it is rather incomplete since there does not appear to be any evidence anywhere to support such a conclusion, unless one proposes that invisible forces of nature, quanta, light, and dark matter, time, emotions, ideas, qualia, etc. are material — Rich

That's more in the direction I am wanting to go here with this thread. Why is there incomplete evidence in support of materialism? Can one not have subjective states as an emergent property of matter? Are you saying that the hard problem negates the validity of materialism in its proposition on full annihilation at death? Also, I would have thought light, quanta, fields, dark matter, time would still be considered part of the physical universe and therefore form part of physicalism/materialism.

From there, it is then said that the 'burden of proof' is on any of those who challenge this supposedly scientific consensus, and that the only acceptable kinds of proof for such claims, are those which meet the standards of proof found in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. — Wayfarer

That is a nice clarifying description of how materialism exists in the modern world, at least in most societies at any rate. I agree with what science has done here by creating a standing ground upon which they reject everything that isn't verifiable upon "their terms and conditions". I like it because it works, so far that I can see and that is why I am double checking here to see whether this is a valid approach. What I would like to know though is how materialism is incomplete in explaining the notion of annihilation at death to be true. is there room for other theories? Is it only because "we can never know anything for certain" or is there actually some room for probable alternatives here? I know logic fails at times to explain many aspects of existence and I wonder if that is not the case with understanding the notion of death.

I think that the very notion that all of human abilities, tendencies, talents and skills are encoded physically, seems quite under threat by emerging models such as epi-genetic inheritance. My belief is that there must be something very like Sheldrake's morphological fields - there might be 'biological fields' which transmit memories or the imprints left by experience to future generations. That may turn out to be something that can be naturalised in the long run, but I don't see how it could be explained in materialist terms. — Wayfarer

After some research it seems that DNA changes occurred in the sperm cells of rats after aversive stimuli but not where else. The experience of the father rat doesn't change the dna coding in the offspring but only how that dna coding is read and used by the offspring. Which is still a form of encoding because you have to use code to read the code (epigenetic tags). I like sheldrake's idea, but "fields" might not be the only source of "alternative interaction" with the our everyday physical world we know of. Another possibility that would allow you to explain it in materialist terms would be that of connected dimensions to ours. When I say connected, I mean every atom would be connected like a puppet is on strings to higher dimensional space of which we have no way of currently measuring (apart from anecdotally through the subjective experience of various psychoactive substances). This would thereby allow information exchange by ordering the atoms arrangements from the movement of objects (or even possibly entities) in higher dimensional spaces.

I like to blame some of my poorer choices on aliens, at any rate. — Marchesk

Haha, not sure if you actually meant that as a response or just a joke. What put forth doesn't say anything about your choices being governed or even influenced by aliens though... so?

Life is ultimately inexplicable, therefore ultimately meaningless, as long as it is assumed that appearances (rather than life) are real. Appearances are deceiving, life is true.

Since life has inherent meaning, it is unchangeable. Therefore, it is not up to you to give your life meaning, but rather to discover the (unchanging) meaning of life. — Nerevar

How can you prove life is ultimately meaningless? Granted sensory perception does not accurately reflect reality and our interpretations are also flawed but who is to say ultimate meaning is not attainable?

I like you spin on the interpretation of the quote in the op that it is up to you to discover the (unchanging) meaning of life. But isn't this task ultimately fruitless if that is impossible to do as you said in your first paragraph? I also believe life has inherent meaning outside of brains and interpretations but discovering that seems like a hamster wheel race unless we are to talk of something beyond reason like buddhist meditation (samadhi etc).

"The meaning of life is to fuck as much as possible then die" is not a very elevated meaning. Some severe cases sound like that is what they think the meaning of life is. Maybe for sewer rats, it is. I think they could aim higher for people. The Chinese adage that "Getting rich is glorious" as a meaning for life isn't very elevated either. — Bitter Crank

They arn't sources of meaning for ones life because they are circular.

"The meaning of life is to fuck as much as possible then die"

Why fuck? To procreate

Why procreate? To keep species alive

Why keep species alive? So that we can FUCK... Yeeaaah!

My point is that a meaning for existence has to have reason behind it and can not be self-justified in the process of doing that action itself alone.

I don't know much about "transcendent" meaning. Religion is in itself an overlay that is quite rooted in this world and doesn't transcend anything. — Bitter Crank

That is quite true but you won't deny we can have experiences that certainly transcend this world and can seem spiritual

Yes, one's "meaning of life" could be anything. None of them are more or less "valid." Validity is a category error for this. — Terrapin Station

Well if that's true then ANYTHING can be a source of meaning for ones life, which plain ludicrous. Meaning comes from definition and explanation. Having 1500 barbie dolls in your room doesn't explain any more of why you exist than you stark naked in your room with nothing at all.

