An Afterlife? - Soft Solipsism

Richard found my previous post disconcerting because he believed my attempt to introduce the idea of a "contentless, experiencing self" entailed a belief in the doctrine of solipsism. This is the view that nothing else exists apart from my own self and, since the material world does not exist, except in my mind, then the self, in this context, is taken to be mental only. I have included my reply to the point because it can best be understood as a single exchange. Whereas the solipsist wishes to argue that nothing else can be known for certain, I am trying to use this as a starting point to establish what else there is. My argument that each of us has a unique point of view which we experience directly, in contrast to our experience of everything else, which we must, therefore, infer, might be called a soft solipsism but, unlike the solipsist, I use it to point to there being more than just myself.

Richard then introduces a different context, in a sense, by suggesting that we need to "know the meaning of life" before we can consider the possibility of an afterlife.

Richard's post was made on 12 May 2008 at 12:31 pm:

Hi Peter, thanks for your reply. I'll get straight down to what I have to say again. From what I said from "the aim of a computer", I meant it from the point of view that the computers do not have aims of their own, but instead that us humans rely on them for their aims. As in, computers are used for our advantage to speed up the processing, memorising and calculating abilities that outperform us humans.

For example, if one would like to work out 1,267.89 x 568 for a business matter, one would consult a calculator, then for the accounts of their business they could record this in Microsoft Excel for an invoice to print off and send to the customer of their business etc. Therefore the computer would remember, calculate and create the process of buying, and the person is only using the computer for an aim of their own, not for the computer's own gain. I apologise if it was bad wording on my part, and I hope this clarifies my point.

I have one question that relates to your mentioning of the afterlife. If we "establish a self which is not tied to the physical world", then it doesn't make sense, because the only thing we can relate to is our materiality in our lives. If materiality doesn't exist, then nothing we are experiencing is real, which means there is no life or afterlife. It seems that this way of thinking has gone down the road of the solipsism, which is a theory I do not agree with.

I myself think that to consider the possibility of an afterlife, first you must know the meaning of life. If you cannot know the meaning of life for certain, then there is no reason to consider there being an afterlife. However, if you think you have a meaning to life, then it holds the key to the prescence of an afterlife.

Richard Debnam

My post was made on 12 May 2008 at 02:31 pm:

Hi Richard. I very much like your assertion that we have to address "life" before we address "afterlife" and that does raise some real problems for anyone of a Cartesian inclination. As you will know, the Cartesian view of Selfhood is that it is an entity which has no describable attributes. It is what we are and is not dependent on any "features" all of which could be the product of the evil genius. I will give some thought to your point and write again later. Unfortunately, I don't have time to do the point justice at the moment.

Peter Rayner

My next post was made on 02 Jun 2008 at 02:43 pm

Hi Richard, I have given some careful thought to your comments. We seem to be in agreement that there is a considerable difference between the performance of a computer, however spectacular, and the "aims" as you put it, of a human being. To use the conventional philosophical jargon, a computer simply processes whereas a human being has intentions. So, if human beings are simply complex amalgamations of organic materials how do they come to have intentions and why is it that computers don't? It is not that I am attempting to deny materiality but rather to ascertain whether or not there are elements of humanness which are non material in nature.

On the question of solipsism I am having some problem understanding your point. You have introduced the idea that we can have experiences which are "real" and that these are contingent upon what you call "materiality". Does this mean we can also have experiences which are not "real"? Also you state that it is materiality which we "relate to" whereas the traditional answer is that the one thing we cannot doubt is our own existence. Since no one else can be us, experiencing our unique point of view then all else has to be, in some sense, inferred, except our own existence.

As to the "meaning" of life let us first consider the "nature" of life and how it differs from matter. Perhaps we should also consider why we have matter, why we have life and how they came to be. That would be a scientific or evolutionary approach. And right in the middle of all that let us consider the place of intentionality and the place of experience. Does the evidence suggest that the clever way in which a computer works provides a close approximation of the sense of it all? Or does the unique, purposeful intentions of the conscious human being give a better clue to the underlying mysteries of the universe? You decide.

