The science of death.

i know i was just talking about all the ones who "live it up before we rot" types
 
skadistic said:
Define a soul. Where is it?
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That aspect of us that does not ever change, even in death. Everywhere.
 
i got a wieard question

since memories and such are eletric impulses, chold thay posibly be recorted by a computer and memorey transferd to disk or something?? *not saying this is posible now*

allso, in most movies*or what ever* whear some one is cloned, and ther memories put onto the new clone, thay make it as if the one cloned had just woken up from a sleep??

so if i was cloned*i will be copy a*, died, had my memories befor the min i died put into a clone*the clone is copy b*, and the clone woken up. whold it seem to me *copy a* that i was just sleeping and woke up as copy b??

im gessing not at all, since im acaly dead, even tho the clone is a genetic copy of me, its not me. so it wholdnt be like me falling asleep, then wakeing up.
 
i cant imagine recording thoughts right now, although 200 years ago no one could imagine going to the moon, but i think it would be hard to just think about one thing and get it to record that one thing. it would probably record experiences all at once (sight, smell, feel, hearing, and taste) then you could experience it later. how cool would that be, memories revamped

also maybe it would be possible to eventually search ones mind to find thoughts and memories, but imagine how sticky that would get

we hate wiretapping now, i can only imagine "braintapping"
 
it would think it was you while you moved on, unless we can copy souls

and THEN we've played god
 
That memories, thoughts, emotions, anything can be presented (without detail obviously) by means of chemistry, does not mean that every mental action is of the same level as every other one. And then again a mental action is not what gets sensed of it.
Thoughts are surrounded by a cloud of emotion (the degree of intensity can vary ofcourse, as all of its other parameters), which makes up most of the thought, both in regards to the actual thought itself, and in regards to the mood of the thought. One could in this way liken a thought progression to a trip from one planet to another, with the surrounding emotion being the solar system, or even the entire galaxy. As in the macrocosm every movement in the universe reaches every part of it (albeit ussually in not ways which are visible; eg a supernova in a universe far away will not create a massive effect in our own solar system, since it will have faded out due to the space between us) likewise in the world of the mind every lower ground of the mind reaches the immediate level of consciousness, but due to the massive distances it doesnt get felt as something more than a general emotion.
However that general emotion is in reality the very specific result of what lies below it. This is why in Psychotherapy someone can examine his emotions and return to past experiences which he may have pushed fa away from his immediate consciousness.
But the emotion itself doesnt only reach to the generally not very deep level of the pushed away traumatic experience; the emotion is formed by very real calculations of an internal, deeper mental calculator, which is distinct from the Ego. (Infact this is my main philosophical and also literary focus, the deeper calculator in the mind) ;)

I doubt that we will ever be able to produce a copy of the mind, but i think that in the future we shall be able to create a sort of "workable" mind, that is a mind where the emotions will be in a deeper level, but will not be coming from the same depth as in a real human brain. The emotions can be programmed as a general feel, whereas in a real brain the emotions are the result of programming below them.

(i hope that i didnt sound metaphysical or sci-fi, because i am neither; just a philosopher/writer) :)
 
if i get what your saying (and my mere high school education doesnt run those thoughts as easily yet as yours) our thoughts and emotions are merely affecting or expressed by chemicals in the brain and maybe the deeper calculator, for sake of debate lets refer to it as the alpha calculator, is really what makes the choices in our life

possibly the elusive soul?

is that what you meant or am i just going off on a tangent?
 
Mr. Dictator said:
i know i was just talking about all the ones who "live it up before we rot" types
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What's wrong with that? Life is for living!
 
yes but im talking of the ones who ruin there body with the whole, im going to die eventually types

i support them in anything they do, but i think its pretty dumb

there has to be more to live for
 
Hm, the deeper calculator could be many things. What is for sure is that it would be very dangerous to actually try to approach it very closely, since its work is to calculate massive amounts of info all of the time. No Ego could really do that and at the same time manage to function socially. It is highly probable that the reasons our mind evolved in such a way was exactly so as to enable us to focus on basic biological needs and survival.

