Because infinities real, death less daunting?

[Ganz]

First off, I'd like to begin this post with a little background on how I came to this question. My brother and I were discussing sentience and things of transferring consciousness, etc... Now, I know that this doesn't necessarily fall under the mathematical section but I feel infinity does. "Because infinity is real, there's an infinite amount of possibilities after death," is what he told me and it was a very objective statement. So my question is... does infinity's existence have some kind of relationship with what happens after death?

[ajb]

In what sense is infinity real?

[Strange]

Even if we say infinity is real (in the same sense that 5 is real) then it still doesn't mean that there are infinite possibilities.After all, 5 and 42 are equally real, that doesn't mean that 5 or 42 things could happen when you die.

 

Only things which are physically possible are possibilities. You are not going to turn into a unicorn or an army of animated jelly babies when you die. As far as we can tell, the only possibility is that your body is disposed of and that's the end of you.

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

Sorry, but the math sections are for mainstream science. I'm going to move this to Philosophy, so our purist mathematicians will be able to sleep tonight.

[Gees]

Phi for All;

 

Up vote for the recognition of a philosophy topic, but the chuckle was also good.

 

 

Ganz;

 

Please consider my following thoughts:

 

First off, I'd like to begin this post with a little background on how I came to this question. My brother and I were discussing sentience and things of transferring consciousness, etc... Now, I know that this doesn't necessarily fall under the mathematical section but I feel infinity does. "Because infinity is real, there's an infinite amount of possibilities after death," is what he told me and it was a very objective statement. So my question is... does infinity's existence have some kind of relationship with what happens after death?

 

Now that this thread is in the philosophy forum, there are a few things that need to be considered, the first of which is, "What is real?" Whether or not "infinity" is real, one has to wonder if everything that "exists" is real. My imagination exists so it is real? Then what I imagine is also real? Or not? Ideas, concepts, and thoughts exist, so are they real?

 

There are philosophers who have come to the conclusion that only thoughts are real; that everything else, like matter and forces, are a product of thought. There are religions that seem to follow this line of thinking and see thought or "God" as the reality, but I have problems with this thinking. The biggest problems that I have regard perspective and focus. If thought is the only thing that really exists, then what differentiates my perspective from yours? Why can I focus and understand things from my perspective, but not from yours? Why can I not know your thoughts, nor you know mine? There has to be something else that regulates these seemingly independent perspectives.

 

Now "sentience" is real. We know this because we use sentience to judge whether or not something is alive. The question is; When something dies, does the sentience cease to exist, or does it just cease to be apparent? Science says that it ceases to exist; religion says that it leaves the body, goes back to "God", returns to oblivion, or maybe reincarnates. There seems to be evidence that could support each of these ideas, and a growing body of evidence for reincarnation, so this is very much of interest in philosophy.

 

For myself, I do not equate consciousness with thought. Consciousness is actually awareness, not thought, and although thought is how we measure consciousness, that does not mean that it is consciousness. It is interesting to note that awareness works very much like emotion, in that we know about it internally, but it actually does its work externally and between things. We have the central nervous system to tell us what is going on internally, and awareness and emotion to tell us what is going on externally, with both feeding information into the brain.

 

When we die, there is no longer a brain to receive information, no longer a central nervous system to give information, and no longer a rational aspect of mind to sort through the information and turn it into conscious thought. But does that mean there is no longer awareness, emotion, or the unconscious aspect of mind? Not so sure on that. Until we are clear on which aspects of mind constitute the "self", it would be difficult to say.

 

It is interesting to note that bonding and emotional attachments are some of the things that are most strongly noted in studies of reincarnation. Bonding works through emotion and emotion works very much like awareness. Emotion and awareness both work through the unconscious aspect of mind; focus and perspective work through the rational aspect of mind. Also consider that religions study spirituality -- which means that they study emotion. So I think that it is quite possible that awareness and/or emotion can exist after death. For how long and in what manner, I could not say, but I suspect that the reality is much more complex than most people even imagine. Until we understand awareness, emotion, mind, and especially bonding, we won't know. imo

 

Gee

[Thorham]

Only things which are physically possible are possibilities.

