tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post6649788060678889055..comments2024-02-13T12:50:30.457-05:00Comments on Rants Within the Undead God: The Irony of a Natural AfterlifeBenjamin Cainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-23872724556288398832015-04-19T15:19:08.538-04:002015-04-19T15:19:08.538-04:00As I previously stated, “I know of no scientific s...As I previously stated, “I know of no scientific studies that have established a correlation between ‘proper living and dying’ and positive NDEs.” So, you are absolutely right. I have purposely given, as you state, “short shrift to the ethical dimension.” Whether the natural afterlife will be a heaven or a hell for an individual remains, as for now at least, a matter of personal religious or philosophical faith.<br /><br />Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01059178268823128811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-76180311724637792912015-04-19T08:56:10.525-04:002015-04-19T08:56:10.525-04:00There are two relevant distinctions, the metaphysi...There are two relevant distinctions, the metaphysical (and epistemic) one between naturalism and supernaturalism, and the more biological vs cultural one, between nature-as-wilderness and artificiality. The downloading of minds into computers (it’s not merely a simulation but a transformation of carbon-based life into the silicon kind) would be natural in the first sense but artificial in the second. I explore that distinction in a number of articles, including a special eBook, “Artificiality and the Aesthetic Dimension” (link below). <br /><br />I think maybe the afterlife you describe would be better called an experience rather than a belief. The nearly-dead brain would be flooded with stress-relieving and possibly psychedelic substances, which would cause a final, dream-like experience. In “The Psychedelic Basis of Religion,” I speculate that this kind of subjective experience in an altered state of consciousness could be a source of the strange ideas of theism, and that NDEs could give rise to them. <br /><br />As I say, “as consciousness fades in a near-death experience, it’s reasonable to assume that the dying person experiences something like a DMT flash and the associated dreamlike imagery; thus the reports of travelling down a tunnel towards a bright light that feels warm and inviting, and the conviction that the spirit world is real and awaits us all after we die. In fact, the process of dying may be like falling asleep and dreaming until we become so unconscious that we don’t notice the dream’s end; nature may pay us the courtesy of singing us each a bizarre lullaby before she turns out the light. The moral is that if you don't learn in life to surrender your pride and detach from your ego, you'll have a bad trip when you're nearing brain death, just as those who take DMT often wish their ego wasn't along for the terrifying, mind-shattering ride.” <br /><br />It is an intriguing possibility. You seem to give short shrift to the ethical dimension, though. The question is whether everyone experiences bliss. Fear might overtake some, so that as the saying goes, philosophy and religion are about learning how to die. <br /><br />https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B58ZW3GfOaFFUGhDNGZzSUduODQ/edit<br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2012/12/the-psychedelic-basis-of-theism.htmlBenjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-73322757585491080142015-04-15T17:56:24.563-04:002015-04-15T17:56:24.563-04:00You state "I prefer to think of the differenc...You state "I prefer to think of the difference between the natural and the supernatural in terms of the distinction between the wild and the artificial. …” Based on carefully reading your understanding of the term “natural,” I think your use of the term to describe your simulated afterlife is still inappropriate, even inconsistent with your own understanding of “natural”! According to what you state, the simulated afterlife should be called a “supernatural” or “artificial” afterlife. It is definitely one of “the microcosms created by the animals [here humans] that manage to take some control over themselves and their environment”—i.e., an “artifact.” It is definitely not “natural” in the sense that it “identifies nature with the pristine wilderness, with that part of the world that isn’t intelligently designed or engineered. Nature in this second sense consists of everything that’s jungle-like.” Nor is it “natural” in the first sense you describe.<br /><br />Like you I will use some quotes from my articles to respond to your last paragraph commenting on the one and only, true natural afterlife (where “natural” is used in your first sense). :-)<br /><br />In “Your Natural Afterlife: the Non-Supernatural Alternative to Nothingness” I state “The natural afterlife is hard to perceive and appreciate.” I can see now that you understand, i.e., perceive, it correctly, but you still do not appreciate it. Humans are so dialed into and addicted to their event-defined, human perception of time that they cannot appreciate—i.e., see the possible happiness inherent in--any kind of life without time. Much like some kids hooked on TV shows and video games can’t appreciate what life could be like without them. Humans think they need events to make them eternally happy—thus the illogical longing for a supernatural, perfect, human-like-time perceptive, yet eternal afterlife. In “The Heaven of Your Natural Afterlife: a More Revealing Look” I state:<br /><br />“No events occur in this timeless heaven, but who needs events? First of all, you won’t know that nothing more will happen, and thus you won’t miss a thing. Essentially, you’re left in a state of unspoiled anticipation of more heavenly moments to come. Second, is it life’s events that give us pleasure or is it the feelings aroused by these events? We are always told to “live in the moment.” Well, the NED heaven can be a moment when you feel the supreme pleasure of knowing you’re in heaven forever. Once this happens, should you really need or want more?