But when I'm dead I won't be cojncerned about it. So where's the problem? Why should I fret over a state that won't bother me when it hits?

People will experience dying (or maybe not, depending what you die of. Some deaths are so quick that there's no time for your nervous system to register anything). Dying can be pretty unpleasant. But death is something no one experiences because none of the things that make us experience anything are there anymore.

If you've ever been knocked unconcious you'll know that there is no experience of the time lost. There is nothing bad or unpleasant about it, because you don't register anything. While you're unconscious you don't mind it at all.

Death is just like being knocked unconscious - you just don't wake up.

(To make it plain: I don't want to die. But I won't mind once it has happened)

You're assuming nothing happens when you die. How do you know? Or perhaps you're just hoping?


That's debatable.

Being unconscious is very different from being dead. It's sort of definitionally impossible to consciously experience an unconscious state.

How do you know? I doubt it's anything like being unconscious.

Hi Loading:

It's good to see you back on the site.

You might want to read Zachariah 13: 1 through 6. (If you only read 6 it's out of context.)

Best wishes,
Mason

Pretty sure nothing happened before I was born (or I'd remember..and if something did happen then I don't remember and it doesn't impact me)...so why should something happen after I die?

And there is something after death...so be it. I have no qualms either way. The thought of being dead/nonexistent just doesn't bother me. If there is somethng after then that'd be a nice bonus, but the thought there might be isn't going to change my life either way. I'm certainly not going to waste my life on the off chance there might be something.

How do you know?

Occams razor would indicate that there's nothing after we die, as all our experiences are linked to our brain activity (which a myriad of manipulative experiments using drugs, electric (or just mechanical) stimulation show). After we're dead brain activity ceases.

1) Do you remember everything that has happened to you in your life? Does the absence of memory of those events imply that those events didn't actually happen?

2) Do you actually believe that the only things that impact you are things that you can remember? From the point of view of childhood development, a huge amount of what makes you who you are is grounded in the life experiences you had in the first few years of your life. I'm not saying that your entire life trajectory was defined by those developmental years, but to deny the influence of that part of your life because of the absence of memories is a really bad argument.

I'm not saying you're right or wrong about anything. But the level of confidence in your conclusion on the basis of your argument is severely misplaced.

This is a logical fallacy.

There's no chance that you live your life this way. You're always thinking about the future and how actions taken now will have consequences, so don't be silly.

I don't. That's why I said I doubt. Uncertainty.

Actually it depends what you define as death. If you're defining death as the end of brain activity then you're just arguing in a circle here.

The major problem for life after death is that we have good reason to believe that all the characteristics that make me "me" are tied to physical properties of body. I can take drugs to raise and lower my mood. And physically altering the structure of my brain can have a lasting effect on my personality, and even the structure of my beliefs. People who have strokes, tumours, clots, head injuries, surgery, can have radical alterations in their thoughts and behaviours.

There are cases where theists become atheists and atheists become theists. Where quiet, calm individuals becomes violent and dangerous. Favourite foods change. Everything from the major to the most mundane.

What is there left of my identity to survive the physical destruction of my body if my thoughts, memories, likes, dislikes, and actions are tied to it?

+1
(they've even altered behaviour with strong magnetic fields which have triggered what the participants said felt like "spiritual experiences", minimal changes in oxygen levels,... personality isn't as static as we might like to think)

What would you define death as? (and please keep it to something demonstrable. Otherwise we're just dealing with a 'god of the gaps' type argument)

The end of life. The problem is we don't know what life is either.

In that case this is just philosophical wankery. Much more so when people gripe about what happens after death and proclaim some eternal existence or similar if they can't even define what death is.

Cripes...most people on here are poker players. Poker players live and die by knowing that stuff needs empirical evidence to work. But all of a sudden you find them going "Naaah...doesn't apply in this case, because...erm...I really, really, really want there to be something after death!"
What kind of argument is that? Since when did wishful thinking supplant reasonable thought?

No one is making that argument. The fact is that we don't know what life is, or death, and it's a fallacy to say that simply because you don't have any memories prior to the age of 2 that you didn't exist until you were born or that you won't have some experience after you die. There's also a tendency to have certainty about things you can never have certainty about, but it's more honest to say 'I don't know, but I'm open to the possibility' than 'your view is wishful thinking as nothing happens.' Maybe your view is wishful thinking....

