AN INVINCIBLE ARGUMENT FOR THE AFTERLIFE (PART THREE)

[phenomenal_graffiti]

Meno:

Quite good, if enlightened!

Thanks. The "Invincible Argument" and "The Most Logical Form of Judeo-Christianity" is the culmination and final (?) iteration of almost 20 years of internal rumination on the possible nature of existence.

[phenomenal_graffiti]

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:

True. And "I" and the life one lives and the interactions "I" have with others is basically nothing more than an artificial reality or "matrix" composed of first-person subjective experience. In your case, you believe this artificial reality or "matrix" is created by the brain.

Over and again:

You make claims like this as though, in and of itself, making them is all the demonstration that we need in order to make them true.

I was about to comment about your belief that mind evolved from mindless matter as a "pot calling the kettle black" moment, until I read your follow up below.

I'm certainly not arguing that what I believe is true about life and death make it true. After all, how on earth could I possibly know that?!

I hope I didn't come across as "making my beliefs true" by how strongly I place claims and believe them. That being said: in the mythology that the brain creates consciousness, given the belief that death (irreversible cessation of consciousness) exists, the "I" that is formed by the brain, given that it is something for which the brain is responsible, something that cannot exist outside or independent of the function of the brain, and something that would cease to exist when and if the neocortex were to stop functioning,....the "I" or the consciousness of anyone must be, according to this logic, an artificial reality or "matrix" made up of the person's subjective experience produced by the brain.

This is the most important distinction that I make between us. You argue certain things about the afterlife and "subjective experience" on this side of the grave, and then seem considerably more inclined to feel confident in those arguments than I am in mine.

This is true.

I do "mind the gap" here between "I" and an understanding of existence itself. Including the part where "I" may well be but another of nature's dominoes compelled even to type these words.

But you must understand through direct observance of yourself that you are composed of first-person subjective experience, and that nothing else besides first-person subjective experience appears or manifests. This is the part that existence makes patently obvious. Everything else is make-believe that, if one believes in the objective existence of stuff we constantly "make up" in our minds, one can defend it's existence (poorly) by stating there is nothing that prevents it from existing outside the mind.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
Well, let's choose an actual chosen behavior like someone choosing a shirt to wear before going out.

1. The person choosing the shirt is a first-person subjective experience composed of first-person subjective experience.

2. The shirt, while the person is alive and conscious, is a construct made up of the first-person subjective experience of the person looking upon it and handling it.

3. The experience of looking at the shirt and handling it is made up of the first-person subjective experience of the person. For those believing the brain creates consciousness, this entire scene is an artificial construct made up of first-person subjective experience, that sort of emerges or "airbag deploys" from the brain.

4. If there is mind-independence, there are things not created by or within the brain that exist outside the body of a person, that is something completely different from the artificial construct made out of subjective experience that comes from or exudes from the brain. This is the case of the mind-independent version or doppelganger of the physical body of the person and the shirt being selected, as part of an actual chosen behavior. These doppelgangers are not the same thing as the first-person subjective experience artificial constructs flowing from the brain like a movie from a movie projector.

Ergo, for those believing in "mind-independent matter", there is the first-person subjective experience of the shirt of the person choosing the shirt, and there is the mind-independent doppelganger of the shirt in the external world, that would fall to a mind-independent floor and continue to exist if the first-person experience shirt were to wink out of existence if the person should die or fall unconscious while handling the shirt.

If. If, if, if, if, if.

But how is it then demonstrated that this entire sequence of first person subjective experiences isn't actually embedded instead in the psychological illusion of first person subjective experience embedded in the actual objective reality that is encompassed in the laws of nature themselves?

Well...because the situation of 'the psychological illusion of first person subjective experience embedded in the actual objective reality that is encompassed in the laws of nature themselves' is entirely make-believe. It's just something that is "made up". And it has no real logic behind it.

Here's why.

We have nothing upon which to base the existence of anything that is not first-person subjective experience that would lend credence to any reason to the idea there is an objective reality not composed of subjective experience.

