The Proof of What Happens To Us After Death and the Subsequent denial of it.

a reply to: NorEaster

Good to read from you again, Noreaster.

Thoughts do exist despite the scientific method showing otherwise? I then have to wonder what methods you have used in order to convince yourself that thoughts do exist, and what in reality you are actually speaking about, since you are unable to point to them yourself. Since you perhaps prefer a more rationalist approach to these sorts of things, which was en vogue in the 17th century "think-me" scientism, I can than see that you're only talking about the idea of thoughts, and hardly the reality of them. Of course, this idea of thoughts is the product of an animal whose senses point outwards, and who is unable to examine the empirical reality of his own inner processes. It is no wonder that when we develop the technology to finally observe the activity of what occurs in living beings, the rationalist is surprised and probably disappointed to find that thoughts weren't what he always expected them to be.

You’re correct to put quotation marks around the word “things” in regards to thoughts especially because thoughts are nothing of the sort. No, they do not exist despite the common assertion that they do by folk psychologists. The irony is, one can only think about thoughts, if you catch my drift. “Thought” is the past tense of “think”, and thinking is an action, not a process by which “thoughts” drop out of some orifice like turds. Now, we are not in the habit of saying actions and verbs exist in any ontological way, for instance something called a “swim”, for if they could, "swims" themselves would be subject to perform actions or have actions performed on them like any noun, yet we often say we are going for a swim as if we could reach out and grab it. “Thoughts” are the same way, and so are "memories": a linguistic convenience with zero ontological immediacy, a rationalist way of abstractly dissecting a process into binary pieces for the sake of his own fancy, when in reality it is a process that hasn’t stopped since birth not unlike circulation or metabolism, and there is no discernible gap between one thought and the next, and no thought can be torn from the one before it nor after it. Do we think and remember? Yes. Are there thoughts or memories floating in our brains? No. The very grammar our foundations are built upon lead rationalists astray in this way, and a sanity check is often required.

We are not brains on sticks. We are not comprised of one organ. Therefore, the brain is not the key to whether we persist past death or not; though it might be the key to discovering why we believe this to be so when we’re alive, despite the insurmountable evidence that the entire organism does not persist past itself. The necessary contradictions involved in asserting otherwise are immediately apparent, both rationally and empirically.

As for this self-aware yet impervious "information", this seems to me the same as that dear old soul hypothesis, but only exaggerated to fit more contemporary vernacular.

At some point we should zoom back out again and stop looking through the object of our inquiry in order to find the object of our inquiry. I mean, they’re everywhere. One needs only to look in the mirror or go outside to examine one, and the appealing to some form of immaterialism or other is unnecessary given the ease by which these objects are found.

a reply to: dominicus

That's pure B.S. (bravo sierra) and you know it. Know one in science uses that anymore. It's no loner the late 80s early 90s. Absence of evidence in no way what so ever represents evidence of absence. You are forgetting predictive modeling in mathematics, statistical analysis, philosophical possibility, and the list goes on and on. Just the ability to propose something to exist, that proposition itself is evidence of possibility, and that possibility can then be broken down into a number of different branches of thought and statistics.

That's pure B.S. (bravo sierra) and you know it. Know one in science uses that anymore. It's no loner the late 80s early 90s. Absence of evidence in no way what so ever represents evidence of absence. You are forgetting predictive modeling in mathematics, statistical analysis, philosophical possibility, and the list goes on and on. Just the ability to propose something to exist, that proposition itself is evidence of possibility, and that possibility can then be broken down into a number of different branches of thought and statistics.

I wonder how many of our dear readers are merely taking your word for it. Everything you stated here is wrong, and I hope the reader is not as credulous as you must hope I am.

I cannot take your self-proclaimed authority seriously. I suspect it rather than respect it.

If I look in my microwave oven, I won't see any actual microwaves. But I know they are there, because our technology has developed enough for us to measure them and thus prove their existence. This wasn't always the case, but to suggest that they didn't exist prior to their discovery is of course ludicrous.

Are you really willing to limit your search for the soul to our five senses and current technology, or can you summon the humility to admit that you have no way of predicting future technologies and their potential soul measuring capabilities?

It seems to me that you are essentially grappling with the old schrodingers noisey tree scenario. If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist right? Well fair play if that's your position, you might be right, but I reserve the right to call you a flat earther, either after the soul measurer is invented or in the afterlife.

NorEaster:

The materialist, reductionist, empiricist demand for proof is mired in the 19th Century show-me scientism...

