belief in an afterlife

[Cris]

LG,

On the contrary it is the reductionist paradigms that you hold as determining the nature of reality that don't allow admittance of the term "mind"

Didn’t follow that. I have no problem knowing that the mind exists. Still not sure if you think the mind exists or not.

You reveal your bias when you have insufficent knowledge at hand to begin to understand a phenomena and express full confidence about how other ideas (other ideas that you are not even familiar with in any great detail) are "fantasy"

Why so? The soul concept has absolutely no precedent or evidential or factual support of any type. Why can there be any doubt that this is pure fantasy?

.. I have made very clear from the outset that I am talking about the self as context

Why would you have any doubt that the manifestation of self is not the result of physical brain activity?

When you talk about the brain being the source of the self as context, it is definitely a speculation..

What credibility is there for anything else?

 

[lightgigantic]

Cris

“ On the contrary it is the reductionist paradigms that you hold as determining the nature of reality that don't allow admittance of the term "mind" ”

Didn’t follow that. I have no problem knowing that the mind exists. Still not sure if you think the mind exists or not.

Of course it exists - I use the example to illustrate the limitation sof the reductionist paradigm, that says the mind does not exist (the mind is only given any credibility in science due to human psychology, which operates out of a behaviouralism, distinct from reductionism.

“ You reveal your bias when you have insufficent knowledge at hand to begin to understand a phenomena and express full confidence about how other ideas (other ideas that you are not even familiar with in any great detail) are "fantasy" ”

Why so? The soul concept has absolutely no precedent or evidential or factual support of any type. Why can there be any doubt that this is pure fantasy?

You would come to the same conclusion if you focused that razor sharp perception of yours on the scientific body of work that supports the idea that the self is determined by the brain

“ .. I have made very clear from the outset that I am talking about the self as context ”

Why would you have any doubt that the manifestation of self is not the result of physical brain activity?

call me a fanatic but I like to see evidence for claims

“ When you talk about the brain being the source of the self as context, it is definitely a speculation.. ”

What credibility is there for anything else?

a lack of evidence for a start - and given the details of other paradigms (which you tar as primitive religion) I would say quite a lot, especially when the idea is confirmed by persons like John Eccles and Karl Pribram.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carew_Eccles

 

[SkinWalker]

call me a fanatic but I like to see evidence for claims

ROFLMFAO! But not when those claims are about superstitions and fantasies of gods and creators, eh? What was the nonsense phrase you used... "disciplic succession?"

 

[lightgigantic]

ROFLMFAO! But not when those claims are about superstitions and fantasies of gods and creators, eh? What was the nonsense phrase you used... "disciplic succession?"

So you have the evidence of the above, or are you trolling for another ad hom expedition per usual?

 

[SkinWalker]

You say "ad hom," but I say fair criticism. If anyone wants "evidence" of your hypocrisy, they need only pick one. If you're going to go around the forum, spamming us all with your postmodernist bullshit, don't get whiny and start crying "ad hom" when you get criticized for it.

You have no problem going on at length with your silly "correct epistemology" nonsense, and your claims that all the varied and often contradictory gods of humanity are just your god in disguise. The rational thinkers on this board -the freethinkers see the evidence. Call it an "ad hom" if you like, but your comment above is a joke. It made me laugh.

 

[heliocentric]

Hold on there. How do we know that the animal "distinguishes," per se, from itself? To distinguish is an act of cognition. Perhaps some animals (most of them, really) do not recognize their own existence at all.

But surely all creatures strive to survive, and isnt that mearly a battle to sustain the self above all else?
I think what im talking about here is really an instinctual or visceral sense of self, a great deal of animals wouldnt have something as complex as a cognative sense of self though, that id agree with.

Idealism is generally considered to be the belief that consciousness is the root of existence. The belief that basic matter has no awareness at all is closer to the opposite of idealism, or materialism. Most materialists are determinists, and vice-versa.

Ah ok, i wasnt actually familiar with those specific uses of those terms, thanks

Interesting. I will have to read some of his essays, then. Perhaps his views have changed since the advent of his "hidden variables" interpretation of quantum mechanics.

I think alot of his earlier work removes consciousness from the quantum equation completely although his latter work seems to incorporate it somewhat more. Although im no Bohm expert, but that is the overall impression i get of his work.

 

[lightgigantic]

You say "ad hom," but I say fair criticism. If anyone wants "evidence" of your hypocrisy, they need only pick one. If you're going to go around the forum, spamming us all with your postmodernist bullshit, don't get whiny and start crying "ad hom" when you get criticized for it.

You have no problem going on at length with your silly "correct epistemology" nonsense, and your claims that all the varied and often contradictory gods of humanity are just your god in disguise. The rational thinkers on this board -the freethinkers see the evidence. Call it an "ad hom" if you like, but your comment above is a joke. It made me laugh.

