When logic doesn't matter

[sparhawk]

Considering that you thin less about it, you seem to talk about this quite a lot. If this is already less then before, then I wonder if you had any time for other stuff to think abuot.

[OrbWeaver]

If I'm wrong, I die without fearing that I'll just become nothing. If I'm right, w00t. That's it. That's my reason. I've never claimed any substantial proof that it's true - that's why it's a belief.

 

What happens if you are right, and there is an afterlife, but it isn't one you want? Perhaps you go to hell because you didn't believe in the right god, for instance.

[Domarius]

Considering that you thin less about it, you seem to talk about this quite a lot. If this is already less then before, then I wonder if you had any time for other stuff to think abuot.

Saw that one coming, and so I already prepared a response;

Let me remind you that the reason for this discussion is that people don't agree with the validity of my choice to believe in an afterlife, which is about letting your mind wander where there is no logical reason not to.

 

I notice you didn't answer my question Can I assume you're afraid about that then?

 

What happens if you are right, and there is an afterlife, but it isn't one you want? Perhaps you go to hell because you didn't believe in the right god, for instance.

Well that wouldn't make me happy would it? So I don't believe it.

 

The point here is that no one knows what happens (if anything) so we're perfectly free to wonder about what does.

 

The moment you start telling other people what to think, is crossing the line. That's too much like religion.

 

Read that previous sentance carefully, it's worth it. It's also the main reason I started the thread.

[oDDity]

No, you're making too much of assumption that anything does happen after death in the first place. You have NO reason to believe anything except that you become a lump of rotting flesh.

We are no different from any other mammals, we have exactly the same skeletal system ,the same muscles, the same brain operation and the same internal organs. The only difference is that our brains can do more complex calculations than theirs (calculations which lead us to come up with all sorts of wild fantasies about our own importance, and refuse to let us believe we're mortal)

That's it. We're just lumps of bones and flesh like cows and pigs, and when we die, we cease to function, and your consciousness does not continue to exist independently of your body.

Only by using the reasoning powers of a 3 year old, and blind hope, can you think otherwise.

Perhaps one day this will change. I'm sure that with technology they'll able to keep their brain functions alive artificially one day, but for us, there's nothing.

[sparhawk]

I notice you didn't answer my question Can I assume you're afraid about that then?

 

Obviously you edited your post, because that question was not there when I answered tot he original posting.

 

Anyway, there is nothing that I can do about it. If I die, my family has to accept it. Neither I nor my family can change this, so what do you expect? Even if your believe were true, it wouldn't change that, so there is not really any power in such an assumption as it changes exactly zero.

 

Well that wouldn't make me happy would it? So I don't believe it.

 

That doesn't work well. Believing in something is not always under your control. So you can not simply change your believe on something just because you like it better the other way.

[oDDity]

What I want to know is, whether he really, REALLY believes in an afterlife, or whether he's just trying to force himself to believe it, because he thinks it makes for a happier life if you think you don't really die.

I don't have any kids, I have no reason to think anything other than I will cease to exist forever, probably at some point in the next 50 years, and I have no problem at all with it.

Therefore, I think you have to have some sort of mental weakness if you have to cling on to a vague, blind hope of an afterlife to make yourself happy.

That's why I think god belief, and afterlife belief in general, is an inferior position, based entirely on mental weakness, and anyone who believes it is inferior to myself.

[sparhawk]

What I want to know is, whether he really, REALLY believes in an afterlife, or whether he's just trying to force himself to believe it, because he thinks it makes for a happier life if you think you don't really die.

 

That's about the same what I said in my last sentence in the previous post. His postings have a lot of selfconvincing quality in them. If he would really believe it, then I think it wouldn't come up in every other posting from him.

 

I don't have any kids, I have no reason to think anything other than I will cease to exist forever, probably at some point in the next 50 years, and I have no problem at all with it.

 

Don't know if you have brothers or sisters, in which case you are also kind of living on.

[Domarius]

Obviously you edited your post, because that question was not there when I answered tot he original posting.

Oops, sorry about that.

 

Anyway, there is nothing that I can do about it. If I die, my family has to accept it. Neither I nor my family can change this, so what do you expect? Even if your believe were true, it wouldn't change that, so there is not really any power in such an assumption as it changes exactly zero.

Good. I was just seeing what you thought.

 

That doesn't work well. Believing in something is not always under your control. So you can not simply change your believe on something just because you like it better the other way.

Actually I can.

 

 

What I want to know is, whether he really, REALLY believes in an afterlife, or whether he's just trying to force himself to believe it, because he thinks it makes for a happier life if you think you don't really die.

