Mod+ 248. BERNARDO KASTRUP SAYS MATERIALISM IS BALONEY

Couple of thoughts:
1. Multiverse... I dont go for the modern mathematical physics version; but in the esoteric traditions we already have a multiverse; in the sense of multiple dimensions or realms of existence. After death we transit to another dimension of existence; you could call it a parallel universe. Acording to the traditions there are multiple levels beyond the Earth realm.

2.Time... is an experience...but not thereby an illusion. IMO what we call time is the experience (awareness of) process or change; and of course requires a memory system to create the sense of duration. Without memory there would only be the present moment; and no sense of duration; nor of personal self.
Because experience may function differently in different realms, our experince of time or process in different realms may also be different.
I believe this may in part account for the sometimes confusing statements about time made by NDEs and out-of-body travellers.
 
If you've not read it, I heartily recommend Don Salmon's essay on Integral World:

SHAVING SCIENCE WITH OCKHAM'S RAZOR: What, if anything, does science tell us about reality?

PREMISE: There are no scientific findings which preclude considering consciousness as a causal factor in the universe. Nor are there findings in any area of science—including quantum physics, parapsychology or near-death experience research—which require the consideration of consciousness as a causal factor (both of these statements are in regard to current scientific methodology).
 
Do you think the Source-Consciousness/Super-Mind is nonspatial? I think that's what is hard for me to wrap my head around.

Consciousness is not just nonspatial, it is also atemporal.

The physical universe was designed and created by consciousness. This means consciousness is not part of space/time. But, I don't think we can really understand what that means until we are freed from our three dimensional brains that are subject to the second law of thermodynamics.

The expanding universe is not just matter expanding through pre-existing space. Space and time were created by the big bang:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-cosmological-argument-for.html#cosmo_something
Another scientific breakthrough that shook the foundations of materialism came when Stephen Hawking solved Einstein's field equations for general relativity. When Hawking calculated the curvature of space-time at the beginning of the universe, he found that space-time had zero volume and so it could not contain any matter.


The scientific evidence is best explained by an intelligent (conscious) creator and designer.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_god
Nobel Prize winners Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes and scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, believed the scientific evidence demonstrates the existence of God or that the universe was designed:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers


http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/62014-contents-evidence-for-afterlife.html#articles_by_subject_id
Atheists: "Science shows there is no good reason to believe in God". Nobel Prize Winning Scientists: "The scientific evidence is best explained by the existence of God".
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/atheists-science-shows-there-is-no-good.html
...
The discovery that the universe is expanding, the discovery that the universe came from nothing, and the discovery that natural laws are finely tuned to make life possible, all demonstrate that the universe was created and designed by an intelligence outside the universe. The evidence for intelligent design in the origin and evolution of life shows that the designer continued to play a role in the universe long after its creation.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-cosmological-argument-for.html
Also see: Video: Doug Ell Discusses the Evidence for Intelligent Design
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/07/doug-ell-video-discusses-evidence-for.html
 
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Personally I don’t think the argument for design on the basis of the supposed fine-tuning of the so-called laws of nature is at all convincing.

It is a chicken & egg argument.

The particular kind of universe we have; and the particular kind of life that has arisen on Earth; may indeed require the particular natural patterns of physical nature that underly this universe; but that does not prove, a conscious design or intent.

It may be that the particular kind of universe we have; and the particular kind of life that has arisen on Earth; is just the kind of universe and life that results from the particular natural patterns of physical nature that underly this universe.

Different natural patterns might give rise to differert universes; and perhaps to different forms of life.

I do think that the order we witness and discover everywhere in the universe and in life is a strong argument for the presence of inherent intelligence in the nature of the universe; (taking order to be the sign of intelligence…but not necessarily of design).
 
EthanT, wanted to note that your connection between the multiverse and the paranormal is something Josephson has also considered:

While I'm very doubtful about the multiverse, one way I've thought about this - which admittedly is far out conjecture - is that both the "everything has happened" idea of a Block Universe and the Multiverse might both be true.

