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[Leafsnail]

I am interested in your opinion of my more general point, about faith still having a place as a social and psychological tool. Did you quote that line as an example of how my whole position is wrong, or were you generally in agreement and just wanted to question the specifics of what I was suggesting having faith in?

It's the entire thing - I just felt that was the clearest statement of it.  Yes, there is uncertainty about what happens after death.  But surely the better way to deal with that uncertainty is to accept you don't know, realise that isn't a problem and go on living your life.  I feel that this is a healthier approach to take to uncertainty than attempting to trick yourself into believing something comforting (since, without evidence, you'll end up questioning that belief in your mind unless you've gone a long way down the road of self delusion or have a very strange ability to never question any of your beliefs).

As an example of what I mean, in two weeks I will receive my exam results.  I don't know whether they'll be better or worse than expected, and there's no reasonable investigation I can perform to find it out right now.  I could take your approach, and trick myself into thinking they're gonna be great - but I'm inevitably going to doubt this as the moment of truth draws closer as I have no evidence for thinking this (note that plenty of religious people who claim to believe in a heavenly afterlife are still scared on their deathbeds).  In addition, if that time passes and it turns out I did poorly, I'll have to deal with the problem of crushed hopes as well as the actual consequences of performing badly (this is less easy to take back to the life after death example, but it's possible if there's an afterlife that isn't as great as the one you were hoping for, and applies to other areas of wishful thinking like "I believe God will answer my prayers/ protect me").

The solution I offer: admit I don't know.  There's nothing I can do about it either way, so I'll just keep living my life until the moment comes and react to it appropriately then.  Fear of death is a reasonable incentive to not do stupid things so I don't want to get rid of it completely, just make sure I don't think about it unnecessarily.

[Grek]

I disagree with the proposition that there is uncertainty regarding what happens after death. Saying so is, IMHO, the result of wooly-headed thinking and instinctual flinching away from depressing and/or uncomfortable truths. When you die, you cease to be. There is no further thought, experience, action or anything else when you are dead. You are a mind that is destroyed in death along with your body. This isn't comforting, but it is the truth. As such, there's basically three responses to death that people take once they grasp that truth:

1. Death is like being born, except in reverse. You go back to the state of unawareness you had before you were born. That's not so bad, is it?
2. Death is terrible and scary, but there's nothing you can do about it. Try not to think about it too much. Focus living instead.
3. Death is terrible and scary, but perhaps there is a way to advert it, or to reverse it. Let's get everyone signed up for cryonics!

If you can live with any of the above, you don't need to lie to yourself about what happens when you die.

[alway]

I've been dead for over 13.6 billion years, it hasn't hurt me yet.

I don't fear death, I fear not living; my dopamine receptors tell me I happen to like living, and so I do. Though none of this is even getting into the somewhat misleading term of 'I,' which incorrectly gives the attributes of continuity and static existence to consciousness. The 'I' of 10 years ago no longer exists, and in fact is more different from me than even my peers today. What happens when 'I' die?

I'll let 'I' of 10 years ago tell you:

[MetalSlimeHunt]

metalslime
I felt like there was some frustration and maybe even defensiveness in your post. I am sorry if I have caused offence, I was merely stating an opinion. I can't help feeling like you are telling me I shouldn't believe what I believe because you believe something else which you hold to be self evident and superior.

This is explicitly a discussion thread. Stating your opinion in such a place is tantamount to asking for it to be disputed by someone else.

If faith is such an illegitimate concept, how do you justify your own faith that your subjective perception of the world is the only correct one?

I do not have faith that my subjective perception of the world is the only correct one. This is why I seek out the subjective experiences of other humans to determine if I am delusional or not. More importantly, I pay attention to what objective quantifiers of reality do exist and attempt to create as much congruence between my subjective perception and objective reality as possible, so that I can avoid falsehood and give my viewpoint as much legitimacy as possible.

Death is a big one for example...

It isn't about making anyone feel better, it's about what is true. And not everyone wants to feel peace and serenity when they die, quit imposing your feelings on everyone else.

So what is true? I hadn't realised that someone out there knew what it was like to die, forgive my naive assumptions. I am very excited to hear the truth, please supply it as soon as is convenient. Making people feel better about uncertainty is in my opinion an acceptable way to deal with not knowing the truth in the interim while you investigate it. Luckily I won't need an interim solution once you reply with the truth.

