Rebirth

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Geronimo


more like a hardrive brought back in time to a prehistoric era where it's the only harddrive in the world. Strictly speaking destroying the thing doesn't destroy the data but the data is lost regardless so you wont be seeing it again and those programs won't be running again.

We don't disagree on any observable consequences of any of this. I don't believe there are copies of brains in the observable universe and have no reason to make any assumptions at all about the unobservable.

But you have absolutely nothing to base a hypothesis about the "unobservable" on, you're just pulling what you've said out of thin air with absolutely no basis. Do you have any evidence whatsoever for what you have said?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


But you have absolutely nothing to base a hypothesis about the "unobservable" on, you're just pulling what you've said out of thin air with absolutely no basis. Do you have any evidence whatsoever for what you have said?

exactly

Which is usually my only point when joining these kinds of discussion.

Remember the OP?


"rebirth" basically requires that our selves are somehow not the same as our bodies. If we allow for such a possibility we are basically separating that information from intrinsic need of a physical medium to contain it. So we have then moved from the testable world of reality to the metaphysical world of BS we pull out of arses. This means that efforts to point out the obvious (you're dead how are you going to rebirth anywhere?) are futile or pointless.

[Heraclitus]

Well if we live in a fundemantaly determinsitic universe, the Omega point becomes a possibility.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Geronimo


exactly

Which is usually my only point when joining these kinds of discussion.

Remember the OP?


"rebirth" basically requires that our selves are somehow not the same as our bodies. If we allow for such a possibility we are basically separating that information from intrinsic need of a physical medium to contain it. So we have then moved from the testable world of reality to the metaphysical world of BS we pull out of arses. This means that efforts to point out the obvious (you're dead how are you going to rebirth anywhere?) are futile or pointless.

Well you're in the world of fantasies in that case. If you're making up theories that have no scientific basis nor need (ie, trying to explain something that doesn't need to be explained), with no scientific evidence either, then they are just fairytales.

Do you consider that to be sound reasoning and thought?

[Blake]

There's basically two ways of looking at existence...

"From outside looking in", the worldy perspective.

And "From inside looking out", the mindly perspective.

From the perspective of the mind, a discontinuity in the stream of consciousness is... well, you can't observe/experience any "birth" or "death" event, it is continuous always, to the extent it is continuous at all.

From the mindly perspective, continuation of the stream of consciousness makes intuitive sense. Because of the idea of this stream, arising from 'void' and returning to 'void' does not make intuitive sense...

It's unreasonable (meaning, can't be reasoned about) from the worldly perspective. Science doesn't even know what is "looking through the eyepiece of the microscope/telescope", it just has conjecture.

The thing is, our perspective IS the mindly one - the world itself is basically conjecture based on our sensory data :O.


I asked this question, and predicted the results; most people would say "No".

But the other thing, when I mention to someone in casual philosophical conversation, something like "I kind of believe in rebirth, it makes sense to me", most people will say "yeah, I kind of too" (even if they're Christians and supposed not to and stuff), it's when there is the expectation of a rational proof, that people don't believe in it...

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Blake
Because of the idea of this stream, arising from 'void' and returning to 'void' does not make intuitive sense...

It sure as hell makes intuitive sense to me.

[Blake]

I don't think of something which can't be experienced, as making intuitive sense...

You can use reason and logic, but not intuition...

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Blake
I don't think of something which can't be experienced, as making intuitive sense...

You can use reason and logic, but not intuition...

Thanks for telling me what is intuitive to me. You are so smart.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by Blake
There's basically two ways of looking at existence...

"From outside looking in", the worldy perspective.

And "From inside looking out", the mindly perspective.

From the perspective of the mind, a discontinuity in the stream of consciousness is... well, you can't observe/experience any "birth" or "death" event, it is continuous always, to the extent it is continuous at all.

From the mindly perspective, continuation of the stream of consciousness makes intuitive sense. Because of the idea of this stream, arising from 'void' and returning to 'void' does not make intuitive sense...

It's unreasonable (meaning, can't be reasoned about) from the worldly perspective. Science doesn't even know what is "looking through the eyepiece of the microscope/telescope", it just has conjecture.

The thing is, our perspective IS the mindly one - the world itself is basically conjecture based on our sensory data :O.


I asked this question, and predicted the results; most people would say "No".

But the other thing, when I mention to someone in casual philosophical conversation, something like "I kind of believe in rebirth, it makes sense to me", most people will say "yeah, I kind of too" (even if they're Christians and supposed not to and stuff), it's when there is the expectation of a rational proof, that people don't believe in it...

It is amazing how so many words can have so little meaning.

