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

Begin at the Beginning

In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

T S Eliot "Four Quartets" (East Coker)

Philosophy is one of those peculiar subjects which only really makes sense in the round. In order to understand any one bit of it you have to understand the whole of it. I well remember, as a student, getting hopelessly confused by it all and only making some kind of sense of it the second time around. I think that may be one of the reasons first year philosophy students are obliged to read Plato's "Republic" as an introduction to philosophy. Also it is written in deceptively easy language to follow but is, nevertheless, very profound. I am a great believer in the notion that simple is good.

Like Plato I am going to follow the discourse wherever it may lead. I am going to start with a problem of everyday usage because that seems to me to be a real problem. It may be that everyday ideas are wrong but it must, surely, be the philosopher's job to demonstrate this if it is the case. Also I believe that it is less open to arbitrary preconceptions. I do not mean that it is without preconception for common usage is full of such things. I mean that any other starting point will demand a basic proposition which might have no obvious relationship with anything other than the fertile imagination of its author. At least by being culture bound there is a case to answer which has some history and popular support.

I have a further reason for avoiding the stylised logic of science and that is that science, by definition, is always wrong. That might seem a little surprising but consider the nature of scientific enquiry. We used to believe rather naively that science concerned itself with the establishment of matters of fact. If that were so then we philosophers could pack our bags and leave all enquiry after knowledge in the capable hands of the scientists.

Readers may be familiar with a now highly celebrated book by T S Kuhn (b. 1922) entitled "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (NY, 1962). Kuhn was originally a particle physicist who turned to the philosophy of science in order to explain what scientific endeavour was all about. He describes long periods of settled scientific development in which one set of concepts or paradigm, as he calls them, holds centre stage. This is followed by a period of revolutionary change in which the paradigm is replaced by another one which the scientific community accepts as a better way of understanding science. He holds that the nature of scientific enquiry is that a set of constructs are put forward and are then subjected to rigorous testing. Eventually it emerges that the concepts fail the testing and so it is necessary to re-think and put forward fresh theories. So scientific theory is always right until proven wrong or, in other words, is always wrong. Not much of a basis for establishing sound philosophical reasoning!

I want to suggest a further aspect of scientific enquiry which needs to be clarified at this stage. Science concerns itself with process - how things happen. Now, cause and effect used to be the province of the philosopher and I am glad to say that it is most certainly not so any longer. So, if you want to know how the chicken crossed the road - ask a scientist. However, if you want to know why the chicken crossed the road then you should look to either psychiatry or philosophy (more of that later). If you want to know which came first - the chicken or the egg - then unless it is a process question (which it is not) the scientist will be of no use.

To put the problem into a cosmological framework then you could say that science will eventually trace back the sequence of events to the Big Bang. And that's all. So there is no point asking a scientist what preceded the Big Bang because that is either unknowable or before science began. Nor is there any point in asking why because scientists only deal with how.

I will return many times to the nature of scientific enquiry but for now I want to move on. I said earlier that I wanted to begin with the every day problem of time and space.

As I sit and ponder on the world around me I am aware of an apparent distance between any 2 objects. Indeed, I find it quite impossible to imagine those 2 objects without distance of some degree or another. We call this the dimension of space, rightly or wrongly. Whatever it is it does seem that it is essential to any attempt to make sense of the world. I have tried to do without it or to replace it with another concept and, quite frankly, I cannot.

Now, the idea of measuring 2 things seems simple enough. So let me get a little more ambitious and measure not just 2 objects in front of me but 2 objects a huge distance apart - 2 stars for example. Still no problem. We have the technology! So let us go the whole way and measure from one end of the cosmos to the other. We may struggle with the technology here but we can probably extrapolate and come up with a reasonably accurate distance for the entire cosmos.

Well, there's the problem. I am sure you have guessed what's coming next. My question is if you are at either point, at the edge of the cosmos how can you even think of their being something beyond that point? That is the whole problem with space. It eventually cashes out as a paradox. It is by definition about finite measurement and yet cannot make sense without implying infinity.

Exactly the same thing happens with time. Follow the sequence back to the very beginning and ask what came before it. Eternity?

So what do we do about this predicament. We have 2 totally central ideas which we cannot get rid of, time and space, and neither of them makes any obvious sense.

And that is what this blog is all about...

Pierre
Tags: beginning end T S Eliot Four Quartets philosophy Plato Republic discourse logic science Kuhn scientific revolutions paradigm process cause effect how why Big Bang time space cosmos paradox

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