Death

[karlhenning]

Fine and measured post, Elgarian.

[...]

I think we have a fundamental disagreement here. Let's dispense with the wall. If I have no evidence that there are any fish in this pond, I don't (and mustn't) conclude that there are no fish in the pond. The correct conclusion can only be that I don't know. I don't understand why we can't agree on this. You seem to be equating 'no evidence for the survival of consciousness' with 'no survival of consciousness', but that isn't agnosticism. (Neither is it a logical deduction.)

[...]

No; what it is, is a faith-based assertion.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!

[Cato]

An Everest of melancholy surrounds the idea that existence is purely a random assortment of chemical reactions, specifically that the electricity from ions of calcium, phosphorous, potassium, and sodium can evolve and align to create the idea of God and infinity, and then disintegrate into an infinite nothing of purposelessness.   

[secondwind]

I agree (but I'd never have managed to express it so elegantly).

[jowcol]

In one of my favorite sutras the Buddha refused to comment on whether or not there was any sort of life after death.  (True-- the culture he was born into assumed reincarnation.) He said that to devote time and energy to the issue was like a man, who had been shot with an arrow, refusing to have it taken out until he knew who shot him, what village the man was from, whether or not the man was tall, whether or not the man was married, how many children the man had, how many oxen the man owned blah, blah, blah-- the list of things the wounded man wanted to know ran on for a couple of pages. 

The moral of this was that devoting too much energy to these speculations, at the cost of showing compassion to the living, was basically a wasteful exercise. Instead, we must first remove the arrow, both in ourselves and in others, and let those matters beyond our reckoning take care of themselves.

[Harpo]

In one of my favorite sutras the Buddha refused to comment on whether or not there was any sort of life after death.  (True-- the culture he was born into assumed reincarnation.) He said that to devote time and energy to the issue was like a man, who had been shot with an arrow, refusing to have it taken out until he knew who shot him, what village the man was from, whether or not the man was tall, whether or not the man was married, how many children the man had, how many oxen the man owned blah, blah, blah-- the list of things the wounded man wanted to know ran on for a couple of pages. 

The moral of this was that devoting too much energy to these speculations, at the cost of showing compassion to the living, was basically a wasteful exercise. Instead, we must first remove the arrow, both in ourselves and in others, and let those matters beyond our reckoning take care of themselves.

Amen. Or Namaste. There's plenty of spirituality and meaning in everyday life.

[vandermolen]

In one of my favorite sutras the Buddha refused to comment on whether or not there was any sort of life after death.  (True-- the culture he was born into assumed reincarnation.) He said that to devote time and energy to the issue was like a man, who had been shot with an arrow, refusing to have it taken out until he knew who shot him, what village the man was from, whether or not the man was tall, whether or not the man was married, how many children the man had, how many oxen the man owned blah, blah, blah-- the list of things the wounded man wanted to know ran on for a couple of pages. 

The moral of this was that devoting too much energy to these speculations, at the cost of showing compassion to the living, was basically a wasteful exercise. Instead, we must first remove the arrow, both in ourselves and in others, and let those matters beyond our reckoning take care of themselves.

This makes good sense to me.

[drogulus]

An Everest of melancholy surrounds the idea that existence is purely a random assortment of chemical reactions, specifically that the electricity from ions of calcium, phosphorous, potassium, and sodium can evolve and align to create the idea of God and infinity, and then disintegrate into an infinite nothing of purposelessness.   

    An Everest of misunderstanding surrounds your idea of "pure" randomness (why do absolutists luv purity and perfection so much?). What's pure about it? Material brains have all kinds of impure ideas, as well as dreams of purity that say mere matter can't do what it does without the assistance of something beyond unsullied by actual impure existence. You would have less trouble understanding this if you were willing to examine this prejudice and question just how it came about and why it survives without the slightest evidence to support it. Even as much as you hate basing ideas of truth on what can be confirmed, doesn't it give you pause to consider that those of us who do accept the discipline of verification don't need to twist and turn like this, pretending we don't know that dead brains don't think? I'd be embarrassed.

    Absolutism is a miserable failure, a self-thwarting of the intellect in favor of cheap fellow feeling with people who are as dumb as you are pretending to be. Do you really believe in life after death? I seriously doubt it. What you're far more likely to believe is that it's good to affirm the possibility of such a thing when it's challenged by a materialist. Then you can safely kick the can of specious "possibility" down the road.