Just as I suspected - trolling

 

[SkinWalker]

You say trolling. I say fair criticism. You're being hypocritical in your claim to like evidence.

Edit: then again, you probably *do* like evidence as long as it supports the conclusions you already have. If not, it's probably simpler to just ignore it, eh? Or, better yet, don't even bother to apply criticism at all.

 

[lightgigantic]

You say trolling. I say fair criticism. You're being hypocritical in your claim to like evidence.

Edit: then again, you probably *do* like evidence as long as it supports the conclusions you already have. If not, it's probably simpler to just ignore it, eh? Or, better yet, don't even bother to apply criticism at all.

you are still trolling

 

[SkinWalker]

No. I'm still offering a fair criticism of your posts.

 

[lightgigantic]

No. I'm still offering a fair criticism of your posts.

didn't your mother ever warn you that the wind might change if you contiue to express yourself in manners like this?

 

[SkinWalker]

It just eats you up that I've offered a fair criticism of your posting history and have called you out on it. You're a hypocrite. You claim to have a penchant for evidence and I say only when it fits your preconceived conclusions.

Your intellectual honesty is fading fast, LG. First I call you out on plagiarism, now on hypocrisy. Maybe you'd like to go back and edit each of your nonsensical posts that disregard evidence as reasoned minds accept it like you did the one where you plagiarized another website?

 

[lightgigantic]

It just eats you up that I've offered a fair criticism of your posting history and have called you out on it. You're a hypocrite. You claim to have a penchant for evidence and I say only when it fits your preconceived conclusions.

Your intellectual honesty is fading fast, LG. First I call you out on plagiarism, now on hypocrisy. Maybe you'd like to go back and edit each of your nonsensical posts that disregard evidence as reasoned minds accept it like you did the one where you plagiarized another website?

Sorry

- can't understand a word of your post
.....I am not familiar with trollspeak

 

[SkinWalker]

You keep saying "troll," but clearly it is *you* that is trolling LightG. Why else would such a credulous, anti-science apparent hypocrite continue to post his postmodernist/new age double-speak about nonsense like "discipilic succession" (as if this were a real term) in a science forum -going on and on ad infinitum about how wrong the "atheist" and the "atheist doctrine" are?

Then, when someone calls you on your b.s., you start crying about "ad hom" and "trolling" and, instead of either letting it go or responding with anything of substance, you make silly little witticisms with smilies that have the only apparent purpose of not allowing me to get the last word.

So, if I truly am trolling (I'm not -I'm offering a fair criticism, something that the credulous fear almost as much as ridicule), I'm obviously winning since you keep biting. But that's speaking in the hypothetical, since I'm not trolling.

Did I mention that I'm not trolling? Criticism, LG. Criticism. Okay, this line is ridicule.

 

[lightgigantic]

You keep saying "troll," but clearly it is *you* that is trolling LightG. Why else would such a credulous, anti-science apparent hypocrite continue to post his postmodernist/new age double-speak about nonsense like "discipilic succession" (as if this were a real term) in a science forum -going on and on ad infinitum about how wrong the "atheist" and the "atheist doctrine" are?

Then, when someone calls you on your b.s., you start crying about "ad hom" and "trolling" and, instead of either letting it go or responding with anything of substance, you make silly little witticisms with smilies that have the only apparent purpose of not allowing me to get the last word.

So, if I truly am trolling (I'm not -I'm offering a fair criticism, something that the credulous fear almost as much as ridicule), I'm obviously winning since you keep biting. But that's speaking in the hypothetical, since I'm not trolling.

Did I mention that I'm not trolling? Criticism, LG. Criticism. Okay, this line is ridicule.

This is a waste of time - your behaviour (particularly for a mod) is somewhere out past pluto

 

[lightgigantic]

This message is hidden because SkinWalker is on your ignore list.

 

[SkinWalker]

This message is hidden because SkinWalker is on your ignore list.

Nice try. I know better. But this is more evidence of your dishonesty, eh? If you click on "ignore member" you'll see the following message: Sorry SkinWalker is a moderator/admin and you are not allowed to ignore him or her.

Also, the "but your a mod" argument isn't working either. I made a fair criticism of your posting habits and hypocrisy. If you don't like it too bad.

 

[lightgigantic]

Can't hear you skinny

 

[Cris]

Lg,

Of course it exists - I use the example to illustrate the limitation sof the reductionist paradigm, that says the mind does not exist (the mind is only given any credibility in science due to human psychology, which operates out of a behaviouralism, distinct from reductionism.

Not sure where you were ever going with that. Looks like you referred to an argument you didn’t like so you could criticize it, and somehow involve me. I think you became distracted by trying to analyze me rather than just sticking to the argument. You do that a lot I notice.