Peter Rayner

Tags: afterlife self solipsism meaning of life aim computer physical world life cartesian process intentions real materiality experiences doubt inferred existence

An Afterlife? - Peter's 2nd Post - A Unique Point of View

I develop further the notion of experience in contrast to the processing ability of a computer. In particular I introduce the idea that each of us has a unique point of view and can never be another person having his experiences. The idea of a contentless, experiencing self as a foundation for developing a theory of an afterlife is raised.

My post was made on 11 May 2008 at 11:52 pm:

Hi Richard. Thanks for your reply. Straight away you go to the heart of the matter. You say that "the aim of a computer...". In what sense can computers be said to have aims of their own? Not at all. They exist only as creations of a human being. If we were to come across a computer in a jungle would we think that it had grown out of the ground? Of course not because we know that they are produced by humans, at least on this planet. As you say, they think but they do not experience thinking. So the issue is not about thinking but about experiencing, not the "cogito" but the "sum" of Descartes much troubled formula.

So we come, with ease, into the mainstream of philosophical thinking - the issue of experience. It seems to me that experience is in a different category from say, thinking or doing something. In a sense we can think the same thought as another person or, indeed, as a computer. This is because we construct language to define thinking in a way which is of use to more than one person. What would be the point of describing unique thoughts all the time. And yet there is something unique about each thought and it is not the "thought" part of it but the context. It is the point of view of the person having the thought which cannot ever be duplicated. I can only ever be "me" when it comes to experiencing something. My point of view is always unique even if I am describing something that many others have had experience of.

In order to consider the possibility of an Afterlife, which is the topic under discussion, after all, we need to establish a self which is not tied to the physical world and by positing a contentless, experiencing self we have, at least, opened up that possibility. There remain, however, many obstacles along the way.

Tags: afterlife experience process computer point of view thinking Descartes self

Peter Rayner

An Afterlife? - Richard's 5th Post - Thinking and Experience

Richard's first reply to me agrees that computer thinking is a process whereas human thinking is an experience.

Richard's post was made on 11 May 2008 at 05:55 pm:

Hi there Peter, I cam across your post with a huge interest, as I studied Philosophy of mind a little in my first year at University, we also covered a question you asked in your post, about whether computers can think. The conclusion I came to back then was that the aim of a computer is to speed up the processing and memorising abilities us humans have, of which these do not neccessarily need a conscious subjective mind like us humans have.

The other thing I gathered a few thoughts on was the meaning of thinking, as to answer this question it is vital you can say what it means. The definition I come up with is that to think, one must have at least one experience of anything not being able to read thoughts in one's head. This is the difference between the processing ability of a computer, and the thinking of a human. A computer's processes can be logged and read like a book, whereas a human's thoughts can never be realistically confirmed until the person says what their subjective thoughts were.

I hope you find some things in there that strike chords of interest with you, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Tags: afterlife process thinking experience philosophy of mind computers

Richard Debnam

An Afterlife? - Peter's 1st Post - Do Computers Think?

At this point I joined the Facebook discussion with a reply to Richard's contributions. I discuss apparent differences between the way in which a computer can be said to think and human thought. The issues of process, in contrast to experience, consciousness, and emotion are considered. I refer, also, to the limitations of physical science in explaining the full meaning of time and space.

My post was made on 10 May 2008 at 07:43 am:

Hi everybody. I have recently joined Facebook and found this site. I have read your various contributions with interest because I specialised in the philosophy of mind many years ago and am still as fascinated with it as ever. All of you make some kind of reference to experience or consciousness which does seem to be crucial in coming to some kind of conclusion. I remember, long before the rise of microsoft, being asked to consider the question"Do computers think?". The question is appropriate because a computer can perform many sophisticated tasks and even have some sort of memory of what it does. If we run a computer program can we say that the computer has had an experience? Can we also say that it has awareness of what it is doing? What also do we make of the issues used to date the beginnings of human identity, namely the production of art. Of course a computer could produce art but could it do it for pleasure? Could it experience emotion? I am suggesting that the ability to build sophisticated physical structures does not take us very far at all toward an understanding of what it means to be human. Therefore we need some other means of addressing these clear features which physical science is unable to describe. Consider, again, our ability as physicists to describe the structure of the physical cosmos so precisely that we can describe the process of physical evolution all the way back to the dawn of the known cosmos - the big bang. If the cosmos began then does time begin also, and space. Can we imagine what preceded time, and space. What sense is there in saying "In the beginning was nothing - and then it exploded"?

