Answer me these questions

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

No. I did not notice it.
Dumb!:o

Just another AV necro job. He seems particulary fond of threads where the OP poster posted only a few times many years ago and hasn't been back since. This one is newer than most being only about 4 years old.

 

[Nathan Poe]

Just another AV necro job. He seems particulary fond of threads where the OP poster posted only a few times many years ago and hasn't been back since. This one is newer than most being only about 4 years old.

Well, given AV's track record when debating people who actually respond to him, you can't really fault him for trying to lower the bar...

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Well, given AV's track record when debating people who actually respond to him, you can't really fault him for trying to lower the bar...

Too True. LOL

 

[Split Rock]

Weird tangents?

Here are your exact words:

Isn't that what science teaches?
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No. Science teaches that there is no way out. No life after death. No immortality. At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world.

 

[lucaspa]

No. Science teaches that there is no way out. No life after death. No immortality. At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world.

Notice your qualifier. That negates the the certainty of "Science teachers that there is no way out. No life after death."

The best you can say is "Science does not know whether there is life after death." To say anything beyond that is to step outside the boundaries of science.

Science does study the phenomenon of NDE: Pim van Lommel, Ruud van Wees, Vincent Meyers, Ingrid Elfferich. Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. Lancet 2001; 358: 2039–45

 

[Wiccan_Child]

No. Science teaches that there is no way out. No life after death. No immortality. At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world.

Er... does it?

 

[lucaspa]

Isn't that what science teaches?

No. From what we have observed, everyone dies. The only exception to that are very old accounts of Moses and Elijah. There are accounts of people coming back from the dead after at least 36 hours: Lazarus, Jesus, and Augustus Caesar. But no one has observed that within the past 200 years where it can be documented.


But is death the end of consciousness? Is death permanent? Science does not know the answer to those questions.

 

[Split Rock]

Notice your qualifier. That negates the the certainty of "Science teachers that there is no way out. No life after death."

The best you can say is "Science does not know whether there is life after death." To say anything beyond that is to step outside the boundaries of science.

Science does study the phenomenon of NDE: Pim van Lommel, Ruud van Wees, Vincent Meyers, Ingrid Elfferich. Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. Lancet 2001; 358: 2039–45

That is why I added the qualifier. As far as near death experiences, I know of no physical evidence connecting them with life after death.

Er... does it?

With the qualifier I added, yes. Science does not teach life after death. The life functions stop and the body decomposes. The life is lost, but replaced by the next generation. A cycle of life and death that is repeated.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

That is why I added the qualifier. As far as near death experiences, I know of no physical evidence connecting them with life after death.


With the qualifier I added, yes. Science does not teach life after death. The life functions stop and the body decomposes. The life is lost, but replaced by the next generation. A cycle of life and death that is repeated.

Nonetheless, you didn't say "Science doesn't teach there is an afterlife", you said "Science teaches there is no afterlife". You didn't qualify it, so much as contradict it - "Science teaches there is no afterlife" is simply false.

 

[Tomatoman]

But is death the end of consciousness? Is death permanent? Science does not know the answer to those questions.

The evidence for life after death is non-existent, or minimal if one is particularly generous about near death experiences, which I'm not. (I read something recently about near death experiences and CO2 levels in the brain - can't remember the details but it seemed to give an explanation for the phenomenon.)

It seems so apparent that a physical brain is required for consciousness, and that the state of your consciousness is entirely dependent upon the physical state of your brain, that the proposition that your consciousness can survive the death of your brain seems as fanciful to me as saying that you will be able to see without eyes, or hear without ears or taste without taste buds or feel without a nervous system. It's just silly.

Still, as you say, one can't prove that it is impossible, however unlikely.

Not sure I'd be too keen on consciousness without physical appetites though. While I'm conscious I spend a large percentage of my time thinking about things that are physically pleasurable. In fact life without a body would pretty much suck as far as I can see. No more beer! No more burping! No more pizza, or fish and chips! No more sex!!! Life after death? You can keep it.