The soul is a metaphysical concept, which could still work, but it would require the deeper calculator being a sort of final vessel, linked to a realm outside of our body, or that our body i reality is linked to the outside world in other levels, but such views are just metaphysical theory. Imo the mind could just be destined to die after a few decades, and all of its fearsome complexity was just there due to the need to enable us to survive, without focuing too much on how the mind works.
 
that would suck, the pinnacle of evolution, just a tool to survive. but in reality we could only evolve to help us survive. hmmmm.....interesting

but then, if our mind was designed soley for survival how do we have the Mozarts, Beethovens, Worhals, etc.....mutations, anomalies, or maybe just people who have hacked their alpha calculator to make it do things nature never intended, make art.

ohwell the whole idea is very abstract and i feel like im just rambling off the top of my mind right now so maybe you could discuss now :)
 
The deeper calculator is just a concept of mine; it doesnt desscribe a set way everyone followed to get anywhere, and besides every person has his own mind. My own such calculator would have similarities with those of other people's, but it wouldnt be the same thing.
In Psychology there are three general mental realms:

--the conscious. This is the immediate conscious, ie what you are thinking/feeling right now, and the overall conscious, which is the immediate + anything else that you are used to thinking and can move to at will more or less, for example knowledge of math, knowledge of writing etc

--the subconcious This is immediately below the conscious. However it is very interplaying with the conscious. The main part of it appears to be formed from libidinal powers, ie powers that have to do with the sexual nature of the person. There is a simple reason why this is so: sex is a social act, and also a biological one, however it isnt always in the foreground of consciousness and therefore it gets sunk into another level, with all of its associations and symbolisms. Psychotherapy is heavily about the subconscious, and Freud had claimed that all psychological problems are of sexual undercurrents (sorry for being too general, but i am trying to get to the third part ;) )

--The unconscious. This is the vast part below everything else. Whereas the conscious works with set ways of thinking (eg "logic" or other learned processes) and the subconscious with libidinal dynamics, the unconscious is the foundation of everything. Whereas the subconscious still is rellevant to the conscious by means of symbolisms and notions which exist in the outside world (eg the opossite sex) the unconscious is where all those notions break up to infinite numbers of particles, and then are again synthesised, to enable us to make any thought we want to in any way we can make it. The unconscious also is where meanings stop having the value they have in the above levels, since they have to gain some form from something else. However it is not known by what. My view is that it should be some form of ever-flowing spiral calculation of immense size and detail, but that is just a general ideal ;)

I agree that art exists due to the bottomless pit of the mind, but so does everything else. Survival may seem pretty basic as a goal, but it isnt as basic if you were trying to make something which could survive on its own ;) Perhaps we needed something as complex as the human mind just so as to survive.

ps: i am not a psychologist; my university degree is in philosophy, and i just gave a general account of the main realms of the mind according to psychology. In reality my knowledge in it is rather limited
 
skadistic said:
Since there is only the electrical impulses that make up our personality and thoughts and memories when thoes synapses stop fiering thats it no more thought no soul no afterlife.

Your "mind" is the bio-chemical and bi-electric impulses. Its not as aww insipering as some invisible soul thingy but it is what it is. In all you are just a very complex computer. Can your mind be "read" after death like a hard drive after a mother board getting fried? Hell if I know but thats an expariment worth conducting if it isn't being done already.
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Yes very interesting, was watching a documentary on how the brain function and electrical impulses. It went on about how in perhaps a century or two we could store people's "mind" in a virtual environement (think a matrice, basically internet on a larger scale).

It was quite amazing and also very scary. Basically eternal life we are talking here. Though i'm not sure if Life can still describe it. Because if we are able to store your 'mind' or better yet, load it onto a machine, you are not a human being anymore.

