There is no heaven when the brain is unconscious

[Write4U]

This is a logical fallacy. Just because noone does know does not mean it is unknowable.
Before we knew the atom existed, was it unknowable, or simply unknown?

Yes but it did not take us 3000 years to reveal the existence of the atom . We haven't even begun to touch the subject of an immortal motivated "creator being"

The closest we have come to God is the Higgs boson, teased from an invisible (metaphysical?) field. But then the boson is far from immortal.

Hence my question; "At what point does the absence of proof become proof of absence?".

 

[Write4U]

Some believers maintain god is utterly unknowable, but the vast majority do not, at least not entirely.

And all that points to the fact that the Scriptural God is no more than all the other Gods relegated to mythology.

Anyone believes in one god, is atheist to all the other gods that are now mythological figures . I am atheist to just one more god.

IMO, the OT and NT are excellent works of mythology. I don't think that mythology needs to be based on reality to teach certain "common values".

 

[Write4U]

But to give you something to think about... we can not identify the exact value of pi. But we have a functional process to establish as much as we need to know for usefulness.

IOW, the value of Pi is too precise for our ability to measure, but it's "constant value" as a ratio is evident throughout science. Without Pi , not all circles would be the same regardless of size.

The ratio

is constant, regardless of the circle's size.

Pi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

OTOH, the concept of God has no physical "value" of any kind, as far as I am aware.

"The spirit of God hovered over the waters"

spirit

the nonphysical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul.

 

[Pinball1970]

When you damage a car in specific ways, the driving experience also changes in very specific ways in relation to that damage: flat tyre, hole in the exhaust, loss of wheel, etc.
Does that somehow mean the car and driver are the same thing?

FYI, I'm playing devil's advocate.

My point is that your argument doesn't actually support the lack of any duality, or help understand the nature thereof.

I do not understand duality. I will look into it but as I have said philosophy is not my thing.
I imagine that this is not as big as it was before we started to investigate the brain, neuroscience, genetics etc the way we can now.

 

[Pinball1970]

The closest we have come to God is the Higgs boson, teased from an invisible (metaphysical?) field. But then the boson is far from immortal.

Don't get distracted. Just because the Higgs was called the "god particle" it does not mean that field or particle was any more special than the muon or quark.
Yes the fields are invisible to our eyes but they are physical things.

 

[James R]

Write4U:

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

If there's a soul that's separate from the body, yes. That's how it supposedly works.

Of course you can't know that.

Then we agree?

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.

I've never had the experience of being dead. Have you? If not, how could you possibly know you'll be oblivious to everything when you die?

As Anil Seth observed: "When you die, there is nothing to worry about, nothing at all.

Who cares what Anil Seth said? This is just another assertion, which he can't prove any more than you can.

Does the soul have a brain? If not, how can it experience anything?

As I understand them, souls are non-material things. Who can say how they experience things? What makes you think they need to obey the physical laws that apply to physical things?

Going to heaven is supposed to be an experiential journey and without a brain there is no experience.

Unless the thing going to heaven is a soul that doesn't require a physical brain. Get it? Come on, this isn't hard.

Any other argument is meaningless.

I don't think that word means what you think it means. You keep misusing the word "meaningless".

But when we return from anesthetic oblivion, there are no memories of a "heaven".

Did you die when you were under an anesthetic?

Humans are not immortal.

Clearly, our physical bodies are not immortal. How could you possibly know that a non-physical soul is 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.

Science has no law that says there is "only change".

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

That's not nonsensical. You really need to find out what words like "nonsense" and "meaningless" mean.

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.

You have zero idea about how souls work (if they exist), apparently. And yet, a lot of stuff has been written about them.

Next, you'll be telling me that mythology might all be true after all.

Some parts of it might be true. Myths are sometimes based in fact.

Explain, as scientist, how an undefined heaven can be accessed by an undefined soul of a defined dead person.

Who could possibly explain an undefined thing? Why do you ask the impossible? Get real. Ask about something that might be possible.

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.

Yes. It makes no sense to try to talk about undefined things.

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 ......????

You should recognise that concepts of God and heaven are often very well defined, contrary to your claims. Until you do that, you can't even begin to have a sensible discussion about them.

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.

By whom?

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.

Nobody worships the unknown or the undefined.

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

What are you on about?

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

You don't get to define the word "soul" to suit yourself. You need to consider how other people use the word.

Of course it does.

Mere contradiction is not an argument for your position.

 

[James R]

The closest we have come to God is the Higgs boson, teased from an invisible (metaphysical?) field. But then the boson is far from immortal.