No, just the absence of the fear of becoming nothing. And there's no forcing. Belief is a choice.

 

I have no reason to think anything other than I will cease to exist forever, probably at some point in the next 50 years, and I have no problem at all with it.

Good for you.

Therefore, I think you have to have some sort of mental weakness if you have to cling on to a vague, blind hope of an afterlife to make yourself happy.

What weakness, exactly? I think you should tell me, after all, this is the other reason I started this thread - to challenge my belief that there's nothing wrong with thinking this.

 

 

If he would really believe it, then I think it wouldn't come up in every other posting from him.

You're no fun to discuss with, because you forget things and come around in circles. I already said - this is the only thread I brought up, the freedom to let your mind wander about what can't be determined by logic with your current faculties. The other two times, I was challenged by oDDity, so yeah I justifed the way I think, just like you're doing now. If you come back to this point again, I'm just not replying to you anymore.

[sparhawk]

Actually I can.

 

You think so? You seem to have a missconception about believing. What you believe is not always your choice, because a lot of it is imprinted on you through your environment. Of course you can change these believes as well, but that takes a lot of time and convincing yourself. It's not as easy as you make it here, that you can simply believe somethign different just because you don't like the implications of our current believe. and depending on the circumstances it may even be impossible to be changed at all.

 

You're no fun to discuss with, because you forget things and come around in circles. I already said - this is the only thread I brought up, the freedom to let your mind wander about what can't be determined by logic with your current faculties.

 

My impression is that you are coming quite often with such issues, which indicates to me that you have a problem with your current believe and want to either proove or disproove it.

 

The other two times, I was challenged by oDDity, so yeah I justifed the way I think, just like you're doing now.

 

And what about all the other times? I remember more than just two occurences.

 

If you come back to this point again, I'm just not replying to you anymore.

 

[Domarius]

You think so? You seem to have a missconception about believing. What you believe is not always your choice, because a lot of it is imprinted on you through your environment. Of course you can change these believes as well, but that takes a lot of time and convincing yourself. It's not as easy as you make it here, that you can simply believe somethign different just because you don't like the implications of our current believe. and depending on the circumstances it may even be impossible to be changed at all.

Right. Well, in spite of your apparent qualifications as a psychologist, I can believe what I want.

 

My impression is that you are coming quite often with such issues, which indicates to me that you have a problem with your current believe and want to either proove or disproove it.

And what about all the other times? I remember more than just two occurences.

Well until you show me some links, you're making "all the other times" up in your head.

[oDDity]

There's no point bringing it up, and then going off in a huff when you get beat.

You know everyone here is a strict atheistic logician and despises anyone with inferior beliefs, I don't know what response you expected.

That's your tendency towards blind hope surfacing again, if you'd used logic, you'd have known it would turn out like this.

[Domarius]

Erm... what? Huff? Beat? What turn out? Are we reading the same thread?? WTH are you referring to?

 

I'm still waiting for you to tell me what this "mental weakness" is!

 

Okay recap;

You say "everyone who believes in the afterlife has a mental weakness" and I'm still waiting to hear what this mental weakness is.

Spar claims he knows how the human mind works, ergo, my mind as well, and I go - yeah right.

 

Where did this get resolved?

[oDDity]

Mental weakness = fantasy crutch required to stave off the the idea of ceasing to exist at some point in the near future.

Your brain can't handle it,. so you invent something - anything - that means it isn't so.

That's the behaviour of a mental, if anything is.

[Domarius]

What I want you to do, is explain to me exactly where this weakness (as you put it) affects everyday life.

[oDDity]

It means you have a naive and gullible personality. Once you accept one wild fantasy with no evidence, then you're automatically open to anything.

It also makes you narcissistic, since you obviously have an inflated opinion of your own importance if you believe yourself to have immortality.

Also, contrary to popular belief, it makes you more likely to be less caring about others and the physical world - what does it matter, when this is all just a brief, temporary sham anyway, real eternal bliss doesn't begin until after we leave these stupid fleshy suits.

In fact, why don't you just kill yourself now, if you believe your afterlife to be so great. What are you doing pissing around down here.

I have a sneaking admiration for those cults that do actually truly believe in their convictions and kill themselves with suicide pacts, while you just talk the talk.

They're dead, out of my way, and good luck to them, I hope they got their perfect afterlife.

People like you, on the other hand, are just an annoyance.

[Domarius]

And now we've come full circle

Man, and here I was thinking you were going to come up with something convincing for once.

 

 

I have already responded to each of those points, more than a few times,

• No it does not automatically make me open to anything. Why would I believe there is an invisble man watching what I do and if I perform arbitrary acts, he will favour me? Come on. In a way, I have more will power than you, because I hold a belief like this and yet still am impervious to all that religious nonsense.
  
