If you can't prove that human reason is binding upon all of reality (and thus any gods within), there's no reason to think reason is so qualified. — Jake

Now we are going into the epistemological territory of what we can know and what we cannot know. An important part of this is defining objective and subjective truths and this is a vast philosophical topic that I don't think there's enough space in here to write about. But in another thread I presented the idea of defining objective truth in two different divisions. Practical objectivity and absolute objectivity. Practical objectivity is based around defining what is objective through the limits of our perception of the world and universe, i.e the limits of our understanding and to this day, the best way has been the way of the scientific method, falsifiable methods etc. Take a group of ten people, each person goes individually into a white room with only a white table and a red apple. Then they go out and they describe all the details of what they saw. The individual accounts aren't contaminated by each others observations and all accounts gets summarized down to a conclusion about what is in the room: there's white room, with a white table, with a red apple on it. The more people who observe and describe the rooms content, the less probable of errors it gets to define the truth of what's in that room. This is practical objectivity and if you add mathematical logic to it, you start defining the closest humans get to objective truth we can get through our reasoning. Absolute objectivity is questioning everything to such a degree that it gets impossible to define anything. If questioning if there even is a room, an apple, if the people exist etc. we cannot conclude anything and everything gets impractical even on a cosmic scale.

My point is that we can only answer through our human perception, but we have no other reality. The scientific method also doesn't conclude something and then change it's mind. Newtons discoveries didn't get erased because of Einstein. Every conclusion in science works like Hegel's dialectical synthesis, it builds upon, melds together.

The key here is that our reason, methods of knowledge etc. has been tools to form the world around us. If we didn't have reasoning correct we would never be able to form the world as we do. Therefor, practical objective truths about the world works within the reality that is known to us, the things we prove in science works in symbios with the results of this reality we get. In absolute objectivity we could say that there might be god, but without proof it cannot be a practical objectivity and therefor it does not relate to us as a concept of reality we live under.

What we prove has relation to the consequences of that conclusion. To say that we can't prove something because of absolute objectivity ignores the concepts of practical objectivity's result outside of direct human perception and that what we prove has direct consequences within this reality we exist under.

Absolute objectivity is irrelevant in this regard and the inability to prove a god through this concept is irrelevant for us. The non-proof of infinite lack of knowledge is not proof of any existence. As we are proving things within the reality we exist in and practical objective truths we prove and disprove as a process in science, it concludes that there is no proof of a god and therefor the existence of god is not something worth believing in when we have no evidence for it. Any absolute objectivity claims about it is irrelevant for human beings, especially since it doesn't apply to us.

In terms of atheism, the divide between speculation and fact is strict and facts are based on objective truth in the form of the practical definition and based on what can be proved within the reality of existence we exist in. An atheist can speculate that there might be an apple in the white room, but do not claim there to be, not until they have been in there and seen it, but even then they do not accept it to be true since they question their subjective experience; they wait for the result of all the people who went into that room and then conclude it to be a fact. To say that it isn't a fact based on absolute objectivity claiming we cannot be sure of anything is ignoring the probability math of the probability that if I go in there and eat the apple, it will indeed be the apple proven to be in there by the conclusion of people's observations. If our reality is governed by probability of truth and we measure the world by this probability, then practical objectivity is what has the most probable truth to it. We can only exist within this practical objective reality and within this, the probability of a god has never been proved to be high, therefor there is no reason to say that any god exist and therefor believing in a god is not a reasonable way of approaching the reality and practical objective truths that we are governed by.

I can assure you that atheists also often react emotionally when their faith is challenged. — Jake

If their faith is challenged, they have faith without any rational or reason behind it, therefor they aren't acting as atheists anymore. If you have faith in something you are acting out of a religious point of view. I am very strict on this definition, since it seems to be the key reason for theists to be confused about atheism. I can understand why theists act out aggressively against atheism when atheists start behaving with the same kind of behaviour of faith, it should not be there to represent atheism, since faith isn't what atheism is about.

Most of the time, it's probably just because many atheists, like most people, aren't capable of proper dialectic and argumentation, so they start using emotions instead, and there's wild emotions on both sides to say the least.

Do the atheists you describe actively assert the non-existence of God? — Pattern-chaser

No, if god is proven, god exist. Atheism is a process of understanding everything through facts, what can be proven. Atheists accept what is proven and change viewpoint if it's disproven. Claiming the non-existence of god, is not an option, not because that's a statement, but because it's not proven. The burden of proof is on proving the existence of a god, which is why atheism is closer to the process of science than any kind of faith or belief. Faith is about claiming something without proof, atheism doesn't claim anything without proof, but claiming the non-existence of something is not under burden of proof if the existence hasn't yet been proven. If the existence of something is proven, then the burden of proof is on the side claiming it doesn't exist. So far, no proof of existence has been presented for a god, therefor the burden of proof lies on the side claiming the existence. Let's say atheists are still waiting for the argument to start before claiming anything about the existence of god. As soon as an atheist claims something that makes them act under the burden of proof and they don't prove it, they cease to be atheists or live under that way of life.

Point is that atheism is purely the process of thinking about the world, life and universe in the way of facts, in the way of not giving up a pursuit for truth and knowledge and never give in to irrational faith whenever something is unexplained. Atheism is more of a process in life, not a statement. Religion however is closer to a statement without proper facts, a statement looking like a statue that when challenged starts to crumble and over the course of time, by people trying to keep it together, ends up a frankensteined version in which the true meaning is lost and the original statue doesn't exist anymore, only incoherent parts and irrational substitutes. Atheism on the other hand does not build a statue, since it's not a statement, it's a process of discussing the idea of a statue, it's more like a painting where you can paint over the original, over and over, the more knowledge and experience you get. You don't try to uphold something or keep the original, you learn something and rework the entire thing.

This is the fundamental misinterpretation of atheism. Theists view it as an ideology, as a statement, as something solid as a statue, when it's instead a concept of thought, a process and a method to understand the world, understand complexities around us, not based on a pre-build statement, but out of the malleable form our knowledge of the world is.

Just as our brain is malleable by the knowledge and experience we have, should our concepts of life, the world and universe be based on the knowledge and experience we share as humanity.

Why put science into this? Anybody thinking that science can prove or disprove this question is in my view either naive or simply doesn't understand science. It would be like assuming science can prove what is moral or ethical. What with the scientific method you can only answer is that x amount people believe that something is morally or ethically good or bad. Science can make accurate models of how we think, but not answer the questions themselves as there isn't an objective answer. — ssu

I am comparing the scientific method to that of how atheists view the world, i.e through facts and what is proven, not belief. This is a premiss countering the idea that atheism is based on faith or ideology, when it isn't.

It's as delirious to get science into this as it is for some religious person even to think that he might prove the existence of God. Not only would this be basically idolatry in the Abrahamic religions as if there would be a true proof of God, why need the Bible, Koran or whatever anymore? And this is true also for attempts to disprove God by science. — ssu

As said, if you read the argument, it's not about science disproving god or proving god, but the process being the same as the foundation of what atheism is. If you can't prove god exists, there's no reason thinking there is a god. That is not faith, that is reason and reason is closer to atheism than it is to religion, reason is also closer to science than religion. Point being, scientific methods and atheistic thinking has much in common, and none in common with faith.

Yet this doesn't mean that one that has no religion would be then making the moral and ethical decisions (that basically religion has given us) on reason or based on science. This is a fallacy: moral ethics are subjective even if you don't use any religious viewpoints or answers. — ssu

Moral and ethics was not given to us through religion, religion gathered the basic morals and ethics that was invented by the necessity of survival by the group that evolved from apes. Society and religion tried to gather those morals and ethics into a usable form during the time when society started to become much bigger and much more complex than simple packs of hunter/gatherer people.

Religion has moral and ethics based on these and therefor a lot of obvious morals and ethics stems from it into a society even if it's in the end an atheistic one; but the key difference is that many religious societies tend to keep moral and ethics that has been proven irrational, like the irrationality behind making homosexuality illegal. That kind of moral is based on emotions about disgust and the science behind disgust tells us it's about keeping the group intact from functions that seemingly would destroy it from the inside, i.e the morals from our hunter/gatherer times when the group was small. But it's irrational in the context of society today and it's irrational since it's based on the well-being of only the subject making that law, not the well-being of homosexuals. Meaning, if atheists are more commonly using deductive reasoning in everyday life and in establishing moral ethics, they are more likely to not use old teachings of religion to govern their ethics and morals, they would look at the world as it is and form the best possible morals and ethics based on it. Religion has basic morals that are obvious to us, but we shouldn't give religion credit for those morals, since they stem from older concepts than our current religions. Our current religions also has ideas about slavery (christianity) that aren't morals that we should keep using. What opposed those morals of the times? Rational and reasonable deductive thinking, the type of reasoning that are more common with atheists questioning religion. Is there then unreasonable to see a pattern in which atheistic thinking has more things in common with scientific reasoning and rational thinking than any religious way of thinking which adhears to it's authorities viewpoints, rather then reasoning by the facts at hand?

History does not give religion validity in morals and ethics, it only speaks on how we ended up with the moral system and ethics of today. How we evolve morals and ethics from here is based not on religion but on how we reason and use arguments about these morals and ethics. Atheists seem far more likely to actually be doing dialectics based on facts rather than any kind of preprogrammed beliefs and authorities who set the rules before the arguments.

Other than that I think you missed the point I was giving; that atheism and the scientific process has more in common with each other and that faith cannot be a part of an atheistic way of life.

I think it's a serious error to conflate law with morality. — Ciceronianus the White

But laws and morality didn't appear out of nothing. We invented morality through the need for the group to survive. Killing other people to take their belongings in order for yourself to survive was destroying the group and then the group dies from within. Morals were invented based on the well-being of the group and the self, but as society grew more complex, morals grew more complex. When society grew so large it needed a government, that it needed a system to keep society in order, it invented moral guidelines that formed into laws. Those laws has for thousands of years evolved to what we have today. Philosophy has always been there to form what laws we have, what rights people have in a society and what limits of power the authorities have. Nothing of this exists independent of each other. Philosophical ethics are not law, morals aren't law, but they exist in conjunction with each other. Ethics play a major role in forming what laws we have, how we view morality and morality forms what laws we have. Some nations have laws against homosexuals, does that mean those laws didn't come from the moral teachings of religion that governs the ideas about homosexuality? Does that not mean that 19th and 20th century philosophy, which opposed religious moral ethics and formed new ideas about how to view the morals that governs the laws that are formed, keep evolving which laws that we use in our legal system of our current society?

The laws we have today did not appear out of nothing. Centuries, thousands of years of philosophy on morals and ethics have formed the laws we have today and it is still being formed by the philosophy of ethics. Laws aren't formed by the legal system, they are formed by the ideologies and ideas of the society in which they exist. How else do our legal system evolve? How else does laws change? The dialectic of ethics forms the laws we have, the legal system only represent the result of reasonable arguments. Unreasonable arguments form societies not worth living in.

