Should you be afraid of Hell?

[Timsup2nothin]

Does it come down to whether a disembodied consciousness is impossible, then?

How would you prove it?

By assigning a "physical pattern in the brain" as consciousness. By definition it can not be disembodied, since it is a physical pattern.

Where's that easy button from Staples?

 

[Lohrenswald]

So, you posit that your answer is genuine? You do realize that would not be particularly unique, right? (I will spare you the friendly smiley that I would normally use to take any possible sting out of those questions)

I'm not entierly sure if I understand what you're getting at. You say I'm like the relgious people in postulating a certain belief like truth right? And in my case that it's the non-existance of hell and conciousness being patterns in the brain, right?

 

[Borachio]

Of course. If you've decided that consciousness is a brain activity and nothing but a brain activity, your job is done.

Bit of a cheat, though. (Not that I'm above cheating.)

It still tells me nothing about the subjective experience of dying, and what visions of hell (or heaven) might await me, just before I finally peg out.

Nor, I hasten to add, the subjective duration of those visions.

I wonder if cremation mightn't reboot the human brain too. Just enough to be unpleasant.

 

[Lohrenswald]

How is that a cheat?

My position is that only physical things exist, what else can concsiousness be than "stuff" in the brain?

(also, Hell is postulated as non-physical by some)

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, we're not sure what the carrier of consciousness is, which of the physical forces (or what combination) other than knowing that the brain provides the substrate through which these forces operate.

We cannot think of a mechanism by which the requisite energies/fields/forces can be properly created AND controlled without substrate, though. So, some type of brain would be required. It's like asking if you can get a magnetic field in a vacuum AND be of the sort of field that could collect MRI data ...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not entierly sure if I understand what you're getting at. You say I'm like the relgious people in postulating a certain belief like truth right? And in my case that it's the non-existance of hell and conciousness being patterns in the brain, right?

Not the religious people. All the people. When confronted by an unanswerable question we either make up our own answer or grab one ready made that gets us through the day. If we come up with one that is really comfortable we are quite willing to forget that the question is really not answerable.

The only people who know "what happens when you die" are dead people, and they ain't talkin'. So no matter how comfortable an answer may be, at some point somebody who has no clue made it up.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Well, we're not sure what the carrier of consciousness is, which of the physical forces (or what combination) other than knowing that the brain provides the substrate through which these forces operate.

We cannot think of a mechanism by which the requisite energies/fields/forces can be properly created AND controlled without substrate, though. So, some type of brain would be required. It's like asking if you can get a magnetic field in a vacuum AND be of the sort of field that could collect MRI data ...

I think of it a bit as: a concsiuosness outside the brain is like waterwaves without water. That's not a thing, you know?

EDIT: we can see dead people decaying, though, Tim

Also, I don't take comfort in this or anything

 

[Borachio]

How is that a cheat?

My position is that only physical things exist, what else can concsiousness be than "stuff" in the brain?

(also, Hell is postulated as non-physical by some)

I'm inclined to agree. I'm a pretty firm materialist, btw. But I still simply do not know.

It's entirely possible that consciousness is indeed just an emergent property of the physical brain and ceases to exist when the brain ceases to function.

But we don't know anything about what happens for sure until we die ourselves. And if you and I are right in our proposition, we won't know then either, because we won't have any brain function to know it with.

I simply try not to afford myself the luxury of pretending to knowledge I don't have. If I really don't know something (even something that seems perfectly reasonable), I feel obliged to say I don't know. There's no shortage of people who are certain sure about stuff.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I'm inclined to agree. I'm a pretty firm materialist, btw. But I still simply do not know.

It's entirely possible that consciousness is indeed simply an emergent property of the physical brain and ceases to exist when the brain ceases to function.

But we don't know anything about what happens for sure until we die ourselves. And if you and I are right in our proposition we won't know then either, because we won't have any brain function to know it with.

What makes you so sure we can't know for sure before we die?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I think of it a bit as: a concsiuosness outside the brain is like waterwaves without water. That's not a thing, you know?

EDIT: we can see dead people decaying, though, Tim

You can see dead bodies decaying, no question.

That is a function of time. So is your wave in the water. Without observation over time water is just water and there is no wave. Without observation over time there is no consciousness, whether the body is alive or dead. Things that can only be observed over time are processes, not objects.

Mac makes the point about substrate, and that water and wave example works fairly well for it...though is the wave really confined to the water is a question that will begin to unravel even that. But this idea that the brain has to be the substrate of consciousness is a lot less raveled to start with. Clearly the brain is the substrate of thought, but is consciousness just a ten dollar word for thought?

 

[El_Machinae]

I think of it a bit as: a concsiuosness outside the brain is like waterwaves without water. That's not a thing, you know?

EDIT: we can see dead people decaying, though, Tim

Also, I don't take comfort in this or anything

Not bad. I'd say it's more "what makes a buoy bob up and down when there's no water?"

I mean, ostensibly lots of things could make it bob up and down, but if there's no water then we shouldn't expect it to be floating.

 

[Borachio]

I generally think of candle flames. When people ask me what might happen to my consciousness (or soul) when I die, I ask them where the flame goes when they blow a candle out.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Clearly the brain is the substrate of thought, but is consciousness just a ten dollar word for thought?

.........

....yes?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Not bad. I'd say it's more "what makes a buoy bob up and down when there's no water?"

I mean, ostensibly lots of things could make it bob up and down, but if there's no water then we shouldn't expect it to be floating.

Right. We shouldn't expect it to be floating. If I use electromagnets to make it float, and even bob up and down, we are far too educated to be taken in by this simple application of physics.

But we understand magnetic fields and electricity. Someone who didn't would be mystified. Briefly. Then they would make up something, probably something closely related to experience that they do have. And I would probably get burned at the stake as a witch.

We look at consciousness, are mystified, and explain it by making up something closely related to experience we have. That's human behavior.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

.........

....yes?

.......no?


Maybe?

 

[Lohrenswald]

I've never came across someone who felt concsiousness should be "something more", so I really don't know what you were getting at.

 

[Borachio]

Sure you have! The notion of "soul" is exactly consciousness as "something more than merely brain activity".

 

[Lohrenswald]

Those people don't refer to the soul as conciousness I think.

And Timsupdown doesn't seem like one of those people.

Also, souls, much like hell, doesn't exist.

 

[Borachio]

No. They'll tell you that your soul is "what you are". The essence of yourself.

What I am is my consciousness (which also includes my unconscious, but let's not complicate matters). And I think that's what they mean they talk about my soul.

It could be that the "soul" is only a part of consciousness, of course. But to suggest that the two are unrelated would seem a little strange, I think.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Yea, but they say the soul is independent (or can be independent) from the body, which it can't. It's "patterns" in the brain after all.