If something is not subjective experience, it can have nothing to do with the existence of subjective experience since one is not the other. There is no reason to suppose one can "turn into" or evolve into the other save in the fanciful imagination that one magically could. We only experience and knowledge of the existence of first-person subjective experience, nothing else. We have no evidence for the existence of something that is not first-person subjective experience. Thus the need to invoke make-believe and magical thinking in the formation of something that is not subjective experience, that is imposed, I suspect, out of disbelief that first-person subjective experience very well may be the only thing that exists, and that has ever existed.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
Er, empirical evidence certainly tells us that first-person subjective experience in its seven modes exist. And empirical evidence basically takes the form of first-person subjective experience in the shape and form of a certain artificial reality. Everything that would need to be known about existence itself in order to encompass ontologically the whole of reality, therefore, must take the form of something subjectively experience and must consist of first-person subjective experience.

It's all we have, and are, empirically. There's...uh...nothing else that appears.

All we have...are? How can any of us possibly be privy to all that would need to be known in order to assert that?

What else can there be besides the patently obvious? Can you or anyone demonstrate that we are something that is not first-person experience? Why suppose an 'extra', save, perhaps, out of the simple conclusion that only first-person subjective experience exists, and the only thing that has ever existed?

When I speak of "it's all we have" I speak of those things/interactions that conscious human minds do seem able to demonstrate as "true for all of us" in the either/or world.

And this has always ever been first-person subjective experience.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
First-person subjective experience is the substance that composes the things we see, hear, feel, and experience from day to day. The afterlife, meanwhile, as it happens to exist and appear within the current state of our existence, appears only in the form of an idea of a world composed of first-person subjective experience. The objective existence of the idea, the existence of first-person subjective experience in the "here and now", brings the existence of the afterlife into focus as the imaginary substance making up the idea happens to be the same substance composing what we experience from day to day.


Here we are clearly in two different discussions. I have no idea "what on earth" this means. This is a "world of words" "general description" of human interactions to me. I'm trying to grapple with how you relate this intellectual "assessment" to the "for all practical purposes" choices that you make in the course of actually living your life.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
It's elementary, I think. "For all practical purposes" choices and the course of one living one's life is made up of first-person subjective experience. There's really nothing else.

Again, in my view, you have merely thought yourself into believing it is all "elementary". You have demonstrated none of it such that all rational men and women can then clearly be shown as obligated to think the same.

Which just brings me back around to the manner in which psychologically it has become important for you to believe that this "elementary" explanation need be as far as you go. Why? Because the explanation works for you in that it allows you to anchor "I" in that which you feel [through argument] is at least an intellectual font of sort.

And you need such a font on this side of the grave in order to at least establish an argument for the existence of a font on the other side of the grave.

Only I immediately recognize that this is all no less true of my own arguments here. It still comes down to that which I am in turn able to demonstrate as in fact true objectively about you.

Not much. Again, being in the same boat here that you are. That, seemingly, we all are.

But in the meantime, psychological motivation or not....everything could be just be made up of subjective experience, and nothing more. It doesn't matter that I "need" the elementary nature of a reality being made up only of first-person subjective experience to lend logical credence to an afterlife made up only of first-person subjective experience. It doesn't matter that in the end "we simply don't know". Neither does it matter if you are able to admit it faster or easier than I. None of this matters outside the fact that things could very well be "elementary" in that first-person subjective experience in the form of persons is the only thing that exists.

The only thing that we can objectively demonstrate to be true is that everything is made up of first-person subjective experience.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
We certainly can't know that there is an Earth outside the artificial one made up of first-person subjective experience. The existence of planet Earth past and present appears only in the form of something experienced by an "I". It does not appear unless there is an "I" perceiving an object everyone calls "Earth" made up of the perceiver's first-person subjective experience. It follows that a mind-independent Earth may not exist and as such cannot continue exist after "I" ceases to exist (if things can cease to exist).

In other words, you are just like the rest of: flailing about trying to explain something you almost certainly have only a small fraction of information and knowledge regarding.

We have no evidence of the existence of anything other than the existence of first-person subjective experience. There is no reason, in light of this, to glean that one has only a small fraction of information regarding the true, objective nature of existence (especially not enough to make the irrational jump to something that is not first-person subjective experience).

Dark energy? Dark matter? The quantum world? Something instead of nothing? Mind as matter? Determinsim? Leave that for others to figure out?

Others would, or should, come to the conclusion (in terms of 'dark energy' 'dark matter' etc.) that these supposed existences are made up only of first-person subjective experience in the form of ideas within the mind.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
You mentioned that consciousness is an inherent component of the brain, but the only brains that have ever been experienced are brains composed of first-person subjective experience. Are there evidence of brains not composed of a person's subjective experience that are subjectively experienced? If these brains are not composed of first-person subjective experience, how can they be experienced or, for that matter, known to even exist, if they are not composed of subjective experience?