Crime and punishment are functions of the law, and the law is one of the things we do.. And what we do, outside of philosophy classrooms and forums and other such places, has nothing to do with free will or determinism. We ignore them by living. We do things, with no consideration to determinism. — Ciceronianus the White

True in the sense that we live without consideration of the argument, but crime and punishment are not functions of the law, since the law is based on the ideas found in philosophy. The entire section of ethics is the reason we even have the laws we have. Philosophy outside of classrooms is the only place in which philosophy has any meaning. The deterministic perspective is important when looking at the reason crimes exist. Most of the time I see people unable to see past their own emotions. There's some famous quote I can't find right now about a politician who tried to apply much more effective methods to handle crime and the question he got was "but what if it was your child, wouldn't you want to punish the offender" and he replied that if it was his child, he would like to kill the offender, but that it's the very reason we need methods outside of our emotional need for punishment and that it's therefor the point that it's not up to him.

Crime and punishment as it is now, is flawed and based on emotional reactions to crimes, we want punishment, we want an eye for an eye, because it's based on the instincts we have. But through determinism we can see how crimes do not exist in a vacuum, that there are reasons for every such choice and that those reasons need to be understood in order to prevent crime. The ethics of this world right now is not based on preventing crime, it's based on punishment, it's based on us silently accepting that crimes exist in order to punish.

If we had methods to prevent crimes in the first place, would we want to use them? Everyone would say yes, but no one is acting according to that agreement. This is because people still believe in the idea of free will, that a choice is made and we have no control over the choices people make. But if a person is through deterministic cause and effects, put on a path to make a criminal choice and we could interrupt that deterministic line of events to steer that person away from the consequences of it, we should. If arguments points out that the world and us humans are puppets of determinism and that any argument in favour of free will seem to fail, I think the answer is quite clear of what we actually need to do about crimes and punishment.

Right now, people doesn't even seem to care for improvements to how we handle crime and punishment. They seem to subconsciously want crimes to continue, because punishment is satisfying emotionally. It's like we handle characters in a story, they follow their wants but in the end they get what they need. Most such characters are blind to what they need, they only see their wants, in a tragedy, they get what they want and loose what they need, in a good ending, they get what they need and give up what they want. That's an important lesson for most things about the human condition, which is why stories are told like this and has been for thousands of years. Yet, the power of stories doesn't seem to change people's wants into needs. Society needs a better handling of crime and punishment, but we want to continue punishing criminals. It's an addiction and we live in a tragedy.

Atheism is not reason, but just another ideology built upon faith. If one is going to adopt an ideology built upon faith, one might as well just stick with the ideology one already has. — Jake

I think this is a misinterpretation of what atheism is, since it's not about faith, but about rejecting faith as a means to explain the world. In a sense, everything you do in science is in a form, atheistic or agnostic, but agnostics use the unknown factor as a way to accept the existence of a god by that fact, which means it's closer to cognitive bias. Atheistic viewpoints just deny anything that isn't proven, it's not about faith, it's about the process of proving. An atheist will never believe in a god, but they will accept that there is a god if the existence of one is proven to them. Therefor it's not based on faith. I don't think reason and religion can co-exist. Of course they overlap in the sense that a religious person can be reasonable, but a truly reasonable person cannot give up reason whenever the subject at hand crosses their faith or belief. When that happens, that person is no longer working with reason. An atheist would never reject reason, even if it's about proving the existence of a god, but no one has proven the existence of a god and all arguments for a god or pantheons fail to connect the argument to that kind of a deity or deities. If atheists change their perspective on the world, universe and life based on what is proved and what is not, then that's not faith, it's external objective knowledge that guides what is accepted as truth. Atheism is never about faith, it's about facts.

2) While religion is not necessarily realistic in it's cosmic claims it is realistic about the human condition which is why it continues to exist in every time and place. The human condition is primarily emotional, and atheist ideologues tend to be nerds like us, typically superficially clever at working with abstract concepts, but emotionally unsophisticated. Thus, atheist ideologues do a poor job of opening the door to atheism because they're working the wrong door, as your quoted words above suggest. — Jake

Agreed, that's what I basically meant with atheism being a bit cold in it's approach to life. Because, as I stated above, atheism being focused on facts, there is no emotion connected to the knowledge it's about. So it's like staring into the unknown when you open the door to atheism and that is scary, which is why most people react emotionally when their faith is challenged. However, that doesn't mean atheists are cold or that life as an atheist isn't emotionally rich, on the opposite, atheists fill their life with other things that gives them that emotionally rich life; art, causes, knowledge etc. The search for knowledge and knowing more than you did yesterday is as emotionally charged as subjective religious quests. Emotion doesn't cease to exist because one is an atheist.

But atheists aren't ideologues either, it's not an ideology. Rejecting faith as a means to explain the world, universe and life; working with facts and living with knowledge, isn't an ideology and atheists aren't gathered within one. That's also a misinterpretation of what atheism is.

What is our relationship with falling in love with reality? Is one of our goals that we fall to our knees weeping tears of joy at the glorious beauty of a sunrise? These kind of ideas are foreign to atheist ideology culture, generally speaking. Look through the threads on theism/atheism on the forum. How many of them explore such topics in earnest? — Jake

Is this foreign because you haven't seen it or foreign because you have knowledge that this is the truth about atheists? Do you mean to say that atheists cannot feel a rush of emotions when confronted with something truly beautiful? That they cannot fall to their knees because of that rush of emotions? Weeping tears of joy by that sunrise? The problem here is that you have a prejudice about atheists inner life. Just because you don't see atheists in a forum about knowledge and philosophy, showing any signs of tears of joy and emotion does not correlate to them not having a rich emotional inner life. The only difference between an atheist and a religious person looking into the sunrise with tears of joy is that the religious person claims it's the beauty of god and externalise themselves into an almost cosmic horror point of view in fornt of that fact. An atheist falls in love with the fact that all the entropy and chaos the universe went through led to such beautiful outcomes, despite it's simplicity. An atheist wouldn't abandon reason about why this sunrise looks the way it does just because it's beautiful and it gives them this emotional rush, they can actually get emotional by the fact that it's a simple scientific explanation behind it and it still looks that beautiful, a celebration of nature as it is.

What you are suggesting here, really says that atheists cannot enjoy art, cannot find it emotionally satisfying, when the opposite is more true and there are plenty of artists who are atheists. I think that this idea that atheists don't see or care for the beautify of the world is rather bonkers and based on another misinterpretation of atheism, based on external observation and prejudice. Just because atheists tend to talk in terms of hard facts on a philosophy forum doesn't mean they don't shut off their computer and have tears of joy in front of a sunrise, I see no correlation in your argument here other than wild guesses about atheists.

Want to convert theists? Teach them how to fall in love with reality, with a handful of dirt, without the supernatural middleman. And in order to do that, you'll first have to learn how to do it yourself. — Jake

I already have, it's based on being in harmony with the chaos of the world and universe. Accepting the cold simple truth that science have shown us and accepting that we are part of the deterministic universe we live in. That we can care for what is here, what we know, instead of caring for a made up entity. By addressing god or gods and spend time seeking them, people waste time that can be given to something closer to reality. Something for other people, something for themselves, without filters. Giving themselves over to the idea of a higher power is the comforting feeling of having a parent, an authority figure that governs them, but takes up time that could be given to the short life we have.

People don't need to fall in love with reality, they need to become the masters of their own life, they need to grow beyond being a child to a parent. It's a true sadness that many religious people live to their death without ever being more than a child looking up to a parent figure. It's the nature of being a flock animal, most of us feel panic when we do not have an authority watching over us, but with the expanse of civilisation, we needed gods and pantheons to replace that group leader, otherwise we were in control of our own life. Only through the renaissance to the enlightenment period did we begin to understand that the faith we had was a lie to tell ourselves in front of a chaotic world. This is what Nietzsche was talking about when he said "God is dead". It was about how we had begun to enlighten ourselves to know that there is no god to govern us and that we need to govern life ourselves, which haven't been done on a massive scale before. He was fearing the chaos that will emerge when the "parent" of our lives disappear. He was speaking mostly out of the ethics, but the concept is supporting the idea of gods and pantheons being parent figures and that our need for authority tend to blind us from simple truths and facts about the world in favour of emotional satisfaction.

But that's why you're stuck here talking to yourselves, having no effect on theism at all, enjoying the fantasy that your fantastic logic dancing calculations have meaning or value to anyone but yourselves. — Jake

I sense a desperation in this tone of words. You're doing a straw man out of atheists by ridiculing that they only exist through logic and calculation, which is a massive simplification. You ridicule atheists of not having a rich emotional inner life and misinterpret atheism into being an ideology based on faith, which it isn't. This is prejudice, nothing more.

The reason why I think it's important to open a door to atheism is that it's about giving the option to love life for what it is, without supernatural distractions that distract up until the time of death. It's an open door to the pursuit of knowledge instead of comforting ignorance, an open door to the harmony of being free of external controlling mechanisms, free to feel and be what you are, not what a religion tells you to. Free to think what you want instead of punishing yourself with the hand of god. Free to enjoy life as it is and valuing people's lives when they live, not that they are something when they died. There are so many shackles to religious people's lives that they don't see; the blindfold that is comforting, the illusion, "ignorance is bliss" so to speak. It's like an addiction, faith is like an addiction, a substance that comforts them from the real world. They use this substance of faith in order to hide themselves from the complexities, from the chaos they feel the world has, but only when this addiction is broken, when they start to see beyond it do they realize that there actually is harmony there. Most people who went from being religious to being atheists does not show any sign of downfall, most of them feel free, that they can breathe, that a heavy burdon is gone from their chest. It should be the opposite, that they would feel the pressure of the complexity of the world as it is, but it's not, because it's not superficial anymore, it is what it is, it is real.

The most common prejudice from religious people against atheists is that atheists doesn't have appreciation for beauty, nature and emotions. I would say that the opposite is more true, that religion filters all emotions and holds them back as an authority over believers lives. They do not appreciate the sunrise because of it's actual beauty, but because of what religion has teached them. Atheists do not accept anything more than what something actually is and a sunrise's beauty is through that much more rich since it's basic simplicity makes the impact of it's beauty so much more. It shouldn't be more, but it is for us humans and that is appreciated.

I recommend not to have these prejudices about atheists, since that blinds you from understanding what atheism is really about. You're doing a straw man out of atheism in order to more easily attack it's foundation, but a misinterpretation, a straw man, simplifying about what atheism is does nothing to prove a point, only that you want to fend yourself from the truth of what atheism is. See past your own frustration, since I think it's in the way of making you able to actually balance the different ways on how we look at life, the universe and the world.

What you choose is your own choice, but ignoring the truth about atheism in order to distance yourself from it is not the way to a reasonable viewpoint. Atheists do not ignore the viewpoints of religion, atheists need knowledge and information in order to know what path to take, atheists do not choose paths because authorities chose a path for them. If you want a reasonable dialectic about atheism and theism, do not have prejudice about what atheism is.

