AN INVINCIBLE ARGUMENT FOR THE AFTERLIFE (PART THREE)

karp, what i’m claiming is very simple, but what it would mean is easily overlooked unless one knows the degrees of difference between empiricism and radical empiricism. this can be confusing. typically empiricism states that all knowledge is derived from experience, but it doesn’t state that there are things in the world that cannot exist unless they are perceived. the variation of radical empiricism, which is as PGean as much as it is berkeleyean, states that nothing can exist unless it is perceived. this is quite a different claim than saying all knowledge is derived from experience.

with kant i believe that there are certain categories of reason that exist prior to experience and knowledge, which make these very things possible in the first place. substance, space, time, and causation are four such categories that not only exist prior to experience, but are the very foundation of experience itself. that is to say, they are not things that need to be experienced to exist… rather they must exist for experience to happen at all. they provide the structure and content for all empirical experience. if these categories are real, then there is quite a bit of ‘reality’ that is mind-independent.

Experience has to be temporal so time has to exist as a mind independent phenomenon
For the brain cannot function in a timeless state no more than any physical system can

And if time exists then space must exist also so that is another mind independent phenomenon
You cannot function as an organism without an external physical system so that has to be added

So time and space and matter have to first exist before the solipsist does as they cannot simply exist in a vacuum - if they did they would be dead
Even though knowledge or experience cannot be arrived at by mind independent means that does not mean that the mind creates all it perceives

exactly!

To surreptitious75:

Experience is temporal as we experience (“experience”, get it?) things temporally, that is, we have experience that changes from one thing to the next. Time is change and the measure of change. Timelessness, following Wheeler’s notion of ‘pre-geometry’ is changelessness or the state of being forever frozen in one place, never evolving forward with a future difference or shift from one experience to another. We have never experienced timelessness so yes, experience is temporal.

Change, er, time is a mind-independent phenomenon only in the sense that time is an action (change) and not a person. But get this, since existence has only ever appeared in the form of subjective experience, and has only ever appeared in the form of a subjectively experiencing person…well…time is both mind-composed and mind-independent: it is mind-composed in the sense that time, er, change has only ever existed or appeared in the form of changing subjective experience, and it is mind-independent only in the sense that it is a subjectively experienced action, not the person perceiving or experiencing the action.

Given, but besides the point. Given that, if one believes in the physical or something that is not subjective experience, there are two brains not one: there is the brain that is a visual and tactile “hologram” composed of the subjective experience of the perceiving person created by the brain, that would immediately vanish if the person viewing a brain were to suddenly fall unconscious or die, and there is the brain not created by a brain that exists in the external world, has never formed within or ejected from tiny neurons within a skull, and that supposedly exists even if no conscious being were perceiving it.

Within this ludicrous mythology, the brain not created by anyone’s brain does not depend upon brains to exist in the first place, as it exists outside the skull and it would be hard put to see how this external brain was created by and ejected into external world from a brain within a skull. This external brain, that is not the phantom brain (the brain that would disappear as it is made up of the subjective experience of the person perceiving this brain-created ‘brain’) is not made up of subjective experience, as according to the mythology subjective experience did not exist until non-subjective-experience-composed-atoms accidentally and godlessly formed brains.

But as existence has only ever appeared or shown up in the form of a person and that which the person experiences, there is no evidence…

(…as evidence is subjective experience, and things that one has evidence for are ultimately only things one subjectively experiences that are made up of the subjective experience of the one subjectively experiencing them, otherwise they cannot be subjectively experienced as they would be made up of something that is not the subjective experience of the person that would have subjectively experienced them had they been made up of that person’s subjective experience)

…of the existence things that are not the subjective experience of that person, and there is no evidence of the existence of anything that is not subjective experience nor made up of a persons’ subjective experience.

Thus we have no evidence of the existence of mind-independent (not made up of subjective experience) brains, or of the existence of the ‘physical’.

Space exists as a mind-independent phenomenon only in the sense that it is the subjective experience of space, not a person.

There is no evidence of the existence of an external, non-brain created physical system (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). There is only evidence of a ‘physical’ system or organism composed of first-person subjective experience. Anything that is not subjective experience or not made up of subjective experience is entirely imaginary (and the imagination of things not made up of subjective experience are, ironically, made up of subjective experience).

Time and space are made up of subjective experience or at least have only existed or shown up in the form of first-person subjective experience, in the form of first-person subjective experience of time (change) and space (room for stuff to occupy).

Now, as mind-independence (non-subjective experience) cannot logically have anything to do with subjective experience (independent of convenient magic, in which non-subjective experience conjures something that does not exist into existence or stops being non-subjective experience to inexplicably become first-person subjective experience [during which time it cannot both be non-subjective experience and subjective experience]), and there is no evidence for the existence of non-subjective experience, it is reasonable to assume that time and space outside a finite human person (a subjective experience that experiences change and room in finite form) is itself composed of subjective experience…not non-subjective experience, as non-subjective experience may not exist and as before, could have no logical or rational dealing with subjective experience.

