AN INVINCIBLE ARGUMENT FOR THE AFTERLIFE (PART THREE)

It seems to me that the idea that we were created by a subject is a possibility. But, it isn’t certain and probability is difficult to discern in matters of ultimate reality. Thus, the hypothesis requires a leap to believe.

The view that subjectivity evolved from unconscious matter doesn’t require the invocation of “magic”. As in the case of the previous idea, one simply admits he doesn’t know the mechanism by which it occurred.

I empathize with you in your losses of those you loved, and the death anxiety they evoked in you. In my experience, the attempt to erect a positive belief about that which I cannot know caused me even more anxiety. The recognition that the belief was motivated by anxiety put me in a panic spiral of infinite regression.

Likely we will never experience death itself though the anxiety about it’s inevitability is always with us except in moments of self-forgetfulness. Epicurus was evidently right.

As far as eternal punishment is concerned, a good god wouldn’t do such a thing. So, if one has a simple trust in ultimate goodness, that’s as good as anything a more elaborate religion can muster.

The Bible which you have cited above is fascinating sometimes profound and not infrequently disturbing. But, it is manifestly human product and as such not inerrant. Therefore, what it says about the afterlife is questionable.

True. Other things that are hypothesis requiring leap to believe are the existence of anything that is not subjective experience and external world doppelgangers of the content of visual perception.

May have to politely disagree. It takes “magic” to make the leap from something that is not subjective experience producing or becoming subjective experience as an explanation for the origin of consciousness, as opposed to the non-magical simplicity of, say, having subjective experience eternally exist the whole time in some form, negating the need for something having to produce or transform into it.

Thank you for your condolence. My belief is not actually motivated by anxiety, but careful observation of the nature of experienced reality and its subtle implications. I used this previous collection of inductions and hypotheses in time of grief to formulate a logical possibility regarding the fate of consciousness after death.

I agree. A good God wouldn’t eternally punish anyone except perhaps Satan. This is why the alternate doctrines of Universalism and Annihilationism challenge the notion of eternal punishment. I hope on my better days for Universalism but lately have been leaning closer to Annihilationism, in which humans are euthanized through eternal oblivion if they are not rendered immortal through faith in Jesus Christ.

Everything that is a human product is questionable. The thing is, the Bible (or parts of it) may be absolutely correct about the nature of and persons in the external world despite our disbelief.

We all hold the view that there is a real world that exists independently of us, independently of our experiences, our thoughts, and our language prereflectively so that any departure from that view like yours requires a conscious effort and a convincing argument.

It seems you’re using magic pejoratively to imply impossibility whereas evolution of consciousness from unconscious matter is a possibility albeit unexplained. The hypothesis that “subjective experience eternally exist[ed]” requires an infinite leap. So, agnosticism appears to be the epistemological correct position with regard to this issue at this time.

That sounds like psychologically motivated denial to me. Why would anyone spend as much time, and energy on arguments for an afterlife as you have on this website over the years if it were not motivated by the anxiety about death?

It seems that you are approaching these issues from a traditional Christian reading of the Bible as the “inerrant Word of God” whereas the Bible is most probably a product of pre-scientific human culture. As such it makes sense to read it from the standpoint of historical probability asking how and why the writers arrived at the teachings they did. That doesn’t negate the relevance of the texts to enduring existential concerns of our own. It does call into question the basis of the texts to speak with absolute authority about metaphysics and eschatology.

And hence your existential anxiety about it. The best we can do is live according to what seems to us as individuals to be the case with regard to ultimate realty. And what seems to be the case changes with experience over time.

Hi Guys,
after being directed to Jordan B. Peterson as someone who may better formulate those theories I have in the past tried myself to express, I come forth thankful for the experience. I believe that Peterson is indeed expressing those things better than I. Now I also feel able to formulate them better.

With regard to the questions above, it seems to me to be the prime problem of modern humanity, that we no longer know where we have the meaning we apply to life. We don’t accept the mythology of the past as valid, but still hold on to the values we obtained from it. Many people try to force a supposedly “objective” view on life whilst all the time they are using the same values.
The fact that we use mythological values suggests that we acknowledge the mystery and the fact that we don’t know so many things. Afterlife is a hypotheses that we have no valid “objective” proof of, but we have mythological hope.

I often think that this hope for things that are in one way rather dubious is indeed a leap of faith, whether brought on by the death of loved ones, or through philosophical debate. We find meaning in believing these things and try to find confirmation of their possibility, whilst acting as though we already have that confirmation. It gives us a direction for our own lives, and helps us act in accordance to how our departed ones would have expected of us. This seems to have been the motivator in Confucianism.

The “magic” of this all is in the fact that it is constructive in our lives, therefore it has meaning. I believe that this was enough for the ancients to have held mythology in high esteem, as divine. The attempt to reduce things down to the material world that we experience fails to do that. Enough people find a world, in which death is the end and the decay of the body conclusive, cold and clinical. There are too many closed doors and nowhere for the imagination to go. It doesn’t matter whether the world outside of my experience does or doesn’t exist, I only have my experience of the world, and the experiences shared with me by other people. Their stories and mine are what makes up our experience of life.

