And that ridiculous explanation made sense to you? Remember, your response was "Finally, a theory that makes sense."
Afterlife and Pre-life
- Thread starter heresJohnny
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And that ridiculous explanation made sense to you? Remember, your response was "Finally, a theory that makes sense."
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
That's not entirely true (though it's mostly true), there are what amount to folk tales in the Jewish and Christian tradition about pre-born souls, like the story of the Guff or Guf (though pronounced "Goof") — the place where preborn souls live.
Further, Mormonism has an elaborate tradition regarding what they believe the life of the pre-born was like, where a third of all souls joined Satan in rebellion (because Satan wanted to remove all our free will so that we could all be made into gods, but God refused, a third remained neutral and a third opposed Satan on God's side. In Mormonism God never made our souls, they pre-existed eternally, and God merely gave us the world so that we could progress to a greater understanding of spiritual matters (and, if we succeed, eventually become gods ourselves).
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If this was just an indexing of various antelife accounts or research into antelife doctrines -- then how wide would the territory be, or what qualifies for consideration? Only traditional fare that has achieved a significant degree of popularity or had it at one time in the past? Or also the most recent concoctions of groups and "cults", that can even borrow from science fiction? To wit:
"One belief of Scientology is that a human is an immortal alien, i.e. extraterrestrial, spiritual being, termed a thetan, that is trapped on Earth in a physical body. Hubbard described these 'thetans' in a 'Space Opera' cosmogony. The thetan has had innumerable past lives and it is accepted in Scientology that lives preceding the thetan's arrival on Earth lived in extraterrestrial cultures. Descriptions of these space opera incidents are seen as true events by Scientologists."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-existence
http://www.religionresourcesonline.org/different-types-of-religion/compare/pre-existence.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_beliefs_and_practices
I remember from my OBE that the most important thing seemed to be a certain feeling of "there is nothing to be afraid of" or something like that, it is difficult to describe adequately.
Which is why some definitions of death focus on rigor mortis, because once rigor mortis sets in, the damage done to the body is irreversible.
The question of an afterlife and whether living beings have/are souls is primarily an ethical/moral question.
To quote William James:
Moral questions immediately present themselves as questions whose solution cannot wait for sensible proof. A moral question is a question not of what sensibly exists, but of what is good, or would be good if it did exist. Science can tell us what exists; but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exist, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart. Science herself consults her heart when she lays it down that the infinite ascertainment of fact and correction of false belief are the supreme goods for man. Challenge the statement, and science can only repeat it oracularly, or else prove it by showing that such ascertainment and correction bring man all sorts of other goods which man's heart in turn declares. The question of having moral beliefs at all or not having them is decided by our will. Are our moral preferences true or false, or are they only odd biological phenomena, making things good or bad for us, but in themselves indifferent? How can your pure intellect decide? If your heart does not want a world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never make you believe in one. Mephistophelian scepticism, indeed, will satisfy the head's play-instincts much better than any rigorous idealism can. Some men (even at the student age) are so naturally cool-hearted that the moralistic hypothesis never has for them any pungent life, and in their supercilious presence the hot young moralist always feels strangely ill at ease. The appearance of knowingness is on their side, of naivete and gullibility on his. Yet, in the inarticulate heart of him, he clings to it that he is not a dupe, and that there is a realm in which (as Emerson says) all their wit and intellectual superiority is no better than the cunning of a fox. Moral scepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual scepticism can. When we stick to it that there is truth (be it of either kind), we do so with our whole nature, and resolve to stand or fall by the results. The sceptic with his whole nature adopts the doubting attitude; but which of us is the wiser, Omniscience only knows.
http://educ.jmu.edu/~omearawm/ph101willtobelieve.html
heresJohnny
Registered Senior Member
Yes, why is it so difficult for you to understand? If souls are proven to be real, Jan's suggested theory would turn out to be most possible. It is a far more satisfying argument than "God made it thar way".
heresJohnny
Registered Senior Member
Do you mean "non-existence", as in entirely? It's true that when we die, our material body is gone and therefore, we lose our physical being. But what if there's something or anything that is related to the very personality, which could survive the process?
Of course thats possible - it may even be exactly true - I dont make any claims that it is false - just that I choose not to believe it because it would be irrational to grant it a place in my ontology even though very little, if any evidence, proof or reason to do so exists - we dont know for sure, but until further knowledge is gained, I would not consider it worth the belief.
