There is no heaven when the brain is unconscious

[James R]

If you had started reading my post a little closer the first time, my responses would have made a lot more sense.

I don't think so.

I said that anesthesia only affects the conscious part of the brain and that the effect on consciousness is the same as being brain-dead.

It isn't the same. Being brain dead ends (observable) consciousness permanently, while being under anesthesia only interrupts consciousness for a limited time.

Total oblivion, i.e. no emergent conscious thoughts, just like being dead.

Nobody has come back to report on what it's like to be brain dead, so how could you possibly know?

Anesthesia does not affect homeostasis, but that is an unconscious control function.

I'll take your word for it, for now. So what?

As atheists we play in the same playground.

Only insofar as neither of us is convinced that gods are real. Beyond that, atheism doesn't compel us to share any other specific beliefs.

Don't tell me that mathematics is my religion.

Yours is quasi-religion that you have concocted out of snippets of claims made by two or three writers, in the main. The major prophets of your personal religion are, apparently, Hameroff, Tegmark and Bohm. Of course, you don't really understand much of what any of those guys have written, so your fervent beliefs are often a sort of mish-mash of vague feelings you've taken away from the writings of the "prophets", combined with a hefty dollop of your own wishful thinking and imaginings. The overall landscape you have built for yourself is not that different from a typical religious dogma. It shares the usual attributes of being demonstrably false in some respects, unproven in others and unfalsifiable in yet others.

It is your refusal to critique religion that makes you agnostic, not atheist.

You're the first person here who's told me that I refuse to critique religion. Many religious people who have come here have complained that I critique their religions too much, which is the opposite of what you're claiming.

I'm both agnostic and atheist. I'm an agnostic atheist.

Apparently you believe what the bible has told you might be true.

Which parts of the bible are you referring to? I mean, sure, not everything in the bible is false. That would be a silly claim to make. I don't believe the stuff about gods and souls and such is true.

What are you referring to, specifically?

That makes you just an agnostic, you just don't really know anything about God, Heaven and all that unknowable stuff that is religion, right?

I don't know that God, Heaven and all that "unknowable" stuff is real. (How could anybody know about "unknowable" stuff?)

But this brings us right back to your central claim in this thread. You claim to know that there is no heaven, whereas all I say is that I'm not convinced either way. I'm agnostic on the question of whether heaven is real, you could say.

My question to you, which you have so far been unable to answer to my satisfaction is: how do you know heaven isn't real?

What exactly is there to say about souls or anything like that?

You have no idea? Don't you think it might be a good idea to do some preliminary reading to find out what some other people have to say about souls, before you simply proclaim that they aren't real? Ask a religious person what there is to say about souls. Quite a lot has been written on the matter over the years, you'll find.

1. Oxford Dictionary

1. Now that is an illogical position: "live on after death" is a contradiction in terms.

You're really new to this, aren't you?

Religious people say that everybody has an immaterial soul that can exist separately from the body. It is the soul whose existence continues on after the death of the material body. That's the concept. There's no contradiction in terms, once you understand the basic concept.

2. If mathematics is the essence of spacetime geometry, then the Universe has a mathematical soul, no?

I don't think you understand how dictionaries work.

Surely you've heard people use terms such as "the spirit of mathematics" or "the soul of science"? Those people are using what we call metaphors. Do you know what a metaphor is, Write4U?

 

[James R]

What do you remember about being anesthetized?

I have found being under an anesthetic to be a total perceptual gap in my experience. Being anaesthetised (I'm talking general anesthetic, not local) is not the same as being asleep. When you're asleep, you can have dreams, and sensory inputs can still get in from the "outside world". But for me, anesthetic is like blanking out completely: one minute the stuff is being injected and the next thing I know is that I'm waking up in a recovery room. There's nothing in between. No sense of time passing. No sense of anything at all. Just a total, pure, blank.

Next you'll tell me that this is the same as being dead. But you don't know that. You can't know that.

Like God, the concept of Soul is superfluous, unless you include the concept of a mathematical universe. Then the soul of the universe is a mathematical pattern and that is demonstrable.