While it is not out of the question that non-human subjective experience could be non-person in shape, with the external world consisting of subjective experience in non-human form, it is more elegant and symmetrical that non-human subjective experience exists in the form of a Person occupying the external world, with humans existing within the mind of this Person, the inner mind of the Person being the true form of the external world itself.

Now the consciousness-substance of this Person is the true “godless matter” sustaining and providing the medium for non-human time and change…though the substance continues to depict non-human time and change in the form of subjectively experienced time and change, in terms of how the Person experiences time and change, not time and change independent of persons.

But all is but mere conjecture regarding the nature of the external world, apart from the empirical knowledge of that which unquestionably and undeniably exists—subjectively experiencing persons composed only of first-person subjective experience and the things they experience, composed of the subjective experience of the person subjectively experiencing them.

There is no way that mind independent reality can be demonstrated to exist without it being filtered through the first person subjective experience of a human mind
[ or indeed any mind for that matter ] This is not merely a limitation of physics and of biology but of logic also. The solipsist can not disprove the existence of a mind independent reality no more than the non solipsist can prove it. The default position therefore would be to accept that reality might be either. Yet human minds both at the point of birth and immediately beyond it are just not sufficiently complex enough to be capable of perceiving reality as mind dependent. That would therefore suggest that it is not actually that at all rather the complete opposite

A mind independent reality does not require the existence of a sufficiently complex mind in the same way that a mind dependent one would. From my own subjective experience I have never attempted to perceive external reality beyond automatic sensory perception. If I am making zero conscious effort to perceive external reality as mind dependent that demonstrates to me that it must be mind independent instead. I simply can not accept from a logical perspective that external reality is mind dependent when I am not remotely thinking of that when perceiving what my sense organs are experiencing and what my brain is processing with regard to said reality

But if it appears as first-person subjective experience, it ceases to be mind-independent. Also, it’s hard put to see how mind-independent reality, if it is not first-person subjective experience to begin with prior to filtering, can have anything to do with first-person subjective experience, since it is not first-person subjective experience. There is no good reason for mind-independence to exist. Even if it exists, it is not first-person subjective experience so it doesn’t follow why it should magically turn into or conjure something that does not exist (first-person subjective experience) into existence.

True. But why even entertain the idea of mind-independence (i.e. something that is not subjective experience) when only subjective experience appears to exist? But one can ask the same question about God, I suppose.

Complexity is beside the point. There’s just first-person subjective experience, and fanciful imagination of something that is not first-person subjective experience in the external world. If the second exists, it cannot rationally have anything to do with the existence of the first save through magic. The second is said to have something to do with the first out of denial that the first may be:

  1. The only thing that exists and that has ever existed

  2. Eternal

Err, the state of the external world is not dependent upon what you, I, or anyone else thinks or perceives: the external world is what it is and is not indicated or determined by our thoughts and perceptions, despite the fact we derive our thoughts and perceptions from it. I have only said the external world is probably and most logically made up of mind, i.e. first-person subjective experience, as it makes no sense to get first-person subjective experience from something that is not first-person subjective experience. The external world is “mind-dependent”, then, only in this sense: I did not mean the external world is dependent upon a human’s mind.

Also, you’re not experiencing the external world: just yourself, i.e. your own first-person subjective experience in a “matrix”-like artificial reality made up…well…of you, i.e. your first-person subjective experience, as opposed to something that is not your subjective experience or the subjective experience of any other being in existence. This is proven by the very concept of unconsciousness or death (if unconsciousness or death exists). Everything around you is not the external world, just your first-person subjective experience in visual and tactile form (primarily) in a “matrix”-like virtual reality “Mystique-ing” into the various objects and environments and bodies of persons around you.

The brain doesn’t do anything. It’s just part of the “matrix” or artificial or virtual reality made out of you, that is, your first-person subjective experience, and is a redutio ad absurdum that irritates logic until one comes to find the brain is as useful as a brick when it comes to creating consciousness and reality. It certainly cannot logically create conscious experience.

There is no need for mind-independence in terms of something that is other than or that is not subjective experience. There is mind-independence in the sense “not-your-mind” or “not-my-mind”, that is, something that is not you or me in the external world. But this other need not be something that is not or not made out of subjective experience. It is probably, given that our existence (as first-person subjective experiences) is indicative of the actual nature of all existence, just more subjective experience in the form of an outer Person.