I believe that we have to grasp this potential and make the most out of it. That includes encouraging people to use their imaginations, to be creative and go beyond borders, so that, as in the past, some may become prophets of a world beyond our experience.

Does that make sense?

Peterson, you and I at least have in common that we are metaphysical skeptics. Not so, Phenomenal Graffiti.

You may acknowledge the mystery, i.e. “the fact that we don’t know so many things” but the fundamentalist doesn’t. And, also to the point in the context of this thread, neither does the metaphysician.

Yes and if we do not venerate the ancestors,we feel bad. [-X

{Physical determinism?]

A fallacious counterargument. “It is unpleasant therefore not true.”

Existence precedes essence. You go boy!

I like it. Phenomenal Graffiti spins a metaphysical world comparable to those of second century gnostic literature. “Creative” I’ll grant him. Phenomenologically warranted? Not according to my POV.

There’s a question I ask myself about “religion and spirituality” everyday." I am still in a dialogue with Christianity both internally and on the Web. I want to believe the gospel of liberal Christianity. The Sermon on the Mount speaks to me from the vantage point of my ideal self. I read it in terms of my inner experience of empathy and compassion. Those I have come to see as a natural mammalian feelings. But, they are ones that if developed, practiced and applied in daily life can draw us out of our selfish concerns into a vast world of souls human and animal. When I do that…when I reach beyond myself, I find a world in a state of ecological collapse. If you do too, we must answer the question" What shall we do? I have children and grandchildren who I suppose will outlive me if I’m lucky. They bring close to home the imperative that I must do what I can to save life on the planet. Does that make sense?

I almost don’t know where to start. First, I acknowledge PG’s creativity, but that is simply to acknowledge the fact that it is a creation which in metaphysical terms, anything imagined is possible. It is supported by, and encouraged by the “fog of philosophy”. It offers little in answering the question of “how shall I live?”

Felix, the sermon on the mount is an excellent distillation of all the collective wisdom of the ages. You can’t do better than that. But even that is a human construct. Granted, it is the most valuable construct ever devised by humanity. Still I remain puzzled by our collective inability to accept the mystery and focus on creating the best personal reality of which we are able.

Just as many others do I see ecological collapse coming very close. What to do? Nothing but strive to meet your ideal self. The world your children and grandchildren will live in is theirs to live, just as you left mom and dad to create your own world. They will not, and cannot, live in your world. At best, carve the sermon on the mount in stone and hope that they read and understand.

An ugly possibility in the malstrom of endless possibilities is that the universe’s experiment in human sentience is coming to an end. Great idea but a failure nonetheless. Perhaps, just perhaps, our extinction is part of the BIG plan? Oh wait… Well, back to the mystery.

The void before God (Eheieh Asher Eheieh - I am that I am) goes to work is called Ein (no/nothing) and Ein Soph (no limit) -
In this boundless void God says “let there be light” and there is Ein Sophie aur; the boundless light.

The void before God (Eheieh Asher Eheieh - I am that I am) goes to work is called Ein (no/nothing) and Ein Soph (no limit) -
In this boundless void God says “let there be light” and there is Ein Soph Aur; the boundless light.
Below this, the separation of light and dark occurs with the first Manifest Point (eg the Big Bang metaphor); Kether, the Crown.

Sorry for the late reply, I was in Frankfurt for two days and preoccupied.

I think the skepticism is more in the question of whether words can in any way fit the mystery. If you follow Dao de Ching, then obviously not, but I follow Peterson in as much as the experience tells me something intuitively that I cannot describe, but in attempting to describe I gain a deeper understanding, albeit not being the full experience. It is always a working model, becoming something but not yet “it”.

Acknowledged. In fact, the Unknown is eternal, whereas my knowledge is so very minuscule and will always be that way. Isn’t “God” very much the Unknown, rather than the multitude of symbols and metaphors used in this thread? I think that is what disturbs me.

Agreed, the attempt to remain within the comfort zone is very much alive in many Christians today, and a tendency to turn “hope” into “wish”, specifying the wish instead of having an unspecified hope that the end result will be “moral” in the broadest sense. I have spoken to many people who have specific expectancies regarding heaven, whereas I have asked whether their expectancies could be wildly wrong. The fact that I leave the future to be what it will be, and live the present something like an explorer going places no-one has ever been, doesn’t satisfy many Christians. They want the Bible to be true to its word.

Yes. It reminds me of Grimm’s Fairytales that are so very dated and conserved that they seem like very old tins of beans that have gone off. It is orientated on the imaginations of the past rather than using the symbolism in an updated fashion. The Archetypes will always be there, but I think we all have many different dreams and pointers for life in our time.

