The mind, the soul and the (alleged) afterlife.

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Most spiritualists, especially the NDE/OBE crowd, posit that something called a "soul" not only exists(though as yet undetected and not measured by science), but that this soul is the actual seat of conciousness/mind. At best, they argue, the brain is merely a "recieving station" of sorts.
The "recieving station" ananlogy is a rather recent construct to get around the problem that alzheimers and blows to the head will confuse thinking while blows to other body parts do not. This fact points to the inference that we do our thinking with a "piece of meat, not a piece of magic" as a friend over at the Belief.net forums puts it.
However, not only does the recieving station analogy not answer many questions but it just sounds outright dodgy and weak. If souls leave our bodies and get around to whereever they need to go(be it heaven or what have you) then they must be able to effectively "see" pretty well without the use of eyes. So why are there any blind people? Why do we even have eyes?
Every othyer component of my self that I possess, i am keenly aware of or can readily examine if I so choose. My heart, my skull, my right arm...everything. But where is my soul?
And why is my soul, free from physical restraints such as the need to consume food and such, imprisoned within my physical body until I either die or undergo triple bi-pass surgery?? Why does the sould return to the physical prison in the case of so-called NDE/OBE's?? It seems that if I were suddenly free from such a constraint andaware of my soul soaring about the OR, I would not bother returning to my less than ideal condition as an ailing mortal.
NDE proponents often tell of OBEs where a disembodied soul can actually HEAR what surgeons were saying in the OR as their body was being repaired. how do souls pick up such vibrational frequencies and decipher them without ears?

I will stop there...for now.

[ January 20, 2004, 12:58: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Please define NDE and OBE.

 

The soul is not the seat of conciousness, it is but four steps further towards it. But you aren't talking about the soul, this is a misnomer, you talk of the astral self.

All substance is spirit-matter. To have thought, something must contain it.

Do not think substance is the narrow view held by science. Flames are comprised of matter, yet of a sort far denser than that which would contain the soul.

The soul cannot be measured by physical science of course, because our tools are not fine enough.

The brain is the vehicle of our consciousness, not simply a recieving station. This does not mean we may not have a conciousness independant of it.

We can percieve a thing without sensations being forced upon our physical form, within it. This is how we dream, this is how may know the thoughts of another.

If you want to experience your soul, you must use a different set of eyes; The opened eye of Dangma, the eyes of the mystic; Second sight -or sixth sense. Both originate from the same cause, as does our physical sight, they merely stop at differnt levels. This applies no less to what you hear.

Do you think you have that body with no purpose!? It is ideal, ideal because it is exactly what is required for what it is we are seeking in this existence.

If it sounds weak to you, ignore it. If you have no experinece of such things, listen to -belive- those who do. Do not imply those who lay such a claim liars.

So be it.

 

Groundless assertions. What are these "steps" towards conciousness and how do you determine that the soul is precisely four steps closer to it(closer than what BTW?)?

I have never seen anything that warranted the inference of an "astral self" either, btw.

More bald assertions. You are stating personal beliefs you have as if they were already established facts. Thus far we have no reason to think that "spirit" or "spirit matter" exists. I am not sure what you mean by "To have thought something must contain it.".

DO you know anything about science or do you just take any oppurtunity you can to sleight scientists for not being able to reveal the mystical/spiritual/supernatural?

To answer your question I am a divorced materialist, a skeptic, an agnsotic and an atheist.

In order to assert this, you would have to possess some means of measuring the soul and determining it's matter content.

Then how do you know such a thing exists? Faith? Spiritual attunement? I see no reason to assent to your claim.

Two conciousnesses? I wish the other one would speak up then! Would solve a lot of issues...

I will avoid the Cartesian dualism thing for now.

Dreaming is imagining, not percieving. We do not know the thoughts of others(as far as anyone has been able to demonstrate anyway).

More unqualified assertions. When engaging in such discourse as we have here it is considered a fallacy to state such things as if they were accepted truths. One should also try and define the things one is claiming in an existential debate(eg. "Eye of Dangma", "Second sight" etc.)

 

Friend, I am not interested in arguing with you upon this. I do not care whether you belive me or not, you have asked a question, and I have answered. You are correct there is nothing that can be proved, you must find reason to belive it yourself. This applies to anything, however. Any statement which we take as truth inevitably ends up relying on our own trust, or faith if you will. I do not think you could refute this.

On another matter, yes, I do know a lot about science, and was in fact awarded a scholarship in physics back when I was studying at university.

The answers I have given have been proved to me, and are as established as fact as would another thing be to you. Do not assume that there is any difference between what you belive and what I do in the terms of evidence and truth. If your basis for fact is a sheer majority consensus, you yourself know little of science indeed.