If mind independent reality exists then a mind could only interpret that through first person subjective experience
So there is therefore a direct causal link between an objective phenomenon and the interpretation of it by a mind

When the eye sees something it is because light has travelled from it to the object in question then back again to the eye and the brain which processes
this sensory experience. The object is mind independent but the sight of the object is mind dependent and so there exists a connection between the two

Another mind observing this interaction would treat both the object and the mind as mind independent. A mind can therefore be both mind independent and mind dependent depending on who or what was observing from a specific point. So for example everything that I see is mind dependent but from the external reference fame of another mind it is mind independent. It is simply not possible for two minds to occupy the same point in spacetime and have exactly the same perspective

The second part of this statement is unfalsifiable given that mind independent reality cannot actually be proven or disproven outside of subjective experience
An external mind or machine with mind like capability could prove or disprove it but this knowledge however would still have to be revealed to ones own mind

I think a mind-independent reality exists as “mind-independent” only in the sense of the reality being a “your mind-independent” or “my mind-independent” external world. It is, in my belief, not an external reality made up of something that is not mind (subjective experience) itself. That is to say the mind-independent reality, in order to logically have anything to do with our first-person subjective experience, must itself be composed of first-person subjective experience.

If a mind-independent (“your mind-independent” or “my mind-independent”) reality exists, a mind could only interpret the external reality through first-person subjective experience. This is correct: in order for something (or someone!) in the external world to communicate with you, it (or he/she/they) must form what it has (or he/she/they have) to “say” in the form of—not the subjective experience of any other person in the totality of existence…but your subjective experience. My whole point in this metaphysical regard is that the external message sender, in order to logically communicate to a subjectively experiencing person, must itself be composed of first-person subjective experience.

Only if the objective phenomenon is made up of first-person subjective experience. If it is not made up of first-person subjective experience it cannot logically causally link to or communicate with first-person subjective experience. Why? Because…well…it is something that is not first-person subjective experience, and one cannot rationally or logically derive subjective experience from something that is not subjective experience. There is absolutely no good reason that first-person subjective experience should not have existed for all previous eternity (i.e. there is no good reason for something that does not exist to come into existence without having already existed), and there is certainly no good reason to achieve the existence of first-person subjective experience with something that is not first-person subjective experience.

The only thing we have evidence for the existence of is the visual perception itself, which is composed of first-person subjective experience. We have no evidence for the existence of mind-independent, non-subjective experience composed light; we have no evidence of the existence of a mind-independent, non-subjective experience composed doppelganger of the object being seen; the brain does not nor has it every produced conscious experience, as there is absolutely no evidence of the existence of mind-independent, non-subjective experience composed brains.

There can be no established connection between a non-subjective experience composed object purportedly existing in the external world and an object made up of one’s subjective experience in visual form, as there is no evidence of the existence of non-subjective experience, much less external non-subjective experience in the form of sensory objects.

The entire process of perception is fictional: with the sole exception of the “Everlasting Gob-stopper” of the conscious experience that cranks out at the end of the “Willy Wonka contraption” that is the mind-independent object in the external world, the light or other physical energy that transmits from the object across space to enter the eye, the conversion of this energy into electrical energy in the nerves of the optic nerve, and final transmission of electrons from the optic nerve to the occipital lobe that magically creates the visual image, is entirely make-believe.

Everything you see is mind-dependent in the sense that they are made up of your subjective experience, and disappear when you are no longer attending to or paying attention to them. From an external frame of reference of another mind, you and the objects are “mind-independent” in the sense that the other person is not you. Nowhere in this is there anything that is not subjective experience or not made up of subjective experience.

Intersubjectivity may be impossible (or at least improbable) in terms of usual sensory perception in which (if one believes the brain creates consciousness), difference of perspective occurs because in everyday reality brains of two different persons are always functioning non-isomorphically (non-identically), but there can in principle be experiential isomorphism or experiential mimicry, in which (if one believes the brain creates consciousness) the brains of two beings are manipulated in a way in which the brains are caused to operate identically, with the neurons of each brain firing identically, creating a shared experience between beings in which they share the same sensory experience from the same perspective although their bodies are, of course, lying side by side which would ordinarily lead to difference of visual perspective (see David J. Chalmers, Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia).

True. In the meantime faith continues to do its poor job of “proving” what does or does not exist in the external world.

Right from the start though both of us are required “for the sake of argument” to “accept” certain assumptions/beliefs about the relationship between the objective truth [going back to an explanation for existence itself] and our subjective speculations here and now given the gap between what we think we know and all that can be known.

For me then it is just a matter of pointing out [in these exchanges] the concommitant gap between my own willingness to admit my conjectures are basically WAGs while others seem entirely more adament about their own arguments being true.

What is the precise relationship between the human brain, human consciousness, “I”, and all the rest of it?

And to what extent does someone seem convinced that they actually do understand it?

That’s why I tack on this part:

[b]"What on earth does that have to do with things that we can both know [and demonstrate] about this exchange and things that we cannot.

How would you take us out into the world and, empirically, experientially, experimently etc., prove to us that your own particular intellectual assumptions here have actual substance. Insofar as they can be related to our day to day interactions."[/b]

On the other hand, in a determined universe there is really no distinction at all. Both “mind” matter and “mind-independent” matter are intertwined – wholly in sync with the only possible reality.

After all, what if that explains your arguments here? Or what if the explanation lies in the relationship between “I” and God?

And here we all seem to be stuck in that we can only fall back on speculation and conjecture given the gaps above.

