The Afterlife: What You Want Versus What You Believe

I don't "believe" in these things. I simply don't think they are any less likely than the other option.

And I am, in fact, slightly doubtful even about what science has shown. While it is practical, there's also that bit that I mentioned: we don't even know if reality outside our minds exist. We believe it. I mentioned that specifically to showcase how some skeptics seem to have a very "selective" skepticism, and how I find that a bit illogical, especially when they conflate practical assumptions with the truth (like everyone here CONSTANTLY DOES)

It is redundant to tell me that, given how I specifically mentioned "practical assumptions". You don't seem to try very hard to understand what I'm trying to say.

edited 7th Nov '13 3:29:53 PM by Teraus

Well, so far, your argument seems to be that "randomness is not part of the fundamental nature of reality because we cannot, with absolute certainty, rule out unseen causes." I suppose you must have noticed by now that I could say that "randomness is the fundamental nature of reality, and any causes we see cannot be conclusively proven not to be mere coincidence - random chance." Neither of our statements would be any different if they were judged by the standard that we cannot make judgments about reality based on practical assumptions.

I, however, base my understanding of reality on practical assumptions (including the assumptions that I exist, that the universe exists, and that there are fundamental laws governing the universe.) If you ask me, a model that makes testable predictions is more rooted to the experienced reality of the observer than one that denies the possibility of testable predictions, or one that merely comes without testable predictions.

If I did conclude that the assumptions I've made have no bearing on reality, I suppose there is an easy way for me to test those assumptions; namely, I could climb to the roof of the apartment building where I live, put a knife in my own throat, and jump. If I don't expect my current assumptions about the universe to have any merit I'm about equally likely to die as I am to survive - and who knows, since the universe isn't governed by laws of nature, maybe I'll get lucky and end up someplace fantastic by doing what I'm doing.

My hesitation to go through with that plan is based on my understanding of the nature of universe as at least partially understandable and understood, and yes, it's based on practicality but I don't hesitate to say that it's probably close to reality any less that I would hesitate to test it in the way I described.

This does not, however, mean that I'm unwilling to change my mind about my notions about the laws governing the universe - it's just that I impose standards on ideas that I take in for investigation, and I've gone with the standards that seem to correspond with reality more closely than anything else that's available. No one is 100% sure that the Earth really is round, but the degree of certainty is high enough that we can use it as a point from which to go on to other investigations.

I'm a bit of a weird one (but you've all read my previous posts elsewhere, so you knew that already).

I accept that our universe is finite and expanding and came into existence, with all its physical laws, a finite time ago and that was the beginning of Space-Time so far as our universe goes.

I accept that purely physical things happened - gravitational attraction to form stars, fusion of hydrogen to form helium and other heavier elements, supernovae, further gravitational attraction to form solar systems rich in heavy elements, formation of rocky planets in the "Goldilocks Zone" of stars, some form of abiogenesis to create simple life, adaptation and evolution to form more complex life - to "create" life as we know it and that it is "accidental" (in as much as the interactions between common chemicals with set valences and "survival of the fittest" can be deemed "accidental").

I accept that all of this could happen without the input of an intelligent creator (an unintelligent "creator" such as a place outside this bubble of Space-Time, the inherent property of which is spawning random bubbles of Space-Time, in pretty much the same manner as a condensing cloud of hydrogen is a "creator" with the inherent properties that lead to fusion and the production of heavy elements, is a possibility).

So we're here and we're water molecules marvelling at how the sides of the pond are miraculously exactly the right shape to contain the body of water and wondering if some intelligence built it to that precise shape.

However, I also believe that we are more than the sum of our components and that there is some energy that endures past death.

I believe that "deities" exist - multiple deities, all deities - and that there are "otherworlds"/"afterlives" outside this bubble of Space-Time that these deities occupy and to which the energy that was raised in our corporeal, "biological machine" bodies goes when we die.

I believe it is a human conceit that any given deity/deitiss is/are "the best" or "the only" or even "the creator". That our perceptions colour our judgement of them - after all, we filter all input though our own minds and perceptions.

I believe that all "religions" have a basis in truth and that we get that which we expect when we die.

If I'm wrong:

There are two possibilities:

1) Logically, if everything is purely physical/chemical, then we cease to exist on death. No problem there as we wouldn't be around afterwords to be pissed off/disappointed/anything.

