Why an After Life doesn't make sense.

Here are the reasons why I think the afterlife is a illogical and unlikely possibility.

Feel free to prove me wrong, if you can

- Evidence : There is absolutely no evidence that we have souls, on the contrary, science has demonstrated that consciousness and other cognitive functions are the result of very complex workings of the brain. If not how could you affect your conscious state or moods by taking drugs or medicine? If not how could you suffer from amnesia or emotion disorders due to brain damage? There are parts of the brain whose function is to control emotions and if they are damaged the person can no longer feel emotions. If we were souls this wouldn't happen.

- Origin : The concept of a soul came from people thousands of years ago, who, having no understanding of biology, could not explain it otherwise.

- Selfish : The belief that you survive death is selfish. People don't want to die, so they invent ways of living on that calms their fear of not-existing. But why should we survive death? We're animals, primates, and if chimps get oblivion, we get it too. I don't even believe religion is true altruism, it's just doing good and scoring points for the afterlife. It's selfish.

- Pretentious : It's also pretentious. Humans think they're be all end all of the universe. So it's logical that such a perfect being should live forever, right. Reality is quite different, we're a bunch or organic survival machines on a planet, that revolves around an average star, that is in an average galaxy, and this average galaxy is one of thousands of billion more average galaxies, insignificant, that's the word. And all these billions and billions of galaxies in 92 billion light years of space don't care if you live or die.

[edit on 18-10-2007 by DarkSide]

Originally posted by DarkSide
Here are the reasons why I think the afterlife is a illogical and unlikely possibility.

Feel free to prove me wrong, if you can

- Evidence : There is absolutely no evidence that we have souls, on the contrary, science has demonstrated that consciousness and other cognitive functions are the result of very complex workings of the brain. If not how could you affect your conscious state or moods by taking drugs or medicine? If not how could you suffer from amnesia or emotion disorders due to brain damage? There are parts of the brain whose function is to control emotions and if they are damaged the person can no longer feel emotions. If we were souls this wouldn't happen.

Perhaps the brain is just an interface to the soul? Brake the interface (damage the brain) and the operator (soul maybe) cant control the machine (body) well because it cant get the control signals across.

Originally posted by DarkSide
- Origin : The concept of a soul came from people thousands of years ago, who, having no understanding of biology, could not explain it otherwise.

The concept of most things came from people with no understanding of it at first, that hardly discredits anything. If people had no understanding of biology then perhaps that just means they dont/didnt understand how the soul can inhabit or control the human body.

Originally posted by DarkSide
- Selfish : The belief that you survive death is selfish. People don't want to die, so they invent ways of living on that calms their fear of not-existing. But why should we survive death? We're animals, primates, and if chimps get oblivion, we get it too. I don't even believe religion is true altruism, it's just doing good and scoring points for the afterlife. It's selfish.

What makes you think chimps dont also have souls? Different religions have different views i am sure but perhaps the bigger the brain the more a soul can control a biological machine. So a ant doesn't appear to have a soul but it just has less capability for the soul to be presented. I think some people are controlled by the fear of death, but not all.

The fact humans can be selfish and may believe in a afterlife to make death easier for themselves doesn't add or take away anything for the fact it may or may not exist.

Gareth

Originally posted by GarethAyres
Perhaps the brain is just an interface to the soul? Brake the interface (damage the brain) and the operator (soul maybe) cant control the machine (body) well because it cant get the control signals across.

Doesn't explain why damage to certain areas causes loss of memory. Shouldn't memory be stored in the soul?

Originally posted by GarethAyres
The concept of most things came from people with no understanding of it at first, that hardly discredits anything. If people had no understanding of biology then perhaps that just means they dont/didnt understand how the soul can inhabit or control the human body.

It discredits everything. Would you believe a drunken bum trying to explain to you the secrets of the universe?

Originally posted by GarethAyres
What makes you think chimps dont also have souls? Different religions have different views i am sure but perhaps the bigger the brain the more a soul can control a biological machine. So a ant doesn't appear to have a soul but it just has less capability for the soul to be presented. I think some people are controlled by the fear of death, but not all.

Doesn't make sense. Humans are only on the planet for a brief period of time (taking the big picture into account) and even primates are more or less recent, so where did the soul come from?

[edit on 18-10-2007 by DarkSide]

Don't forget the split-brain patients. These people are very interesting. They appear to have two independent consciousness brains. If a soul had any use, it should it be able to pass knowledge between the hemispheres, bypassing the cut corpus callosum?



Ramachandran had an interesting split-brain patient who when asked whether they believed in god to each hemisphere, the right said 'yes', the left said 'no'. The right hemisphere tends to be emotion-based.

So I guess the god-dude is going to have to send half his brain to hell.

Originally posted by melatonin
So I guess the god-dude is going to have to send half his brain to hell.

Ahahaha, that's hilarious. I never heard of split-brain's before, thanks.