Your mathematical universe religion includes a soul concept? Interesting. And yet you still deny that souls exist. How does that work?

Or are you now saying that souls actually exist, much as described, but that they are "mathematical patterns" rather than spirits?

You have to be kidding? Never read the Old Testament?

I didn't understand your abbreviation "OT" in the context of your post. As it happens, I have read the Old Testament - all of it. Does it matter?

Yep, cell theory explains the evolution of dynamical systems into living systems.

Does it? Okay. Does that prove there's no heaven?

A cell is a self-organizing pattern of dipolar properties of biomolecules.

What a strange definition. I assume it's your own.

I haven't heard you admit your limitations.

You ought to pay attention more.

Compare this thread, for instance. I am saying I can't be sure that heaven doesn't exist. You are saying you can be sure.

Tell me: which of the two of us is acknowledging limitations, here, and which of us is not?

Don't know what OT means, never heard of Carlos Castaneda? What do you know about spiritual matters?

How is this Carlos Castaneda guy relevant to this discussion? Please explain why it is important that I know about him. Can you tell me something relevant about him? I assume you had something in mind when you mentioned his name?

What do you want to know about "spiritual matters"?

I know that those lifeforms exist. I can show you a picture.

You don't know know that small jelly-like lifeforms exist in the sub-ice oceans of Europa. Like I said. You can't show me any pictures of such lifeforms on Europa.

OK, you tell me what angels and demons are.

Can't you just grab your dictionary and look up a basic definition? Or are you giving up on dictionaries now because they "don't mean squat"?

You are completely missing the point that when you ask "how do you know", I cite a scientific paper that addresses that question, but you refuse to read them and insist that I tell the story "in my own words".

What scientific paper have you cited that shows that heaven doesn't exist?

Obviously you haven't learned anything from my MT thread.

I've learned that you have a superficial knowledge about microtubules, at best.

If human intelligence is an emergent property of the neural network then one can argue that the neural network is quasi-intelligent (can't say proto-) in order to produce the consciously intelligent results.

Maybe you could argue that. You haven't done so, so far. Is it important to your argument about heaven?

Now do the phrases "self-referential and "quasi-intelligent" make a little more sense?

I'm still not clear on what "quasi-intelligent" is supposed to mean, if not "resembles intelligence, but isn't really intelligence".

The meaning of the term "self-referential" isn't problematic, on its own.

Your word salad mashing of the two terms together in a pseudoscientific way is usually meaningless, in my experience.

I don't need to guess. It has been proven that when you are under anesthesia, you have no knowledge of ANYTHING!

You're confusing knowledge with awareness. Being under an anesthetic doesn't remove your knowledge.

That is how they can cut your body to pieces and you won't "experience" the pain because you are "dead to the world". (Oxford dictionary)

"Dead to the world" is another one of those metaphor things I told you about. It does not equate to "dead".

And to answer your question directly, on that fateful April 14, 1912, how many millions of people did not know that the Titanic had sunk. If on that day, you had stated; "I know that the Titanic (or Eiffel Tower) exists", you would have been wrong, no?

You seem very confused. The sinking of a ship does not mean that the ship no longer exists.

As an answer to the simple question I asked you, this is quite bizarre.

 

[James R]

Is the thread title not clear enough?

It is not clear enough.

 

[Write4U]

You seem very confused. The sinking of a ship does not mean that the ship no longer exists.

Not where is used to be.

 

[James R]

Write4U:

Are you just going to knee-jerk respond to one line in every post of 100 lines or more? Can you focus long enough to stay on topic, rather than following silly arguments off onto even sillier tangents?

Try to go through what I wrote to you in full. Concentrate on one point at a time and try to respond to them all, in order. In particular try answering the specific questions I have asked you.

If you're actually unable to focus sufficiently to discuss the central idea of this thread that you started, there might be no point keeping it open.

 

[Write4U]

I'm still not clear on what "quasi-intelligent" is supposed to mean, if not "resembles intelligence, but isn't really intelligence".

Never thought that I would have to teach you English.

