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Divided_Sky
Ten ThousandThings
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Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off
#4675088 - 09/17/05 06:58 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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I keep encountering these people that insist there is nothing after death because we as living can't observe it with our sensory organs. To me this is a ludicrous idea, that conscious beings randomly pop into being without ever being before and without previous cause, and then out of being again into nothingness. It completely violates the conservation of energy. The only thing we know is consciousness, the one that is aware of ourselves and environment. So how can you say with certainty that the most basic fabric of our existence is unlike any other phenomena in that it is causeless, comes from total nothingness and is ultimately destroyed. Science shows nothing can be truly destroyed, it just takes another form.
And yet arrogant people who think that all their opinions are vindicated by "science" and "logic" argue tirelessly that death means the complete end of conscious energy and that nothing follows. That's like saying "Even though we know the earth is round, since I cannot see over that hill I am justified in presuming that nothing exists beyond it because I can't see it from here."
To me it's a very presumptious and belligerant view. I can't say with total certainty that anything happens after we die, but viewing the universe as causal and endless I can speculate that my personal death is probobly not the end. Yet the 'scientific' types insist that it almost certain that everything ceases to exist at death, as if you could have a present seperate from a past and future.
-------------------- 1. "After an hour I wasn't feeling anything so I decided to take another..." 2. "We were feeling pretty good so we decided to smoke a few bowls..." 3. "I had to be real quiet because my parents were asleep upstairs..."
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vampirism
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Divided_Sky]
#4675121 - 09/17/05 07:13 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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yeah, it's pretty retarded when they dismiss things for having no proof yet they have no proof for what they're so adamantly arguing either.
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Deviate
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Divided_Sky]
#4675125 - 09/17/05 07:17 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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i know exactly what you mean, einstein showed that everything is energy and consciousness is just a form of energy. in my experience the entire universe is built on consciousness and being or awareness can certainly exist without a a body, mind and intellect. yet atheists seem to refuse to accept this as even a remote possibilty. they cling to their outdated materialistic world view just as strongly as a christian clings to their beliefs about the afterlife. one thing i learned from taking psychedelics was that its quite possible that nearly everything i think is wrong, i just dont understand how these people can be so sure they know everything, especially when modern physics opens the door for existances beyond the world we can sense.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Divided_Sky]
#4675128 - 09/17/05 07:19 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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I keep encountering these people that insist there is nothing after death because we as living can't observe it with our sensory organs.
Do you believe in other things you can't see or detect in any way whatsoever?
It completely violates the conservation of energy.
In what way? What energy do atheists claim vanishes when you die? Information (the organization of neural connections in your brain) is not energy.
Science shows nothing can be truly destroyed, it just takes another form.
This isn't so. Information can be destroyed. From all available evidence, everything you are is the arrangement of neurons in your brain. Once that's destroyed at death, that information vanishes and so do you.
So how can you say with certainty that the most basic fabric of our existence is unlike any other phenomena
Those who do not believe in an afterlife say just the opposite. They say that the 'most basic fabric of our existence' is LIKE every other phenomena (not unlike) and so is destroyed at death. You are the one saying that consciousness is somehow different than the rest of the things we see around us.
Assigning special significance to consciousness is like how hundreds of years ago special significance was assigned to the Earth which was placed at the center of God's grand universe. Today we know this was the hight of arrogance and completely wrong. In a few hundred years, when the biochemical mechanisms that give rise to consciousness are found, we will look at the idea that human consciousness is somehow special the same way we now look at the idea that the Earth is somehow special.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Diploid
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Deviate]
#4675134 - 09/17/05 07:21 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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einstein showed that everything is energy and consciousness is just a form of energy
Consciousness is not a form of energy; it is an arrangement of neural connections. Or at least that's what the currently-available data suggests.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Deviate
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Diploid]
#4675161 - 09/17/05 07:31 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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"Consciousness is not a form of energy; it is an arrangement of neural connections. Or at least that's what the currently-available data suggests. "
neural connections are made of matter and matter is a form an energy.
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MushmanTheManic
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Deviate]
#4675162 - 09/17/05 07:32 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Deviate said: in my experience the entire universe is built on consciousness and being or awareness can certainly exist without a a body, mind and intellect.
You have been without a body, mind, and intellect?