 

[Split Rock]

Nonetheless, you didn't say "Science doesn't teach there is an afterlife", you said "Science teaches there is no afterlife". You didn't qualify it, so much as contradict it - "Science teaches there is no afterlife" is simply false.

As far as science is concerned there is no life after death. The only thing that follows death is decay. Show me a biology textbook that says, "what happens to a person after death is unknown." I qualified my statement only to remind everyone that science only deals with the physical, not the metaphysical. It may be more accurate therefore to say, "science teaches there is no life after death in the physical world." What happens to something outside the physical, such as a "soul,' is not something that science deals with. You can call something a "soul" and claim it continues after physical death. You can call that "life after death," if you like, but it is not life in the physical world. Also, I said nothing about there being an "afterlife," or not, so you misquoted me.

 

[lucaspa]

As far as science is concerned there is no life after death. The only thing that follows death is decay.

No, as far as science is concerned, science does not know. Yes, the data science has shows what happens to the body: decay. But your statement was not about only the physical, but also the metaphysical.

It may be more accurate therefore to say, "science teaches there is no life after death in the physical world."

Again, science cannot even say this. What you need to do is say: "For human beings, science teaches that the physical body decays after death."

 

[lucaspa]

That is why I added the qualifier.

Qualifiers are supposed to delineate exceptions to the statement. Yours contradicted it.

As far as near death experiences, I know of no physical evidence connecting them with life after death.

Science doesn't always deal with "physical evidence". It deals with intersubjective evidence. That evidence can be non-physical as long as it is consistent from person to person. You can't limit science as you have.

With the qualifier I added, yes. Science does not teach life after death. The life functions stop and the body decomposes. The life is lost, but replaced by the next generation. A cycle of life and death that is repeated.

Sorry, but that qualifier means that science can't teach what you originally stated: "Science teaches that there is no way out. No life after death. No immortality. At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world."

If you can't test, then you can't teach "there is no way out. No immortality." If science can't test, then it must remain neutral.

 

[lucaspa]

The evidence for life after death is non-existent, or minimal if one is particularly generous about near death experiences, which I'm not. (I read something recently about near death experiences and CO2 levels in the brain - can't remember the details but it seemed to give an explanation for the phenomenon.)

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Carl Sagan, Demon Haunted World pg 7.

Tomatoman, you are working with a discredited philosophy of science called Logical Positivism.

If you read the paper I cited, you will find that there is no correlation of NDE with anything.

It seems so apparent that a physical brain is required for consciousness, and that the state of your consciousness is entirely dependent upon the physical state of your brain, that the proposition that your consciousness can survive the death of your brain seems as fanciful to me as saying that you will be able to see without eyes, or hear without ears or taste without taste buds or feel without a nervous system. It's just silly.

This is just a really bad way to do science. In fact, it is just the opposite of how science is done. It's the equivalent of "it seems so apparent that you need a designer to have design ..."

The problem is that people have reported consciousness when their brain is shut down. What's more, if you read the paper, you will find many reports of the person in NDE "seeing" things that were not in line-of-sight of their physical bodies.

"1. All our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices about how things logically ought to be, how they in all fairness ought to be, or how we would prefer them to be, must be tested against external reality --what they *really* are. How do we determine what they really are? Through direct experience of the universe itself."

Logic and logical chains are always trumped by data.

Not sure I'd be too keen on consciousness without physical appetites though.

Now you are into your personal likes and dislikes. These, too, have nothing to do with how things really are.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Logic and logical chains are always trumped by data.

I disagree, but I don't fancy going into that debate again

 

[Split Rock]

No, as far as science is concerned, science does not know. Yes, the data science has shows what happens to the body: decay. But your statement was not about only the physical, but also the metaphysical.

My statement was only about the physical. That's why I added the qualifier.

Again, science cannot even say this. What you need to do is say: "For human beings, science teaches that the physical body decays after death."