I can only note that I am not at all clear regarding what your point is here. What brains performing what tasks in what contexts?

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
1. People believe the brain creates consciousness.

2. That which (in your words mind you)...'can be proven to be true'...'a demonstrable set of of facts'...if the brain creates every single instance of everything you experience from birth to death---are and must be created by the brain. Everything one experience in the either/ought world, the either/ought world itself, appears and manifests only if it pops out of the brain.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

But we still have no definitive understanding of how, given a particular behavior that we choose in a particular context, this "first-person subjective experience" actually works given how the human brain works given how that reflects the evolution of mindless matter into living matter given how that came to exist at all.

It's not what people believe so much as explaining how and why belief itself came into existence going back to, as some speculate, the Big Bang itself.

The point here is that people believe the brain gives rise to or creates first-person subjective experience. Worse, they believe in the existence of something that is not first-person subjective experience of which the second brain (the external world brain as distinct from the brain made up of visual and tactile perception that winks out if one should fall asleep or die while viewing a brain) is made up of something that is not first-person subjective experience. Even worse, they believe that something that is not first-person subjective experience could possibly have anything to do with the existence and properties of first-person subjective experience.

Doesn't matter if we don't have a definite understanding of how a first-person subjective experience works given the function of a non-subjective experience composed brain. The idea of this is illogical, thus doesn't matter.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
There are, if mind-independence exists, two things:

a. Everything that is created by your brain
b. Everything not created by your brain (i.e the 'planet Earth [that] will continue to exist even after "I" am dead and gone')

"There are, if..."

Bingo. Then [for me] it always comes down to the extent to which "if" is truly grappled with by any particular individual when the questions get this big. And that is far more a manifestation of dasein in my view. But then this view in itself is no less embedded in my own set of assumptions here.

Only, it is illogical for mind-independence or something that is not subjective experience to have anything to do with subjective experience. I think there's nothing to grapple with, given that we only experience and can only demonstrate first-person subjective experience.

[iambiguous]

I hope I didn't come across as "making my beliefs true" by how strongly I place claims and believe them. That being said: in the mythology that the brain creates consciousness, given the belief that death (irreversible cessation of consciousness) exists, the "I" that is formed by the brain, given that it is something for which the brain is responsible, something that cannot exist outside or independent of the function of the brain, and something that would cease to exist when and if the neocortex were to stop functioning,....the "I" or the consciousness of anyone must be, according to this logic, an artificial reality or "matrix" made up of the person's subjective experience produced by the brain.

Sure, that is one possible explanation. Others have different explanations. But all I can keep coming back to then is the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, here and now, none of these explanations have demonstrated a capacity to either 1] definitively explain human existence on this side of the grave or 2] definitively resolve whether existence -- "I" -- continues on, on the other side of it.

I do "mind the gap" here between "I" and an understanding of existence itself. Including the part where "I" may well be but another of nature's dominoes compelled even to type these words.

But you must understand through direct observance of yourself that you are composed of first-person subjective experience, and that nothing else besides first-person subjective experience appears or manifests. This is the part that existence makes patently obvious. Everything else is make-believe that, if one believes in the objective existence of stuff we constantly "make up" in our minds, one can defend it's existence (poorly) by stating there is nothing that prevents it from existing outside the mind.

Then, from my frame of mind, the gaps to be closed here are between this and full-blown solipsism, and between both and determinism.

You claim that...

We have nothing upon which to base the existence of anything that is not first-person subjective experience that would lend credence to any reason to the idea there is an objective reality not composed of subjective experience.

But the gaps above don't go away. Like me, you have no capacity to actually demonstrate empirically, experimentally [let alone ontologically] that the assumptions you embrace here are in fact true for all rational men and women in possession of at least some measure of free will.

Er, empirical evidence certainly tells us that first-person subjective experience in its seven modes exist. And empirical evidence basically takes the form of first-person subjective experience in the shape and form of a certain artificial reality. Everything that would need to be known about existence itself in order to encompass ontologically the whole of reality, therefore, must take the form of something subjectively experience and must consist of first-person subjective experience.

It's all we have, and are, empirically. There's...uh...nothing else that appears.