    One might imagine a Universe made of shmatter instead of matter. Would consciousness be impossible for shmatter, too, without divine (excuse me, shmivine) assistance? On what authority, based on what evidence? Would the impure nature of shmatter be just as disqualifying as the eerily certain imperfections of matter? How? How is the metaphysical inadequacy of matter demonstrated instead of assumed?

    Why stop with mental phenomena? Let's universalize the principle. A divine force chews my food, corrects the orbit of Neptune, and fills your head with dreams of purity. You can't trust base matter to do that! Everything that science says is true is merely a mask for a force designed to be invisible except to the divinely inspired, who figured this out. Since I'm not smart enough to claim divine inspiration for the idea that all of this is wrong I must plod along with the idea that nothing supports this. Fortunately that's good enough. Not having a case condemns your ideas however pure they may be.

[drogulus]

   

     The finality of death is what makes it tragic. The meaning can't be disguised by quibbles about how this is known. We don't lack sufficient knowledge of how life processes work. Believers rely on science just like materialists do. As I told Elgarian, materialism is never objected to except when a cherished belief is being shielded. The rest of the time it's simply our shared knowledge of how the world works. Everyone knows this, no matter how they may pretend otherwise.

[Wanderer]

[drogulus]

    Art to the rescue!    

   

If I have no evidence that there are any fish in this pond, I don't (and mustn't) conclude that there are no fish in the pond. The correct conclusion can only be that I don't know.

   If there's no evidence of fish in the pond, what gives rise to the idea that there are evidence proof fish (in the pond)? Knowledge is probabilistic, so no heavy breasthing is required.

There's another issue here concerning what constitutes 'evidence'. You and Drogulus and Dawkins (et al) have a very fixed notion of what constitutes 'evidence' – or even, of what constitutes 'knowledge'. It excludes the subjective (that, after all, is how science works; and that, within the parameters within which it operates, is its strength). When I say that from a philosophical viewpoint we ignore the subjective at our peril, you protest that it introduces unnecessary and unreliable factors into the discourse. But the subjective can't be so ignored (ref. Whitehead). Even your decision to adopt your particular notion of evidence is itself a subjective one.
0:)

   I don't think you have it right. The subjective is not ignored, it's interpreted. If people have irrational or unverifiable impressions that is data to be studied. The habit that should be broken is concocting philosophical defenses for the truth of subjective notions, not their value. We should find better ways to take these notions seriously than just saying they're true because we have them. I have a subjective notion that we are all fish in a big pond. Do I need to craft a philosophical defense of this, or can we just say it isn't a true statement, and that metaphor or perhaps a joke explains it better?

   It doesn't matter if the adoption of evidentiary standards is subjective or not, just as it doesn't matter whether the germ theory of disease started out as a daydream, or a song lyric. It's what confirms an idea that matters, not where it came from. Knowledge is produced by the application of objective techniques to what starts out as sense impressions. Just as we start out with matter and get conscious beings, we start out with subjectivity and somehow make objectivity out of it. It a natural miracle, even more so because it's real!  _0:)

[drogulus]

     I know this is very long, but it's worth watching for those interested. It takes a while to load in HD mode so you might want to watch in low rez if it will let you. Or DL the QuickTime version and watch without stutters.

     http://www.youtube.com/v/D_9w8JougLQ

     My brother was at the AAI and chatted with Dennett. He's been going to these events for years, and says they're getting bigger. Also, there are more women attending as well as presenting. That's very encouraging. The Star Trek ultranerd model has gotta go.

[Timmyb]

I did a quick back of a cigarette packet calculation yesterday and worked out that roughly 250.000 people die every day on Earth.
Just thought I'd share that with you, it certainly made my head spin for a bit.

[arkiv]

I did a quick back of a cigarette packet calculation yesterday and worked out that roughly 250.000 people die every day on Earth.

By cigarrettes?

