Haruhi
New
That's true, but veridical OBEs are not the only evidence of an afterlife, but there is a set of phenomena that converge towards the existence of an afterlife: NDEs, apparitions, mediumship, etc.
Is a Skeptic-Friendly Afterlife Possible?
- Thread starter Kai
- Start date
That's true, but veridical OBEs are not the only evidence of an afterlife, but there is a set of phenomena that converge towards the existence of an afterlife: NDEs, apparitions, mediumship, etc.
enzymewrath
New
Hi, Haruhi, every time I saw you I feel cheerful;), thanks for your reply, it's very nice for you to bring inspiration most of the time, I need to go to bed soon, before that I could only think and say, the evidences regarding apparitions, mediumship are very less, and speaking to their genuineness, that would always not to be taken seriously. I would rather believe mickey mouse.:D
Haruhi
New
Come on, you can not talk seriously. Your've read books like The Enigma of Survival, by Hornett Hart, or Survival: Body, Mind, and Death in the Light of Psychic Experience, by David Lorimer? Here is evidence enough robust to be taken seriously.
Kai
New
Time is required for process and hence, change. For this reason a "Gestalt" consciousness would not be able to participate in the new, which infers a temporal change from something that did not exist to something that "now" exists. A Gestalt consciousness would therefore know the "new" as something birthed within itself, rather than something that "happens" to it, and this alone would make said consciousness almost alien beyond belief to everything that we experience.
Our personalities are biological syntheses. Our emotions are brought into being by genetic traits, neurological modules, and hormonal influences, which define the "human-ness" of what we are. Without these structures and influences we could not possibly be what we are now, nor would we have any of the "incentives" that have been carved into existence in a biological survival-based world...feelings of fondness or family, friendship, jealousy, romantic love, fear, hatred, etc. All of these things are deconstructed even during life by the appropriate species of brain damage, or in the ultimate case through the erosions of a brain disease such as Alzheimers. It is incoherent, imo, to imagine that the "real personality" of the person somehow still survives in the severely car-crash-damaged brain or in the Alzheimerian brain.
If they cannot even survive within life, then they cannot survive "as continuity" after death, and of course the very idea of "continuity" is a linear extension of the temporal "self," that set of loosely hung attributes we attach a story to during life.
The absurdity of it becomes more obvious when we try to imagine what something like a tree would be "after death." What does it even mean to be a "tree" when there is no solar cycle for photosynthesis, no bacteria-bearing soil as a nitrogen source and hence no need for or relevance to a nutrition cycle that involves drinking from roots and transpiring to air. In short, a tree makes no sense whatsoever as anything other than a physical tree. It is a form of conceit that we play on ourselves that any of this is any different for human beings. A human being without a human body is no less ridiculous than a tree without a tree body.
However, though our mind and personality is entirely shaped, imo, by our biological structures, that does not automatically make that shaping process simply "material" as we understand it. Moreover, if Gestalt consciousness is genuinely timeless then, as I indicated in a previous post, things cannot pass away as they do in the temporal process we perceive. There could not be a magical temporal process acting "on" the Gestalt, if it exists. If things do not pass away then it is possible that within this Gestalt (understanding that ALL of this is tentative) there exists an "image" or flavor of the Gestalt that corresponds to every living entity that has ever been. This would not, however, be a "continuation in time" of what we were, and this is the hardest possible thing for us to try to get our minds around, because traditionally "afterlife" is imagined in exactly those terms...i.e. in the terms "after" and "life," when clearly this is neither, strictly speaking. In fact, this timelessness is best considered as orthogonal to time altogether. Its influence would be acting on you equally before your birth, now, and after your death, so far as the temporal sequence is concerned.