Originally posted by melatonin
Ramachandran had an interesting split-brain patient who when asked whether they believed in god to each hemisphere, the right said 'yes', the left said 'no'. The right hemisphere tends to be emotion-based.

So I guess the god-dude is going to have to send half his brain to hell.

Or perhaps one side of the brain is acting as an interface to the soul correctly and one side is broken?

Looking into split brain it did not appear that patients had multiple personalities with different opinions, just that certain functions of the brain could not cooperate with others.

Gareth.

Originally posted by GarethAyres
Or perhaps one side of the brain is acting as an interface to the soul correctly and one side is broken?

But neither of the hemisphere's are damaged, only the structure that allows both to communicate.

Originally posted by DarkSide

Originally posted by GarethAyres
Or perhaps one side of the brain is acting as an interface to the soul correctly and one side is broken?

But neither of the hemisphere's are damaged, only the structure that allows both to communicate.

Perhaps one side of the brain needs part of the other hemisphere to make a decision correctly while the other does not is what i ment.

So, essentially the ad-hoc suggestion here is that one part of the brain can work without a soul...

Just what use is this concept of a soul? Apart from underpinning religious beliefs?

What does a soul do? If I said my soul was interfaced with my colon, would it be of any less use than suggesting it connects with one hemisphere of the brain? Which hemisphere?

The problem here is that there are people who have had a whole hemisphere removed (hemispherectomy). Did their soul go in the biological waste with it? Or is it still floating around trying to connect with some incinerated waste?

Other people have had whole lobes of the brain removed. I know one patient with a right frontal lobectomy. He confabulates, but he's generally OK. Others have had temporal lobectomies etc etc. So, if we remove the wrong part, we might remove a person's soul?

Now, we already take into account the effect of removing parts of the brain that predomiately mediate memory and language by using the Wada test, should we find a new test to ensure we leave the soul interface in place? Or can we just assume it is some ad-hoc story in an effort to bolster faith?

Originally posted by melatonin
So, essentially the ad-hoc suggestion here is that one part of the brain can work without a soul...

Maybe, im not sure yet myself.

Originally posted by melatonin
What does a soul do? If I said my soul was interfaced with my colon, would it be of any less use than suggesting it connects with one hemisphere of the brain? Which hemisphere?

Maybe both, maybe just one, maybe neither. But maybe each part of the brain functions independently, some parts work to a certain level without a soul and some work without the need of a soul controlling them.

Originally posted by melatonin
The problem here is that there are people who have had a whole hemisphere removed (hemispherectomy). Did their soul go in the biological waste with it? Or is it still floating around trying to connect with some incinerated waste?

Other people have had whole lobes of the brain removed. I know one patient with a right frontal lobectomy. He confabulates, but he's generally OK. Others have had temporal lobectomies etc etc. So, if we remove the wrong part, we might remove a person's soul?

Now, we already take into account the effect of removing parts of the brain that predomiately mediate memory and language by using the Wada test, should we find a new test to ensure we leave the soul interface in place? Or can we just assume it is some ad-hoc story in an effort to bolster faith?

What about the other side of the coin... All the paranormal stories involving past lives, people suddenly speaking a language they never spoke before, deja vu and all the other parapsychology madness? How can any of that be explained without a soul?

Originally posted by GarethAyres
What about the other side of the coin... All the paranormal stories involving past lives, people suddenly speaking a language they never spoke before, deja vu and all the other parapsychology madness? How can any of that be explained without a soul?

Well, I think most of the past-life stuff/regression is just confabulation. But if you want a non-soul explanation, how about we leave an imprint in the fabric of the universe? Of course, I'm just making sh!t up, but what's the difference? This need not be the dualistic soul that people think of, it might just be like a footprint in the mud of the universe, maybe an unknown force allows people to sense such imprints. Why not? Just as plausible.

Deja-vu is likely to have a neuroscientific explanation. Indeed, I know that people are working on it, and there are some plausible explanations coming forth.

I'm sure most of the true talking in a new language stuff is BS. Speaking in tongues is just waffle, or probably some language deficit. The one fMRI study that assessed tongues showed reduced activation in an area of the brain involved in switching between languages, so it is not a language. I do know that brain injury can make people take on a new accent, that's well documented.

Other parapsychology madness? Well, it would depend on what madness it was. For example, ESP need not have any soul-based explanation. I'm sure you can think of other explanations. If you can't, how about the possibility there exists an unknown natural force/sense? Obviously, the first thing would be to show there is real, reliable, replicable, methodologically robust evidence, which there isn't.

But all this stuff need not be in need of the conception of a dualistic soul. Making stuff up is easy, showing it to have any real-world validity is a bit more difficult.

Originally posted by melatonin
Well, I think most of the past-life stuff/regression is just confabulation. But if you want a non-soul explanation, how about we leave an imprint in the fabric of the universe? Of course, I'm just making sh!t up, but what's the difference? This need not be the dualistic soul that people think of, it might just be like a footprint in the mud of the universe, maybe an unknown force allows people to sense such imprints. Why not? Just as plausible.