Do you have some evidence that there is life after death in the physical world?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

As far as science is concerned there is no life after death. The only thing that follows death is decay. Show me a biology textbook that says, "what happens to a person after death is unknown." I qualified my statement only to remind everyone that science only deals with the physical, not the metaphysical.

The difference being?

It may be more accurate therefore to say, "science teaches there is no life after death in the physical world."

Then your statement is semantically null; death is, in that sense, by definition, the absence of life. But this is not what people mean when they say 'life after death'; it isn't used to refer to some sort of resurrection or zombification, but rather a spiritual afterlife - you are still alive after the death of your physical body. Life, after death.

What happens to something outside the physical, such as a "soul,' is not something that science deals with. You can call something a "soul" and claim it continues after physical death. You can call that "life after death," if you like, but it is not life in the physical world.

Which is the qualifier you should have used, given what 'life after death' typically means.

The qualifier you used, "At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world", implies you're talking about something non-physical, which corroborates the standard use of the phrase 'life after death', rather than your tautologous one.

Also, I said nothing about there being an "afterlife," or not, so you misquoted me.

Consider it a paraphrase. You exact quote was:

"Science teaches that there is no way out. No life after death. No immortality. At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world."

I don't think it's incorrect paraphrase that as "Science teaches there is no afterlife", but, if it is, substitute 'afterlife' with 'life after death'. Besides, I'm not arguing whether science can or cannot potentially comment on the veracity of claims about what happens after death, I'm saying that it hasn't commented. There is no evidence for or against those claims. You said science claims there is no life after death. What is the afterlife, if not a form of life after death?

In any case, you've refined your previously claim from a positive claim ("Science says there is no afterlife") to a tautology ("Life ends when life ends").

 

[Wiccan_Child]

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Carl Sagan, Demon Haunted World pg 7.

If I look in my garden for an elephant, and find no evidence that there is an elephant in my garden, am I unreasonable in concluding that there is indeed no elephant in my garden from the sheer absence of evidence? Does the absence of evidence for an elephant in my garden not constitute evidence that there is an absence of elephants?

 

[Deleteriousnonsense]

If I look in my garden for an elephant, and find no evidence that there is an elephant in my garden, am I unreasonable in concluding that there is indeed no elephant in my garden from the sheer absence of evidence? Does the absence of evidence for an elephant in my garden not constitute evidence that there is an absence of elephants?

Now you are just playing games. There is no absence of evidence. You looked in your garden and observed no elephant, evidence of the absence of elephant.

 

[Split Rock]

The difference being?


Then your statement is semantically null; death is, in that sense, by definition, the absence of life. But this is not what people mean when they say 'life after death'; it isn't used to refer to some sort of resurrection or zombification, but rather a spiritual afterlife - you are still alive after the death of your physical body. Life, after death.


Which is the qualifier you should have used, given what 'life after death' typically means.

The qualifier you used, "At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world", implies you're talking about something non-physical, which corroborates the standard use of the phrase 'life after death', rather than your tautologous one.


Consider it a paraphrase. You exact quote was:

"Science teaches that there is no way out. No life after death. No immortality. At least none that we can test with tools of the physical world."

I don't think it's incorrect paraphrase that as "Science teaches there is no afterlife", but, if it is, substitute 'afterlife' with 'life after death'. Besides, I'm not arguing whether science can or cannot potentially comment on the veracity of claims about what happens after death, I'm saying that it hasn't commented. There is no evidence for or against those claims. You said science claims there is no life after death. What is the afterlife, if not a form of life after death?

In any case, you've refined your previously claim from a positive claim ("Science says there is no afterlife") to a tautology ("Life ends when life ends").

Exactly. Death is death. That was my only point, really. You have taken my original statement out of its context, which was in response to AVET claiming that according to science death is a "way out." This he misaligned with the theory of Heat Death of the universe, which had nothing to do with the subject he was commenting on. Also, when one speaks of an "afterlife" it is usually in reference to heaven or some other place that is not in the physical world. Science says nothing about that, which is why I said you misquoted me. I was not referring to heaven at all.