What do you think religion's purpose is & how does one interact with it? — MountainDwarf

Religion has no purpose in of itself. The invention of religion is as natural as our human psyche, since we always attribute abstract explanations when there are no obvious answers found. We are a pattern seeking species that fill in blanks where there's nothing in between the known. This is how religion starts to grow and the less knowledge we have about how the world and us as humans work, the more prone to inventing religious patterns and answers we are. Over the course of history, those ideas gets corrupted by the power hunger of people of power and converted into hierarchical power structures to steer the population in a certain direction, bad or otherwise.

Essentially, religion is a form of control, that has roots in our pattern seeking way of thinking about the things we lack knowledge of.

On top of that, the spiritual part has to do with comfort, we get comfort in having a "higher power" that watches over us, we get comfort in the idea of authority guiding us. It comes out of the deep rooted comfort in our relation to our parents, all appeal to authority comes from this dynamic between parent and children and it demands a strong mind to turn away from that comfort. This comfort also exist in the moral teachings of religion, we also find comfort in having a list of rules to follow in a world seemingly without rules.

There has also been research into IQ and religious belief. Now I hope that in this forum, people will understand that this is not about being condescending, but there's a pattern of low intelligence connected to religious belief and when looking at how we act out in the world, as said, it demands a strong mind to be free of the comfort and the driving forces that pushes us out towards religious belief and patterns. People with lower IQ tend to follow authority more, they do not question the world around them and therefor are more easily manipulated into religious belief. Standing in front of the total chaos of knowledge, conflicting ideas, the unknowns of the world and universe is a very scary thing to do and it demands that people have the mental capacity and strength to actually think in new ways, to combine many conflicting perspectives to find a more rational truth etc.

Religion is comfort, it's a sense of guidance, but through that a tool of power for many different types of people.

The other aspect is the emotional aspect. There are people who have reasonably high IQ who are still believers in a certain religion. I can only argue that this is because of the comfort as an emotional aspect. They have two parts of themselves; the scared comfort seeking emotional self and the rational and thinking self, separerad. Whenever they think and feel about their own personal and subjective morals and feelings they act out and think through that inner comfort-seeking self while when working on complex things and ideas they project an external self to handle that separately. It becomes a shield of their inner self. A person who has a strong sense of how their inner self works, who understands themselves deeply, who find comfort in themselves, are rarely religious.

Now I know that all of this sounds condescending, but there are so much research pointing in a very specific direction for these questions that it's not rational to ignore them. Apologetics usually turn to arguments that's about the importance of religion in people's life, that for some it's essential for their mental well-being and that's hard to argue against, but my opinion is that because we do not have a replacement for that comfort in atheism, we do not yet have a way to open the door to atheism in a comforting way. For religious people who seek comfort, seek answers to life, the world and universe; the void in atheism is pure darkness for them. Many atheists see light in the process of learning new knowledge, in the process of asking questions and the search for true answers, but for those who find that to be a mental burden, it's pure terror for them to open that door.

This is why most arguments for atheism fail when trying to open the eyes of someone religious; they do not look at the core of why religious belief exist, only the irrationality of that belief. The irrational is only the surface level of a cognitive process that demands respect because we respect people and even if I don't think religion demands respect, the people needs to be respected. Their need for comfort is essential for their well being and respecting that is essential in order to give well being to people in a world without religion.

I think I'm fated to believe, always, that there is not now, has never been, and never will be, any purpose in discussing "free will" or "determinism." — Ciceronianus the White

For two reasons; most likely hard determinism is true and second, it doesn't matter since it won't really change the human condition.

However, I think that that the most important aspects of hard determinism is how it affects ideas in ethics. If our actions are a sum of conditions and causes, then crimes does not come out of any abstract concepts of evil, but a quantifiable sum of causes. Crime and punishment then becomes quite absurd and the punishment part very obvious in an eye for an eye concept rather than actually preventing or changing that crime happens in the first place.

Free will and determinism has the most impact on these ethical questions and personally I'm in on the side that tries to convince about how determinism is true and why we need to move away from primal abstract ideas about crime and punishment that only focus on our desire to hurt the one's who hurt others, not prevent or reduce crime in society.

In other words, discussions of free will are determined by the limited capacities of our minds? — Bitter Crank

We are limited by what we know in science about the world and universe. The essential problem is at it's core about quantum mechanics and how it's seemingly randomizing a core foundation of the universe. Until we have a unification theory, it's a problem not just in philosophy but in science.

However I think there are a few key premisses that needs to be taken into account. First, the universe, even though we don't know everything yet, seems to act out of probability. The smaller the scale, the more probabilities are possible, the larger things get, the more determined the probability gets. Humans, while seemingly small compared to the universe, are in fact quite large things in the universe in comparison to the scale in which probability gets hard to determine. If we exist on a scale where we could, with enough data on our hand, determine the full consequences of the a number of causes, meaning, with enough data to predict choices taken by an individual, we can see down a deterministic path and predict every choice. Even though it's possible that things gets deviant from that path, the probability is so low that it would only be an academic footnote that a free choice would be possible, even on paper. That free choice is as possible as us using seemingly impossible quantum physics on a larger scale, like for example, walk through a wall. Walking through a wall is indeed possible in quantum physics, but the improbability of it is so high on larger scales, that it's not even a calculable measurement of probability. It's like the different definitions of "infinite" in physics, they do not really apply to the real world.

In conclusion, the probability to have free will is so low that it's pretty much unable to be a calculated as a viable point of measure. We are therefor slaves under determinism and do not have free will.

There are plenty of scientists who agree that we do not have free will, both in psychology and neuroscience. The data we have, points to all decisions being formed by other things, genetics, experience, direct causes, chemistry etc. The combined consequence of all of these creates an illusion of free will, but they are all part of determining the exact choice that's being made. The best example is the traditional one about you wanting something, like ice-cream. Did you choose to eat chocolate ice-cream because you chose to by free will, or because it was a hot day, combined with you establishing a taste for chocolate ice-cream at the age of 4, combined with someone mentioning chocolate, a commercial showing someone eating ice-cream, a temporary dehydration that made you feel warmer than usual, a convenient distance to an ice-cream bar, the right exchange in your pocket and so on. It's easy to say that you chose to eat chocolate ice-cream, or maybe you chose not to. But none of those choices are free of deterministic causes, even the choice to not eat chocolate ice-cream.

Another example is how our gut bacteria adjust our psychology. How if you transplant gut bacteria between two people, a noticeable shift in their psychology can be observed. So, are your gut bacteria part of your free will or another source that helps create the illusion of free will? Most would not give credit to bacteria for being part of their free will, yet it affects many of our choices.

I think that by most accounts, it's already pretty much proven by deductive methods and science that humans do not have free will. But I think the discourse continues on the subject because there are philosophers who A) mix in spiritualism and abandon deductive arguments and rational thinking processes and B) Have problems distancing their own sense of self to that of the rational argument.

In the sense of B, you are right, that our mental process is in our way of actually experiencing the conclusion of determinism as the truth. But just as with quantum mechanics, gravity, electro-magnetism, we do not experience or see any of these things, yet, we know they exist. Same goes for determinism, we pretty much know it's the truth, yet I think it's in a way the same kind of denial as with those back with Newton who couldn't accept his ideas about gravity or those who didn't accept the conclusions by Einstein because it didn't fit their narrative or something they could "see". The ones who argue for free will seems to either not know all the facts, lack in their deductive reasoning around the subject and be generally too bound to their subjective sense of self, without the ability to detach from their humanity when doing the argument.

I have been pondering this subject ever since I started my interest in philosophy, but I have yet to see any viable arguments in favor of free will and the more I've discussed this subject, the less reasonable the arguments in favor of free will gets.

That's the same kind of argument, for which I mean that the attributes of such a first uncaused cause cannot be described as God in any terms of definitions based on how humans describe a God. The uncaused might just be a negative balance of matter and energy, which would mean that it just is, not that it is a beginning. Like a kind of hypothesis of circular entropy. But my argument aims to either way prove the cosmological argument problematic, since if the scientific progress going into the future ends up explaning everything at some point and that would mean we will eventually explain the first cause. When that happens, we have a higher understanding than such a god, meaning that according to our measurements it would not be a god since we know more, or if it's just a process and not with any agency over the causality it set in motion then any description of it as God would be like describing gravity to be God. It would be as ridiculous as when people thousands of years ago worshiped the sun which we now know is just a bunch of fusion in space. When taking in the progress of science over time, any argument for God and religion becomes problematic or false. Science has a flawless track record of explaning the universe and life compared to religion and nothing points it to be in any other way going forward. So the probability of science in the end explaning and answering every question we can think of is statistically overkilling the idea of religion explaning things or an existence of God as an explanation. It also means that when the answers are there, no God can be present at the same time since it requires it to be higher in knowledge than us. If we answer everything of the universe, if we in the end know every detail about how the universe is like it is and even what is beyond, then by the possibility of that knowledge alone it would make a God impossible.

It is more logical that we would, after a long enough time frame, have answered every question about how the universe is like it is, than that there are any answers in religion or that there exists a God.

That there's a world outside of our perception that we perceive through our senses isn't anything new in her objectivism compared to other philosophers, however I think the only good thing she put forward is putting objectivism on the spectrum so that the extreme Laissez-faire capitalism and pure egoistic values has a place that we can measure against. On the other end we have collectivism and relativism. It's easier to draw up a political map with objectivism included. It's simplified I know, but anyway...

However, as a small step forward, we may be able to do some things.

I'm not sure how it's done in US, but in Sweden every citizen gets a voting card to have with you while you vote. This card is attached to your identity so that you can't vote more than once. Once used, it's used. Instead of it just being an identifier, it could be changed to a questionnaire in which you need every answer correct in order to be allowed to vote. This questionnaire focus on basic political questions and you are allowed to use whatever resource you have to be able to answer. So it's not a questionnaire out of knowledge but out of commitment. It would push away the lazy voters, the uneducated who can't even understand basic texts and those who never seek information and only gets spoon-fed propaganda. The process in itself would create a situation in which the dedicated and committed are the ones who gets to vote. In my prediction, it would function as a half step towards epistocracy but not be so strict that it might undermine democracy as we know it. It would erase pure incompetence and pure inability of political understanding.

Maybe called Dedicracy? Dedication in democracy.

5. We ought to, if we can, experiment or find ways to test epistocracy to see how outcomes go. — Chany

I prefer epistocracy over democracy but I find there are too many socioeconomic problems that might exclude people that didn't have the chance to educate themselves. All while sudies have shown that high intelligent people often argue for their personal opinion to such extent that they adjust facts to fit their narrative. Epistocracy might then become a ruling class political system by the process and progress alone, which isn't good.

Epistocracy needs more framework to function, it needs protection of society from the risk of a ruling class. It needs to have a political system after election that review and govern the government based on the facts that the election was built upon. Otherwise it will just be a more advanced form of propaganda in which facts are adjusted or misrepresented in order to steer the educated into a certain vote.

