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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
 Posted - 07/22/2004 : 07:45:41 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote:quote:
We are NOT talking about explanations for observed phenomenon, which is what Occam's razor is intended for.
Actually, no. In Occam's (translated) words, "plurality should not be posited without necessity." Aside from "Occam's Razor," the idea that we should choose, as more likely, the simpler hypothesis which correctly explains all available data is also known as the "principle of parsimony."
The idea that consciousness survives death, in some way, necessarily posits the existence of "entities" for which we have no evidence. Those entities are (at least): a "medium" of some sort in which consciousness can survive, and a mechanism other than a living brain through which consciousness can work. We have evidence for neither.
The idea that consciousness does not survive death requires the assumption of nothing more than we already know.
Because the latter idea is more parsimonious, the Razor tells us that it is more likely to be correct - given what we know right now. And that is, of course, the basis for only a tentative conlcusion about what happens. It's not an assertion, nor is it evidence, and it's subject to change at any time.
Also, when something has been hunted for a long, long time in a variety of ways, absence of evidence can indeed turn into evidence of absence. Survival of consciousness is something like the Loch Ness Monster in this regard. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 08:34:59 [Permalink]
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OK, I guess what I'm trying to say is:
Option A: conciousness is extinguished with the death of the body.
Option B: conciousness survives beyond the death of the body.
There is no actual evidence to prove or support either claim.
If you eliminate the one with the most entities, you have option A remaining.
Which does not change the fact that option A is unsupported by any evidence.
quote:
posted by Dave W:
Also, when something has been hunted for a long, long time in a variety of ways, absence of evidence can indeed turn into evidence of absence. Survival of consciousness is something like the Loch Ness Monster in this regard.
A bad analogy, I think. I'd agree only if consciousness were some solid and easily discoverable/explianable phenomenon. The Loch Ness Monster would not be able to avoid detection by a determined search using our best technology. Drop a sub equipped with sonar and advanced underwater imaging gear into Loch Ness and have it do a thorough survey, and you could conclude(if nothing turned up) that Nelly is not there.
The same can't be said, currently, about consciousness. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 10:55:50 [Permalink]
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Were not going to argue about consciousness again are we? Consciousness in not some "etheral thing" that exists beyond our physical brains. The electrical activity in our physical brain generates what we refer to as "consciousness"....period. There is no "magical", "mystical", "supernatural" ect.... Thing generating our consciousness. Electical activity ceases in your brain and you will no longer be consious...simple actually. As Dave so rightly pointed out "absence of evidence can indeed turn into evidence of absence". This would certainly apply to life after death. Since the dawn of "consiousness" ;) we have been looking for evidence of life after death and there has been NOTHING. As Laplace (I believe) stated about the existance of God "I have no use for that hypothesis". Same goes for any form of life after death....I have no use....
Adam |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 10:57:12 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote:quote:
Which does not change the fact that option A is unsupported by any evidence.
No, it doesn't, but it also doesn't mean that Occam's Razor can't be applied to form a tentative conclusion.quote:
The same can't be said, currently, about consciousness.
Well, I certainly wouldn't say it, but the people who promote and defend the idea that consciousness survives death claim to know that it does, and that they've got evidence for it which implies that it is somehow measurable or at least detectable. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 14:02:46 [Permalink]
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To draw any conclusion, with the currently available evidence, is not good sound thinking.
The only way to answer the question, and still be able to claim rational thinking, is with an "I don't know." Anything else is bad logic.
Until there is a way to define and measure consciousness in solid objective terms, this is just going to be one of those things that doesn't have a concrete answer.
Anyone, at this point in the game, who isnsists they know the answer (for either of the tow popular sides in the debate) is puting forth an unsupported assertion.
quote:
Can you not observe that both you and I have conciousness but a rock doesn't? And hasn't measuring the electric paths in the brain shown that conciousness as well as thoughts and emotions occur in the brain (and more specifically, in what areas of the brain)?
Sure Ricky. But the only conclusion you can draw from that is that a brain is required for consciousness to function. Just like a cpu is required for your word processor to function.
That's probably a horrible analogy, and I don't mean to imply any conclusion from it... just trying to point out that there is no clear answer to ths topic. Nor, in my opinion, do any of the postulated answers seem satisfactory. We need more real info before we can make any conclusions. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 15:32:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
I'm guessing that makes you an agnostic (this of course is assuming you are not a theist in the first place)?
Nope. Atheist. Which does not lock me into a loop of irrational thinking, which is where anyone who claims to know anything about the fate of consciousness after death is.
The simple fact is that niether explanation is satisfactory. Anyone who advocates either is putting forth an unsupported assertion.
quote:
Stating that the thoughts/consciousness of the brain (or even the brain itself) are somehow transfered after death is more ridiculous than a belief in fairies. There is no evidence for or against fairies, are we supposed to take the agnostic position on those too?
