[T]here would be no empirical way of knowing whether the entity was conscious or faking. — Wayfarer

Same with us, no? There also is "no empirical way of knowing" (yet / ever) whether any person is "conscious or faking". Which seems more reasonable, or likely, to you, Wayfarer (or anyone): (A) every human is a zombie with a(n involuntary) 'theory of mind'? or (B) every entity is a 'conscious' monad necessarily inaccessible / inexplicable to one another's 'subjectivity'? or (C) mind is a 'mystery' too intractable for science, even in principle, to explain? or (D) mind is a near-intractably complex phenomenon that science (or AGI) has yet to explain? :chin:

How about Freddy's eternal return – an "afterlife" of This Life lived over again and again and again ... ad infinitum:

https://philosophynow.org/issues/137/Eternal_Recurrence_Revisited

Today in Trumpenfreude:

The old fat orange f*cker's latest grift – launched during Holy Week no less – is a $60 "Trump Bible" for gullible, faux-Christian, "Trump sneakers"-wearing MAGA cultists. You can't make this stooopid stuff up. :lol:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-god-bless-usa-bible-greenwood-2713fda3efdfa297d0f024efb1ca3003

*Biden-Harris 2024* :cool:

What do you expect from me as I am a psychonaut, so I see myself and others as being spirit. — Jack Cummins

Same as every other member of TPF, Jack, I expect from you what I expect from myself: good reasoning and valid arguments rather than unwarranted opinions or superstitions which are more suited for social media gossip than rational discussions. So you're just a "psychonaut" :sparkle: and not a (non-academic) philosopher?

Maybe this will interest you, Jack; maybe not ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/891620

:lol:

... somewhere in the middle of that Idealism---Realism range ... — Gnomon

Clarify, if you can, why you believe "Idealism and Realism" are disparate conceptual positions on a continuum which are different by degrees rather than different in kind.

:up:

However, there does appear to be an essential lifeforce, like the spark of consciousness or animation. — Jack Cummins

"Appear" to whom? Like aether, phlogiston, qi ... elan vital has been debunked as a "force" or "energy", so are you speaking metaphorically? The philosophical significance of "essential lifeforce" is lost on an Epicurean/Spinozist like me.

As for FOX News and MAGA, I'm not American, I don't live in the US. — boethius

And you are entitled to your conspicuously uninformed, spectator's opinion, sir/mam. :victory:

The only "commonalities" I can discern in the many prevailing "afterlife" scenarios is that they are completely unwarranted substance dualities and anthropic idealized immortality schemes – wishful thinking (i.e. too good to be true)! And, in the main, belief in "the hereafter" tends to devalue here & now both morally (e.g. theodicy, martyrdom) and politically (e.g. "evangelical" climate change denialism).

Fortunately, Loser-1 won't win the 2024 election. Already an adjudicated rapist, he'll be a convicted felon, effectively broke & out-of-business by this fall with five more civil laws suits for "January 6th" pending (maybe 1-2 will be underway) and 2-3 criminal trials to follow in 2025 (not counting more 2020 Election Interference indictments to drop in Arizona & Michigan). :clap: :party:

I don't believe that 'mind' can be reduced to psychology, because it is at the core of human existence. — Jack Cummins

I agree but for a contrary reason: I think body is "at the core of human existence" and that "mind" is a description, in part, for what our bodies – brains – mostly involuntarily do (i.e. our 'subjective' way of talking about ourselves and others). Just as 'existence precedes essence' in existentialism, body enables-constrains mind is the basis of embodied philosophy (but given your more 'esoteric' preferences, you"ve ignored for years the links and lists I've offered, Jack, so I won't bother referring to them again) that deflates or eliminates reliance on 'folk psychology' (i.e. dis-embodied subject (soul) ... and the prevailing apologia e.g. psychoanalysis, psychotherapy ... Husserlian phenomenology, Kantian/Hegelian idealism, Cartesian dualism, Platonism). I suppose my stubborn anti-supernaturalist bias is why I can't grok subjectivist (or spiritualist) conceptions of "mind". :sparkle: :eyes:

update:

From a 2023 thread Consciousness question ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/756241

If determinism is true, then we are determined to assign moral culpability to whomever we think is "actually" morally culpable. There cannot be a vantage point for us outside of this causal nexus to differentiate right or wrong about assigning "actual moral culpability". That distinction has no meaning if determinism is the case.

If hard determinism is true, then no one is morally culpable — Truth Seeker

On the contrary: if determinism is true, then we are determined to assign moral culpability to everyone (i.e. beings like ourselves at least).

I read it. You make statements but not a valid argument for your assertion that

we should expect an afterlife that plays closer to our ideals than the aforementioned bottomless pit of fire - or an arbitrary eternity in heaven. — ToothyMaw

As far as I can tell, there's no more reason "we should expect" this than e.g. my 'reliving ancestral lives' scenario. I thought I was responding to your speculative fantasy with my own. I'd replied previously (here ) to @Tom Storm's more philosophically interesting questions about the "afterlife" which maybe you've missed.