I have some ideas for this. First, the epistocratic election includes a section that's for those not able to vote in the primary and their result will guide the elected with a popular need that the entire population have voted for. This need is a statistic that needs to be adressed in the coming government. Second, the government need to be more socialistic in nature, in order to counter the corruption that can arrise from a ruling class elite. I would say, that a more proper name would be "social epistocrat", like with "social democracy". The elected government must also adress their politics with transparency of the supporting facts. A governing agency would review policies and decisions based on the facts and if the facts are manipulated or wrong, the policy would not be able to be implemented in society.

It's possible to continue fine-tuning epistocracy to be a more functioning political system, it's easy to spot problems when something is in it's infancy.

But what is important? I can discuss something in order to feel intellectually overpowered and try to win the argument for my own pleasure, but what is actually important?

I think it's important to oppose illogical arguments, especially the ones destructive for people and within that, when you see that a win in an argument is more than just personal gain and instead is a statement of importance beyond yourself, that's not something you can or should move on from. That's my personal ideal, since everything else is letting stupidity grow freely.

By replying with objective and unemotional perspective that the other person can understand. — Lif3r

In theory I'm in totally agreement with you, however, after many discussions I know that objective, unemotional, fact-based and logical arguments does not matter to the ones who do not have the cognitive mind or intellectual knowledge to process that argument. I've been involved with too many discussions in which I've presented perfectly logical and pretty much fool proof deductive reasoning and the person I discussed with didn't care a bit. So what to do in that situation?

If someone isn't even able to take in an argument before presenting their opinion, then it doesn't even matter if you have a perfect argument anymore.

In that situations, what do you do? Imagine that you really need to convince the other, not just turn your back on them.

It is satisfying when doing it to a person that is as stupid as you point out that person to be. However, it's only satisfying emotionally, intellectually it goes nowhere.

I actually think this subject is much deeper than people seems to realize. I've been involved with a lot of discussions with populists and in lack of better terms, low educated or stupid people who doesn't seem to see logic or rationality even if you pushed it into their faces. My lack of direction within this is about how to tackle that kind of dialogue?

How do we talk to people who lack the ability to reason and think logically? Who act out stupidity on such a level that we actually only have the option to call them stupid, since all else challenge a sense of logic that they seem not capable of understanding?

It's frustrating to talk to people that doesn't seem to have the ability to understand their own level of understanding, their own level of intellect.

I understand that it seems that I'm putting myself higher intellectually than other people, but there's no question that there are people with higher intellect than others, so how do they communicate with those with lower intellect, without them feeling like they have lesser status?

The essential question is... how do we communicate across different levels of intellect without it becoming a question of status based on intellect or knowledge?

I think this question is at the basis for why we see a rise in anti-intellectualism and in lack of better terms, a new kind of stupidity.

Is this topic a philosophical one? — Marchesk

Of course, science and philosophy overlap, now more than any time in our history. The question of our existence but from the evolution of another line of genetics is really down to; would any form of trial and error system through an evolutionary process result in intelligence? And will the result of that process all come to the same conclusion that incorporate how fundamental psychological values of sex, death, well-being, ego, community etc. define what we perceive as the realm of human intelligence? Maybe community and our role in a group together with our sense of distance from the group through our ego manifested itself in form of intelligence. Our pattern seeking abilities made us perceive the world through an analytical mind and the only way to survive as a group was to communicate what we analyzed about our surrounding. If the evolutionary process had the initial steps that we went through being the same, maybe the being at the end of this evolutionary process would function in the same way as we do.

However, there are so many parameters that decide on the end result that it's impossible to say if the being would be like us or totally different. Remember that most of our perception of intelligence is based around cultural interpretations of fundamental values. How we perceive death, love, sex, group, ego etc. define how we view what intelligence is. If another line of evolution had communication through pheromones and smell rather than words and language and if they lived 400 years instead of 100, it would radically change how they act as intelligent beings and would form their society around other values and ideas.

Contact the one who sold you the model railroad is the obvious choice.

But consider; are you wealthy enough that you can have a good life without the worth of the ring. Are the seller wealthy enough to have a good life without the worth of the ring? Does the ring have emotional value to you? Does the ring have emotional value to the seller?

If you were poor and the seller wealthy, it's in some ways morally wrong to keep the ring, but it's also not. If you were poor and kept the ring and the seller doesn't need it's worth but it has an emotional value, it's in my view more morally wrong to keep it.

The basic question is about our value of owning things and the emotional attachment to our things.
But because you don't know if the seller is wealthy enough and you do not know if the ring has emotional value, there is only one rational and decent choice and that is to contact the previous owner.

You cannot make a subjective and personal choice on what the truth is in order to make a moral judgement, you need the truth in order to make it. Sometimes that demands you to sacrifice something for the good of how humanity as a whole should function morally, like if the seller didn't even know that there was a ring there and didn't own it to begin with, it's your loss and the sellers gain, but such an outcome puts the moral choice on the seller while you have done what should be considered the better moral choice.

however there are numerous quite easy ways to drasticly lower intelligence. — Tomseltje

If talking about physical brain damage, then yes. But it's hard to not use the brain to such a level that your IQ drops so low that you almost simulate brain damage.

Most people who do so seem to have forgotten that our intrinsic worth is not determined by our intelligence or monetary wealth, but rather by how we choose to use the intelligence and monetary wealth we posess. — Tomseltje

My point as well. But my comparison between money and intelligence has more to do with how people talk and reason around IQ. It's a value of the person rather than value of the optimal function of the person. The optimal function of a person does not equal value of that person, but works as a guideline to what that person can function optimally around. To function optimally is to find tranquility in our existence, if we push ourself beyond what we are capable of, or if we are capable of more and limit ourselves, it's downhill into mental health problems.

However, the actual worth of a person is another philosophical question entirely, but I agree to some degree that the worth has much to do with how we use what we have and how we act according to it against other people and ourselves.

Can one know what it is like to be a man? Or what it is like to be a woman? How, if one can have no more than one's own experiences? — Banno

Our sense of experience of being a certain gender is based on how we view societies definition of the genders. If we feel that we are woman trapped in a man's body, we are feeling that our concept of experience is based around the experience we learned to be that of a man in our society. If the said person who feel trapped, were stranded on a remote island and hasn't had any contact with society and our values of gender, that person wouldn't feel trapped, they would just be themselves. People who have this view about themselves have this view because of their relationship with society and social norms, not because of their subjective experience. So feeling trapped is not out of knowing how the experience of being a man is, but by feeling more comfort in how they would be treated and act out according to what society has decided that the experience of a man should be, external and internal.

This is why gender has more to do with social norms than subjective identity. Most people are just who they are, but we are something else when we clash with what society has decided what people is. Whatever value we have on this subject matter, it's hard to deny that most of our sense of identity would be non-existent if we didn't have a society and norms around us to value and define them against.

Why is a religion so good at commanding people to behave a certain way and philosophy, which relishes in how people ought to behave. Is this simply an is-ought problem, and why so? — Posty McPostface

Because it adheres to simple solutions for complex questions, while philosophy use complex solutions to simple questions, not by will, but by necessity of the complexity of life and the universe. Questions never have simple answers, but simple minds can only function with simple answers. Humans always see the most simple solution first, they are pattern seeking and they often find truth were there are none.

Religion makes use of this simplicity to govern what we ought to do. It's easier to follow an authority that says "this is how you should act" than figuring out the complex answer that is rational and closer to truth by yourself. It demands that we value knowledge and most people value other aspects of life than knowledge. They rather have people with knowledge rule them as authority, as parent figures, but this solution has opened up the door for the power hungry, the one's who value power over knowledge. This has been the essence of religious power for thousands of years. Most people want to be governed by a higher power, they feel panic in face of the reality to have responsibility over their own life. People want comfort, religion is comfort, philosophy is truth. Very few find comfort in truth.

Does measured intelligence predict behaviour, abilities at certain tasks and how well someone function under certain set of parameters? Yes, numerous tests have shown correlation.

Has placements of people, with different IQs, to areas of work that doesn't fit the required intelligence level or being far under their level shown a negative effect on their well being, their ability to function well in that line of work and social interaction? Yes.

Can intelligence be trained to increase? Or if not trained, fall? Yes, but studies show that only within a a small range around the baseline you exist under. The base IQ range level is pretty much set for each person.

Is there a lot of stigma around intelligence based on the fact, as the OP posted, that intelligence is talked about in the same way as money? People that do not have a lot of money often despise those who are rich, while those who are rich look down upon those who are poor.

Does the stigma affect how we view and value IQ for it's purpose as a measurement? Do we either view it as a measurement of the value of people or on the other end do we see it as as measurement that is too morally cold and doesn't care about other aspects of human nature that should be taken into account more than IQ for the evaluation of a person? Yes.

What is the value of IQ without the stigma attached to it?

I see these points and I try to deduct the value of IQ. If we take away the stigma in which we value people's worth according to IQ or ignore IQ in order to not do it, then we can get closer to what IQ can be used for as a measurement. If researchers have found both that IQ is predicting how we behave and function in face of the world around us and if we function best in places that fit the level of IQ we have, also with respect to how much we can increase our IQ within our range, then it's a measurement of the optimal function of our mental well being. Someone who is too intelligent for the tasks they do get depressed by it, isolate themselves compared to colleges that are better matched, while those with less intelligence than what is required gets stressed and suffers health issues connected to that stress, while socially ends up isolated as well.

Now, this is a bit coldly calculated, since it's also not a good thing to just divide people into different levels of intelligence as well-being is also generally linked to diversity within the social group. But the stigma gets in the way of what IQ can guide us to when it comes to what we are best fit to be doing. It's a value that shows us a starting point for what we will be best at doing. Aiming for anything else will probably lead to health issues, both mentally and physically.

If we could let go of the stigma, let go of valuing worth of a person based on the IQ and instead value the well being of that person according to IQ, we have a good function for IQ as a measurement. IQ is not a measurement of a persons value, but a measurement of a persons optimal functionality. Put a Ferrari engine inside a small car and the entire thing will collapse under those horsepowers and wind pressure; put a small car engine in a Ferrari and it will slowly roll down the street without utilizing any of the the streamline design for wind pressure at high speeds. But both have a purpose if they utilize their purpose and not what purpose they don't have.

We have an ideology popularized today about how the individual can become whatever they want. It's Sartre's "essence after existence" on crack in which anyone believe they can do anything with their life. It's also why we see increases of mental health issues as the pressure on people not fit for what they do, try all their efforts to do them anyway. There are other aspects of course, like how introverts and extroverts do not fit in each others line of work very well but try to do the tasks anyway. This delusion of how people can be molded into the perfection of their decided essence, has little to no basis in psychology and sociology. While I agree that our essence comes after existence, we have a basic set of stats that we are born with and only those with dark agendas use the stigmatic aspects of our relationship with concepts like IQ to fit their world view and decisions. However, if we see the true value of IQ, it can be utilized for the good of humanity if people who understands it and who are free of the personal emotional evaluation of a person's IQ, decide on it's use for humanity.