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Deviate
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: MushmanTheManic]
#4675166 - 09/17/05 07:33 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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"You have been without a body, mind, and intellect? "
yes, ive been in a state of pure awareness.
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Ravus
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Divided_Sky]
#4675184 - 09/17/05 07:40 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Where did you come from then? There is a blank void of nothingness before my birth and first memories; I believe the same will happen after death.
It's obviously not a scientific opinion to say there's no life after death, as science hasn't verified it and there's no evidence either way. But I'd most definitely say it's a logical one, seeing as reality appears to be the sum total of our brain, and when the brain stops functioning, so will the individual reality. Consciousness doesn't require some special laws; the law of conservation applies to the neurons and matter making up your consciousness, but not the software itself.
Your argument is like arguing that Windows 95 will always run in a computer, no matter how rusted it is. Windows 95 once ran on the hardware, so obviously Windows 95 must turn into some other software. Well, not exactly; that's a twisting of logic, and is obviously false. The law of conservation only applies to the hardware, as the metals and chips become less of a computer and more of their natural constituents. But the software requires the computer to be in good, working condition; you can't argue a burnt, rusted piece of scrap metal on the ground is running some sort of program.
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Deviate
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Ravus]
#4675198 - 09/17/05 07:49 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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" Where did you come from then? There is a blank void of nothingness before my birth and first memories; I believe the same will happen after death.
It's obviously not a scientific opinion to say there's no life after death, as science hasn't verified it and there's no evidence either way. But I'd most definitely say it's a logical one, seeing as reality appears to be the sum total of our brain, and when the brain stops functioning, so will the individual reality. Consciousness doesn't require some special laws; the law of conservation applies to the neurons and matter making up your consciousness, but not the software itself.
Your argument is like arguing that Windows 95 will always run in a computer, no matter how rusted it is. Windows 95 once ran on the hardware, so obviously Windows 95 must turn into some other software. Well, not exactly; that's a twisting of logic, and is obviously false. The law of conservation only applies to the hardware, as the metals and chips become less of a computer and more of their natural constituents. But the software requires the computer to be in good, working condition; you can't argue a burnt, rusted piece of scrap metal on the ground is running some sort of program. "
no, see you are confusing your mind with consciousness. windows 95 may shut down but you agree that the computer still exists. now what if the mind sprung from a reality that is consciouss? in other words, what if an awareness is the basic substance of reality from which all else sprung forth? the unfed flame.
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Huehuecoyotl
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Divided_Sky]
#4675209 - 09/17/05 07:57 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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You sound a bit arrogant and beligerant yourself. Other people's opinions should not "piss you off".
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Diploid
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Deviate]
#4675217 - 09/17/05 08:00 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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neural connections are made of matter and matter is a form an energy.
But the information they represent is not energy.
If you write on a chalkboard, the information there is not energy, even though the chalk itself is energy and you expended energy to form the writing.
If you erase the board, the information you put there vanishes completely from existence. You can argue that it's still in your head, but that doesn't count because it was in your head already before you wrote on the board.
So if, from all evidence, you are the net sum of the arrangement of your neurons, and if those neurons are destroyed, it follows that you also are destroyed.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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vampirism
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Ravus]
#4675222 - 09/17/05 08:02 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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super, except you neglect identity in terms of the death of the brain. The brain interprets the passage of time, as that part shuts down- where, exactly, is death?
This brings to point that our current existence may be the perceived result of a previous death- which in a way it was-- our birth.
subjectivity completely trumps objectivity in something like death
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Deviate
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Diploid]
#4675233 - 09/17/05 08:07 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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again you are refering to the mind/ego. i have no doubt that when i die i will lose this mortal sense of identity. i also have virtually no doubt that outside the mind there is a basic existance/ground of being type thing from which the mind springs. reality isn't linear.
Edited by Deviate (09/17/05 08:11 PM)
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Diploid
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Deviate]
#4675247 - 09/17/05 08:12 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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I'm referring to the only thing we know exists, the brain. Anything else is just a made up explanation giving some special significance to consciousness just like the special significance once given to the Earth by placing it at the center of the universe.