Btw, I have two arguments for the "afterlife" – one based on N. Bostrom's "Simulation Hypothesis" and another based on pandeism – but I'll be offline for next few hours so, if you're interested, I'll post them both later.

You want an argument for the proposition 'there is an afterlife?'

Why is it not relevant? Your OP is speculating on fantasy, isn't it? Not sarcasm either.

It seems more reasonable to me than the inverse that mathematics was/is invented and that applications for it were/are discovered.

Death sends one back to relive one's father's life or mother's life until he or she dies sending one back again to father's or mother's father or mother (one's grandfather or grandmother) reliving again and dying again ... back and back through hundreds and thousands of generations ... to witness those 'inner lives' like lucid dreams yet unable to change anything ... perhaps eventually (mercifully?) losing oneself in the torrential flood of ancestral memories ... finally(?) reliving the life of one's species' common ancestor and then having to choose (for that primordial creature) whether to breed offspring and die or not to breed offspring and live forever.

update – For coherence sake, maybe this "afterlife" only happens to those who have outlived at least one parent and have died childless.

Clarify what are you asking about – I don't see the relevance.

[N]umbers are real but not material... — Wayfarer

... except whenever they are instantiated.

What do you imagine were some of the attributes of this deity? — Tom Storm

I think pandeus is unimaginable.

Did it have anything approaching a 'personality'?

No (à la: Spinoza's substance or Epicurus' void or Laozi's dao).

Or is it more of a metaphoric entity?

A metaphysical entity.

:up:

"Fantasy" is what we make out of the "reality" we find, no?

:100:

Don't sulk ...

Cite a 'supernatural-Y' that (testably) explains some natural-X. — 180 Proof

Speculatively, as a pandeist ...

What would it mean to be without being? — Tom Storm

I suppose it means "to be without being" a being.

What would we do without all the physicalisms that make up human identity?

I suppose one wouldn"t be "human" any longer ... like a butterfly is no longer a caterpillar after chrysalis.

How would our consciousness, with is shaped by being embodied, adjust to a new nonphysical realm, I wonder?

I suppose "our consciousness" is merely a drop in the ocean of being.

Is the afterlife non-physical or is it just physical somewhere else?

I suppose "afterlife" might be a physical phase-state (of higher dimensions?) that physical scientists have not discovered yet. :smirk:

:lol: I'm not even a "liberal" (or member of the Democratic Party). Pro tip: stop disinforming yourself with FOX Noise (or other MAGA media).

Again, here's an undisputable Conservative, ex-GOP campaign consultant/operative you (& @NOSA2) can learn something from (other than "alternative facts") ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/890305

Just as the Covid-19 exposed the failings of the US for-profit public health-HMO-pharmaceutical-industrial complex, every delay bought & paid for by Criminal Defendant / Insurrectionist / Fraudster / Rapist / Defamer / electoral Loser-1 exposes the systemic failings of the US judiciary & law enforcement. :mask:

:roll: Wrong again. Andronikos titled the collection Metaphysics 300 years after Aristotle's death, not "100 years".

By after physics , he meant that it is beyond the physical one or comes after the physical. — Abhiram

Wrong. Apparently you didn't read (or understand) the links I've provided ...

After the Physics ~Andronikos of Rhodes, not; "beyond physics" (woo-woo). :roll:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/metaphysics — 180 Proof

Aristotle (d. 4th century BCE) never used the title "metaphysics" which was designated centuries later (1st century BCE).by the editor of his surviving works Andronikos. Again: the books after the books on nature (re: Aristotle's Physika is his book on nature (from physis² in Greek)).

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/physis ²

In memory of Vernor Vinge, d. 2024 I'm rereading

• A Fire Upon The Deep
• "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era" (essay, 1993)

:up:

Cite a 'supernatural-Y' that (testably) explains some natural-X.

Also, do you dispute that questions which are 'answered by mysteries' (e.g. supernaturalia-of-the-gaps aka "illusions of knowledge" or "just-so stories") are merely begged?

If not, then you are a naturalist, Wayfarer. :smirk:

If, however, you dispute that mysteries beg questions, please defend either (A) 'mysteries answer questions without begging them' or (B) 'why supernaturalia are not mysteries (i.e. not inexplicables)'. :chin:

:eyes: :roll: :smirk: Okay, whatever.

update:

(Rick Wilson posted on Youtube 19 March 24)

addendum:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/890870

metaphysics is literally, beyond physics — Abhiram

You're quite mistaken, Abhiram. 'Metaphysics' literally is tà metà tà physikà  (transl. the books after the books on nature)^^

After the Physics ~Andronikos of Rhodes, not; "beyond physics" (woo-woo). :roll:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/metaphysics ^^

Philosophy is much more than "an academic discipline" and areas of rigorous study like set theory, musical composition and molecular biology have "unified languages" which are not "accessible to everyone". Your reasoning, sir, is un-sound to say the least. Besides, elementary logic is the "unified language" of (Western) philosophy – try making yourself (i.e. aporias & arguments) understood without it.