(This is more a response to the topic and original post than the pages of debate that followed)

The problem with this argument is that the Bible is a collection of writings, not one single writing by one single person. When we collect together a number of different accounts of the same event, and they corroborate each other, it may be argued that they prove the validity of each other. Such proof can never be absolutely conclusive though, as is evident from conspiracy. — Metaphysician Undercover

Since the bible has been revised many times, even in it's entirety, as well as changed according to the norms of the times in which it was changed, it cannot validate itself since it's corrupted by the process. There are no facts to back up the claims, like when we read about historical events that are documented and that can actually be backed up. Claims of somethings existence cannot be validated by merely saying that a lot of people wrote the same book and that proves that it's true.

It's too corruptible and there's not enough evidence beside it to be able to confirm anything. It also becomes a fallacy in that it presents premises that's assumed true in order to conclude that itself is true.

It is an internal negation of subjectivity for the collective.
These conclusions of science, for instance, that an atom exists or that a color exists or whatever... These conclusions do not make objectivity any different. They are still transpersonal abstractions. — Blue Lux

It's an internal negation of subjectivity for the individual, but an objective fact filtered through human perception demands more observers than one and that all those individual observers try and disregard their own subjectivity. The conclusions of science has consequences for physical objects behaving in a certain way. If an objective fact about atoms has been concluded, it predicts behaviour of physical matter in certain situations and if the behaviour acts according to predictions based on objective facts, then they cannot be subjective and is not related to any subjective perception. The physical world is what it is, with or without us, but in order for us to understand it we need objective conclusions that relate to the physical world and can predict it. Those conclusions can never be subjective, therefore objectivity is something outside of our perception. This is what I call absolute objectivity and practical objectivity is the understanding of this through human perception that comes as close to the absolute as possible. If you can predict how matter is going to behave, you are acting on facts about the world that exists outside of your subjective perception.

The fact is that there are no facts, only interpretations. And I agree with Socrates that the only true knowing is knowing that you know nothing. — Blue Lux

And this is what absolute objectivity is about. Why I'm doing the distinction between absolute and practical is that if you cannot accept a measurement of objectivity that is practical for humans and you only have subjectivity on one hand and the absolutely unreachable for our perception and knowledge-absolute objectivity on the other, then we can only exist within subjectivity. But in order for science and communication to work practically for us, we need a measurement that balance our subjectivity with what we perceive as objectivity. Without practical objectivity, everyone could dismiss everyone else's argument for being subjective, regardless of how close to facts about the world the are.

If you prove, through proper research and with others checking and replicating your research, a fact about the universe and the consequence is that this fact predicts how things behave, you have reached a practical objectivity. You cannot ever be sure that anything is real, however, that fact, that conclusions is not subjectivity by the definition and general understanding of the word. We call it objective since it predicts and behaves according to the world that exists outside of our perception and will long after the subjective viewpoint has died.

It does not matter that science can objectively define Mercury or wax... When I melt the wax and it is still wax... No objective explanation can ever give me that experience and that continuity. — Blue Lux

Experiences of how we perceive something cannot always be used to further our understanding of why it is or how it can be used. How you perceive wax and experience wax cannot be used for when you invent a new material using facts about the molecular structure of wax in combination with another substance. So it does matter if science can explain it, since all the technology, all the quality of life that we have around objects that humans have invented is based on the understanding of how these objects work. The practical objective understanding of the world, makes people able to form it. Your experience of wax is irrelevant for the definition of objectivity in that regard. If you were a molecular chemist, you would still experience wax through your subjective emotions and opinions, but you wouldn't use that for molecular chemistry with that wax, you would use what we objectively know about the molecular structure of wax.

The objective says nothing about truth. It merely acts as truth. It is a transpersonal truth, which is absolutely meaningless. Would you die for these supposed objective truths? — Blue Lux

You are still talking about absolute objectivity, not the definition of practical objectivity that I'm trying to argue for here. Practical objectivity isn't meaningless since it's a form of definition that makes us balance our concept of subjectivity with something that has reduced or erased subjectivity. To die for objective truths is irrelevant since it has nothing to do with the definition of it. That gravity pulls objects of great mass closer to each other does not care for me or my experience and my experience or subjective emotions cannot dismiss that gravity exists within practical objective understanding of it. I cannot die for something that just is, regardless of my existence or not. Gravity will not end when I die and will not care for if I die, it will still be there and it's an objective truth through the lens of practical objectivity. Absolute objectivity states that we cannot know that gravity is real, because we cannot know if this world is truly real, or the universe or anything. This form of absolutes is meaningless and that is why I'm measuring objectivity in two forms, one is practical for our understanding and progression as humans, the other is academic and meaningless for most arguments.

Objectivity is an illusion... As is subjectivity. There is no world of truth that we are incapable of ascertaining alone... Furthermore, there is no truth that can only be ascertained by means of an objectivity. There is no subjectivity trying to find the truth OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. The perception of something is not just a mere perception. The experiencing of the world is the world revealing itself in truth. The experiencing of the world is the experiencing of the essence of the world... The essence of the world is no longer to be understood as hidden. — Blue Lux

And this is absolute objectivity, which I do not dispute, I'm arguing for a measurement of objectivity that is practical for us as humans, since absolute objectivity is in most regards meaningless for us.

Emotions are part of the way we think. We can't separate them out. We just have to deal with them. — Bitter Crank

Sure, that's why we use logical thinking, deduction / induction and proper argumentation in order to reach conclusions that aren't influenced by our emotions. Same goes for science, which aren't relying on emotions. If people just say their opinions, then yes, they can't get passed their emotions, but philosophy has powerful dialectic tools for arguing passed emotional responses.

1. Was Jesus' resurrection only a work of literature with no physical grounds that such a thing occurred? — saw038

Probably. We also don't know how much of the bible that was meant as stories to deliver a message, rather than accounts of something real. With thousands of revisions throughout history, it's like the telephone child's play, in which you whisper in the ear of one person and that person does the same to the next and so on and then the last person says the message. That, in book form is the bible and that means a lot of stuff has gone missing and got scrambled throughout it's history.

2. Was Jesus' resurrection a true story that transcended the realm of physical laws as we currently perceive them? — saw038

There's nothing that suggests this or supports this.

Another interesting thing is that almost every single well known figure throughout history has numerous accounts of records about their existence, Jesus only has the bible. If we accept that the bible can't prove the validity of itself, since that's a form of fallacy, then the evidence of him even existing seems seriously lacking. Did he exist at all? If we can't use the bible to prove the bible, then there's nothing to prove he existed. What if the teachings were something by a group of people and to make it easier to communicate to others, it was combined into a story of one singular person. The resurrection might then not have been physical, but about the teachings, that some of the group died, but the teachings was resurrected and passed on.

But I can't see any rational things supporting his death and resurrection or even his existence in history. I think the bible is being taken way too literary and that gets in the way of actually knowing what happened during the time of Jesus.

I also think our calculation of time should be counted by the start of civilisation and not a person that may or may not have existed and probably never have been birthed, died or resurrected. This year is the 12018:th year of our civilisation, loosely calculated.

Hehehe, yup, science have made metaphysics kinda irrelevant. We can use it for things that's still hard to prove, with proper logical arguments, but I find most metaphysical ideas today to exist among religious, spiritual people who can only form ideas around their beliefs rather than facts or people who think their personal opinions are facts, but I've rarely seen any proper metaphysical philosophy that don't use scientific premisses and facts.

For me you can't be objective only through a collective, since the collective can be just as corrupted as the subjective. Even more so, the collective can be so corrupted that individuals subjectivity gets indoctrinated into the collective delusion. Practical objectivity, the one which we can define has it's roots in logic and scientific methods, are still not through a transpersonal perspective, since you on an individual level use deduction, induction and proper methods of science to reach a conclusion that has stripped away as much as you can on an individual level, of your subjectivity. It's a process and way of thinking that cannot include subjective thinking, but even then it can be influenced by the individual, that's why we have peer reviews and why we combine findings and research with others. Only when this is done can we reach practical objectivity.

If two people gets to know the definition of a word that is wrong and they both gets the task of defining that word, they will not have an objective conclusion just by combining their subjective opinion of the definition of the word. But if they did research on that word, asked what other people define it as and combine their individual research, they would reach the correct definition of that word and make it objective. It's the process that makes something objective, both on an individual scale and on a collective scale, combining the two makes it even stronger.

As I mentioned before, I view it as probability. You can measure practical objectivity by the probability of it's objectiveness. Scientific findings that have been used in inventions, that has been tested over and over and that shows the same result over and over, with every scientist who does research, coming to the same conclusion over and over, makes for a high probability of practical objectivity.

Then there's the question of objectivity and subjectivity for something impersonal, something that isn't a human agent of perception. A single computer can have a subjective handling of code, but when combined with other systems, fine-tune it into a more correct way since being tested through many types of systems. Therefore, objectivity and subjectivity does not demand human agents to function.

Subjectivity and objectivity seems closer to be about singular perspective vs combined perspective. The singular cannot show the entire truth, but the objective can and with higher probability of objectiveness, the higher level of probability for it being true outside of our perception and anyone's perception.

t is impossible to communicate any real amount of meaning anyway... So why is it important that there are 'clear, basic definitions of words'? There simply are none. — Blue Lux

But that can easily spiral down into nonsense. I get what you're implying, but this is the same as the difference I described between absolute and practical objectivity. If you put how we define words and language to the hypothetical extreme, you undermine any practical use for language as a means of spreading knowledge and progressing understanding. In order for people to actually make progress in both knowledge and practical applications, it's better to have clear definitions of our language, so that communication isn't getting in the way of understanding. Just accepting the extreme that it's impossible to truly communicate true meaning, is not practical and has no application. Its interesting in an academic way, but if we are talking about objectivity and subjectivity, undermining the entire language by saying that trying to define "objectivity" more clearly in language, is futile, makes it almost impossible to continue searching for a good answer.

This is why I think it's good to find clear definitions and if a definition is so unclear that it kickstarts discussions like these, there's clearly the need for better definitions of the concept.

Based on what language define it as. If there aren't clear basic definitions of the language we use, it becomes impossible to communicate or have a discourse about something.

Language evolve, but deconstructing words into oblivion just makes communication impossible.

Why isn't objectivity the polar opposite of subjectivity in your perspective?

I also note that it is a sort of fudge, a sort of denial of uncertainty. Maybe because it's more comfortable? — Pattern-chaser

Not at all :) I think I just feel the need for two levels of the word objective. I.e Absolute objectivity is not dependent on human perception, it exists regardless of our knowledge of it. As an example, we don't know what exists outside the border of the universe. Absolute objectivity challenge us to speculate as far as our minds can stretch on a subject and that is a healthy thing to have. However practical objectivity is what I consider the definition to use in direct opposition to subjectivity for something that, if reaching a practical objective truth, is acting in the sense that it is practical for both discussions and progression of society.