These are just some of the issues which have haunted me over the years. I do not pretend to have the answers and I am probably further away from answers than when I started - but I am inclined to continue the quest.

Best wishes to you all. I hope you find my small contribution of interest and that you will reply to it.

Tags: afterlife computer thought process experience consciousness emotion science time space philosophy of mind big bang

Peter Rayner

An Afterlife? - Richard's 4th Post - The Point of Death

The reply which Richard received defined the self as essentially spiritual and discussed how we may come to know our true selves. It attempted to harmonise the "mundane scientific" with the "transcendental scientific" which it further defined as "the science of self-realization". The ultimate goal of this endeavour is to reveal the "Absolute Truth". Death is defined as the moment of transmigration of the soul into another body which is selected for you according to your state of mind at the moment of death. You can read the full reply here. Richard's reply to that post is the second one quoted below.

In the meantime, another writer picked up on the original post concerning brain activity continuing up to 3 years after death. The writer did not make any submissions but thought this meant that Richard was claiming to "have the answer and proof to this whole question" and asked for further elaboration. What follows is his reply.

Richard's post was made on 08 May 2008 at 04:46 pm:

Yeh. Apparently we only know a reasonable amount of knowledge about the conscious part of the brain, and only a very limited amount about our unconscious. It was described to us as there are deep fathoms that have never been explored in our unconscious. This person's body was preserved in some way, (how exactly I don't know) and they did brain scans and saw that their mind was still active.

We can only pronounce someone dead once they have no pulse, they have stopped breathing totally, and after a number of times of electronically charging the patient's chest, they won't have one breath or give out a heart beat. But we don't know what happens to the people afterwards. This is a light that breaks open the full possibility of out of body experiences, near death experiences etc. However in the dead person's mind case, their mind didn't stay alive forever, and many people's minds can die a lot lot earlier than this case. This means you can either understand this in two ways, your mind dies last and it is unlikely there is an afterlife, or your mind dies last and it gives hope of an afterlife. Still no absolute answer to an afterlife I'm afraid, where there hasn't been enough testing and exploration of the mind after death.

I still find things like this fascinating though, there are peculiar things that happen to people when they are unconscious. I've heard a couple of cases in the news however long ago where people have woken up in hospital with a completely different voice and speaking accent to what they had before they went into general anaesthetic. The unconscious could be the very key into the real and distinct answer of an afterlife, and a lot of other branches of knowledge too, but for now, it seems to be a step forward rather than a real answer. I hope what I've said helps, and that you share the same curiosity as myself.

Richard's reply to the first writer was made on 08 May 2008 at 05:21 pm:

Hey, I've not been on facebook in a while, and I sign in to find two replies to posts of mine in this forum! lol It's been rather sunny and hot where I live for about a week now, so maybe the Summer Sun is here at long last! Anyway, back on track...

"It is said that according to the particular state of mind/consciousness one may have at the time of leaving the material body (death), one will receive that particular body suitable for such state of consciousness..... (tell me what u think and 'll tell who u r)."

I'm not sure I totally understand what you mean here, I've got to ask because I'm open-mindedly curious... how would that connect in with myself, and how would I recognise this in myself from what you said?

I dont tend to ignore religion, in a way I just find it unreliable. Religion relies heavily on hear'say learnt knowledge, and that's when all the flaws start to creep in, and as sad as it may be, this is how there are so many wars caused just from conflicting religions. If you take a religion that believes there are 10 gods, and christianity which believes in one, they both can't be right, because that doesn't make sense. So I tend to try and keep away from religions and try to make sense of the world through making a connection to a given topic through experiences I have and things I learn.

Best wishes, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Tags: scientific transcendental self-realization Absolute Truth death soul body moment of death consciousness brain unconscious mind religion

Richard Debnam

An Afterlife? - Richard's 3rd Post - You Are What You Think

Richard had a reply to his post which hinted at the duality of mind and body and discussed the spiritual inner life of a person in relation to the universe around him. His correspondent argued that what best defines a person is what he is thinking and indicated some Indian philosophical texts which support this idea. His post can be found here.