The sarcasm isn't necessary, and you misunderstood me anyway. When I say "what is true" I refer to the actual reality of dying and ceasing to exist as a conscious entity, not what that actually feels like in a sensory manner. There are, however, people who do know what that is like. Lots of people have clinically died and then been revived.

I am not sure what the difference is between moral framework and societal conscience. They seem to be roughly synonymous. Saying morality has nothing to do with spirituality is just denial of a huge body of evidence. In theory it does seem possible to design a system of morality that is not based on any form of spirituality but this is not the norm.

Legitimate morality has nothing to do with spirituality. Arbitrary moral guidelines generally imposed by religion are a constraint on society, not a benefit to it. There are a great many moral systems that are not based upon religion. Utlitarianism, secular humanism, everything on this page, etc.

Catholic cultures generally dissaprove of abortion, many islamic cultures disaprove of women showing their heads or driving cars. I could list examples of morality influenced by religion for many many pages, and I find very few examples of moral rules that have not occurred in and been implemented as a result of religious texts.

Moral rules that have nothing to do with religion are the only ones that really matter. The ones that do are arbitrary and holding us back.

I will admit the rape example was a bad one. You didn't however address the main point of the quote, which was that Science does not describe any specific values or morals without first having specific goals.

Your counter argument seems to be mostly semantic. "D. Problem never existed in the first place." Actually it did, for thousands of years. Now we have overpopulation, perhaps legalising murder is a better example. It would be expedient to reduce population numbers.

I already addressed why we can't legalize murder. Do you want to be murdered? You've said you're afraid of dying, so I can safely assume the answer is no. Very few people want to be murdered, in fact. Therefore, it follows that by the norm of reciprocity we should not allow murder.

Murder is definitely not a solution to overpopulation. Decreasing the population is not a solution to overpopulation. The real target to decrease overpopulation is the rate of population growth, which naturally slows and reaches equilibrium in fully industrialized societies with easy access to effective method of birth control. More importantly, that doesn't involve murdering anyone, thereby making it a superior solution to global mass murder.

The growth of the human population was not a problem for thousands of years, either. We wouldn't be a very successful organism if we had to take special and drastic action to maintain our own population. The human population will not naturally collapse without some horrific catastrophe killing lots of us at one time.

This is fascinating, please tell me in detail about your moral framework and the scientific/rational reasons behind each part of it. You can use pm if you feel that it is outside the scope of this thread but I think it could be argued that it is relevant.

You would have to give me an example to react to.

Again a semantic argument. I thought it was clear what I meant but I am often guilty of ambiguity in text so I apologies for it.Let me try again:
Purpose. This is the big one, people feel the need for a purpose.

Some people feel the need for purpose. I do not. We have no true purpose, and that is alright.

No, one is self delusion the other is pretending. I play computer games, are you implying that when I play eve online I am deluding myself that I am actually flying space ships? Sure synthesising faith is a little stronger than your every day pretending, but it is only different in magnitude. It is called the willing suspension of disbelief sometimes. Also with regard to searching for actual answers: A) I was talking about things that are unknowable and unverifiable, I consider it a waste of time to search for actual answers to these. B) Even if I were proposing inventing beliefs about things that may one day be definitively answered (I guess I was, it is theoretically possible that one day we may understand neurology well enough to answer some of these issues), there is no part of believing something that necessarily precludes me from learning more about it. I read about the neurochemistry of death for example, the breakdown of bodily functions, I am fascinated by medicine. If a new study came out that quantified in perfect detail the entire subjective experience of dying I would avidly read it and incorporate it into my beliefs. Maybe you are unable to accept new information once you have formed a belief, and are projecting. My beliefs change on an hourly basis. They have to I get bored with them after a while.

If you're just pretending, then you don't really believe any of it, now do you?

This is a hard one to tackle. I maintain that everyone is in fact afraid of death. Well the vast majority. Coming to terms with the scientific explanation of death does no change that for most people.

That most people are determined to remain in denial until they actually die does not change that some of us do not.

You can test if you are afraid of death, just put yourself in a dangerous situation and see if you feel fear. Bungee jumping is one way to do this without any actual risk. If you feel fear, that is usually the fear of death.