Apples don't ask themselves why they exist, for what purpose, or in what meaningful sense. The same can be said for bricks. They don't ask. They exist. — Bitter Crank

You mistook what I said, I wasn't saying apples exist and therefore need to seek meaning. I was saying it is foolish to call an apple or a brick the source of meaning of ones life.

"Helping people" might be a good meaning for life. "I am here to help people." You could do worse. Or, "Finding pleasurable experiences gives the meaning of life." Or "Learning about the natural world makes life meaningful," Or "Becoming an expert in Anthropology makes life meaningful." Or "Fixing up old cars is the meaning of my life." Or "Growing oats for horses and oatmeal is the thing that makes my life meaningful." — Bitter Crank

Ha, it sounds like a bunch of humans who realize they are in a meaningless existence and so therefore mistake processes and objects in their life to give their life meaning.

Maybe the word you are wanting to use here is "purpose" as in a farmer would say my weekly purpose is to sow my crops. But that would not be an absolute purpose for why humans exist in totality. It is only a small directional purpose of how that farmer is to conduct his time until he

A) finds some absolute purpose or meaning for that matter

B) Dies

But to say that the farmers life meaning is to sow crops is just ridiculous. You might as well say that the meaning of his life is to crunch sticks together and beat his left thumb for 15.4342 hours every day. In other words, that process just mentioned doesn't give any more meaning (description) to why he is alive.

So what you get is a picture of reality that looks something like this:

Experiencer #1 -------- phenomenal world #1

Experiencer #2 -------- phenomenal world #2

Experiencer #3 -------- phenomenal world #3 — lambda

I have thought something similar along these lines. Think of this scene:

My version is that these phenomenal worlds don't actually collide at all, they are completely separate but at the same time they are joined through a larger metaphysical network.

Just imagine a computer game where people are all joined to the same game except Gamer#1 can do anything he chooses in his game whilst only selected aspects of what he does will be displayed on other gamers screens. Who selects what transfers? Aliens, perhaps. Think about it though, if you had control over what one persons actions effected other peoples realities like that you could have quite a lot of control over the entire population while at the same time being completely non-existent to every human being alive.

Although experiencer #1 is confined to perceiving phenomenal world 1, he is nonetheless capable of causally influencing phenomenal worlds #2, 3, … — lambda

How can you be sure of that he is actually influencing other phenomenal worlds? When all you have to go off of is the phenomenal experience of experience # 1. My point is we are trapped to only 1 experience and therefor can not infer whether we effect other peoples experiences because all we see about the changes in their experiences is from our perspective.

Yet, everyone makes this inference ANDDDD... it is the reason why we don't feel lonely. it is the reason why we enter in to stable marriages and why we feel a strong connection to our family (because we BELIEVE they exist). I switch back and forth between not believing other entities actually exist out there and are actually just sensory information that reality is importing from some identified source (like a brain in a vat) and i then i switch back to common sense view of reality that people and objects actually exist. It is hard to switch completely when you have been brought up that way.

Are you speaking of a pre-verbalized thought? It all springs from the unconscious and suddenly appears in my consciousness where I watch it spew out of my mouth or onto my keyboard.

I have had moments in altered states of consciousness where i have become aware of pre-verbalized thought. It was as if there was pure information flow between concepts in an unorthodox manner that didn't make sense but somehow algorithms brought it in to a comprehensible correlation of words.

Why do you begin with the assumption that something must have a spatial location in order to "be"? — Noble Dust

Yes, OP you should look in to the distinction between subjective and objective as I think you are getting confused about this.

You're line of thought follows from the patterns of activity that result in sensory perception and therefore us perceiving an outside world. light hits the retina -> goes to brain -> brain constructs an outside world -> brain thinks an outside world actually exists in the outside world....... This is just an illusion and we have no way to actually garantuee the existence of objectivity whatsoever... This becomes so convincing it actually ends up causing people like you to think truth exists in the same way that tables do (as a product of sensory information rather than an abstract concept tied to concepts integrated from sensory information). All we can ever know is our minds and what is in our minds (including sensory perception). For sake of understanding this better just scrap all notions of objectivity and you will see that truth can only exist within the mind because there is no where else for it to exist in unless you want to argue that objectivity is the same as subjectivity.

Empirical claims are not provable. Period. So nothing to worry about there. Whatever it is, if it's an empirical claim, it's not provable. There's no reason to even concern ourselves with this issue, because we know that empirical claims are not provable. — Terrapin Station

If something is provable then why claim it or believe in it at all?