This bit of the documentary was of course just pure science fiction, but it insisted on the fact that this could be possible.
 
but if it takes a human mind to survive then animals would have to be on our level, after all i dont see any statues or musical pieces they have created

maybe man is unique in the fact that we have the unconscious mind, maybe we could survive without it and bump survival up to the subconscious and voila we are animals again
 
The animals should be having an unconscious, and a subconscious and a conscious, the difference is that the animals do not have what in traditional philosophy was called "the faculty of reason" and in modern terms "higher mental abilities", ie analytical abilities, and also they lack the formation of a complicated language (which is linked to higher mental abilities). The calculator would still work without someone to observe it work. After all the ways of observation are of the Ego and the consciousness. If i was sunk into the unconscious in theory i wouldnt be able to think much, since the steps which have been built in the level of consciousness so as to walk upon would not be existant there, or rather there would be only shadows of them, or rather shadows of particles of the steps. An animal on the other hand doesnt appear to have the ability to examine itself, and therefore it does not have the ability to wonder about its subconscious/unconscious either.

That animals do have a subconscious has been demonstrated by various experiments. For example dogs can remember scary experiences (eg if you hit them) and in the future be frightened if something similar comes their way. While we have no way of asserting how much of their fear is "explained" in their immediate level of consciousness, it is obvious that they retain the fear in their subconscious. This is why it is ussual of stray dogs to become violent or miserable, because they have basic progressions of pathological symptoms (not in such detail as human beings ofcourse, due to their lower intellect).
However the animal subconscious is not of the same dynamic as the human one, since for humans sex is not just a biological need, but a cultural and ethical/symbolic etc issue.

Im sure however that it would be very difficult to even describe the unconscious of an ant (and ant has considerably less brain cells, but still a very large amount, i dont remember atm) since so many thousants of thousants of neuron connections cannot realistically be explained, even if one tried consistently for all his life.

On the contrary it is far better that we can actually move our hands and legs without having to think that below that so basic movement there lie oceans of notions (leg, body, movement, space, end of the movement, ability to seemingly make a movement that is chaotic/with no special end and so your hand can stop abruptly somewhere, etc). If we were trying to calculate how we function we would slowly stop functioning, which can be very dangerous.
 
but how can you prove an animal has an unconscious

and why couldnt the survival instinct be in the subconscious

after all most survival instincts (barring innate) are just learned behaviors, ie: an animal learns that he needs to sneak up on its prey before attacking because of previously failed attempts.
 
skadistic said:
So as not to continue thread jacking. What happens when you die? I don't want religious dogmas I want the real facts of what happens when you die.


From what I gather:

1) blood stops flowing
2) Oxygen stops being delivered
3) Bioelectric impulses stop (this is the part that encompasses thought)
4) cells start to die
5) blood pools on the bottom
6) rigamortis sets in
7) bowels and bladder relax
8) Skin shrinks do to dehydration
9) Insects lay eggs
10) larva and bactiria begin breaking down the corpse
11) soft tissue is consumed leaving only bone ,hair, and ,maybe leathery skin.

Since there is only the electrical impulses that make up our personality and thoughts and memories when thoes synapses stop fiering thats it no more thought no soul no afterlife.

Now if you can correct any of that with backed scientific evidence please do so.



edited #6 from riger to rigamortis
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I really don't understand all of these threads trying to scientifically prove whether or not there is an afterlife, a soul, whether God exists, etc. etc. If someone believes something, they believe it as a matter of faith. Honestly, what does it matter to you if someone has a belief in the soul or an afterlife? You will NEVER convince them otherwise or it wouldn't be a matter of faith. That's the whole concept of faith.

I'm not religious at all and I sin pretty much daily (if not by the hour) but I am content to let people believe in whatever faith they choose and realize it is pointless to try to get them to abandon their deeply held religious beliefs.
 
Brian_B said:
I really don't understand all of these threads trying to scientifically prove whether or not there is an afterlife, a soul, whether God exists, etc. etc. If someone believes something, they believe it as a matter of faith. Honestly, what does it matter to you if someone has a belief in the soul or an afterlife? You will NEVER convince them otherwise or it wouldn't be a matter of faith. That's the whole concept of faith.

I'm not religious at all and I sin pretty much daily (if not by the hour) but I am content to let people believe in whatever faith they choose and realize it is pointless to try to get them to abandon their deeply held religious beliefs.
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These threads will never change anyones mind on religion. They keep popping up for the pure thrill of the debate. Hell sometimes people argue points they don't even believe.
 
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