So the future is a set of destinations already extant, but not experienced. Which future we end up in collectively is based on our choices made in the present. Precognition would then be a sort of reverse morphic resonance, showing us a future that resonates closely with where we seem to be headed. I think this helps makes sense of things like warning synchronicities, especially if you factor in Carpenter's First Sight model.

Thanks Sciborg! Nice to see Utts and Josephson together in a paper on psi.

I'm definitely still not a fan of the Many-Worlds type of multiverse. But, the existence of multple story lines (similar to what Bernardo talks about under Idealism), seems more reasonable to me these days.

I suspect psi doesn't really need the multiverse for an explanation, but that's just a gut feeling. However, I found this very intriguing, which was mentioned in the paper and perhaps gives my gut feeling a chance of being correct. Gonna have to look into this some more. You don't happen to know any good links about these "subquantum domains"?


This idea perhaps makes sense in the light of theories that presuppose that quantum theory is not the ultimate theory of nature, but involves (in ways that in some versions of the idea can be made mathematically precise) the manifestations of a deeper "subquantum domain". In just the same way that a surf rider can make use of random waves to travel effortlessly along, a psychic may be able to direct random energy at the subquantum level for her own purposes. Some accounts of the subquantum level involve action at a distance, which fits in well with some purported psychic abilities.

I like what you said about Morphic resonance explaining precognition, etc. Once again an idea that doesn't seem to really need a multiverse.
 
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Thanks Sciborg! Nice to see Utts and Josephson together in a paper on psi.

I'm definitely still not a fan of the Many-Worlds type of multiverse. But, the existence of multple story lines (similar to what Bernardo talks about under Idealism), seems more reasonable to me these days.

I suspect psi doesn't really need the multiverse for an explanation, but that's just a gut feeling. However, I found this very intriguing, which was mentioned in the paper and perhaps gives my gut feeling a chance of being correct. Gonna have to look into this some more. You don't happen to know any good links about these "subquantum domains"?

I like the parallel storyline idea myself - the Scottish author Hal Duncan actually wrote a pair of trippy novels, Vellum & Ink, on the idea of parallel timelines which seems close to Fred Alan Wolf's aforementioned account of reality:

Think of reality as having three temporal dimensions. There's frontal time -- the way we live our lives, with future and past as forward and back. There's lateral time -- the parallel worlds to the "left" and "right" of ours, alternate histories where events took other paths. And there's residual time -- where if you dig "down" beneath our world you find archeological strata of more primitive realms with cruder metaphysics in placeof our logical and consistent universe of scientific priniciples.

If you want a comparison, think of it as how shared stories like myths work. You have a story like that of the Greek god, Dionysus and his run-in with King Pentheus. Euripedes gives us one version of this in his play The Bacchae. It has a beginning, a middle and an end -- one temporal dimension, the frontal. But another playwright might tell the story slightly differently, because in the city-state he's from, this character did something else here, that character did something else there. Most Greek myths have multiple versions like this, as you can see if you read, say, Robert Graves. Is any one of them right? No. You have to look at the story as a whole and say, OK, it has another temporal dimension -- the lateral dimension. But there's also the fact that Euripedes's telling was a retelling of the story as he heard it from a storyteller who heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else and so on, down and down through the third dimension -- I call it residual because the story sort of builds up in layer upon layer, the original palimpsested by the versions laid down on top of it.

So what is the story of Dionysus and Pentheus? Is it the straight line of The Bacchae? The wide field of alternative versions? Or this solid shape which has not just length, but breadth and depth as well. If you can see that as a metaphor for time, then you understand the Vellum. Your story, your personal history, isn't just this short thin line from cradle to grave. It's also all the other versions, the ones to this side or that who did things slightly differently, and the ones before or beneath, who did the same thing, whose story you're replaying, building upon. The Vellum is the media the 3D timespace in which that wider, deeper story takes place.

On the subject of subquantum domains, Adrian Kline & Robert Boyd posted some stuff about this subject on Zammit's site.

I'll see if I can dig up some more - might even email Josephson and ask him about the subject. Maybe see if he wants to come on Skeptiko as I don't think he's been interviewed?

I like what you said about Morphic resonance explaining precognition, etc. Once again an idea that doesn't seem to really need a multiverse.

