From the JREF Forums thread, Deep Thoughts That Bear Repeating, regarding whether one is capable of knowing whether an afterlife exists or not ...

So where does the source of your knowing come from? Within or without? ... Obviously somewhere between your ears, right? If so, then how do you know exactly what it is that tells you the truth? How do you acknowledge it? Only when it can be empirically backed up by your senses? If that's the case then what's the point in having a brain, and speculating upon anything?

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Before I address this, could you perhaps clarify your thoughts? When you merely ask questions, you run the risk of looking like you are afraid to take your own stand. What is your alternative to empiricism? What is your notion of the function of a brain? (you seem to dissect it out from your sensory functions in your last sentence).

I would argue that it is patently clear that our knowledge comes from without, that we learn empirically, that we can never be absolutely certain of any truth (because of the way we learn--I have posted that elsewhere), but the functional, adaptive processes of the brain and sensory systems makes use of the external world and allows us to interact with it.

Your turn.

Actually it's been so long since I wrote it, I'm not sure what I'm saying? I did have to throw in the part about the afterlife now didn't I? Hmm ... Regardless, basically I'm asking how do we as humans beings evaluate things and come to understand what we know, with respect to truth. In other words what is truth and how do we come to acknowledge it in our minds? Is it a separate entity entirely? And how is it that we can speculate on it and come to conclusions independent of any external stimuli?

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Here's something I just got through posting at the JREF Forums which might help a little. Sorry about all the questions though, that's just the way I do it.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

What do you consider "knowing"?


At least in my opinion, I dont believe knowledge is something which can be reliably gained from intuition. If my intution tells me God exists, and another's intuition tells them that God does not exist, and yet another's intuition tells him that his own concept of God exists, etc. etc. etc. which one of us, if any, are correct? There is no way to know, so I doubt that intuition is a very useful way to gain knowledge.

If I've learned anything, its that thoughts come from within; and science acts a medium between our thoughts and what we confirm as knowledge.

Strange. I asked you to clarify, and you merely ask more questions.

I do not like these questions. They presuppose too much. For instance, "how do we come to acknowledge it in our minds?" presupposes that we do, in fact, have minds, and that we do, in fact, acknowledge truth. These are separate issues which would need to be addressed before we even may begin to ask "how" these things are accomplished. Your last sentence, too, presupposes that we do speculate and conclude "independent of any external stimuli", when (to the best of my knowledge) there has never been an example ever of an individual who has done anything independently of any external stimuli. Your question is very poorly phrased, and as such, cannot possibly be answered.

This is what I meant by asking you to clarify. Please don't just ask more bad questions. Pick one or two and try to give your own answers. With luck, you will see just how poorly phrased the questions are (or perhaps you will see what assumptions you are making), and you will come up with some better questions in the future.

Well, we have external stimuli on the one hand which, we ultimately acknowledge in our minds, which is necessary at least initially. However, once we've acknowledged enough things externally, we can then begin to speculate on these things in our minds, and come up with findings entirely independent from the source. At which point I think we can reasonably assess that the acknowledgment (of truth) occurs within the mind. However, that still doesn't explain the relationship the mind has with the truth and, where in fact the truth comes from (where it is stored, mainained and whatnot). In other words what is truth? And how is it conceivable that we can even speculate on it?

There, is that any better?

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Much better, thank you. It is clear now that you do presuppose a few things which you take for granted are true...such as the existence of mind itself (far from a given), and a mechanism by which (or at least an assertian that) the alleged mind manipulates stimuli and eventually generates its own. Neither of these things are necessarily true, but you need them to be to go on to "assess that the acknowledgment (of truth) occurs within the mind." And you are right, it does not explain what relationship the mind (again, if it even exists) has with the truth (if it even exists other than as an abstract or as a relative condition).

How is it conceivable that we can speculate on it? Easy...we can even speculate on impossible things, like square circles. Our language allows us great latitude to examine things...but we must be very careful not to think that, simply because we can conceive of it, it must exist. There is no such requirement.

Yes, I can speculate on a square circle all day long and yet I still can't imagine it in my mind. In fact I just tried doing it and it's almost like it requires a "gut feeling" (literally a feeling inside my stomach) in order to verify it. Now isn't that something? So, perhaps this is where they came up with the notion of a "gut feeling?" While apparently there are other aspects of our psyche that come into play here?

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

Remember that introspection is a seriously flawed method of studying thinking. More recent neurological work has shown that experiences we take for granted are unified may be divided in manners we would never expect. Just as someone can be color-blind (which involves a structural difference in the cellular composition of the retina--to wit, a missing type of cone cell), one can become motion-blind, seeing the world as a series of still images rather than as a moving picture. Introspection would never tell us that the ability to perceive motion is separate from the ability to perceive the objects which are seen to be in motion. Another example...Capgras's Delusion appears to come about when one of two separate visual pathways is damaged, such that the informational content of the image is preserved, but the emotional content is lost. Introspection has never led us to suspect that the same sights process their information and emotion separately.

Oh, and these are clearly elements of the physical hardware, the brain, not elements of the psyche, mind, soul, spirit, pneuma, or anything else you want to call it. Your (or anyone's) introspective examination of your "mind" can only examine the experience--it gives no useful information about the process at all.

Sounds convincing. Except all you're telling me is that some people have defective brains. So?

Unless of course there's more to the process than most of us aware of. Or, how about someone who's almost totally dependent on the use of their mind however, like Stephen Hawking? How would you rate their use of introspection?

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?

LOL ... Is that what you got out of that? You have some serious blinders on. This research (to be fair, I guess I did not describe the entire field) has also examined the same processes in healthy brains (once a "defective" or damaged or injured brain points us to a division in function, it is necessary to study it in healthy individuals to be certain it was not merely a result of side effects from the injury), so at this point it is safe to say that what i am telling you is that the processes of your brain are tremendously different from what your experience of these processes might lead you to believe.The burden of proof is squarely on the person who claims that Hawking's introspection is different (let alone more accurate) than anyone else's. It would just be a guess on my part, but I would think his introspective accounts would be no more accurate than anyone else's. Unless he somehow has a sensory apparatus that none of the rest of us have, one which reads the neural activity in the brain itself, then there would be no reason to think his perception of his brain activity is any more accurate.

You may be correct in explaining the mechanics of the brain. However, it has little or nothing to do with consciousness itself which, is an entirely different medium.

Well, actually I probably shouldn't have brought it up, because I was referring to introspection in general. However, like I said above, studying the mechanics of the brain is not the same thing as consciousness itself. For example, consider the music on a CD compared to the playback system or CD player. These are two, although obviously related, different things. Another way would be to compare the software versus the hardware on a computer system.

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So when the body dies, and consciousness departs, where do "we" go? ... Off to define another "reality" perhaps?