I think we have a lot in common. I have been off at a tangent and wading into psychology and Freud, CG Jung and others. The pointer you gave me to Peterson connected there and revealed a lot that I had failed to understand in the past. The phenomenon “spiritual experience” showed itself to be my unconscious mind making itself felt. I was being shaken out of my imagination and brought back to the natural mystery that surrounds us. I was shown what my introverted personality had been overtaxing itself, and that my mind was about to explode. I was struggling with a high degree of empathy which at the same time caused bewilderment amongst my peers. I was almost shouting out “we need compassion”, distraught that people couldn’t feel or see that which I saw. I felt very much alone, at times cursing the ignorance that I was experiencing, which in turn was causing so much suffering. At the same time, I could see that people couldn’t do otherwise, because they were blind to the big picture.

It was then that I realised, with the help of Peterson, that western society has lost its stories - the ones that moral behaviour is grounded in. They don’t tell them to their children, or re-enact them, sing its songs or incorporate them into their lives. At best they watch others do it, pre-occupied with “entertainment”, instead of being part of their cultural heritage. The stories they are told are repeats of banality, just killing time, instead of using the time to enrich our lives.

I think the second half of that statement is true, it is his imagination that is impressive, but I fail to seen creativity in it all, because it doesn’t go anywhere really.

I don’t believe that we have anything but “human constructs”, except the ancient wisdom of the collective. However, I believe that it would be enough, if we could concentrate. People have difficulty in going ten minutes without their mobiles, let alone sit down in silence for a half hour. Silence is threatening, they’d rather let their imagination go wild and lose themselves in it. To come close to thinking about the mystery of existence is so threatening, that people develop all sorts of physical and mental disturbances to avoid it.

I was speaking to a woman who contradictorily told me she knew I was speaking about something important, but couldn’t listen. Her body was putting her to sleep, alternatively she became hyperactive so that she couldn’t sit still. It was so obvious that even her husband asked her what was up. Another time, I held a talk that went by so quickly because the group was interacting with me, that when we all reached the conclusion, they were amazed. In fact, I think they were cared stiff at realising that they had all come to the conclusion that, amongst other things, they should seek solitude and silence more, and agreed that it would do them good.

I think that you are right inasmuch as we are all in the time-frame that is ours, and overlap with our parents and with our children. It is seldom the same time, even if it moves parallel to that of other generations. We are on our own path and weave in and out of the lives of others, but in the end we live our lives under the circumstances we find, and they do to.

I’m not sure that sentience is coming to an end, but I do fear the fact that a catastrophe is approaching that may be all the worst for us being sentient. We know almost physically that we’re on the wrong path, but we avoid thinking about it. Our soul exhorts its warning, but our mind chooses to ignore it.

Hi Bob,

I’d like to think our sentience could be successful, but I see no sign of it. Life, sentience, is a verb. All else are simply adjectives. The power of our sentience is words. And yet, words are merely abstractions or symbols. They aren’t life but we substitute them as if they are the crowning glory of sentience. We trade living for words which takes us away from what sentience might truly be.

I’ve come to believe that what is truly sacred is silence. There is more communication in a smile than any thousand ponderous tomes of philosophy. Words can be useful and indeed, may be absolutely necessary if we have any hope of extricating ourselves from the mess we have made. That is the schizoid nature of our sentience. We need to communicate but have you considered just how much can be said in silence? A simple gesture of compassion or empathy doesn’t require words. Words may be necessary, but they need to be put in their place, not on some altar.

I think that what you are referring to is the fact that we know things intuitively before we find words for them, but having the power of perception by the senses is one way of being able to do that. Being conscious has its difficulties - our senses fail or fool us, our experience teaches the wrong lesson, we may not be sure how to act in an appropriate way, and not everything is a question of reacting with compassion or empathy.

Very often using words ruins the experience or the intuitive interaction, that is true. Very often keeping our mouths shut and enduring the “pregnant pause” can be more helpful. However, I think that these are exceptions and we need to find a way to communicate in a way that helps us become familiar with certain thoughts and ideas so that they flow into our intuitive reaction easily. You have spent many years developing the ability to react with compassion and empathy, other people have had to struggle too much with their surroundings, or perhaps never had to struggle, which puts them at a disadvantage. We have to reach out to each other at times, but I would agree that we do that best when we are familiar with the silence that enables us to sort out our mind.

I think Phenomenal Graffiti’s metaphysical subjective system in service of the afterlife is motivated by denial of death and the psychological trauma of the specter of eternal punishment.

I don’t want to speculate on PG’s motives, but isn’t what you are saying a very large part of all organized religions? Fear is a powerful motivator and while all the goodies of heaven are promised, it is the fear of losing self that figures heavily in all afterlife stories. The fear of eternal punishment is just icing on the cake. There is nothing wrong with buying fire insurance and this all hinges on the belief that there is an afterlife, which may or may not be accurate.

The icing on what cake? :wink: The following passage captures the problem in satire:

Felix,

Yeah,what cake? Bad analogy. Maybe icing on the cow patty? :smiley:

Response to Felix Dekat’s post 10-2-18:

Sorry for the (very) late response. Holiday jingles juggled with crafting the conclusion of the afterlife argument.