All we have...are? How can any of us possibly be privy to all that would need to be known in order to assert that?

What else can there be besides the patently obvious? Can you or anyone demonstrate that we are something that is not first-person experience? Why suppose an 'extra', save, perhaps, out of the simple conclusion that only first-person subjective experience exists, and the only thing that has ever existed?

But the "patently obvious" itself is no less embedded in the gaps above. And, thus, like you, I cannot demonstrate that what I think about these relationships reflects what all reasonable folks are obligated to think about them in turn going back to that definitive understanding of existence itself.

But this is the part that, from my perspective, hasn't sunk in yet regarding your perspective.

Then around and around we go:

First-person subjective experience is the substance that composes the things we see, hear, feel, and experience from day to day. The afterlife, meanwhile, as it happens to exist and appear within the current state of our existence, appears only in the form of an idea of a world composed of first-person subjective experience. The objective existence of the idea, the existence of first-person subjective experience in the "here and now", brings the existence of the afterlife into focus as the imaginary substance making up the idea happens to be the same substance composing what we experience from day to day.

Here we are clearly in two different discussions. I have no idea "what on earth" this means. This is a "world of words" "general description" of human interactions to me. I'm trying to grapple with how you relate this intellectual "assessment" to the "for all practical purposes" choices that you make in the course of actually living your life.

It's elementary, I think. "For all practical purposes" choices and the course of one living one's life is made up of first-person subjective experience. There's really nothing else.

Again, in my view, you have merely thought yourself into believing it is all "elementary". You have demonstrated none of it such that all rational men and women can then clearly be shown as obligated to think the same.

Which just brings me back around to the manner in which psychologically it has become important for you to believe that this "elementary" explanation need be as far as you go. Why? Because the explanation works for you in that it allows you to anchor "I" in that which you feel [through argument] is at least an intellectual font of sort.

And you need such a font on this side of the grave in order to at least establish an argument for the existence of a font on the other side of the grave.

Only I immediately recognize that this is all no less true of my own arguments here. It still comes down to that which I am in turn able to demonstrate as in fact true objectively about you.

Not much. Again, being in the same boat here that you are. That, seemingly, we all are.

But in the meantime, psychological motivation or not....everything could be just be made up of subjective experience, and nothing more. It doesn't matter that I "need" the elementary nature of a reality being made up only of first-person subjective experience to lend logical credence to an afterlife made up only of first-person subjective experience. It doesn't matter that in the end "we simply don't know". Neither does it matter if you are able to admit it faster or easier than I. None of this matters outside the fact that things could very well be "elementary" in that first-person subjective experience in the form of persons is the only thing that exists.

But to the extent the dots here either can or cannot be connected definitively between what I think I believe, how that makes me feel, and how that's all intertwined in first person subjective experiences embedded in autonomy embedded in dasein embedded in an ontological assessment of existence itself, we are basically just posting back and forth various "worlds of words" predicated on different sets of assumptions.

The only thing that we can objectively demonstrate to be true is that everything is made up of first-person subjective experience.

Suppose we both die tomorrow. Would the either/or world going back to, say, the Big Bang be obliterated in turn? Would it cease to exist? Would you be able to demonstrate that there are in fact first person subjective experiences after you die?

Instead, we both just take our wild ass guesses here and now and post them.

And, then, way, way out on the "human reality" limb we go:

Dark energy? Dark matter? The quantum world? Something instead of nothing? Mind as matter? Determinsim? Leave that for others to figure out?

Others would, or should, come to the conclusion (in terms of 'dark energy' 'dark matter' etc.) that these supposed existences are made up only of first-person subjective experience in the form of ideas within the mind.

Okay, but what does that have to do with what you can in fact demonstrate to be true about the place of first person subjective experience here and now?

Other than to merely assume that what scientists and philosophers will know, say, 10,000 years from now, will confirm your own point of view. And you don't believe that does not have more to do with your conjectures as psychological defense mechanisms than with anything you can actually know for certain about the part after the here and now "I" dies?

[phenomenal_graffiti]

Iambiguous:

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:
I hope I didn't come across as "making my beliefs true" by how strongly I place claims and believe them. That being said: in the mythology that the brain creates consciousness, given the belief that death (irreversible cessation of consciousness) exists, the "I" that is formed by the brain, given that it is something for which the brain is responsible, something that cannot exist outside or independent of the function of the brain, and something that would cease to exist when and if the neocortex were to stop functioning,....the "I" or the consciousness of anyone must be, according to this logic, an artificial reality or "matrix" made up of the person's subjective experience produced by the brain.

