The Good Place

Sometimes Tim I don't think you truly understand the basis of your positions.

Statements like these just truly take my breath away.

I really don't get the argument you are responding to. First off, humans clearly find meaning in their lives. But if one were to ignore this and use some sort of arbitrary metric for "meaning", how does "exist indefinitely" fit the bill? As you point out, if life is meaningless, merely stretching out that meaninglessness just gives you more of the same.  

Plus, it should be pretty obvious by now that human consciousness is not progressing with subsequent generations. We are only as wise as you'd expect if every new human started fresh.

Linda

I have difficulty understanding how the point is missed so badly. Like... you just completely do not understand the argument. There are materialists who at least understand/acknowledge the issue, like Alex Rosenberg in The Atheist's Guide to Reality. If you don't understand it, you haven't actually given it the thought required to understand it, or you just aren't going to get it. It's fairly straightforward.

Right. Yet many (extended consciousness) proponents consider ancient civilisations to be more spiritually attuned.

That might be a cultural facet. Perhaps ancient civilisations gave more weight to things like intuition. Perhaps there was a more permeable interface between the physical and the spiritual. It may be significant that ancient texts such as the Bhagavad Gita have modern echoes, not only in channeled material and what is known as the Perennial Philosophy but arguably in modern physics. Certainly there are significant parallels between ancient wisdom and modern parapsychology. We need only look at the similarities between NDE accounts and the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

The fact that modern society seems more inclined towards a materialist view (at least in academic and intellectual circles) surely has something to do with the trend towards materialism since the Enlightenment which started a mere four centuries ago - a blink of an eye in the totality of human history. Leaving human history aside for a moment, many are convinced (and my experiences with animals has me convinced) that certain (perhaps all) animals operate at a psychic level we can barely appreciate. So perhaps "enlightenment" was only true in the sense of the material and scientific advantages that have since emerged. The technological and physical sciences are indeed vastly better understood but perhaps at the cost of our intimate connection to our spirituality. However, I have to agree with some atheist thinking which points a finger at organised religion for that separation yet I can't help but believe that one dogma has been replaced by another.

The term "New Age" is derided and has become synonymous with crackpots and flakes, perhaps deservedly so as there are undoubtedly many crackpots operating under that banner. But I think there was a sense, at the outset, that the New Age heralded an approaching concord between science and spirituality. Sadly, this still looks remote - perhaps more remote than in the days of the great visionary scientists like Einstein, Bohr, Pauli and Schrödinger who said:

Now I shall not keep free of metaphysics, nor even of mysticism; they play a role in all that follows.

As Ken Wilber states:

My book "Quantum Questions" centered on the remarkable fact that virtually every one of the great pioneers of modern physics – men like Einstein, Schroedinger and Heisenberg – were spiritual mystics of one sort or another, an altogether extraordinary situation. The hardest of the sciences, physics, had run smack into the tenderest of religions, mysticism. Why? And what exactly was mysticism, anyway?

So I collected the writings of Einstein, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Louis de Broglie, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Sir Arthur Eddington, and Sir James Jeans. The scientific genius of these men is beyond dispute (all but two were Nobel laureates); what is so amazing, as I said, is that they all shared a profoundly spiritual or mystical worldview, which is perhaps the last thing one would expect from pioneering scientists.” (Wilber 1998, 16).

What I'm saying is you appear to be looking forward to post mortem survival. You defend the NDE with enthusiasm. As all Christians believe Heaven holds the promise of a life many would like to live while alive. Now the non religious paranormal believer hold similar views, believing there will be a spiritual awakening, growth, the knowledge of the cosmos will be revealed and afterlife will be just dandy... but suppose that post mortem survival does not lead to spiritual growth, cosmic knowledge ecetera. Instead you're just as you are now but in non corporeal form muddling your way through time for all eternity. If that's the case, what's the point of post mortem consciousness survival?




There are many mysteries in science, such as:
Why does the Red Maple tree have red leaves?
How to reconcile Quantum Gravity with General Relativity
Why is the speed of light in a vacuum 186,282 miles, 698 yards, 2 feet, and 5 21/127 inches per second?
What is Dark Energy?

There are many more mysteries. What I find very curious is none of the mysteries I posted require an immaterial explanation  nor have I ever seen anyone of you would want to propose an immaterial explanation and yet for some reason anything to do with the mind mandates and immaterial proposition. As a matter of fact folks more than eager to do that. Why is that Stephen?

Pardon me for butting in
I think i may speak for many here when I say, WOW.

As is often the case, you have a complete ignorance or fundamental misunderstanding of the issue with calling those a mystery and at the same time asserting them as brute facts requiring no further explanation, which you frequently do. You somehow stated that none of them require an immaterial explanation, but we don't have any sort of explanation for (some) of them. So how can you logically then say what kind of explanation they do or do not have? You have no idea. 

The physical constants that apparently govern the Universe are the way they are. We do not know why they are that way. Saying that their explanation must fall into one category, or must not fall into another, without any qualification or further discussion, is nonsensical. If you actually want to engage in that sort of discussion you could comment in one of the fine tuning threads on this forum, which I'm sure you won't do because it would require you to actually engage with arguments rather than just spewing your opinion as if it was undebatable fact.


