I agree that’s there’s no deductive proof. I hardly expect to every persuade someone away from an opposing view. Rather I use arguments to increase my own confidence in my beliefs so that they are not unexamined. The best I can hope for is a plausible explanation for reality that in internally consistent and accounts for the majority of phenomena.
Plato is surprisingly good at that. My philosophy 101 class did him poor justice.

Wow, philosophy 101, I took that class in 1978. lol It was Plato that got me interested in philosophy.

You’ve been a philosopher longer than I’ve been living then (I’m 35)
2000 for me, but as a philosophy major we touched on Plato and his forms and then left him in the dust. I spent most of my rest of my time on more modern philosophy. It was a shame. Really it was a Lutheran theology program anyways. Spoon feeding answers.
I picked back my interest in theology and philosophy after gradschool (in an unrelated field of rehab therapy)

Ya, and I was 28 in 1978, so I'm getting up there.

I can relate. I think that's what we all do. We have certain "investments," and we argue with ourselves about "live" options, options that we can tolerate or live with. Some find a certain freedom and even beauty in a monstrous vision of reality that includes our genuine mortality. It makes the world terrible and wonderful, like a "cold" God as found in Job. But for others this just doesn't feel right. So I don't think it's about pure reason. It's a wrestling within one's self.

For me the materialist world view is almost as bad in some ways as a religious view, both tend to be very dogmatic and self-sealing. — Sam26

I agree. I think views are generally dogmatic and self-sealing. I don't relate to materialism myself. To me it's too theoretical, too abstract. It's not "material" enough. It "theorizes" the given. "Matter" is an abstraction. What I believe in is life as I know: people, sunrises, books, hot baths, cold winter winds, etc. These are the primary "givens" over which we paint our abstractions. We say that the experienced object is "really" matter or mind or whatever. But for me it's "really" what it seems to be. Or rather the lifeworld is central and all abstractions are tools within the lifeworld, useful ways of looking at the lifeworld. I'm really enjoying 1920s Heidegger right now, if that provides context.

but what one believes in terms of their world view should hang on the evidence to support the argument. — Sam26

I happen to agree with you, but this does presuppose a worldview in which evidence should be hung on to in order to support arguments. In other words, it presupposes that rationality is virtuous. As philosophers, we are likely to agree to that. I like being able to give an account of my beliefs. But that belief itself is "groundless" or aesthetically grounded.

I couldn't have summed-up the Atheist Materialist world view, and its conclusions and consequences any better than that. — Michael Ossipoff

Really? Lots of atheistic materialist are quite moral. I think of Karl Marx and Ludwig Feuerbach. I can see them, however, from Stirner's perspective. They are essentially pious. All that really changes is that God is incarnated in Humanity. Religion becomes political. The classes society to come replaces Heaven. The revolutionary intellectuals replace the priests. To me what's most interesting is the structure of the "sacred" or of value itself. I say look at the hierarchy implied by the view. Who comes out on top? Who is the hero?

I think of myself as a highly unorthodox Christian, so unorthodox that I look like an atheist. But that's what the cross means, the death of God. And we "take up this cross" by accepting our own mortality and living like dying gods in the world we have. We are no longer beneath the Law that is alien or other than us. "Christ is the end of the Law."

If our minds and indenties are based entirely off physical brain functions that people are naturally greater or lesser quality based on the quality or fiction of these structures and their function. — MysticMonist

The best argument against the mind being brain-function, is that the mind can change brain function. That is one of the key findings of neuro-plasticity. It's also been the subject of much interesting research. Now if changes always flowed from brain>mind, this couldn't happen; as it is, mind>brain changes happen quite frequently.


***
There was an opinion piece published a while back in Scientific American, by physicist (and physicalist) Sean Carroll, called Physics and the Immortality of the Soul. Carroll argues that belief in any kind of life after death is equivalent to the belief that the Moon is made from green cheese - that is to say, ridiculous.

But this assertion is made, I contend, because of the presuppositions that the writer brings to the question. In other words, he depicts the issue in such a way that it would indeed be ridiculous to believe it. But this is because of a deep misunderstanding about the very nature of the issue.

Carroll says:

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

I can think of a straightforward answer to this question, which is that the soul is not 'made of particles'. In fact the idea that the soul is 'made of particles' is not at all characteristic of what is meant by the term 'soul'. (Jains and Stoics both believe in ultra-fine material particles that comprise the soul, or karma, but we'll leave that aside for this argument.)

But I think the soul could more easily be conceived in terms of a biological field that provides an organising principle analogous to the physical and magnetic fields that were discovered during the 19th century, that were found to be fundamental to the behaviour of particles. This is not to say that the soul is a field, but that it might at least be a more fruitful metaphor.

Morphic Fields

Just as magnetic fields organise iron filings into predictable shapes, so too could a biological field effect be responsible for the general form and the persistence of particular attributes of an organism. The question is, is there any evidence of such fields?