Faries, the loch ness monster, ect... would all fall into the same category. One where your looking for evidence of a solid material form, and one where absence of evidence could equal evidence of abscense. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 18:58:19 [Permalink]
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quote:
What I don't understand is how you could be an atheist, unless you have evidence against god?
Being an atheist does not require "evidence against god".
There is a lack of evidence, which in the case of god, (as there is no objectively identifiable phenomenon that neccessarliy requires god), serves as evidence of abscence.
Not so with human consciousness, as it is an objectively identifiable quality that we all have. A quality, I must add, that we know very little about. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 19:33:17 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote:quote:
There is a lack of evidence, which in the case of god, (as there is no objectively identifiable phenomenon that neccessarliy requires god), serves as evidence of abscence.
But there is no "objectively identifiable phenomenon that necessarily requires" the existence of consciousness after death, either.
In other words, I (and I think Ricky) find your judgements regarding consciousness and God to be inconsistent. I believe that were you to choose and apply the same standard to both, you'd either be an atheist who denies consciousness after death, or an agnostic who's undecided about what happens to the mind when the brain ceases to function. The amount of evidence we have for both post-mortem consciousness and God is the same, and zero. The phenomena which require either hypothesis are non-existent.
The only difference is that while we live, we have consciousness. But it's never been detected in a corpse, or even in a living tree. It appears to not be a property of all life, and most likely not a property of non-life.
A wise man whose name I forget right now claimed that the only logically-defensible position to take on the question of a god's existence is that of agnosticism. The only way to reasonably conclude that no gods exist is through the use of Occam's Razor - gods are unnecessary pluralities. If you suggest that the Razor is inappropriate to use regarding consciousness after death, you should also deny its use in your decision about the gods, since if they exist, we know even less about them than we do about consciousness, yet you imply that such unknowns mean we should leave the door open.
By the way, some people make the distinction between "strong atheism," in which the very possibility of a god is denied, and "weak atheism," in which a lack of evidence coupled with Occam's Razor suggests that concluding that no gods exist is reasonable (which appears to be the route you've taken). I am, if you'll allow me to coin a term, arguing for nothing more than the "weak worm-food" position, in that I find that reaching a tentative conclusion (only valid until new evidence arrives) that consciousness does not survive death is reasonable. I reject, as do you, the "strong worm-food" position (utter denial of the merest possibility of post-mortem consciousness) as unreasonably and illogically sure of itself. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 21:16:24 [Permalink]
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"By the way, some people make the distinction between "strong atheism," in which the very possibility of a god is denied, and "weak atheism," in which a lack of evidence coupled with Occam's Razor suggests that concluding that no gods exist is reasonable (which appears to be the route you've taken)."
Well, I'm not sure where you are getting this from, I know I read something different from http://www.positiveatheism.org/, not quite sure which is right. But here is bascially what they say:
The term "atheism" basically means no theism, no belief in god. Since agnostics don't believe in god, technically, they are atheists. However, there still needs to be a difference from what is normally associated as "atheist" (saying that no god(s) exist) and "agnostic" (saying that you can't show any god(s) to exist or not exist). This is where weak and strong atheism come in to play, weak being the agnostic position and strong saying that no gods exist.
It makes since to me. What do you think? |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26021 Posts |
Posted - 07/22/2004 : 22:13:34 [Permalink]
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Ricky wrote:quote:
It makes since to me. What do you think?
I think they're trying to conflate the meaning of the term 'atheism' with that of 'agnostic' in order to claim that all agnostics are atheists, and thus claim the "don't know" portion of the religious polls for themselves.
On the "belief contiuum," I've been led to understand that one end looks like this:- Strong atheism - "There cannot be a god"
- Weak atheism - "I conclude there's not a god."
- Agnosticism - "I've got no friggin' clue about any god or gods."
Of course, since "strong theists" (read: fundamentalists) lump agnostics and all atheists into the "strong atheism" group, anyway, there are probably decent political reasons for the technicalities upon which positiveatheism relies.
But they've defined away a difference among atheists which is important: namely the difference between "blind faith" in the lack of a god (what I call "strong atheism," which is no more rational than "strong theism"), and a logical method of arriving at the atheistic conclusion, subject to change upon some god showing itself.
From a critical thinking point-of-view, this distinction is important. "Strong atheists" (my version), don't do the atheistic "cause" much good, since the "you've got just as much faith as a Fundamentalist" objection actually works against them.
But, having not spent much time reading at positiveatheism, I can't say that I'm well-informed of their motivations for defining things as they do. I was introduced to the varieties of atheism before I'd ever heard of that web site, and they were defined differently, and also sensibly, for me. It's possible, of course, that what I learned, years ago, is not the way things are perceived by the majority of atheists. But they should be.  |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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