[ExI] No gods, no meaning?

Fri Apr 24 23:36:00 UTC 2020

On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 6:05 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> What I read about consciousness I regard as extremely primitive.  To me it
> is just a normal function of most animals' brains.  As I am a materialist I
> think of it as neurons firing, etc.  I do not think that consciousness will
> be able to occur when the brain is dead, so any idea that it could be a
> soul is itself a dead idea.  The idea that the universe is conscious
> strikes me as something coming out of an LSD experience.  If it is
> immaterial then how are you going to measure it?
>
>
According to mechanism (the idea that the brain is a machine and that
consciousness is merely a product of this machine's operation), then:
1. survival of consciousness beyond the death of a body,
2. reincarnation,
3. the ability for the consciousness to travel to other universes, and
4. the distinction between the body and the consciousness are direct
consequences.

Mechanism holds that consciousness results from the operation of a machine
(the brain). Therefore, consciousness is the result of a pattern of
behaviors, not the underlying physical material or matter. If a body dies,
you could use a different pile of matter to rebuild that machine and
recover the consciousness. The consciousness then would survive beyond the
death of any particular incarnation (body) and could reincarnate into new
bodies. The analogy is similar to the notion of a story surviving the
destruction of one copy of it in a book. The book, like the body, is just
one particular token, representing a type (the story). But the type can
exist as many different tokens.

Most scientists and philosophers of mind ascribe to mechanism.
Consciousness then is an informational pattern, not matter or energy.
Consciousness has no mass, definite location, nor is it bound to the
confines of this universe like the matter is.  If in another universe
someone recreated on a computer the same patterns the atoms in your brain
here follow, then according to mechanism (what nearly every scientist will
tell you) your consciousness would be recreated in that other universe.

So here we have your "soul"--if you will call it that, surviving the death
of the body, reincarnating into new bodies unassociated with the matter,
and even leaving the universe to exist in some physically inaccessible
realm.

You may object that in practice we never re-create brains in such a way to
enable reincarnation or allow the consciousness to survive the death of the
body, but I disagree. The many worlds of quantum mechanics provides exactly
the form of duplication necessary, and results in your consciousness
travelling to now physically inaccesible corners of reality.  Secondly, if
a dying brain approaches zero information content, it results in there
being a singular state (the consciousness of zero information). If this
conscious state is identical in content to a newly forming brain in a womb,
then this provides a mechanism of reincarnating into a new body.  Then
there is also the simulation hypothesis, where you are a descendent, or
jupiter brain, or advanced alien playing sim human, and when you awaken
from this game/dream/life you will find yourself in an "immaterial"
(simulated/VR) realm where you are free to play "Sim Martian" or have any
life of any mortal being you choose.

Or, if this is too much, you might just say when your dead that's it. (but
then you need to find an alternate theory of consciousness which prohibits
these possibilities).