2) That there is some form of intelligent creator that kicked off the creation of this bubble of Space-Time (and possibly others, for all we know).

And if that is the case, any being that is capable of such a feat is so far removed from human whims, emotions and fancies that we couldn't relate to it nor it to us.

It wouldn't give a damn if any given member of a large population of beings on one planet, out of all the potentially life-bearing planets inside this bubble of Space-Time, believes or doesn't believe in its existence.

There would be no reward, no punishment. It wouldn't give enough of a fuck about our entire population (out of the many others that are probably out there), let alone an individual, to reward or punish.

It wouldn't be human, it wouldn't understand humans. Or Beta Rigellians or whatever.

And that's assuming that such an entity lived this long after the formation of this Space-Time bubble - we've no guarantee that an intelligent creator would be immortal or the only one of its kind.

The deities of the world's religions are very humanlike - even the ones with heads of jackals or falcons - in their emotions, ideals and outlooks. More damningly, their ideals reflect different ideas of different races over humanity's own lengthy development.

Therefore they are not beings that created a universe billions of years before the emergence of intelligent anthropoid life on this particular world.

Whence came they? I know not, but they are way too "human" to be ancient and immortal creators - that's just the conceit humans have of them.

Or we're merely anthropomorphising natural forces.

So, for me, it's both science and "mysticism". Scientist/evolutionist and pagan.

Does my belief that I'm going to pass to another extra-universe realm on my death mean I won't protect my life here? No.

In fact, I'd happily go transhuman to put it off as long as possible.

Meaning? We humans create meaning. I have friends, family and fellow humans with whom I share the planet. That's enough to give me drive, incentive and "meaning".

Here is why I specifically think that is very unlikely: http://logoslabyrinth.blogspot.com.br/2013/10/my-convictions-and-why-i-have-them.html

That is not exactly my argument, though. I am calling attention to a certain double standard here, "selective skepticism": there is nothing that indicates that randomness is "more likely" than unseen causes. Both sides of the story are also equally "unfalsifiable", so I literally see no reason to favor randomness, especially considering how the rest of reality seems to go pretty well with determinism. It's not like we are 99.99999% sure of randomness: we can't say anything about the likelihood.

And you can't even compare these unseen causes with the spagghetti monster or anything similar. Seriously accepting the possibility of "unseen causes" is not the same as accepting the possibility of something as specific as a spaghetti monster. I am not specifying anything about these unseen causes, other than the fact that they may have a visible effect in the behavior of the part of existence that is visible to us. This part of existence could be just a minimal fraction of it.

I don't see why people can't just say "I don't know if X is absolutely accurate, but this limited model that uses X is accurate enough for most cases". Instead, they say "X is true". I don't know why people need to assume things like that beyond the realm of the practical, beyond a mere approximation. If anything, history has taught us that there are usually more things to discover, and assuming that those things don't exist and giving random or arbitrary causes to them really doesn't help anything ("unseen causes" is the opposite of arbitrary, it simply admits any possibility)

I am also attempting to specify that there is a difference between the practical context and the purely philosophical context. The approach that favors practicality is not necessarily the most strictly logical, impartial approach. That is why I think that making statements based on practical assumptions, as if they are true, is intellectually dishonest. For example: saying "randomness is true, science proves it". No, it doesn't, plain and simple.

The models are useful, but extrapolating their validity to determine things that are beyond their intended scope makes no sense. That is why, when discussing philosophical things such as the existence of something non-physical, you need to be a little more impartial and consider the inner uncertainty of almost everything you know.

I've already stated the difference between the practical context and the philosophical, so I guess that's already covered.

These laws, however, are far more certain than randomness or even physicalism itself, for a very simple reason: they don't try to say anything about what can't be perceived. They are not an extrapolation of a practical assumption, they are a direct, local application of empirical observations in the scope they are intended to.

It is okay to use randomness in your model if it is accurate enough for your needs (though randomness tends to be, you know, not accurate). It is not okay to actually affirm that there is randomness because the model works.

edited 7th Nov '13 6:40:22 PM by Teraus

OK, so to the extent that I accept the model of reality represented by Quantum Theory - which yields the best predictions in all of science, and is thus on a stronger basis than anything else in science - I accept that randomness is part of reality.