I know Braude is really critical of any kind of retrocausality, including information transfer but if such a thing were possible I think it makes sense to have an extant set of possible futures. Otherwise getting information from the future has no survival advantage if this reverse morphic resonance offers awareness of a future that must come to pass.

Additionally, a single predetermined future from which retrocausal information is sent back that ensures said future takes place would mean there are time loops. As Feser notes this leads to problems akin (isomorphic?) to infinite regression:

None of these cases involves the kind of contradiction seemingly entailed by the suicidal time traveler example. But they do involve a kind of circularity. Is it vicious? Some theorists of time travel seem to think not, or at least allow that such scenarios are in principle possible in a way the suicidal time travel scenario is not (short of the “many-worlds” interpretation, that is – though even then, it seems it is not really himself that the time traveler kills, but only an alternate version of himself). And yet there is obviously something very fishy about these scenarios. It is perhaps easiest to see what is wrong in the notebook example from “By His Bootstraps”: The earlier stage of the notebook came from the later stage, and the later from the earlier. But what about the information embodied in the notebook? Why did the notebook have just the content it did, rather than some other content or no content at all?
 
On the subject of subquantum domains, Adrian Kline & Robert Boyd posted some stuff about this subject on Zammit's site.

I'll see if I can dig up some more - might even email Josephson and ask him about the subject. Maybe see if he wants to come on Skeptiko as I don't think he's been interviewed?

Now THAT would be a GREAT interview! ;-) Here's hoping he accepts!

Thanks for the info on subquantum domains!


I know Braude is really critical of any kind of retrocausality, including information transfer but if such a thing were possible I think it makes sense to have an extant set of possible futures. Otherwise getting information from the future has no survival advantage if this reverse morphic resonance offers awareness of a future that must come to pass.

Additionally, a single predetermined future from which retrocausal information is sent back that ensures said future takes place would mean there are time loops. As Feser notes this leads to problems akin (isomorphic?) to infinite regression:

Was just reading an article by Josephson (that I found in relation to the on you posted earlier) and also an article by Wheeler. They both mentioned how maybe there really is no past. It literally gets formed to some extent by observer participation in the present. Before then it exists as a set of potentialities. Wheeler's galactic version of the delayed-choice experiment really brings this out. Anyhow, perhaps we're slowly finding out that the same can be said for the future, with observer participation making some futures much more likely than others.

I still can't help but think TSQM is really hinting at all of this too, especially when you throw the future in the mix. Not that TSQM is necessarily the whole picture, or even correct, but it sure seems to be heading in the right direction.
 
In is my belief that God, Infinite Consciousness, created souls out of "spirit" or "spiritual substance". Souls are given free will and are witnesses and observers to whatever they see and experience. What they witness is also witnessed by God. How God, Infinite Consciousness, divides up His observational resources is beyond anything that we can understand.

To answer your question, there are lots of mysterious details, but then the soul is able to be interfaced with the biology of a physical body, one cell at a time. Cells build up a potential energy across the membrane. This potential energy is used to confine the "energy body" to the physical body. The energy body or etheric body somehow holds the soul.

I just started reading the Exegesis of Phillip K. Dick, and these limericks he wrote made me think of your conception of how consciousness enters into matter:

'Determinist forces are wrong
And irresistably strong.
While of God there's a dearth
for He visits the Earth
But not for sufficiently long.'


=-=-=

'Determinist forces are wrong
And irresistably strong.
While of God there's no dearth
for He visits the Earth
Though just for sufficiently long.'
 
Here are some data points on fine-tuning:

(the main reference is : http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html, other references listed below)

Expansion rate of the universe 1 part in 10^60 (1:10^60)
if larger: the heat and energy of the universe would dissipate too quickly stable galaxies would not form
if smaller: the matter in the universe would have collapsed back on itself

Gravitational force constant 1:10^40
if larger: stars would be too hot, they would burn up too quickly, and too unevenly
if smaller: stars would remain too cool so that nuclear fusion would never ignite and hence we would have no element production

Initial Entropy of the Universe 1:10^10^123 (one in ten to the tenth to the 123rd)
if larger: stars would not form within proto-galaxies
if smaller: no proto-galaxies would form