Unless there is more then just the physical realm, of course.

 

As far as we can tell

That doesn't really mean much, does it?

[Strange]

Unless there is more then just the physical realm, of course.

 

There is no evidence for such.

 

 

That doesn't really mean much, does it?

 

It does in science.

[Thorham]

There is no evidence for such.

 

Does that make it impossible? No.

 

Also, are there any scientists even looking for evidence?

 

It does in science.

 

Yeah, it means we don't know

Edited January 5, 2016 by Thorham

[Strange]

 

Does that make it impossible? No.

 

Also, are there any scientists even looking for evidence?

 

There have been. I'm sure there still are some. For example, because so many people who are give anaesthetics have "out of body" experiences, there was a surgeon who put some objects on top of shelves in the operating room so they are not normally visible. The idea was to see if any of the people who said that they had such an experience could say what was on the shelf. (None have, as far as I know.) So, although out-of-body experiences are a well-attested fact and are thought to have a perfectly normal physical explanation, it is worth testing.

 

 

Yeah, it means we don't know

 

Not quite (and sorry, I was in a hurry earlier and didn't have time to write more). It means we can (in science) only draw conclusions on what we can observe and measure. So however reasonable and convincing our conclusions are at any time we can never rule out new evidence, a "black swan". But until we get that new evidence, we can only use the evidence we currently have.

[Phi for All]

 

Does that make it impossible? No.

 

Also, are there any scientists even looking for evidence?

 

 

Yeah, it means we don't know

 

!

Moderator Note

Can you please step up your game, Thorham? We're asking it of everyone in 2016, and I'd particularly like to see you stop using incredulity as an argument. Just because we don't know some things doesn't mean we don't know anything. Something being possible doesn't make it probable.

 

Coming to a science site to learn is great. Coming to a science site to bad mouth science is only great if you have real evidence for your arguments. Hand-waiving and claiming NOBODY understands something because YOU don't is not rigorous enough to productively discuss these subjects.

 

Lastly, think about what Strange said in response to your remark about "As far as we can tell" "doesn't mean much". You've been here long enough to know that science doesn't deal in proofs. It deals with accumulated preponderance of evidence. "As far as we can tell" is the most honest, effective, and trustworthy means of describing the universe.

 

Report this post if you object. But please don't respond to it here.

[Thorham]

There have been. I'm sure there still are some. For example, because so many people who are give anaesthetics have "out of body" experiences, there was a surgeon who put some objects on top of shelves in the operating room so they are not normally visible. The idea was to see if any of the people who said that they had such an experience could say what was on the shelf. (None have, as far as I know.) So, although out-of-body experiences are a well-attested fact and are thought to have a perfectly normal physical explanation, it is worth testing.

That's not a lot, and people can claim whatever they want. That doesn't show much.

 

Not quite (and sorry, I was in a hurry earlier and didn't have time to write more). It means we can (in science) only draw conclusions on what we can observe and measure. So however reasonable and convincing our conclusions are at any time we can never rule out new evidence, a "black swan". But until we get that new evidence, we can only use the evidence we currently have.

In other words, it means that 'we' don't know.

 

All this just sounds like: 'If I can't see it then it doesn't exist.', and I don't like that one bit.

[tar]

Ganz,

 

"Because infinity is real, there's an infinite amount of possibilities after death,"

 

When somebody dies, let's say an elderly Aunt or Cousin, that person no longer has any input, in terms of new thoughts and actions, to the world. Certainly memory of this person can affect ones thoughts and actions, and one can converse with this unseen other continually and therefore the "image" of this person remains real and effective in determining future possibilities, but the Aunt no longer senses the world through sight and hearing and feeling and taste and smell and the brain that stored and compared the sensory input, no longer is working. The Aunt is dead.