Jason

> bill w
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 5:46 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 2:34 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 12:21 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>   Science cannot deal with anything unobservable.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Our theories do. We have theories that describe the interiors of black
>>>> holes, other branches of the wave function, galaxies and radiation beyond
>>>> the cosmological horizon, etc. despite none of them being observable.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Yes but, your theories start from observed facts about atoms and
>>> molecules and fission and fusion and the spectrums of the black holes,
>>> which are observed indirectly via their influence on bodies near them.
>>> This is hardly without observations.  All scientific theories start with
>>> observed facts.  Many things are not observable directly, but indirectly.
>>> As long as the scientific method is use, with replication etc., you are
>>> still doing science.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> It's going to take a lot for me to swallow any idea that science and
>>>> religion can get together somehow.  Differen epistemologies, as I said.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> The theory of energy underwent many reformulations as our understanding
>>>> improved. Cannot the same happen for our understanding of God, souls,
>>>> reality, afterlives, etc.? Can science not investigate these subjects
>>>> merely because some religion claimed them first?
>>>>
>>>
>>> You can investigage anything if you can find something to observe.  Find
>>> my soul, will you?  I am going to donate it to any god who will accept it.
>>>
>>
>> I'm currently writing a book on the science of the soul. There is much
>> that we can glean about the soul just using science. There is scientific
>> support for many ideas that one would typically assume fall into the sphere
>> of religion. For example: eternal life, immortality, reincarnation,
>> afterlives, divine union, the immateriality of the soul and its distinction
>> from the body.
>>
>> In many cases, these conclusions are inevitable if you start from the
>> standard scientific ideas about consciousness (e.g. mechanism).
>>
>> If it can be scientifically demonstrated that your consciousness
>> possesses some or all of these traits, would you call it a soul?
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> The Baháʼí Faith, for instance, is very explicit in its belief that
>>>> science and religion must be united in harmony. As it's leader described:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "*The independent search after truth, unfettered by superstition or
>>>> tradition; *the oneness of the entire human race, the pivotal
>>>> principle and fundamental doctrine of the Faith; the basic unity of all
>>>> religions; the condemnation of all forms of prejudice, whether religious,
>>>> racial, class or national;* the harmony which must exist between
>>>> religion and science; *the equality of men and women, the two wings on
>>>> which the bird of human kind is able to soar; the introduction of
>>>> compulsory education; the adoption of a universal auxiliary language; the
>>>> abolition of the extremes of wealth and poverty; the institution of a world
>>>> tribunal for the adjudication of disputes between nations; the exaltation
>>>> of work, performed in the spirit of service, to the rank of worship; the
>>>> glorification of justice as the ruling principle in human society, and
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Th above part is great and wonderful and is more politics than religion.
>>>
>>
>>
>> How do you draw a line that separates the two?
>>
>>
>>>
>>> of religion as a bulwark for the protection of all peoples and nations;
>>>> and the establishment of a permanent and universal peace as the supreme
>>>> goal of all mankind—these stand out as the essential elements [which
>>>> Baháʼu'lláh proclaimed]."
>>>>
>>>>
>>> This part is too vague to understand.
>>>
>>
>> I take it to mean that having a set of ideals to hold in esteem
>> inoculates society against commuting the worst of atrocities, and also
>> provides a placeholder to prevent the worship of human leaders or nations.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> Jason
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> bill w
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 10:10 AM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thursday, April 23, 2020, Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Dammit, done it again!
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Reposted, with correct Subject line :(
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 23/04/2020 00:18, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 3:51 PM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
>>>>>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 22/04/2020 18:39, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>>>>>>>> > agnosticism is a lack of belief in gods.  Atheism is a belief in
>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>> > lack of gods.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> This is patently false. Agnosticism has nothing at all to say about
>>>>>>>> belief, it's about knowledge (from the greek, 'Gnosis', meaning
>>>>>>>> knowledge). Agnosticism is the position that you don't/can't know.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And thus, a lack of belief.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Not necessarily.
>>>>>>> Many religious people will freely admit they have no definite
>>>>>>> knowledge about their particular god, but still choose to believe in it. I
>>>>>>> know that's a logically contradictory position, but belief knows no logic.
>>>>>>> In fact it rejects logic.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Atheism, in it's most common form, is the lack of belief in gods.
>>>>>>>> Some
>>>>>>>> people define a 'strong', or 'hard' form of atheism that is an
>>>>>>>> assertion
>>>>>>>> that no gods exist, but that is a minority view.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> These things are easy to look up.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Atheism is, in the broadest sense, an absence of belief in the
>>>>>>> existence of deities.  Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief
>>>>>>> that any deities exist.  In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically
>>>>>>> the position that there are no deities."
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I guess both meanings are in use.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes. And one is overwhelmingly more common than the other.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> When I say I'm an atheist, I don't want people to assume I subscribe
>>>>>>> to a minority interpretation of the term (mainly because, to me, it's not
>>>>>>> so much the non-existence of gods that is the important thing, but the not
>>>>>>> believing in things ('believing' as in accepting things as true without a
>>>>>>> shred of evidence, and even in the face of contradictory evidence).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The narrowest sense is the one that needs qualification, not the
>>>>>>> broadest one. This is true of job titles and many other things, not just
>>>>>>> world-views.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> They're also definitions of God held by different religions or
>>>>>> different believers which are scientifically consistent.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For example, God as the creator (consistent with the simulation
>>>>>> hypothesis), or God as the "world soul" -- the collection of all conscious
>>>>>> brings (consistent with open individualism), or God as Truth/Reality
>>>>>> (consistent with mathematical realism).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It's easy to forget that there's any different religions and God's
>>>>>> out there, as well as varying levels sophistications of belief, even within
>>>>>> those religions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's no reason I see that religious ideas cannot be extended and
>>>>>> grow together with advances in scientific understanding. To assume
>>>>>> otherwise and say religious ideas must stagnate perverts and restricts not
>>>>>> only religion but science as well.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Jason
>>>>>>
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