Is it really? I myself am asking 21st century questions, but still receiving medieval answers. The so-called 'show-me scientism' you speak of is called the empirical way. It seeks same or similar results in repeatable observations and experiments by different peer referees. In that manner we can reach a consensus about that which is under study. If science is mired in anything, it is mired in the trench of having to appeal to funding to create a practicable and sellable commodity or something that can kill members of our species more efficiently. Pure scientific research hardly gets any funding whatsoever, except from private donations.

"Energy" is a catch-all term that literally means nothing at all anymore...It's embarrassing to still hear it tossed around as if it means anything other than the release of kinetic potential.

Why should you feel embarrassed? What stake do you have in the outcome? Or, are you simply trying to sound all intellectual snootiness? What great secrets on 'energy' do you hold that to see the word written or hear it mentioned has you squirming with embarrassment? Just curious. Of course, energy does equate to kinetic potential.

...self-aware information certainly has the physical properties to survive the death of the authoring brain

All those words to avoid using the word 'entity'. However, I disagree with your conclusion. What's the power source that holds it altogether when the biological power source is no longer available? Information can't sustain itself, it needs a structure on which it can react or imprint.

a reply to: elysiumfire

Sorry to butt in and forgive my ignorance, but could you point me torwards some info regarding why a soul would need external power? As I understand it the soul is not only self powering but can be used to boost certain meat sack actions. My "beliefs" come from a Kung Fu/Daoist (with an unhealthy dose of newagery) POV and this is not something I have encountered before.

a reply to: March of the Fire Ants

If I look in my microwave oven, I won't see any actual microwaves. But I know they are there, because our technology has developed enough for us to measure them and thus prove their existence. This wasn't always the case, but to suggest that they didn't exist prior to their discovery is of course ludicrous.

Are you really willing to limit your search for the soul to our five senses and current technology, or can you summon the humility to admit that you have no way of predicting future technologies and their potential soul measuring capabilities?

It seems to me that you are essentially grappling with the old schrodingers noisey tree scenario. If you can't measure it, it doesn't exist right? Well fair play if that's your position, you might be right, but I reserve the right to call you a flat earther, either after the soul measurer is invented or in the afterlife.

Microwaves were pedicted by human reason and equation derived from empirical research. So was the Higgs Boson. The soul isn't derrived from anything but very primitive guess work. If you wish to make such comparisons, you might as well believe Jupiter still hurls thunderbolts because you have yet to develop the technology to see him.

If you can explain to me how a soul is even possible, let alone true, I will summon the humility.

originally posted by: artistpoet
a reply to: bb23108

I have always been " A Doubting Thomas"
Yet have paid attention to my inner feelings or gut feelings

For myself some things are very important to glean an understanding of
Past life's for one indicate or indeed confirm that the soul (the essence of what we are) is Eternal
Also there are other realms in which the soul resides

Proof of such things can not be read in books or bought or sold or obtained from Priests, Kings or Queens
They are not second hand ... they are a personal confirmation of the questions we ask of ourselves
Of course one can read another's words and find they ring true or not
But to show one's own understanding requires one to put that understanding in one's own words
One can only do this through one's own efforts and experiences the counter proof gained of the subject in question

Right. Such experiences are self-validating to the person.

But one does have to be very discriminating because the mind of both the physical and subtle body is very complex and such recollections of images, memories, visions, etc., could be based on other events, personalities, archetypes, etc., and possibly misinterpreted as proof of another lifetime. One has to truly just observe without bias to discover what is actually true.

I wonder if LesMis had a completely vivid experience of his deeper (subtle) personality reincarnating from life to life with certain "seed" tendencies, and he really saw this mechanism - if his physical-world-based rationalism would still trump this experience by writing it off as something like a weird dream.

I can ask him this - Sir LesMis, what say you to this query?

a reply to: bb23108

Perhaps Les Mis is a reincarnation of his avatar
Do you ever dream of being in a past time Les

The things we are drawn to ... times and places indicate such things

But of course this will mean nothing to Les if he is not willing to entertain such an idea and for the sake of experiment suspend his dis belief and observe his future dreams and seeming co incidences

Sorry to talk about you Les in this fashion ... no ill intended

originally posted by: elysiumfire
NorEaster:

The materialist, reductionist, empiricist demand for proof is mired in the 19th Century show-me scientism...