But this is why I say it would be a form of existence that we just can't compute. It would not be a "continuation," because time is needed for continuing. We would not be ourselves "doing new things" because no new things would be doable in severance from time. We would in fact, be simply the Gestalt aware of itself, in whatever fashion that would be. When the Gestalt does something new, its consequence would have to form in the temporal world, else it would be orphaned in timelessness. That the Gestalt might be aware and that the Gestalt might be aware in some sense both OF and AS my life, is, however, not the same thing as awareness-extinction. It is likely to be the answer to the question of what "I" really was all along...this Gestalt...and with the peculiar suspicion that only one true consciousness is actually possible, a suspicion that suggests itself at least prima facie in our world by virtue of the fact that we can never directly access "another consciousness." But ultimately this may be a symptom of the fact that only the Gestalt truly and independently exists, and what we take for our existence is in fact conditional and dependent.
One of the key questions about this take on things is whether the Gestalt is not just aware, but what we would think of as "mindedly" aware. Even its existence would not *guarantee* that in my opinion, just because we are minded. On the other hand, being the Gestalt, it would have to contain, and in other words be aware of, our mindedness...so that question gets interesting. Another interesting question is whether the entirety of cosmic history is, or is not, in some sense the "embryonic development" of the Gestalt, which from our standpoint, appears to have to act itself out in time. Again, this is an interesting speculation, but is also moot.
I am not beholden to these views, but unlike the traditional notions of an afterlife, I think they have been poorly explored and that they hold out at least a *possibility* for some basis in the way things actually are. We are called upon to give account of a strangely amoral world, a world in which nonetheless the miracle of awareness exists...undisputably exists....as well as strange "feelings" and "yearnings" which seem to point at something larger in scale than our immediate lives.
Our personalities are biological syntheses. Our emotions are brought into being by genetic traits, neurological modules, and hormonal influences, which define the "human-ness" of what we are. Without these structures and influences we could not possibly be what we are now, nor would we have any of the "incentives" that have been carved into existence in a biological survival-based world...feelings of fondness or family, friendship, jealousy, romantic love, fear, hatred, etc. All of these things are deconstructed even during life by the appropriate species of brain damage, or in the ultimate case through the erosions of a brain disease such as Alzheimers. It is incoherent, imo, to imagine that the "real personality" of the person somehow still survives in the severely car-crash-damaged brain or in the Alzheimerian brain.
If they cannot even survive within life, then they cannot survive "as continuity" after death, and of course the very idea of "continuity" is a linear extension of the temporal "self," that set of loosely hung attributes we attach a story to during life.
The absurdity of it becomes more obvious when we try to imagine what something like a tree would be "after death." What does it even mean to be a "tree" when there is no solar cycle for photosynthesis, no bacteria-bearing soil as a nitrogen source and hence no need for or relevance to a nutrition cycle that involves drinking from roots and transpiring to air. In short, a tree makes no sense whatsoever as anything other than a physical tree. It is a form of conceit that we play on ourselves that any of this is any different for human beings. A human being without a human body is no less ridiculous than a tree without a tree body.
However, though our mind and personality is entirely shaped, imo, by our biological structures, that does not automatically make that shaping process simply "material" as we understand it. Moreover, if Gestalt consciousness is genuinely timeless then, as I indicated in a previous post, things cannot pass away as they do in the temporal process we perceive. There could not be a magical temporal process acting "on" the Gestalt, if it exists. If things do not pass away then it is possible that within this Gestalt (understanding that ALL of this is tentative) there exists an "image" or flavor of the Gestalt that corresponds to every living entity that has ever been. This would not, however, be a "continuation in time" of what we were, and this is the hardest possible thing for us to try to get our minds around, because traditionally "afterlife" is imagined in exactly those terms...i.e. in the terms "after" and "life," when clearly this is neither, strictly speaking. In fact, this timelessness is best considered as orthogonal to time altogether. Its influence would be acting on you equally before your birth, now, and after your death, so far as the temporal sequence is concerned.