As an example; even though you could use Absolute objectivity to criticise Einsteins theory of relativity, saying that we really don't know of how it works, especially since the work of quantum physics do not apply well to working in symbios with his theory. There's a practical objectivity to Einstein's theory that when balanced against a subjective viewpoint, that disagree with his theory on the basis of only subjective belief, you could argue that Einstein reached an objective truth of the universe that is as close to objectivity that we could reach to at this time. So let's say you are "inventing" the GPS and you have two people arguing about Einsteins theory of relativity. One say that you need to make up for the difference in time-dilation between the earth surface and the GPS satellite in order to have a working GPS function, while the other argues that because no one could objectively say that Einstein was right, it isn't certain that his theory would affect the practical use of the GPS system.

It's clear which one will loose this debate, since we know that Einstein's theory needs to be applied to the GPS system in order to work. The person who argues for the theory say that it's an objective truth about how the universe works and in using the word objective he is challenging the subjective opinion of the other guy. He is using the practical definition of objectivity since the absolute objectivity of the person denying Einstein's theory doesn't have any practical use in any application.

Therefore, the different definitions should exist at the same time. One is for challenging our ideas through speculations we have a hard time proving, the other is for things we can probably prove and that has a practical use for our species.

Another example is that we should hold the discussion about A.I to a practical objectivity, since that opens up for necessary precautions and scientific progress in the field, while absolute objectivity points out that we can't know anything of the consequences of A.I. One is about speculating the ramifications of high level A.I, one is for preparing the world, the science and people for A.I. Both exist in opposition to subjectivity, but practical objectivity is what we use to define rational discoveries and results in opposition to subjective inaccuracies about the world.

I think both can exist at the same time. It's almost like hard determinism and soft determinism, one has more practical value, especially in terms of the justice system. Until the justice system gets upgraded to incorporate new scientific results about crime and punishment, soft determinism suggests that we are accountable for the crimes we commit. The absolute truth to the subject seems more likely to be hard determinism, but it's hard to put that into practice in this regard. So until we have a better system, the soft deterministic solution is to accept everything as causality, except our behaviour and free will.

Same goes for objectivity. We need a practical use of the word together with it's absolute counterpart. The absolute is more true, but unable to exist as a foundation for us in a practical sense.

But your milder definition encourages this misunderstanding. I think this worries me more than any other part of the ages-old debate over objectivity. — Pattern-chaser

And it's a worry that i share with you. But even practical objectivity cannot become subjective, because it's the result of our best efforts to be objective in search for an answer. Using logic and scientific methods. Einstein didn't just invent his theory, he backed it up with logic but even that logic seems illogical at the quantum level, however he still pushed his theory to the level in which it is as objectively true as he could possible make it. So even if practical objectivity is more soft than the absolute, it's still unable to become a subjective opinion, since it needs evidence, logic and rational reasoning behind it.

As a term used in discussions, I think the practical use of objectivity in opposition to subjectivity, is for when someone presents a subjective opinion and you say it's not objective. What you mean is that the opinion hasn't gone through proper deductive or inductive procedures for it's conclusion, or it hasn't been tested in research or through pure logic, so you use the word objective to describe the opposite of what they provided. Even though it's not absolute, it's a way to use language to distinguish opinion from what can be described as the truth closest to our level of perception, i.e the objectivity that is practical for us as a species in our progression into the future.

The first section (the one you quote) was about the previous poster, not you.
The later sections adressed NDEs, you clearly skipped that part and instead thought that everything revolves around you and your brilliance as a philosopher.

Previously in this thread I adressed your inductive arguments, which have a few problems. You never adressed those, so I now summarized every argument I had in that regard, I guess you couldn't handle it.

But now you continue with unnecessary ad hominems and hostility and for one that says you know how philosophy works, this hostile post just showed how you really don't know how to do it. So it's hard to take you seriously with that level of childish behaviour.

In a forum, everyone can chime in and discuss and I did that, adressing both your arguments and others. If you believe every post in here revolves around you, you don't know shit about how forums work. The previous pages of discussion evolved from the NDE discussion and you wanted to get back to NDEs which I did and you clearly didn't care to read.

Besides you wouldn't know higher level philosophy if it jumped up and bit you on the ass. — Sam26

Get off your high horse. Your arguments aren't solid, I adressed them many times and you didn't even care to counter-argue, which is the point of a dialectic and not to act like a spoiled child.

But I guess what you just wrote is the level of philosophical debate you are after so I will leave you with your childish behaviour. Pathetic.

I need time to go through the entire document, but I initially don't know why morality is mixed into the idea of immortality. A baseline morality seem much more likely to revolve around well-being, of the self and others (without seperation). From there, moral principles can be set and evolve according to better understanding of the human condition.

I can see how immortality may give us perspectives on moral values that we fail to see in our mortality.

Cooperation however seem only needed when the individual needs the group. If the individual can survive without the group, they tend to isolate more from the group. There are some good inputs found in the Netflix show Altered Carbon on this subject. An immortal individual who gains power and wealth, would be almost infinitely powerful and wealthy the longer that individual lives. And the impact of living forever might also create apathy against other people, since losses have happened more times than one lifetime and the impact of personal losses might loose it's strength the more it's experienced. This detachement from humanity may be the greatest threat to our humanity than anything else immortality could give us.

Another thing about immortality is that most of our culture, expressions, art, way of life, revolves around life and death. If you take away death, then our entire culture would change and what is important, valued, pursued etc. would become totally different.

Therefor it's hard to see any morality formed by immortality, if that morality has parameters set by what we value today as mortals in our culture. If the moral values change with immortality, we cannot predict what morals becomes because of it.

However, this might have been off topic, since I've not yet read the full document, so I'm not arguing against anything said.

It's fine, I have no intentions with continuing a philosophical argument with someone who can't provide a proper argument. As I said, this is a philosophical forum, not a theological or spiritual, arguments need to keep their premisses and conclusions as clean s possible. Even when they don't work, in a dialectic, the opposing side is meant to improve your own argument by challenging it. However that requires proper deductive and inductive reasoning. A total misunderstanding of science and how basic physics and biology work as the foundation for the conclusion leads no where and after pointing out all the problems over and over there's still no improvements. I'm new here so I believed this place to feature a bit higher level dialectics than other places online, but it seems there's people here as well who can't properly do philosophical discourse.

However, in my loooong posts I think I've laid forth the argument about NDEs and why there's little or even any evidence to suggest NDEs show that consciousness can continue after death or that life after death exists. My basic premisses for this revolved around first, how the neurons work and what likely happens when we die, i.e if all neurons show higher activity at the moment of death (proven by EEG tests on dying patients), the likely scenario is that the experiences function much like dreams with all engines burning. Since the perception of time is different in dreams than normally, experiences that in reality lasts for a few seconds before the neurons completely shut off, could feel like long lasting experiences. So time through these experiences cannot account for them having their consciousness exist during death, they would most likely remember it so, but do not have any input during the actual death part. Second, no evidence show that anything exists after a person has died, there's no brain activity and energy, which the previous guy misinterpret as some kind of spiritual life force, is just body heat dissipating from the body. There's nothing that shows anything else than the body shutting down, much like a computer shutting down, all the hardware failing and the software can't work without the hardware. Third, people have tendencies to hold what's comfortable closer to them than actual truth, so people are more biased towards something like spirituality or religion even when there's no evidence or anything to suggest it to be correct. This means people who generally are intelligent gets biased towards irrational belief and start putting together conclusions assuming their premisses to be true, when they aren't. In order to argue about NDEs properly, we need to look coldly at the facts and not use fantasy, belief, spirituality and religion as any foundation for it, if people can't do it, they will never reach a rational answer for this topic. Fourth, people can experience similar experiences if the same parameters are set in motion. This is also the foundation of the Multiple Discovery theory, i.e that if similar knowledge and experience exists for different people, they can come up with the same invention or discovery, since their line of thinking has the same pre-existing influences. In the case of NDEs, the similarities between accounts told by survivors would then basically be about people having similar experiences and therefor we see the same things when our neurons fire off at the moment of death. Studies have shown that NDE accounts differ between cultures and their culture's influence on the individuals, influence the experience during an NDE. This further points to the experience being the product of a dream like state at the moment of death. We dream about what exists in our life, if most of us live life in similar ways as everyone else, we have influences to these NDEs that are similar. Fifth, NDE accounts are rarely specific in detail, they are closer to describing a dream and when we try to remember something we have a hard time remembering, we fill in gaps. If someone saw a shadow figure, they might remember them as a relative, even though it was just a shadow. People do this all the time with real memories, but the abstract nature of dreams and NDE descriptions are far more likely to cause such distortions of what was actually experienced. Sixth, people tend to view intelligence as something other than natural evolutionary step, when nothing suggest otherwise. To view our intelligence as something spiritual or higher than nature is an arrogant egotistical viewpoint, i.e it's assuming that our consciousness is more special than anything in nature therefore we are higher than nature in that regard. Nothing points to this, our brains are no different from any other animal and when we die, we die just like other animals, so does everything we have in our brain, meaning the neurons making up our consciousness.

Conclusion for this is first that NDE experiences cannot prove anything about consciousness leaving the body, consciousness exiting the body and existing when the body and neurons are dead. It also cannot prove life after death or anything supernatural. It doesn't matter how many people gets interviewed, the data is flawed by the nature of what happens to these people and their inability to realize the physiological trauma the brain goes through. Therefor the only way to measure this is to invent something like an EEG that could register brainwaves in a room rather than just attached to the patients head. But that's a test made out of the premiss that our consciousness is higher than nature, which nothing points to.

I see no value in NDEs, since they are too subjectively flawed as experiences and there's nothing that can be used as facts for a proper scientific conclusion. If an argument cannot be presented without including spiritual new age, religious beliefs, lacking concept of what science is, misunderstandings of scientific facts or presented as pure fantasy statements, then it becomes a circular argument in which no one with that state of mind would reach any better understanding or conclusion. If you aren't able to change your view on the subject when going through a proper dialectic, and still continues to argue for something out of pure belief or subjective conviction, then you will go around in circles, being stuck in that belief.

If someone could present an argument for the validity of NDEs in the search for an answer to consciousness after death, that actually makes logical and reasonable sense, I will challenge my own argument, but so far I've only been met with ignorance to the premisses I've presented and a lack of understanding of what they actually mean or a lack of general understanding of basic science. I do not accept spirituality as part of metaphysic philosophy, not in 2018 when we have years of scientific research, facts and discoveries to inform us in our discourse.