Most hold the view that there is a ‘real world that exists independently of us, independently of our experiences’ etc. that contains “real world” analogs of the content of visual perception. What takes conscious effort is imagining what “real world” chairs, for example, might be like, as they are chairs in the absence of a person’s perception of them or in the absence of any and all consciousness altogether. A person’s perception of a chair disappears when the person shifts attention, falls unconscious, or dies while a “real world” chair does not disappear or wink out of existence in response to this sudden and unexpected loss of self and consciousness.

If “real world” chairs do not wink out of existence in response to sudden loss of perception of chairs, “real world” chairs and perceived chairs are not one and the same thing. They are different existences. “Real world” chairs, therefore, are not made of subjective experience, as in the common view of consciousness and how consciousness comes to exist, consciousness did not exist before there were brains, can only exist when produced by brains, and cease to exist upon loss of function of the brain.

“Real world” analogs of the content of visual perception, meanwhile, are not created by brains and thus continue to existence when “perception” of these objects, which are created by brains and require brains in order to exist, wink out of existence (for those believing consciousness can cease to exist, that is) in response to dysfunction or cessation of function of the brain. But the only thing that we see and can see, is the thing created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). We cannot see “real world” chairs or analogs of the content of visual perception because these are not created by the brain. Like God for the religious person, and as Kant observed, the existence of “real world” objects that are the foundations, causes, and analogs of the objects seen in consciousness is supported only by faith.

Why?

Because we can only see and experience our consciousness. The thing that supposedly winks out of existence when the brain stops functioning. We cannot see or experience things that are not our consciousness. Thus we have no evidence of their existence. The same argument against God in terms of the connection between God and our perception, it turns out, also applies to external world objects believed to be the analogs of the content of our visual perception.

If one thinks good to simply remove the existence of “real world” analogs of the content of visual perception, why, that leaves our subjective experience as the only thing that is truly real. If subjective experience is the only thing that is real, the world we perceive must be and can only be a virtual or artificial reality composed only of our subjective experience. Empirically, as in, “hands on” observation of reality, this hypothesis is readily evident because it’s right in front of our eyes every second we’re awake. Unconscious matter or “real world” things that are not our consciousness or that are imagined to be things that can exist in the absence of all consciousness we have no evidence for (as all we can experience is our consciousness) and may not exist.

Evolution of consciousness re: subjective experience or the fact or act of subjectively experiencing arising from unconscious matter is only a “possibility” only if that which is not subjective experience or is not the fact or act of subjectively experience either:

  1. Stops being something that is not subjective experience to magically transform into subjective experience or

  2. Magically conjures subjective experience from previous non-existence of subjective experience

Let’s really think about this:

-Unconscious matter is not simply matter that is not conscious, but matter that is not consciousness.

-Unconscious matter is believed to become consciousness or consciousness is believed to “arise from” or originate from unconscious matter.

But:

  1. Unconscious matter is not the fact or act of experiencing or someone experiencing and that which is experienced by someone.

  2. But it is commonly believed that one day, after an eternity of not being someone experiencing and that which is experienced by someone, unconscious matter contorts itself into a brain that either conjures someone experiencing and that which is experienced by someone from non-existence, or parts of the brain, which is made up of something that is not someone experiencing or that which someone experiences magically stops being something that is not someone experiencing and that which is experienced by someone to become someone experiencing and that which is experience by someone.

It is just becomes subjective experience.

How does it get from not being subjective experience to being subjective experience?

You’re response to this is: “We can’t explain it, but trust me, it happens. You’re supposed to believe that this is irrefutably reality, this is the way things are.”

To me this insistence upon unconscious matter and it’s magical, yes, probably impossible relation to experiencing ultimately stems from disbelief that subjective experience is probably eternal. It certainly does not come from and can have no support from experiment, as experiment requires and is materially composed of subjective experience and the only thing we can experience is subjective experience. Unconscious matter is something that is not subjective experience: we cannot experience something that is not our subjective experience.

Why not believe that subjective experience is eternal? We accept that physical energy is eternal without question, when we can’t even know physical energy even exists because the only existence we have evidence of is our consciousness.

At the end of the day, we’re talking brute transformation of something into something it is not, simply because one does not wish to believe in the eternal existence of something, but wishes to believe in the eternal existence of something the something one does not want to believe is eternal is not (whew).

Now that—positing that eternal unconscious matter inexplicably becomes someone experiencing and that which is experienced by someone—requires more of an infinite leap than just stating that consciousness has always existed. After all, existence only appears or manifests in the form of someone and the which someone experiences. It does not appear in any other manner. Why jump to something that is not someone and that which someone experiences to explain the existence of someone and that which someone experiences? Why do we need the opposite of consciousness to explain consciousness? Why is unconscious matter even necessary, save only because one does not believe in eternal consciousness?

Unconscious matter is simply an idea created by consciousness with the intelligence to imagine something other than itself. But the only thing it can experience is itself. Consciousness cannot rid itself of itself. And can only use itself to try to imagine something that is not itself, an impossible feat. In service to Occam’s Razor, it is far simpler to posit that consciousness is eternal than to try to conjure it from something it is not.