I don't know what happens after death; your argument that there is nothing is simply wrong. You don't believe there is anything? Well that's fine too but to call opposing views childish or wishful thinking is silly when no one has access to that knowledge. It's an open question.

We aren't entirely certain about what life and death are, but that's not that big a problem for the most part. We can't fully define what a table is either but we know plenty about tables.

Equally, we know a lot about what life is even if that knowledge is incomplete. Identity is a huge philosophical problem but we have a lot of characteristics that we can agree upon.

Again, there's a lot of very strong empirical evidence that the traits that make up my identity are tied to my physicality. I don't have to fully define death or experience death to show that. If one wants to think that something lasts beyond the physical destruction of my body then just supposing doesn't cut it.

Well, since that is empirical evidence: Yeah. I make that argument

Just because one can come up with two scenarios doesn't make them more likely. You look at a box in the street and then one goes "probably empty" and the other goes "no, there's a magical fairy inside"...doesn't make the two alternatives equally likely.
Just because the box may not be empty I'm not automatically open to it containing fairies. Are you? Just because something is thinkable doesn't add one bit of probability to it.

I have absolutely no shred of evidence to the contrary. I find holding an opinion without evidence to be simply wishful thinking. as long as there is no evidence I'll go with the ground state (i.e. nothing)

In any case: What does it matter? If there is nothing after death you won't find out. If there is something after death you will find out. So you don't lose either way. I just find it pointless wasting time thinking about "fairies in the box".

Is this a concession of the weakness of the argument? You didn't explicitly state whether you still agreed with yourself.

This conclusion is based solely on prior assumptions. It's not really an observation of reality (or empirical evidence) as much as it is an observation about the assumptions people bring with them into the conversation.

It's not empirical evidence. It's absence of evidence. And absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Strawman.


I can't give you evidence that I truly love my wife either, does that mean I probably don't? See how stupid this argument is?

Not sure what made you think of this. I don't claim to be a prophet. What was your point in asking the question if you didn't want an answer?

Absence of evidence is also not evodence of presence. As long as there is no evidence then one should not make stuff up but assume the ground state (which is 'nothingness' in this case...and there is plenty of evidence that without brain activity there is no kind of experience because people have come back from basically zero brain activity)

Why not? I'm sure we could come up with any number of tests that show this.

Not sure why you think this. Sure, not always, but there are plenty of circumstances where absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Sure you can.

I think it because it's true.

Nope. There never is, because it's fallacious reasoning.

No, I can't. I can't provide evidence in any way that positive feelings I have towards my wife are real instead of pretended, because there is no way for you or anyone else to tell the difference between the two.

It can be evidence of absence if there is something we would expect to find were the claim true.

Let's say I claim to own a dog, and tell you it lives at my home all the time. You investigate, perform a thorough forensic search of my home, and find no dog, no dog bowl, no dog food, no dog hair, nothing is chewed, no sign of dog toys, or dog **** or urine (inside or elsewhere on the property).

The absence of evidence that a dog lives in my house is clearly evidence that there is no dog living in my house.

As to your second point, something can be evidence of two different propositions without becoming evidence of neither. Your wife wouldn't be the first to discover she lives with a heartless sociopath, but if you really think that she has no good reason to believe that you care about her then, I'm no expert, but you're probably doing marriage wrong.

On both points, essentially all you'll end up doing is "just supposing" a bunch of alternative explanations, none of which you'll really believe are as well supported as the propositions: "I have no dog" and "You love your wife".

Something I always wondered about resurrection:

How come world population is augmenting? if there was a billion person on earth at one point why is it now 8 billion years later? where did the extra 7 billion come from?

Are there new souls born? if not, where did the first ones come from? At one point there must have been an existing soul to resurrect, so if it not born where did it come from?

If there is resurrection, is it then safe to assume new souls are also born all the time?

If so, there are so many new questions that I guess we will never have the answer to either.. Why are they born? Are where do they come from? do they all go through the same cycles? etc etc

I don't believe anyone currently on Earth is a person who has been resurrected from the dead.

Naturalists don't typically believe in people being resurrected from the dead, and their accounts of why there are currently 8 billion people don't seem particularly problematic.

I guess I don't understand your point.

Seems like he's confusing resurrection with reincarnation.

Yes I believe I did.. sorry about that

No problem.