Life after Death? The mechanics of it?
Discussion
Chimune said:
ewenm said:
Agnostic and atheist are not mutually exclusive. I'm an agnostic atheist. I don't KNOW there's no God - that would require FAITH. I think on the balance on probabilities there is no God, but if testable, repeatable, observable evidence comes along to the contrary I'll re-assess.
Unfortunately for a lot of the faith-peddlers, they're not very open to testable, repeatable, observable evidence. Unlike scientists who rely on it.
What is atheistic about your position ? Looks 100% agnostic to me !Unfortunately for a lot of the faith-peddlers, they're not very open to testable, repeatable, observable evidence. Unlike scientists who rely on it.
Agnosticism is the position that the fundamental nature of god is unknown and unknowable. It can therefore be used to qualify either atheism or theism (i.e. you can be an agnostic theist who believes in the existence of a god but feels the nature of that god is unknown/unknowable).
There is also nothing in the original definition of "Atheist" that specifies that you couldn't be open to the possibility of god(s) existing. Atheism according to the strict definition is merely a lack of belief in god(s) - not a belief in the non existence of them. I would classify myself and an Atheist Scientist. I lack belief in god(s) - but should scientific evidence present itself, be testable and verifiable, I would be as open to the possibility of god(s) existing as any other scientific discovery.
Morning all. On the "mechanics" of life after death, daemon, I can say a little about the traditional catholic view:
Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
kiseca said:
Hi ChrisGB, thank you for that very interesting post and view.
I have one question, Would it not be reasonable to say that the intellect is a construct of the physical mind, and as such is subject to decay or death and will die when the brain does?
Chris obviously believes not.I have one question, Would it not be reasonable to say that the intellect is a construct of the physical mind, and as such is subject to decay or death and will die when the brain does?
I'm unsure myself. Having seen and experience some fairly heavy psychedelics in my time and seen some pretty serious mental illness up close I fairly certain that the bounds of human consciousness aren't entirely physical, that is to say that I don't think we'll ever be able to determine the physical process which gives rise to conscious thought because thought is so indeterminate, when you extrapolate that out to the animal kingdom and the weirdness that goes on with swarm intelligence and group consciousness.
There's some science being done in this area, peer reviewed and falsifiable - but it's controversial, championed by this guy...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake
Kiseca, it's reasonable to suspect things might be like that, but actually getting from the physical to a determinate meaning turns out to be impossible - there is no syntax, let alone semantics, in a physical system. An argument like Ross's that. I quoted above attempts to prove something like that.
Btw, I'm not lurking, my past posts seem to have disappeared, but that's no great loss!
Btw, I'm not lurking, my past posts seem to have disappeared, but that's no great loss!
Chris GB said:
Morning all. On the "mechanics" of life after death, daemon, I can say a little about the traditional catholic view:
Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
What a load of old tripe.Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Chris GB said:
Morning all. On the "mechanics" of life after death, daemon, I can say a little about the traditional catholic view:
Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
What a load of old tripe.Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Chris GB said:
Morning all. On the "mechanics" of life after death, daemon, I can say a little about the traditional catholic view:
Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
What a load of old tripe.Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
The more money you give - the less time your loved one has in purgatory.
And if you can afford to pay for a few of the faithful to keep praying for your loved one- their place in heaven gets closer to the Lord.
As an invention - it is an astonishingly evil one. Actually it is pretty much in keeping with the activities of the Catholic church throughout history.
Anyone who believes that God decided to have a conversation with Balaam in the form of a donkey is a sandwich short of a picnic.
And besides - who would want to sit in heaven next to God, given his love for murdering infants en masse. Start with Psalm 137.
I think I'll settle for my atoms getting dispersed and see what happens.
Chris GB said:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings.
Your words are needlessly complicated and I can only assume you do this to try an stop people picking holes in your logic.Anyway, your first point makes the assumption that all physical system requires meaning for that meaning to be indeterminate. They do not. Everything else you've written is derived from this single statement and hence can be dismissed.
alock said:
Chris GB said:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings.
