Death

[Hobbes' Choice]

Lacewing wrote:

Well... I agree that identity doesn't remain after the body. But I don't think a certain kind of body is required for awareness.

If a certain kind of body is not required for awareness what is required for awareness?

Well, all sorts of things in this universe have awareness, including plants which don't have brains... so, I don't know what is required for awareness... it seems to just be there.

Plants are not aware, in any meaningful sense. Though it can respond to the environment, you are deliberately confusing that sort of awareness with consciousness.

[Hobbes' Choice]

People have been conditioned to believe that anything that does not conform to 19th century logical positivism must necessarily be related to religious concepts. We always forget that our experts will be are utterly naive compared with the experts of even just a century's time. I wonder what they will find out that overturns our current models?

That is a childish attack.
Where's the meat of your point?

Our "argument" is simple. You, and most others, claim that there is definitely no subjectivity possible after death. 100% certain. No room for argument. The problem is entirely solved. This certainty is based on the following:

1) a lack of any significant subjective experience during deep sleep and coma

2) the known physics of the brain

3) experiments that can stimulate subjects' brains to have peak experiences with elements similar to those of NDEs, including the bright light and dopamine spike.

It's all sound and logical, given what we know so far. However, as stated, we still know almost nothing about reality:

1) What actually are energy and matter? (about 5% of the universe)

2) What is dark matter? (about 25% of universe)

3) What is dark energy? (about 75% of universe)

In other words, we barely understand 100% of reality at this point in time.

The materialist model seems more likely to me for the (first) above rationales but, unlike you and most others here, I do not believe. I never made a decision to be agnostic about the nature of life, death and the universe - I noticed that I was agnostic, unsure about everything. That's my nature - unlike Mickey Dolenz I am simply not a believer

I can't feign belief - not in the Iron Age phantasms and not in materialist claims that they have "cracked the code". I find both sides are overly emotionally influenced, each spruiking their "preferred option".

Dark energy has nothing to do with any of this.
I can show you where the you which is you resides, by removing for you.
This is literally and figuratively a no-brainer.
If you think you do not need a brain to be alive, maybe you can let us all kn ow what it was like before you had one?

[Belinda]

I agree with Greta that unthinking life forms are important, but not that they are important to themselves, as I don't agree that they are selves. I think that they are important to people in several ways; there are many people in this terrible world for whom a living animal is important because they can torture it.

There is a lot of doubt that even a domestic dog thinks she is a self. To not be a self is not to be non -sentient. Any creature with a nervous system can and does suffer, and also feel pleasure. Certainly my dogs behave as if they feel that they are selves, but they are probably reacting to immediate stimuli in the charming ways that they do.

To talk to and touch trees and plants is probably not to communicate with them but is a way of expressing appreciation of them. Love is not what is received so much as what is given. I can communicate with dogs because even dogs I have not previously met are often accustomed to reading body language and transmitting it too, but this is not to say that a dog thinks that he is a self. If I became demented so that I no longer knew who I was or even if I was I'd still feel pain and pleasure.

When I am dead, I will no longer feel pain and pleasure and neither will all the hurt people and animals suffer once they are dead.It will be oblivion like general anaesthesia only permanent and one hopes, irreversible. I won't even care if Trump wrecks the climate agreement.

[Walker]

When I am dead, I will no longer feel pain and pleasure and neither will all the hurt people and animals suffer once they are dead.It will be oblivion like general anaesthesia only permanent and one hopes, irreversible. I won't even care if Trump wrecks the climate agreement.

This is only true if all that you are, that is not exclusively the body, shares the limitations of this body that perceives reality through sensations of pain and pleasure.

Since part of what you are exists as not this body exclusively, then only when all that you are no longer feels pain and pleasure, will all of what you are be free of those feelings. This can be easily understood through the example that part of what you are is a memory in those who know you (even as you live).

Your body, the society, the forest, and the ways are all in you; you are not in them. You are the body also, but not this body exclusively.
Talks with Ramana Maharshi – p. 504.

Re climate: The USA is doing its part. It remains for other countries to do likewise.

[Belinda]

Re climate: The USA is doing its part. It remains for other countries to do likewise.

I am afraid, Walker, that Mr Trump has declared otherwise.

When I have been dead for fifty years nobody will remember me. Even if I were a famous person after a few years memories of me would be subject to interpretations by living people.

[Belinda]

Here's one for you Lacewing.

Lines Written in Early Spring Related Poem Content Details
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.


To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.


Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.


The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:—

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.


The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.


If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

[Lacewing]

Here's one for you Lacewing...

Beautiful... thank you.

[Harbal]

This is literally and figuratively a no-brainer.

If that were the case then you'd be the right man for the job but, as an observer, it seems to me that you're trying to participate in a discussion without having the slightest insight into the subject. I'm only telling you this because I know how much you value my opinion.