WHEN YOU DIE ITS OK YOU'RE LIKE A FLOPPY DISK IT'S ALL STORED ON RAM BABY. THERE'S NEW STICKS YOU CAN BUY AND CONNECT THEM INTO A DATABASE AND YOUR MIND RETURNS, BUT NOT YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS A FINE DISTINCTION ONLY MYSELF AND THE BUDDAH' ARE PRIVY TO. ALL I EAT IS SPINACH ONCE A DAY AND I DON'T EVEN NEED TO **** ANYMORE!!1 PEACE NOT WAR, I EXPECTED ALL OF YOU TO REACT THIS WAY. AND YES I AM CHASTE BY CHOICE.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


Well you're in the world of fantasies in that case. If you're making up theories that have no scientific basis nor need (ie, trying to explain something that doesn't need to be explained), with no scientific evidence either, then they are just fairytales.

Do you consider that to be sound reasoning and thought?

not really

Neither does it lend itself to scientific examination or refutation. Just because you can't refute something scientifically doesn't mean it has merit. Quite the opposite imho.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


It is amazing how so many words can have so little meaning.

WHEN YOU DIE ITS OK YOU'RE LIKE A FLOPPY DISK IT'S ALL STORED ON RAM BABY. THERE'S NEW STICKS YOU CAN BUY AND CONNECT THEM INTO A DATABASE AND YOUR MIND RETURNS, BUT NOT YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS A FINE DISTINCTION ONLY MYSELF AND THE BUDDAH' ARE PRIVY TO. ALL I EAT IS SPINACH ONCE A DAY AND I DON'T EVEN NEED TO **** ANYMORE!!1 PEACE NOT WAR, I EXPECTED ALL OF YOU TO REACT THIS WAY. AND YES I AM CHASTE BY CHOICE.

it's not really to fair to Blake to associate him with any of my trollsome pseudo existential babblings.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


It is amazing how so many words can have so little meaning.

WHEN YOU DIE ITS OK YOU'RE LIKE A FLOPPY DISK IT'S ALL STORED ON RAM BABY. THERE'S NEW STICKS YOU CAN BUY AND CONNECT THEM INTO A DATABASE AND YOUR MIND RETURNS, BUT NOT YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS A FINE DISTINCTION ONLY MYSELF AND THE BUDDAH' ARE PRIVY TO. ALL I EAT IS SPINACH ONCE A DAY AND I DON'T EVEN NEED TO **** ANYMORE!!1 PEACE NOT WAR, I EXPECTED ALL OF YOU TO REACT THIS WAY. AND YES I AM CHASTE BY CHOICE.

"You're software, Lain. You're not hardware."

[Blake]

Originally posted by Geronimo
"rebirth" basically requires that our selves are somehow not the same as our bodies.

Actually, interestingly, this is one of the Buddha's "fourteen unanswerable/unanswered" questions (the ones he had the intellectual integrity to not speculate on):

Questions referring to personal experience

* Is the self identical with the body?
* or is it different from the body?

Whether the self is identical or different to the body, is unanswerable and unknowable! Our "perspective" is too limited to know this.

For example, say we are actually in the matrix. This could be true, it's unprovable that it isn't true. We don't know the nature of the world we perceive... we can try to describe what we perceive (which is science), but we don't know WHAT it actually is...

Tomorrow, your senses could be plugged into some new inputs, so you wake up in a body of another gender, that's totally possible in the matrix.

Now, along with being surprised at losing and gaining some bits, you'll still think "This is my body"...

Interesting that, isn't it?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Blake


Actually, interestingly, this is one of the Buddha's "fourteen unanswerable/unanswered" questions (the ones he had the intellectual integrity to not speculate on):


Whether the self is identical or different to the body, is unanswerable and unknowable! Our "perspective" is too limited to know this.

For example, say we are actually in the matrix. This could be true, it's unprovable that it isn't true. We don't know the nature of the world we perceive... we can try to describe what we perceive (which is science), but we don't know WHAT it actually is...

Tomorrow, your senses could be plugged into some new inputs, so you wake up in a body of another gender, that's totally possible in the matrix.

Now, along with being surprised at losing and gaining some bits, you'll still think "This is my body"...

Interesting that, isn't it?

assuming that our self is our body do you agree that would rule out rebirth?

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Blake
Tomorrow, your senses could be plugged into some new inputs, so you wake up in a body of another gender, that's totally possible in the matrix.

Now, along with being surprised at losing and gaining some bits, you'll still think "This is my body"...

Interesting that, isn't it?

I am what I have experienced, and more importantly, what I can recall having experienced. (Regardless of whether that is truly experienced, or only some hallucination.) I am not the underlying platform for the processes that have come to that conclusion.

So if that platform is then plugged into another "self", with all the senses that entails, I am not there. They are.

Now if I woke up in someone else's body, I would know it was a different body, because having cognition of what I was is fundamental to who I am.

So no, I would not think, "This is my body". Someone else could, if that was who they identify themselves as, but not me. If I were in the body, I would think, "This is not my body", it would be out of place, irreconcilable with all my previous understanding of who I am. Someday I may come to identify with it, but at first I surely wouldn't.