Sure, that is one possible explanation. Others have different explanations. But all I can keep coming back to then is the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, here and now, none of these explanations have demonstrated a capacity to either 1] definitively explain human existence on this side of the grave or 2] definitively resolve whether existence -- "I" -- continues on, on the other side of it.

But how can others have different explanations from that explained above if others believe in the existence of mindless matter and believe that death is cessation of the existence of consciousness upon cessation of function of the brain?

If consciousness or “I” ceases to exist upon cessation of function of the brain, “I” disappears while mindless matter continues on, as mindless matter according to the 1st law of thermodynamics cannot die or cease to exist.

If a person that dies is “gone”, then that person is not made up of mindless matter, that cannot disappear. The person and the person’s experience of reality, then, if the person’s experience of reality ceases to exist at death, must be something other than the mindless matter that remains. The only logical conclusion is that the person and the person’s experience of reality is a temporary reality that overlays the irremovable mindless matter underneath. The person and the person’s experience of reality, if one believes in the existence of death, must be an artificial reality that is something other than the mindless matter that cannot die or cease to exist.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:But you must understand through direct observance of yourself that you are composed of first-person subjective experience, and that nothing else besides first-person subjective experience appears or manifests. This is the part that existence makes patently obvious. Everything else is make-believe that, if one believes in the objective existence of stuff we constantly "make up" in our minds, one can defend it's existence (poorly) by stating there is nothing that prevents it from existing outside the mind.

Then, from my frame of mind, the gaps to be closed here are between this and full-blown solipsism, and between both and determinism.

I don’t think closing gaps matter. Solipsism and determinism are beliefs. The afterlife and the non-existence of the afterlife are beliefs. None of these do not change the fact that:

1. You and I (and anyone reading this) are and can be reductively defined as an experience. That’s essentially what you are. That’s what I am. We are experiences: a “movie camera POV shot” and the things and people that happen by chance to come into view before the “camera” to talk to the “camera” as it moves through whatever world that happens to appear within the “POV shot”.

2. Nothing else--and you can observe this for yourself here and now—appears or presents itself unless it appears within or to the POV shot. I mean, this fact proves itself every second, over and over: nothing can demonstrate or prove it exists unless it appears within the POV shot (air and other invisible things must be felt, smelt, heard, or tasted, but these are non-visual ways for something to “appear” within the POV shot).

3. Anything appearing within your POV shot, as opposed to before the “cameras” of myself or anyone else in the entire universe, the thing must be materially composed of the substance of YOU….that is….the substance of your experience (just yours, and not the substance of anyone else in the entire universe).

If something is not composed of you (and you can discern this negatively from the existence of death, if death is cessation of the existence of “I” and the things “I” experience), it cannot experience it, as it is made up of something other than you, that is, your particular first-person subjective experience as opposed to anyone else’s in the totality of existence.




1-3 are irrefutable facts about the actual nature of existence itself. They are the “drawing board” anyone can philosophically return to anytime they become stuck in rumination upon the nature of existence. 1-3 exist before you now, are things that you can easily and readily observe now, any time you are conscious and having experiences.

Ignoring 1-3, it logically follows that anything other than you, a first-person subjective experience and the things that appear to and within the “POV shot” can only demonstrate its existence as being part of you, but can only demonstrate its existence as a part of you only in the form of your thought in the form of your idea of the thing, and/or thought in the form of your visual (or non-visual) imagination of the thing.

Ergo: anything that does not appear within the “POV shot” of your consciousness can only appear within existence in the form of an idea.

phenomenal graffiti wrote:We have nothing upon which to base the existence of anything that is not first-person subjective experience that would lend credence to any reason to the idea there is an objective reality not composed of subjective experience.

But the gaps above don't go away. Like me, you have no capacity to actually demonstrate empirically, experimentally [let alone ontologically] that the assumptions you embrace here are in fact true for all rational men and women in possession of at least some measure of free will.