All you are pointing out here [to me] is the gap between the evidence that has been accumulated so far and all the evidence that is actually available to be grasped in order to resolve all the conflicting theories out there about what it all means.

You offer us one theoretical construct to explain it. And no doubt within the philosophical and scientific and theological communities there are many other differing theoretical constructs predicated on many other different assumptions regarding the necessity --eventually – to close the gap between theory and practice.

It’s always the certainty with which one asserts the assumptions of his or her own argument that attracts me. Why? Because then I suspect that this certainty revolves less around what is believed and more around how what is believed manages to comfort and console the believer psychologically.

Clearly, a belief – any belief – in the existence of an afterlife will comfort and console most of us. But you flat out admit right from the start that what is invincible here is your argument…not any accumulation of evidence that demonstrates the validity of it “for all practical purposes.”

Thus when I nudge the discussion down to earth here…

You take it back up into the clouds of abstraction…the “general description” argument. Or, rather, so it seems to me.

What I want is for you to bring your points about the afterlife out into the world that you live in. What brings its existence into focus given the things that you see, hear, feel…experience…from day to day.

“But if…”

Exactly. They provide an argument describing what they believe may be the case.

But then this part:

There is still the part where aspects of any particular subjective experience is able to be related to others in what clearly appear to be objective truths embedded in experiences shared by others.

At least on this side of the grave. But where is the equivalent of that re the other side of grave. What objective truths can be shared in regard to that? For those who have in fact died.

From my frame of mind [and that’s all it is] this is basically intellectual jargon. In other words, evidence here revolves around going endlessly back and forth regarding the definition and the meaning given to words used in the argument itself. Based largely on assumptions one makes about that which is said to constitute evidence in regard to human subjectivity…given the nature of objectivity in a mindless world.

And it ever and always occurs on this side of the grave. Making any speculation about these relationships on the other side of the grave all that more obscure, ineffable.

Again, from my frame of mind, you are creating a thread entitled…

AN INVINCIBLE ARGUMENT FOR THE AFTERLIFE

…and then flat out acknolwedging that beyond the argument itself your faith in the existence of an afterlife is wholly entangled in the intellectual assessment itself. A psychological [consoling] contraption as much as anything else. But that, “objectively it’s existence cannot be ruled out based on it’s absence from the “matrix” of current human consciousness.”

About which you have no capacity to actually demonstrate the meaning of those words. Calling something “a ‘matrix’ of current human consciousness” means what exactly in regard to the behaviors that you choose on this side of the grave as they pertain to what you imagine will be your fate on the other side of it?

Fair enough. You go as far as you can in “thinking it through” and arrive at a set of assumptions which if true allows for the existence of the afterlife “in your head” to be “objectively possible”.

I’m not able to arrive at this conclusion myself because, in part, I am unable to grasp what it is that you think you believe yourself. Maybe that gap can be closed, maybe not. For me though thinking yourself to a particular conslusion about the afterlife is far, far, far removed from demonstrating to others why they should think that way too. Why? Because you are able to prove that the argument is not just a world of words. But that the dots are able to be connected between words and worlds. A world before and a world after the grave.

Your own rendition of a “matrix” as it relates to, say, me typing these words here and now and you reading them there and then is lost on me. Let alone in explaining how this matrix functions before the grave so as to allow me to grasp the consequences of it after the grave.

Thus, stuff like this…

…has a meaning for you that simply goes over my head. As it relates to the things we do from day to day; and as that relates to what we imagine for “I” after the day we die.

A mind independent reality can be interpreted through first person subjective experience while at the same time being entirely independent of that experience
An object that exists independent of a mind observing it can just as easily exist without a mind observing it - from its perspective there is no difference
It only matters to the mind doing the observing not to the thing being observed because the thing being observed has no consciousness or self awareness

It simply is not possible for something as complex as a human mind to have always existed. From a purely logical non empirical perspective life would originate with the simplest biological form and then very gradually increase in complexity over time. Also nothing finite can have an infinite existence. The only thing that is truly infinite is existence itself because non existence is not a viable state

Mind independent objects lack consciousness and would not know when a mind was not observing them and therefore could not disappear when required to
That is because their independent existence is not actually conditional on either the observation or non observation of any mind

Also two minds could be observing the same object at the same time but one could be observing it for longer than the other one
When the first mind is no longer observing it but the second one is the object either exists or does not exist as it cannot be both - so then which would it be

Faith has nothing to do with the study of observable phenomena and science does not prove anything anyway

To Surreptitious 75:

Sure, if the mind-independent reality is itself made up of first-person subjective experience. If it isn’t, a mind-independent reality being interpreted through first-person subjective experience is logically impossible.

The object existing independent of a mind observing it may exist without a mind observing it, but in order to have anything to do with the human mind, it must be composed of the first-person experience of the mind experiencing it, or at least of first-person experience itself. If not, it is logically impossible for mind-independent objects to have anything to do with one’s first-person subjective experience because…ummm…errr…they are not composed of the first-person subjective experience of the person that is to observe them. There’s no way around it: first-person experience can only logically and rationally be derived from still more first-person subjective experience in the external world. It cannot logically be derived from something that is not first-person subjective experience. As an aside, It is illogical for things that do not exist to inexplicably start existing, without having been pieced together from something already in existence. Ergo, first-person subjective experience can only logically be explained as something that has eternally existed, from which human subjective experience is materialistically derived.