You would come to the same conclusion if you focused that razor sharp perception of yours on the scientific body of work that supports the idea that the self is determined by the brain

Are you stating a fact, or attempting sarcasm, or what? Not sure what you are saying here, apart from yes the self does appear to be determined by the brain. But I thought you didn’t believe that.

Why would you have any doubt that the manifestation of self is not the result of physical brain activity? ”

call me a fanatic but I like to see evidence for claims

But you’re a theist, you never use evidence. Theism is based on faith (absence of evidence). So do you have any evidence to answer the question? The thread is about afterlife and that necessarily leads to the topic of souls which we are discussing I believe. So if the self is not generated by the brain then what, and how? We can see how the self could be an emergent property of brain functioning without too much difficulty since in this scenario it is an entirely physical phenomenon and we have no evidence to suggest anything else. But do you have any evidence to support the mythical soul? I’m sure you must since you now claim to be a fanatic for evidence, right? And you wouldn’t dare make a claim without evidence, right?

What credibility is there for anything else? ”

a lack of evidence for a start - and given the details of other paradigms (which you tar as primitive religion) I would say quite a lot, especially when the idea is confirmed by persons like John Eccles and Karl Pribram.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carew_Eccles

Neither of these articles make any references to a mystical soul or non-physical nature of self. That the brain can generate sensations that we label as spiritual is no indication of anything supernatural, and a scientist who maintains theist beliefs but whose research doesn’t find any support for those beliefs, seems more to support my position than yours.

 

[lightgigantic]

Cris

“ Of course it exists - I use the example to illustrate the limitation sof the reductionist paradigm, that says the mind does not exist (the mind is only given any credibility in science due to human psychology, which operates out of a behaviouralism, distinct from reductionism. ”

Not sure where you were ever going with that. Looks like you referred to an argument you didn’t like so you could criticize it, and somehow involve me. I think you became distracted by trying to analyze me rather than just sticking to the argument. You do that a lot I notice.

The argument is simple - you say that there is no evidence (meaning evidence by the reductionist molecular paradigm) for god - I point out that such a paradigm doesn't even accommodate the notion of the mind.

“ You would come to the same conclusion if you focused that razor sharp perception of yours on the scientific body of work that supports the idea that the self is determined by the brain ”

Are you stating a fact, or attempting sarcasm, or what? Not sure what you are saying here, apart from yes the self does appear to be determined by the brain. But I thought you didn’t believe that.

Then you are either not familiar with the level of understanding in neurology or you have access to knowledge not available to the experts in the field - can you provide one credible link (excludes isaac asimov) as evidence that the self as context is concomitant on the brain?

“ Why would you have any doubt that the manifestation of self is not the result of physical brain activity? ”

call me a fanatic but I like to see evidence for claims ”

But you’re a theist, you never use evidence.

either that or its evidence you are not qualified to pass judgement on

Theism is based on faith (absence of evidence).

So is any field of knowledge, particularly in th e beginning stages

So do you have any evidence to answer the question? The thread is about afterlife and that necessarily leads to the topic of souls which we are discussing I believe.

At the moment we are at the point of discussing what processes of knowledge constitutes evidence - until we resolve your fixation on the reductionist paradigm (which cannot even determine the nature of such self evident articles as the mind) we can't make much progress

So if the self is not generated by the brain then what, and how? We can see how the self could be an emergent property of brain functioning without too much difficulty since in this scenario it is an entirely physical phenomenon and we have no evidence to suggest anything else.

well since these "entirely physical" paradigms don't even accommodate the mind , its difficult for you to even clearly understand how that the conceptualized self emerges from the brain, what to speak of the self as context.

But do you have any evidence to support the mythical soul? I’m sure you must since you now claim to be a fanatic for evidence, right? And you wouldn’t dare make a claim without evidence, right?

Well I guess a simple beginning would be to just examine the self as context even in one life - the body we had as a baby is completely different form the body we will have as an old man - physically they are completely different, yet we still retain the same sense of self - even though we were completely physically different we acknowledge that it is the same person in the photo album.

“ What credibility is there for anything else? ”

a lack of evidence for a start - and given the details of other paradigms (which you tar as primitive religion) I would say quite a lot, especially when the idea is confirmed by persons like John Eccles and Karl Pribram.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H._Pribram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carew_Eccles
”

Neither of these articles make any references to a mystical soul or non-physical nature of self. That the brain can generate sensations that we label as spiritual is no indication of anything supernatural, and a scientist who maintains theist beliefs but whose research doesn’t find any support for those beliefs, seems more to support my position than yours.

I think you missed what was in the articles - particularly the one on Pibram (you may have to take a few of the links to get the background knowledge).
Basically they make the stand, which cannot be refuted, that there is no evidence to suggest that the brain is the source of self as context.