Quasi

a combining form meaning “resembling,” “having some, but not all of the features of,” used in the formation of compound words: quasi-definition; quasi-monopoly; quasi-official; quasi-scientific.

The term "quasi-intelligent" is a perfectly acceptable "combined form" to describe nature's use of mathematical functions.
If that concept gives you problems you may want to look at fractals.

Fractals allow plants to maximize their exposure to sunlight. They allow cardiovascular systems to efficiently transport oxygen to all parts of the body. Examples of Fractals in Nature Fractals are well-known in the natural world. Jan 3, 2023

The logic of shape, quantity, and order are central to math philosophy. Every element of our life is influenced by math. We rely on it for everything we do every day.

If humans construct such a pattern we call it intelligent design. Being that nature is not human it is perfectly acceptableto call it quasi-intelligent.

Ever heard of artificial-intelligence? Where did that combined form come from?

 

[Write4U]

Are you just going to knee-jerk respond to one line in every post of 100 lines or more? Can you focus long enough to stay on topic, rather than following silly arguments off onto even sillier tangents?

Are you going to threaten me with time limits now? I respond to what I believe is pertinent.
Half of your posts are ad hominem and I don't find them worthy of a response.

 

[James R]

Never thought that I would have to teach you English.

What are you talking about?

Quasi

a combining form meaning “resembling,” “having some, but not all of the features of,” used in the formation of compound words: quasi-definition; quasi-monopoly; quasi-official; quasi-scientific.

Why are you simply repeating something that essentially agrees with what I literally just suggested to you?

Why not just say you agree with me, rather than trying to one-up me by pretending you're teaching me English?

The term "quasi-intelligent" is a perfectly acceptable "combined form" to describe nature's use of mathematical functions.

No, because "quasi-intelligent" would suggest that "nature's use of mathematical functions" resembles the activities of an intelligent agent of some kind, or that it has some but not all of the features of an action of an intelligent agent.

This is using your preferred definition.

This is a double error because (a) "nature", considered as a whole, is not an intelligent agent and does not have features of an intelligent agent and (b) "nature", considered in the abstract as a whole, does not "use" mathematical functions.

If that concept gives you problems you may want to look at fractals.

A fractal is a kind of mathematical structure. It's a concept. Fractals can't be described as "quasi-intelligent" either.

If humans construct such a pattern we call it intelligent design.

You might. I wouldn't. Not in the case of a fractal, which is usually the result of applying some kind of mathematical algorithm that spits out a certain result. The result is what it is; it is not "designed" by human or other intelligence.

Being that nature is not human it is perfectly acceptableto call it quasi-intelligent.

Wrong. See above.

Ever heard of artificial-intelligence?

Oh no, Write4U. I have never ever heard of artificial intelligence. That's a term I have never heard. You're introducing me to so many things I just haven't ever heard of before. How clever you are! (Seriously, are you so stupid that you would assume that I've never heard of AI?)

Where did that combined form come from?

It came from combining the terms "artificial", meaning "not arising from natural growth; contrived", with "intelligence". Hence, "AI" is intended to communicate the idea of human-constructed intelligences (typically ones that are not produced by ordinary biological reproduction processes).

But what would I know? I've never heard of artificial intelligence before you introduced me to the concept just now.

 

[James R]

Are you going to threaten me with time limits now?

Did I say anything about time limits? No, I didn't. Am I going to threaten you with time limits? Probably not.

I respond to what I believe is pertinent.

I think you have a limited attention span and a problem with keeping more than one simple idea in mind at a time. You focus on irrelevant minutiae while ignoring the big issues.

I also think that when you realise that I'm right and you're wrong, you dishonestly just ignore your errors rather than doing the honorable thing and admitting that I was right about your mistakes all along. This pattern of just ignoring things whenever you feel like you have no face-saving response to is a bit childish. Take some responsibility. Acknowledge your mistakes, learn from them, and try to do better in future.

Half of your posts are ad hominem and I don't find them worthy of a response.

You just don't like having your many errors pointed out. It's a pity you won't just own your mistakes and accept help when somebody like me tries to lead you to a correct understanding. That would be a more mature response than doubling down on the stupid every time.