Well, the existence of 'morphic fields' is the brainchild of Rupert Sheldrake, the 'scientific heretic' who claims in a Scientific American interview that:

Morphic resonance is the influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent similar structures of activity organized by morphic fields. It enables memories to pass across both space and time from the past. The greater the similarity, the greater the influence of morphic resonance. What this means is that all self-organizing systems, such as molecules, crystals, cells, plants, animals and animal societies, have a collective memory on which each individual draws and to which it contributes. In its most general sense this hypothesis implies that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits.

As the morphic field is capable of storing and transmitting remembered information, then 'the soul' could be conceived in such terms. The morphic field does, at the very least, provide an explanatory metaphor.

Children with Past-Life Memories

But what, then, is the evidence for such effects in respect to 'life after death'? As it happens, a researcher by the name of Ian Stevenson assembled a considerable body of data on children with recall of previous lives. Stevenson's data collection comprised the methodical documentation of a child’s purported recollections of a previous life. Then he identified from journals, birth-and-death records, and witnesses the deceased person the child supposedly remembered, and attempted to validate the facts that matched the child’s memory. Yet another Scientific American opinion piece notes that Stevenson even matched birthmarks and birth defects on his child subjects with wounds on the remembered deceased that could be verified by medical records.

On the back of the head of a little boy in Thailand was a small, round puckered birthmark, and at the front was a larger, irregular birthmark, resembling the entry and exit wounds of a bullet; Stevenson had already confirmed the details of the boy’s statements about the life of a man who’d been shot in the head from behind with a rifle, so that seemed to fit. And a child in India who said he remembered the life of boy who’d lost the fingers of his right hand in a fodder-chopping machine mishap was born with boneless stubs for fingers on his right hand only. This type of “unilateral brachydactyly” is so rare, Stevenson pointed out, that he couldn’t find a single medical publication of another case.

Carroll, again

Carroll goes on in his piece to say that 'Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions (about the persistence of consciousness)'. However, that springs from his starting assumption that 'the soul' must be something physical, which, again, arises from the presumption that everything is physical. In other words, it is directly entailed by his belief in the exhaustiveness of physics with respect to the description of what is real.

He then says 'Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model. Most importantly, we need some way for that "new physics" to interact with the atoms that we do have.'

However, even in ordinary accounts of 'mind-body' medicine, it is clear that mind can have physical consequences and effects on the body. This is the case with, for example, psychosomatic medicine and the placebo effect, but there are many other examples.

He finishes by observing:

Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV.

But that is not what 'most people have in mind'. That is what physicalists have in mind - because that is how physicalists think. If you start from the understanding that 'everything is physical', then this will indeed dictate the way you think about such questions. And it is indeed the case that there is no such 'blob' as Carroll imagines; never has been or will be. That is not what 'spirit' is; but what it is, is something that can't be understood, given the presuppositions you're starting from - although I rather like the German term for it, which is 'geist'.

So the key point of this is to refrain from thinking of the soul an ethereal entity; it's more a process. The Buddhists don't believe in 'soul' as an unchanging essence, but they do accept the reality of re-birth; the key term in Buddhist philosophy is citta santana, which is usually translated as 'mind-stream'; a process, rather than an unchanging essence, but one that hangs together across different lives.

But that belief itself is "groundless" or aesthetically grounded. — t0m

Some beliefs are groundless, but not all beliefs. Many of our beliefs have a causal explanation. I would say that the causal connection between much of what we believe and psychological factors is very strong. Even if we claim to have a strong argument for a particular belief, the psychology of belief can be even more compelling, that is, in terms of why we believe what we do. For example, things like ego, culture, family, friends, religion, politics, world views, and many other narratives, have a much stronger pull on our belief system than we like to admit. Probably much stronger than any argument are these causal factors.

Thanks for the breakdown of the article.
As a Platonist I’m starting to believe all sorts of things that seem ridiculous at first glance.

Carrol seems to also being getting really hung up on the soul as a “thing”. Immaterial means that it can’t be some fine essence or special field or exist in a particular location, since that would be material.
Personally, while I think some aspect of us must be an eternal soul (Plato makes multiple compelling arguments and since I believe in God it pretty much follows) I’m not exactly sure what our soul is comprised of. At the least, it could just be the divine spark within us (God’s illumination itself) combined with the fact that we are eternally known and remembered to God.

I also think karma flows from life to life and karma is a highly misunderstood concept. As you said in Buddhism there is no self and only our karma gets reincarnated. Though the Dali Lama claims to have recollected his past lives but he’s also the supposed incarnation of a bodhisattva. So it’s complicated for sure. So I’ll only this basic understanding. In my life I create karmic energy and attachments thru my deeds. These actions effect everyone else. Once I’m dead the ripples of my deeds continues weather or not I have a seperate soul that’s lifted out of the pool.