And, of course, you can't help but use your favorite crutch of appeal to emotion to attempt to dismiss any legitimate discussion of consciousness or the mind beyond the reductive picture. You've had the same shtick for forever. Can't you come up with something novel?

Obviously you mistakenly think I pulled those mysteries out of my ass. I think you're projecting your own emotional state. How hypocritical to say what I think is schtick and what others such as you think is novel. The next time someone like you has a novel thought I'll let you know.


A suggestion for you is to let Tim and Stephen respond instead of presuming you know what they think. I never have an uncontrollable need to respond to your posts so why do you feel the need to respond to me if it causes you so much consternation.

P.S. I read your response, according to you Fls doesn't understand- huh. You know what I think? I think you'll  state all those that don't see things the way you do don't understand. Betcha I'm right. One thing I know about you is you don't like anyone that casts doubt about stuff you hold dearly.

Pardon me for butting in
I think i may speak for many here when I say, WOW.

Is that WOW a good wow or not? Would you care to elaborate?

What I'm saying is you appear to be looking forward to post mortem survival. You defend the NDE with enthusiasm. As all Christians believe Heaven holds the promise of a life many would like to live while alive. Now the non religious paranormal believer hold similar views, believing there will be a spiritual awakening, growth, the knowledge of the cosmos will be revealed and afterlife will be just dandy... but suppose that post mortem survival does not lead to spiritual growth, cosmic knowledge ecetera. Instead you're just as you are now but in non corporeal form muddling your way through time for all eternity. If that's the case, what's the point of post mortem consciousness survival?

"What I'm saying is you appear to be looking forward to post mortem survival. You defend the NDE with enthusiasm"

When have I ever said I was really forward to going to "heaven" ?? You don't understand my position at all. I wouldn't want to entertain such thoughts. If "heaven" exists (and I believe there is at least another dimension) I'll either end up there..or I won't.

"You defend the NDE with enthusiasm"

What does defending the NDE mean ? Do you mean I ought to be attacking it? Trying to refute what these people are telling us ? Why would I do that ?

I've examined the phenomenon in minute detail for over forty years and the only explanation that fits the bill is the one that you dodo's won't allow ! Near death experiences are a massive clue that there is something much more to the human condition than just birth to death. I'm interested only in what is true as much as I am able to discern it, that is.

You keep asserting that I'm religious yet I'm not. But would I be guilty of being anymore deluded than you, if I was ? Your "religion" is every bit as zealous and illogical and if anything it's more foolish. You might take pride in regarding yourself as enlightened/free from superstition but you've got nothing at all to help you deal with the sobering prospect of annihilation.

 "As all Christians believe Heaven holds the promise of a life many would like to live while alive."

The human condition is inherently unsatisfactory. In general we persevere regardless. If there is another dimension of existence (and there are numerous reasons to believe that there is) why shouldn't we be allowed to hold out hope for something better ?  Why is that wrong ? 

"but suppose that post mortem survival does not lead to spiritual growth, cosmic knowledge ecetera. Instead you're just as you are now but in non corporeal form muddling your way through time for all eternity. If that's the case, what's the point of post mortem consciousness survival?"

That's a very ineffective objection to the concept of survival. Whatever the 'mechanics' of it are, they are. Presumably at some deeper aspect of us, we are quite familiar with it.

Why is the speed of light in a vacuum 186,282 miles, 698 yards, 2 feet, and 5 21/127 inches per second?

LoL. You’re oviously a precise sort Steve. 

What I find very curious is none of the mysteries I posted require an immaterial explanation  nor have I ever seen anyone of you would want to propose an immaterial explanation and yet for some reason anything to do with the mind mandates and immaterial proposition. As a matter of fact folks more than eager to do that. Why is that Stephen?

Steve, you have listed some situations that are unexplained.  Then claim that information, which is immaterial, can not be the basis in creating scientific models that eventually explain what is happening.  This seems confused to me, as in a fully natural way, information science has been exceedingly successful in doing just this.

Information sciences are knocking the ball out of the park in the last 50 years, explaining natural working models that were intractable before.  I see no reason the trend will stop.

The mind is processing information.  Why wouldn't the information sciences be the modality to work in and the math of information the basis of the science models that explain what is going on?

It seems your blind faith in materialism has keep you from following the progress in science.

Steve, you have listed some situations that are unexplained.  Then claim that information, which is immaterial, can not be the basis in creating scientific models that eventually explain way is happening.  This seems confused to me, as a fully natural way information science has been exceedingly successful in doing just this.

Information sciences are knocking the ball out of the park in the last 50 years, explaining working models that were intractable before.  I see no reason the trend will stop.

The mind is processing information.  Why wouldn't the information sciences be the modality to work in and the math of information the basis of the science models that explain what is going on?

It seems your blind faith in materialism has keep you from following the progress in science.

I've never made such a claim. You missed my  point absolutely. I'm not disagreeing with you. In the context of what many members believe certain things are categorized as needing a material explanation or an immaterial explanation. One of those things is, if I should say brain processes create the mind I'd hear all sorts of grumbling it's not true. I ask why it's not true. Over at Skeptiko i started a thread titled: New Stuff in Neuroscience, to show that progress is being made to counter the preferred  immaterial explanation. Not until I came to Skeptiko did I ever hear the word materialism more than I heard then and now. It seems some can't avoid saying it without sneering