We do, however, exist and we need meaning. Therefore, if there is to be meaning, we create it. We give life meaning. — Bitter Crank

But what is this meaning that is self-created? It seems that anyone can pick up an object, even a brick, and call it the meaning of their own life. How can we tell what is valid as a self-chosen meaning of which we give our lives? Why is "helping people" any more valid than "a brick" or "a statue" or "my bicycle"? I don't see how "helping people" can be a meaning for existence. Verily, it is a reason of how to act in existence, but a meaning for it? If someone asked you what is the meaning of an apple and you responded "to help people", isn't that a bit ridiculous? So if the meaning you place on life isn't "helping people" what is it? To love your wife and kids? To enjoy pleasures? It just seems like a nonsensical pattern of misplacing objects/processes as a source explanation for larger things in existence/existence itself.

Atheism, as others have noted, is only a lack of belief in gods, or a belief that no gods exist. There's not actually an "atheistic view of death." — Terrapin Station

So if a christian believes in christianity then he believes in the afterlife. Atheism flat out rejects christianity so it therefore rejects notions of a religious afterlife which occur in people who believe in deities. People who believe in deities believe in the afterlife, so an atheistic view of the afterlife is one with a deity and therefore a deity and an afterlife are inextricably linked.

As I already said to someone else in this thread already "It doesn't really matter, you should know what I meant if you wanted to contribute anything to answering that question apart from merely criticizing semantics in the first place."

It is possible that we are all evolving, very subtlety, via this form of memory. Of course, as with any memory (and any hologram), it takes lots of reinforcement. The memory is not equally strong in all areas. — Rich

Isn't this what morphic resonance fields are about? Is this a theory that is being explored at all?

Re the view of death that you're referring to--your systems simply stop functioning, so that you lose consciousness cease to exist as a sentient creature, etc., nothing is false about that. It's rather true. — Terrapin Station

But you can't prove consciousness is created within the brain because correlation is not causation. There is no way you can prove that you cease to exist as sentient being at death, that is only your interpretation from what you see when you see a dead body on the floor that used to be your wife/mother/friend/random etc. Because if that person actually went to an afterlife but you never knew about it until the moment of death then you will always be stuck in thinking you are right because there is no evidence to say otherwise.

Cultural atheism, while rejecting theism still clings to most of the same transcendental superstitions and prejudices as judeo-Christianity, superstitions that Immanuel Kant ought to have put to rest via a grammatical banishment of all talk concerning things in themselves. — sime

Can you spell that out a bit more for us? What are these transcendental superstitions and prejudices and talk concerning things in themselves?

Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a God. It says nothing about what happens after death. — Maw

Maybe I should have said materialist instead of God in the thread title but tell me then.. what is an "atheistic view on death"? I know atheism is the rejection of God, but if you reject God then it makes no sense to speak of an afterlife which is different from something like reincarnation. Therefore if you are an atheist, you reject religious concepts of the afterlife too therefore and that is why i decided to use atheism in the title. It doesn't really matter, you should know what I meant if you wanted to contribute anything to answering that question apart from merely criticizing semantics.

it first needs to be established whether there is a meaningful phenomenological or behavioural notion of absolute unconsciousness. Otherwise "there is nothing" cannot be part of a meaningful observation sentence , behavioural sentence or abstract sentence referring to experience, qualia or phenomena. — sime

Exactly! At least if i think what you're saying is correct. Are you saying that we can only know what absolute unconsciousness is from the standpoint of consciousness. If so then we can't ever actually know what absolute unconscious is in totality, just a vague idea of the absence of what we are currently using to talk about what we are currently using or will not be currently using in the future (consciousness).

Well, sound and valid are moot points, because I wouldn't say it's an argument. It's not as if there are premises and a conclusion there with an implication that the conclusion follows from the premises. So question-begging is irrelevant, too.

You're probably reading it too literally, rather than understanding the spirit it was meant in. — Terrapin Station

The quote can be put into syllogism format if you wish.

P: The meaning of life exists
P: We can give our own life meaning by ourselves alone
C: Therefore, The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

What I don't like about the quote is that it assumes there is a meaning or meaning/s that you can place on life if you choose to do so, when in actuality nobody has any meaning to place on an explanation of existence at all (your kids and wife don't fucking count).

I understand the spirit it was meant in, almost as if to say "you control your own destiny, you can make life great if you choose etc." but I wanted to actually analyze it logically to see if it holds up. If an explanation of life doesn't hold up to reason then it is worthless.