Mass Density of Universe 1:10^59
if larger: overabundance of deuterium from big bang would cause stars to burn rapidly, too rapidly for life to form
if smaller: insufficient helium from big bang would result in a shortage of heavy elements

Strong nuclear force 1:50
if larger: no hydrogen would form; atomic nuclei for most life-essential elements would be unstable
if smaller: no elements heavier than hydrogen would form

Cosmological constant 1:10^120
if larger: universe would expand too quickly to form solar-type stars

Ratio of number of electrons to number of protons 1:10^37
if larger or smaller, electromagnetism would dominate gravity, preventing galaxy, star, and planet formation

Ratio of Electromagnetic force constant :Gravitational force constant 1:10^40
if larger: all stars would be at least 40% more massive than the sun stellar burning would be too brief and too uneven to support life
if smaller: all stars would be at least 20% less massive than the sun, thus incapable of producing heavy elements

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html lists 34 fine-tuning parameters
  1. strong nuclear force constant
  2. weak nuclear force constant
  3. gravitational force constant
  4. electromagnetic force constant
  5. ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant
  6. ratio of electron to proton mass
  7. ratio of number of protons to number of electrons
  8. expansion rate of the universe
  9. entropy level of the universe
  10. mass density of the universe
  11. velocity of light
  12. age of the universe
  13. initial uniformity of radiation
  14. average distance between galaxies
  15. density of galaxy cluster
  16. average distance between stars
  17. fine structure constant (describing the fine-structure splitting of spectral lines)
  18. decay rate of protons
  19. 12C to 16O nuclear energy level ratio
  20. ground state energy level for 4He
  21. decay rate of 8Be
  22. ratio of neutron mass to proton mass
  23. initial excess of nucleons over anti-nucleons
  24. polarity of the water molecule
  25. supernovae eruptions
  26. white dwarf binaries
  27. ratio of exotic matter mass to ordinary matter mass
  28. number of effective dimensions in the early universe
  29. number of effective dimensions in the present universe
  30. mass of the neutrino
  31. big bang ripples
  32. size of the relativistic dilation factor
  33. uncertainty magnitude in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
  34. cosmological constant

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html
One part in 10^37 is such an incredibly sensitive balance that it is hard to visualize. The following analogy might help: Cover the entire North American continent in dimes all the way up to the moon, a height of about 239,000 miles (In comparison, the money to pay for the U.S. federal government debt would cover one square mile less than two feet deep with dimes.). Next, pile dimes from here to the moon on a billion other continents the same size as North America. Paint one dime red and mix it into the billions of piles of dimes. Blindfold a friend and ask him to pick out one dime. The odds that he will pick the red dime are one in 10^37

Nobel Prize winning scientists who believed that the scientific evidence is best explained by an intelligent designer and creator of the universe include Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, Guglielmo Marconi, Brian D. Josephson, William Phillips, Richard Smalley, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes, George Wald, Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, and Arthur Schawlow. Other scientists who believed the same thing include Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, and Wernher von Braun.
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers


References

http://www.jashow.org/wiki/index.ph...odern_Science_That_Prove_God_Exists/Program_3

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/04/roger_penrose_on_cosmic_finetu033691.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe
 
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The fine tuning argument seems to be saying that if the physics constants varied, even by a minute amount, that chemistry, biochemistry and biology would not be possible either because atoms are too unstable or because the materials necessary wouldn't be available. The fine tuning argument seems to suggest that the universe is intentional, that biology was intentional, not an accident. Any thoughts?
 
The fine tuning argument seems to be saying that if the physics constants varied, even by a minute amount, that chemistry, biochemistry and biology would not be possible either because atoms are too unstable or because the materials necessary wouldn't be available. The fine tuning argument seems to suggest that the universe is intentional, that biology was intentional, not an accident. Any thoughts?

It's suggestive but not definitive. But yes, it is interesting and worthy of scientific pursuit. As I've noted before, Nagel & Josephson have both supported & spoken highly of Myers' work.

However, as the theist philospher Feser has noted, it doesn't quite get you to a transcendent God. If fine tuning & design are correct, this simply suggests something more than existing materialist explanations are necessary to account for life. This could be Psi - as Don Salmon and I've suggested Carpenter's First Sight model might prove adequate, or teleological principles that Nagel has suggested might be possible without a deity.