But 1-3 are not assumptions but irrefutable, instantly and constantly observed facts about the nature of that part of existence that appears and demonstrates itself. Rational men and women in possession of some measure of free will can immediately and constantly observe 1-3 to be actual facts about their existence…about that part of existence that actually shows up and makes itself known.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: Er, empirical evidence certainly tells us that first-person subjective experience in its seven modes exist. And empirical evidence basically takes the form of first-person subjective experience in the shape and form of a certain artificial reality. Everything that would need to be known about existence itself in order to encompass ontologically the whole of reality, therefore, must take the form of something subjectively experience and must consist of first-person subjective experience.

It's all we have, and are, empirically. There's...uh...nothing else that appears.

All we have...are? How can any of us possibly be privy to all that would need to be known in order to assert that?

I state “all we have” not in the sense of my knowing everything that exists within every single consciousness and the entirety of the external world, but state it in terms of our knowledge of existence that appears and is experienced.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: What else can there be besides the patently obvious? Can you or anyone demonstrate that we are something that is not first-person experience? Why suppose an 'extra', save, perhaps, out of the simple conclusion that only first-person subjective experience exists, and the only thing that has ever existed?

But the "patently obvious" itself is no less embedded in the gaps above. And, thus, like you, I cannot demonstrate that what I think about these relationships reflects what all reasonable folks are obligated to think about them in turn going back to that definitive understanding of existence itself.

But this is the part that, from my perspective, hasn't sunk in yet regarding your perspective.

But the gaps do not matter. The gaps are only one’s idea of the gaps, or that there are gaps. Nor is there an obligation for “reasonable folks” to think in the way I present things when I speak of ideas (key word and concept here) lying beyond the pale of the existence-facts of 1-3. They are obligated, however, in order to be and remain “reasonable folks”, to accept the existence-facts of 1-3, as these are irrefutable facts about the nature of existence (because they are immediately and constantly observed).

phenomenal_graffiti wrote: But in the meantime, psychological motivation or not....everything could be just be made up of subjective experience, and nothing more. It doesn't matter that I "need" the elementary nature of a reality being made up only of first-person subjective experience to lend logical credence to an afterlife made up only of first-person subjective experience. It doesn't matter that in the end "we simply don't know". Neither does it matter if you are able to admit it faster or easier than I. None of this matters outside the fact that things could very well be "elementary" in that first-person subjective experience in the form of persons is the only thing that exists.

But to the extent the dots here either can or cannot be connected definitively between what I think I believe, how that makes me feel, and how that's all intertwined in first person subjective experiences embedded in autonomy embedded in dasein embedded in an ontological assessment of existence itself, we are basically just posting back and forth various "worlds of words" predicated on different sets of assumptions.

I don’t think anyone should connect the dots between “how that makes me feel”, “how that’s all intertwined in first-person subjective experiences embedded in autonomy” with dasein (Hegelianistic term for existence or determinate being [external world or “behind everyone’s backs” as well as directly experienced existence?]= according to the Oxford dictionary), as one’s feelings about something---say the afterlife---has no bearing on actual daesin. I say feel the way you wish to feel about the afterlife (as the most pertinent subject of these talks) or God, or anything else. These have no bearing on the actual dasein.

As dasein in the form of your and my consciousness actually appears to us, (and let’s not kid ourselves, dasein appears in the form of “POV shots” and the thing appearing within the “roving camera shots…for how can it conceivably appear in any other form that would allow one to know something is dasein?), everything that does not appear to us as something that finds it way into the “POV camera shot” and is framed in a “world of words” as something that cannot appear within “POV camera shots”…exists only within “POV shots” as ideas: thoughts made up of…you guessed it…first-person subjective experience.

So this is what’s actually going on: you have actual dasein showing up, and only showing up, in the form of “POV camera shots”, and you have the idea of everything that does not appear as or within “POV camera shots”.

This is the only dichotomy: that which is experienced, and that which is experienced only in the form of an idea.

My “World of words”, therefore, in terms of subject matter not demonstrable to first-person subjective experience springboards from first-person subjective experience and the irrefutable existence-facts of 1-3. Does it make it any better than stuff that does not springboard from the latter? Probably not? But it has the surest footing. The afterlife, for example, springboards from the existence facts of 1-3. Mindless matter, unfortunately, not so much.

But that’s irrelevant.

Here’s what’s relevant:

I realized I don’t have to demonstrate anything beyond the existence-facts of 1-3.