• No, it does not make me less caring because the next life will be blissfull - you're assuming again I'm following a religion. What I think is that whatever is after this is so completely different that this is still the only chance I have to do things with what I've got right now, so I cherish this life as much as any athiest. To provide a counter argument - why don't you kill yourself now, if you care about dying so little?
  

Though one point I haven't addressed previously (and I'm surprised you came up with something so ignorant); no I'm not narcissistic. How would I have an inflated opinon of myself if I believe EVERYONE has an afterlife? We're all the same.

 

Now that we're re-doing the same arguments, I'm pretty convinced about my position - and I'll be honest with you - I was willing to change it. But there's no good reason given yet, (after all that oDDity has said about it in the 2 previous threads) why I can't keep thinking the way I do, so, I'm happy to leave it here and never bring it up. Unless anyone has something else to add of course.

[sparhawk]

Right. Well, in spite of your apparent qualifications as a psychologist, I can believe what I want.

 

Claiming that you can always believe what you want is in the same vain like that esoteric crap who claims that you can achieve anythign you want, you just have to work hard enough for it.

 

If you believe hard enough in getting the winning numbers in lottery, it doesn't going to make it happen. Now matter how hard you believe in it doesn't change the facts. Contrary, if you know that the odds in lottery are against you, you can't just simply say "Ok, I no longer believe in the odds being against me, I start to believe otherwise because it makes me more comfortable."

 

Well until you show me some links, you're making "all the other times" up in your head.

 

I certainly wont dig up the links for you, but I remember at least one thread that you started with the supposed ghost images being photographed, then you started this atheist versus scientist discussion only a short time ago, and now you started this one. So we already have three threads, that I remember right now, with a topic going in the same direction, which is more then "just this one" plus the other two where you claimed to be beaten into it by Oddity.

 

I mean, I have no problem with such topics. When I was younger I engaged a lot of discussions in sci.sceptics because I also tried to believe in fantasy and started to look for proof on it.

[sparhawk]

In a way, I have more will power than you, because I hold a belief like this and yet still am impervious to all that religious nonsense.

 

LOL That's the same fallacious that you also see on sci.skeptics quite a lot, and other related newsgroups. You can also see this on sci.physics a lot. Guy is laughed down because he claims that Special Relativity is wrong without a decent proof and the response is "Galleileo was alos not believed but he cam out the victor." as if this would make you a Gallileo beliving in stupid things and stubbornly ignoring all the facts to the contrary.

 

To provide a counter argument - why don't you kill yourself now, if you care about dying so little?

 

Just because atheists don't believe in afterlife, doesn't mean they don't care about dying.

 

no I'm not narcissistic. How would I have an inflated opinon of myself if I believe EVERYONE has an afterlife? We're all the same.

 

That doesn't matter for this argument. Of course your opinion is inflated because of that, because you can't really accept reality, so you make up the argument that there is something more in store for you.

 

I'm pretty convinced about my position - and I'll be honest with you - I was willing to change it.

 

I seriously doubt it. You don't really accept reality, and all your thread showed was that you are just ignoring what is said to you on the basis that it already has been seed in other threads as well.

 

But there's no good reason given yet, (after all that oDDity has said about it in the 2 previous threads) why I can't keep thinking the way I do, so, I'm happy to leave it here and never bring it up. Unless anyone has something else to add of course.

 

Of course there is no good reason given. All the reasonable arguments have already been given logn agao, and you ignored it. Since we didn't change these arguments, which you choose to ignore, why would there be any different outcome? In fact the same pattern was repeated in that article you lionked to with the atheist vs. scientist. Despite the initial claim of evaluating the evidence, the theists soon degraded in his arguments to silly things that have already been said a thousand times.

[Domarius]

*sigh*

If you believe hard enough in getting the winning numbers in lottery, it doesn't going to make it happen. Now matter how hard you believe in it doesn't change the facts.

Irellevant. We can see for a fact who wins the lottery and who doesn't. Nothing of the sort can be said about the afterlife.

 

I certainly wont dig up the links for you, but I remember at least one thread that you started with the supposed ghost images being photographed, then you started this atheist versus scientist discussion only a short time ago, and now you started this one. So we already have three threads, that I remember right now, with a topic going in the same direction, which is more then "just this one" plus the other two where you claimed to be beaten into it by Oddity.

Thankyou, the ghost one was the one I couldn't remember. That's the 3.