In bungee jumping you are leaping off of a structure. Adrenal rush would override any legitimate emotional state.

The fact that people are afraid of death is some evidence though, as there is no scientific or rational reason for this fear. Death is inevitable and therefore to fear it, especially if it is really only a nullification of consciousness, is not rational. I think it is widely accepted that people are afraid of death. If you can cite evidence to the contrary I would love to see it.

The reason is that they become obsessed with living and fear what will happen when that state comes to an end. It is not healthy, but healthy mental attitudes are a minority amongst people.

[kaijyuu]

That might work for you, but I can't make stuff up and pretend it's real because it makes me feel good.

As we're talking about stuff we have no knowledge of and thus every conclusion is equally baseless, would you prefer to come to an arbitrary conclusion due to it making you feel bad? Or you just going by gut feeling? Or do you come to no conclusion at all, and wipe the question away as pointless?

Some people base their belief on wishful thinking, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. You don't bet on the horse you want to lose. That doesn't mean it's anything other than wishful thinking though, of course.

As for solipsism, the question of whether or not reality is a perfect illusion is about as valuable as the question of whether or not there's an invisible, intangible leprechaun on my shoulder.  If it looks like an apple, feels like an apple, tastes like an apple, and has the same nutritional content as an apple, it's an apple.  There's no meaningful difference between an apple and an illusion that functions identically to an apple.

Agreed, but note that this requires a rather existentialist position. There is a meaningful difference between an imaginary and real apple to one who believes in objective value.

It's even more important when throwing morality into the mix; there is an EXTREME difference between an imaginary person and a real one, and it would take a 100% selfish consequentialist value system to argue otherwise (or a virtue ethics one, I suppose, which would fit nicely with all those "life is a test" religious theories if one assumes their reality isn't shared with others).

Speaking of unfalsifiable, since every religion is unfalsifiable and therefore all of the gods / spirits / etc may exist, we should convert to every religion at once!

I tried that once, it was a lot of fun but not really sustainable and very confusing

I like you.

[Graknorke]

Well, I don't kneow about others, but I would hope that the horse I bet on would win, not the other way around. Or I would bet on the horese that was most likely to win. But it would otherwise just be a horse I picked because of some whimsical thing because I never make very substancial bets and so it's mostly just a thing I do for the Grand National for a laugh. Even then,  I DO want the horse I bet on to win, because wanting it to lose would be silly. Of course, I EXPECT it to lose, because I'm bad at picking horses. I had no idea on which would win or even be any better t winning, I just pick a horse and then hope it will win.

Also, I would say that a perfectly simulated virtual person would be as valuable as a real one. Assuming they thought like a human being, including emotional states, instinctive responses like fear and reflexes along with a perfetly represented system of sensory inputs like a human's, then why would it be any les valubable than an actual human?
Unless you mean just a person imagined by another person, but then there are some mental conditions where somebody can have two distinct people as part of them, with different opinions, beiliefs etc. Are you saying that one of them should be written off as less valuable and imaginary and so be subdued with drug treatment or something?

(Any typoes are ebecause of the delayed reactions on this tabet keyboard. It's like a regular keyboard but slots into the bottom. Thing is it has soeme delay between pressing the keys and e tablet recognising it, so some keystrokes get missed. Mostly a problem with backsapaces. So sorry about that.)

[kaijyuu]

Well, I don't kneow about others, but I would hope that the horse I bet on would win, not the other way around. Or I would bet on the horese that was most likely to win. But it would otherwise just be a horse I picked because of some whimsical thing because I never make very substancial bets and so it's mostly just a thing I do for the Grand National for a laugh. Even then,  I DO want the horse I bet on to win, because wanting it to lose would be silly. Of course, I EXPECT it to lose, because I'm bad at picking horses. I had no idea on which would win or even be any better t winning, I just pick a horse and then hope it will win.

I'm willing to bet a lot of people think like you, even if they don't realize it

Also, I would say that a perfectly simulated virtual person would be as valuable as a real one. Assuming they thought like a human being, including emotional states, instinctive responses like fear and reflexes along with a perfetly represented system of sensory inputs like a human's, then why would it be any les valubable than an actual human?
Unless you mean just a person imagined by another person, but then there are some mental conditions where somebody can have two distinct people as part of them, with different opinions, beiliefs etc. Are you saying that one of them should be written off as less valuable and imaginary and so be subdued with drug treatment or something?