Not at all, you have the panpsychist scenario:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-consciousness-universal/ — Babbeus

Yeah, but how many atheists are panpsychists? Come on! They usually subscribe to suspended judgement like agnosticism for a more inquisitive standpoint that is open to new interpretation.

Whats more is that pansychism if worded slightly different is very close to religious belief in deities, IE a universal god mind that is the totality of everything. The only difference here is the word GOD which can mean multiple things and i think someone could even get away with saying they believe in a panpsychist god while still being an atheist (rejecting the conventional, accepted, biblical interpretation of god).

Do we? — Thorongil

Yes because every belief system presupposes without evidence which is therefore "not air tight" airtight=factual and impossible to disprove

Why is this the "atheist perspective?" The denial that God or the gods exist is not to deny that there is "nothing after death," whatever that means. You also misspelled "atheist," which additionally needs an apostrophe to show possession in your sentence. — Thorongil

By definition, atheism rejects God. I said atheism rejects a religious afterlife like that of heaven, it just so happens to be the case that EVERY SINGLE ATHEIST I have ever met also "just happens" to flat out reject any possibility of afterlife whatsoever, so if that is not saying something about the state of minds of people who believe in atheism I don't know what is (IE belief without evidence).

Anyway, all I really wanted to explore is the flaws in believing there is nothing after death and that you exist only in your brain. The only one I can think of is that we don't know what matter is yet or how consciousness emerges... that is quite an explaination gap that ought to hinder any sort of conclusion like what these athiests speak of "when your dead your dead, see?"

I think there's a lot of counterevidence to the ‘nothing happens when you die’-understanding of death.

Consider dreams. I frequently die in my dreams, and yet, here I am still existing.

I’ve dreamed of falling to my death from a great height. I’ve dreamed of being shot to death. I’ve dreamed of drowning to death. I’ve dreamed of being eaten alive by wolves. And yet despite all that, I still exist. I am clearly indestructible.

Since the waking world is a dream, I fully expect to survive my waking death in pretty much the same way I survive my dream deaths. — lambda

Is that all the counterevidence you have? I am trying to find as much as I can but I've got nothing and the one you supplied seems pretty weak. I mean your trying to relate a REM dream state to existence itself, sure there are parallels but they are not equivalent, nor is there any evidence for that the world is a dream or what even follows from that if it was a dream (IE what is beyond the dream? more physical states?)

It's not false - nor is it true. It just unnecessarily eliminates possibilities. But is it correct to say that all atheists have the same view of the life/death cycle? Maybe there are differences? — Rich

Oh yeah, i see your point. I would say all atheist would agree that there is no religious afterlife, as that is how atheism is defined. Furthermore, they would think that because there is no religious afterlife then there is nothing after death and consciousness is created entirely within the brain.

I guess you could say that what is false about atheism in this respect IS that it eliminates possibilities unnecessarily. I was really enquiring though about what is false in believing that there is nothing after death, in other words 'is that a rational position to hold'?

Please post your essay once you are finished with it if you feel comfortable ;)

Is nature the language of maths or are maths a language of nature.

Science can’t answer this one. Neither can mathematics. But I like your question. Either answer, though, can result in quantity holding limitations upon what can be.

Myself, I’m of the opinion that maths are one of the many languages of nature. Nature’s Logos as some used to call it. — javra

I thought nature/reality used mathematics like computers use code. It would seem silly to think the mathematics is fundamental and reality is then built on top of it because where would it exist "fundamentally"?

This sounds similar to the concept of universals and how they have some existence outside of the concepts that "the form" is inhabiting in reality. IE "the perfect triangle exist abstractly even though there are no perfect triangles in reality" I call bs on that.

Somehow we're made to serve the community while still trying to achieve our self-interest. — TheMadFool

Yeah, I guess that's why they invented tax.

The only way I can make sense of this is that human beings are in a transition phase between being solitary predators and group hunters/farmers.

It seems the only reason why we're social animals is that there's safety in numbers. — TheMadFool

Perhaps we are not on the way between anywhere but actually have both instincts encoded in to our genes, that way we can work to suit both environments and indeed there exists both environments in our modern societies. The farmer has to be in solitude as he tends his crop, the CEO has to deal with many interactions while at the same time has a very self-oriented interest.

I just look at how other apes act, it really isn't any difference... which is kind of fucked in a way... but kinda of beautiful too... like no matter how complex this shit is getting, we are still just pure apes at heart and have maintained to be for over 2000 years... u would think in 2000 years psychology would of changed but all that has developed is better methods of dealing with the primitive psychological functions and not re-writing them.