 

[James R]

Write4U:

This thread, you will recall, was dormant from November 2023 until now, the end of June 2023. You chose to add to it. Why? Well, here's what you said:

Yes, I wanted to clear up a few of your misunderstadings. Perhaps it was inadequate clarity on my part.

What do you think I've misunderstood? Can you point to any specific examples of where I have demonstrated my misunderstanding of something you wrote? Or is that too much to ask, because you'll only respond to "what I believe is pertinent"? Do you think that gives you a licence to make empty claims and then run away, unaccountable to anybody?

 

[exchemist]

And is that the same heaven as in:



I read about "metempsychosis" and "reincarnation", as described in Orphism.

But I have not seen any explanation how being unconsciousness (brain dead) allows one to consciously experience (requiring a live brain) the reality of the "created heaven"., i.e. spacetime?

AFAIK, the "self" (soul) resides in he brain, not somewhere else called "heaven".

That's not science, but spiritual fiction.

The problem lies in the attachment of morals to a fictional story. But all fables are based on moral messages.

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/writing-101-what-is-a-fable-learn-about-the-4-central-characteristics-of-a-fable-and-4-famous-fable-examples

And there is the fable of Scripture, where the characters are natural humans and and supernatural humans.

You asked why the Church of England funeral service does not include the words "heaven to heaven", apparently finding it strange that the prayer at the committal of the body, which you quote, does not refer to heaven. I have explained why it is not, in fact, strange.

 

[Write4U]

What do you remember about being anesthetized?

James R said:
I have found being under an anesthetic to be a total perceptual gap in my experience. Being anaesthetised (I'm talking general anesthetic, not local) is not the same as being asleep. When you're asleep, you can have dreams, and sensory inputs can still get in from the "outside world". But for me, anesthetic is like blanking out completely: one minute the stuff is being injected and the next thing I know is that I'm waking up in a recovery room. There's nothing in between. No sense of time passing. No sense of anything at all. Just a total, pure, blank.

Next you'll tell me that this is the same as being dead. But you don't know that. You can't know that.

Come now. You can't be serious.
Being unconscious renders you oblivious to everything, but when you die, i.e. being unconscious, allows you to experience heaven?

Of course you can't know that. You'll be unconscious and oblivious to everything. But when you are conscious, you just admitted that now you do know from experience that when you are unconscious you are oblivious to everything. Therefore, when you are unconscious (brain dead), you will be oblivious to everything, including heaven, even if it existed.

As Anil Seth observed: "When you die, there is nothing to worry about, nothing at all.
And Anil Seth knows about consciousness, whereas a priest knows nothing about consciousness where the soul is supposed to "live" and "depart" for greener pastures? You really need to read up on Anil Seth. Just this little video about how people experience reality, is worth a few minutes of your time rather than wasting it arguing with me.

 

[Pinball1970]

Being unconscious renders you oblivious to everything, but when you die, i.e. being unconscious, allows you to experience heaven?

No. The soul has nothing to do with body, it is a separate entity. Being "unconscious" is not applicable, you may as well say the soul cannot get tired.

 

[Write4U]

No. The soul has nothing to do with body, it is a separate entity. Being "unconscious" is not applicable, you may as well say the soul cannot get tired.

Does the soul have a brain? If not, how can it experience anything? Going to heaven is supposed to be an experiential journey and without a brain there is no experience.

Any other argument is meaningless. No promises of any kind can be made. But when we return from anesthetic oblivion, there are no memories of a "heaven". There was only oblivion. Humans are not immortal.

Like all things there is only change, "from dust to dust". And that is in fact a proven scientific statement, albeit crudely posed.

 

[C C]

Does the soul have a brain?

In terms of internal consistency and a flavor of the religion headed in a direction more compatible with materialism... It's perhaps like shooting fish in a barrel -- or thrashing out things with elementary school children -- for [we] inquirers to continue treating classic or Roman-revised Christianity as the best representative of that belief group. Albeit the latter will, unfortunately, usually still be the segment most readily available in terms of interaction.