On the other hand, the famous atheist philosopher Anthony Flew was partially convinced by the arguments Jim noted above. He also got something out of the Aristotlean arguments. But while he came to believe in a Prime Mover, and libetarian free will before that, he discounted the idea of post-mortem survival.
 
It's suggestive but not definitive. But yes, it is interesting and worthy of scientific pursuit. As I've noted before, Nagel & Josephson have both supported & spoken highly of Myers' work.

However, as the theist philospher Feser has noted, it doesn't quite get you to a transcendent God. If fine tuning & design are correct, this simply suggests something more than existing materialist explanations are necessary to account for life. This could be Psi - as Don Salmon and I've suggested Carpenter's First Sight model might prove adequate, or teleological principles that Nagel has suggested might be possible without a deity.

On the other hand, the famous atheist philosopher Anthony Flew was partially convinced by the arguments Jim noted above. He also got something out of the Aristotlean arguments. But while he came to believe in a Prime Mover, and libetarian free will before that, he discounted the idea of post-mortem survival.

Isn't this why the Many Worlds or Multiverse ideas are favored by some physicists- as a way to get around the fine tuning argument?
 
However, as the theist philospher Feser has noted, it doesn't quite get you to a transcendent God. If fine tuning & design are correct, this simply suggests something more than existing materialist explanations are necessary to account for life. This could be Psi - as Don Salmon and I've suggested Carpenter's First Sight model might prove adequate, or teleological principles that Nagel has suggested might be possible without a deity.

I don't see how the fine-tuning can be implemented from within the universe and that implies a transcendent creator. Feser is saying intelligent design arguments don't get you a God of classical theism, which is a very specific definition of the creator.


http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/09/classical-theism.html
As I have indicated in earlier posts, the doctrine of divine simplicity is absolutely central to classical theism. To say that God is simple is to say that He is in no way composed of parts – neither material parts, nor metaphysical parts like form and matter, substance and accidents, or essence and existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_theism
Classical theism refers to the form of theism in which God is characterized as the absolutely metaphysically ultimate being, in contrast to other conceptions such as Pantheism, Panentheism, Polytheism, and Process Theism.
 
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Isn't this why the Many Worlds or Multiverse ideas are favored by some physicists- as a way to get around the fine tuning argument?
Multiverse theories also require fine-tuning, they don't solve anything.

Stephen Meyer:
http://www.jashow.org/wiki/index.ph...odern_Science_That_Prove_God_Exists/Program_3
And what you find when you attempt to explain away the fine-tuning apart from a designer, is you get an incredibly convoluted explanation involving multiple theoretical postulates involving unobservable entities for which we have no direct evidence. So it fails the parsimony test that Dawkins laid out. In addition to that, though, there is this problem of pushing the design back one generation. Both in String Theory and in the Inflationary Cosmology, in order to explain the fine-tuning you have to posit certain processes which are themselves finely tuned to generate universes or a universe like our own.
 
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-fine-tuning-of-universe-to-one-part.html
Many people have wondered how the universe could be so mathematically precise: how natural laws could follow mathematical rules, and how the universe could be so fantastically, improbably, fine-tuned to permit the existence of life. There is a simple answer for that.

First, consider the analogy that the universe might be a simulation running on a computer. That would explain how it could operate with such mathematical precision. All the laws and fine-tuned parameters could be specified in the program. But that is just an analogy. I am not suggesting the universe is a computer simulation. However, it may be that the universe was created in the mind of God. In which case God is analogous to the computer and the universe is analogous to a program running on the computer.

Mathematics consists entirely of ideas. God is pure mind. God creates through thought. All that can exist is mind. But your consciousness is not part of the "simulation". Your brain and body are part of it, but you, your consciousness, is not physical. You would still exist if the "simulation" ended. But the physical universe of space and time may exist only in the mind of God. This may be what mystics mean when they say everything is part of God.

If this is right, then God can create miracles with a thought. He can cause improbable events such as the origin and evolution of life with a thought.