I like the idea that only our virtuous parts are immortal. That after or thru death we are purified. So our bases, unilluminated natures are purified away. Take the classic example of Hitler, how much of his life was virtuous? I’ve read he treated his dogs well maybe but he also poisoned them. So in the afterlife, there isn’t much of a virtuous Hitler but there is some like the mere fact he existed. So the Hitler I meet in “heaven” is pretty different than the one on earth (who no longer exists). Rather, a holy saint will be less changed and the old parts of him/her will delight in having been refined. Complete repentance would also be purifying..

I also think karma flows from life to life and karma is a highly misunderstood concept. — MysticMonist

You bet. Actually the nature of re-birth is highly contentious on Buddhist forums itself, threads about it often get locked. I don't think anyone really understands it until attaining real insight into the chain of dependent origination. But it's a definite error to believe there's a literal entity that transmigrates from life to life. I think, again, that is the inveterate tendency of the mind to project qualities and attributes onto things and people. This is where Buddhism is radically different to Aristotelian metaphysics - it denies the entire schema of 'substance and attribute'.

As someone who is very interested in both Platonism and Buddhism, this can create some cognitive dissonance. After all, The Apology is all about 'the state of the soul', and this is just what the Buddha appears to deny. But these conceptions occur in two radically separated domains of discourse. (Although, incidentally, Buddhists don't deny hell - the Buddhist hells in traditional literature are numerous and ghastly, although they're not eternal.)

In any case, you're right, that the physicalist error is to reify anything and everything. It's considerably more subtle than they could imagine.

This is an interesting NDE of someone who has been blind since birth. Listen to how she describes her NDE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyQJDZuMHE

Second NDE of blind person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA8L9W7KiOo

But these conceptions occur in two radically separated domains of discourse. (Although, incidentally, Buddhists don't deny hell - the Buddhist hells in traditional literature are numerous and ghastly, although they're not eternal.) — Wayfarer

Re: the hell stuff. It's curious how misrepresented Buddhism appears in the west, especially by Harris and Blackmore. I suspect the 'hell' stuff and all elements of the supernatural are disregarded by most of them.

See this article relevant to this thread (I was searching Blackmore and her argument against AP ect):

https://www.near-death.com/science/articles/dying-brain-theory.html

I have practiced Zen now for nearly twenty years. At the heart of this practice are the ideas of letting go, of non-attachment, and of no-self. The idea is not that there is no self at all, but that the self is not what we commonly think it is. ‘I' am not a persisting entity separate from the world, but a flowing, ephemeral, ungraspable part of that world. As anyone who has had a mystical experience knows, everything is one. I think those lessons, and many more, were thrust upon me in that original experience. They gave me not only an academic desire to understand strange experiences but the motivation and insight to pursue a spiritual life.

As happens with many NDErs, my experiences and my research have taken away the fear of death, not because I am convinced that 'I' will carry on after this body dies, but because I know there is no one to die, and never was. If others, like ZipZap, disagree that is their prerogative. All any of us can do is seek the truth to the best of our ability, and - even if that truth turns out to be quite different from what we hoped or expected - to accept it when we find it. — Blackmore

As someone who is very interested in both Platonism and Buddhism, this can create some cognitive dissonance. — Wayfarer

Absolutely! I am in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance.
There is one very important common ground between Plato and Zen though which is awareness of one’s ignorance. I love how Socrates is the wisest because he knows he does not know and is adept at pointing out the ignorance of others.
Seung Sahn is a Korean zen teacher, now passed, whose focuses on the not knowing mind.

can't differ with anything said in that piece, but you’re right in guessing I’m not a Sam Harris fan. Those are aspects of the ‘secular Buddhism’ debate. The secular Buddhists want to divest Buddhism of what they see as the religious trappings, the traditional Buddhists think the secular Buddhists are a Trojan Horse trying to smuggle scientific materialism into Buddhism. (I lean towards the traditionalists.) Interestingly, Sam Bercholz, who started Shambhala Publications, one of the largest Buddhist publishers in the US, had a near-death experience. He didn't see the white light, in fact he had a vision of hell, which he described in his recent book A Guided Tour of Hell.

I know Seung Sahn. That aspect of Zen is indeed very Socratic.

.

can't differ with anything said in that piece, but you’re right in guessing I’m not a Sam Harris fan. Those are aspects of the ‘secular Buddhism’ debate. The secular Buddhists want to divest Buddhism of what they see as the religious trappings, the traditional Buddhists think the secular Buddhists are a Trojan Horse trying to smuggle scientific materialism into Buddhism. (I lean towards the traditionalists.) Interestingly, Sam Bercholz, who started Shambhala Publications, one of the largest Buddhist publishers in the US, had a near-death experience. He didn't see the white light, in fact he had a vision of hell, which he described in his recent book A Guided Tour of Hell. — Wayfarer

The writer in the piece generally (in her Dennett articles or when she is reviewing global workspace theory) denies there is a such a thing as a stream of consciousness or a time when things come together to complete a person. She's also a materialist monist and so reminds me most of Harris' (imo vile) free will article where he says that if you switched atoms with Joshua Komisarjevsky you would be that person.
I know little about Buddhism, but the hell description surprised me in that it would seem to necessarily entail an individual subject that experiences consequences after death. I know less about Secular Buddhism but from the very brief article I read, it sounds something that is occurring in the west since the Enlightenment. I will look into it more when I have time.

