Posted by alexandra_k on December 22, 2005, at 20:53:02
In reply to Re: trigger **** » alexandra_k, posted by TexasChic on December 22, 2005, at 20:19:20
> Regardless what happens to your contiousness, your physical body will be broken down and become part of the cycle of life. If its worm food, the worm will go on to feed the birds or enrich the soil so that plants can grow. That means everything serves a purpose, which makes me feel better about it.
yes. and to think... that the atoms that make me up... were once part of a dinosaur or a rock or a bird or... another human being...
> But what if its existance it beyond our comprehention?we cannot think the unthinkable
we cannot comprehend the incomprehensible
what lies outside our comprehension...
we cannot make sense of...
we can only gesture up against the limit of sense...
we can never get outside it to see what is there...> What if it appears contradictory, but only because we don't understand?
it is possible we have described it inaccurately, yeah. so...
Q how many philosophers does it take to change a light bulb?
A if you think on it you will see that a light bulb is (by definition) a bearer of light. if it does not bear light, then it cannot be a light bulb.(the answer to the problem lies in the dissolution of the problem)
sigh.
but unfortunatly verbal tricks do not lead us closer to the nature of external reality...> Oh, and by ghost, I guess I really meant soul, contiousness after death, stuff like that.
ah.. consensus (among philosophers)... one shouldn't talk about consensus very often... but consensus fairly much is that... there is no such thing as a soul. no such thing as 'animal spirits' to differentiate between living and non-living things, no such thing as 'heat fluid' to differentiate between hot and cold things... no such things as 'souls' to differentiate the human beings from the other animals.
(the idea that animals get to go to heaven is not biblical to the best of my knowledge. it is certainly not christian to the best of my knowledge because a dog / cat / beast can hardly 'confess their sins' to jesus in order to be saved... and neither... can infants... and neither... can people who live in a culture where they have never heard of jesus christ).
> > this kind of thing that can fly through walls yet also pick up objects and throw them around?
> Doesn't sound possible, but then, neither did electricity a while back.yes.
good point.
in order for consciousness to survive the decomposition of neurons...
it may well require us to alter physics so that consciousness is brute in teh same way that electromagnetic charge is brute etc etc.
that is one thought anyways...
:-)
but then... what is consciousness? a degree of charge like how there is electromagnetism?
i dunno
my head is starting to hurt :-(
i would like to learn more about this...but there is math :-(
(because typically... it is the structure of the brain that is thought to be important. the connections that obtain between neurones / nodes). you can express that mathematically... and then... you could make something physical (like a bit of 'hardware') that you could 'run' or 'instantiate' the mathematical function (mind / soul) on.
if... that is the anture of consciousness...
then... what is required... is the preservation (or continuity with...) the mathematicalyl expressed state of the brain at time t.
(sorry don't know whether i'm saying it right... don't really have head around proper way of expresseing it and not sure whether i get it properly anyways...)
but the nature of consciousness is one thing...
personal identity (and the survival of me after death) is another...Okay... here is a fairly good summary of some stuff on survival after death.
It is written as a dialogue... The main character is going to die... and others try and console her with the 'better place' thing... and so, for something to do... they have a chat where the purpose is merely to persuade the dying person that it is *possible* that they will survive. not to prove that they will. just to prove that it is *possible* that they will.
here is the book...
"Dialogues on Personal Identity"
but why read that when you can read notes???
;-)
http://www.unc.edu/~megw/Perry.html
poster:alexandra_k
thread:589953
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20051215/msgs/591405.html