7 ms·

Is there life after death? John Cleese discusses with panel of scientists

38 points by miles 5y ago

throwmemoney 5y ago
cblconfederate 5y ago
Only if you preserve or scan your brain
- andy_ppp 5y ago
  You’re just a set of weights and biases right?
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    you would need gene expression and epigenomics too. And still be an approximation, but probably good enough
  - tasty_freeze 5y ago
    I don't see a sarcasm tag, so I'll assume you are being straight. No, things are far more complex than that. Perhaps, knowing the connectivity of all the connections and the "weights" of excitation and inhibition one could model the short term behavior of the brain it came from. But brains aren't static -- they learn and grow and remodel; they have all kinds of feedback loops (eg metabolic and hormonal); their response to conditions is undoubtedly far more complex than "fire if the sum of the weighted inputs is above a certain threshold".
    - blovescoffee 5y ago
      I’m not sure your rebuttal is sufficient. Weights and biases in the form of a neural network aren’t static either. Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithms exhibit learning and growing. Besides who says complexity is necessary or that ANNs are not complex enough?
      - tasty_freeze 5y ago
        The idea being discussed is that a person could live on if the connectivity and weights of the neurons in their brain was captured. "You’re just a set of weights and biases right?" I pointed out that a brain is dynamic; it depends on the biology of that person, and there are many other control loop mechanisms which are not captured by a network of weights. We aren't "just a set of weights and biases". As practiced today, neural networks are trained, and then the trained network is statically deployed in recognition tasks or whatever. They aren't continuously evolving. Yes, one can come up with algorithms that retrain and reshape a network continuously, but (and here is the key point) it is very likely to quickly diverge from the changes that the original, organic brain would have made.
- kozikow 5y ago
  The "materialism" consciousness theory is primarily what they are arguing against and people in this video gathered lots of solid scientific evidence against it. If not "brain is a biological computer" then what? We don't know yet, but some things in the right direction are Donald Hoffman's model, Penrose and Hammerhof quantum processing in the brain, Kastrup analytic idealism, maybe it's some form of radio? Authors of this conference through some theories in "beyond physicalism" book.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    Those are tangents that someone might want to ponder about but i wouldn't want neuroscientists wasting their time looking for mythical quantum qualia. The biggest question is why people object to a materialist theory of the mind
    - yetihehe 5y ago
      And the biggest "hmm" is why/for what reason do we have a specific neuronal circuit/capability to tell us that some god/presence is near us[0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
      - cblconfederate 5y ago
        our brain is the sole source of our thoughts, and most of our thoughts are baseless conjecture.
      - rpastuszak 5y ago
        Do we? The theory you mention is widely disputed, plus even the article you shared mentions issues with reproducibility, blinding etc…
        yetihehe 5y ago
        That's why I said "capability". Yes, "god helmet" device may not be really working, but participants were reporting having a feeling (false reading, but a reading nonetheless). I compare it to a broken voltage detector which sometimes show a reading of voltage. That reading suggests there may exist a voltage. Yeah, counterargument could just be a signal of "beware, there is something out there going to kill you" being mistranslated as "there is god out there", but still, "god presence detector" seems to at least exist.
- simon_000666 5y ago
  What about the neurons in your heart and gut? The brain isn’t the only place your body has processing capacity.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    Those are the peripherals. (i.e. keyboard, usb dongle)
    - oogetyboogety 5y ago
      A motherboard or SOC's design has a lot to do with the peripherals it's intended to connect with. Interrupts directly influence control logic, for example.
jrue 5y ago
Physicist Sean Carroll’s take, based empirical understanding, and what would be necessary for some essence of a person’s conscious to remain after death. https://youtu.be/jUIjDncKZbM https://youtu.be/jUIjDncKZbM
- jiocrag 5y ago
  This is really bad. Inscrutable and arrogant for the layman, basic and non-explanatory for the well versed. What exactly is being “explained” here? Atomic energy post mortem? If that’s the attempt, it’s a fail.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    It's an elaboration of the fact that brain meat is not magic, and can't be magic, and everything we understand about the laws of physics leaves no room for future discoveries allowing for magic. The statement that there is no afterlife is equivalent to the statement that the sun is not made of spaghetti. There's no possible math, context, perspective, or arrangement of facts that would allow the sun to be made of spaghetti. Your consciousness resides in your neocortex, the thin sheet of neurons on the surface of your brain. We know this because when injury or illness disrupts or damages its operation, your consciousness goes away. It's maintained if there's injury or illness anywhere else. There's no room for disembodied mystery. There's no room in the laws of physics for information transfer such that the pattern of physical connections and electrochemical activity in your brain to be communicated intact when you die. Everything we know about the universe leaves no mechanism for your mind to continue after biological death. We will eventually scan brains, and at some point we might be able to extend our minds into machines and maintain our consciousness after the biological parts die. We don't know enough about the nuanced particulars of neuroscience but the challenges are a matter of resolution, scale, signal strength, and not damaging a living system. There's no mystery to the phenomena of consciousness allowed by laws of physics. Multiverse or simulation theory leaves room for some different level of reality where the substrate of your mind resides. Those are interesting abstractions, but there's no evidence or theory to suggest either of those contexts are valid. It's not arrogant to assert that the moon isn't made of cheese or the sun is not made of pasta, or that there is no life after death. It seems to me that insisting on those things in the face of evidence would be arrogant, as you would be claiming that you know better than everything that can be proven, all of those things for which we have evidence and explanation.
viach 5y ago
Short summary of the 80 min discussion: - Is there life after death? - It depends.
solididiot 5y ago
Is there before?
__m 5y ago
Is my broken computer still working in some fantasy world, detached from its hardware?
- yetihehe 5y ago
  For some nice science-fiction on that topic, read Permutation City by Greg Egan.
pvaldes 5y ago
The title looks like a Monty python sketch I'm in the mood to providing and alternative title Is there life after death? A comic actor discuses with Bruce Greyson, Jim B. Tucker, Edward Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly and Kim Penberthy.
forinti 5y ago
Is there ever death? If one creature ceases to function, its carbon is quickly recycled into other creatures.
aryehof 5y ago
Does it really matter? Perhaps the real challenge is instead leading a full, good and giving life.
RappingBoomer 5y ago
we don't have to die if we acknowledge that we are just information and that information once thought lost can be recovered much later due to more powerful technology. The problem is the information in the brain must be preserved until such more powerful technology comes on the scene. Hence, cryonics and chemopreservation of brains. Furthermore, one can argue that the holy bible shows that early christians understood these principles (see here: https://betterresurrectionchurch.wordpress.com/ https://betterresurrectionchurch.wordpress.com/ )
- idiocrat 5y ago
  Am I worth preserving, except my ego?
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  Scanning and archiving could be a better solution. Also, i d prefer to virtually restart my life at 30, not at 88
fargle 5y ago
John Cleese's previous take on the subject: https://youtu.be/YoBTsMJ4jNk https://youtu.be/YoBTsMJ4jNk
akvadrako 5y ago
So most of what these panelists say can't be easily confirmed. But the last one told a story about when he was at Duke's Rhine research center; there was a guy who could guess remarkably well which cards people drew from a deck or which random lights were shown behind a screen. Who is this guy and why didnt they get more evidence of these psi abilities? I assume there isn't any video or well known third party skeptics who conducted controlled experiments. I looked at Rhine's website but couldn't find anything.