But this is why I say it would be a form of existence that we just can't compute. It would not be a "continuation," because time is needed for continuing. We would not be ourselves "doing new things" because no new things would be doable in severance from time. We would in fact, be simply the Gestalt aware of itself, in whatever fashion that would be. When the Gestalt does something new, its consequence would have to form in the temporal world, else it would be orphaned in timelessness. That the Gestalt might be aware and that the Gestalt might be aware in some sense both OF and AS my life, is, however, not the same thing as awareness-extinction. It is likely to be the answer to the question of what "I" really was all along...this Gestalt...and with the peculiar suspicion that only one true consciousness is actually possible, a suspicion that suggests itself at least prima facie in our world by virtue of the fact that we can never directly access "another consciousness." But ultimately this may be a symptom of the fact that only the Gestalt truly and independently exists, and what we take for our existence is in fact conditional and dependent.
One of the key questions about this take on things is whether the Gestalt is not just aware, but what we would think of as "mindedly" aware. Even its existence would not *guarantee* that in my opinion, just because we are minded. On the other hand, being the Gestalt, it would have to contain, and in other words be aware of, our mindedness...so that question gets interesting. Another interesting question is whether the entirety of cosmic history is, or is not, in some sense the "embryonic development" of the Gestalt, which from our standpoint, appears to have to act itself out in time. Again, this is an interesting speculation, but is also moot.
I am not beholden to these views, but unlike the traditional notions of an afterlife, I think they have been poorly explored and that they hold out at least a *possibility* for some basis in the way things actually are. We are called upon to give account of a strangely amoral world, a world in which nonetheless the miracle of awareness exists...undisputably exists....as well as strange "feelings" and "yearnings" which seem to point at something larger in scale than our immediate lives.
Last edited:
erikthebassist
New
Haruhi, I won't quote you or respond to specifics, but I have read you many times in these forums and in this thread, and I understand that you accept NDE, psychic and mediumship evidence at face value and find it compelling. I disagree, I do not find any of this evidence compelling in any way. I don't think it would be fruitful for us to argue about it. I do think there are interesting philosophical and cosmological arguments that should put any skeptic's back against a wall however.
Kai, I really like where you are going with this Gestalt idea. I think it is novel and I'm enjoying trying to wrap my mind around it. Continuity is the problem, and I think that's what I was trying to say earlier as well. Einstein destroyed our concept of time and continuity, if you really understand what his theories mean. A moment on earth is = to thousands of generations on a sufficiently distant planet, and visa-versa no less. This means that our concept of time is about as fully formed as our eyesight, which misses 99% of reality.
This is, again, where I think the whole crux of the discussion lies and where proponent arguments (Like Haruhi's) break down. Reality does not conform to our perception of it, in any sense. We see a tiny slice of reality with a fully functional brain and nervous system. Why should we expect to see a larger slice of reality with a LESS functional brain and nervous system, or none at all?
Kai, I really like where you are going with this Gestalt idea. I think it is novel and I'm enjoying trying to wrap my mind around it. Continuity is the problem, and I think that's what I was trying to say earlier as well. Einstein destroyed our concept of time and continuity, if you really understand what his theories mean. A moment on earth is = to thousands of generations on a sufficiently distant planet, and visa-versa no less. This means that our concept of time is about as fully formed as our eyesight, which misses 99% of reality.
This is, again, where I think the whole crux of the discussion lies and where proponent arguments (Like Haruhi's) break down. Reality does not conform to our perception of it, in any sense. We see a tiny slice of reality with a fully functional brain and nervous system. Why should we expect to see a larger slice of reality with a LESS functional brain and nervous system, or none at all?
Max_B
Member
I muck around thinking about this stuff sometimes, but it really gets me nowhere in helping with my day to day life in the present. Yet occasionally, I can still be suddenly overwhelmed by the bizarreness of 'me', and this 'reality', but the sense of this slips away just as suddenly as it appeared, and I'm left grasping to catch the feeling of something that cannot be grasped.