 

So, when you talk about "after death" are you talking about the Aunt, or are you talking about a survivor? Or a third possibility, are you talking about what remains real when both your Aunt and you are dead, and there is only some third party alive. And then another possibility is to consider that which exists when even the third party is dead. And then even another when you consider the stuff happening now in some other galaxy that nobody around here will know about for a half million years.

 

So who is the holder of these possibilities you are talking about? Whose brain is sensing and remembering and comparing the possibilities you suggest are infinite?

 

Regards, TAR

Are you talking about some collective consciousness?

 

Some reality that existed prior your birth and after your death?

Edited January 5, 2016 by tar

[Strange]

In other words, it means that 'we' don't know.

 

No, it means there is a lot we do know. But not everything. We base our conclusions on what we do know, not on what we might know in future.

 

 

All this just sounds like: 'If I can't see it then it doesn't exist.', and I don't like that one bit.

 

I would phrase that as: 'if we can't see it, then we can't say anything about it.'

 

When I worked as a test engineer, people would sometimes say "Will this function work?"

And I would say, "We haven't tested it yet."

"Yes, but what do you think? You've looked at the design. Do you think it will work?"

"We haven't tested it yet."

"Can we tell customers about it?"

"No, because we haven't tested it yet."

[Thorham]

I would phrase that as: 'if we can't see it, then we can't say anything about it.'

That sounds a lot better already.

[Gees]

Strange;

 

Please consider my following thoughts:

 

There is no evidence for such.

 

The above quote was in response to Thorham's post, which suggested that there may be more than just the physical realm. I disagree with your response.

 

I think that there is a good deal of evidence. Consider that mind, awareness, emotion, and bonding have no physical presence that can be measured, weighed, or even directly observed. We can not even prove that they exist, but we are sure that they are real. We only know about them because we can observe their effects on other physical things.

 

Now it can be argued that in order to have an effect on physical things, they must be physical in some way, and I agree. The problem seems to be in the definition of physical. Last I understood, physical was still locked into time and space.

 

Most of the paranormal works through emotion and awareness, with a little bonding on the side, but does not have much regard for time and space, such as with premonitions. Now if you don't like thinking about the paranormal, you can go directly to psychology. Psychology tells us that the unconscious aspect of mind has absolutely no regard for, or understanding of, time and space. Emotion and awareness work through the unconscious aspect of mind, so this, and the way they work, would seem to preclude them from being physical.

 

Just as we changed the definition of physical, when we decided that it was more than just material, we will have to change the definition of physical to include things that have no regard for time and space. In the meantime, I see no reason to object to the term "realm" as there really is no good term to describe things that ignore time and space -- unless you want to use the word "mystical".

 

It does in science.

 

And yet, in the quote below from the Charity thread, you remembered that this is the Philosophy forum.

Gosh. I wonder if that is because this is the "Philosophy" forum ...

 

One of these days you are going to have to explain to me exactly what you think the difference is between philosophy and science, because you appear to be inconsistent and a little confused.

 

Gee

[Thorham]

I think that there is a good deal of evidence. Consider that mind, awareness, emotion, and bonding have no physical presence that can be measured, weighed, or even directly observed.

These things aren't evidence for the non-physical. They could simply be a product of the functioning of the brain (I hope not, of course).

[Strange]

I think that there is a good deal of evidence. Consider that mind, awareness, emotion, and bonding have no physical presence that can be measured, weighed, or even directly observed. We can not even prove that they exist, but we are sure that they are real. We only know about them because we can observe their effects on other physical things.

 

That is pretty incoherent. We can't prove they exist but we know they do from their effects on other physical things? Sounds like proof they exist to me.

 

And they clearly arise from the activity of the brain, a physical object.

 

 

Most of the paranormal works through emotion and awareness...

 

There is no evidence of the paranormal, so how it works is moot.

 

 

Psychology tells us that the unconscious aspect of mind has absolutely no regard for, or understanding of, time and space.

 

Citation needed.

 

 

And yet, in the quote below from the Charity thread, you remembered that this is the Philosophy forum.