The following numbered posts are going to be my views of reality based on NDE testimonials, that is, where I believe the evidence leads.
Post #1

I'm going to try to give those of you who are interested the best picture I can of what we are experiencing in this reality, that is, what is it all about. I'm also going to divide my degree of certainty from between 1 and 5. Five being the most certain, and one being the least certain. However, even the 1 will be based on some testimonial evidence. I'm estimating here, but the degree of certainty of a 1 is about 50-60%, 2 is 60-70%, 3 is 70-80%, 4 is 80-90%, and finally 5 is 90-99%. I will also speculate about some things, but even the speculation will be based on some evidence, however, it will be lower than a 1, but not zero evidence. So if there is a number attached to a statement, that number will reflect how certain I think I am about the statement. Keep in mind that even a number 1 is based on thousands and thousands of testimonials. A number 5 is based on millions of testimonial reports. My sampling is around 4000, so I'm extrapolating.

Before going on let me say a few things about why I'm not putting much stock in religious interpretations. After examining the testimonials across many cultures I have found, and many others who have examined the evidence have found, that, for example, if someone sees a being of light, they will probably interpret the being of light as some religious figure. So it's not that they didn't see a being, but that their interpretation of that being tends to be conflated with their religious and/or cultural beliefs (degree of certainty is 4-5). Those of you who are trying to fit NDEs into your religious views are doing, in my opinion, a disservice to the testimonials.

Post #2

Let me give an example of how I interpreted some of the testimonials about hell. I do this to give you an idea of how I examined these testimonials, which can be based as much on what is said, as opposed to what is not said.

As I said in post #1 how we interpret what we see is often influenced by religious and cultural biases. Thus someone who feels fear or is in a dark place may feel they're in hell. Keep in mind that negative reports, or negative NDEs are a small portion of the total NDEs, most are positive. Moreover, out of the portion of negative reports, an even smaller percentage are hell like. However, there is more to this than it just being a small percentage of the reports. For example, what's not said to people who have these experiences, or even to those who don't have hell like experiences, is that you're in danger of going to hell. You would think that people who see loved ones who have died, or even other beings that display love to a much higher degree than is felt here, that there would be some warning that you're in danger of hell. I see no such warnings, even when people are given a life review, that is, the life review is non-judgmental. Furthermore, people are seeing their deceased loved ones who were atheists or non-believers (non-Christian for e.g.) in a state of love and joy that belies the notion of eternal damnation. So what's my degree of certainty that there isn't a hell, like the one described by Christians? At least a 4-5.

Post #3

So why are we here? The question that comes to my mind is, why do we choose to come to a place like this? Imagine a place where there is very little or even no pain. Also imagine a place where the relationships we have with others is far superior to anything we can experience here. Where our access to knowledge is unimaginably superior to what we have here. A place where communication is mind-to-mind, with probably little chance of any misunderstandings. A place where love is not limited to a few people you know, but is accessed and shared amongst many billions of persons. The intensity of the love and other positive emotions is not only shared on a scale unimaginable here, but you also seem to have access to it in ways we don't have here. In a sense it's the perfect place to live, and it's our home, where we reside, possibly as being of pure light, united into a sea of pure consciousness, or pure mind (my certainty of us being beings of pure consciousness or mind is around 1, maybe lower).

Now imagine that you have access to an unlimited source of realities or universes that you can exist in, and that you can experience almost anything you can imagine, by choosing to enter those realities. However, you hear of a reality that's really tough, that if you go there you won't remember where you're from, and that you'll have very limited knowledge. You will also be able to choose a body that will limit you in many other ways. Moreover, you choose to come with people and friends you know, so it's a kind of collective experience. This place is very similar to a holographic program, and as a human in the program you will get to experience something that's very foreign to you, i.e., pain. Being in the bodies we choose will make you susceptible to all sorts of painful experiences. You're told that it's going to be an extremely difficult life, but you'll get to choose various narratives to live out, and even choose how and when you will die. You may choose to live out a particular religious narrative, atheistic narrative, scientific narrative, family narrative, etc. Much of what you experience in this reality will be pre-planned, but you will be free to respond within these narratives based on your limited knowledge of right and wrong, and based on your limited bodily abilities. So you have some freedom of choice, but not complete freedom. Furthermore what we choose to experience doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what we want to experience, but with what others may want to experience. So we may come just to help others have certain kinds of experiences (most of the ideas in this paragraph fall between 3 and 4 on the certainty scale).