<br /><br />In the NED heaven, an eternity of human time passes by without your knowledge just as it did before you were born. But why should you care if indeed, unlike your before-life, you remain in a static state of “wonder, love, and contentment” as described in my previous article? If you could be resurrected after a billion years with your mind and consciousness instantly restored, you would believe that you had just awoken from a glorious dream.”<br /><br />With the natural afterlife, the dying and unconsciously dead will truly believe they are LIVING an AFTERLIFE, and they couldn’t care less (in more ways than one!) that the living left behind, like you, quibble over semantics, i.e., whether it is indeed “living” and an “afterlife.” “Living” can be defined as experiencing one or more moments. And, a single frozen moment--a snapshot in dream-conscious time, can encompass much, including a belief. A belief doesn’t require any “subsequent thought” or events.<br /><br />I have enjoyed our interaction, and I feel I have benefitted. I hope you have too. Responding to comments on the natural afterlife, like yours, forces me to try to better explain it.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01059178268823128811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-29458076994673430012015-04-14T16:37:58.934-04:002015-04-14T16:37:58.934-04:00I don't have faith in our godhood through tech...I don't have faith in our godhood through technology. I make no predictions about the likelihood of the sci-fi scenario of immortality through the downloading of minds. That's why I speak specifically about its plausibility, which is opposed to its impossibility. I'm aware there are arguments such as Penrose's which employs Godel's Theorem and purports to show that the mind isn't computable because commonsense isn't captured by any algorithm. Whether or not minds will be downloaded into immortal computers which survive the death of the biological body (and which could be downloaded back into cloned bodies, thus making for the immortality depicted in Peter F Hamilton’s Great North Road), what interests me is the undeniable progress being made by scientists and engineers towards providing us with godlike knowledge and power. If it’s not computers, it’ll be genetic engineering or some other means--and that would be an objective rather than a subjective natural afterlife. The point is that if the mind is a metaphysically natural phenomenon, it’s hard to imagine it’ll be beyond the control of technoscience. And that’s all I need for my discussion of the irony at hand.<br /> <br />The illusion of timelessness you posit isn’t really any kind of afterlife, because an afterlife is life after the biological body’s death. That doesn’t happen on your scenario. At most, it would seem as if the last moment of consciousness lasts forever and thus must seem to last beyond the body’s death. But that realization couldn’t happen because it would involve a higher-order thought about the context of the last moment of consciousness, which would require a subsequent thought that your hypothesis rules out. <br /><br />http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2014/03/artificiality-miracle-hiding-in-plain.htmlBenjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-59426554967546065612015-04-14T16:37:42.481-04:002015-04-14T16:37:42.481-04:00I talk about computer simulation only in the artic...I talk about computer simulation only in the article’s first section. Two sections follow, beginning with the thesis, "My point here, though, isn’t just to consider the likelihood of a natural afterlife. Rather, I’m interested in the relation between the near-universal religious anticipation of an afterlife and the technoscientific creation of personal life after physical death, given that the assumption of the latter is at least tenable. Suppose that technology affords our descendants more and more power over natural processes, so that because we’re natural beings, some such natural form of resurrection as I sketched above will one day be realized." So it's clear I'm interested in the plausibility of any technoscientifically-achieved afterlife. And I'm interested in that feasibility because of its irony.