If I had evidence that there was an afterlife and that it was worse than life, then I would believe it because we believe things that we think are true rather than those that we want to be true.
Description of Afterlife?
- Thread starter ispy
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Like what evidence? The position is so far untestable so what is this unlimited evidence that you refer to, I would like to read some of the papers published that refer to scientific evidence that solves the Mind-Brain Problem.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence if that is the road you are about to travel.
What about conscious activity acting independently of the brain when brain death has been medically induced:
The whole near death experience thing is complete tosh, we already know that dreams that seem like they last years actually can last less then a second.
What's more likely:
The lack of oxygen to the brain creates a euphoric dream state whereby we see all sorts of crazy stuff.
or
We transcend our bodies into some mystical world where all things exist in their previous alive state.
Sometimes you don't need to be able to prove something you just need to know which is the more likely.
What's more likely:
The lack of oxygen to the brain creates a euphoric dream state whereby we see all sorts of crazy stuff.
or
We transcend our bodies into some mystical world where all things exist in their previous alive state.
Sometimes you don't need to be able to prove something you just need to know which is the more likely.
Again and again, medically induced =/= dead.
Also the case in your quote could be entirely faked, its only one persons word, nothing physical / material has actually been observed nor any valid evidence found. NDEs are a branch of pseudoscience, not medical science.
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Well, this was going to be a new potential signature of mine, but I thought it would be seen as too offensive, but it fits this thread perfectly:
I wear a seatbelt because the Law requires me to do so and I don't particularly want to pay a fine for contravening.
Like any evidence from any brain tested after death in history?
This was as close to permanent and irreversable death as it is possible to get. Well for someone who only believes what he can physically see, evidence of consciousness existing independently of the brain must be a contradiction (to what you think indeed).
Like I said absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. When the question is whether the mind and brain are independent of each other, testing the brain alone is somewhat superfluous.
I thought you had some specific actual presented scientific evidence rather than simply your opinion?
Brains can be examined post mortem to examine them for any signs of illness. This is in fact how Alzheimers Disease has best become understood by investigating the brain after a person has died.
I see no reason why you cannot think of a suitable method to test a brain after death for any signs of the consciousness 'escaping', like my earlier example of trying to detect the energy flow that must surely be required for your hypothesis of the mind surviving after brain death to be a physical reality.
I.E. 'The powerpuff girls must be real because you cant prove they arent' argument. Its entirely fallacious.
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Which leads to all sorts of problems when you end up with phenomena that are counterintuitive.
If someone says that there is an afterlife then the burden of proof is on them. As they can't prove it, I will reject the claim. Equally, if someone claims that there is no afterlife then they get the burden of proof. I believe that an afterlife is untestable and as such there is no evidence for either claim. I reject both of them.
My point is people assume because there's no definitive evidence the chances must be 50/50. You end up with people such as yourself that take the sitting on the fence route.
"Well I can't rule it out, therefore I'm 50/50"
The reality is everything we know about our brains and physics says that when something is dead it's dead.
Just because there's no way to test something like a soul transcending our bodies doesn't mean we should give it the respect and generosity of a 50/50 chance, when everything we know says otherwise.
A suitable method has not been discovered or presented however, particularly as to test for something, you must first know what you are looking for....currently we do not even know how consciousness is formed or the fundamental nature of what consciousness is in a physical way, what is known as mind-brain problem.
If you can devise an actual demonstrable test Bhavv then I would be intrigued to hear about it.
I wonder why people report the same sort of experiences when they have an NDE or even an OBE, if you've ever had or read about sleep paralysis you'll find a lot of people experience odd sensations that aren't explained, theres the weird sounds and imagery but why the vibrations, energy, pounding heart (not physically), then floating above, being able to fly around in what appears to be the real world (with distortions), its all very odd.
There's more stuff like how passing through walls takes some force and going near power cables pulls or pushes (i forget), there's also said to be a cord linking to your physical body, why do so many experience this and why would the brain cause this, it has yet to be explained.
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Surely you should be able to come up with the method yourself since its your belief that the mind and brain are separate, and the mind can survive after death?
Im not sure why I would be interested in testing for something I know isnt real, you may as well be asking me to use science to prove God.
They could have already been familiar with the treatment they were receiving, or they could have been told what to say by others as a scam. NDEs based on personal accounts do not count as valid observable evidence, just as you cant observe the magical pink invisible elephant thats in my room, but I can see it therefore it must be real.
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On the contrary the similar reports lend weight to the idea that it is simply effects created by the brain in it's dieing oxygen deprived state.
I don't think people think in such definitive terms. I certainly do not. Fence-Sitting is not what most of us are doing either, we simply do not ascribe definitive positions to indeterminable evidence or hypotheses without definitive and demonstrable evidence.
I am quite happy to say that I do not believe in Heaven (the classical view) for example, but remain open minded about the nature of existence in general. Just because I say I do not know the objective truth about something and speculate on what that truth may be, doesn't mean that I am endorsing any particular position to any specific probability. That is something I leave to positions of Faith or Material Reductionism.
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As our friend Castiel has pointed out (he's quicker off the draw than me until I'm back on real broadband...), you are, for some reason, assuming that consciousness and the physical brain are somehow bonded or dependent upon each other. The common theme amongst survivalist ideas is that this is not the case - that some etheric form ('soul', 'spirit' etc) transcends the physical brain. So exactly what kind of evidence does a 'dead' brain actually afford you?
By looking at things in such a limited fashion, you are necessarily putting things into artificial boxes and potentially precluding yourself from making further discovery or forming improved hypotheses.
Bhavv, you seem to have missed this. I'm interested to hear your response.
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At the very best, we could say that there is a phenomena that appears to suggest that the human brain does some weird stuff at times. There's still no evidence to link this to the existence of any afterlife.