Touche. A mea culpa is in order. I do have anxiety about death and it admittedly does motivate my argument for an afterlife, but the anxiety is not the sole motivation. The logical possibility of the afterlife, given the existence and possibilities inherent within consciousness or the notion of consciousness also drive the argument. If one can posit “real world” analogs of the content of visual perception that existed before or consists of a substance that is not consciousness, with these analogs unable to appear within consciousness because they are not consciousness, one can posit the afterlife and God. In fact, it is far simpler for the latter than the former to logically exist, as the latter consists of consciousness and is not something that is not consciousness. That being said, the real existence of the afterlife, if it is a reality, is a reality regardless of my anxiety about death. The strength of my argument for an afterlife ultimately lies in the conceptual fact that anxiety about death does not nor cannot in itself falsify the existence of the afterlife if the afterlife objectively exists.

As before, my existential anxiety does not by it’s presence falsify nor indicate the falsity of the Bible in regard to its metaphysical assertions regarding the afterlife or the existence of God and persons in the external world. In the end, it does not matter if I have existential anxiety about death or worry if indeed it is eternal cessation of consciousness: the anxiety does not by its presence indicate or reveal the non-existence of God or the afterlife.


Response to felix dekat’s post made 10-13-18 6:50pm

But we can’t know that death (in terms of eternal and irreversible loss of self or consciousness) happens or is the actual fact of things.


Response to felix dekat’s post made 11:27pm

Mark Twain makes an excellent point. Makes a good support, given the absence of the concept of eternal torment in Hell in the Old Testament, for the concept of Annihilationism. Mark Twain’s point probably can be argued to apply to Annihilationism as well as Annihilationism is eternal death, rather than eternal torment, by afterlife flame.

No problem.

I disagree with your last point. The phenomena of experience are evidence of the real world. Perhaps you deny it because you cannot accept the evil and suffering in the world.

When there isn’t substantial correspondence between the subject’s phenomenal experience and the external reality, the subject becomes dangerous to himself and/or others. We say that he is out of contact with reality. Correspondence between perception and the external world has survival value. Even metaphysical idealists like yourselves treat the perceptual like it’s real. The ones who don’t win the dubious Darwin’s Awards. That is they contribute to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool via death or by their own actions.

That’s seems to be what you have done. Do you think it “good” because you can thereby deny the reality of the evil and thereby “prove” the existence of a Good God and defeat the problem of evil? You achieve this at the price of denying the validity of perception. And you can marshal perceptual mistakes, optical illusions and to support of this denial. Do you perhaps do this because you have already denied that we are fallible human primates who’s perceptual apparatus was designed by evolution to adapt and survive?

To assert that only subjective experience is real is to deny the neuroscience of perception. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system. You are denying the existence of physical or chemical stimulation. To you it’s a “virtually” supplied by God.

To the neuroscientist, vision involves light striking the retina of the eye, smell is mediated by odor molecules, and hearing involves pressure waves. To you light, molecules, and pressure waves are all illusions performed by God. From your theory it seems to follow that science is merely part of a grand illusion perpetrated by God.

Again your use of the adverb “magically” is unwarranted. Consciousness via natural selection may have evolved like other human capacities.

Your logic is unnecessarily tortured. You presuppose what you’re trying to prove. Even amoebas which have no nervous system react to stimuli. Sensation apparently evolved from that capacity of organic matter and consciousness from that.

Not so. What we are experiencing as subjects is material. The fact that I can give a causal account of how it comes about that I see the tree (light photons strike my retina and set up a series of neuron firings that eventually cause a visual experience) does not show that I don’t see a tree. There is no inconsistency between asserting, on the one hand, “I directly perceive the tree,” and asserting, on the other, “There is a sequence of physical and neurobiological events that eventually produce in me the experience I describe as ‘seeing the tree.’” Whereas, to maintain that there is no external reality corresponding to my subjective experience the scientific explanation is an illusion. I guess that’s why you had to come up with your hypothetical subjective elements. Contrary to your claim that there is no experimental evidence for the external objective world, the entire body of knowledge gained by the physical sciences is that evidence. Your subjective “science” is paltry by comparison.

Infinite regression. My experience requires me as the experiencer. I didn’t create myself. All observable experiencers are born not eternal. So in hypothesizing eternal subjective experience, you are postulating something that cannot be experienced or known. Agnosticism is the correct epistemological response to this proposition.

It’s not a question of “wishing to believe” or not. The issue is epistemological. There’s no way to verify or falsify the proposition [if indeed it is even coherent].

Because this is the view that we hold prereflectively and this is the view supported by the physical sciences which are supported by evidence.

Everything should be explained as simply as it can be, but not simpler. Eternal consciousness is too simple to account for observable facts. We observe that consciousness is embodied in finite physical beings including ourselves. Consciousness cannot be observed floating around. Eternal consciousness is not observable.

Twain was satirizing the New Testament where it is shown that, ironically, Jesus was the first to preach the hell that he supposedly saves us from. Every generation since his alleged resurrection has demonstrated that he did not save us from physical death which goes on as it did before him.