Is it really? I myself am asking 21st century questions, but still receiving medieval answers. The so-called 'show-me scientism' you speak of is called the empirical way. It seeks same or similar results in repeatable observations and experiments by different peer referees. In that manner we can reach a consensus about that which is under study. If science is mired in anything, it is mired in the trench of having to appeal to funding to create a practicable and sellable commodity or something that can kill members of our species more efficiently. Pure scientific research hardly gets any funding whatsoever, except from private donations.

Ever hear the story of the native and the digital watch? It's a good apocryphal story that showcases the core problem with empiricism. Let me know if you've heard it, since it's a bit long and I wouldn't want to bore you.

"Energy" is a catch-all term that literally means nothing at all anymore...It's embarrassing to still hear it tossed around as if it means anything other than the release of kinetic potential.

Why should you feel embarrassed? What stake do you have in the outcome? Or, are you simply trying to sound all intellectual snootiness? What great secrets on 'energy' do you hold that to see the word written or hear it mentioned has you squirming with embarrassment? Just curious. Of course, energy does equate to kinetic potential.

Yeah, I'm just trying to sound all intellectual snootiness (great sentence structure, by the way). Look up the term "energy". It refers to the release of a field of potential or the gathering together of that potential, and that's what it refers to. And it's all about movement - period. That movement can be the kinetic response of molecules to agitation (heat) or electrons to a chain reaction (electricity), or any number of agents that have been launched into aggressive activity with the net result either force or heat or what-have-you. One thing energy isn't, though, is free form and lacking in an initiating impetus or trigger. That's just physics.

...self-aware information certainly has the physical properties to survive the death of the authoring brain

All those words to avoid using the word 'entity'. However, I disagree with your conclusion. What's the power source that holds it altogether when the biological power source is no longer available? Information can't sustain itself, it needs a structure on which it can react or imprint.

Again, you need to look into the latest on how physics is seeing information. I can't do it for you, but I can alert you to the fact that you're at least 10 years behind the curve on this.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Material structure is one thing and physical existence is another. That's the long and short of reality. I'll take a deeper look into your reply here later.

a reply to: bb23108

What does this sort of experience entail?

a reply to: artistpoet

I have a dedication to a healthy sleep. As long as I wake up in the same place I went to sleep, whatever happens during that time is well-spent at rest. I do my best dreaming while awake.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: March of the Fire Ants



Microwaves were pedicted by human reason and equation derived from empirical research. So was the Higgs Boson. The soul isn't derrived from anything but very primitive guess work. If you wish to make such comparisons, you might as well believe Jupiter still hurls thunderbolts because you have yet to develop the technology to see him.

If you can explain to me how a soul is even possible, let alone true, I will summon the humility.

My "belief" (for want of a better word) is not based on scientific principles, it is purely based on (profound, possibly psychosemtic) subjective experience coupled with musings on various philosophical traditions. So no, there is no scientific proof I know of that the soul exists, I am simply stating that your dismissal of potential future developments is arrogant beyond beleif. You'll be saying warp drives are impossible next.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: NorEaster

Good to read from you again, Noreaster.

Thoughts do exist despite the scientific method showing otherwise? I then have to wonder what methods you have used in order to convince yourself that thoughts do exist, and what in reality you are actually speaking about, since you are unable to point to them yourself. Since you perhaps prefer a more rationalist approach to these sorts of things, which was en vogue in the 17th century "think-me" scientism, I can than see that you're only talking about the idea of thoughts, and hardly the reality of them. Of course, this idea of thoughts is the product of an animal whose senses point outwards, and who is unable to examine the empirical reality of his own inner processes. It is no wonder that when we develop the technology to finally observe the activity of what occurs in living beings, the rationalist is surprised and probably disappointed to find that thoughts weren't what he always expected them to be.

I've become interested in the notion of "data clouds" (which exist within corporate intranets), and in the fact that pretty much everything that the human being invents for its own relative advantage can be connected to a naturally evolving system that exists as fundamental to reality at large (this is actually true, but it does take some effort to locate those connections and understand how those naturally evolving systems relate, but I digress). The "data cloud" is a subset of contextually entangled information sets that exists within a larger collective of data sets, and a handful of software firms are selling products that help a company create and manage these clouds.

The human memory system actually employs such a data cloud system, with the brain's retrieval circuitry (DNA and material structure) entangled (specific synaptic assemblies to specific cloud data sets) in the same manner that a company's server structural breakout is configured to entangle specific data retrieval points (OS and hardware) to specific cloud data sets. This is what we call memory, and if the hardware (brain synaptic assembly) is stimulated by an electrode, we can get that memory to immediately trigger (selected for conscious experience). We all know that this triggering memory with electrodes has been done many times. The point is that the data sets persist, even long after the brain has already moved past its use of those data sets.