What would I say to you to cause you to believe me? That some of these things have been tested by scientific method? That they are as experientially true as is the assertation that "I think, therefore I am"? Am I to reveal these things to you in great detail, something whcih I cannot, *will not* do, merely for the pleasure of hearing you say "I do not belive you"?

There is no fallacy in my argument, If I were to state that a tree is made of wood you would assent. There is no difference in such a claim, the only difference is that it lays outsdie of your own experience. How would you have me prove these things to you? Kill you? That you may know better than any of us what lies beyond this existence? That is the only way we will be sure.

Please, you have not stated any refutation of what I have said based on any evidence of your own, evidence which you decry is lacking within my own reply, yet is available for you as much as for any other.

If you wish for an existential debate as you term it, say something more than "I'm not going to belive that".

Or are you merely interested in showing your own bravado, demonstrating your cunning ability at nay-saying. You have shown or proven nothing to support your claims that I am not right. I have stated there is evidence, scientific and hostorical, if you are not allready aware of this, as one who seems to have studies such things, then you are not interested in knowing, only concluding that you must have been right all along.

Go find me a sound philosophical theory that relies entirely on empirical evidence, with no assumptions, and no inferences. The very notion of empirical theory is both an assumption and an inference in itself!

 

And theory is totally useless if it is not testable. Show me how anything you say is testable and I will believe you. Anyone who was awarded a scholorship in physics knows that if the theory does not predict anything and is not testable knows that it is not a sound theory. Its just a blind untestable guess based on assumptions. Which is what your "facts" are.

 

No they are not, they are grounded in the experince of humanity across millenia, something which you too can experience if you wish. I cannot do it for you, nor will I.

As to more modern things, I have read quite a few, as I said elsewhere, scientifically conducted experiments upon psi phenomena. I don't keep a list of them, because there is no need for me to do so, I do not need to prove these things to myself. From pre-cogntion to telekensis to telepathy the simple act of recharging a flat battery.

If I could meet you in person, I could introduce you to people who could perfrom any of these things for you, or even show a limited number of these things myself. But until then, you can either belive me, or not. It is your choice.

 

Manus, I’m sure you believe that what you say is the truth, and I don't mean to offend or insult you here. But, as you sometimes have the habit of doing, you make statements like the ones you’ve made here (ie. presenting ideas that are not at all generally accepted as “truths” by most people) without presenting any evidence to support them, or providing us with any information as to how we could go about verifying your claims (without us actually having to travel to Australia to meet you in person, as you have offered). So what we are left with is nothing but empty words, and that, for most of us, is not enough.

On topic: I’m not a believer in the afterlife, or soul, or whatever you want to call it. However, if I were to assume for the moment that it does exist, perhaps it is not “perfect” on its own, but requires a host (ie. person) to make it complete. But then again, I have no idea what I’m talking about.

 

No, I don't believe that there is an afterlife. IF there is an afterlife, it is nothing like what the various religions say it is. It'll be something a lot like what we have now, but more endless, more timeless. It may be a view without imagination, but it is also a view that is logical.

@Manus - I agree with RuneQuester; if there is another consciousness, how come it never shows itself? Or is it always showing itself and we just don't know it? "Having learnt this much, the mystic will be better prepared to understand the Occult teaching, though every formal student of modern science may, and probably will, regard it as preposterous nonsense." Of course that is so, they'll be more superstitious. Those people are the ones that also believe that, for example, if you step on the chalk line between home and first, or third and home (in baseball), that it is bad luck and you lose the game. Same thing, really, nonsense.

@RuneQuester - opened eye of Dogma, the eyes of the mystic, et al, are the same thing, or basically the same thing; sixth sense, and limitedly, telepathy, or at least that is how I understand it. That sill doesn't really have anything to do with a soul, but rather a strong, disciplined brain.

Indeed there has been proof telekinesis. Just search it on a search engine, like Google, and you will find many hits for it. It is interesting to see that both of people that started debating about this never backed up their claims with evidence. They just said it is, so it must be so. No offense to either of you guys, it's just what is.

 

Actually Manus, there is not one single shred of "hard" evidence for Psi ability of any kind. There is enough anectodal evidence to keep me from totally disbelieving it though. But there is not one... not a single study that has shown repeatable evidence of psi activity. Saying you've seen studies and then not bringing them up proves nothing at all. The best evidence yet was a gentleman (can't remember his name) that during ONE battery of tests was able to guess the correct cards about 20 out of 25 tries over a series of tests. No one yet has been able to prove fruad and the odds of that happening are 1 in the several billions. Unfortantly, the gentleman was NEVER able to reproduce those results under controlled conditions again which unfortantly supports the theory that it was either rigged (though not known how) or was an incredible fluke. Do not confuse BELIEF with FACT though as the conditions for either are very different.

 

Hmm, so I guess I am a liar. If you say so.