It just feel silly to make this concession (again) when just about any scientist or science enthusiast would just assume it anyway, in any context where any kind of claims about reality were made.

When I say that "it's true that there's randomness in the universe" I'm talking with a similar kind of certainty as when I say "it's true that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old" or "it's true that if I pour water in a glass and tilt it to a sufficient extent the water will, in normal conditions, come out."

In philosophy it can be important to point out that statements like that are made with some reservations that usually go unstated, but in general people tend to know that these things are included in the framework of any discussion about the real world.

This is not true, by the way. Here's an easy-to-read article explaining it, including a description of a common experiment. Here's another, more complicated one from the same site.

The thing about Quantum Theory is that if you don't accept randomness you can't accept the results of these experiments, as they depend on randomness. Thus you'll have to prove how the strongest bit of science is actually wrong, and you really can't do that simply by positing undefined forces that can't be detected, especially if you'll go so far as to say that they're undetectable in principle (which you haven't said and I don't think you'd say it, but if you would your case would be even weaker.)

edited 7th Nov '13 6:53:27 PM by BestOf

"The quantumy description of each photon going through the beam splitter isn’t a simple as “it’s totally random which path it takes”. Each photon is described, very specifically and non-randomy, as taking both paths."

Things being in multiple states at once is not randomness.

I honestly don't see how that "proves" randomness. If you call a part of a theory "random", you are literally stating that there is something this theory can't predict. So Quantum Theory is only useful as far as its "non-random" parts are concerned. What is called random is the part that cannot be predicted (or, rather, it can be still be given a probability). It doesn't mean that there must be no cause for the unpredictable thing, just that it can't be seen. I don't know why this is so difficult to understand.

You can apply probability to macroscopic things such as populations, and that can yield useful results. It doesn't mean that people are necessarily "random variables". It just means that it would be too difficult or impossible to model otherwise, and probability is the only way to go, practically speaking.

demarquis disagrees, so maybe I'm not as crazy as you think I am.

Also, see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory

"Later, Bell's theorem would suggest (in the opinion of most physicists and contrary to Einstein's assertion) that local hidden variables of certain types are impossible."

Wikipedia may not be the best possible source, but it is at least decent as far as scientific concepts go. However, regardless of the validity of the article, you can logically deduce that it is impossible to disprove every form of hidden variable, because there are too many possibilities that simply cannot be measured.

Randomness is by no means a certainty. Stating that it is a fundamental part of nature is a biased, unnecessary claim. Quantum Theory can work perfectly well without people saying things about what is beyond their observable reality.

edited 7th Nov '13 7:21:37 PM by Teraus

Well, ahem.

One issue here, I think, is that there is more than one type of randomness, conceptually. There's statistical randomness, or "error" in amodel, which assumes nothing more than that there are factors unaccounted for in an equation. Then there is what I will call "metaphysical randomness", which proposes that there are phenomena which are inherently unpredictable because they literally not caused by anything. Not even QM accepts metaphysical randomness; it includes "indeterminancy" which is not the same thing.

From the end of the second article:

The fact that the particle interferes with itself proves that it exists as a wave function, where its quantum state is not determined, but fluctuating between its possible positions. Until something detects the particle it won't have a set state; instead, it occupies all of the potential states. When it's detected, though, the wave function collapses and you have a single particle in a single state.

According to Quantum Theory, not only is it the case that humans cannot determine the exact state of a particle, but the universe itself cannot "check" it to an arbitrary accuracy, either. The closest approximation that can be made is a description of its possible quantum states, which is expressed in terms of probabilities, as that is how they function in nature.

If you're not understanding this, perhaps this experiment will help. It's an experiment that has been done, and it depends on the trajectories taken by individual photons being random and following a set of predictable probabilities for each trajectory. If there are unseen forces acting on those photons, those forces have to correspond exactly to pure chance.

Wikipedia's article on the Uncertainty Principle points out a common misunderstanding:

Again, if you don't accept that randomness is true according to Quantum Theory you can't accept Quantum Theory, as it's a fundamental part of it.

This is like saying that the theory of gravity is only useful as far as the parts describing visible effects are concerned, or that the theory of evolution is only useful as far as the parts not describing selection or mutation are concerned. You can't take out one of the core elements of a theory and say "the rest is useful but this has to go." If you're talking about something that is a fundamental part of the theory, it's all or nothing - the theory falls if its foundations are not correct.

Relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism

Well, we are in agreement, then. Best Of seems to advocate specifically this type of randomness that appears to be illogical to me.

Randomness can always be explained by something hidden, including QM's randomness, even if you really don't know what this hidden thing is. In the case of QM, the interference caused by the very observation plays a big role.

I'll read the experiment soon, just a moment.

edited 7th Nov '13 7:42:05 PM by Teraus

I should point out that I'm not particularly fond of the fundamental randomness of the universe, either - on a personal note, that is. Obviously I'll accept it as long as the evidence supports it, and at the moment the best science that we have is predicated on it, but if new evidence emerges and a new model is proven with a greater degree of accuracy than the old one I won't be too sad to see it go.

Not that I have a problem with randomness - from a philosophical perspective I'd prefer that the universe be completely deterministic, but my feelings on this are nowhere near as strong as my enthusiasm about studying and accepting reality through experiment.

Unfortunately, I have to go to bed. I'll respond in the AM.

Hmm... my views actually haven't changed all too much (although I'm currently a Christian with a somewhat different interpretation of the divine); I still think that the question of whether or not there is an afterlife is fairly irrelevant. I don't really live my life taking the idea of whether or not there is an afterlife into account, and in fact, my beliefs and values would likely not change if the idea of an afterlife were explicitly disproven. What would I want, though? I think becoming one with the creative, active power of the universe would be pretty nice - I think I touched on this in my earlier post, but basically, existing as a force of nature embodied in pure cosmic power would be my ultimate afterlife.

What I believe: After death, if you are light hearted and free of guilt you spend time in a pleasant, heaven-like realm, maybe modeled after whatever religion you follow or just whatever you like, perhaps keeping tabs on the physical realm until your loved ones die too. Exceptionally evil people who die with a heavy heart go a darker place, where they punish themselves through guilt and relive the horrors they brought onto others. They go there by choice, to learn. Neither place is forever; you eventually reincarnate, and keep doing so until your soul learns everything it needs to learn and reaches a perfect balance, at which time it ascends and reaches nirvana. It's possible to get stuck in the physical realm after death, usually if your death was horrible, but also if you don't want to leave. That's what ghosts are.

@Best Of: I guess this will be my final comment on the subject of randomness in this thread (not very relevant to afterlife, I guess. Yes, that's my fault. PM me if you want to continue)

After reading some articles, I've observed the following:

For a theory to yield results that are as accurate as QM's, some previously observed and postulated aspect of reality must be defied. Plausible hidden-variable theories apparently have to violate locality, while QM itself, if taken as complete, violates determinism to an extent.

I don't claim to understand the underlying causes that make matter behave with such particular probabilistic behavior, though I don't think every possibility has been ruled out, either. I understand why explanations that violate as little as possible of the observed aspects of reality are preferred, so I understand why non-local hidden-variable theories seem distasteful. On the other hand, I really don't know how accurate the experiments that attempt to demonstrate the Bell inequalities really were (though I'm still willing to believe the word of the experts involved)

So, ultimately, I understand your concern, even though I really can't say anything about how much non-observable reality can deviate from the patterns of the observable part and how much it can interact with our universe. In other words, I'm less biased in favor of determinism than before, but I still can't, in a philosophical level, accept randomness in the same level as you do because I really don't know the possibilities involving this unseen part of existence. I am making no assumptions on a philosophical level, because we just don't know how big or small we are in comparison to the rest of existence and every possibility, and that can't be ignored. It is the same reason why I don't rule out solipsism on a philosophical level as both it and external reality are equally unfalsifiable, but I utterly reject it on a practical level.

edited 8th Nov '13 7:18:47 AM by Teraus

Well, here's the thing. Bell's Theorem doesnt actually demonstrate randomness in the way that Teraus has been using the term, or in the way that I designated as "Meta-physical randomness". Yes, the fact that a particle actually possesses wave-like properties does make things more complicated, but doesnt fundamentally change anything. Nowhere does the articles author (or anyone else, that I know of) suggest behavior of wave-like particles is arbitrary and unpatterened. Although it is true that you cant predict what the particle will do, the causal chain is perfectly clear: the particles behave the way they do because they can be described as wave functions, and they are wave functions due to the laws of nature. In other words, Bells Theorem shouldn't be interpreted as undermining determinism. If you accept the Many-Worlds interpretation of what is going on, then the universe as a whole is completely determined.