This kind of reasoning is kind of like saying tap faucets are the primary requirement for deliveering water.
IOW for as long as a prototype for a thesis remains sourceless, any talk of what is most likely/most rational/most logical is quite simply just talk ...
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Use your reading skills.
Can you please elaborate?
from you : We know perception, sensations, thoughts and emotions are all functions of the brain
ok
Memory, feelings, consciousness are likely to be the same
err ... well no
IOW to take the act of perception (ie sensation) as sufficient to dictate what we are seeing with (consciousness) as a likely conclusion is like taking the act of turning on a faucet to dictate what will come out of the tap.
Philosophically speaking, its very shallow water when you want to start talking about functional qualities suddenly being magically transformed in causal qualities
In ordinary affairs as well as in science, engineering, and other fields, all of the characteristics of an effect will be completely explained by the set of proximate causes. If a postulated (hypothesized) set of proximate causes (also known as "direct factors") does not fully explain all of the characteristics (attributes) of the effect the set of direct factors is either wrong or incomplete.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation
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Jan simply made up his/her theory of souls and their interaction with the body. There's no basis for that belief, and there's nothing to suggest that even if souls were, in fact, real, that this would be the most likely explanation of their interactions. It's piffle, entirely without merit.
Antelife should be held distinct from afterlife, though, since in some of these beliefs the former may not always also be an instance of the latter (i.e., certain souls, or whatever diddly, might be participating in an embodied existence, etc., for the first time).
And we can go back to an earlier influence, Kant: "Hence the division of philosophy falls properly into two parts, quite distinct in their principles -- a theoretical, as philosophy of nature, and a practical, as philosophy of morals..."
Regarding this division of philosophy into theoretical and practical, how many theists/occultists in these topics abide by or secure themselves properly on their applicable side of the dichotomy? That is, do some of them claim right from the start that the objects or circumstances of their beliefs have evidence or instantiation in the natural world, thus legitimately opening the door to criticism from their opponents? In addition, practical philosophy requires that those who employ it are appealing to internally consistent arguments or frameworks for what they promote as "necessary", not merely an informal jumble of passions. (Again, I'll leave it those who keep better tabs on the religious/moral topics in here to attest how much or little these misadventures happen).
Theoretical and practical reason were in effect long before Kant, but the latter was one of the pioneers (if not the first) to clear-up the confusion that was garbling the two together. And much emphasis must be placed on the fact that Kant makes clear that there is no empirical evidence for the products of practical philosophy. Its purpose is to possess a territory for freedom cleared by the first critique of theoretical reason, or at least freedom from the machine-like workings of the world of outer sense, and the pursuit of moral foundations for those who cannot cope with secular alternatives for such.
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John Watson: "There are only two kinds of conception by reference to which the division of philosophy into theoretical and practical can be made. Theoretical philosophy is concerned solely with conceptions of nature; in other words, it deals with those pure conceptions or categories which are essential to the constitution of the orderly system of phenomena. The conception of freedom, on the other hand, is merely a negative principle of theoretical knowledge; i.e., it only tells us that a free subject, if such a subject exists, must be independent of all sensuous desire. But this conception also enables us, through the consciousness of the moral law, to enlarge the sphere of the will, and the will is simply practical reason. These two conceptions, then, when they are grasped clearly, enable us to keep theoretical philosophy and moral philosophy perfectly distinct. The former is the philosophy of nature, the latter the philosophy of the free or moral subject. These terms, however, have not been consistently employed, but a confusion has been introduced by an ambiguous use of the term 'practical,' which has been applied both to sciences that are occupied with nature and also to the free or moral subject. Now, the former application is obviously illegitimate, when we consider that in the proper sense nothing is 'practical' except those actions which proceed from a free moral subject." --The Philosophy of Kant Explained
Kant: "...But when all progress in the field of the supersensible has thus been denied to speculative reason, it is still open to us to inquire whether, in the practical knowledge of reason, data may not be found sufficient to determine reason's transcendent concept of the unconditioned, and so to enable us, in accordance with the wish of metaphysics, and by means of knowledge that is possible a priori, though only from a practical point of view, to pass beyond the limits of all possible experience. Speculative reason has thus at least made room for such an extension; and if it must at the same time leave it empty, yet none the less we are at liberty, indeed we are summoned, to take occupation of it, if we can, by practical data of reason."