Hehe, remember that, as I said, you belief in what constitutes proof is in itself unproven and an assumption resting upon faith. Besides, there is evidence.

No, I know what you people mean. It is hard, well, it is necessary to do so I assume, hard to belive something on trust by another when you have no experinec in that field.

I come from a different perspective here however, to me, these things are truth.

When someone talks about something, I expect to be able to say, well, it's like this. I don't expect people to ask me to prove it any more than I would expect to be asked to prove how many legs a dog has.

I wouldn't discuss these thins with the majority of people however, as they just don't care.

Though these things are, in themselves, hard to prove to someone without them experiencing it for themselves. I know people who could sit you down and display telepathy for example, but in the majority of cases, that is, the ones I know are not many, it does not work like that. It is not something you just do, it just happens to you, until you are more experienced.

You can experience something close to the afterlife through deep meditation, or better yet, mysticism, but again, this is something you must experience for yourself. Yet I belive it, and have not done it. Beyond my present abilities.

As to this other conciousness, we are concious on more than a single level, not only one. Becoming aware of it, that is, aware of higher forms of existence, and working with them, is part of the progression towards perfection.

Superstition by the way, has nothing to do with enlightenment, though if you believe that bad luck will be caused upon you enough, it most probably will. "With our thoughts, we make the world" In a world comprised of spirit, our thoughts can influence things just as much, if only, but not limited to, the influence they ahve upon ourselves, which is at least accepted by science.

Sixth sense and telepathy you are correct, has to do with a disciplined mind, but depend opon the nature of the things I have discussed, to my knowledge. The opened eye of Dangma, one step further among many, as perception increased to include higher planes of reality, and therefore, to transcend our own limitations of space and time, to a certain extent.

Actuallym, the other reason I refused to back these up is I have been in several, very long, discussions with RuneQuester allready, where I had alleready talked about these things. If you want me to, I can explain them in greater detail, but I don't think anyone here cares either.

As to what I said concerning the physical vehicle, in order for an untrained or undeveloped awareness to function in a given plane, there must be a thing which is of that plane, instead of those above it.

You start riding a bike with training wheel, then they are removed, and then you may be able to ride a uni-cycle. It is the same thing.

Look, if everyone really wants I can put a disclaimer at the bottom of every post saying "These are my beliefs and those whom think, have thought, and will think, in accordance to the same beliefs. As far as I am concerned they are true but I will gladly and instantly agree that they may be irrelevant and unprovable to you at this present time, or any other given time." But is that really going to change anything?

I mean, you allready assume all of that allready. I'm only trying to be helpful here, it is different to me to say "No, that lies outside of my experience and I say it isn't so." compared to "No, that lies within my experience but I have reached the conclusion that it isn't so, I say this is so instead."

 

If this was only about belief there would not be a problem, it is your insistence that your belief and facts are the same thing. I believe many things, many of which are not "facts". As do you. But I know the difference between my beliefs (which I cannot fully prove) and facts. If you say that is your belief and only your belief there is no arguement, if you say those are facts then that is where the arguement arises.

 

Why on Earth would I believe something if I did not think it were true?

 

A fact is something you can prove. A belief is anything you believe in, regardless of the ablity to prove it.

 

Actually, some people fail to distinguish belief from fact. And it's not exclusively the people who defend faiths.

Look, cold-logical people: you tell people of faith to prove their faith and attempt to disprove it logically. However, you don't accept belief as logically valid. Contradiction? Maybe, maybe not. Depends how proficient one is with formal logic At any rate, it just doesn't look all right.

Where there's faith, there's no proof. If you know, you don't have to believe. The theological construction of faith is that one must answer the call, accept his limitations and... well... believe. Which means accept something without full logical proof.

Therefore, e.g. the existence of God can't be enforced as a fact on non-believers. However, it can't be enforced as non-fact on believers. You cannot prove it, but you cannot disprove it. From the point of view of logic alone, it leaves a question mark, not a 0/1 value.

Therefore, you can't disprove someone's faith and you are no less unable to prove your faith to anyone. One doesn't go together with the other. It's two different worlds.

Another formal reservation I wish to make is that when you ask someone what his opinion is or what he thinks about something, you're asking for premise-to-conclusion full logical inference with transparently described steps.

You ask "what is your opinion?". And you receive an evaluation which is not subject to 0/1 grading, therefore not a sentence in logical sense. A sentence in logical sense is "my opinion is that...", which is a factual statement. That it can't be proven is a fine paradox, since you can't really prove that your opinion is this and not that, hehe. But please forgive me this little diggression. I know how improper I am when it comes to joyful logic for its own sake.

To answer points raised in this thread, I must consequently state that, following what I said above, it's impossible for scientists to prove the spiritual, supernatural, metaphysical.