Also, for all we can know mind-independent objects that are conceived to be mind-independent, external world dwelling doppelgangers of the content of visual perception are entirely make-believe, and do not exist.

Really, why? If there are no non-subjective experience composed mind-independent objects and substance, a human or human-like mind could easily exist simply by absurdly existing, and by absurdly existing for all eternity. God (who, let’s face it, is a human consciousness the size of infinity [Genesis 1: 26,27]), by definition, is absurd.

(God is absurd in the sense of the philosophical doctrine of Absurdism, which states that existence is meaningless in the sense that things exist without reason, and exist for no other reason than that they luckily happen to exist.)

In short, there really is no need for simplicity evolving into complexity (see comment below this one). Consciousness, even complex human consciousness, can simply have always existed. Your use of the term “impossible” does not indicate, to me, any true measure of objective impossibility, but a measure of disbelief in the concept of eternal human consciousness.

Life originating from a simple biological form is simply a myth or fable invented to explain the existence of biological life in the “matrix” that is human consciousness. As there is (in my belief) no non-subjective experience composed mind-independent objects and substances, every object is merely a part of the artificial or virtual reality that is human consciousness, not something pre-dating human consciousness.

We can’t know that consciousness or human consciousness is finite, in terms of existence. Well, we are finite, but the External Person (who essentially makes up the external world) is probably not.

We seem to agree on something. I think non-existence is not a viable state not in the sense that there are not things that are non-existent, but because existing things do not come into or go out of existence (essentially).

Well, we have no evidence of the existence of mind-independent objects, much less the existence of objects not composed of first-person subjective experience. Thus, they may be entirely non-existent and make-believe. And yes, if they existed they would not disappear as they are not created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness). The object created by the brain (for those believing the brain creates consciousness) would disappear when occipital lobe functioning changed to show something else or if the person falls asleep or dies, but the external doppelganger, as it wasn’t created by the brain and is entirely unaffected by anything the brain does or goes through, would not disappear in response to what the brain does or what occurs to the brain.

In the mythology that the brain generates consciousness, outside of mechanical or engineered isomorphism (see David J. Chalmers, Fading Qualia, Absent Qualia, Dancing Qualia), two beings would observe the same object but from different perspectives, no matter how slight the distinction because of the spatiotemporal positioning of their bodies. In engineered isomorphism, a hypothetical situation where a mad scientist hooked up two people to a machine that caused the brains of each individual to function in the exact same way yielding “identical twin” consciousness experienced by both beings, the perspective would be the same because, y’know, consciousness is essentially a virtual reality when it comes down to it.

Faith has everything to do with the study of observable phenomena…when you believe that there are non-subjective experience, mind-independent doppelgangers of that phenomena in the external world outside the “matrix” that is magically formed within and airbag deploys from neurons in a bony skull.

I agree, as consciousness is but a “matrix” or virtual reality that probably has no mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of the artificial reality in the external world.

To iambiguous:

Sure.

True. I’m in the “more adamant” camp, but there it is.

We certainly observe (or at least those that observe it in medical context, among others) a human brain composed of first-person subjective experience. There is that. And one experiences an “I”, also composed of first-person subjective experience. These two fall into the category of ‘all that can be known’.

Everything else, given that existence only appears and manifests in the form of “I” and those things experienced by “I” made up of “I”'s first-person subjective experience, only exists in the form of an imaginary idea in the mind of “I” that “I” may or may not believe objectively exists outside “I”.

One can only believe one understands what may or may not exist and occur outside “I”. In my opinion, some beliefs may be closer to the truth than others.

“Mind” matter and “mind-independent matter” can only be logically intertwined if “mind-independent” matter is first-person subjective experience.

This is what I’ve been stating all along. The explanation lies in the relationship between “I” and God (for those believing God exists) in that the first-person subjective experience of which “I” is composed is a mitotic division of God’s first-person subjective experience, which in my belief is the only “mind-independent [“you or I-mind” independent] matter”.

True. We must, because everything we speculate and make conjecture about is outside “I” (if solipsism is false).

Well, I can claim with certainty that I, you, everyone else, and the objects, events, and environments around us are all made up of first-person subjective experience. This is a belief that has the evidence of oneself and that which one is composed to ground it. I can claim with certainty that first-person subjective experience is not derived from non-subjective first person subjective experience outside the magic of creation ex nihilo or existential transformativism—but this is based on sheer logic. An objectively existing afterlife, meanwhile, as it is not part of the artificial reality of current first-person subjective experience, is admittedly in the same camp as mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception. And yes, the afterlife is psychologically comforting and consoling. I admit it freely and repeatedly, and while my beliefs admittedly possess a measure of this, I present the further observation that the existence of the afterlife is not logically and necessarily false.