Kant: "...To know an object I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its actuality as attested by experience, or a priori by means of reason. But I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself, that is, provided my concept is a possible thought. This suffices for the possibility of the concept, even though I may not be able to answer for there being, in the sum of all possibilities, an object corresponding to it. But something more is required before I can ascribe to such a concept objective validity, that is, real possibility; the former possibility is merely logical. This something more need not, however, be sought in the theoretical sources of knowledge; it may lie in those that are practical."
Kant: "...But as will be shown, reason has, in respect of its practical employment, the right to postulate what in the field of mere speculation it can have no kind of right to assume without sufficient proof. For while all such assumptions do violence to [the principle of] completeness of speculation, that is a principle with which the practical interest is not at all concerned. In the practical sphere reason has rights of possession, of which it does not require to offer proof, and of which, in fact, it could not supply proof. The burden of proof accordingly rests upon the opponent. But since the latter knows just as little of the object under question, in trying to prove its non-existence, as does the former in maintaining its reality, it is evident that the former, who is asserting something as a practically necessary supposition, is at an advantage. For he is at liberty to employ, as it were in self-defense, on behalf of his own good cause, the very same weapons that his opponent employs against that cause, that is, hypotheses. These are not intended to strengthen the proof of his position, but only to show that the opposing party has much too little understanding of the matter in dispute to allow of his flattering himself that he has the advantage in respect of speculative insight. Hypotheses are therefore, in the domain of pure reason, permissible only as weapons of war, and only for the purpose of defending a right, not in order to establish it. But the opposing party we must always look for in ourselves. For speculative reason in its transcendental employment is in itself dialectical; the objections which we have to fear lie in ourselves. We must seek them out, just as we would do in the case of claims that, while old, have never become superannuated, in order that by annulling them we may establish a permanent peace."
Kant: "...it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility. The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and the world into a world of the senses and a world of the understanding, is therefore quite inadmissible in the positive sense although the distinction of concepts as sensible and intellectual is certainly legitimate. For no object can be determined for the latter concepts, and consequently they cannot be asserted to be objectively valid."
--Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith translation
John Watson: "Desire as such is simply one of the many causes which belong to the world of phenomena; in other words, our own actions, so long as we look at them from the phenomenal point of view, are events of the same character as other events, and as such come under the same laws. More particularly, desire must be viewed as subject to the law of mechanical causation. If an attempt is made to remove desire from the sphere of nature on the ground that our actions are preceded by an idea of the object to be attained, Kant answers that this of itself does not introduce any fundamental distinction; for, the mere fact that an act is preceded by an idea does not show that it is taken out of the sphere of phenomena. So far as it is regarded as an event, desire belongs to the sphere of nature, and therefore it obviously falls within the domain of theoretical philosophy. On the other hand, when we look at our acts from the point of view of the noumenal self, the self as free, they must be regarded as practically possible or practically necessary; i.e., they must be regarded as the selfdetermination of a rational or free subject. So regarded our actions fall within the sphere of moral philosophy. The true contrast, then, is between events that are brought under the law of natural causation and actions that proceed from the free subject." --The Philosophy of Kant Explained
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Agreed. So what is your suggestion about understanding consciousness? IMO, its like a rainbow, consciousness is to neurons as a rainbow is to raindrops. When billions of parts interact to form emergent properties, specialy when they are linked together in complex ways [like an engine rather than raindrops], something as amazing as consciousness might arise from simple synaptic activity - but that's just my humble take on it, based on what we know so far - whats your opinion?
something closer to Jan's description.
(consciousness pervades the body and in its absence - death- no amount of biological networking can restore life)
Once again, your opinion is not based on what we know, its about extrapolating proximate causes to causal ones.
IOW unlike the rainbow or engine analogy, there is no evidence for consciousness being engineered by a group of interactive parts that grant the sum result
So how can you explain how damage to parts of the brain affect consciousness or some of its abilities? If awareness wasn't connected to the brain's individual pieces, then it would act like some other organs that work fine with parts missing.
If a brain is the only via of control and expression then any damage to that via is likely to adversely affect what we observe of its functioning. Neuroplasticity can allow the brain to recoup some lost function due to damage. What is it that reasserts such a function, especially when it is taken up by a different part of the brain? Even just imagining to practice a skill has been shown to affect neuroplasticity in a way similar to actual practice.
Does any other organ compensate for damage by reasserting the lost function elsewhere?