In the eons of the past, you did not exist, but now from nothing, here you are. I’ve often wondered, what confluence of physical properties are necessary to create you. In an infinite universe, all possible things must reoccur. You are one of those possible things. So the next question is, “Is the universe infinite?”
The joy of it is that fourteen billion years is enough for life on earth to reach its current glorious peak of diversity. The universe doesn’t have to be infinite; 14,000,000,000 years is enough to get the job done!
(And, alas, the best current theories are that the universe is not infinite in time, although it might possibly be in space…but a lot of that space is beyond our ability to see or travel to.)
It took 14 billion years for the pattern to show up ONCE (that we know of). But how long would it take for that same pattern to show up twice in an entropic universe?
Will the universe live long enough for us to reasonably assume it will?
One problem is that we have no idea whether life (let alone intelligent life) has popped up only once (here) or in lots of other places also. The Drake Equation and all that.
A lot of us are willing to bet that our galaxy alone (let alone the billions of others) has many worlds with life, and maybe even one or two with intelligent life (if not necessarily technologically advanced life.)
(But the step from one to the other is kind of short. We did it in, what, 100,000 years?)
Alas, this is stuff we don’t have any way to study for sure; we’re only beginning to get a very rough assessment on how many planets there are in the “liquid water” zone of their stars. I expect we’ll soon see spectroscoping evidence of life-building elements and maybe even a few molecules on distant worlds. If we’re really, really lucky, we may some day detect indirect evidence of life, such as oxygen-rich atmospheres.
Very frustrating! Sherlock Holmes was right: it’s often a capital error to theorize in advance of the facts!
How much more would it take to convince you? It’s been studied to death.
I think problem is human mind cannot understand nothing so make up this after life that may or may not be true. Even if there was some scientific proof of no after life I still think people will have hard time understanding nothing.
I mean if I put you in box and there no sound, light, smell, no person or any thing all black and nothing!! Yes it really hard for the human brain to understand nothing.
The contempt of nothing is hard to understand. I die and there is nothing well what does nothing feel like and what is nothing. It is really hard for the brain to understand.
Just like opposite infinite universe no shape or end it just goes on for ever is hard for the brain to understand.
But I think he is having a very hard time visualizing and understanding nothing. It hard for person being alive to be put in dark box and think of nothing. Even when you think of nothing you mind is still thinking now and than. It is very hard for the brain to think of nothing and have no thoughts.
Yes even people in a meditative state that are trained still have some unwanted thoughts and emotions. You also get bored really easy and start to think or want to move around.
Your reply fails to support itself by pointing out any “premises known to be wrong or inapplicable”’ and how you know that they are wrong…
I wouldn’t rule it out, in a philosophical sense, because there are lots of ways that reality could be more than we’re aware of (e.g. the matrix), plus plenty of unknowns in terms of consciousness vs personal identity*
I’m not saying it’s likely; it’s in the same bracket as the existence of flying unicorns at this time. And in answer to the OP: there is zero evidence.
But it’s not automatically ruled out by observing that mind and brain are one and the same thing is all I’m saying.
- e.g. After I’ve died, an exact duplicate of me as I was when alive is made. From my POV, the Mijin talking now, do I live on, or is that just a separate guy with no connection to me?
Before you rush to respond; note we’ve done it on the Dope many times and there are always lots of people that passionately take one side or another (I don’t actually think it’s a binary choice, but there are two obvious answers), and argue that the other side is guilty of magical thinking.
For the point that I’m making here, it suffices to say it’s a disputed issue within philosophy.
Yes, but it seems it lives on even after death.
Isn’t it possible there are aspects of reality that are right in front of our eyes, but we can’t comprehend due to our limited intellect? And that these aspects of reality may include an afterlife, other universes, etc.? I recall reading something about this where the author used the example of an anthill next to a highway.
“Gravity is everywhere but manifests itself only in the presence of mass.”
“Life is everywhere but manifests itself only the presence of certain molecular configurations.”
“Cheese is everywhere but manifests itself only the presence of aged milk curd.”
“Crayons are everywhere but manifest themselves only the presence of cylinders of pigmented wax.”
All are equivalent and equivalently logical statements. In other words, insane gibberish.
'What makes the author think that an ant couldn’t detect a highway? They might not understand the purpose of the highway, or the cars moving across it, but they could sense the difference in texture, temperature, and color of the blacktop as opposed to the roadside. They could “smell” the blacktop and the car exhaust, they could “feel/hear” the car’s movement along the highway, and they could feel the wind as the cars pass by. They would know that it is there.
Similarly, there are aspects of reality that we can sense but not understand–we don’t know why the smallest particles of matter, the smallest packets of energy, or the biggest structures in the universe exist in the forms that they exist–but we can sense them. We can measure the matter and energy of subatomic particles we have no hope of ever “seeing”–and we know that everything has to balance out when we break them–there must be balance in not only mass/energy but in charge, spin, color charge, etc.
What you are talking about is aspects of reality that are not only in front of our eyes (and other natural senses) but also in front of our telescopes, microscopes, MRIs, supercolliders, spectroscopes, mass spectrometers, and every other scientific instrument that we have invented and not only leave no evidence to those instruments but also directly contradict the known properties of matter that we have found by our observation. You are talking about believing things for which there is not only no evidence, but that there is evidence contradicting them.
To be a little more diplomatic, he didn’t say you were wrong, but “not even wrong.” This is a phrase sometimes used to dismiss ideas that cannot be tested in any way.
Russell’s teapot is an example. “Somewhere, orbiting in the asteroid belt, is a teapot.” Okay, maybe. And maybe not. (Probably not!) But we don’t have any way to test it, so it isn’t either “right” or “wrong.” It’s “not even wrong.”
Your idea,
[QUOTE=jtur88]
Life may be a universal constant, always present everywhere, like, say, gravity. Gravity is everywhere but manifests itself only in the presence of mass. Similarly, Life may be everywhere, but only manifests itself in the presence of certain molecular configurations
[/QUOTE]
isn’t really concrete enough for anyone to test. If life were “present everywhere,” then it would exist in perfect vacuums or at the heart of suns.
Also, the phrase “manifests itself” isn’t clear, let alone “in the presence of.”
Yes, certain molecular configurations are alive – from amoebas to antelopes – but the same molecules can exist without life. It’s easy for a chemist to make up a long string of DNA that is totally inert and has no genetic information at all. Life doesn’t manifest itself in that molecule, and yet it is chemically indistinguishable from a living creature’s DNA.
I have no doubt that there are aspects of reality that we can’t detect. Indeed, we can now detect and comprehend aspects of reality that in past decades and centuries were absolutely undetectable.
How many of those aspects that we can now detect but couldn’t before turned out to exactly match our prejudices and superstitions?