True. For there is no accumulation of evidence demonstrating the validity of the afterlife “for all practical purposes”…save only the existence and possible eternal existence of first-person subjective experience itself.

My assumptions, I think, have substance only in the nature and existence of first-person subjective experience itself, and the assumption that it does not nor cannot come into and go out of existence. Our day to day interactions are composed of first-person subjective experience, and the idea of the afterlife is an idea of day to day interactions composed of first-person subjective experience taking place after the first-person subjective experience of the “here and now” transforms into the “here and now” of the afterlife.

First-person subjective experience is the substance that composes the things we see, hear, feel, and experience from day to day. The afterlife, meanwhile, as it happens to exist and appear within the current state of our existence, appears only in the form of an idea of a world composed of first-person subjective experience. The objective existence of the idea, the existence of first-person subjective experience in the “here and now”, brings the existence of the afterlife into focus as the imaginary substance making up the idea happens to be the same substance composing what we experience from day to day.

I, nor anyone else in this “matrix” can demonstrate the objective truth of the idea, as the idea, if it has an objectively existing counterpart, lies in the external world. You can’t demonstrate anything that exists objectively in the external world, as it lies outside the “matrix” of the “here and now”. Making an argument “for” the existence of the afterlife is to admit the afterlife may objectively exist in the external world. No different, really, from stating that there is mind-independent star stuff, or galaxies, or brains for that matter.

But the objective truths are all composed of first-person subjective experience of the relater and those sharing the experience of the relater, in a “matrix” world or artificial reality composed of first-person subjective experience.

The only objective truth that can be shared in regard to the other side of the grave, at least in regard to the idea of what exists on the other side of the grave if consciousness does not cease to exist, is first-person subjective experience, of which, in the idea of the afterlife (as the objective truth of the afterlife cannot be demonstrated or directly experienced as we are currently experiencing this “matrix”), the idea states that the afterlife is made up of first-person subjective experience. How can objective truths about the external world appear in the “matrix” of the “here and now”?

To wit:

Evidence, to my understanding, is not a going back and forth between the definition of words in an argument, but is what is actually experienced as opposed to what exists within the mind as an idea. You mentioned that consciousness is an inherent component of the brain, but the only brains that have ever been experienced are brains composed of first-person subjective experience. Are there evidence of brains not composed of a person’s subjective experience that are subjectively experienced? If these brains are not composed of first-person subjective experience, how can they be experienced or, for that matter, known to even exist, if they are not composed of subjective experience?

And of course these arguments and speculations occur on this side of the grave. We are in the ‘this side of the grave matrix world’. We are not in the ‘afterlife matrix world’, if it exists.

My faith in the existence of the afterlife is entangled in the belief that consciousness…er…first-person subjective experience does not magically come into existence from a previous non-existence and does not magically cease to exist after having previously existed.

The meaning of the word “matrix” is easily demonstrated by your consciousness and the world you currently experience, and this based on your intellectual contraption of what happens when a person dies. It’s simple: if you believe that your brain creates your consciousness, and that when your brain ceases to function your “I” ceases altogether to exist, I mean, your “I” suddenly is in the same boat as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny at death…then your “I” and the objects, environments, events, and bodies of persons are all made by your brain, and are sustained by your brain as long as it functions. The ‘you’ and the world you experience that are generated by your brain and that magically ceases to exist at death, is different and not the same thing as the world you believe is not created by your brain. They are two different things. The world created by your brain, which you believe (or that is generally believed) to have a mind-independent, not-subjective experience composed doppelganger that is not produced by the brain and that continues to effortlessly exist when one dies, is an artificial reality or “matrix” created by your brain.

It’s really not that difficult to understand, as it is an intellectual assessment of a particular belief that actually exists in the world rather than a “linguistic contraption” (or so it seems to me).

The “matrix of human consciousness” is easily demonstrated because…why…it is your consciousness, which is a “matrix”, regardless of whether or not the brain creates consciousness. To me, the brain does not create consciousness and my “matrix” is a mitotic copy of the “matrix” once experienced by the three personalities of God. But let’s not get into that.

In regard to the behaviors that I, you, or anyone else chooses on this side of the grave and its relation to the “matrix of current human consciousness”? Well it’s simple, the behaviors we choose on this side of the grave are part of the “matrix of current human consciousness” that is the artificial world, composed of first-person subjective experience, that is generated by your brain as opposed to the doppelgangers purportedly existing in the external world (for those believing the brain creates consciousness or that there are mind-independent doppelgangers of the content of visual perception in the external world).

But are the assumptions really only “objectively possible” in my head? If so, why? Why aren’t the assumptions objectively possible outside my head? How do we know they are only objectively possible in my mind?

I can’t demonstrate to others why they should believe as I do about the afterlife. I can only use argument to arrive at the conclusion that, based on what we know about existence (which exists only in the form of first-person subjective experience), the existence of the afterlife (which manifests and can be demonstrated only in the form of an idea) as an idea of a world or reality that exists in the external world and not in brain-created consciousness (for those believing the brain creates consciousness) cannot be ruled out with absolute, irrefutable certainty.