I'm going to speculate a bit more, and I have little to no evidence that this is the case. If this is indeed a giant holographic program or reality, then it might be the case that some of the people in the program aren't even real, they're just part of the program. And why not, because one of the ways to control the program would be by controlling some of the entities within the program. Maybe even some people are completely aware of what's going on, that is, they're just playing a part in the program.

Finally, there is no one reason why we come here. Instead there are many reasons why we choose to come here. First, we gain experiential knowledge of what it's like to be human, and we test ourselves in ways we've never been tested before.

Wayfarer & MysticMonist—
.
(I wrote this in Word, and I didn’t want to post it till I got it the way I wanted it. But I don’t know if I’ve really neatened it up enough. But I was fairly careful and conscientious about that.)
.
I try not to be, and don’t want to seem, dogmatically “know-it-all” or overconfident in my metaphysical claims, but I think that if there are or might be metaphysical certainties, then they’re worth considering.
.
1. MysticMonist—
.
Regarding your post about disadvantageous births, bodily-injury, and fairness, as relates to Materialism vs souls:
.
Materialism is a grim, pseudoscientific, fraudulent accountant, and its account of what happens to us is dire, as you described.
.
In contrast:
.
The Idealism that I’ve been proposing, an Eliminative Ontic Structural Anti-Realism, implies an openness, looseness and lightness.
.
There needn’t be any solid, concrete, objective basis for physical “reality”.
.
(Of course I’m not claiming that that’s original)
.
Experience is metaphysically primary (I understand that some have reasonably spoken of “Will” as the basic component of experience). What would a physical world or even abstract facts and objects mean without experiencers?
.
A possibility-world and its component abstract facts obtain for someone. …a life-experience possibility-story is about someone’s experience.
.
The Materialist fraudulent accountant says that life and whatever is good is a commodity in limited supply.
.
No, Life is timelessly there, for, relevant to, in relation to, and because of us.
.
As for death, we can all agree that it’s like going to sleep. A well-deserved rest and peace & quiet. For one thing, that’s an end to whatever ordeals we had in life, and the experience ends with peaceful rest. That’s another thing that we can all agree with.
.
There’s nothing wrong with going to sleep—It happens daily.
.
Of course, as Shakespeare pointed out, sleep has dreams, and the experiential details are another question. …one that we probably can’t know for sure (When we get there, we’re too unconscious (lacking in waking-consciousness) to know that we’ve found out). We needn’t agree on the experiential details in the sleep at the end of a life.
.
It’s now known that we don’t remember most dreams—only the ones that occur at or near the time when we wake up. And, in those dreams, we don’t know that there’s this waking-life.
.
That’s experience that we don’t remember, during which we didn’t know about our waking life. …suggesting caution in ruling-out metaphysically-implied experiences after death.
.
No one would deny that this life is temporary. Our experience is Timeless—a statement that I’ve justified in various posts to these forums.
.
The NDEs are early immediate after-death experiences, but I’m referring to later experiences.
.
I suggest (I’ve talked about it in other topics) that probably it usually leads to a next life, because obviously, whatever is the reason for this life starting, and if that reason remains later, then what does that suggest?
.
Just a plausible suggestion.
.
I’ve posted at length about that in other topic-threads.
.
…and also about the Timelessness at the end of lives. No one ever reaches “oblivion”, or the time when the body is entirely shut-down and no longer supports experience, perception or awareness. Only your survivors will experience that time.
.
I suggest that, at the end of lives, shortly before complete body-shutdown and fully complete unconsciousness, of course there already isn’t waking-consciousness, and the person, at that late stage of shutdown, is far past any knowledge or memory regarding life, identity, time or events, or that there could even be such things. …and has reached Timelessness.
.
Eastern traditions suggest that very few people get that far into the shutdown at the end of their life, because, before that stage of shutdown, while their unconscious life-related inclinations and feelings (including “Will”) remain, those remaining life-inclinations mean that they’re in a life-experience story. …the beginning of one, because those subconscious life inclinations, feelings and identity are an early beginning experience in a life.
.
But I admit that those end-of-life experience suggestions are speculative. All that we can agree on for sure is that the end of a life is like going to sleep.
.
So I’ll just emphasize something that’s more certain—the lightness, open-ness, and looseness of metaphysical reality.
.
…a metaphysical reality without lack, final loss, or some sort of limited supply—There’s nothing concretely, objectively existent anyway.
.
…in contrast to the pessimistic, closed, and grim account that we’ve always been told.
---------------------------------------------------------
2. Wayfarer & Mystic Monist—
.
You spoke of spirit and soul. Are you referring to a Dualism or an Idealism? I think that, contrary to the poll-result, most people here are Idealists (as am I).
.
I regard Experience (some people emphasize “Will”) as metaphysically primary, but I don’t think that’s inconsistent with my claim that the animal (including the person) is unitary and can’t be divided into mind and body, soul and body, or spirit and body.
.
I claim that there’s a principle of complentarity or correspondence, such that even though experience and experiencer are metaphysically primary--nonetheless, in the physical story, the experiencer is the body, the animal, part of the physical world that is the setting for the life-experience possibility-story. It can be discussed either way. I mean, how could it not be, if the experience-story is to be consistent?
.