Ehh, now we're getting into the morality of AI and stuff like that. I see where you're coming from and don't necessarily disagree, but this is something that's still in my "maybe" pile. I'll take a contrarian position anyway for the sake of argument, though.

Two ways around it:
1) Dualism. If you believe what makes us "people" to be a soul or something like that, then the illusionary person (or AI, or whatever) is not, in fact, a person, because they lack that intrinsic supernatural element.
2) If you don't go with dualism, an illusion might still not have all the necessary parts for personhood. An NPC in a video game can emulate a person, but is not self aware, thus "doesn't count" (assuming self-awareness is one of your criteria for personhood, anyway). So the illusion could emulate a person, but lack some of the criteria necessary, and still fool you. (EDIT: Man, I sound like the villain in some sci fi novel.)

[Siquo]

If you're just pretending, then you don't really believe any of it, now do you?

That's not how it works. You can choose to believe. Even worse: if you did not choose to believe, you believe blindly, and just retrofit arguments to fit your belief. And, to take your exam-example: I could believe I passed, and start partying, or believe I don't know, and fret about it. Given those two options, I chose the first.

[kaijyuu]

Personally, I'd hope I passed, but still prepare for both possibilities, then go partying because I don't have to worry about it until I get the results back.

Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we fail our exams!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If you're just pretending, then you don't really believe any of it, now do you?

That's not how it works. You can choose to believe. Even worse: if you did not choose to believe, you believe blindly, and just retrofit arguments to fit your belief.

I choose to believe your entire argument is invalid, then. This discussion is now over, I win.

Anyway, you've got it totally backwards. If you've chosen to believe something is true, then you will be the one retrofitting arguments and what evidence you accept to fit. Take creationists, for example. They start with the solution, the belief, that being that God created the Universe in six days 6000 years ago, and try to find anything that they can twist into fitting that idea while ignoring all evidence to the contrary.
Not choosing to believe, but instead starting with evidence and believing the most likely outcome of that evidence regardless of your personal feelings on it, that is the way to avoid blind belief in things.

And, to take your exam-example: I could believe I passed, and start partying, or believe I don't know, and fret about it. Given those two options, I chose the first.

...Not my example?

That's not a matter of belief anyway. You don't know if you passed or not until you see the results. That is simple factual information.

[Siquo]

Not choosing to believe, but instead starting with evidence and believing the most likely outcome of that evidence regardless of your personal feelings on it, that is the way to avoid blind belief in things.

Oh wait, one step back. Statement/Definition time: Everyone believes in Something. Even if it is the scientific method, predictable results through experimentation, occams razor, or that you don't know anything for sure, is a belief. (This is not me accusing you personally here: ) Calling ones belief "the only realistic option", or "facts" and failing to see how other people could believe anything else, and calling them delusional if they do, is "blindly believing".

...Not my example?

That's not a matter of belief anyway. You don't know if you passed or not until you see the results. That is simple factual information.

Sorry, misread quotes. Walls of textquotes made me dizzy, I guess.
True, you don't know it, so it is a belief, isn't it? Either I shall not pass, or I will. As it was an analogy for life/death and what happens after it, the belief in the end result will influence the way we experience the "now"; will we worry about the exams? Will we choose not to worry and let it be? Will we just assume we passed and party? Will we assume we passed, and group X did not, so we can already be condescending to them? Will we assume that we failed, but may eventually pass if we adhere to a strict number of rules compiled by someone a long time ago? Etc.
And, to get back to DefinitionTime above: Even the "I won't assume anything until it happens" is a form of belief.

[LordExumius]

Belief=/=faith.

[Siquo]

Belief=/=faith.

Indeed, and faith is just another belief.

[LordExumius]

Belief=/=faith.

Indeed, and faith is just another belief.

Faith is belief without evidence.