 

If you are incapable of understanding the different contexts, that is your problem.

 

 

One of these days you are going to have to explain to me exactly what you think the difference is between philosophy and science

 

No, I don't have to do any such thing.

[Thorham]

There is no evidence of the paranormal, so how it works is moot.

 

What if some people know it exists and they keep that knowledge to themselves?

[Strange]

 

What if some people know it exists and they keep that knowledge to themselves?

 

What if those people are actually lizards from the planet Grax?

[Gees]

Thorham;

 

Please consider:

 

These things aren't evidence for the non-physical. They could simply be a product of the functioning of the brain (I hope not, of course).

 

We are all in love with our "brains", but the idea that the brain produces awareness simply does not hold water. I must have explained this a hundred times, and no one has been able to dispute it: All life is sentient, which means that all life is aware, but all life does not have a brain. These are FACTS.

 

All life has survival instincts, which is why viruses do not qualify as life, because they do not have survival instincts. Survival instincts are activated by feeling/emotion. So all life reacts to feeling and emotion. All life does not have a brain. These are FACTS.

 

A lot of philosophers have studied this for a very long time, and there are two possibilities. Either awareness, feeling, and emotion do not come from the brain, or they do come from the brain, and our brains are responsible for all awareness, feeling, and emotion in all life -- or we thought life up. Many philosophers have come to the conclusion that life is not real, that it is only an imaginary reality produced by our brains. The problem with this idea is that it makes evolution a very long and old dream, produced by beings that apparently did not evolve to human form -- or we are "Gods" that created this reality. When you follow the path that attributes life to our brains, you can find these ideas all over philosophy forums and in book stores.

 

I have been studying consciousness for decades, and rather than follow the path described above, I simply noted that there really is no evidence that consciousness is produced by the brain. When neurology talks about consciousness, what they are talking about is our ability to know that we are conscious, or what philosophy calls being "aware that we are aware". I am not disputing the fact that the brain processes consciousness and adds layers to our consciousness, I am only saying that it does not produce consciousness, as that is still an unknown. The confusion of neurology's definition of consciousness, and philosophy's definition of consciousness, awareness, is a confusion of terms and ignorance of the subject.

 

So if I throw out science's brain ideas for lack of evidence, and I throw out religion's "God" ideas for lack of evidence, what is left? The only thing that I could find to study is how consciousness works. This led to the understanding that thought is internal, but awareness and emotion are both external -- in the way they work. Bonding is controlled by emotion and also works between lives, and mind is very much controlled and regulated by emotion, so this puts awareness, emotion, bonding, and mind all under the control of emotion and the unconscious aspect of mind.

 

None of this precludes these from being physical, until one learns about the unconscious aspect of mind. The unconscious mind does not even acknowledge the existence of time, and works as though all times and now are the same thing. This is why a childhood trauma can affect a person's whole life, because the unconscious, ruled by emotion, sees all past events, now, and all future events as being the same. So a danger that is past, appears to be imminent now, and the past memory can be triggered by the most inconsequential things.

 

After learning about the unconscious mind, I went back to study the paranormal and realized that it also was ruled by emotion and awareness, and it also had a discernible lack of regulation with regard to time. This was when I decided that there is a good possibility that awareness, emotion, bonding, and at least some aspects of mind, may not be constrained by time.

 

Gee

[tar]

Gees,

 

If the brain were not functioning, how could it make a comparison? Or remember a sight, sound, feeling, smell, taste or situation? Or make an analogy or comprehend meaning behind a symbol?

 

Awareness does not mean a single thing, unless it is the awareness of something. That something should exist in and of itself, regardless of what we have to say about it.

 

Emotion is possibly a series of chemical responses and synapse connections, that involve the brain/heart/body complex. I doubt there is evidence that emotions can float about without a physical body to be having them.

 

 

Regards, TAR

Edited January 6, 2016 by tar

[Thorham]

 

What if those people are actually lizards from the planet Grax?