If I was to indulge myself, and interpret my one and only STE in a more literal sense, as telling me something about the true nature of reality, then I would note the very odd spatial and temporal nature of the experience, and that my previous life was of no importance. My whole previous existence was shredded inside me by the music, and blown away by it's power, like so many bits of rags in an un-resistable storm which touches nothing of importance, until all that was left was existence in eternity as one of all.
Analogies involving... Gestation & birth; Eggs, nests and breaking out of shells; Children's creche's; Passing waves on a sea picking me up with their energy, but eventually passing, leaving me to fall back into the calm that lies behind them, until the next wave... and many, many more have all sprung to mind at one time or another. It's fun thinking about them, but I'm not sure it matters. I'm unlikely to be disappointed anyway, if there is anything after my death I'm going to know about it soon enough, and if there isn't, well I won't be troubled by it.
If I was to indulge myself, and interpret my one and only STE in a more literal sense, as telling me something about the true nature of reality, then I would note the very odd spatial and temporal nature of the experience, and that my previous life was of no importance. My whole previous existence was shredded inside me by the music, and blown away by it's power, like so many bits of rags in an un-resistable storm which touches nothing of importance, until all that was left was existence in eternity as one of all.
Analogies involving... Gestation & birth; Eggs, nests and breaking out of shells; Children's creche's; Passing waves on a sea picking me up with their energy, but eventually passing, leaving me to fall back into the calm that lies behind them, until the next wave... and many, many more have all sprung to mind at one time or another. It's fun thinking about them, but I'm not sure it matters. I'm unlikely to be disappointed anyway, if there is anything after my death I'm going to know about it soon enough, and if there isn't, well I won't be troubled by it.
Haruhi
New
No, the survival of personality after biological death is not incoherent if genetic traits, modules neurological, and hormonal influences only shape our personality, but our personality may persist after these biological aspects have ceased.
But the life of a tree can not be extrapolated to the life of a human being. If is absurd a life after death to a tree, is because the life of a tree (apparently) is exhausted in its biological life. However this is not so in the case of a human being, because we can conceptually distinguish between biological life and psychological life of a human being, which makes conceivable a psychological life after biological death of a human being, something that therefore can be addressed empirically.
Haruhi
New
Due to Bergson filter model.
Kai
New
But we already know that they don't persist, Haruhi, even when they cease within the living organism. It's that same "whole person trapped within the disabled person" fallacy, imo.
I think that's special pleading. It's one reason why I don't credit metaphysical situations that cherry pick in favor of human beings. To my mind, to have the least chance of being credible, a nonmortal frame of refrerence should be applicable to all forms of life...to jellyfish and a rhododendron bush and anaerobic bacteria, and so far as I am concerned all other "problematic" lifeforms, and not just to human beings (in its essential fact). Otherwise we attract the suspicion of a fantasy simply designed to indulge ourselves. I'm not persuaded by your case that there isn't something of a tree, or even of an anaerobic bacterium, that "cannot be extrapolated to a human being." All that is required really is that it has some primitive species of sensing of its own life, just as we have a much more complex species of sensing of our own life. My thought though is that a tree's sensing of its own life cannot be separated from water climbing through xylem, from nutrients being sucked from the soil, from leaves rotating to capture sunlight etc. Likewise, I don't think Woody Allen can be Woody Allen without the neuroticism of his genetic make up.
Haruhi
New
No, you believe they do not persist. Evidence of mediumship point to that personality persists after biological death.
The only thing that is special about humans in this case is that we have a psychological life, while a tree apparently not. So the division is not between human beings and other living beings, but between conscious beings and other living beings. But if we accept that all living beings have some degree of consciousness, then a life after death of a tree is not as absurd because their inner life can continue but remain inaccessible to us.
People change but remains the same, which can be applied to the change we call death.