<br /><br />I go into the distinctions between natural-supernatural and natural-artificial in my article, "Artificiality: The Miracle Hiding in Plain Sight" (link below). Here are some relevant quotations: "I prefer to think of the difference between the natural and the supernatural in terms of the distinction between the wild and the artificial. The metaphysical and epistemological meanings of ‘natural’ are given above, in terms of natural laws, scientific methods, and so on. But there’s another meaning of ‘natural,’ one that identifies nature with the pristine wilderness, with that part of the world that isn’t intelligently designed or engineered. Nature in this second sense consists of everything that’s jungle-like. This isn’t to say that trees grow everywhere, even in outer space; I’m speaking of the jungle in phenomenological terms, not geological ones. The point is that most of the universe is literally untouched by anything with the sensation of touch and is thus wild in the sense of being what I call undead...<br /><br />"Undead nature is opposed by the realm of the artificial, by the microcosms created by the animals that manage to take some control over themselves and their environment. Artifacts are those parts of the world that are indeed intelligently formed and chosen. For example, our cities stand apart from the wilderness in that whereas the wilderness operates according to undead natural laws and thus isn’t attuned to our ideals, cities work according to social regulations that respect our welfare, since we design our artifacts to function in intended ways, and so since we care about ourselves, our artificial worlds serve us...<br /><br />"As to how the natural-supernatural distinction sits with the natural-artificial one, I think you could embrace the latter sort of dualism and be either a philosophical (metaphysical or epistemic) naturalist or a supernaturalist...The dichotomy between the natural wilderness and artificiality is thus neutral with regard to the deeper question of whether everything is metaphysically or epistemically natural. Personally, I prefer the naturalistic philosophy, but I’m happy to entertain the theistic solution as long as we take care to update the theistic myths so that they have a chance of cohering with the postmodern zeitgeist."Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-46157478374889508242015-04-14T15:24:56.192-04:002015-04-14T15:24:56.192-04:00PART 2
You also state in your response that “I ta...PART 2<br /><br />You also state in your response that “I talk about computer simulation and so forth only as an example to make the general concept plausible. The article's about the irony of any afterlife that's enabled by technoscientific knowledge and power.” From beginning to end, your computer simulated “afterlife” takes center stage in your article. Aside from delving into some tangential topics now and again, the first part of the article describes this afterlife and strives to establish some feasibility for it and the last part assumes its feasibility and comments on its irony in regards to the history of human thought. Your simulated afterlife is even the foundation of your final, bolded concluding sentence.<br /><br />Also, you never explicitly state that the computer simulated afterlife is just one example or describe any others. If there are others that are “enabled by technoscientific knowledge and power,” what are they? You mention cloning late in the article, but cloning does not result in an afterlife. Rather, it produces in a duplicate body a different self. A clone begins its view of self at birth with a miniscule memory and is exposed to a totally different environment and set of formative experiences from day one.<br /><br />Finally, in regard to your last paragraph and your questioning of my use of the word “afterlife” in the “natural afterlife” remember--and it seems I can never stress it enough!—THE NATURAL AFTERLIFE IS RELATIVE. In my above referenced article, I justify calling it an afterlife by stating: “… the natural afterlife is indeed an afterlife to the person experiencing it, which in the end is all that really matters.” So, your last sentence is absolutely “right on",” but don’t minimize the phenomenon because perhaps, and most importantly FOR YOU, billions of years WILL be rushing by in your “final moment of consciousness” (your words) because this moment becomes “FOR YOU a timeless, dreaming moment” (my words).<br /><br />P.S.<br />- I appreciate that you seem to totally understand the natural afterlife. You would be amazed at the comments I get from many who do not.<br />- I completely share your view of “… the need to prepare for the end, by learning how to die, that is, how not to give in to fear, so that our final moment of consciousness will be peaceful.” However, I would insert the words “how to live and” just before “how to die” in your statement. And, unfortunately, I should point out that nothing in the theory of a natural afterlife guarantees proper living or dying will result in a peaceful final moment of the DREAMING consciousness. That is, I know of no scientific studies that have established a correlation between “proper living and dying” and positive NDEs.<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01059178268823128811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-61140703272999784772015-04-14T15:19:51.085-04:002015-04-14T15:19:51.085-04:00PART 1:
First, I don’t see the justification for ...PART 1:<br /><br />First, I don’t see the justification for the accusation that is your second sentence. I admit that every few weeks I search for “natural afterlife” on the Web to see if there are any new articles or references by others to it. I don’t in the least consider these to be “competitors” to my articles on the natural afterlife. I welcome them. Sometimes I respond (often by having to clarify what the theory of a natural afterlife states and what it does not), and sometimes I don’t respond. I found your article via such “surfing” and don’t regard this activity as anything negative.<br /><br />Second, I don’t see the justification for your accusations that I didn’t read your article “with much care” or even that I didn’t “actually read the article,” You cannot claim that I didn’t (which btw I did) simply because I chose to briefly and specifically comment on just one aspect of the article, namely your use of the term “natural afterlife” to describe a self that has somehow (?) been “artificially simulated in cyberspace” as I describe it. You also use the terms “artificial” and “simulated” to describe this computer implemented “afterlife.” Now, I fear with your accusations “you have opened the flood gates” so to speak. So here goes.<br /><br />As indicated by my comment, your use of the term “natural afterlife” (and in your title no less!) is totally inappropriate. FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, THE WORDS “NATURAL” AND “ARTIFICIAL” ARE ANTONYMS OF EACH OTHER! Check your Thesaurus. And no, I don’t accept your statement that “we engineer artificial worlds that are indeed as real as nature …”. Perhaps you’ve been too caught up in the fantasy worlds of computer games by playing them too much! :-)<br /><br />In my article “The Theory of a Natural Afterlife: a New Take on NDE Science“ at http://bryonehlmann.hubpages.com/hub/The-Theory-of-a-Natural-Afterlife-a-Scientific-Perspective, I justify my use of the term “natural” by stating: “The theory [of a natural afterlife] merely defines the afterlife as uniquely natural. It is natural since, unlike others, its definition and associated explanation, now completed, are within the scope of present scientific understanding.” The simulated afterlife as you describe certainly does not met this criteria.<br /><br />As a retired computer science professor with some knowledge of computability and artificial intelligence, I claim it is extremely far-fetched and science fiction as you admit in your article. Indeed, I regard it as having equal plausibility to the supernatural kinds of afterlife that many people believe in. In the article, you state “In any case, we have some reason to be confident that the simulation of patterns of personal, mental activity will one day be feasible. Whether it actually happens is another matter, just as it’s possible you might die in your sleep.” A ridiculous comparison! I think the possibility of one dying in their sleep is a zillion times greater than the simulation of which you speak. Other than a misguided, faith-based belief in technology, what is your basis for claiming “… a futuristic supercomputer could theoretically bypass that tedious business by implementing all possible systems of mental association, thus reproducing the mental essence of our species.” Please, provide me with a reference to the relevant scientific theories. In fact, computability theory states that computers cannot solve problems for which algorithms do not exist, like those involving creativity and theorem proving.<br /><br />So, when reading your article, if you wish, I guess you could say I was somewhat “annoyed” by your misuse of the word “natural” to describe an afterlife that is anything but natural and is totally, and even futuristically, implausible. I was not “annoyed that it [your article] talks about something else” besides my article as you state. <br /><br />To be continued ...Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01059178268823128811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-84399040271383586502015-04-12T18:56:33.102-04:002015-04-12T18:56:33.102-04:00I don't think you read my article with much ca...I don't think you read my article with much care. You seemed to have just surfed the web looking for competitors to your article on a "natural afterlife," come across this article and been annoyed that it talks about something else. If you actually read the article, you'd have realized that it's not about any particular kind of natural afterlife. I talk about computer simulation and so forth only as an example to make the general concept plausible. The article's about the irony of any afterlife that's enabled by technoscientific knowledge and power. <br /><br />Now the interesting idea in your article has nothing to do with that knowledge or power. Your point is that there will be a subjective illusion of an afterlife, because we won't be around after our last moment of consciousness to perceive that the world continues without us, so it will seem as if our last dream never stops. This is an interesting idea and it's consistent with the religious talk of the need to prepare for the end, by learning how to die, that is, how not to give in to fear, so that our final moment of consciousness will be peaceful. Religions then garble that wisdom by elaborating it with supernatural speculations.<br /><br />Sill, I think you overstate this kind of illusion both by calling it an afterlife and by speaking of how "you must imagine both the fact and irrelevancy of billions of years rushing by in what is for you a timeless, dreaming moment." Billions of years will not actually rush by in our final moment of consciousness. At best, it would only seem as if that were happening, because we'd be fixated on our dream and not concerned with the outside world. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-78492325554929586162015-04-12T15:10:45.187-04:002015-04-12T15:10:45.187-04:00If the reader is interested in the very plausible ...If the reader is interested in the very plausible and real “natural afterlife,” where the true personal self is everlasting—not just a speculative, futuristic, so-called natural (?) afterlife where the self is somehow artificially simulated in cyberspace, as was presented in this lengthy article—see the brief, introductory article "Your Natural Afterlife: the Non-Supernatural Alternative to Nothingness" at http://bryonehlmann.hubpages.com/hub/Your-Natural-Afterlife. The religious and philosophical implication of this non-artificial natural afterlife is, I feel, more worthy of discussion.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01059178268823128811noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-37873460536372057112015-03-15T14:00:22.642-04:002015-03-15T14:00:22.642-04:00I don't think the belief in an afterlife is in...I don't think the belief in an afterlife is innate, but I think it's so universal because of innate factors like the drive to survive and thus the loathing of death, and also, as your cited article says, the banding together to form communities bound by religion. As the article says, our social instinct led to ancestor worship (the bonds of community were so strong that they were believed to persist after death). Likewise, the innate (genetically-determined) desire to live and the abhorrence of the thought of our own death would have led to the hope that our bodily death isn't final. A third source was the need to interpret the psychedelic content of dreams.<br /><br />As to when people first conceived of the possibility of an afterlife, we have the archaeological evidence as outlined in the article linked to below, indicating that religion is as old as 70,000 years in Africa and 30,000 years in Europe.<br /><br />I agree that elaborate belief in a personal afterlife was due to the later phenomenon of organized religion and to the priestly class which exploited the idea for political purposes. We have the two types of societies, the egalitarian community and the dominance hierarchy. The latter is far more prevalent and stable. Notice, for example, how ineffective and ridiculous was the egalitarianism of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Of course, what the dominance hierarchy lacks in stultifying relativism it makes up for in its tendency to promote evil and the psychopathy of the rulers. <br /><br />As you suggest, the prehistoric African tribes may not have been egoistic, because they used egalitarianism as a strategy for group survival. But that very strategy would have led to ancestor worship and thus to belief in a kind of afterlife, by a different route. It seems inconsistent to worship ancestors, on the one hand, and to not be interested in being worshiped after your death, on the other. I think these tribes would thus have been susceptible to the individualistic religions of the more hierarchical missionaries. To worship the ancestors is ultimately to worship yourself or at least your potential to become a venerated ancestor after your death.<br /><br />In any case, these are certainly interesting questions. My argument in this article doesn't need to assume that belief in a personal afterlife is innate; I assume, rather, that the inevitable arrival at that belief was fraught with absurdity, which makes for the irony of modern technoscientific progress. <br /><br />http://people.opposingviews.com/earliest-evidence-religious-beliefs-4240.html Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-73836891862805548362015-03-13T22:37:42.276-04:002015-03-13T22:37:42.276-04:00Does your argument rely on the premise that human ...Does your argument rely on the premise that human beings have always sought immortality and an afterlife?<br /> <br />It's obvious that the majority of humans alive during recorded history seem to have desired immortality and afterlife. But, your premise seems to assume that all humans, from the dawn of our species, have always yearned for the afterlife, as if the desire to attain immortality is innate. Or, that humans have always been compelled to fear death; hence the antidote to death the yearning to live forever. <br /><br />When do you speculate that humans first conceived (or apprehended) immortality or an afterlife? <br /><br />This may be a difficult question to answer since we would probably have to explore human history before humans recorded history, perhaps sometime before language developed or words became symbols and abstractions.<br /><br />In A Partial History of Afterlife Beliefs[1], coauthors Ogilvie and Bajai at Rutgers University, speculate that the earliest humans and those who lived in tribes had neither fear of death nor desires for an afterlife. The cohesion of the tribe was most important, ensured survival as they knew it, and only until after "missionaries" introduced the concepts of an afterlife did aborigine tribes-peoples understand immortality or afterlife.<br /><br />Enjoyed your article.<br /><br />note<br />1 A Partial History of Afterlife Beliefs, http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~ogilvie/HistoryAfterlife.htmAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com