First, everything is energy, whether tangible or intangible (or an activity). Therefore, you need to check your definition. — BrianW

There's nothing wrong with my definitions. You assume energy in terms of a spiritual definition. Find me any evidence that suggest that consciousness and life is energy, other than in homeopathy, spirituality, new age and other forms of fantasy. Energy is nothing so exotic and complex as a consciousness. Matter and energy makes up the universe, so in that sense everything is energy or matter, but when you assert energy to be life and be consciousness, you are creating a definition of energy that isn't there, i.e you are assuming your premisses to be correct in order to support your conclusion, i.e a basic fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy

Second, you need to google 'the scientific method'. — BrianW

No, you should do this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Karl Popper advised scientists to try to falsify hypotheses, i.e., to search for and test those experiments that seem most doubtful. Large numbers of successful confirmations are not convincing if they arise from experiments that avoid risk.

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Third, just because consciousness doesn't fit your profile of science doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Does the mind exist? — BrianW

Stop doing straw man fallacies. No where did I say that consciousness doesn't exist or that the mind doesn't exist. But you seem unable to listen to logic here. As I described, the consciousness and the mind of a person exists because of the neurons, and the formation of neurons are the basis for the consciousness we have. This is the current scientific theory of the consciousness. There is no evidence for consciousness existing outside of the parameters of our biology and there's no evidence to suggest that our consciousness continue on after we die and our neurons shut down. If you want to dispute this and argue for this being able to happen, you have to put forth an argument that actually makes logical sense through proper argumentation. And stop making straw mans.

If everything was 'physical', do you think doctors wouldn't have dissected the brain and found the mind and psyche? — BrianW

They have, it's called the brain and neurons. What scientists still research is how everything works, but there are few who believe in some mystic idea about how the consciousness work.

It's why this discussion belongs in metaphysics or spiritual or religious philosophy. Else, we would be talking about the physical. — BrianW

Metaphysics have been generally replaced by science over the course of the last hundred years. There are few serious philosophers who argue metaphysics outside of the facts provided by science. As for spiritual and religious philosophy I do not count those as philosophy, since they dismiss logic and rational reasoning in their argumentations. Religion/spirituality is religion/spirituality, not philosophy. If you are to reason in a philosophical manner, you need to keep your arguments correct and avoid fallacies, otherwise you aren't practicing philosophy. And calling something religious philosophy is just another name for "I want to argue without having proper facts or logic to back it up". Religious beliefs is irrelevant for a philosophical dialectic, even the old christian monks knew this and tried to focus on Aristotles way of reasoning, even though they were believers.

Problem today seem to be that too many just don't care to have logic or proper argumentation for their ideas, they just spew them out without caring to back them up. I call that sloppy to say the least.

All it does is caution people not to be too quick to judge without as much consideration as possible, a proposition which I'm deflecting back to you. — BrianW

No, it caution people not to be biased to their own conclusions, which was my point. If you turn what others say into your own interpretation to fit the narrative you are doing fallacies once again.

I'm looking into consciousness the same way I would look into mind or psyche. If you can't, don't blame it on being un-scientific. — BrianW

But you have no science and no facts to back up anything you say. What you think about it, what you believe is totally irrelevant. You do not possess the truth just because you believe it is the truth, that is delusional.

Why can't you make a proper argument with facts and logic deduction/induction for this topic? You are just arguing against everything, making things up to fit your narrative. Without a proper arguments based in facts and proper deduction/induction you have nothing other than religious/spiritual belief and that isn't even close to enough to support your conclusions.

This isn't a theological forum, it's a philosophical one.

If everything is energy, then life and consciousness would also fall in that category. — BrianW

This statement is a still a fallacy. Energy and matter is what makes up the physical universe, life and consciousness are not energy, they are product of matter and energy, something that evolved from it and they are driven by it, but they aren't it themselves. You are making a general premiss seem connected to a very specific conclusion, which it isn't. Just because life is fueled by energy, doesn't mean life is energy and therefor life exists after death. The energy that is left after death is just thermal heat, there's nothing conscious or living about it. This misunderstanding of what energy is cannot be a premiss for the conclusion, because it's a misunderstanding of what energy is.

It's like saying; "If the sky is blue, and my shirt is blue, then my shirt is also the sky", it's a fallacy.

Also, thermodynamics does not prove that 'energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed'. If it can, show me. — BrianW

And energy isn't living or is conscious so this doesn't support the conclusion that any life or consciousness exist after death. You use this misunderstanding of energy and thermodynamics as a premise for your conclusion I'm afraid.

As to 'life after death', there is no definitive proof of what happens or doesn't happen but there is a logical argument that life (or the energy configuration commonly referred by that name) could not only be defined by the limits of the vibrations we interact with. — BrianW

This is in no way a logical statement. You are assuming premisses to support the conclusion. The most logical inductive conclusion, based on actual science of thermodynamics, energy, matter and biology clearly points to there being no life after death or consciousness existing after death. You can't assume to be right in order to be right, it's like using the bible to try and prove that the bible is true.

I'm saying it is illogical to presume that life is limited within the rates of vibration of osmium (the densest solid - just googled it) and gamma rays (the highest frequency known yet). It is very logical to suppose lower and higher vibrations exist and in relation to lives like ours just as we now know there are gamma waves in the brain. And it may be that 'life after death' is just an energy relationship which we have not yet discovered. — BrianW

You are making up correlations and conclusions based on premises you either assume correct or invent to fit the narrative. There's nothing in this that has any basis in science at all and cannot be used to make anything logical whatsoever. You can't just link different matter with different forms of radiation, connect this to how our brain works and reach a conclusion that you call logical. In what way is this a rational argument?

Science is not supposed to claim that what it knows is everything to know. Life after death is about possibilities not definitives. — BrianW

Science is science, it's a method to reach a conclusion that is based in evidence. Everything else is belief and while it's fine to believe, it cannot ever be used to prove or disprove anything. This topic isn't about spiritual ideas, it's a philosophical dialectic about the existens of life after death or consciousness after death. In this regard, it's irrelevant what people believe, what cannot be proven isn't logical or correct. The most logical and reasonable conclusion is the one that follows what facts that actually exist.

If you don't understand the facts, if you don't know what energy, matter and how the brain works, you can't make a conclusion based on premisses roted in that misunderstanding. That equals an error in the argument.

What you're referring to is not the scientific method. I think you're the one who's got things twisted. Are you implying Newton worked to disprove gravity? — BrianW

Newtons discoveries were not made according to modern methods of scientific research. The methods of science have evolved for over 500 years. Have you have heard of Karl Popper? This is the scientific method derived from his epistemology and in any form of dialectic this should be the primary method in order to not get biased towards a certain assumed conclusion.

Once a principle is proved, it can never be disproved. As to the inability to disprove something, it is just that - inability. It does not become proof of anything. — BrianW

What are you talking about? You have a hypothesis, you use Karl Poppers method of trying to disprove it and from that derive a conclusion that has been put through what he proposed as the process of falsification. It's standard practice in many areas of science, especially theoretical ones, in which you are limited in physical testing.

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Belief and subjective ideas without any support in science cannot ever prove things like life after death or consciousness existing after death. Any claim that it can is a fallacy and in my opinion it's not philosophy anymore because it's impossible to have a proper dialectic if the arguments aren't properly formed or backed up. Assuming the premise correct in order to reach a true conclusion is a basic fallacy and impossible to argue against since there's nothing to argue against. If your conclusions are based on false premisses, then any attempt for me to counter this argument forces me to assume you are correct, when you haven't proven anything to be correct.

If you want to argue for life after death and consciousness after death you need a proper argument, with true premisses, everything else is irrelevant. Subjective belief and opinion isn't philosophy when it comes to modern metaphysics.

But if the transphenomenality of consciousness was never created how could it end? — Blue Lux

What if there is no death? Only a disintegration? — Blue Lux

None of this has any foundation in science. The reason we get consciousness is a combination of pre-programmed genetics that form the starting point of a human and then the neurons grow through sensory input, experience, motor functions and so on. There's nothing before life and when we die, those neurons decompose like a computer hard drive corroding with rust that can't be read or written to. To suggest that consciousness exists on some other realm or state of the universe cannot be proved and have no foundation in philosophy if it can't be argued properly. If you have the hypothesis that consciousness exists somewhere else and that consciousness continues after death, you need to lay forth an argument in support of that. Just throwing out ideas is not philosophy, at least not from where I stand.

If you accept the philosophical (later scientific) assertion that, 'energy (life) can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed', then the bottom line becomes there's life before birth and after death. The better question would be: "What kind of life is it?" — BrianW

Energy is just energy, consciousness is not energy and energy is not "life" as you put it. You don't get another consciousness from other people when you feel the warm radiation from their bodies, do you? Heat is energy distribution. When we die, the energy that we've gotten from sun radiation, the food we ate, the stored fat in our bodies etc. slowly leaves us as heat radiation, electrons in our brain goes into this heat and then dissipates into lower states of energy that can't be felt as heat anymore. Entropy does it's thing, but the energy that leaves us is neither life or consciousness. Believing that is a radical misunderstanding of what energy is.

In earlier times, before 'science' became the by-word for everyone trying to explain reality, the weight of a person's theories were measured in how logical they were and not necessarily on proof. Science would like to refute that, but then I ask: "If science is okay with the postulate that 'energy can neither be created nor destroyed... ' does it mean it has tested all the energy in existence and therefore has undeniable proof of that? Literally, that's a resounding NO! So, then, perhaps the answer to 'life after death' is not in the proof we may or may not have, but in how logical it would be for the presence or absence of that life after death. — BrianW

I feel that you have a great misunderstanding of what science is or what the scientific method is. There's tons of research into the laws of thermodynamics. You are arguing against this science without any logical reasoning and no insight into how it actually works. A scientific theory means that it's proven, if it weren't proven you wouldn't be able to write on the computer you do now, since the whole reason we have technology as we do, is because we have used these theories to create such technologies. Science have proven what you argue it hasn't. If you don't understand the science, it doesn't mean it isn't a proven theory or doesn't exist. Your misunderstanding of what energy is, that through science that has been proven, and the result is a lot of the technologies you use in the modern world, then argue that the science is wrong. What you are doing is the begging the question fallacy and the assumed premises also assumes that the science is wrong, which it isn't.

I refuse to believe there is a beginning or an end to transphenomenal being. I think in death it disintegrates to reform into something else, and depending on the formation that manifests this transphenomenal soup, another separate identity forms. — Blue Lux

Your belief is your own, however, if we are doing serious philosophy on the subject, it demands more. Even the religious monks like St. Aquinas needed to try and create a logical reasoning behind their argument for God. Just throwing out ideas is not philosophy, subjective experience is not philosophy. It's a starting point, but it needs a correct argument, otherwise it's impossible to have a philosophical dialectic, since it's just opinions. If you have a hypothesis, you need to support it with solid premises that are true and not assumed true.

I think the theosophical explanation of reincarnation and evolution of life is better than the others. — BrianW

But without logical reasoning and with fallacies in reasoning it's just religious belief.