Neither the Earth nor consciousness are metaphysical and one day, when consciousness is explained and even recreated in a machine, people will look back at ideas that consciousness is more than ordinary biochemistry the same way we look back at the Earth-centered universe today.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Deviate
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Diploid]
#4675255 - 09/17/05 08:15 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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" I'm referring to the only thing we know exists, the brain. Anything else is just a made up explanation giving some special significance to consciousness just like the special significance once given to the Earth by placing it at the center of the universe."
the only thing we know exists is experience.
"Neither the Earth nor consciousness are metaphysical and one day, when consciousness is explained and even recreated in a machine, people will look back at ideas that consciousness is more than ordinary biochemistry the same way we look back at the Earth-centered universe today."
so is a leg consciouss? what makes complex biochemisty ordinary?
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vampirism
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Diploid]
#4675261 - 09/17/05 08:17 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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have you ever touched your brain? Touched it, licked it?
Really now, the beauty is that there is a fundamental uncertainty to the Universe.
You're speaking certainly about unverifiable things quite often.
Quote:
Neither the Earth nor consciousness are metaphysical and one day, when consciousness is explained and even recreated in a machine, people will look back at ideas that consciousness is more than ordinary biochemistry the same way we look back at the Earth-centered universe today.
Super, mr. nostradamus. What other prophecies are you full of? When when, explain it in the present. You're falling back on something currently useless; essentially using the same fairy tale policy you're voicing your disapproval of.
consciousness may or may not be explained. In terms of your lifetime, it probably won't; effectively this explanation will never exist in your perception of the Universe. What now?
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: vampirism]
#4675288 - 09/17/05 08:25 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Morrowind said: super, except you neglect identity in terms of the death of the brain. The brain interprets the passage of time, as that part shuts down- where, exactly, is death?
This brings to point that our current existence may be the perceived result of a previous death- which in a way it was-- our birth.
subjectivity completely trumps objectivity in something like death
So if you're not there to interpret time, it doesn't exist? What about everyone else, for who time continues on as normal?
And how does this invalidate death being the end in any way? Death is simply the shutting down of the hardware, and therefore, the subjective software. While I haven't experienced it yet, I would venture to say death is the only thing with no subjectivity involved, since all the processes used to create subjectivity (your mind, perceptions, sense of time) are now off. Is the period before birth also "trumped by subjectivity", despite the fact that there was nothing there to create subjectivity in the first place?
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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Diploid
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: vampirism]
#4675301 - 09/17/05 08:31 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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have you ever touched your brain? Touched it, licked it?
Eew! I've heard of food for thought but geez...
You're falling back on something currently useless
About as useless as speculating about what happens after death, eh?
essentially using the same fairy tale policy you're voicing your disapproval of
Not exactly. I'm using historical precedent to speculate about the future.
-At one time, rain was a 'special' gift from the Gods, today it isn't. -At one time, the Earth was a 'special' creation placed at the center of the universe, today it isn't. -At one time, it was believed that a machine that could beat the intuition of the 'special' human intellect at chess could never exist, today it does. -At one time, it was believed that a machine would never be constructed that could understand the complexities of the 'special' human languages, today you can buy one at CompUSA.
From this and tons of other examples of things that used to be considered 'special' because we couldn't explain them at the time, and from the continuous flow of new discoveries in neurological science, I reasonably speculate that one day, this 'special' thing, consciousness, will be explained and even reproduced.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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vampirism
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Re: Closed Minded Materialists/Atheists pissing me off [Re: Ravus]
#4675310 - 09/17/05 08:33 PM (18 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
So if you're not there to interpret time, it doesn't exist?
That's right. From your point of view it won't exist. I imagine it's the same sort of effect as getting sucked into a black hole. Obviously dead people are dead from your perspective.
Quote:
And how does this invalidate death being the end in any way
Because if it's the end, it suggests you would stop at that point. But if the point doesn't exist on your timeline, where is your death?
The fact is that death is unpredictable from a subjective point of view. Absolutely unpredictable. All that stuff I said about death- bullshit. But it's just as good as any other idea about what happens.
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I would venture to say death is the only thing with no subjectivity involved, since all the processes used to create subjectivity (your mind, perceptions, sense of time) are now off.
I would venture to say the opposite. Super. Neither of us has any experience in being dead... I really hate the software analogy since it's horrible and inaccurate comparing computers to the human brain, but what would the software say about its own existence? On? Off?
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