I maintain that a perfectly good God, if such exists, would not relegate billions of his creatures to eternal punishment. Jesus, if he was a man motivated by compassion, would not have consigned people to that fate. So, eternal hell may have been the invention of the New Testament Christian writers.

“If one thinks good to simply remove the existence of “real world” analogs of the content of visual perception, why, that leaves our subjective experience as the only thing that is truly real.”

I just noticed this.

I’d say that for this to be taken as true one would have to prove that subjective experience can exist without real world objects to have experience of.

The burden of proof is on the solipsist.

Reply to felix dekat:

The phenomena of experience, in godless mythology, do not exist or appear unless there is a neural circuit in the brain that, by random chance, has the ability to create and produce a particular phenomenon of experience. The “real world” or “real things”, by contrast, are not created by brains and themselves do not create the phenomena of experience (well, the only thing that does is the “real object” version of the brain).

Thus:

  1. We cannot experience the “real world” or “real world” objects as these are not created or produced by the brain. A “real world” tree, for example, does not come from the brain, as the tree would rip the brain and skull apart and crush the body as it emerged from neurons trapped in a skull. The only thing we can experience is the ephemeral, intangible visible experience of a tree produced by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).

  2. One observes the existence of personal subjective experience of a chair, train, mountain, park, etc., then fancifully imagines or makes up (one must do so, as one cannot experience external “real” objects or worlds) the concept of chairs, trains, mountains, parks, etc. that are not produced by one’s brain, that is imagined to exist outside one’s consciousness and as it is not created by one’s brain, would survive and is unaffected by the loss of one’s consciousness.

  3. One then proceeds from the act of making up the concept of “real world” chairs, trains, mountains, etc., to believing that brain-produced subjective experience of chairs, trains, mountains, etc. are evidence of “real world” chairs, trains, mountains, etc. But they are not one and the same thing, as “real world” chairs, trains, etc. are not created by the brain and have nothing to do with the creation and appearance of experienced chairs, trains, etc.

  4. One therefore imagines things that cannot be experienced as they are conceived to exist (as things not created by the brain: we can only experience that which “comes from” or is produced by the brain) and state that a real entity (a person’s experience of an object) is evidence of something one cannot experience but has entirely made up in the mind (make no mistake: we do not experience external objects and events, but do nothing but imagine them and believe in their existence).


Of course I accept the evil and suffering in the world, you have to accept it every time you turn on the news. I do not believe in the existence of external objects and events that are doppelgangers (to whatever imagined level or extent) of the content of visual perception. This denial does not equate to a denial of the existence of evil. The evil and suffering in the world are just aspects of the virtual or artificial reality that is human consciousness.

How can one know whether or not there is substantial correspondence between the subject’s phenomenal experience and the external reality, when we have no experienced evidence of the external reality, because the external reality is something other than our experience as our experience is created by the brain and the external reality is not?

(For those believing the brain creates consciousness)

If he experiences, he is not out of contact with reality, because the only reality for which we have evidence is our subjective experience. We do not have evidence of the existence of anything that is not one’s subjective experience. We only have the idea of something that is not and that is outside one’s subjective experiences and we then go on to imagine that these imaginary things have creative or active input and connections and relations to subjective experience. All the while, the idea of external objects and events is just another creation of the brain, another aspect of subjective experience (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).

As the brain does not create external objects in the external world and we have no evidence of their existence (as they are not created by the brain and therefore cannot be experienced), there is no evidence of any correspondence between perception and the external world. There is only evidence of perception of something created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). Acts of successful thinking and action resulting in survival, therefore, and survival instinct is all created by the brain and is just a part of a brain-created artificial or virtual reality that exists in the absence of external objects or events. (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). This goes into the following:

Of course they do, because that is the way their brains cause them to think, believe, and act (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). External objects have nothing to do with the existence and abilities of the neural circuits said to give rise to phenomenal experience of things believed to be experience of external objects. We have no evidence that external objects exist and if they did, they have nothing to do with:

  1. The existence of the neural circuit that by the luckiest chance, happened to be the very neural circuit that happens to reside in the brain and that happens to be able to, out of all the things the neural circuit could have had the ability to do, create a subjective experience of that external object or event that happens to act upon the body at just the current moment. What convenience this neural circuit happened be available at that moment in the brain!

The external object or event had no hand in creating the neural circuit that luckily represents it as it could not physically act upon the neural circuit to ensure the circuit produces only its image and nothing else without shattering the skull, imploding the brain, and perhaps crushing the body in the attempt.

A real world SUV, for example, cannot reach with its metal and plastic through a skull to make sure a subjectively perceived imagine of itself will one day emerge without destroying the skull, brain, and crushing the body containing the skull and brain.

The SUV or any real world object outside the skull and body has nothing to do, therefore, with providing the brain with the neural circuit that produces visual perception of the real world object or grants the neural circuit with the ability to produce visual perception of real world objects (for those believing neurons produce visual perceptions of real world objects). Neural circuits of the occipital lobe and their ability to produce visual perception of external objects, therefore, exist for reasons that have nothing to do with the existence of the real world objects they purportedly represent.