Therefore, consequently, in the light of what I said above, he can't prove anything to you. However, he doesn't make any such claim. He his own set of experience, prejudices and biases as everyone has, and whether you agree or not is what his world revolves around, frankly speaking.

If soul is a matter of faith, it cannot be proven logically. It cannot be proven because there's no physical evidence, not even enough physical evidence to provide full deductional prove or even partial inductional proof, nothing. You believe or not. Logically, if there's no tangible evidence, it means it can't be perceived or measured in physical sense. Therefore, our perfectly earthly, tangible bodies are not able to perceive it, independently from any assumptions as to whether it exists or not. Ideal is a concept and it depends on subjective evaluation of ideality, which necessitates a prior agreement as to the criteria of ideality. Even the said prior agreement is only effective between the two debating parties and therefore it is not effective erga omnes (against everyone). Therefore, we cannot address ideality as a logical category so long as we don't all agree on the criteria for ideality.

If we assume the existence of the supernatural, the natural isn't ideal since it can't on its own perceive the supernatural.

Much the same as I. While I won't take their word on that they're right, I don't have the attitude to dismiss them as liars until they prove their claims. After all, they probably understand my doubts too, and they are describing their experience, not making logical claims.

Now, we cannot prove their experience. However, we cannot disprove it either. Therefore, their experience may be fact or non-fact, independently from our knowledge as the quality of being true or false doesn't depend on evaluation. If we say that something is true if we agree or that something is false if we disagree, we should consequently assign 0/1 values to evaluational statements and therefore we would have an internally contradicting logical system as people will inevitably differ in their evaluation of identical objects if their criteria are subjective. And their criteria are subjective for such is the nature of evaluation other than comparing actual data to desired data of the same format.

Therefore, they may well be right, logically. If they are right, there's no reason for them to keep quiet and pretend they haven't seen anything. Neither do they have a reason to claim they're wrong. The latter would contradict factual knowledge and be a falsehood.

They have seen it, or they think they have seen it, so they quite logically assume it exists. After all, we cannot prove the existence of ourselves or of anything that way. I see my cat, they can see my cat if they come, and you would see my cat if you came to my house. So we say that my cat exists and therefore the sentence "chevalier's cat exists" has been given a value of 1. They have seen something strange, I haven't seen it, you haven't seen it. We don't really believe them. That's how the logic of "scientific proof" is flawed in common reception, even among people with impressive degrees.

Now, if some people came round and denied the existence of my cat, would we change our mind? As aspiring philosophers we could probably say "chev's cat exists for us, but it doesn't exist for you", not like it's any valid logical construction whatsoever (a valid construction would be "we believe" and it would be valid by virtue of our belief being what it is, regardlessly of whether we believe according to or against facts). However, we wouldn't assent to the non-existence of my cat. After all, we've seen it. It walks, it hisses, it bites. The same way things work for people who've potentially had out-of-body experience.

 

But any fact must be believed only, at a certain point. As I've said before, the very assumptions we take upon how something can be proved, or whether it is proved, are beliefs themselves. Nothing can be truly proven, but things can be proven to a level which satisfies us, to be relied upon in practical certainty. This is what a belief is, something we think is true. Why would we think it were true if we had no reason to think so?

Or do you mean prove to someone else? That depends on their own beliefs, beliefs again, are we to substitute our beliefs for another's?

EDIT: chevalier said it so much better than I. Logic I am afraid is not my forte.

 

The problem is that some things are being presented as "fact" when they are actually belief. No one here is argueing belief, we are argueing fact. At least I am. Manus can say he believes something and that is perfectly fine. When he presents it as an absolute fact and we just simply cannot comprehend it is where the arguement arises.

 

My understanding of 'fact' lies not upon whom I can convince, but whether a thing is True.

If I belive it to be true, it is a fact. To me a simple belief, that is, not a fact, is something I am not certain of.

Thus, what I believe is true, I believe is fact.

This applies to anything, and everyone. I belive it is a fact that I have proof of that which I belive is true. Perhaps we understand proof differently as well.

I am not saying that anyone should belive what I am saying themselves. Only that it is as true to me as anything else. I often say, 'to my knowlegde', or 'I think', or 'according to my experience', or whatever to avoid this exact confusion. I am aware that not everyone shall belive me, but I belive me or I would not have mentioned it in the first place.

If it was something I were uncertain of, I would say 'it is supposed' or 'they say it could be', or 'perhaps'. 'I think can also be used here. If that will lead to confusion, I will use it in neither case.

But I do not see how it is relevant whether I belive it is true or I am uncertain of it, it does not affect your own belief.

 

Wowzers! Could you take a moment to believe me fabulously wealthy beyond all imagination? I'd also appreciate it if you could believe me as powerful as superman without that pesky kryptonite problem.