AN INVINCIBLE ARGUMENT FOR THE AFTERLIFE (PART THREE)

There’s no evidence of the existence of phyaical particles either, as anything that is “physical” is in actuality constructed of a person’s consciousness. Particles of consciousness cannot be demonstrated but is an idea of what could possibly exist in the external world that could make up consciousness.

And even if there are externally existent, not dependent on consciousness particles, the word physical means almost nothing. These particles, even in the realist naturalism of science, are actually also waves, both potential real, in one place and spread out, mostly nothing and that which is considered something is ephemeral.

With respect, the nature of physical particles as you have described them are imaginary, as they cannot be experienced as they are things not created by the brain (in belief that the brain creates consciousness). The entire game we all play is to imagine what exists in the external world and use make-believe to come up with their nature, despite the fact that that which is imagined may not actually exist. Following Kant, they can only be supported by quasi-religious faith.

Well, 1) I said ‘even if’ 2) What the heck you talking about? Of course the particles do not exist. But then we can’t be ‘following Kant’ that collection of particles never existed. There was no Kant, just you. ‘Kant’ is just an idea floating in your consciousness. Believing some guy lived back then is just a religous faith based hallucination. Even ‘I’ am just you flitting into your own consciousness. Or really just ‘consciousness’ not ‘your own consciousness.’

We can’t know that there is no Kant, as one cannot know that only oneself exists. Granted, you are correct that the only thing that there is evidence for the existence for is ‘consciousness’. It could be true that only ‘my consciousness’ exists (or just ‘consciousness’ that randomly and meaninglessly happened to take the form of ‘me’), but it is psychologically improbable (which…has no impact whatsoever on the truth that only ‘I’ exist). Solipsism comes off as strange, but it is the most empirically true thing witnessed about the nature of existence and is the strongest form of logical positivism. There’s no way to defeat it because it’s patently obvious, as everything other than ‘I’ must be accepted merely on faith. The only thing one can say in response to a solipsism is: “okay, got it.” I’m not solipsist, but “I got it.”

You demonstrate that you do not believe in solipsism by trying to persuade other existents of it on this forum.

Well, well, well, if it isn’t felix dekat! Long time no “see”.

I’ve never, ever, tried to persuade the existence of solipsism as its sort of “hair-brained”, imo. But hair-brained or not, it remains a metaphysical possibility and one should never leave out any metaphysical possibility one can think of in respect to argumentative honesty and completeness.

That being said, the structure of reality that tempts and even supports solipsism definitely exists: existence “shows up” only in the form of a single first-person subject of experience and that which the subject personally experiences (if not for this person, existence could not know it exists). Solipsists take this reality and move forward to posit that the experiencing subject is the only thing that exists. Other subjective experiences that experience their own existence know first-hand the solipsist is (probably) wrong, but cannot prove to the solipsist that he/she is wrong as the solipsist cannot experience the subjective experience of others.

In short, I only persuade existents of the structure of reality that tempts and supports solipsism, not solipsism itself.

But enough of that: how’ve you been?

I’ve been growing older, and, hopefully, wiser. But, we’ll see. How have you been?

From the proposition that the self is all that can be known to exist follows the inference of something outside of experience by which the self came to exist which cannot be known. Theists like Descartes call the unknowable “God”. Others theorize about an evolutionary process outside of experience. Thus, experience tells us that experience isn’t everything or sufficient in itself.

Now what I have considered thus far is epistemological solipsism. Metaphysical solipsism is the variety of idealism which asserts that nothing exists externally to this one mind, and since this mind is the whole of reality then the “external world” was never anything more than an idea. That proposition cannot explain how I as the existing one mind came to be without referring to something outside of myself.

I as the sole conscious existent did not experience my coming into being. There must be something outside my conscious self that brought me into being. Something exists external to this one mind. Thus, metaphysical solipsism defeats itself. Metaphysical solipsism is, therefore, not a real possibility.

One could posit the idea of randomly and meaninglessly popping into existence from previous non-existence (arcane causation), but I balk, hard, at the idea of things coming into and going out of existence so I defer to your statement. We seem to be finite beings with a definite beginning and end(?) so the more powerful induction to me is that we were accidentally or deliberately caused to come into being by something or someone (someones?) outside ourselves. We owing our existence to something or someone/someones outside follows from logical inference and common sense if not direct experience.

However, my central argument is that given that we are subjective experiences composed of subjective experience (the fact or act of experiencing), whatever created us logically must be composed of subjective experience, in order for it to be able to use itself to create us. If it uses something external to itself to create us, whatever it uses must also be composed of subjective experience. Anything other than this simplest deduction of the material qualification for our existence necessitates that:

  1. something that is not subjective experience must magically cease to be something that is not subjective experience in order to turn itself into subjective experience in order to use itself or parts of itself to create us or:

  2. something that is not subjective experience must magically conjure subjective experience into being from previous non-existence in order to use this magically occurring (rather than pre-existing, available, and eternal) subjective experience to form us.

I’m hesitant to rule metaphysical solipsism “not a real possibility” simply because one does not experience coming into being. Not experiencing coming into being doesn’t look good for metaphysical solipsism, surely, but I would argue that not experiencing coming into being in and of itself doesn’t necessarily render m.s. a “false possiblility” or “metaphysically impossible”. No big deal, really. I could easily defer to your assessment as I don’t believe in metaphysical solipsism and agree that we probably owe our existence to something or someone (someones?) in the external world that we can’t experience but only have faith in their existence.

To wit:

It still remains a scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general
that the existence of things outside us (from which we derive the whole
material of knowledge, even for our inner sense) must be accepted merely
on faith,
and that if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are
unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof.

-Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason

And for the religious:

God…whom no one has seen nor can see.

1 Timothy 6:15, 16


I’m relatively okay these days. Lost my mother three years ago and my brother this May (this will be our first Thanksgiving and Christmas without him), going into philosophical overdrive in response to his death (as I did with hers) prompting “An Invincible Argument For The Afterlife”.

Thanks for asking.

J.

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.