Christian nonreductive physicalists like Nancey Murphy contend that the idea of an immortal soul was invasive to the original literature, usually viewed as stemming from Plato's version of such.

Instead of an immortal soul, one's life history is preserved as some form of information pattern and then during resurrection installed in a new body of non-decaying "stuff". In essence, the view that the Jewish literature (both NT & OT) -- when freed from the Greek philosophy interpretative bias of the ancient Church -- did not espouse any particular metaphysics.[1] The anachronism of "information pattern" being necessary here because ancient culture arguably had no synonymous term for it, unless we confusingly warp "soul" itself for the purpose.

• Bodies and Souls,or Spirited Bodies?: Jewish scholar Neil Gillman lends weight to my suggestion. His book, titled The Death of Death, argues that resurrection of the body, rather than immortality of the soul, is the only authentically Jewish conception of life after death. [...] My proposal ... allows for the possibility of a temporal interval between decay of the earthly body and what is then essentially the recreation of a new body out of different ‘‘stuff.’’

The "stuff" wouldn't have to be radically different from matter, however. It could even be the equivalent of technological bodies that defy aging and most damage. Although Murphy's neo-theological camp leaves the specifics vague... in a modern context its best fit would probably be with an "artificially" generated reality, if it is to avoid sliding right back into a mitigated version of traditional supernaturalism.

The "designer" of the artificial reality rigs the system to record the memories and personal characteristics of the selected inhabitants, and then downloads that at some later era into newly fabricated transhuman bodies. The latter do not necessarily exist at the designer's ontological level (i.e., the ultimate "heaven" outside the generated reality), but can very much just remain in this one.

But according to the literature, the world and outer space (that lesser meaning of "heaven") would also be transformed -- with presumably different rules regulating it -- and an avatar body of the so-called designer would reside among the now immortal meta-human population.

• Revelation 21: Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

- - - footnote - - -

[1] Lynne Rudder Baker: On a number of points, I think that Murphy is exactly right: (1) there is no single teaching about the metaphysics of human beings in the Bible or in Christian tradition, (2) some nonreductive version of physicalistic anthropology is compatible with Christianity, (3) the grounds for believing in souls have been undercut by the sciences, (4) we are still morally responsible, (5) libertarian free will is incoherent; (6) the free will problem has been badly framed; (7) brain imaging will not "provide evidence for or against the existence and action of God" (p. 69), (8) higher-level entities exist in their own right. But defending this package of theses requires more careful attention than was always apparent in the book. For example, on p. 74, Murphy says flatly that "the laws of nature are deterministic." Then, with no qualification of that statement, she says on p. 131 that the laws of quantum mechanics are only statistical. No doubt, she was referring to different (irreducible) levels, but she should have made this explicit.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As an add-on to Murphy's reinvention (or re-discovery?) of Christian beliefs with respect to afterlife, and one which does venture down into the "generated reality" rabbit hole as a "rescue" route... There's a long, 23-episode blog/podcast series exploring how "simulated reality" or a broader concept subsuming it, might be the last leg that supernatural beliefs (or the appearance of such) have to stand on...

• Saints & Simulators 23: #SimulatorShowdown
  
  Saints & Simulators 23: #SimulatorShowdown | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

  As it turns out, if our purpose is to test the simulator hypothesis against religious belief, it is only in the specifics that we can easily distinguish between the two. The Deist God, who creates the universe, and then leaves it to run entirely on its own, is not easily disambiguated from the...

  partiallyexaminedlife.com
  
  EXCERPT: These suspensions of natural law, as manifestations of supernatural intervention, are held up to ridicule as being particularly scientifically implausible.
  
  It is ironic, perhaps, that this promising line of attack is the one most directly invalidated by simulator hypothesis. If one grants the plausibility of the simulator, then it is clear to see that the production of miracles on our level of existence would be child’s play for anyone at the simulator’s level of existence.
  