The unity I refer to is LIFE. It is the principle underlying everything we mean by truth or reality. Theosophy is more a mixture of the various religious principles. — BrianW

You still need a solid argument, otherwise it's just religious belief, spirituality, fantasy and so on. Philosophy requires serious thought, not just subjective belief and that's the end of it. I think the scientific method is also a very good way of thinking, meaning; you don't try and prove your idea, you try and disprove it, by any means necessary. If you cannot disprove your idea, however much you try and however someone else tries to do it, it then becomes proven, rational and logic in it's form.

None of us here have died (and remember it). — Michael Ossipoff

But that doesn't equal that there is. It just points out that there's no one able to witness it. However, if you use all the data, research and do an inductive argument with Occam's razor in mind, the conclusion is that it's most probable that there isn't anything after death. Everything therefore points to claims of an afterlife to be false. If we are to compare probabilities, there's little to support an inductive argument for the existence of an afterlife or consciousness existing after death. It's important to not get biased to the want and need of an afterlife and instead look at it with cold precision.

Of course you never experience the time when your body has completely shut-down. Only your survivors do.
. — Michael Ossipoff

But that is not sufficient as evidence for ay afterlife or surviving consciousness. Many of the survivors experiences can be explained through how the neurons work. Just focusing on the descriptions of survivors is extremely insufficient as evidence of anything.

You’re taking a Literalist interpretation, when you speak of whether or not you’re still there at the time when, from the point of view of your survivors, you’re gone. — Michael Ossipoff

I only speak of that which I can rationally explain through existing evidence and logic reasoning. Anything else is delusions and fantasy. If we are to prove there's something after death or a continuation of out consciousness, we need more than just survivors description of their experiences. As I pointed out with my analogy about being drunk, there are biological functions that create similar experiences between humans because we consist of essentially the same functions. Therefore, the similarities between survivors experiences cannot be used as evidence for the existence of consciousness after death, since the similarities of these experiences may just be the consequence of what the brain does when it shuts down, how the neurons fire at that moment. Just like people recall that in the event of an accident, time seem to slow down, the subjective perception can create wild experiences under the right conditions. So the experiences by survivors of near death experiences are more likely to be the product of such processes in our brain. Attaching them to some supernatural explanation does not have any solid ground as an argument, since it assumes the premise is correct before the conclusion.

Of course,

As I’ve pointed out in other threads, there’s no such thing as “oblivion”. You never arrive at or experience a time when you aren’t.
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You’d agree that death is sleep, and that that sleep becomes deeper and deeper. …but with you never reaching a time when you aren’t. …though you become quite unconscious, in the sense that there isn’t waking-consciousness. — Michael Ossipoff

Of course you never experience oblivion and you don't, when you are dead, you are dead. I do not agree that death is sleep, when you are dead, your body is just dead meat, getting consumed by the bacteria that you lived in symbios with before. It's nothing more than what happens when you shut down the computer, with the added effect that this "computer" starts to decompose and starts breaking down the inner functions so that turning it on again is impossible. You wouldn't say that a computer is still "experiencing input" or anything when it's shut off, so why would we humans? To argue that we humans and our consciousness is more special than anything else in this universe is a bit arrogant by our species. Our brain and body, our mind works just as anything else, which means that there's nothing when we die, everything is gone and after our neurons have decomposed all those moments are lost (like tears in rain).

The explanation for the experiences that survivors talk about can made through the example of the accident I mentioned, in which people say time slows down. If all neurons fires at once, our perception of time can be stretched and they might recall spending a long time with all of those experiences, when they in fact only experienced it at the short moment of time when the neurons fired off before the brain shut down. Much like with REM sleep, in which we can sense that a long time has past but the actual sleep time was just a few minutes. Our perception of time in our delusions are different than experiencing reality fully awake, but there's nothing to prove any supernatural about this.

When you die, the neurons most likely fires on all cylinders, putting you through a very unique experience, unlike anything you've ever experienced. Then the brain shuts down and you are gone. If the body can be revived in that moment, before the decomposing has started, it is sometimes possible to turn "this computer" on again. If that happens, the experience that can be recalled is the experience when all neurons fired on full cylinders and recalling it would indeed sound like a profound experience. However, the emotional impact of these experiences should not influence how we measure if these are supernatural or natural consequences of our dying brains.

What kind of instrument-readings were you expecting? :D …with instruments like in Ghostbusters?
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From the point of view of the investigators, the animals that died are quite dead.
. — Michael Ossipoff

And so are the humans that they've measured at their moment of death. So far, there's no evidence of anything leaving the body, existing outside of the body or any sign of consciousness existing after the moment of death. We are no different from animals and suggesting this is a bit arrogant of us. We didn't evolve to supernatural beings that transcend into something else, we are meat and bones, biology and genes just as much as any other species on this planet. Our evolution just brought us a way to analyse our surroundings to survive better and the byproduct was intelligence. There's nothing that points to anything else.

Well, if someone is the kind of person who is expected to go to Hell, would he be hoping that there’s an afterlife? — Michael Ossipoff

I think that is kind of irrelevant since there's no proof of anything after death, so his choice of belief is irrelevant to proving anything about an afterlife.

In the East, there’s the expressed goal of an end to lives, a time when reincarnation isn’t needed and doesn’t happen. — Michael Ossipoff

Nirvana is exactly what happens after we die, there's nothing for us, we are gone. Anything else is desperation in face of this oblivion. It's a dark concept that there's nothing and that leads to people desperately trying to find comfort in other concepts. It's so intense that we make up fantasies about something else happening after we die, but nothing points to it and time and time again, it has been impossible to prove. In the East, they get the concept of Nirvana correct, but not the reincarnation part. It's better to view reincarnation or better yet, the eternal recurrence concept as a way of life, but when we die it's over.

At this forum, at least one poster has expressed that he doesn’t want there to be an afterlife or reincarnation.

So you’re greatly over-generalizing when you say that everyone is hoping for an afterlife. — Michael Ossipoff

Of course I'm generalizing, since it's impossible to account for every single persons will. There are those who want to swim naked in a pool of hot sauce, does that mean you can't propose that no one wants to bathe in hot sauce? It's semantics, the general idea is that most people wouldn't want things to just end, therefore, the concepts of an afterlife emerged throughout history.

You keep referring to the “Supernatural”. The Supernatural consists of contravention of physical law in scary movies about werewolves, vampires, murderous mummies, etc.
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Usually it’s just the Materialists who speak of “The Supernatural” (contravention of physical law) and seem to want to attribute beliefs about that, to non-Materialists. — Michael Ossipoff

I consider religion to be supernatural belief. Afterlife and the continuation of the mind is derived from religious and spiritual concepts. Wild metaphysical philosophy is hard to argue with today since science has for the most part taken over it because of it's superior methods to reach proven results. Supernatural in this sense is what afterlife and mind after death is, since there's no evidence for it and concluding there to be such things without evidence or logic is more akin to the belief in ghosts, heaven etc. which is supernatural. Metaphysics should not stray from logic and rational reasoning, if so, it becomes fantasy and delusional that disregards facts.

A computer couldn’t care less if it gets turned off. — Michael Ossipoff

And a human couldn't care less when he's dead. And caring about dying or living proves nothing about an afterlife. The functions of the brain, mind and body resembles a computer in software and hardware, we are no special than the universe we live in. What we think about life and death does not change how life and death works. This is concepts that humans invented, not something that exists just because we say so.

I'm adressing these arguments then.

First, a high number of testimonials gives a better picture of the events in question. So the greater the number the more likely we are to get an accurate report, but not necessarily, i.e., high numbers don't always translate into accurate testimonial evidence, which is why one must also consider other important factors. — Sam26

If the process of dying is the same for everyone, does the testimonials not just describe that same process in it's subjective experience? Example: Everyone who drinks alcohol can describe the same consequence of being drunk, does that mean something supernatural exists or just that the process of getting drunk is the same? Same goes for near death experiences. If the process is the same, the testimonials should look similar or the same to everyone. The tunnel with people at the end of it would be the same if the same process of the dying brain is the same. You can induce similar experiences in people if you create the same conditions for them and the small variants might be because of the differences in memory and identity of the one experiencing them. Testimonials does then not equal any existence of the supernatural.

Second, seeing the event from a variety of perspectives will also help to clear up some of the testimonial reports. For example, different cultural perspectives, different age groups, different historical perspectives, different religious perspectives, different times of the day, and even considering people with different physical impairments (like the blind) will help clear up some of the biased and misremembered reports. — Sam26

Yes, but some experiences we have are rooted in the biology of being a human. These shouldn't be mixed up with experiences that happens between all cultures and people for being supernatural, the conclusion is just that we share some experiences based on our physical and neurological existence as humans.

Third, is the consistency of the reports, i.e., are there a large number of consistent or inconsistent reports. While it is important to have consistency in the testimonial evidence, inconsistency doesn't necessarily negate all of the reports. When dealing with a large number of testimonials you will almost certainly have contradictory statements, this happens even when people report on everyday events. Thus, one must weed out the testimony that does not fit the overall picture, and paint a picture based on what the majority of accounts are testifying to. It doesn't necessarily mean that what the minority is saying is unimportant, only that accuracy tends to favor what the majority are reporting. — Sam26

But this still doesn't account for experiences based on basic similarities between humans by their physical and neurological makeup. We are more similar to each other than we are different, meaning that under certain conditions we experience the same things and would report the same when asked. It doesn't prove that there is something after death.

Fourth, can the testimony be corroborated by any other objective means, thereby strengthening the testimonial evidence as given by those who make the claims. — Sam26

In essence, you mean backing up the testimony with external evidences? Yes in that case.

Fifth, are the testimonials firsthand accounts, as opposed to being hearsay. In other words, is the testimonial evidence given by the person making the claim, and not by someone simply relating a story they heard from someone else. This is very important in terms of the strength of the testimonials. — Sam26

If the experience can't be proven to be something supernatural, it doesn't really matter if it's a first hand accounts. Yes, it makes it stronger than hearsay, but if the first hand testimony can't be proven to be an experience of supernatural form, it cannot prove anything about consciousness existing after death.

Each of these five criteria serve to strengthen the testimonial evidence. All of these work hand-in-hand to strengthen a particular testimonial conclusion, and they serve to strengthen any claim to knowledge. If we have a large enough pool of evidence based on these five criteria we can say with confidence that the conclusion follows. In other words, we can say what is probably the case, not what is necessarily the case. — Sam26

Unfortunetely, testimonial accounts cannot be used as evidence and cannot lead to a conclusion. It can be in support of evidence, but it cannot be used as evidence since there's no correlation between it and with the truth or falseness of the claim of consciousness existing after death. You need to be able to measure that consciousness exists without the neurons. If a person gets his brain destroyed and you could measure the existence of his consciousness in the room after it, that would be evidence. However, how such proof would be attained is impossible to say, if it's even possible to measure.
Testimonials of near death experience does not prove anything in of themselves. They only provide accounts of experiences linked to the experience of death, meaning, they might say something about what happens to our consciousness while the brain is dying and shutting down. It's an interesting thing, but it does not prove anything about the consciousness existing after death or transcending to any afterlife.