It also makes sense of quantum mechanics. If the physical universe exists as thought in the mind of God, then there is no ultimate reality to explain quantum mechanics or to explain what a wave function is. There are only mathematical formulas that describe how our reality will behave. It is exactly what you would expect if you found natural laws that obeyed mathematical rules that made no physical sense. It might be because there isn't anything physical behind them. There is only a mathematical engine (consciousness, the mind of God) behind them. It could explain wave/particle duality, quantum entanglement, and the quantum Zeno effect. It is also consistent with the theistic and mystical belief that the continued action of God is necessary to keep the physical universe extant.
 
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If fine tuning is true, it tells us that the creation of life is a priority. It tells us that the universe had a purpose: to allow biological life to exist. If the universe had a purpose, then it had a Creator. It had an intelligent and powerful Creator. That's practically the definition of GOD. However, such a fact would tell us nothing about which religion, if any, is correct.
 
I don't see how the fine-tuning can be implemented from within the universe and that implies a transcendent creator. Feser is saying intelligent design arguments don't get you a God of classical theism, which is a very specific definition of the creator.

I was thinking of Josephson's talk:

The problem of how life came into existence is a major challenge for biology. I shall argue for an explanation involving the idea that a more elementary form of life, not dependent on matter, existed prior to the big bang, and evolved at the level of ideas in the same way that human societies evolve at the level of ideas. Just as human society discovered how to use matter in a range of technological applications, the hypothesised life before the big bang discovered how to organise energy to make physical universes, and to make fruitful use of the matter available in such universes.


I don't know if the mental entities he supposes would be equivalent to a Prime Mover?
 
I was thinking about Bernando's idea that what we see in our reality are images of a process, similar to how fire is the image of combustion. Rubbing two sticks together, or lighting a match, are both ways to initiate the combustion process. You can learn how to strike a match when you're what? 4-5 years old if not earlier? Probably not a good time to learn chemistry though.

Now imagine if I made a sigil on the ground, and a ball of light appeared over that marking. If you asked me how I made the light appear, and I said I drew a Sigil, you might amend your question to ask how drawing a sigil could make a light appear. If I told you it was "magic", you likely wouldn't be satisfied*. In fact the question you want answered is why drawing a sigil makes a light appear. You'd assume there was some aspect of reality that accounted for this phenomenon.

But consider the possible materialist solutions to the Hard Problem. They are all akin to the sigil that makes the light appear, or knowing that rubbing two sticks together makes a fire. They don't explain the why. And it seems just like in the case of the sigil, you'd be rational to assume there's some aspect of reality accounting for the phenomenon. Just as working with the sigil is merely working with what Hoffman would call an "icon", matter seems to be mere icons formed by more fundamental reality.

This isn't proof that Idealism is true, but it does suggest there's more to the picture than materialism can account for**. And since that picture is in consciousness, given everything we known about the world is framed by our subjective experience, it seems reasonable to suggest that Idealism - or perhaps some kind of Neutral Monism - is not a bad way to go when seeking a personal, livable truth.

*David Bailey makes a similar critique of materialism's hope of an emergent explanation for consciousness here.

**See the last lecture of Nobel winning biologist George Wald for more on this theme.
 
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On Bernando's latest post:

The Greatest Contradiction of Common Sense

This essay is about a shocking contradiction in our common sense about the nature of reality; a contradiction that you are probably totally unaware of. Becoming aware of this contradiction has the potential to change your life.

Our common sense says that the colors we see, the sounds we hear, the smells we feel, the textures we sense, are all the actual reality. We take it for granted that they are all really out there, concretely. Our common sense also seems to suggest that death is the end of our consciousness. Even if we don't acknowledge this intellectually or spiritually, most of us fear the end of consciousness with enough sincerity to betray our belief in its possibility.

Now, the point of this essay is extraordinarily simple: these two common-sense beliefs are mutually exclusive. They cannot be both true. Either everything you sense around you right now, including the computer in front of you, is a kind of "hallucination" inside your head, or your consciousness doesn’t end upon what we call physical death. And by the time we come to the end of this essay, I believe you will agree with me.

For the conclusion (Idealism) to hold, wouldn't we need refutations of the other immaterialist options? Even then, exactly "who" survives isn't clear.
 
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