With respect to the “physical story” (the account in terms of the physical world), I’ve defined “experience” as a purposefully-responsive device’s surroundings & events, in the context of that purposefully-defined device’s built-in purposes (“Will”), with any acquired modifications.
.
That different description of experience, from a different point-of-view, the “physical story” point of view, isn’t inconsistent with taking experience as metaphysically primary.
.
Soul, Consciousness, Mind or Sprit could just be another word for Experiencer, in which case I don’t disagree with those terms.
.
So is it reasonable to suggest that the Soul, Conscious or Spirit that you’ve both referred to could just be another word for Experiencer?
.
The purposefully responsive device (animal, in our case) that we are, and our surroundings, are the possibility-world that is the setting for our life-experience possibility-story. But that experience is metaphysically primary. Or it could be said that we, the experiencer, are primary…as that animal. The animal and its experience are metaphysically prior to its surroundings, a possibility-world, that (in the physical story) produced it, and of which it’s made.
.
I’ve never understood what Buddhist metaphysics was saying, and evidently there are many mutually-contradictory versions. For example I don’t know what it means to say that there isn’t anyone. But it’s true that there’s no one for things to happen to. We, as a purposefully-responsive device, have our hereditary and acquired preferences and purposes that we pursue. Of course that includes doing our best to protect ourselves and to last as long as possible. But if we’re doing that, and doing our best at it, then whatever else happens isn’t our fault. We’re here to do our best. That’s it. We aren’t here for things to happen to. Adverse things that “happen to us” are part of the score-keeping narrative, but our purposes are only about a whole other subject—pursuing our purposes, including self-preservation, as well as we can.
.
You find suggestions about that in various Eastern writings, about our effort, not the outcome, being what we’re about. …and about the fact that there’s a meaningful sense in which dealing with something nullifies it.
.
In fact, it’s also said on a familiar “Desiderata” wall-plaque.
.
Maybe we can learn something from simpler, manmade, purposefully-responsive devices: A mousetrap, thermometer or refrigerator light-switch doesn’t care if it goes out of commission and ceases to exist. Its job and sole concern was just to fulfill its built-in purpose while possible. It isn’t wired for an unreasonable insistence on survival.
.
Maybe it was natural-selection-adaptive for us to always have a strong wish to survive and thrive, even when it’s impossible, and our time is past—just so that we’d make ourselves survive if there turned out to be even the slightest unexpected opportunity. I suggest, and I think it’s been suggested before, that it’s sometimes better to overcome that instinctive inclination, when it’s causing unnecessary unhappiness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
And, as I’ve described elsewhere, the life-experience possibility-story and its possibility-world-setting are hypothetical systems of inter-referring if-then facts about hypotheticals.
.
I’ve been criticized for claiming that those abstract logical facts, and the complex inter-referring systems of them that are our experience-stories and possibility-worlds, are inevitable.
.
But how could they not be? The abstract facts are just inevitably “there”, aren’t they? …at least subject to there being someone to experience them.
.
So how could those abstract facts, and complex systems of them (among the infinity of which there must inevitably be one whose events and relations match those of our physical universe), not be?
.
Unlike with MUH, I’m not saying that such a possibility-world has relevance or meaningful existence without observers/experiencers. I’ve said that Experience and Experiencer are primary.
.
So, nothing that I’m claiming conflicts with what you’ve said about Spirit, Soul, Mind, Consciousness.
.
I’ve been saying that all of it is an inevitable system of inter-referring inevitable logical relational facts about hypotheticals. But I’ve probably overstated that case a bit, by making it sound as if logical if-then facts about hypotheticals are metaphysically fundamental and primary.
.
But of course the physical world--a logical-system--and the abstract logical facts of which it consists, wouldn’t mean anything without observers, experiencers. Some say that’s even true of abstract logical facts and other abstract objects, and that statement makes sense to me. They “are”, as part of our experience.
.
So we’re really the center of our whole life-experience possibility-story and its setting. It’s centered on, and about, our experience. …as a system consistent with our experience. With no one to notice those logical facts and other abstract objects, they wouldn’t have meaning. That’s a familiar position, of course. What would it mean to say that there could be a universe or a logical system without anyone to experience it?
.
But even though we and our experience are primary, and though we’re the “why” of our physical world, I like it that the “how” isn’t in question. The “how” needn’t be asked, because the experience-story and its possibility-world are inevitable complex logical systems, whose existence (at least subject to there being experiencers) doesn’t need any explanation..
.
Maybe that’s why Nisargadatta once said that we didn’t create our world, but we’re the reason for its meaning and relevance.
.
We’re the “why” of our life-experience story, but it and its possibility-world, as a system of inevitable logical facts, doesn’t need a “how” (or is it’s its own “how”) .
.
So I’m suggesting that the metaphysics that I’ve been proposing is consistent with your statements, and also doesn’t leave any “how” questions.
.
So I claim that there’s knowable inevitable metaphysics, and that definite things can be said, with certainty, about metaphysics.
.
That’s just metaphysics though. I don’t agree with Tegmark that such a metaphysics is an explanation of Reality. Physics and metaphysics are only each about a limited aspect, domain or subset of Reality.
.
Regarding what you mentioned about God and justice—I don’t use the word justice, but many feel that there’s goodness in what is, and a reason for gratitude, and there’s a feeling that there’s good intent behind the goodness of what is.
.
Michael Ossipoff