Richard's post was made on 10 Apr 2008 at 04:16 pm:

Hey again thanks for your reply, how is the weather over in India? It is very cold over here in Britain at the moment! lol I must say your response was very interesting, I especially found the part about the sanskrit texts very interesting indeed, as I have never come across them before. From what you think, would you say the mind is part of the body, or would you say that the mind is totally separate to the body? Also, do you see the mind as a brain process, or do you see it as a separate spiritual presence? I'm interested to see what you think.

I totally agree what you said about "you are what you think" I've found that is very true from experiences with people. I suppose myself I am more satisfied with values of physical scientific evidence more than religious beliefs, hence why I am not a strict Church of England Christian, even though I was christened one when I was younger. Although I do believe in one creator who created the Universe for a specific purpose, only I wish I knew what it was, and why it was created. I guess it's a great universal mystery of life that remains to be solved.

I've seen that European physicists are going to try and find traces of God in a huge project starting this summer, the outcome will either be hugely dissapointing or massively intriguing. I only hope they find good answers, as it is a massive job to attempt.

I look forward to hearing from you again. Take care.

Tags: afterlife think Indian Philosophy sanskrit mind body brain experience evidence purpose God creator

Richard Debnam

An Afterlife? - Richard's 2nd Post - Metabolism and Reincarnation

This post, also made before I joined the site, was written in response to a post from an Indian gentleman who described how the entire physical attributes of a body are replaced over the space of 7 years. Since there is continuity of experience through this renewal he argues that reincarnation is a logical conclusion. As before, since I do not know the author and don't have permission to publish his account I refer the reader to the original which can be found here.

Richard's post was made on 04 Apr 2008 at 02:05 am:

I like your post on Metabolism and reincarnation, and they are very interesting. However, although you're right about our appearance changing physically over time, I found when I related a few things to myself, it did not work out right.

I cannot agree that life is eternal, because it would have no end or beginning, and the facts state that the Universe was caused by the big bang, which means a limited life.

Another thing is that the reason we change in our appearance is due to our growth hormones that are linked into our genetic DNA structure. Our genes say how tall we are, how our character is, what we look like etc. This means that our cells aren't recycled at all, for example, our skin is renewed every time we wash, whilst our dead skins cells die, fall off and turn to dust.

Now, if our bodies are doing this all the time, then the only rational conclusion would be that we die too, as we live in a Universe that had a beginning, and eventually it will have an end too.

Tags: afterlife metabolism reincarnation life big bang universe beginning end

Richard Debnam

An Afterlife? - Richard's 1st Post - An Active Mind

This post was made before I joined the site and was preceded by a post about a woman who's mother had died and whom she had seen sitting on the bed several days later. Each time she subsequently saw her mother she looked more and more ghost like. As I don't know the author of this post I am not publishing it here but you can read it on the original forum.

Richard's post was made on 04 Apr 2008 at 01:02 am:

I found out in a University lecture last year that your mind is still active even after you're dead. An example I was told was that one person's mind had been active for 3 years after they had died.

Whatever the outcome, I remain curious as to why the mind is the last part of the body to pass away, and whether the mind holds the key to proving or disproving an afterlife.

Tags: afterlife ghost mind proof

Richard Debnam

An Encounter With Facebook

It has been quite some time since I started this blog and posted the beginnings of what I hope will be an epic journey into the realms of the philosophy of science. I have been away, but not idle. My natural, in fact abnormal, curiosity has led me to explore many other treasures around the web and, before I knew it, many months had gone by. Along the way I found myself caught up with one of those many phenomena which the web throws up (good choice of words there) in the form of Facebook. The addiction which followed was akin to an illness but, happily, one from which I am now cured. Apart from a slight twitch in my right eye, I promise you, I am my "normal" (bad choice of words there) self.

Along the way I found a philosophy site called The Philosophy Pages which, I think, had been hacked and fled to Facebook to seek refuge. This is, basically, a forum for anyone to express ideas and raise topics on any aspect of philosophy. The main site still exists but from what I discovered by writing to the manager no longer receives the attention it deserves since the manager has too many other responsibilities. I am sorry to say that most of what I read in the forums was complete rubbish, high on opinion and mostly totally lacking in argument or anything that might pass for proof. There was the odd exception and I was lucky enough to find it in the person of an esteemed gentleman called Richard Debnam. I replied to his first few posts and from then entered into what turned out to be quite a fascinating exchange.