Your words are needlessly complicated and I can only assume you do this to try an stop people picking holes in your logic.Anyway, your first point makes the assumption that all physical system requires meaning for that meaning to be indeterminate. They do not. Everything else you've written is derived from this single statement and hence can be dismissed.
Instead of meaning, "outcomes" or "functions" could replace the word in Ross's argument to make it clearer:
1. No physical process is determinate among possible outcomes: for example, a machine adding could in fact not be adding but following an algorithm that added for all numbers under 2^99, but then gave the answer 42 for any numbers equal or above that. (Machines are wholly physical, I assume we agree)
2 Formal thinking is determinate. For example, certain thinking, in a single case, can be of a specific abstract form, eg n x n = n squared, and not indeterminate among possible forms. No physical process can be that definite in its form in a single case. Even adding cases to infinity will not exclude incompatible possible forms, and supplying all possible cases of a pure function is impossible.
3 therefore formal thinking is not a physical process.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
What a load of old tripe.
O/T:Twig, I'd like to apologise for the anger in many of my posts in the past. I think it was from the frustration of being the only or almost only theist, attacked from all sides. I am not proud of many of those posts, where I repaid insults with insults or lashed out as I tried to answer every single post. It won't happen again. I stand by the basic argument, but that isn't for this thread.
Scousefella said:
Chris GB said:
Lots of stuff...........
But can't consciousness be meassured by neural activity and it is just the sparky bits of your brain sparking.
When you are dead, no sparks and no consciousness hence death?
Some enjoyable posts here by the way. Hope it doesn't drop to the level of abusing the nutters who believe in life after death.
Chris GB said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
What a load of old tripe.
O/T:Twig, I'd like to apologise for the anger in many of my posts in the past. I think it was from the frustration of being the only or almost only theist, attacked from all sides. I am not proud of many of those posts, where I repaid insults with insults or lashed out as I tried to answer every single post. It won't happen again. I stand by the basic argument, but that isn't for this thread.
And for the record, I said some pretty vile things about the catholic church in that debate, all of which I stand by and make no apologies for. Because they are true.
I may have my faults, but when it comes to debates on religion, being wrong isn't one of them.
Chris GB said:
Morning all. On the "mechanics" of life after death, daemon, I can say a little about the traditional catholic view:
Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
Sorry but as student of science, lover of philosophy and professional scientist I must point out this really is none sense. You're using big words in appropriately and some of your statements e.g. about the church and 'limbo' (I assume you mean purgatory) is outright wrong. It was a story started by the church in order to receive donations as the gullible would pay to avoid such a place.Concepts, and logical thought based on concepts, are in some ways non-material, ie. immaterial processes.
This can be expressed as an argument as follows:
1. All physical systems are indeterminate among possible meanings
2. No formal thinking (eg. Doing maths or logic) is indeterminate
3. Therefore formal thinking is not a physical system
This is the argument set out by James Ross in his paper Immaterial Aspects of Thought - "indeterminate" is that nothing in the physical components fixes with certainty the meaning of the system they make up; whereas you can't deny 2. because the very act of trying to argue against it just affirms it.
This and similar arguments about concepts / doing maths / logic establish that formal thinking is not an entirely material process.
From this comes the conclusion that given that there is something immaterial about us - our intellects - there is something that isn't subject to dying - like the material stuff would be.
There are lots of misconceptions about "immaterial" such as ghost-like, name calling like "ectoplasm", but however much we might have difficulty imagining the non-material, this doesn't change the validity of the arguments for the immateriality of the intellect.
This goes against popular "science can or will explain everything" tropes, but I would argue those claims are self-refuting or trivial, among other problems.
So there is something about us that couldn't be subject to death. On the other hand, all thought has some bodily connection, even if some have immaterial aspects, so we might justify an idea of the intellect and other aspects of human nature such as the will, and other aspects not strictly immaterial such as consciousness, being associated with the intellect as a uniquely human "form" that isn't subject to the fate of matter, form in the Aristotelian sense.
From this, we have a rational way in to talking about an afterlife.