I''m not saying that Experience or Experiencer is a metaphysical substance or entity that exists, independently of anything else, without explanation.

But, as we all know, it's the sine qua non, in order for a world to have meaning or relevance.

We experiencers arise as part of the possibility-world that is the setting for our life-experience possibiity-story ...a world consisting of inevitable abstract facts. (But those facts might not be so inevitable without us)

So we don't have independent existence, independent of our world. It's just that it would't mean anything without us. And, arguably, speaking of the abstract facts, themselves, wouldn't be meaningful without experiencers.either.

...a world dependent for meaning on something that is part of it and arises in it..Circular, but that's ok.

We're a part and result of a world that wouldn't be meaningful or relevant without us.

Isn't it true?:A universe wouldn't exist or be real in any meaningful or relevant sense without someone to experience it?

A logical system seems a little less dependent on us. We can speak of a logical system without observers, but if there really weren't any, {i]then[/i] who'd talk about it?

So a universe, and maybe even a logical system, has to be relevant to someone. In that way, experiencers are at the top if the reality hierarchy--even if we're a result and product of a possibiity-world. That's why I called experiencers and experience metaphysically primary.

Sure, by "relevant" I mean "relevant to someone", and so a universe isn't relevant to someone unless there's someone--That's a tautology (and circular?). That's ok, isn't it? It's ok with me :)

All this has a tenuous and wispy sort of reality/existence, and that's ok too.

Michael Ossipoff

Sure, by "relevant" I mean "relevant to someone", and so a universe isn't relevant to someone unless there's someone--That's a tautology (and circular?). — Michael Ossipoff

Ii guess what I meant by that was just that, when I said that having us (experiencers) makes a universe more relevant....to us....

...that sounds a bit animal-chauvinistic.

"Alright", said the Giraffe, "then let's just say the one with the longest neck gets all the jellybeans."

I don't suppose it makes sense to declare an absolute official standard for a universe's existence/realness, based on whether it has us (or someone like us). Maybe philosophy should be more objective than that.

But, where there are experiencers (us), then of course it makes sense to define their (our) world as centered around them (us),.. because that's the nature of experience.

...justifying my emphasis on life-experience possibility-stories.

It's inevitable and natural that, among the infinitely-many possibility-worlds, there will be experiencers. We're natural and inevitable.

We and our experience naturally seem like everything, to us.

Michael Ossipoff

You guys are taking the thread in a different direction. I was looking at the evidence based on NDEs, and where the evidence leads.

Post #4

Continuing with where I believe the evidence leads (post #1 starts on page 9 of this thread).

Whether one agrees with my claim that consciousness doesn't reside in the brain or not, one thing seems clear, and that is, there are levels of consciousness. And it also seems clear that it would follow that there would be similarities between moving from one level of consciousness to another level of consciousness. It also seems very clear that the fact that there are levels of consciousness is not in itself evidence that consciousness doesn't reside in the brain. However, taken together with NDE accounts, it seems very probable that consciousness is not dependent on brain function or brain activity, that is, it's certainly reasonable to make this inference. Moreover, my argument is dependent on the veracity of the testimonials, and as far as I understand this is the only credible evidence that demonstrates that consciousness is not brain dependent.

Although the main contention of this thread is to demonstrate that there are good reasons to conclude that consciousness doesn't reside in the brain, and that this is the strongest conclusion one can make based on the testimonials. However, in these numbered posts I also believe that there are other conclusions one can make based on the testimonials, but that most of the conclusions aren't as likely or as probable as the conclusion that consciousness is not brain dependent.

This particular post will reiterate the importance, I believe, of comparing a level of consciousness that we are all aware of, with what happens in an NDE. In particular what happens when moving from a lower level of consciousness to a higher level, and conversely, moving from a higher level of consciousness to a lower level of consciousness. So the analogy I'm speaking of is the analogy between dream states and waking states, and waking states and NDEs. We know, for example, that moving into a dream state is moving from a higher level of awareness to a lower level of awareness. We also know that in lower levels of consciousness we don't have full access to our waking sensory experiences, nor do we have full access to our waking memories, and it would also follow that don't have access to our waking knowledge. It's also important to note that the passage of time is distorted, at least the way time is perceived. For example, in dream states we may perceive that many minutes have passed, when in fact, it was only seconds. This distortion is also seen when moving from waking states to the experience of an NDE. When moving into an NDE the passage of time seems much slower than what we normally experience, that is, it appears that in NDEs we perceive to have been there much longer. For example, many NDErs report that it seemed like years, decades, even centuries passed while they were there. Of course when they come back into this reality only minutes, hours, or days have passed. The conclusion seems to indicate that the passage of time in lower states of consciousness seem much longer than they actually are. Dream states are shorter in duration when compared to waking reality, and waking reality is shorter in duration when compared to an NDE.