LOL you are correct, just as plausible.

I have not decided if i believe a soul exists or not yet myself. Id like to think it did and there is a great afterlife awaiting but i am not convinced either way yet.

Now this is a very interesting conversation. I guess first it depend on what you define the soul as. To me it means everything that is not of the body with the brain acting as the computer through which it expresses itself, so if the brain were in fact damaged it would not be able to express itself normally, it would be like trying to type this out with burnt out keys. As to what happens when part of the brain is removed, don't know really because you are trying to figure out what happens to something that is intangible in relation to removing something that is. Just my thoughts.

I agree with most of the stuff that Gareth said, so I won't reiterate it. However, where does the unitary sense of an 'I' existing come from? Moreover, doesn't current Science state that there are other Kaluza Klein type dimensions? Why not suggest the exist of something in one of those dimensions locking on to a corporeal existence, locking off at sleep, keeping the necessary autonomic parts of the brain going, and then locking back on during waking?

I think if there has to be evidence of a soul, it will come from research of sleep which is a type of unconsciousness. This is similar to anaesthesia induced unconsciousness.

We would also have to examine why the brain seems to be operating non computationally. this evidence will come in the next ten years as AI programmers attempt to give consciousness to machines. Not the piecemeal, fundamentally simple consciousness involved in addressing a database for the next chess move but a holistic feeling of self.

If the AI people are successful, I will then have to reconsider what I currently believe about the nature of soul/ego/personality.

Bottom line - let's wait and see.

The serpents only wish is that people will wait.

Originally posted by Jovi1
Now this is a very interesting conversation. I guess first it depend on what you define the soul as. To me it means everything that is not of the body with the brain acting as the computer through which it expresses itself, so if the brain were in fact damaged it would not be able to express itself normally, it would be like trying to type this out with burnt out keys. As to what happens when part of the brain is removed, don't know really because you are trying to figure out what happens to something that is intangible in relation to removing something that is. Just my thoughts.

I agree with you, the soul is the 'thing' that expresses itself (or yourself) and the characteristics of it are imprinted on your face (you proably don't know waht I'm talking about now, but I don't feel like typing it)

In order for the soul/spirit to take on a life with a physical body, it needs a brain and a body to occupy. I think the soul is the personality and traits of that person, but genes can override and probably determine most of our traits.

Edgar Cayce has said that b/w past lives we go the other planets in the solar system and that past lives traits are carried over in the next life.
It's hard to distinguish how DNA/genes and the soul work together to fit and make that person's personality and traits they have, that's why this subject is hard to believe and hotly debated.

But for people who think there is a soul, where does it go after you die, if you say to god, you need a smack on the face, if you say you're a ghost, you need another smack on the face, as well as the fact that there would be billions of ghosts walking around the planet and you'd have to start saying stuff about how the ghost thing works.....how come you see them sometimes and other times you can't....more questions then answers.....

I don’t see any logic in the soul, no scientific proof, and so on. Cannot see soul, cannot touch it,......(can see atoms, can touch them, every thing you see is made of atoms, and so as you touch your keyboard, you're touching atoms.)

You’re brain has a conciseness, every time you see, touch, smell, taste, you’re absorbing information into your brain, making yourself more aware of the things around you. And you become concisely aware of yourself after enough information has been collected.

If you couldn’t analyse anything, take in information about everyday things, if you had no senses, touch, smell, hearing etc, you wouldn’t be able to think properly to normal human standards.

You wouldn’t think like a person, because you haven’t learnt what you normally would’ve if you had been able to learn as a normal person. Like those people who a brought up by animals, a girl was found I think Russia, who was brought up by actual wolfs. She didn’t have the capacity to understand normal things like us, because she only understood what she had learnt while being brought up. She’s not going to learn calculous by herself without the basic understanding of math….

The more information you receive, the more you understand about your surroundings. A soul, if it existed, wouldn’t need to learn basic functions, as it would already know of everything around it, and would only need the brain as a device. As soon as you are born by the logic of a soul, you should know everything….

Even reincarnations…..when you die, you comeback into another person, so you have all the information from the previous person, so you don’t need to learn about anything…..you should already know everything from the previous person if there’s a soul, because the soul doesn’t need the brain, but only as a container / vehicle.

The very fact that we don’t have kids at 10, being smarter than people at 50, or knowing things that happened in the last 5000 years, is enough reason. When you learn things your brain then has memory, say for example, you’re 40 years old, your brain would have 20 years worth of memories, (the other 20 is when you’re asleep, yep that’s true, we sleep for half our life’s, although depending on how much sleep you yourself get every night) If we came back into another person after we die, as soon as we are born, we would have hundreds of years of memories in our brain, and so our brains would not be able to maintain it all, and we’d be dead. ……owned…..