The Higgs Boson has nothing to do with god.

Before its discovery, the Higgs Boson was dubbed "the god particle" by some. But this, too, was a mistake. The original coinage was "the goddamn particle", which referred to this particle that was theoretically predicted but very difficult to search for experimentally. That got cleaned up to "the god particle", and then the press and others ran with that because they didn't understand what the Higgs boson actually was/is.

The Higgs boson brings us no closer to God than the electron.

Hence my question; "At what point does the absence of proof become proof of absence?".

Never. It never does. It is important that you understand this, but I'm betting that five minutes after reading this you will forget it. Or, alternatively, you'll come back with something you erroneously believe proves me wrong.

 

[Pinball1970]

IMO, the OT and NT are excellent works of mythology. I don't think that mythology needs to be based on reality to teach certain "common values".

The OT/NT are not mythology, the peoples, places, wars, temples and palaces were real.
Not all of the characters and events were real.

 

[Pinball1970]

When you damage a car in specific ways, the driving experience also changes in very specific ways in relation to that damage: flat tyre, hole in the exhaust, loss of wheel, etc.
Does that somehow mean the car and driver are the same thing?

We are a bit off topic but that is hardly surprising since the premise of the thread is extremely nebulous to begin with.

I will go one step further regarding the mind because I did not state it.
I am in the camp that says consciousness is not a thing either. It is merely a product of one particular organ the same as urinating is a function of the kidney.
Is it an amazing function? Well yes no doubt but so is protein synthesis. No one talks about that.

 

[Sarkus]

Yes but it did not take us 3000 years to reveal the existence of the atom . We haven't even begun to touch the subject of an immortal motivated "creator being"

It took far longer than that, actually. Humans have been around for quite a long time. The atom was only more than a theory relatively recently.

The closest we have come to God is the Higgs boson, teased from an invisible (metaphysical?) field. But then the boson is far from immortal.

Hence my question; "At what point does the absence of proof become proof of absence?".

You're looking at it from a science perspective, asking for scientific proof/evidence of a non-scientific matter. That, one might suggest, is a sign of either stupidity or madness.

As to your question, the answer depends upon the nature of what you are looking for, the nature of what you are using to look for it, and the boundaries in which you are able to look.
For example, if the question is whether there is a fly trapped in a matchbox, the absence of evidence of said fly in said matchbox would be proof of absence. This is because we have the means of establishing truthfully whether or not there is a fly in the space within the matchbox.
If the question is whether there is an invisible pink unicorn somewhere in the limitlessness of space, the absence of proof of that univorn within the confines of our garage, or country, or planet, or even solar system would not constitute proof of absence. Partly because we have only looked in an insignificant part of the whole, but also because we lack the means to detect that which we are looking for.

 

[Sarkus]

And all that points to the fact that the Scriptural God is no more than all the other Gods relegated to mythology.

Anyone believes in one god, is atheist to all the other gods that are now mythological figures . I am atheist to just one more god.

IMO, the OT and NT are excellent works of mythology. I don't think that mythology needs to be based on reality to teach certain "common values".

Again, you are entitled to your own beliefs in this matter.

 

[Sarkus]

IOW, the value of Pi is too precise for our ability to measure, but it's "constant value" as a ratio is evident throughout science. Without Pi , not all circles would be the same regardless of size.

Indeed. Similarly, the "constancy" of God is, per some, evident throughout creation, yet God is too great for our ability to measure. Without God, there would be no circles, nor anything else. So some believe.

OTOH, the concept of God has no physical "value" of any kind, as far as I am aware.

"The spirit of God hovered over the waters"

Why should God have "physical 'value'"? Is God a physical concept?

 

[Sarkus]

We are a bit off topic but that is hardly surprising since the premise of the thread is extremely nebulous to begin with.

I will go one step further regarding the mind because I did not state it.
I am in the camp that says consciousness is not a thing either. It is merely a product of one particular organ the same as urinating is a function of the kidney.
Is it an amazing function? Well yes no doubt but so is protein synthesis. No one talks about that.

I'm very much in the camp of consciousness being an emergent property, or activity, of our brain when functioning in its more active state (as opposed to when just looking after basic functions such as heart and breathing, such as when we are in a coma). I don't hold to consciousness, or soul, or spirit, or other such matters, being a separate thing/concept/element in any way other than, perhaps, for convenience of talking.

 

[Write4U]

Yes the fields are invisible to our eyes but they are physical things

Right, yet absolutely no hint of an invisible soul doing or producing anything. If it did outside of physics, the anomali would be measurable.