 

 

Bingo. You don't even consider the possibility that paranormal phenomena exist. To you and many others it's just some kind of fiction, unworthy of any research. No evidence? Says who? Why expect evidence to be thrown into your lap if it exists? That's rather lazy, don't you think? Perhaps you could find these things out on your own.

[tar]

Thorham,

 

Is there a particular avenue of investigation, that you think would be fruitful?

 

Regards, TAR

[Gees]

Tars;

 

Please consider:

 

If the brain were not functioning, how could it make a comparison? Or remember a sight, sound, feeling, smell, taste or situation? Or make an analogy or comprehend meaning behind a symbol?

 

I have no idea what you are talking about here. Are you assuming that without a brain nothing can be known? That would be an assumption, if that is your thinking. Assumption is not philosophy.

 

Awareness does not mean a single thing, unless it is the awareness of something. That something should exist in and of itself, regardless of what we have to say about it.

 

I suspect that you are overthinking this. Consider that my table is not aware of anything, or if it is, it shows no indication of awareness. But when it was still a tree, it was aware of the need to seek out water with its roots, and it was aware of the need to turn its leaves to the sun, and it was aware of pests and disease, so it would send out pheromones to warn others of its kind of possible infestations. Trees are aware of what their shape should be, so if they start life halfway under a piece of concrete that causes them to grow crooked, they will try to straighten themselves through growth to produce the correct form. If they are damaged, or the ground at their roots erodes, trees will grow in a direction to try to compensate for the poor balance in order to preserve their lives.

 

This is simple awareness and has nothing to do with "what we have to say about it" and probably has nothing to do with thought -- but it does show knowledge.

Emotion is possibly a series of chemical responses and synapse connections, that involve the brain/heart/body complex. I doubt there is evidence that emotions can float about without a physical body to be having them.

I do not doubt that emotion and chemistry are intimately connected, and you have never heard me say otherwise. But we all know that chemistry affects emotion and emotion affects chemistry. What I find amusing is that people will admit that chemistry affects emotion, but try to pretend that it does not also go the other way.

 

When people are far enough apart that their five senses can not communicate, what is it that keeps their bond connected? Why is it that breaking a bond with an infant in an orphanage can cause the infant's death? Something causes bonds and that something has to do with emotion. You can say that this is just a product of the brain, but that, again, is an assumption.

 

Is there a particular avenue of investigation, that you think would be fruitful?

 

Well, you could always try Google.

 

The University of Virginia has information, and I think that a University in Phoenix studies some of the paranormal. There are lots of investigations by reputable sources worldwide.

 

Gee

[tar]

Gee,

 

I have not read Critique of Pure Reason through, but there is plenty in the first chapters that would suggest that Kant thought out, rather systematically and logically, what is required to make a judgement. It is not an assumption that it takes a human brain to have a human thought, or to consider that language has meaning, and that when you talk about a tree or I talk about a tree, we both know what it is we are talking about.

 

 

 

I am with you, on believing that a tree "knows" something. It knows very well, how to be a tree.

 

And you and I and 7 billion others know very well how to be human beings.

 

How do you pretend though to know how to be something other than a human being? Trees are very possible to understand as life, that has grabbed form and structure from a universe otherwise tending toward entropy. That is the basis of an epiphany I had on a hill top in Germany some 35 years ago. But such victory, as life represents, even the whole history of treeness from the first example of a species to the stands of trees that now exist on that hilltop in Germany, are but a fleeting thing, a glimpse in the expanse of space and time.

 

When we talk philosophy, I assume we mean to talk person to person, and although trees can be companions in life and reality, they are hard to talk to. I have talked to a tree, I even made and kept a promise to a Chesnut tree outside of Morristown Hospital when my dad had open heart surgery. I asked that tree to watch over my dad and in return I would plant one of its chesnuts in California. He recovered, and I planted the tree's seed as I promised. Everyone is rather sure I am crazy.

 

Regards, TAR

to talk to trees

Edited January 6, 2016 by tar