What Happens After Death

[Gryffindorian]

I looked into other religions, read a few other religious books, traced back the histories of religion (the Egyptian deity Horus debunked Jesus for me), and couldn't find anything that worked along with science.

I'm not an expert but I think Buddhism might.

I actually don't believe that religion and science are necessarily opposed at all. I know many people who are both religious and rational. One can be a Christian and still understand that the bible is a combination of ancient social codes, metaphor, myth, poetry, and history, and not literal truth. One can "debunk" Jesus as you said (not just with Horus, there is also a Greek god who bears an uncanny resemblance to the Christian savior, though his name has slipped my mind), but still believe in what he stands for, still believe that the actual people on whom these myths are based were endowed with some holiness or sanctity. Fundamentalism and science are indeed mutually exclusive, but not religion on its own.

There are aspects of some people's religions that are falsifiable, of course: We can test whether incendiary prayer works (and we have, and it doesn't). We can test if a spirit leaves the body in the form of energy upon death (and we have, and it doesn't). But we cannot test the claim that there was a creator, who created the universe to evolve as if there were no creator. We can't disprove an unfalsifiable god; so long as one can phrase one's beliefs as unfalsifiable claims, unfalsifiable claims remain just that: not within the realm of science to answer.

Again, I don't think that just because something cannot be disproved is a good enough reason to believe in it -- going back to Carl Sagan's invisible, silent, heatless dragon in the garage -- but I do think that the claimed mutual exclusivity between religion and science is untenable, and I think that building such a wall only serves to further the misguided notion that science is a belief system or just another worldview, rather than simply a tool to solve problems.

And the next thing you know, she's going to say there's no such thing as magic. Muggles!

 

[bbjeg]

^I believe in magic, though it's not the magic most people assume.

... We can test if a spirit leaves the body in the form of energy upon death (and we have, and it doesn't).

I'm with everything else you said but I think I never got behind that study because I never looked at it as the soul leaving the body. I looked at it more like the body being no longer able to produce a soul.

 

[thestrangequark]

^I believe in magic, though it's not the magic most people assume.

... We can test if a spirit leaves the body in the form of energy upon death (and we have, and it doesn't).

I'm with everything else you said but I think I never got behind that study because I never looked at it as the soul leaving the body. I looked at it more like the body being no longer able to produce a soul.

But do you think the soul survives? How can something survive when the thing that produces it can no longer produce it?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^I believe in magic, though it's not the magic most people assume.

... We can test if a spirit leaves the body in the form of energy upon death (and we have, and it doesn't).

I'm with everything else you said but I think I never got behind that study because I never looked at it as the soul leaving the body. I looked at it more like the body being no longer able to produce a soul.

But do you think the soul survives? How can something survive when the thing that produces it can no longer produce it?

I'm not a believer in souls, but there are two fairly obvious proposals. I throw them out merely for the sake of argument, discussion, and whatnot.

One is that perhaps the soul no longer needs the body, such as by being mature enough to maintain integrity on its own without physical assistance.

The other is that perhaps the soul isn't generated by the body in the first place, but rather merely associated with it for a time.

 

[thestrangequark]

^I guess they just sound silly to me. Occam's razor and whatnot.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Oh, if we are entertaining the notion of souls, I didn't realize that Occam's razor was going to be a serious consideration.

 

[thestrangequark]

Oh, if we are entertaining the notion of souls, I didn't realize that Occam's razor was going to be a serious consideration.

Wait...why not? Occam's razor should always be a serious consideration!

 

[JarodRussell]

^I believe in magic, though it's not the magic most people assume.

... We can test if a spirit leaves the body in the form of energy upon death (and we have, and it doesn't).

I'm with everything else you said but I think I never got behind that study because I never looked at it as the soul leaving the body. I looked at it more like the body being no longer able to produce a soul.

But do you think the soul survives? How can something survive when the thing that produces it can no longer produce it?

Quantum entanglement!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Oh, if we are entertaining the notion of souls, I didn't realize that Occam's razor was going to be a serious consideration.

Wait...why not? Occam's razor should always be a serious consideration!

Then why accept souls for consideration in the first place?

Or, to put it more clearly, exactly what is it that needs explaining, by assuming souls exist?

 

[bbjeg]

How can something survive when the thing that produces it can no longer produce it?

That's where the conservation of energy and information comes into play for me.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

How can something survive when the thing that produces it can no longer produce it?

That's where the conservation of energy and information comes into play for me.

Can you explain what you mean by that? The energy in your brain is consumed by it. Once your body isn't producing any more, your brain doesn't work. Any information contained in it remains there, at least until the brain structurally degrades.

 

[thestrangequark]

Oh, if we are entertaining the notion of souls, I didn't realize that Occam's razor was going to be a serious consideration.

Wait...why not? Occam's razor should always be a serious consideration!

Then why accept souls for consideration in the first place?

Or, to put it more clearly, exactly what is it that needs explaining, by assuming souls exist?