Kai
New
We're not going to agree on that Haruhi. Some of the things you take as evidence are frankly far below a quality threshold of anything I would consider evidence. We know from disease and brain damage that qualities of personality are non-persistent. In fact, sometimes the slightest change in brain chemistry is all that is needed to more or less radically transform personality.
I don't see grounds for an absolute distinction between "conscious" and "not conscious" living beings. I also don't see grounds for any sense in which a tree can remain a tree post mortem. If a tree be argued to become something else altogether, well that's a different argument, and needs addressed on its own terms.
People change. I don't know what you mean by "they remain the same." That is true biologically, only in the sense that your genes are stable across a lifetime.
Haruhi
New
I agree that we will not going to agree.:) I think you underestimate or do not know in detail the psychic evidence. And about brain damage, I said that the brain damage can suppress the personality, but the personality is not destroyed.
I know I am conscious and I behave in a certain way, so that to the extent that others behave an analogous way to me, I infer that they are conscious.
I mean that a person is still the same person despite the changes he / she has had throughout their history.
Kai
New
It has nothing to do with not being aware of it, but of not agreeing with the interpretations placed upon it. I know what you said about brain damage, but your premise is untestable (just as it would be untestable to say that there is still a complete car inside a car wreck). There is no way to check for "suppressed but surviving people" in damaged brains. It's also ad hoc in the sense that you add a mystification in order to account for a situation that is otherwise straightforward and simple. It is also disconfirmed by everything we actually know about how brain and mind work.
Even by inference, you can only infer that they have a similar minded structure of awareness to you, not ultimately that they don’t possess a form of sensing of their own existence.
I am not the same person that I was even 20 years ago, despite my genes being stable. Imagine how different we would be in just 20 years if genes were not stable.
Haruhi
New
My premise is untestable, but it is the only one that can accommodate all data, both psychic research and the neurological research.
Ok, so I said a tree apparently is not conscious, but it could be.
I am not the same person that I was 20 years ago in sense of qualitative identity, but I am the same person that I was 20 years ago in sense of narrative identity.
Kai
New
Well, I disagree. You see, you basically stated a hypothesis about a particular situation, but there is no way to make this hypothesis operational, even in principle, unless you can identify what this "suppression" is. For without the ability to do that, it simply has equivalence to the observation that the personality is degraded in degraded brains and not-degraded in not-degraded brains. But I already know that. And there is already an explanation for it that is complete in itself, just as there is an explanation complete in itself for why an undamaged car isn't hidden or suppressed within a wrecked car. Additionally, if "spirits" were to pipe up, telling me that undamaged people live on, somehow, inside wrecked bodies or brains, I would see no more reason to believe these voices than if they told me that undamaged cars live on in wrecked cars.
Can you give an example of what you mean?
enzymewrath
New
I think there is another possibility.
If someone had brain damage, so severe, his personality was so suppressed as to that he could not call himself as the same person as the one before that hapless brain damage occurred. Every things he was proud of, his intelligence, the knowledge he accumulated, some very precious memories and enlightening, and some of his emotional relationships, wonderful feelings, all gone, so he can't enjoy being the one he was proud of any more.
But in case later this aftermath of brain by that damage be completely cured, he could then recall that period of suppressed personality as a sleep-like experience, with obscure dreams, it is as simple as when he was very very sleepy he could also experience the personality's suppression, and when his energy recovered by a sweet sleep he would still be the exact person as before.
So, the problem lays on whether that damage to brain can be removed, if it can, then personality was not destroyed just like when someone was in trance of sleepy his personality was not destroyed. Current science and medical can't, in case future can? Boldly enough to consider the possibility that death can? Like said by some believers.
So brain's drastic influences on our personality and ego only definitely prove that brain can give us large range of experiences, lucid ones or suppressed ones, it hasn't definitely proven that brain's destroy is also our personalities or egos' destroy.