Their actions in this regard are just part of the artificial conscious reality created by their brain, not any action by or reaction to external objects, as we have no evidence of the existence of external objects. One only imagines the concept of external objects and then comes to believe these imaginary entities exist and have something to do with the only real thing that has bothered to show up to the party of existence, subjective experience.

What does denying the existence of “real world” analogs of the content of visual perception have to do with denial of the reality of evil? Evil exists, and is part of the artificial or virtual reality that is our consciousness, even in the absence of “real world” objects and worlds behind the artificial reality.

Perception is “valid” only in the sense that it exists. Nothing more. It does not gain validity by an invisible something hiding behind it (in terms of an invisible, non-experiential copy of the object that is perceived). Perception cannot point to or indicate the existence of something behind it that is not and is something other than the perception itself. How can perception “see” something other than itself? In the mythology of the brain creating consciousness, you have:

(i) that which is created by the brain

(ii) that which is not created by the brain

If every instance of consciousness depends upon and cannot exist without some neural circuit in the brain, everything you experience and every reaction you have or do not have to what you experience is just a creation of the brain. That which is not created by the brain, therefore, has nothing to do with your experience as every experience is a product of the brain and things outside and are not created by the brain do not take part in the brain’s creation of one’s experience.

The neuroscience of perception or process of perception, if you truly wish to be honest about it, is a combination of experience and make-believe.

The end of the process of perception is a neural circuit in the brain producing a subjective experience of a particular visual image, the smell of a certain odor or combination of odors, the experience of a certain sound or combination of sounds, etc. This is the end of the assembly line of the process of perception, the “everlasting Gobstopper” that finally cranks out at the end of the Willy Wonka machine that is the link between the external world, objects and events in the external world, the peripheral and central nervous systems, the sensory organs, the brain, and that special neural circuit in the brain that by the luckiest chance just happens—can you believe it?—to have the ability to produce a sensory representation of that very external world object and/or event that just happens to affect your body and brain at the current moment.

What an awesome convenience, that the brain happened to have in it’s “magic bag o’ tricks” (pun intended) the neural circuit that just happens to be able to represent the external object and event that’s affecting the body “right now”, and to have this neural circuit set up within the brain years prior (science surely doesn’t expect neural circuits that create subjective experiences of external objects and events to assimilate seconds before an experience in the nick of time, given the immediacy of new, incoming experience?) to the object coming to affect the body and produce the lucky pinball shooting of electrical signals from the external object and event to the peripheral nervous system and/or facial sensory organs to the neural circuit that happens to have the ability to produce subjective representation of the external object or event.

But according to godless mythology in regard to consciousness, subjective experience, only exists if there is a neural circuit in the brain that creates the experience, consciousness is not believed to be able to come into existence by itself, independent of the brain.

Thus every part of the process of perception except the “everlasting Gobstopper” of subjective experience cranking out at the end of the Willy Wonka machine of the process of perception is make-believe, as neurons create consciousness but do not create the things in the process of perception outside consciousness itself. The only evidence of things having existence is subjective experience of things that have existence, and subjective experience of things that have experience can only come from the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).

Ergo:

  1. Light striking the retina of the eye is make-believe. We have no evidence of the existence of light that is not light that is visual perception of light created by the brain.

  2. Odor molecules and pressure waves are make-believe. We have no evidence of the existence of atoms or molecules or pressure waves that are not creations of the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).

Light, molecules, and pressure waves not created by the brain probably do not exist, and if they do, they do not personally create sensory perception but merely send mind-independent signals that, in probably the best “pool shooting” in existence, happen to route to and though the animal body to electronically activate the already-existing neural circuit that luckily (before the fact) had the power to inscrutably produce sensory perception that just happens to be sensory representation of the thing that just happens to send the signal to the body at the current time (whew).

In light, however, of the logical possibility of things existing “just cuz” in the form of there being nothing in existence except non-embodied persons experiencing artificially real worlds created by God and another hidden aspect of existence, we don’t need external objects and events.

I think it may be the other way around. You presuppose what you imagine or make-believe, not what is actually experienced as real. We have no evidence of the existence of organic or unconscious matter. We only have evidence of the existence of persons and their subjective experience. Unconscious matter or the concept of unconscious matter, therefore, can only be an imaginary object conceived by and within the imagination and has no basis in reality, because we use experience to determine what is real, and we experience nothing but our experience (something must be our experience or composed of our experience in order to be experienced and thus revealed as reality).

It would be odd to say that an account of the process of perception between the external world and the brain giving rise to visual experience of a tree does not result in one seeing a tree. One sees a tree, then gives an imaginary account of how the vision came to be, using imaginary objects and processes that have never been seen and therefore cannot be proven by experiment (as experimentation is composed of subjective experience).

If one chooses to believe in the made-up “existence” of ‘physical and neurobiological events that eventually produce in me the experience I describe as ‘seeing the tree’, sure. But the aforementioned events that purportedly result in visual perception of a tree are imaginary, as we only have evidence of and can only experience “seeing a tree”.