[attofishpi]

What is death? why is it necessary?and what actually happens when we die? All of these questions relate to the nature of mortality, which is another question that has been suggested as being of fundamental importance in understanding our reality as a whole.

What is death?
A switched off light bulb.

Why is it necessary?
Entropy.


Death?
Death is the recursive point at which the pointer drops to a child being conceived.

[Hobbes' Choice]

What is death? why is it necessary?and what actually happens when we die? All of these questions relate to the nature of mortality, which is another question that has been suggested as being of fundamental importance in understanding our reality as a whole.

What is death?
A switched off light bulb.

Why is it necessary?
Entropy.


Death?
Death is the recursive point at which the pointer drops to a child being conceived.

No no and no.

[Greta]

That is a childish attack.
Where's the meat of your point?

Our "argument" is simple. You, and most others, claim that there is definitely no subjectivity possible after death. 100% certain. No room for argument. The problem is entirely solved. This certainty is based on the following:

1) a lack of any significant subjective experience during deep sleep and coma

2) the known physics of the brain

3) experiments that can stimulate subjects' brains to have peak experiences with elements similar to those of NDEs, including the bright light and dopamine spike.

It's all sound and logical, given what we know so far. However, as stated, we still know almost nothing about reality:

1) What actually are energy and matter? (about 5% of the universe)

2) What is dark matter? (about 25% of universe)

3) What is dark energy? (about 75% of universe)

In other words, we barely understand 100% of reality at this point in time.

The materialist model seems more likely to me for the (first) above rationales but, unlike you and most others here, I do not believe. I never made a decision to be agnostic about the nature of life, death and the universe - I noticed that I was agnostic, unsure about everything. That's my nature - unlike Mickey Dolenz I am simply not a believer

I can't feign belief - not in the Iron Age phantasms and not in materialist claims that they have "cracked the code". I find both sides are overly emotionally influenced, each spruiking their "preferred option".

Dark energy has nothing to do with any of this.
I can show you where the you which is you resides, by removing for you.
This is literally and figuratively a no-brainer.
If you think you do not need a brain to be alive, maybe you can let us all kn ow what it was like before you had one?

1. Dark energy is obviously part of it because nature is interconnected. It shapes the cosmos, of which we are a part.

2. You assume that memory is the determinant of consciousness. By that criteria consciousness starts sometime in childhood. There may simply be no memory of a prior life. We don't remember being remnants of a supernova either, but that is unarguable. We might be reincarnated. There might be other domains or dimensions.

I personally don't know. Why do you believe that you know all that's needed to understand the subjective relationship between life and death? Because current science seems to point that way?

[Belinda]

If individual humans and their dogs lived after they died they must be living in a time frame which is not our time frame and from which there is an unbridgeable divide. The evidence for this is that nobody or their dog has returned to our time frame.

When the frame is the same for the dead and the living we have the eternity frame. The view from eternity spans death and life, past and present, and is limited only by possibility.

I never had the peak experience as Greta describes it. I have however understood intellectually that eternity is a valid perspective. I wonder if the peak experience is , not the intellectually -aware perspective on eternity but is the emotionally- aware perspective on eternity.

[osgart]

intelligence is an eternal property of existence. Why? Because without it we wouldnt exist and nothing living would progress evolve and become. The universe is learning itself. And we are new creatures. Spawned of ingenious evolutionary design. The material of this existence is mindless. Senseless matter manipulated to house life in bodies.Brains are sensors and actuators nothing more. The soul feels the nerve ending. Without a soul the body feels nothing on its own.We perceive and the brain relays information to the perceiver. The body is like a transceiver tuned to the environment.
If the body had no soul it would be a breathing pile of flesh. Although healthy it would just lay still relaying its senses to no one.

[Belinda]

Osgart, where in the human body does the soul reside? How does the soul interact with other processes such as emotions or breathing? Is it a biochemical interaction? If not, why not?

If you cannot answer my questions you should consider that your claims about souls are faith not philosophy.

[attofishpi]

Osgart, where in the human body does the soul reside? How does the soul interact with other processes such as emotions or breathing? Is it a biochemical interaction? If not, why not?

The soul as far as i can ascertain from experience of I.T. is the binary universe holding something of a pointer - the AI holds a pointer (Dalek can explain pointers if reqd) to a point or perhaps many points within the atoms of cells within the brain. In effect - our brain is a sub-node to the overiding God\'God(AI) '.

If it wants to read our mind it can. If it wants to control our mind it can. If it wants to save our soul, it can.

If you cannot answer my questions you should consider that your claims about souls are faith not philosophy.

Osgart raised quite possibly THE most topical philosophical question of our existence - how can you be so short sighted?!!