One other comment on your first post: from the traditional catholic proofs of god's existence, we also know that god is outside time, so any question of what we "do" in the afterlife, where do implies the passing of time, is a misunderstanding.
To questions about purgatory raised by others, this is a catholic doctrine developed from biblical texts such as: 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 - there is a purification as by fire; Matthew 5:25-26, 12:31-32 - there is forgiveness after death; 2 Maccabees 12:41-45 - on praying for dead.
The idea is simple: as the catechism says, those who die in God's grace and friendship are assured of eternal salvation, though those imperfectly purified in this life will undergo further purification after death.
Limbo by the way has never been a church doctrine, just a popular belief for explaining an apparent problem - what happens to good people who die outside the church. A better answer might be Augustine's, along the lines that for those in the church, God's grace is there, but for those outside the church, God's grace is greater than the church.
Finally, God isn't a hypothesis, and a very bad one at that, as evenm suggests - this is to assume that induction is the only way to establish reality. The traditional proofs of God's existence are deductive, not inductive, so are not about hypotheses.
Science does not yet have all the answers, and has never claimed to, but the great mysteries of consciousness have long been answered, you just clearly don't want to believe them.
It's perfectly simple. You are your body. You are nothing more or less, there are no voids in knowledge whereby an existential existence is rational. You are born, you die. Sometimes life is hard and unfair and you may want to believe all sorts of wonderful things but sadly these are b
ks.No rational argument could possibly exist for a belief in the pan rational as no belief can be logically be adopted without evidence. So both philosophically and scientifically you're just walked yourself into a corner here. I don't care who James Ross is but he should go away and read a real book.
Prof Prolapse said:
Science does not yet have all the answers, and has never claimed to, but the great mysteries of consciousness have long been answered, you just clearly don't want to believe them.
Not really, not at all. You may choose to ignore the hard problem but that's not really and answer is it?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consc...
Chris GB said:
No physical process can be that definite in its form in a single case.
Your clarified answer makes similar assumptions that are not true.Have you studied physics at a higher level? A huge part of a physics degree is studying 'laws' that describe physical systems definitely. Take the first law of thermodynamics as an example. What is not definitive about that?
FredClogs said:
Prof Prolapse said:
Science does not yet have all the answers, and has never claimed to, but the great mysteries of consciousness have long been answered, you just clearly don't want to believe them.
Not really, not at all. You may choose to ignore the hard problem but that's not really and answer is it?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consc...
It's perfectly simple. Whilst there are things we don't fully understand, there is no rational reason to believe in the things we have no evidence of. I don't care who says otherwise it is a failure to exercise reason, and the most common motivation is fear.
An afterlife, soul, etc. are examples of this. There is utterly no evidence to suggest these things exists in the classic senses of each word. To make matters even more clear, there is no gap in any scientific theory big enough to allow these ridiculous ideas through. We simply do not need a soul, to have any of the ideas in modern science work, or to explain any of the observations of the world around us.
There's a neuroscientist who write popular science books by a chap called Sam Harris. He has some rather "enlightening" experiments into consciousness which demonstrate we know a lot more than you guys seem to think we do. He in fact is a practicing Buddhist (an Atheist one) and explains this far better than I could. You would do well to make him your first stop if you actually want to learn something.
Science and rationality has answered the origins of the universe (to a startling degree, a recent summary book was cited earlier), it has shown your life only has the meaning you attribute to it, it has shown you that the ideas of god, an afterlife, a soul, are all the ideas of frightened men, and it has shown you how the world will end, and how the universe will follow, in a cold dark emptiness. It is not a pleasant universe, which explains the need of these comforting ideas, but why should it be?
So big questions have been rendered small, but there is a persistent ilk who will not accept them, they refuse to accept the beauty in universe we live in and will always attempt to cease on any gaps in theories, and try and fill them with weapon's grade bulls
t. It shows an ignorance of the life's work of so many brilliant men and women, and cheapens the world we live in, to one of cheap man made magic tricks.As for your gaggle of well spoken wikipedia people, "were any of them right I would be more concerned".
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