Well, I don't accept souls for consideration since I don't think they exist, but other people do. I do think souls exist in a metaphorical sense: soul therefore, is just another term for mind or consciousness, or maybe self. So, if we are attempting to explain the self, and therefore attempting to explain the soul, then we should apply Occam's razor. However, we must apply it in the true sense and not the colloquial understanding: The simplest explanation is the most likely to be true really means the explanation that makes the fewest new assumptions about nature is most likely to be true. So, let's examine the hypotheses:
1. The soul is an emergent property based in the physical construction of the brain, and it does not persist in any form after death.
2. The soul exists independently of the physical construction of the brain in some way -- either as a product of the brain/body that is capable of moving on upon death after reaching a level of maturity, or it is dualistic in nature, and occupies the body for a period of time, moving on upon death.

On the surface the former does appear to be the more complicated hypothesis. The question of how the brain generates the self is a difficult one to even think about, let alone try to answer. But when we apply the razor to the nature of the soul then we must conclude that first is true, because to assume that the soul is anything otherwise requires us to make too many new assumptions about reality: we'd basically have to conclude that everything we know about physics is pretty much wrong, and we have to invent an entirely other reality that either redefines our reality or exists along side it.

How can something survive when the thing that produces it can no longer produce it?

That's where the conservation of energy and information comes into play for me.

Except, as we covered earlier in the thread, conservation of energy is completely irrelevant to the notion of souls.

 

[bbjeg]

How can something survive when the thing that produces it can no longer produce it?

That's where the conservation of energy and information comes into play for me.

Can you explain what you mean by that? The energy in your brain is consumed by it. Once your body isn't producing any more, your brain doesn't work. Any information contained in it remains there, at least until the brain structurally degrades.

I explained it (kinda) before. I described it as; the energy and knowledge my body produces while alive is collectively stored elsewhere (dimensionally perhaps), with the circuit (soul) being completed upon death. This isn't a strong belief of mine, just another guess piled with the rest I discovered. I couldn't tell you how a plain of existence built on thought works, I imagine it'll be inconceivable for linear-time corporeal beings such as ourselves.

 

[thestrangequark]

^So, dualism, then?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Oh, if we are entertaining the notion of souls, I didn't realize that Occam's razor was going to be a serious consideration.

Wait...why not? Occam's razor should always be a serious consideration!

As should Occam's shaving brush & mirror.

(I hope Occam never gets seriously cut when applying that razor he loves so much... )

 

[Emher]

That reminds me, maybe I should get an actual razor blade at some point...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Wait...why not? Occam's razor should always be a serious consideration!

Then why accept souls for consideration in the first place?

Or, to put it more clearly, exactly what is it that needs explaining, by assuming souls exist?

Well, I don't accept souls for consideration since I don't think they exist, but other people do. I do think souls exist in a metaphorical sense: soul therefore, is just another term for mind or consciousness, or maybe self. So, if we are attempting to explain the self, and therefore attempting to explain the soul, then we should apply Occam's razor. However, we must apply it in the true sense and not the colloquial understanding: The simplest explanation is the most likely to be true really means the explanation that makes the fewest new assumptions about nature is most likely to be true. So, let's examine the hypotheses:
1. The soul is an emergent property based in the physical construction of the brain, and it does not persist in any form after death.
2. The soul exists independently of the physical construction of the brain in some way -- either as a product of the brain/body that is capable of moving on upon death after reaching a level of maturity, or it is dualistic in nature, and occupies the body for a period of time, moving on upon death.

On the surface the former does appear to be the more complicated hypothesis. The question of how the brain generates the self is a difficult one to even think about, let alone try to answer. But when we apply the razor to the nature of the soul then we must conclude that first is true, because to assume that the soul is anything otherwise requires us to make too many new assumptions about reality: we'd basically have to conclude that everything we know about physics is pretty much wrong, and we have to invent an entirely other reality that either redefines our reality or exists along side it.

Beautifully expressed, and my point exactly. But there is no need to be overly generous here and salvage a term that normally has an irrational meaning. In your #1, you're really redefining soul, so that the term can be used in a sensible manner that is backed by the evidence as it stands. There's no real need for that. Of course, one might also argue that the term, as it is normally used, really has no exact definition, and you're just providing one. But that's sort of disingenuous, because according to its normal usage in Western culture, souls persist after death.

 

[thestrangequark]

^I think those two hypotheses could be seen as the opposing definitions for soul, the first is the rational definition, and the second the irrational (and classic) definition.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^I think those two hypotheses could be seen as the opposing definitions for soul, the first is the rational definition, and the second the irrational (and classic) definition.

I think your #1 really more closely captures what we think of as "consciousness". "Soul" is such a loaded term that I'm loath to hijack or appropriate it for this context.

Consciousness doesn't capture all the nuances of the usage of the term soul, in particular in Christian theology (I can't really comment on how the term is used in other religions). For one thing, being immortal is an intrinsic property of a soul. For another, so is it being incorporeal.

 

[thestrangequark]

^And I think those nuances would be captured in the irrational definition. I think that the rational definition assumes that all things we think of as soul either exist as a product of the brain (self, morality, thoughts and feelings, etc), or don't exist at all (immortality, being incorporea, etc.l)..