The only dots to connect this side of the grave to the idea of the afterlife is, well, first-person subjective experience. It’s simple: this side of the grave is composed of first-person subjective experience; the idea of the afterlife entails the afterlife is made up of the same thing this side of the grave is made of: first-person subjective experience. Yes, the idea is certainly not the same thing or in the same philosophical or existential league as that which is currently and directly experienced, but if the idea shares, in “Idea form”, the same substance as the direct experience, it is logically possible. And that’s the only ‘win’ that counts when it comes to argument for something that, if it exists, exists in the external world: it should logically link to actual first-person subjective experience, which actually exists.

As before, if you believe your brain creates the experience of you typing words here and now, and that my brain creates the experience of me reading them, given that there is another world not created by the brain that would continue to happily exist if both our brains were to stop functioning, the “matrix” is the experience you have, or that I have, that is generated from the brain. The “matrix” is composed of your first-person subjective experience that, according to your belief, magically ceases to exist and that magically did not exist at one time before magically “just started existing” when your brain began to function. The “matrix” is the first-person subjectively experienced world purportedly created by the brain, that winks out at unconsciousness or death (for those adhering to this belief).

I think it’s pretty simple: that which is demonstrated or that can be demonstrated “here and now” are composed of first-person subjective experience, which actually appears in the form of an artificial reality that can disappear when one falls asleep or dies, as opposed to a world that does not depend upon one’s existence and that remains entirely unaffected when one falls asleep or dies. Stuff that exists in this outer world cannot be demonstrated, as anything that is or can be demonstrated must be made up of one’s first-person subjective experience, and must be a part of the artificial reality made up of one’s subjective experience. Thus asking for a demonstration of anything existing in the external world is a moot point.

And yes, we must imagine that “I” exists and imagine what “I” experiences after death. My whole argument is that that which is imagined, given that we based the idea itself upon first-person subjective experience as opposed to something that is not first-person subjective experience (the idea of the afterlife is based on something that actually exists), it is thereby logically possible. That’s the most the “Invincible Argument For An Afterlife” can go for. It is “invincible” because it is unfalsifiable: it cannot be refuted or shown to be false within the current “matrix” of the “here and now”.

While human minds in cosmological terms are a very recent phenomenon indeed they could not exist without all that came before
There is a specific order to how physical reality evolved so physics came first then followed by chemistry then followed by biology
These distinctions are however academic in the sense that reality is a single eternally changing state that exists in whatever form it can
So while human minds are themselves not eternal or infinite the process that originally allowed them to come into existence however is

There is nothing invincible about unfalsifiable arguments because they could actually be false even though they cannot be shown to be
Unfalsifiability is therefore a very unreliable metric upon which to base any philosophical position no matter how desirable it might be
A truly invincible argument by contrast is one that has actually been subject to potential falsification and yet is still found to be true

To surreptitious75:

Every single entity you mentioned other than the human mind is make-believe and may not actually exist.

(Though I really like the sentence-piece: ‘…reality is a single eternally changing state that exists in whatever form it can [emphasis mine]’. Why, that happens to be a good summation of the behavior of the God-substance that determines the shape and form of everyone that can and will exist(!))

Nah. Unfalsifiable arguments are invincible precisely because they cannot be falsified. Doesn’t matter if the content of the argument is false in the external world, that has nothing to do anything. The invincibility of the unfalsifiable argument lies in the inability of the argument to be shown or proven to be false.

I agree, using unfalsifiability to positively prove something exists in the external world is silly and not a reliable metric to base a philosophical position, but it works (easily, easily, works) against a joker asserting something does not exist in the external world.

That is, one can easily respond to someone stating that x irrefutably, unquestionably, and undeniably does not exist (if it is agreed by all parties that x either exists or does not exist in the external world outside the “matrix” of human consciousness) by making the very simple observation that one denying the existence of x cannot know that x does not exist if x exists outside the “matrix” of the unbeliever’s consciousness. Making positive assertions that something does not exist, if the thing one denies is conceived to exist (or not) in the external world is a rather silly thing to do, as x exists (or not) outside the “matrix” of one’s consciousness.

Unfalsifiability is, for this very reason, a simple (very simple) tool to metaphorically run the opponent through with a sword when the opponent makes the mistake of making positive statements about the nature of the external world (provided the person mistakenly asserts what is or is not in the external world rather than speak safely from the castle of belief).

By this logic, the only invincible argument is that you experience a virtual reality or “matrix” world composed of your first-person subjective experience.

This may or may not be sufficient as a philosophical description of “I”, but sooner or later “I” is given the task of actually living a life that [for most] involves interacting with others.

Then “I” is required to demonstrate that what he or she believes is true, others are obligated [as rational human beings] to believe is true too. Either regarding this side of the abyss or the other side.

What else is there?

