(2017-09-06, 04:18 AM)Leuders Wrote: [ -> ]There is no ultimate real meaning, it is all subjective... all made up. Makes no difference if an afterlife exists or not. People find meaning and purpose in their own heads... How can you prove that legitimate purposiveness exists?
Can you tell me what is positive about an afterlife scenario? What if some people do not want an afterlife? How can someone with alzheimer's disease have an afterlife? Would their memory essentially be destroyed? How would they remember what they did on earth?
There are too many questions and philosophical problems with the afterlife scenario.
Okay... here goes:
Quote:There is no ultimate real meaning, it is all subjective... all made up. Makes no difference if an afterlife exists or not. People find meaning and purpose in their own heads... How can you prove that legitimate purposiveness exists?
Again, and I addressed this in this other post: this is entirely and purely your opinion, a straight up assertion that is not supported by any statements or otherwise. Why does it make no difference if an afterlife exists or not? You saying "people find meaning and purpose in their own heads" is, yet again, you assuming the conclusion - it assumes a priori that reductiveness is an accurate representation of the universe and the life therein, and that there can be no other source of meaning or purpose other than from within "their own heads". I never said that I could prove that legitimate purposiveness exists; what I said was that there is no possible way for any form of meaning or purposiveness to be rooted in anything real in the scenario you provided in the OP.
Quote:Can you tell me what is positive about an afterlife scenario? What if some people do not want an afterlife? How can someone with alzheimer's disease have an afterlife? Would their memory essentially be destroyed? How would they remember what they did on earth?
What do you mean by positive? That life is not ultimately meaningless, and that there is more to it than this sorry cosmic accident that is the reality of your presented scenario? This thread is loaded with people elaborating clearly with why they think an afterlife in one form or another is more positive or palpable than your alternative. What do you think is
not positive about an afterlife scenario? People have provided you with adequate suggestions of what is not positive about yours.
Whether some people don't want an afterlife has little bearing on pursuit of the reality of any potential "afterlife" evidence. My guess is that most people prefer an afterlife in some form or another to a lack thereof entirely; I guess I'm not sure exactly what point you're attempting to make with that comment.
The last three sentences in the above quote are the most revealing in terms of helping me understand where you're coming from of all the posts I've seen you make on this site. They really and truly reflect that you have trouble extricating yourself in any meaningful way, even for the purpose of a hypothetical discussion such as this one, from your narrow-minded view of things. You are incredulous as to how someone who has Alzheimer's could have an afterlife, likely because you don't even understand what many of the people here mean when they say afterlife (important note: afterlife doesn't just mean this wonderfully perfect heaven that is an eternal continuation of your personality and ego as purported in some religions - there are loads of other ways to interpret and look at things based on the evidence, depending on how much weight you give to what). You have a legitimately fundamental misunderstanding of what the entire idea of an afterlife is, if that's the question you're asking. People can believe an afterlife only after they've accepted that in some way, shape, or form (and we do not know how this might be, though there are obviously various ideas or theories), consciousness, memory, and/or awareness are not reducible to the physical brain, that something about consciousness exists independently of the physical brain in some way. It is precisely for that reason that anyone remotely familiar with research into "afterlife" evidence (I do not like that term to describe the evidence - it's loaded) would not consider that question to be sensical in any fashion. You asking it is very telling.
One major idea is obviously that memory exists independent of the physical; that would be how memory isn't destroyed in an afterlife. Additionally, this would only impact a "personal" afterlife, wherein you retain your memories and ego in the afterlife. As I said, there are other conceptions of the afterlife; and, this isn't even coherent to begin with if you're even discussing an afterlife, as explained above. The "how would they remember what they did on earth" falls under the same category - applies to a particular view of an afterlife, not all conceptions, and reflects a really narrow and limited view of the range of possible interpretations. Those aren't remotely legitimate challenges to an afterlife.
Quote:There are too many questions and philosophical problems with the afterlife scenario.
No, there aren't. Because you're unable to get beyond your own incredibly limited view of what could be, and complete commitment to a belief in reductionism, you're having trouble even discussing introductory concepts to an afterlife, let alone anything beyond that. Your a priori commitment is causing that issue. "Too many questions and philosophical problems" is not anything resembling a legitimate challenge, especially when you haven't laid out a single philosophical problem with it anywhere in this thread or elsewhere. You've avoided direct discussion of evidence and have made statements without supporting them with anything whatsoever. This quote establishes nothing... and, by the way, there are a plethora of questions with the scenario that you presented, too. But me saying "there are too many questions" isn't a legitimate challenge to that scenario. Philosophical issues is a different story, but again, you haven't presented any issues whatsoever of that sort.
