Afterlife or nothing?

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Tensu
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16 Sep 2012, 1:56 pm

TallyMan wrote:

Of course objective measurements indicate one is alive when asleep! I was speaking of a subjective comparison not an objective comparison! I give up. Nobody seems to understand what I'm trying to say.

I got it.

Fnord
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16 Sep 2012, 2:18 pm

The only 'evidence' we have of an afterlife comes from subjective accounts of near-death experiences, religious texts of spurious origins, and the vehement insistence of those for who oblivion is a fearsome concept.

AspieRogue

16 Sep 2012, 2:34 pm

ruveyn wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

WTF makes you think I'm against materialism? Consciousness is indeed a MAJOR unsolved problem and Death is certainly a Mystery. But the thing is that materialism is a bit of a misnomer because if souls do exist, then they are made out of matter(albeit some very exotic matter that has yet to be experimentally observed). Science is ultimately an endless quest to understand how the Cosmos(and whatever is beyond it)works. But there will never be a "theory of everything" because this would violate Godels incompleteness theorem.

Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems are about first order formal logics capable of formulating arithmetic. They are NOT about theories of the physical world. Why not study what Goedel had to say.

And I agree that we will not get a theory of Everything for no other reason than that we are 16 orders of magnitude removed from Planck Length. We have neither the brains nor the money to completely bridge that gap.

One thing for sure though. Philosophy and Religion will do us little good, either now or in the future.

ruveyn

And yet, logic(and mathematics) clearly governs reality and is even more binding than experimental science! But that's a bit of a birdwalk here....

What seems very clear is that biology IS a branch of physics and needs to be treated as such. At the molecular level, biology depends critically on quantum mechanics: The ability of proteins to fold spontaneously and act as molecular machines; changing their shape in response to the binding and unbinding of ligands and the concentration of ions in cytoplasm.

ruveyn
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16 Sep 2012, 3:54 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

And yet, logic(and mathematics) clearly governs reality and is even more binding than experimental science! But that's a bit of a birdwalk here....

Logic and Mathematics are human artifacts. Nature is what it is without any regard to human artifacts. If there were no sentient beings in the Cosmos there would be neither logic nor mathematics.

ruveyn

yellowtamarin
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16 Sep 2012, 10:10 pm

AspieRogue wrote:

yellowtamarin wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

yellowtamarin wrote:

I have no fear of being dead, because I believe it is exactly the same as before I was born - nothing. I'm not quite so comfortable with the act of dying, as there may be pain depending on how it occurs.

To me the idea of having to do more after I die is more frightening than nothingness. Nothingness is a certain, understood thing. Nobody really has much idea of what Heaven or Hell would be like. I want the end to be The End.

You have no memory of before you were born, but lacking in memory doesn't necessarily mean that there was nothing.

It kind of does - I had no brain capable of creating memories, and also no brain capable of experiencing anything. When I die my brain will no longer work, and will eventually no longer exist, which will mean I have the same lack of experience that I had before I existed.

Consciousness, as it turns out, is not a process, but a thing in itself. At the present time, science does not understand where it comes from and what causes it. That's why there is a necessity for something called the Soul; which is defined as being the essence of self.

I've never had any need for the term "soul", I never refer to such a thing as though it exists.

lostgirl1986
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16 Sep 2012, 10:38 pm

TallyMan wrote:

yellowtamarin wrote:

I have no fear of being dead, because I believe it is exactly the same as before I was born.

Ditto that sentiment. I am also "dead" every night when in the deep sleep state. Being dead is no big deal.

No, it wont be a big deal because I'll be dead but the thought of never ever ever ever living again is terrifying to me while I'm alive. My brain can't comprehend the fact without going crazy.

AspieRogue

16 Sep 2012, 10:57 pm

ruveyn wrote:

AspieRogue wrote:

And yet, logic(and mathematics) clearly governs reality and is even more binding than experimental science! But that's a bit of a birdwalk here....