  [...] Interestingly enough, however, as it turns out, if our purpose is to test the simulator hypothesis against religious belief, it is only in the specifics that we can easily distinguish between the two. The Deist God, who creates the universe, and then leaves it to run entirely on its own, is not easily disambiguated from the hands-off simulator. One might well call them one and the same... (MORE - details)

 

[Pinball1970]

Does the soul have a brain? If not, how can it experience anything? Going to heaven is supposed to be an experiential journey and without a brain there is no experience.

Any other argument is meaningless. No promises of any kind can be made. But when we return from anesthetic oblivion, there are no memories of a "heaven". There was only oblivion. Humans are not immortal.

Like all things there is only change, "from dust to dust". And that is in fact a proven scientific statement, albeit crudely posed.

The soul is an unproven, unscientific religious concept. There is zero evidence for such a concept.
For me the idea of the soul is an illogical, religious invention.

However, the whole premise of this thread makes no sense. If I am wrong and there is indeed a soul, it is not bounded by the constraints of biology. Why would it?
Heaven does not care about biology either, why would that? It is the antithesis of biology and science.

A nonsense thread.

 

[Write4U]

However, the whole premise of this thread makes no sense. If I am wrong and there is indeed a soul, it is not bounded by the constraints of biology. Why would it?
Heaven does not care about biology either, why would that? It is the antithesis of biology and science.

A nonsense thread.

No, you are making nonsense out of a perfectly logical statement. The premise is that without a conscious brain, the individual cannot be aware of anything, let alone an undefined metaphysical "somewhere" occupied by metaphysical human angels.

Oh and in Islam when you die there are 70 virgins waiting to entertain you! Who exactly is talking nonsense?

The statement "we don't know" is not sufficient to make any kind of unearthly "speculation", when we have a pretty good idea how it all works.
Next, you'll be telling me that mythology might all be true after all.
Explain, as scientist, how an undefined heaven can be accessed by an undefined soul of a defined dead person.

If anybody (like me) came up with a proposition that an undefined concept interacted with another undefined concept a certain defined result might be possible, you'd laugh me out of the room. Not only that, I was accused of practicing my religious idea.

My support of Tegmark on a well defined and scientifically supportable concept has been ridiculed ad nauseam, but we must respect the concept of God and heaven, because a lot of people believe in different versions of ......????

That's why I observed, that a religious universal heaven is given more "imaginary" credence than some "functional" scientific mathematical universal hypothesis, such as MUH. And that is exactly what I have experienced on this forum. I am astounded by the duplicity.

AFAIK, religion and worship of the unknown has never accurately predicted or produced anything except prayer and death, whereas the mathematics of science has accurately predicted and demonstrably produced everything creative and destructive process by chemical and biochemical physics. .

Note that all the great houses of worship rest on the mathematics of science.

The "soul" is nothing more than the person's memory left for posterity. "In Memoriam"

 

[Write4U]

This is a double error because (a) "nature", considered as a whole, is not an intelligent agent and does not have features of an intelligent agent and (b) "nature", considered in the abstract as a whole, does not "use" mathematical functions.

Of course it does. It just doesn't use human symbolics for its mathematical functions. But Nature (not humans) uses natural mathematics.
The fractal function is but one of them.

Order (mathematics)​

Order theory is a branch of mathematics that investigates the intuitive notion of order using binary relations. It provides a formal framework for describing statements such as "this is less than that" or "this precedes that". This article introduces the field and provides basic definitions. A list of order-theoretic terms can be found in the order theory glossary.

Order theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Causal sets​

The causal sets program is an approach to quantum gravity. Its founding principles are that spacetime is fundamentally discrete (a collection of discrete spacetime points, called the elements of the causal set) and that spacetime events are related by a partial order. This partial order has the physical meaning of the causality relations between spacetime events.

Causal sets - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Write4U]

The soul is an unproven, unscientific religious concept. There is zero evidence for such a concept.
For me the idea of the soul is an illogical, religious invention.

Then what are we debating? That is the point I have been trying to make.

 

[Pinball1970]

Then what are we debating? That is the point I have been trying to make.

Neither of us think a soul exists but your premise does not disprove the concept of one is my point.