I have, now, decided to leave Facebook, to all intents and purposes, but felt I should rescue this philosophical discussion, so I am transporting it over to this weblog. It may take a little while because I will need to edit it item by item but I hope it will prove worthwhile.

Since all of it is relevant to my original purpose it does not really detract from that, other than to say that the tidy and systematic account I had planned will now be untidy and unsystematic. That's Life (note the capital!)

Pierre

Tags: philosophy of science Facebook The Philosophy Pages forums Richard Debnam

Am I Making Sense?

Communication is a funny business. By definition it has to have a common mode of operation for any one to make use of it. Nevertheless, it can be extremely personal and idiosyncratic. I pity the non English speaking community who try to make sense of our language. "Lost in translation" is the understatement of all understatements when describing some of the cultural nuances which we convey. Small groups, through familiarity, develop what is, essentially, a private language with a history of its own built up from many exchanges and interactions. The members of such a group do not have to ask if they are making sense because they have defined "sense" in a way which is acceptable to their own members.

The philosophical search for truth is not, as it turns out, a million miles away from that private group. Let us first attempt to define the nature of the quest, however. In its simplest form we are concerned to discover "what is the case" or in other words are there certain things which are "true" or "real"? Oh dear! Already we have stumbled upon a couple of scary ideas which are far from the "simplest" form of the problem. Both "truth" and "reality" are so packed with complex ideas that they must both be laid aside for the time being for detailed analysis at a later time.

So let us try again. We need to find something which is "true" in a simpler form, in other words, "correct". Ah ha. Now we are getting somewhere. There are, as it turns out, quite a lot of rather nice examples of things which have to be true in this sense. The most famous of these is the one that states that something cannot be a contradiction of itself. For example, a book cannot be red and green at the same time. All very well, I hear you say, but that does not tell us even if the book is red or green. So all we know for certain, so far, is that it cannot be both.

Well, in a way, it does tell us more because there is a message hidden in our universal truth. If we really have found something which makes sense then we have to accept that there is such a thing as "sense". Can we conceive of any circumstance, any alternative universe, any private group, any fictitious story in which something can be at one and the same time 2 different and contradictory things? I think not.

In a way this astounding "truth" is a bit disappointing. Where is the proof? Wot no clever argument? Well, there wouldn't be, would there. At this stage we have not defined what constitutes a valid argument, only what makes sense. So, begging the question, how do we know it makes sense? Did I miss something? 'fraid not. The answer is, it just does. We call this intuition...

Let us slip into a little Latin at this point - always good when the going gets tough! We have identified 2 kinds of "truth" namely, those which are self defined as in the group with its private language and those which are intuitively discerned as following on from some self evident fact. In Latin these are called a posteriori and a priori respectively and they traditionally constitute the basis of all rational thinking in Western Philosophy. Impressed? Well I'm not. What this amounts to is a statement, confession even, that all arguments are based on something that is "given", assumed, a premise and so, obviously, in order to demolish someone's argument you simply find which bit is assumed and attack it. That is what philosophers have been doing for centuries.

Just to put this into context a little consider the scientific community. You will remember that in the previous blog entry I described the notion of scientific constructs in which everyone agrees on the nature of the current paradigm and set about testing it to the point of destruction. They then replace it with a new paradigm based on the short fallings of the previous one and the whole process continues. In Latin, they proceed from a priori assumptions or, in other words, the same method as our search for universal truth. We have already established that they have no hope of finding any universal truths, indeed, the whole point of the enterprise is to re-group every so often and continue the search. So why should our search for "that is the case" truth be any different?

One answer, and a very powerful one, is that it has to be so. We began looking for the basis of "truth" and therein is the problem. How can anything be the first thing to be true? And for that matter, how can you prove that something has to be true before you have proved that anything is true? Well, it just goes round in circles. Another conundrum. And yet the impasse this creates gives us another of those "contradiction" moments in which you can't just forget it because it seems to be telling you that to believe it makes more sense than not to believe it...

Pierre

Tags: sense communication language truth reality contradiction proof intuition Latin a posteriori a priori paradigm contradiction