[Drunken]

I am starting to agree that a quotation wall of text is a bad idea soI will stop that.
Looking at the horse racing analogy, I am reminded of a study I saw where they tested people who consider themselves especially lucky or unlucky. One test was a newspaper made especially for the study, subjects were asked to ascertain how many images were in the newspaper. A few pages in there was a full page ad which stated in large block letters 'there are 275 images in this newspaper'. Somewhere near the middle there was another ful page ad which stated 'show this to the researcher and he will give you $50'. Most subjects got the number of images right, the 'lucky' people almost all got the answer very quickly and the 'unlucky' people took a long time to get it. No one claimed the $50. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about this, one group of people simply had better observational skills. So statistically someone who bets on a horse they want to win and feels confident that it will win is more likely to win than someone who bets on a horse and assumes it wont win because they suck at betting. The 'lucky' person is more likely to have noticed subtle things about the horse or about it's competitors on a subjective level. While the causation might go the other way, ie. believing in nice comforting beliefs against your nature might not necessarily make you have more success or happiness, those that naturally believe in nice friendly superstitions like 'I am just a lucky person' tend to be happier and more successful.

With regard to what happens during and after death, it seems the scientific athiest types have ignored their own science on this one. When I mentioned avidly reading medical texts on the subect I actually was. 'It is just nothingness, oblivion, cessation of consciousness' is wrong. Maybe after all brain activity ceases and the brain starts to decay but no one has experienced that and reported back so we don't know. What we do know is that after your heart stops and your body shuts down brain activity can continue for several minutes. We also know that the neural chemistry changes to states which are never present in a living organism. One of the chemicals which shows up in the brain during death is dimethyltryptamine. This is a highly psychoactive psychedelic alkaloid which is associated with intense religious experiences and extreme time dilation. Many scientist believe this drug is responsible for the reported feelings of religious ecstasy and enlightenment often felt by people who have a near death experience. In order to better understand the mind and brain I have experimented with such drugs and although I have not been able to summon the courage to do a fully fledged DMT trip, I have tried some of the synthetic analogues. One thing I learned is that the state of mind, surroundings and expectations you have going into the trip have a huge effect on your subsequent experience during it. Evidence seems to suggest that when you die, in those last minutes of brain activity, you will experience a massive dmt trip which although short, may subjectively seem like hours or even years. If you go into this believing you are going to experience some kind of spiritual enlightment and approach it with serenity and joy it is likely to be one of the most beautiful and sublime experiences of your life. If you go into it with a strong and rigid belief that only facts and science contain truth and that all spirituality is bunk, you run a slight risk of having a bad trip that overwhelms you and induces fear and panic. So it is in the interests of having a good time when I die and based on scientific evidence that I can affect what my experience of death is like that I choose to believe it is going to be awesome and mystical.

Metalslime you choose to believe that I am wrong and that you have won the argument, and for you this is true. Let me be the first to congratulate you on your resounding victory. You say that faith is an illegitimate concept but human beings are subjective. No human being ever had an objective thought or experience. I am not saying your beliefs are wrong. I am merely saying you chose them just as I chose mine. If you like yours, then you should keep them. I like mine, but I also like to experiment so I will continue to change them. I think a dynamic belief system based on circumstance and whim is the most entertaining and satisfying. But that is just me.

You brought up creationism as an example. I mentioned in my first post here that many people have a corrupted view of spirituality because of the curruption of christianity and other organised religion, and you have demonstrated this. Even using the word creationist shows a significant corruption in your world view caused by the insane bible thumpers. One could believe that god created the first singularity and started the big bang, this is creationism and also just fine and not contrary to any evidence. The people you are talking about are evolution deniers. This is not the same as what I am doing at all. Denial of evolution is an absurd failure to understand very simple evidence and processes that occur every day around us. I am not doing that, I restrict my spiritual beliefs to things that there is no evidence about, and where possible, things that are unknowable and unverifiable. If you cannot see the difference between me and a fundamnetalist christian denying evolution then I don't think there is anything more we can say to each other.

A moral system that works on a case by case basis and can't be spoken about without an example is not a system as it is not systematic, it is a pragmatic and worthwhile approach for an individual but is not practical for a society in which the system has to be codified in laws before each case arises. I am curious about one specific example though which you could answer for me: A person has a system of spiritual beliefs that you consider to be wrong, these beliefs only affect the person holding them however and do not hurt anyone. Is this immoral or is it morally acceptable. Please give your rational quantification for your conclusions.