harvey1 wrote:HughDP wrote:Okay, so neurones reinforce one another to create a personality imprint which is conceptualised with this attractor model rather than a purely mechanistic one. Let's say I accept that. I still don't see how that has anything to do with what happens to that personality after death. As I see it, the attractor model just describes how a certain self-organisation might occur within our brain, but surely once the brain dies that self-organisation stops. I am missing the relevance to any continuation after death.
Again, I can only give you my speculative view on this...
The notion behind all of this is that once the identity relation between us and our soul exists, then God has a complete structure by which to keep or discard. If the soul structure pleases God, then God can put that soul into superposition of heavenly experiences (for example). God cannot do this prior since prior to living the soul has no reference. The reference is what confirms that something
is the case. So, for example, if I said that "John is sleeping," this proposition doesn't mean anything unless there is a person named John who is indeed sleeping. Likewise, if there is a soul proposition that exists without a reference, there's no meaning in that proposition. There's no way to judge that proposition for its truth value. So, in order for God to act, God must wait until the universe has instantiated all the souls that God intends to be instantiated in this universe. After all the identitities are complete, then God can judge the entire universe for its truth worthiness.
Okay, thanks for your interesting theory.
I'll give you my own speculative view.
We have evolved this complex organ called a brain that enables us to be self-aware, to conceptualise etc. The idea of personality is invented by our brain in order to categorise and classify various traits of ourselves and other people. Our own personailty becomes part of our sense of self, and this is a powerful illusion that we're not keen to let go of. Hence the idea of an afterlife is something else we create so that we can imagine the self going on past our bodily life.
Unfortunately, personality really is just an illusion - a collection of neurones and chemical reactions in our brain (maybe even working on the attractor basin model) - and when the body dies, the brain dies too and that sense of self/personailty disappears.
At first look this appears a bit disconcerting because our sense of self is extremely strong, but once we truly recognise it as an illusion created by our brains rather than any real seperate thing, it becomes less disconcerting and we can begin to see death for what it is. No self dies because no self existed in the first place.
Because all that's now left is our body, we can come full circle and say that there is, in fact, a continuation. Our body's constituents don't disappear when we die, they just rearrange.
I think science backs up that proposition so, in answer to the original question: yes, science can tell us what happens after we die. The only fuss there has ever been about the question is because we've started off on the wrong foot with certain premises about personality, identity and self.
Hugh wrote:I think we need to consider exemplification as a cause for particular physical phenomena because we see so much of it. For example, there's many mathematical structures that exhibit themselves in the natural world, so it would seem to suggest that physical implementation of these structures holds an enormous advantage to the system that takes on those structures.
Sorry, I just can't see that. I cannot see the 'advantage' (to what?). I think we're in danger of getting to a point of esoteria where we could justify anything. I still think it's easier to just die.
You don't see mathematical structures in nature? The sunflower has the fibonacci sequence, do you think it's a coincidence?
Yes, I see mathematical structures in nature. I don't find this surprising because we use mathematics to describe nature.