It doesn’t matter if the dots are connected or if there are metphysical gaps that must be closed, particularly if the dots and the gaps involve things outside 1-3. Why? Because the gaps cannot be closed. They cannot be demonstrated. In fact, they’re only ideas. One must take the existence-facts of 1-3 and build one’s ontology from these bricks. Not from make-believe ones, like mindless matter, imposed or even entertained from incredulity that only consciousness exists or can exist (if true).

My job, beyond the obvious marketing ploy of making bold assertions about the afterlife is to present the rational suggestion that the afterlife, that one nugget out of the ocean of nuggets of human ideas about what may exist outside 1-3, while not demonstrable can in principle exist behind everyone’s backs.

Why?

Because there are no rational grounds irrefutably and unquestionably demonstrating the afterlife cannot invisibly exist behind everyone’s backs.

I don’t have to convince “reasonable folks” that they must think as I do. I can only hope they concede to the existence-facts of 1-3, and at least respect the conjecture that uses 1-3 as a stepping stone (which the afterlife does).

There are no gaps to be closed, or at least, the gaps don’t matter. The gaps are only one’s idea of the gaps, or that there are gaps, after all.

Objectively, in terms of the existence that shows up and demonstrates itself, there are only the existence-facts of 1-3 above.

And the fact that the afterlife may, despite any and all disbelief in the existence of the afterlife, exist behind everyone’s backs. One can believe it does not exist, but can one demonstrate or prove a negative, that it does not exist? One can only believe it does not exist, while the possibility remains, despite one’s disbelief, that the afterlife quietly grins to itself in the external world despite the fact it cannot be demonstrated to exist. I suppose one can say the same about mindless matter, but the logic problems between subjective experience and that which is not subjective experience in terms of causal relation remains.

That’s my job, to listen to atheists, take their views seriously, before quietly laying the Joker card on the table that depicts that the afterlife can exist in the external world behind everyone’s backs. If mindless matter can exist behind everyone’s backs despite the fact there is no proof of the existence of mindless matter and one, being made up of first-person subjective experience, cannot demonstrate the existence of mindless matter in scientific experiment (as the “either/ought” world is actually a “matrix” that ceases to exist at death for those believing this non-sense)---there is no reason why the afterlife, too, can be something that actually exists behind everyone’s backs in the external world, that mindless matter really does not exist, and the only thing that exists is eternal consciousness that transforms into people and other people rather than cease to exist at death.

So it doesn’t matter whether or not one knows the whole “kit and caboodle” of existence “inside and out” to be qualified to dare to speak of the afterlife as something that could exist or to assert the existence-facts of 1-3. One can freely speak of the existence of the afterlife or the existence facts of 1-3 because regardless of whether or not one knows the entire “ins and outs” of daesin, it remains that the afterlife may be, for all we know or can know about existence, something that is in daesin, that is merely hidden to the “matrix” of the “either/ought world” but that nevertheless objectively exists outside.

Or not.

There’s certainly nothing that unquestionably and irrefutably falsifies the possibility of the afterlife.

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:The only thing that we can objectively demonstrate to be true is that everything is made up of first-person subjective experience.

Suppose we both die tomorrow. Would the either/or world going back to, say, the Big Bang be obliterated in turn? Would it cease to exist?

Funny you should ask because…

….if it is objectively true that mindless matter exists and that mindless matter is something that is not first-person subjective experience but something that existed for all eternity before there were such things as brains as first-person subjective experience can only be created by brains or brain-like mechanisms……(*catches breath*)….then anything that is composed of mindless matter and not first-person subjective experience as first-person subjective experience is the only thing in existence that can magically come into existence from previous non-existence and go out of existence after having existed….(*huff, gasp*)...the either/ought world going back to the Big Bang would not be obliterated as the either/ought world is not our consciousness but is something that existed before brains and is thus not something the brain creates or controls and is therefore something that can survive and should survive the sudden non-existence of anyone’s consciousness (*wheeze*).

Would you be able to demonstrate that there are in fact first person subjective experiences after you die?

If the atheists are right, no. If they are wrong, still no. Even in the afterlife, one could only demonstrate one’s first-person subjective experience to oneself, and not other people in the afterlife.

Instead, we both just take our wild ass guesses here and now and post them.

Wild ass guesses are cool! And imo they should be posted only with the stipulation that they be logically coherent and possible--you know--- taking existence facts 1-3 into consideration, and springboarding from 1-3, working to demonstrate that the guess could exist behind everyone’s backs in the external world regardless of whether or not it is believed.