All I can say is that, until you intertwine intellectual speculation like this into descriptions of actual chosen behaviors in particular contexts, how am I to really grasp them?

The part where logic [and the limits of logic] meet actual and substantial “facts of life”.

So, describe your meaning here given a specific context from your day today.

Same here:

The explanation will always be far more germane given the extent to which it can be demonstrated to be true through 1] experiments 2] experiences and 3] predictions.

For me, however, even empirical evidence falls into the gap between what it seems to be telling us is true and all that would need to be known about existence iself in order to encompass ontologically the whole of reality. So, what I focus more on is not the argument itself but the extent to which the argument is embraced [psychologically/comfortingly] as an example of what I call the objectivist frame of mind.

Especially in regard to moral and political values in the is/ought world, and to questions as big as this: “what happens after ‘I’ die?”

To wit:’

Again, this is all profoundly…abstract. Recount for us an interaction you have recently had with another. In terms of the behaviors being chosen, how would they fit into to this explanation. In other words, the point as it relates to this side of the grave. A reality that we are all embodied in here and now.

Yes, but on this side of the grave, we can exchange first-person accounts of our experiences and readily communicate a reality that is entirely in sync. Why? Because, given all of the objects and relationships that our conscious minds garner and make use of in the either/or world, material/phenomenological facts can be ascertained.

The tricky part though still revolves around whether 1] our sense of reality is embedded in so-called sim worlds, dream worlds, matrix worlds etc. and 2] whether in a wholly deterimned universe “I” am in turn just another of nature’s dominoes toppling over solely in sync with the laws of matter.

Then back to this:

Here we are clearly in two different discussions. I have no idea “what on earth” this means. This is a “world of words” “general description” of human interactions to me. I’m trying to grapple with how you relate this intellectual “assessment” to the “for all practical purposes” choices that you make in the course of actually living your life.

There was the existence of planet Earth before the existence of “I” — a conscious human mind able to note the existence of planet Earth before the existence of “I”. Now, unless one is a full-fledged solipsist insisting that the existence of planet Earth past and present is wholly predicated on the existence of “I”, planet Earth will continue to exist even after “I” am dead and gone.

But how am “I” to know for certain what my fate is after “I” am dead and gone? The Earth is still around objectively. Am “I”? You say that consciousness never ceases to exist. But only in your argument. To me it’s much like the “discovery” of peacegirl’s author re determinism. The “reality” about the future is only in his head. He thought it was true and for him that made it true. But how does he make it true for others if he is unable to move much beyond the argument [the world of words] itself?

Yes, but then you bump into others. And, through their own experiences, they have come to different conclusions regarding the relationship between things believed to be true “subjectively” and things demonstrated to be true “objectively”.

And that can revolve around interactions on this side of the grave, or on speculations regarding reality on the other side.

But, from my frame of mind, it always comes down to that which can be proven to be true. One’s words can either be connected to a demonstrable set of of facts or they can’t.

Or they can up to a point and the rest becomes conjecture.

I can only note that I am not at all clear regarding what your point is here. What brains performing what tasks in what contexts?

Well, the religious folks would probably call this their “soul”. God implants it at birth and, if one is righteous enough, He sends it to Heaven after one dies.

But what “consciousness” is here for you is beyond my own capacity to grasp. Other than as an intellectual contraption encompassed in a world of words. A determinist might argue that, for reasons science and philosophy have yet to fully grasp, mindless matter somehow evolved into living matter somehow evolved into brains somehow evolved in human minds somehow evolved into “I”.

Why and how still being a complete mystery.

I can only ask you once again to intertwine this in the life that you live.

You interact with another in a particular context. You choose particular behaviors which precipitate consequences which precipitate behaviors on their part. After an hour or so of interacting how would you encompass “what happened” given your “anlysis” here.

Forget about the aftelife for now. Let’s explore more in depth how your thinking here is applicable only to the things we do on this side of the grave.

Well, I can’t be inside your head and you can’t be inside mine. For all I know your posts are generated entirely by a computer. We must make certain aassumption about the minds of others given the assumption that we make about our own.

That may well be as close as we can come to an objective reality. But at least “here and now” this exchange seems to confirm two minds exchanging what they think is true. And that may well continue on after we are both dead and gone. Only “there and then” is simply not the same as “here and now” in terms of what can be demonstrated to be true. What happens “there and then” would seem to be entirely conjectural.

Then we’re stuck. How your point addresses mine is still lost on me. Until it is possible for you to take this world of words out of your head and situate them in an actual context involving human interactions so as to illustrate your text.

I can imagine the brain creating the experience of me typing these words such that, in a determined universe, my brain also creates the psychological illusion of me choosing to type them freely.

But your own thinking here is still beyond me.

This part in particular:

Human logic to me is either a necessary component of a wholly determined universe [and thus interchangable with illogical thinking] or, given some measure of human autonomy, can only be grasped fully once the ontological – teleological? – nature of existence itself is grasped.

If that is even within the grasp of an autonomous human mind.