The entire body of knowledge gained by the physical sciences, if it is something other than that which was and is directly experienced by a person, is entirely imaginary, i.e. only a figment of the scientist’s imagination that the scientist believes has real, independent existence outside the scientist’s consciousness–although the scientist cannot prove it by direct experience as the scientist maintains and admits it is something that is not the scientist’s subjective experience as it is something outside and that is not created by his, or anyone’s, brain. But if it is something that is not a person or a person’s experience, it cannot be experienced. If it cannot be experienced but can only be “shown” to others in the form of a concept in a person’s mind, it is obviously imaginary and only exists in the form of a fictional concept or state of affairs.

One makes the mistake of asserting (it’s okay to believe and state that it is merely what one believes) that that which is only imaginary is irrefutably real. We commonly make the mistake (aggravating as it is) of stating what one believes as if it were irrefutable fact. The only thing that is irrefutably real is subjective experience. Again, we only have evidence of the existence of subjective experience, i.e. the fact or act of experiencing and that which is experienced only during a particular act of experience. Everything else is make-believe, and may not exist.

True.

True, given that most of our experiences are unexpected and unwanted.

Other experiencers are observable? One can only experience oneself. But under the belief (the belief that rescues one from overt solipsism) that other experiencers exist and are observed only to be humans, animals, and insects, this is true “on the surface”.

Fancy that, the same can be said for external objects and events like atoms, light, and pressure waves, or anything not created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness).

True, but I happen to believe in the existence of eternal persons. I have greater reason to believe in eternal persons than I do in things that are not and are not made out of subjective experience. Persons that are finite are finite by chance, as they exist “just so”. It is not out of the question that this same “just-so-ness” applies to eternal persons. There’s really no good reason for them not to exist except for…well…just plain ole’ disbelief in their existence. Other than pure and simple disbelief, there is no valid reason eternal persons do not nor cannot exist.

We only have evidence of one’s subjective experience. We do not have evidence of something that is not one’s subjective experience. Something must be or be made out of one’s subjective experience in order to be experienced. The physical sciences takes something that is real (subjective experience) and pair it with something that is purely make-believe (something that is not subjective experience). They believe that that which was purely made up in their minds is real on the basis that the imaginary entity mimics the appearance of visual perception, then go forth to preach the gospel that that which only appears in their minds is real and has something to do with that which is real (subjective experience), stating the fiction with such confidence and certainty that those who don’t know better believe they are stating irrefutable truth.

One guy remarked about the situation in an interesting way:

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.

-Romans 1:22

The only observable fact is that the only thing we observe and experience is one’s own subjective experience. Everything one experiences only appears when one subjectively and personally experiences it, and disappears when one no longer experiences it. Something (anything for that matter) requires one to experience it in order for it to be experienced, and must therefore (since it requires one to experience it in order to be experienced) materially consist of a substance called: “Your Experience Of It”.

We observe that consciousness is seemingly embodied in seemingly finite beings with bodies composed of their subjective experience of a body (the body is composed of “Your Experience Of It”). The body is not composed of something other than and that is not one’s subjective experience of one’s body.

Consciousness other than one’s own consciousness is not observable, yet we believe the consciousness of other people exist. One experiences oneself “in a body”, but the body is upon reflection made up of one’s subjective experience of it, as a central avatar of the artificial reality composed of one’s subjective experience. Thus consciousness “floats” in the sense of being fundamentally a first-person subjective experience that is essentially anterior to perception of a body.

We might say that we are software and not hardware; the psychological relations that are me are currently instantiated in this neocortex, but I am not essentially this neocortex nor even (more controversially) any neocortex.

-Max More, The Terminus of the Self

Christ not saving us from physical death is supported by the bible:

It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

-Hebrews 9:27

Jesus stating:

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

-John 11:25

Does not contradict Hebrews 9:27 as ‘yet shall he live’ follows rather than replaces the first death. It’s about God pulling a person from the current artificial reality of the world in which he or she perceives oneself in an animal body and is perceived by others as having been born an infant and evolving into an adult and senior person. It’s not God’s intent for man to remain in that artificial reality, thus, ‘physical death …goes on as it did before him’.

Many verses in the bible refer to man not being eternally tormented in hell, but (if Universalism as believed by Salisbury below is false) having consciousness eternally removed via fire of hell. I agree, a perfectly good God would not relegate anyone to eternal torment in hell (save perhaps Satan).

As far as eternal hell being the invention of New Testament writers:

There is no documentation that the church councils of the first four centuries embraced the doctrine of “eternal punishment.” The church councils at Nice in A.D. 325, at Constantinople in A.D.381, at Ephesus in A.D.431 and at Chalcedon in A.D.451 never embraced this doctrine. In contrast, there is documented evidence that many church leaders and teachers of the first centuries A.D. wrote acclaiming the doctrine of “universal salvation” or “ultimate reconciliation”, none of whom were censored. It was not until 553 A.D. that the Roman Catholic Church denounced the teaching of ultimate reconciliation as heresy.

-Salisbury, Lee: Eternal Punishment—Is It Really Of God?