Neuroscientists are comfortable with the notion of human thoughts as emergent systems, since the confluence that brings thoughts into physical existence are not at all similar to thoughts or reducible to components that can then be examined to "locate" the thoughts within the collective itself. This might be a niche that most other folks haven't kept up with, but this is critical to my own ongoing research, so I am up on the latest research and responsible thought concerning this small slice of science. My point is that the experts in neuroscience embrace thoughts as emergent physical holons.

You’re correct to put quotation marks around the word “things” in regards to thoughts especially because thoughts are nothing of the sort. No, they do not exist despite the common assertion that they do by folk psychologists. The irony is, one can only think about thoughts, if you catch my drift. “Thought” is the past tense of “think”, and thinking is an action, not a process by which “thoughts” drop out of some orifice like turds. Now, we are not in the habit of saying actions and verbs exist in any ontological way, for instance something called a “swim”, for if they could, "swims" themselves would be subject to perform actions or have actions performed on them like any noun, yet we often say we are going for a swim as if we could reach out and grab it. “Thoughts” are the same way, and so are "memories": a linguistic convenience with zero ontological immediacy, a rationalist way of abstractly dissecting a process into binary pieces for the sake of his own fancy, when in reality it is a process that hasn’t stopped since birth not unlike circulation or metabolism, and there is no discernible gap between one thought and the next, and no thought can be torn from the one before it nor after it. Do we think and remember? Yes. Are there thoughts or memories floating in our brains? No. The very grammar our foundations are built upon lead rationalists astray in this way, and a sanity check is often required.

Your use of semantics has failed you, I'm afraid. Yes, thought is a verb, but it is also an noun. That was a lot of quality thought to have been wasted on what has been so easy to cast aside.

We are not brains on sticks. We are not comprised of one organ. Therefore, the brain is not the key to whether we persist past death or not; though it might be the key to discovering why we believe this to be so when we’re alive, despite the insurmountable evidence that the entire organism does not persist past itself. The necessary contradictions involved in asserting otherwise are immediately apparent, both rationally and empirically.

Again, I suggest you do some research into the latest thought on thought.

As for this self-aware yet impervious "information", this seems to me the same as that dear old soul hypothesis, but only exaggerated to fit more contemporary vernacular.

No. The soul is pre-existent, where as the brain-authored information set is an emergent response to a survival requirement that the cell DNA dictates cannot actively address. This does not predate the brain, but is configured and "launched" as a response by the brain. That said, if this data set knows that it exists (as the human data sets do) then it simply does, since this capacity for conceptual abstraction can certainly be appreciated as a material realm survival advantage.

At some point we should zoom back out again and stop looking through the object of our inquiry in order to find the object of our inquiry. I mean, they’re everywhere. One needs only to look in the mirror or go outside to examine one, and the appealing to some form of immaterialism or other is unnecessary given the ease by which these objects are found.

The human brain translates the Homo Sapiens DNA dictates in the same way that all material brains translate the DNA survival dictates of the bodies that they serve. The only difference is the capacity to abstract, but it's a transcendent capacity. An the capacity to abstract cannot be merely dismissed because it cannot be sliced into sheets and placed between glass slides under a microscope. You are engaging in conceptual abstraction as you argue that it doesn't exist. I don't know how to argue against that kind of intellectual devotion.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

If you can explain to me how a soul is even possible, let alone true, I will summon the humility.

I like to jump here - with the Intention to help this discussion that we can find a compromise we can share. It is not possible to scientifically explain the "soul" which is like asking a monkey for the formula of a triangle, it is to advanced because its specific character.

I want to make an invite that we can have least a consensus about the following aspect: The existence of a nonphysical world. Which is evidently true. Before I will begin some fundamental reasoning why this is true, let me please make clear that terms like "soul", "death", "god" etc. are micro-aspects of this nonphysical reality. So before we can ask and try to find evidence for this micro-aspects, we need to make a foundation to discuss if this aspects are true within the nonphysical. It does not makes much sense to ask for evidences of deeper aspects before we had make the fundamentals clear.