Think of "Hard determinism" as being one end of a scale of worldviews, and "Random Universe" as being at the other end of the scale. We obviously do not live in a random universe. But does the universe contain any true randomness? In other words, are there any undetermined (or "uncaused") phenomena?

To bring this back on-topic, if there were any true randomness then that could be used as an opening for all sorts of things- from proof of the existence of God to an explanation of freewill to a justification for nihilism.

I personally have no principled objection to randomness. I would actually like there to be some element or aspect of the physical universe we can observe be fundamentally inexplicable, such that the "reductionist program" that Best Of describes could never be completed (I dont actually think that it can be).

On the other hand, I am also a theist. I believe in God, an afterlife, the whole works. For me, positivism doesnt provide me with enough meaningful explanation of what is going on, so I rely on these other things. But I concede to science all authority to explain physical, material phenomena. IMO, nothing that is supernatural can be explained or deduced from that which is natural. So, if you want to believe in an afterlife, by all means do so. But you should not expect to be able to "prove" your belief by any scientific means.

Like a couple of other things in this discussion, while I will concede this it almost seems to fit the category of "trivially true," though in a philosophical discussion you generally want to think about being clear about those, as well. What the "many worlds" will be is determined; which one you end up in is either random or easily dismissed through the anthropic principle (which is basically a handy way of pointing out that the question might be irrelevant, though it does require something akin to a many-worlds interpretation.)

Yes. The thing about Quantum Mechanics, as you point out, is that while we can know roughly what will happen in any scenario, in the quantum level you have to be clear about the fact that you can only ever know the chances of something happening - it's never 100%. So instead of "A causes B causes C" you get "A has a 97% chance of causing B₁ and a 2% chance of causing B₂ and a 1% chance of causing B₃, and B₁ has a 95% chance of causing C..."

So you can say that A has a very high chance of causing B₁ and it's easy to say that that's a kind of determinism, but chance is still a factor. Causes affect probabilities.

I'm not sure what you're referring to here.

I am happy whenever I come across this attitude. I'm an atheist myself, but I don't particularly care if someone is religious, so long as they don't claim to answer scientific questions with supernatural beliefs. To me, this attitude displays a fundamental level of intellectual honesty, and it is a great starting point for any discussion.

Actually, I'd like to extend the same compliment to this bit from Teraus:

Personally I think the case you would have to make for a stable, solipsistic model of the universe would probably be almost entirely frivolous, as you would have to assume that you're an entity complex enough to conceive of the entire universe to the extent you can observe it, and of maintaining the illusion of the universe's independence of you to the extent that it appears independent - and that's a huge assumption to make, but you can of course make it if you want to propose a solipsistic model.

If you ask me, though, rejecting such a notion, at least as a question of practicality, is an important first step when you start thinking about the world, and anyone who can take that step while admitting that they took it, to me, seems at least to be taking philosophy seriously.

edited 8th Nov '13 9:14:53 AM by BestOf

I think Solipsism falls down when you consider the existence of dreams. If the entirety of reality exists in my head, what the hell do I need to sleep and dream for?

Not sure where you get that from.

Think about it. I know what a reality simulated by my mind looks like, because I see one most nights. I usually have superpowers in them. If solipsism was correct, wouldn't I experience that all the time?

I've have lots of dreams I've mistaken for reality and have no conscious control over them. I see no contradiction.

edited 8th Nov '13 9:33:23 AM by joeyjojo

Personally, I would wonder how my mind is able to conjure consistent and functional laws and entities completely beyond my capacity to understand.

Solipsism is not exactly a single hard, specific scenario. It might be the case that you are the only observer in existence, but the entity that causes your experience could be something external, like a computer of sorts. Or maybe you are God and like playing tricks on yourself like that, just for the hell of it. It doesn't technically need a "purpose".

The point is that you are literally the only observer you are capable of knowing, and you assume other people/animals are observers based on their behavior. They could just be p-zombies.

edited 8th Nov '13 11:00:44 AM by Teraus