[Iconito]

Well, the word itself is sufficient, as far as it goes - but the issue is whether one is a fan of agnosticism, or not. As I said, it's a matter of perception, not of argument. The universe has spent 15 billion years getting the two of us to this point, with so little known, and so much to explore about the nature of our existence. There's everything to play for, if one wants to play. One can merely pocket the ball and watch TV; or run with it and play the game. Either way, agnosticism is an appropriate word for the mere fact of not-knowing. What we perhaps don't have is a word for the kind of active engagement with that not-knowing that we're trying to describe.

I think we have a fundamental disagreement here. Let's dispense with the wall. If I have no evidence that there are any fish scuba diving leprechauns in this pond, I don't (and mustn't) conclude that there are no fish  scuba diving leprechauns in the pond. The correct conclusion can only be that I don't know. I don't understand why we can't agree on this. You seem to be equating 'no evidence for the survival of consciousness' with 'no survival of consciousness', but that isn't agnosticism. (Neither is it a logical deduction.)

There's another issue here concerning what constitutes 'evidence'. You and Drogulus and Dawkins (et al) have a very fixed notion of what constitutes 'evidence' – or even, of what constitutes 'knowledge'. It excludes the subjective (that, after all, is how science works; and that, within the parameters within which it operates, is its strength). When I say that from a philosophical viewpoint we ignore the subjective at our peril, you protest that it introduces unnecessary and unreliable factors into the discourse. But the subjective can't be so ignored (ref. Whitehead). Even your decision to adopt your particular notion of evidence is itself a subjective one.

When even our premises are at odds like this, no amount of argument is going to resolve the more complex issues. That's why I'm increasingly reluctant to continue with these discussions (or accept your invitation for a non-experiment whose outcome we both already know). The more they continue, the further recedes any prospect of resolution.

It's been a while (real life has been pretty busy), but let's resurrect everybody's favorite thread! 

I've been carrying on this exchange, Elgarian, mainly because I thought you were saying something else, something I couldn't understand, hence all my questions (many of them went unanswered, BTW. Page 5), but now it seems it wasn't the case. We just disagree. My fault.

You notice I edited your (IMO) flawed analogy, because we do know a lot about fish, but nothing about the afterlife, so it just wasn't right. True, the edited version sounds a bit silly. That's not my fault.

Our fundamental disagreement is that you think "I don't know" is the only thing one can say in the total absence of evidence. I disagree. I explained my point of view in great detail in previous posts, so there's no need to repeat myself here.

About what constitutes "evidence" and how we should include the "subjective" in that, I really need you to elaborate (i.e. I don't know what you are talking about)

At least we finally agree on that "agnosticism is an appropriate word for the mere fact of not-knowing", which is where all this started. And see how I was right when I said it was also more polite: See how Karl approves your post! 

[drogulus]

     Science includes the subjective as data to interpret, not as truth. The philosophy of mind does not dismiss the subjective either. Instead it tries to understand it without trashing sound principles. We don't need a theory of ghosts if we have a good theory of how ghost beliefs might form in the absence of ghosts. We have that, and it's less destructive of epistemic norms and more parsimonious than carving holes in our ontology to fit ghosts in.

     This is important, otherwise beliefs are true because we have them and they can't be disproved, a rather dismal predicament IMO, with all those undisproved teacups orbiting out there. Where do we put the satellites? I've noticed that NASA doesn't seem to care about these menaces. Why should I?

     Why should we speculate dumbly when we function smartly when something is at stake? Why should we permit ghosts in philosophy when we don't in life? Disproof is a lousy standard for nonexistence, and not proving a negative doesn't imply the affirmative. That's the sound policy to adopt in the face of imperfect knowledge.

[drogulus]

     Do you tell your child that there might be a monster under the bed because it can't be disproved, or do you tell him/her that there is no monster under the bed because monsters aren't real? A good parent does the latter. The philosopher who says we can't be certain has made my point about the uselessness of certainty, not a point about an alternative reality. It's a common mistake, like saying that gaps in a scientific theory validate an unscientific one. One might think the unscientific theory would need its own affirmative case (ghosts, the afterlife, etc), and one would be right.

[Iconito]

teacups

"Teacups"? Don't you mean "teapots"? You totally misread Russell!!! 

I appreciate your posts very much, Ernie. I'd like you to know that. I regret I can't comment much except I agree completely.

I see you fixed the link to the Dennett video above. Terrific video. Thank you!