This one, which is the only one I started myself, the Athiest vs Religious debate which was a link to an article, which oDDity took it upon himself to dig up what we talked about in the ghost thread and challenge me, and the ghost thread itself where it started about ghosts and the afterlife.

 

I mean, I have no problem with such topics. When I was younger I engaged a lot of discussions in sci.sceptics because I also tried to believe in fantasy and started to look for proof on it.

I'm not proving it! It's a belief!

 

 

LOL That's the same fallacious that you also see on sci.skeptics quite a lot, and other related newsgroups. You can also see this on sci.physics a lot. Guy is laughed down because he claims that Special Relativity is wrong without a decent proof and the response is "Galleileo was alos not believed but he cam out the victor." as if this would make you a Gallileo beliving in stupid things and stubbornly ignoring all the facts to the contrary.

Facts? We know what happens to our bodies when we die. We don't know if anything happens after that.

 

Of course your opinion is inflated because of that, because you can't really accept reality, so you make up the argument that there is something more in store for you.

No, I have the belief that it happens to everyone, so no, again, my opinion about myself is not inflated above anyone else just for that.

 

I seriously doubt it. You don't really accept reality, and all your thread showed was that you are just ignoring what is said to you on the basis that it already has been seed in other threads as well.

Of course there is no good reason given. All the reasonable arguments have already been given logn agao, and you ignored it.

Actually I'm painstakingly addressing each point one by one, how is that ignoring?

 

So many words to say so little...

 

 

 

Until we can create a human being from raw materials, and have exact control over what the personality will be like, etc. etc. just like we can with computers, then we don't yet understand everything about our own bodies, let alone the entire universe, of which we are a very very very very very tiny part of. There is room there for mental wandering.

 

BTW I saw this pic on a page I was browsing just now, right after I posted my prevoius post there about being satisfied with my position;

Coincidence?? You be the judge!! Maybe it was "meant" to happen

 

I'm going to bed now. See you all in the morning.

[oDDity]

To provide a counter argument - why don't you kill yourself now, if you care about dying so little?

I didn't say that. I don't want to die, I'd happily go on living forever, or until I got sick of it, but I'm willing to accept the fact that there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not going to invent a fantasy and convince myself it's true just to massage my unhappiness about it. I accept it and get on with it.

That's why I'm strong and you're weak, you're cowardly, and I'm brave.

 

Now that we're re-doing the same arguments, I'm pretty convinced about my position - and I'll be honest with you - I was willing to change it. But there's no good reason given yet, (after all that oDDity has said about it in the 2 previous threads) why I can't keep thinking the way I do, so, I'm happy to leave it here and never bring it up. Unless anyone has something else to add of course.

You're just blindly ignoring every argument though.

I pointed out that we're exactly the same as other mammals, the only difference being an increase in our brain power. So, do you believe that pigs have an afterlife equivalent to yours, or is it only humans that get one - that's what I meant by narcissistic, from a species point of view rather than a personal one.

And if all mammals get an afterlife, then what's so special about our genus? Presumably birds, reptiles, fish amphibians all ge one as well. What about bacteria? What about flowers then? What about those lentils that you hippies eat, do they have an afterlife?

Where does your theory begin and end?

[Springheel]

Occam's razor again. No explanations greater than what is necessary to fit events, please.

 

Occam's razor is a useful way of thinking, but it can definitely be overused, since the definition of "greater than what is necessary" almost always boils down to, "whatever [the speaker] finds easiest to accept."

[sparhawk]

Irellevant. We can see for a fact who wins the lottery and who doesn't. Nothing of the sort can be said about the afterlife.

 

You are looking in the wrong direction. Of course I know it afterwards. Just as you will know it after you are dead. But there is no process oging in the reverse direction. Just as I can't make any assumptions of the lottery information AFTER it happened, we also can not make any assumptions about an afterlife, because, if at all, we only know it AFTERWARDS.

 

There is zero predicitve power about it. Actually it's pretty simialr to lottery, because even though we know for a fact that SOME people will win eventually, you can not make any predictions beforehand as to who this will be.

 

I'm not proving it! It's a belief!

 

You are trying to proove it to yourself. You call it a belief as a precaution, but from your statements, it's quite obvious that it is more thant that for you. You know that you would be taken even less seriously, if you called it any more than a belief, because with a belief you can always pull back to the claim that it's all personal anyway, which is exactly what you are doing.

 

We don't know if anything happens after that.

 

You also don't know if rocks think. There is zero evidence to give even the lightest indication that rocks have feelings and thought processes, but hey! That doesn't stop me from advertising for my campaign "Save the rocks!" After all they are humans just like you and me! In fact I'm pretty sure that rocks have rather complicated thought processes, and can even recognize themselve in a mirror.