I completely forgot about domination winning mating rights. A big ego does confer survival advantage.

I guess the paradox here is the reverse i.e. why is a big ego a turn-off? — TheMadFool

People don't want to feel inferior, domination = inferiority.

More than that, it is very distasteful when someone breaks a social code like farting at a dinner tables or shouting in a movie theatre...

Maybe this forum needs a "building collapses on annoying person" button. — Bitter Crank

Passive agressive comments that display your psychopathic nature of wanting to murder annoying ppl.

Yes, I agree. For me this really a central issue. Hegel had this phrase that I always come back to: "tarry with the negative." We evolve through collisions with others. At the same time, we have to maintain a certain level of self-esteem so that we don't crash and burn. This is why, in my view, we have to shut out radical threats to our world-view completely. (Spinoza was demonized, for instance, despite his "saintly" life.) It would be too much, too soon. This establishes the necessity of time for growth. But life is short. So it's plausible that some world-views or realizations are closed off for an individual by that individual's starting position in the game. (Digression: I think there's more than one good way to think and live, which is a position that developed in time and not the one I started with. From this perspective, lots of thinkers are chained by the almost unconscious assumption that there's just one path and that it's our job to find and then advertise this single worthy path.) — R-13

(Y)

It's all about context. A general rule like this is just a theoretical exercise that can't hold in real life.

Say you're in a political race and your opponent tells lies to win votes. You're convinced your plans are better for everyone but no matter how often you tell the truth, people believe the lies because they want the lies to be true. Should you not lie and stick to the principle of truth, or lie and clear it up later or lie and leave it at that and get on with the job? I don't think that's a clear cut case.

Or you're a doctor and you discover an epidemic of a dangerous disease in a large city. You haven't been able to pinpoint ground zero and how its vectoring. When asked by a reporter "is there an epidemic?", should you lie to avoid panic causing many people to leave the city (and thereby cause a spread outside the city) or do people deserve the truth? I'm not sure what to do there either. — Benkei

I think many people feel that what you say is true and end up themselves lying in a manner of differing contexts but what inevitably follows is that they get in to more strife.

In the scenarios you gave if honesty was paramount in that picture then it may have likely followed that the opposition failed in his run because everyone saw he was full of lies and then votes you in next because of your honesty, it could also happen that you lied to get in to cabinet and then everyone became aware that you lied and killed you with henbane.

With the disease scenario, the truth should be told to government and military and they act on that info, usually they quarantine the city for you thereby letting the truth be told. If there was no government say, then either choice you made would mean that more people will catch the disease as a result of your choices, because containing people in city in secret means more ppl catch it, letting them flee means more ppl catch it outside of city. Either way our cities are multi-exchanging of scientific knowledge and tech so it wouldn't be that much of a disaster.

I wonder what evolutionary advantage a big ego has? It's a turn-off (unsure) and yet is widely prevalent in the gene pool. — TheMadFool

Well at least in other primate cultures ego=dominance. Unfortunately in human society we have social codes that negate the self-benefits of egotistical behaviour in most circumstances with exception to a few, a la "self-defence in a street fight" - "approaching a woman" and not really efficient in scenarios such as "the workplace" "visiting you grandmother in the retirement home" etc.

What do you mean, why? What sort of answer are you looking for? Do you want an explanation from the angle of developmental psychology about how most people end up that way, or possible evolutionary benefits those traits might provide which could explain their prevalence, or just a description of exactly what in their brain or thought processes causes it?

Of course, if it's any of the above then I can't help since sadly I'm not a scientist in any of those fields. — zookeeper

Why are people not comfortable with in-depth analysis or critique of their character traits and personality unless they feel particularly safe, comfortable and relaxed, trust the other person to not misuse (or misplace) the information?

Why is that for those people whom that sort of thing comes easily means they probably have a way above average likelihood of being somewhere on the autism spectrum?

Pretty standard question responses really. You post a statement that isn't backed by any reasoning or evidence therefore WHY is seems pretty essential if we are to agree what you have said is true. The latter question you pose is appropriate which is "exactly what in their brain or thought processes causes it" except this isn't about brain states exclusively but psychology, experiences etc.

Such a system would only be fair if mistakes were penalized, and authenticity, and justness rewarded... so, you know, if anyone besides me gets liked, then something is wrong with the world. — Wosret

No point talking about it any more, 80% of people dislike it for absurd, irrational and blatantly stupid reasons of which I will not go in to, not because I am not intelligent enough... just because errr I dont have the time.

Isn't this the age old problem known commonly as ''bias''? — TheMadFool

Yeah, and ego.