With logic, perhaps. But mathematics does more than just describe reality, it binds reality because what is mathematically impossible has been shown to be physically impossible.

Language was not invented, it evolved by itself. And with the evolution of language came the ability to think abstractly, and this is how logic as we know it came into existence TO US.

lostgirl1986
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16 Sep 2012, 11:01 pm

But then if i think about it. If I really was in a lot of pain and suffering, I wouldn't mind so much and probably wouldn't be as scared. It's like when you're at your deepest and darkest in suicidal thoughts, you don't care. It's like something else has possessed you. When I die I hope I go fast. I hope it's not one of those, "You only have about 3 or 4 months to live" speech. It would probably scare me knowing I was going to die in a few months time.

CloudLayer
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16 Sep 2012, 11:10 pm

there better be another life.

TheBicyclingGuitarist
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16 Sep 2012, 11:31 pm

Quote:

When you die are you no more or will you somehow live forever,
passing through some secret door beyond your life to where you never
hurt or sicken or grow old, never fear the loneliness,
never feel the heat or cold, living free and happy in the

loving arms of God's amazing grace,
talking with the friends you thought were lost,
free from all regrets and all disgrace,
at what a cost!

To believe this would be nice:
if you read the Bible,
it says Jesus paid the price.

But if there is no afterlife, it doesn't matter when I get there.
I won't feel the stress or strife. I will be completely unaware
as I am food for worms, turning back to dust I am made from.
I won't miss my parents then. I won't know a thing and so I

figure it's o.k. either way.
Death is part of life after all.
It will find each of us someday,
and when it calls, we all must fall.

Death is part of life after all.

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ruveyn
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17 Sep 2012, 8:21 am

CloudLayer wrote:

there better be another life.

Why? Nature does not owe you (or me) a damned thing.

ruveyn

Kurgan
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17 Sep 2012, 9:49 am

AspieRogue wrote:

With logic, perhaps. But mathematics does more than just describe reality, it binds reality because what is mathematically impossible has been shown to be physically impossible.

This.

Math wasn't created per se, it was discovered.

Quote:

Language was not invented, it evolved by itself. And with the evolution of language came the ability to think abstractly, and this is how logic as we know it came into existence TO US.

Abstract thinking is actually possible without language. Many on the autistic spectrum can think abstract wthout being able to put words to these thoughts. It has also been proven that all the great apes are capable of abstract thinking and it's widely theorized that other intelligent mammals (eg. dogs, cats and elephants) as well as some birds (eg. ravens) can as well.

TallyMan
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17 Sep 2012, 9:56 am

Kurgan wrote:

Abstract thinking is actually possible without language. Many on the autistic spectrum can think abstract wthout being able to put words to these thoughts.

Much of my thinking is without word-based language. I'm an extreme visual thinker and I literally see and manipulate abstract patterns and flows in my mind. Some of these thoughts are very difficult or even impossible to translate into word based language.

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Kurgan
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17 Sep 2012, 9:58 am

TallyMan wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

Abstract thinking is actually possible without language. Many on the autistic spectrum can think abstract wthout being able to put words to these thoughts.

Same here. Allthough this may be because my language skills are lagging significantly behind other cognitive functions (including abstract thinking).

TallyMan
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17 Sep 2012, 10:04 am

Kurgan wrote:

TallyMan wrote:

Kurgan wrote:

Abstract thinking is actually possible without language. Many on the autistic spectrum can think abstract wthout being able to put words to these thoughts.

Same here. Allthough this may be because my language skills are lagging significantly behind other cognitive functions (including abstract thinking).

Sometimes I use the "pattern and flow" based thinking for debugging certain types of program code. If I have a loop processing a range of numbers and do various manipulations with those numbers within the loop, sometimes an image presents itself in my mind - I see what can best be described as a river with the flow moving and sometimes widening, narrowing, splitting or converging - a trickle falling over the edge literally means there is a boundary error in the code e.g. ending up with trying to evaluate something like 1/0.

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