Hermeneutics should [be] connected to the key concepts... — Abhiram

I agree; hermeneutics, however, is only a method and not itself a language.

... unified definition of metaphysics is not possible. — Abhiram

Why isn't 'the study of "the nature of" the study of nature' a "unified definition" for metaphysics?

:up:

Well, I claim that 'theism is not true' and so demonstrably by implication that takes care of "God" as far as I'm concerned. I'm much more Spinozist (or Epicurean) here than Nietzschean (or even Feuerbachian). Thus, absurdism appeals to me in a way existentialism (i.e. 'subjectivism') never has.

"National polls" are not predictive since US presidential elections are not "national elections". Also, polling only becomes somewhat meaningful, or predictive, in the Fall 6-8 weeks before election day indicating electoral trends only in swing states and only of likely voters. The results from the presidential primaries are indicative of party unity or disunity behind the nominee. About 20-25% of actual voters in state Republican primaries did not vote for Loser-1 even after he's become the only candidate left in the race. This indicates he's losing support of (most of) those actual GOP voters. Compared to 2020, Loser-1 is underperforming both with voters and donations to his campaign, which is consistent with the trend with women in particular voting against the MAGA-GOP since SCOTUS trashed women's reproductive rights in 2022. Given these indisputable circumstances, do you really believe Loser-1's electoral prospects are going to improve in the coming months? If so, I think that's ahistorical wishful thinking ... but who knows, right? I'm not a betting man but I haven't lost since 2017 betting against the Cult Leader & his MAGA-GOP circus of flying monkeys. :sweat:

Perhaps I am an existentialist? — Arne

Perhaps you are. I'm not ...

Based on his own party's primary elections since January, the former president is being rejected by 1 in 5 hardcore voting Republicans several months out from the general election. Debtor-1's base of support has been ebbing away since he's chosen to polarize the electorate rather than reach out to more moderate and centrist voters. In other words, he's not "attracting support" and probably hasn't been since the criminal indictments dropped last year.

As for what his MAGA supporters are thinking? Obviously they are not. They are glanding, all spleen and bile, zombies radicalized vicariously by their Cult Leader's performative grievances and scapegoating wishlist. "The Donald" speaks for them like a perverse, howling avatar of pent-up confusions and insecurities and jealousies, his malignant narcissism giving them permission to openly hate, threaten and assassinate in the name of White Christian Nationalism's "god". True, most are not (actively) racist or sexist, they are just hypnotized by rightwing media's jackboot "score settling" fantasies – MAGA is about feeling powerful and not about being / remaining free, conspiring and not deliberating, nostalgia for an America that never was and not an American (& global) future with less poverty corruption injustice & violence.

2-3 out of 10 of my fellow citizens are nihilists who are PTSD'd by opiods, booze, OnlyFans porn, very poor education, disinforming social media silos, chronic loneliness, political disengagement, personal and political corruption, and everyday grinding banality. MAGA is a nationwide gang of disaffected dead-enders, mostly blue collar white men and Christian Taliban-type "evangelicals". I suspect a "bloodbath" is coming ... and will kick off when their bankrupt faux-billionaire Cult Leader is finally convicted of dozens of felonies in Manhattan this June/July (or he's jailed for contempt of some court along the way). MAGA is the most recent symptom of the rot deep in the bowels of "Pax Americana" manifest by rabid red-hatted hordes demanding to be lied to by FOX Noise, RT, OAN, NooseMax, etc and offering up their last freedoms to the next Reichstag bonfire.

Anyway, I'm betting on the 6 in 10 of us likely voters to stop the firestorm this fall. Beyond that, Wayfarer, who knows ... :mask:

For Sartre, human existence is freedom. For Nietzsche, human existence is will to power. For Heidegger, human existence is being-in-the-world. — Arne

I appreciate the reply, Arne, but I do not read these three philosophers this way. 'How one exists creates one's essence' is the gist of my understanding of existentialism: essence becomes and is not 'what is' (e.g. will to power, freedom, or being-in-the-world). 'Existence precedes essence' means existence necessarily does not have an essence just as a lump of clay necessarily is not a bowl or statue. 'Existence' is necessary, 'essence" is contingent: 'to exist is to make (choose) one's essence'. None of them are primarily concerned with the "Human", but only with, IIRC, becoming (intentionally) For-Itself, (transvaluatively) Übermensch or (authetically) Dasein, respectively. Whatever else existentialism may mean, existence lacks essence, or every existent needs (though most don't strive for) an essence. IMO, to say "human existence" in this context, Arne, already says too much (or not enough).

Yes, however, contra communism, ludditism, primitivism ...

(A) economic democracy (supplimented by local time-banking networks).

(B) more speculatively: AGI-managed post-scarcity, reputation-based demarchy.

As a freethinker IMO, courage for warranted doubt (and error-correction) seems the indispensible virtue "necessary for thought" (with adaptive judgment sufficient for thinking)