 

No, I have the belief that it happens to everyone, so no, again, my opinion about myself is not inflated above anyone else just for that.

 

Oddity already addressed that. It's not about the particular you.

 

Actually I'm painstakingly addressing each point one by one, how is that ignoring?

 

Just because you repeat the same belief again and again, doesn't mean that you address them. YOu are ignoring them just the same, and no amount of writing back changes that.

 

Until we can create a human being from raw materials, and have exact control over what the personality will be like, etc. etc. just like we can with computers, then we don't yet understand everything about our own bodies, let alone the entire universe, of which we are a very very very very very tiny part of. There is room there for mental wandering.

 

That's a nice fallacy to withdraw to, because you know that this will never happen. Even if we could build a fellow human like that, we still wouldn't be able to determine it's thought processes, because it would eb the same as any other human.

[sparhawk]

Occam's razor is a useful way of thinking, but it can definitely be overused, since the definition of "greater than what is necessary" almost always boils down to, "whatever [the speaker] finds easiest to accept."

 

Nope. That's quite an oversimplification of Occam's razor. What it really is about is that you shouldn't use more variables then absolty needed. If you use more variables, the extra parameters have no influence on the final result, so they can be removed. So it's not about "easily accepted" it is about "Does the extra assumption change the final result?"

[Maximius]

Until we can create a human being from raw materials, and have exact control over what the personality will be like, etc. etc. just like we can with computers, then we don't yet understand everything about our own bodies, let alone the entire universe, of which we are a very very very very very tiny part of. There is room there for mental wandering.

 

Ok but mental wandering and choosing to arbitrarily believe those wanderings are two very different things. Im all for mental wandering, for fantasizing, thinking crazy thoughts, letting the imagination run wild. I think such things are absolutely necessary for better rational thinking in fact, at the very least by imagining the impossible we can conceive of new ways of understanding and doing the possible.

 

But you cannot make those ideas a part of your >belief< set without applying some sort of a method to them, some sort of process of filtration to weed out what is sheer fantasy from what are actually our perceptions of reality, whatever that may be. The best process is the scientific method, or its more everyday form evidence based reasoning. You have to have some form of evidence to defend your beliefs, and you have to have a process by which to rate your evidence before you apply it. Not all evidence is necessarily scientific fact, and this leads to different degrees of truth, maybe better a shifting spectrum of truth, but still its a set of things much, much smaller and infinitely more refined than the set of things we can arbitrarily choose to believe about the universe.

 

So what evidence do you have to support your claims? I personally have seen nothing in terms of an afterlife. Theres lots of evidence pointing to the reasons people want and need to believe in such things but the list of evidence for there actually being something is zip, zero, from what I have heard.

 

Now could there be other planes of existence, other dimensions with perhaps life of some kind? I cannot say but it does not seem utterly impossible, one philosopher, David Lewis, believed that all possible modes of a universes existence in fact exist simultaneously. He had his evidence but as far as I can understand it from the show I listened to was that it was mostly a philosophical exercise based on analytical logic and not an empirical study of the world. So it has its value, as a fascinating mental construct of what seems could be but not what actually seems is in existence. This is an example of the variety of truth as I see it, logical truths used as models around which to cast the clay of empirical observation to harden into what we can call truth, with reservations. BTW this show was on that Philosophy Zone show you linked, from a few weeks back.

[Springheel]

Nope. That's quite an oversimplification of Occam's razor.

 

While I'm not quite sure what you mean by 'variables', I was talking about how the phrase is generally used in conversation rather than the strict definition. People generally use 'Occam's razor' to avoid having to modify the beliefs they already have.

 

For example, if a paeleontologist finds dinosaur-sized bones, Occams' razor suggests that the bones belong to a dinosaur, and not a dragon. No problem there.

 

Suppose the same paeleontologist says there is evidence that the skeleteon had four legs and wings? The possible explanations include 1.) He is mistaken, 2) He is lying 3) He is telling the truth. Since #3 would require most people to change their beliefs about biology, then it requires less effort to accept #1 or #2. That, in my opinion is an incorrect way to use Occam's razor.

 

The most honestly scientific thing to do is wait until other specialists have a chance to examine the evidence and post their findings, and see whether they confirm the original paelontologist's report. But people rarely have that kind of patience or interest. They make a quick decision about #1 or #2 (a decision likely supported by most forms of media) and they discredit anyone who accepts option #3 as gullible, weak-minded, or a "true believer". Then they move on to something else, assuming that if the situation changes they'll hear about it on the news.

 

That's probably not a terrific example, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at.