But I'm a true neutral skeptic and based on current science evidences, I strongly incline to disbelieve life beyond brain. Many nde accounts are far from sufficient to reverse my stance. I just said what I thought, brain's damage is just like brain's drowsy,
"damage cured = energy recovered and drowsy gone"
It is because currently a lot of brain damage can't be cured within the lifetime of patients before they demise, which make us think brain damage = personality's destroy, but strictly speaking it is not necessarily to be this case, at least currently not concluded as so.
Typoz
Member
This seems to touch upon the subject of terminal lucidity, where a seriously ill patient, who has been unable to interact in either recognising or communicating with others, may become well enough to communicate normally during a brief time period preceding death. I would presume in this situation, the physical causes have not been cured, but somehow the patient is (briefly) able to function normally despite that.
Kai
New
Hello Enzyme
I'm not sure I can see that as a workable analogy, to be honest. The reason you are able to wake up again after sleep is because the brain is functioning in a healthy way in a normal rhythm. Its modules and structures are not permanently damaged.
With respect to terminal lucidity, this is indeed an interesting phenomenon. However, it is important to note that it does not just take place "terminally." In other words, there can be brief phases during the disease process when the abillity to remember, especially, undergoes a partial recovery. Possibly the most likely (though probably not the most popular) explanation of this, is simply that most disease processes wax and wane, and that the brain is undergoing "repair" processes all the time. During periods, even brief periods, where "repair" gains the upper hand over "disease," a partial recovery may ensue, at least before the next relapse. I think that one of the problems here is that the brain is viewed too much as a static object, and not a dynamic process, which it more accurately is.
I'm not sure I can see that as a workable analogy, to be honest. The reason you are able to wake up again after sleep is because the brain is functioning in a healthy way in a normal rhythm. Its modules and structures are not permanently damaged.
With respect to terminal lucidity, this is indeed an interesting phenomenon. However, it is important to note that it does not just take place "terminally." In other words, there can be brief phases during the disease process when the abillity to remember, especially, undergoes a partial recovery. Possibly the most likely (though probably not the most popular) explanation of this, is simply that most disease processes wax and wane, and that the brain is undergoing "repair" processes all the time. During periods, even brief periods, where "repair" gains the upper hand over "disease," a partial recovery may ensue, at least before the next relapse. I think that one of the problems here is that the brain is viewed too much as a static object, and not a dynamic process, which it more accurately is.
enzymewrath
New
Hello Kai:)
Yes I understand what you mean and I agree. Brain damage is different from sleep, because the former won't be rebooted later while the latter do.
But I suggest a possibility that brain modules and structures damages are not strictly proven to be permanent, we do not know for sure whether future medical science could reverse that kind of damage, if can, then that person's personality would possibly come back intact, he just would feel like he has undergone a period of obscure conscious state like being in a trance of very very sleepy. In this case, his personality would have never been destroyed, otherwise, it can also be said that when we are in a trance of very very sleepy, our personalities are also destroyed, this is not true.
The reason why we consider most brain damages are permanent, is that after those damages occur,
1. within the rest lifetime of the patient his consciousness wouldn't come back.
2. after his demise whether his consciousness come back to him we do not know for certainty, but according to current academic science there is no reason to think his consciousness would come back to him.
Therefore we assume most brain damages are probably permanent.
But it is not strictly proven, in case those damages are not permanent and by somehow can be cured, then those damages could be considered like merely a period of experience, just like being in a trance of very very sleepy is a period of experience too and with nothing to do with destroying one's personality, and felt by the patient like nothing different from trance of very very sleepy.
Max_B
Member
Quite... and I'm pleased to see that you remain neutral on these matters, as Li-Huei Tsai @M.I.T. has already shown that inducing robust synapse and dendritic growth can apparently recover long term memories in mice, even after they have experienced massive neuronal destruction.
IMO Spatio-Temporal field shapes are critically important. The field shape, and where the field intersects with physiological structures in the brain, must have some correlation with memory and meaning as far as I'm concerned. However it's still just a correlate, something far more complex is going on in the brain...