Dark energy? Dark matter? The quantum world? Something instead of nothing? Mind as matter? Determinsim? Leave that for others to figure out?

phenomenal_graffiti wrote:Others would, or should, come to the conclusion (in terms of 'dark energy' 'dark matter' etc.) that these supposed existences are made up only of first-person subjective experience in the form of ideas within the mind.

Okay, but what does that have to do with what you can in fact demonstrate to be true about the place of first person subjective experience here and now?

The place of first person subjective experience is that it's the only that that actually shows up and demonstrates it exists. Nothing else, and I mean nothing else, does that. Even so, I can only demonstrate my first-person subjective experience to myself. That will have to suffice. You can only demonstrate your first-person subjective experience to yourself, and not anyone else in the totality of the universe. The rest of us must have quasi-religious faith that your “I” even exists. The existence of your consciousness, to everyone that isn’t you, is in the same boat as God. God may exist, but we can only have faith that his consciousness, like we can only have faith that your consciousness, actually exists. But take heart: I have faith in the existence of iambiguous. I can’t prove iambiguous’ consciousness actually exists, as I can only experience my own consciousness…but to spite solipsism I’m going to believe it does.

Other than to merely assume that what scientists and philosophers will know, say, 10,000 years from now, will confirm your own point of view. And you don't believe that does not have more to do with your conjectures as psychological defense mechanisms than with anything you can actually know for certain about the part after the here and now "I" dies?

Scientists 10,000 years from now confirming my point of view would be awesome, if they could somehow have the non-demonstrable become demonstrable. As far as existence-facts 1-3? They must confirm this, as these are basic facts about the nature of our existence one easily confirms simply by existing.

At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter if my conjectures are psychological defense mechanisms against the non-existence of the consciousness of myself and my loved ones at death. Turns, out, the non-existence of me and my loved ones at death may be objectively false for all we know or can know.

Regardless of my feelings or subconscious fear, the fact remains that the afterlife is still, and shall remain, something that might actually exist behind our backs regardless of whether or not one accepts or denies its existence, and despite the fact the afterlife cannot be demonstrated. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander: if mindless matter can be said to exist behind our backs even if one denies its existence and its existence cannot be demonstrated, the same goes for the afterlife. Both cannot be demonstrated, and one or the other may be true for all we know or can know.

Psychological defense mechanisms are meaningless given the metaphysical possibility, as it does nothing to negate or falsify the metaphysical possibility and as such, has no bearing one way or the other on the objective existence of the afterlife.

[monad]

Joined with part 1 & 2 it would take an afterlife to read it all. That would make me regret if there actually is one. I think I'll stick with oblivion!

[Aware-ness]

The afterlife needs no invincible argument. It's a certainty. Even if we die when we die, that's an afterlife.

[phenomenal_graffiti]

Monad:

Joined with part 1 & 2 it would take an afterlife to read it all. That would make me regret if there actually is one. I think I'll stick with oblivion!

Oblivion requires magic and is an irrational belief. How does something that does not exist come into existence? How can something that exists, like the brain, neurons making up the brain, and electrons flowing within a brain create something that does not exist (conscious experience before it is "created" by the brain)? Experiences are transient and exist only in the form of first-person subjective experience and the subjective experience of something. What is experience before it is experienced?

Any answer to the last question must be something entirely made up and not something anyone can know, as we can only experience first-person subjective experience: we cannot experience something that is not first-person subjective experience as it is not first-person subjective experience, thus there is not experiential and thus no rational grounds for the existence of anything that is not first-person subjective experience.

Any make-believe asserting that it answers or can answer the question that is the last sentence of the paragraph prior to the above paragraph can be argued to be created only out of denial that consciousness (first-person subjective experience) may in fact be eternal, and is not something that:

1. Does not exist that is magically created or conjured into existence

2. Something that can stop existing rather than just change into different first-person subjective experience, or:

3. Something that is not the fact or act of experiencing that can magically transform into the fact or act of experiencing.

It's far simpler that consciousness is fortuitously and absurdly eternal, such that the 1st Law of Thermodynamics should be changed to state that:

Consciousness is neither created nor destroyed, but merely changes form.

PG

Aware-ness:

The afterlife needs no invincible argument. It's a certainty. Even if we die when we die, that's an afterlife.

Ha, ha.