The OT/NT are not mythology, the peoples, places, wars, temples and palaces were real.
Not all of the characters and events were real.

Right, a lot of mythology has RW settings . A lot of the magic of old is common science today. This is how the old weather gods disappeared one by one as we figured out how the weather develops.

The Higgs boson brings us no closer to God than the electron.

You completely misunderstand the gist of my posit. Fact is that bosons and electrons and photons (let there be light) take us farther away from the mysteries that were attributed to god. Did God create atoms? That's a long way from creating Adam and Eve fully formed, no?

I've never had the experience of being dead. Have you? If not, how could you possibly know you'll be oblivious to everything when you die?

Yes I have had the (non)-experience of being dead. I have had 2 heartsurgeries under general anesthetics. Total oblivion.
I was conscious of fading away, and the next instant I was back. Turned out I was "gone" for 3 hours. I could have been "away" for 3 years.
When your brain is unconscious, you become an object, and if the anesthesiologist does not bring you back, YOU remain "away" from any kind of reality or experience. You don't experience unconsciosness. When your 3rd level brain is unconscious there is only oblivion. Total oblivion.

Please take a few minutes to watch that Anil Seth video. He knows what he is talking about.

 

[exchemist]

Right, yet absolutely no hint of an invisible soul doing or producing anything anything. If it did even outside of physics, the anomali would be measurable.


Right, a lot of mythology has RW settings . A lot of the magic of old is common science today. This is how the old weather gods disappeared one by one as we figured out how the weather develops.

You completely misunderstand the gist of my posit. Fact is that bosons and electrons and photons (let there be light) take us farther away from the mysteries that were attributed to god. Did God create atoms? That's a long way from creating Adam and Eve fully formed, no?

Yes I have had the (non)-experience of being dead. I have had 2 heartsurgeries under general anesthetics. Total oblivion.
I was conscious of fading away, and the next instant I was back. Turned out I was "gone" for 3 hours. I could have been "away" for 3 years.
When your brain is unconscious, you become an object, and if the anesthesiologist does not bring you back, YOU remain "away" from any kind of reality or experience. You don't experience unconsciosness. When your 3rd level brain is unconscious there is only oblivion. Total oblivion.

Please take a few minutes to watch that Anil Seth video. He knows what he is talking about.

A photon is a boson.

But this post of your betrays the Dawkins Fallacy. Religions and their concepts of God are not primarily about providing an explanation of the physical world. They are guides to help people live their lives. As such, the medieval attribution of natural phenomena to "acts of God" was more to do with encouraging stoicism and acceptance, by individual human beings, of the vicissitudes of life, than a serious attempt to account for why they occur.

 

[Write4U]

Why should God have "physical 'value'"? Is God a physical concept?

Except for the BB, we pretty well know how the universe evolved without the help of a watchmaker.

 

[Write4U]

Religions and their concepts of God are not primarily about providing an explanation of the physical world. They are guides to help people live their lives. As such, the medieval attribution of natural phenomena to "acts of God" was more to do with encouraging stoicism and acceptance, by individual human beings, of the vicissitudes of life, than a serious attempt to account for why they occur.

Of course I realise the purpose and evolution of religions. I mentioned their social value it in this thread. But it isn't science and a concept like "heaven" would require a whole new dimension and do away with fields and emergent fundamental elements.

But I stand firm on the concept of MUH, which advances the observable evolution of complex patterns from simple values.

The concept of irreducible complexity is unacceptable to my mind.

 

[foghorn]

FYI, I'm playing devil's advocate.
My point is that your argument doesn't actually support the lack of any duality, or help understand the nature thereof.

I know this is not touching on the duality of material and non-material, but can multi-reincarnations of a soul be so conveniently ruled out by Christians?
I understand the soul can return in the body of another animal or plant.

 

[exchemist]

Of course I realise the purpose and evolution of religions. I mentioned their social value it in this thread. But it isn't science and a concept like "heaven" would require a whole new dimension and do away with fields and emergent fundamental elements.

But I stand firm on the concept of MUH, which advances the observable evolution of complex patterns from simple values.

The concept of irreducible complexity is unacceptable to my mind.

Then why did you say that [our theories of elementary particles] take us "farther away from the mysteries that were attributed to God"?

 

[exchemist]

I know this is not touching on the duality of material and non-material, but can multi-reincarnations of a soul be so conveniently ruled out by Christians?
I understand the soul can return in the body of another animal or plant.

It's ruled out in Christianity because it is not what Christ taught and forms no part of the Judaism from which Christinianity is descended, I suppose.