So if NDEs are higher levels of consciousness we should find that the experiences have very similar effects. When moving from dream states to waking states our sensory experiences are definitely heightened, our memories are more complete, our knowledge is more complete, and the passage of time changes. NDErs report these very same things, and this it seems to me adds to the veracity of the reports. How? I doubt that any of the NDErs would know the correlation between these states of consciousness, yet their reports conform to these perceptual changes. For example, they report that they have heightened sensory perceptions. Their are many vision reports that talk about expanded vision, colors that they have never seen before, and there is some evidence that the blind are able to see while in an NDE. There are also many reports of knowledge being expanded, and memories returning. This is what should happen based on what we know about moving into higher states of consciousness, that is, we have an example of this when moving from dream states to waking states.

So the analogy I'm speaking of is the analogy between dream states and waking states, and waking states and NDEs. We know, for example, that moving into a dream state is moving from a higher level of awareness to a lower level of awareness. — Sam26

This idea of absolute or relative "levels of awareness" sounds highly implausible given the close correspondence of OBEs, NDEs and lucid dreaming and how each supposedly distinct category of experience lacks any essential identifier, with examples of each 'category' spanning the conceivable spectrum of conscious experience, each example emphasising different sensory modalities and parts of volitional agency, language processing, attention and memory , that aren't always amplified or attenuated in the same direction.

You guys are taking the thread in a different direction. I was looking at the evidence based on NDEs, and where the evidence leads. — Sam26

I claim that the only support for there being reincarnation comes from implication from metaphysics.

NDE reports are very compelling evidence of experiences at the beginning of death. ...experience-reports that strongly suggest that (non-suicide) death isn't a bad thing at all, when it's time for it.

I've read lots of NDE reports, and I haven't encountered one that reports about lives before the one that's ending. If those reports are rare, then they don't share the compellingness and convincingness of the many, many other NDE reports.

There's probably reincarnation, because it's metaphysically-implied. But there's no convincing testimonial evidence for it. Nor can there be, based on metaphysical considerations, and metaphysical support for claims.

And there's no metaphysical explanation or support for a claim that people can remember past lives.

But what's the difference? Why would it be important whether or not people remember past lives?

Michael Ossipoff

Those testimonial reports about past-lives, where people report details of a past life, which are later confirmed by records-checking, aren't convincing. Here's why:

The available historical-records, by which those reports are checked, are also available to a hoaxer, or an impressionable kid, or a subconsciously-coaching parent.

What would be proof? Howabout if someone reported a past-life that's in our future, so that future events can solidly, irrefutably confirm the past-life report.
---------------------------------
I suggest that reincarnation is metaphysically-implied, but the past-life reports have explanations other than the reported past-lives

Michael Ossipoff

The anti-metaphysical stance of verificationism suggests that the most logical position on the "afterlife" is that of a soulless immortality that results by judging both "mortality" and "immortality" to be metaphysically inapplicable concepts that are empirically trivial in pertaining only to empirical matters of behaviour decided by convention:

1) Verificationism is anti-realist about time, since the meaning of "past" and "future" reduces to present empirical conditions pertaining to their assertion. Hence all observed change could be said to occur within a non-moving present that can only be said to exist 'in a manner of speaking'.

2) Verificationism is behaviourist concerning "life" and "death" since these concepts are reduced to their empirical criteria of assertion which pertain only to observed biological behaviour in observed persons and other organisms.

Hence for verificationism it would appear impossible in virtue of 1 and 2 to talk meaningfully about the life or death of a literal "first-person" owner of experience, except in the sense of a fictional person that we know of as the "first-person" or "empirical ego" which pertains only to an idea of the imagination that is derived from the publicly verified meaning of "living person" by way of analogy.

Stevenson spent nearly 30 years on those cases, and dismissed many of them, wherever he thought there was coaxing or manipulation. He was well aware of hoaxes and manipulations. But it is true that it makes many people much more comfortable to believe they can simply be dismissed on such a basis, so if it does that for you, then by all means believe it.

Sam, pardon the criticism, but I'm quite curious about something. How does it make sense to put explanations in terms of likelihood of being true?

I mean, in order to determine the likelihood of an event actually occurring, one must first know the number of possible outcomes and all the influencing factors of determination. What is an explanation about what happens to our mind/consciousness after death if not an explanation of a possible outcome?