To have at least a base for discussion and understanding my point I need to add some definitions:

Nonphysical World: The term nonphysical itself is also not very accurate and I use it for a better understanding. Nonphysical just means that its existence is constructed inside dimensions which are not a part of the to-day known dimensions of physics. If the relating dimensions (define that in a second) would be found, it would then be offcourse a part of the scientific physical. Indeed, a soul would be in this case a very physical object.

Dimension: We have 4 Dimensions right now and is measured with containing values, which is simply data. If you miss one dimension, you miss the data. Therefore undiscovered dimensions automaticly contain invisible values.

Let my explain why it is of very real evidence that dimensions beyound our physical perception exist and therefore the POSSIBILITY for souls, god, etc. inside this dimensions are indeed considerable.

Now my proof of evidence for the existence of "outer-physical world"…

A) As mentioned (with different focus) in my earlier post: Black Holes.
Black holes contain infinity time and infinity space distortion (take both as spacetime) and are compared to the usual physical world we know - they are without determination, which means that all informations inside it are gone. This ladies and gentlemen means nothing less that black holes do not contain our known physical dimensions because "infinity" is of no usable value. This are 2 out of our 4 known dimensions deleted and there is not much hope that the other have any 'count' within a black hole either. So what kind of data is inside? Not possible to explain. Do not even try it - you cannot measure light with your ears (different dimensions) - thats why our scientist are totally denied to have any access to black holes. Despite some side-effect measuring like the hawking emission which is a side-product of the event horizon zone, but not inside the black hole which is still a 100% unknown! You cannot dismiss that our science is a closed box and looking into the black (what a beauty metaphor) shows us the very end of our known physical world. knowing that something is there.

B) Subjective perception. Feeling, thinking can be explained with communication of body/brain activity inside humans. Reading this text is a communication via brain-functions but the observer - the one who is reading this is outside the physical world.Not realy indeed but just the dimensions we know. You do not believe me? interesting - which part of you?

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Thanks for your response

I have a dedication to a healthy sleep.

I too believe that sleep is a good medicine / tonic...

As long as I wake up in the same place I went to sleep,

Nothing worse than waking up and thinking "WTF where am I and whose is that foot touching me

I do my best dreaming while awake.

I too am a daydreamer

Though regarding dreams of slumber
From a very young age I took note of my dreams as I had dreams that actually came true and this has continued as I have grown grey whiskers

I have also recorded dreams in painting form and poetry ... though they have not come true as those ones are rather other worldly

Dreams fascinate me but I guess they are not everyone's cup of tea so to speak

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: bb23108

What does this sort of experience entail?

One example would be that your attention moves beyond mere association with the brain-based conscious mind of this physical world into the unconscious, and you recollect vivid memories of being associated with a different body-mind, say from the seventeenth century.

The experience is such that you are certain in your feeling that the one you are now, in terms of this higher mind and attention that you are experiencing these memories with, was also associated with a different physical body, vividly seen in the unconscious psyche.

You also began to notice various aspects of this past lifetime, such as particular books on the shelves, and some papers on a desk you find yourself currently writing on. After a bit, you recognize yourself as Rene Descartes!

Various pieces of the puzzle fall into place in how his ideas back then, and then other lives, and finally you, as LesMis, come together as a convincing whole, a continuum of the same individuated being, during this profound visionary experience.

Suddenly your phone rings and you return to your normal waking consciousness, but with a vivid recollection of all of this.

So what is your likely conclusion about this?

NorEaster:

The point is that the data sets persist, even long after the brain has already moved past its use of those data sets.

That's because the body is still acting as the power source for the data sets to remain in situ and active on stimulation. Death ends the connection to the data sets (memory) and the biological power source, and everything can only dissipate.

You see this is the issue. No matter what you believe regarding post-mortem consciousness or an afterlife, the environment will still be an energetic one, it will still operate on energy interactions and correspondences. All forms of existence, in whatever dimension or multiplicity of dimensions, will operate on this principle. No environment that one can imagine can be elsewise. I don't understand why it is so hard for people to see and understand this very simple aspect of nature. It's despairing.

Well, there's no denying it. On a one-dimensional, extremely simplistic and anti-spiritual level, the OP is absolutely right. The meat machine we all operate and drive around here on earth is going to have its lights go out and drop over stone cold dead. We all know that.

And I don't see anyone arguing it. So congrats, OP, you win the post.

Of course, I failed to see the OP really address the spiritual at all because he doesn't believe in it. So any other arguments we make are our own and really off topic.

Does anyone here deny that our meat machines are going to feed the worms someday? ... Unless you choose cremation that is.