38 points by miles 5y ago

throwmemoney 5y ago

cblconfederate 5y ago

Only if you preserve or scan your brain

andy_ppp 5y ago
You’re just a set of weights and biases right?
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  you would need gene expression and epigenomics too. And still be an approximation, but probably good enough
- tasty_freeze 5y ago
  I don't see a sarcasm tag, so I'll assume you are being straight. No, things are far more complex than that. Perhaps, knowing the connectivity of all the connections and the "weights" of excitation and inhibition one could model the short term behavior of the brain it came from. But brains aren't static -- they learn and grow and remodel; they have all kinds of feedback loops (eg metabolic and hormonal); their response to conditions is undoubtedly far more complex than "fire if the sum of the weighted inputs is above a certain threshold".
  - blovescoffee 5y ago
    I’m not sure your rebuttal is sufficient. Weights and biases in the form of a neural network aren’t static either. Deep Reinforcement Learning algorithms exhibit learning and growing. Besides who says complexity is necessary or that ANNs are not complex enough?
    - tasty_freeze 5y ago
      The idea being discussed is that a person could live on if the connectivity and weights of the neurons in their brain was captured. "You’re just a set of weights and biases right?" I pointed out that a brain is dynamic; it depends on the biology of that person, and there are many other control loop mechanisms which are not captured by a network of weights. We aren't "just a set of weights and biases". As practiced today, neural networks are trained, and then the trained network is statically deployed in recognition tasks or whatever. They aren't continuously evolving. Yes, one can come up with algorithms that retrain and reshape a network continuously, but (and here is the key point) it is very likely to quickly diverge from the changes that the original, organic brain would have made.
kozikow 5y ago
The "materialism" consciousness theory is primarily what they are arguing against and people in this video gathered lots of solid scientific evidence against it. If not "brain is a biological computer" then what? We don't know yet, but some things in the right direction are Donald Hoffman's model, Penrose and Hammerhof quantum processing in the brain, Kastrup analytic idealism, maybe it's some form of radio? Authors of this conference through some theories in "beyond physicalism" book.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  Those are tangents that someone might want to ponder about but i wouldn't want neuroscientists wasting their time looking for mythical quantum qualia. The biggest question is why people object to a materialist theory of the mind
  - yetihehe 5y ago
    And the biggest "hmm" is why/for what reason do we have a specific neuronal circuit/capability to tell us that some god/presence is near us[0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      our brain is the sole source of our thoughts, and most of our thoughts are baseless conjecture.
    - rpastuszak 5y ago
      Do we? The theory you mention is widely disputed, plus even the article you shared mentions issues with reproducibility, blinding etc…
      - yetihehe 5y ago
        That's why I said "capability". Yes, "god helmet" device may not be really working, but participants were reporting having a feeling (false reading, but a reading nonetheless). I compare it to a broken voltage detector which sometimes show a reading of voltage. That reading suggests there may exist a voltage. Yeah, counterargument could just be a signal of "beware, there is something out there going to kill you" being mistranslated as "there is god out there", but still, "god presence detector" seems to at least exist.
simon_000666 5y ago
What about the neurons in your heart and gut? The brain isn’t the only place your body has processing capacity.
- hulitu 5y ago
  Those are the peripherals. (i.e. keyboard, usb dongle)
  - oogetyboogety 5y ago
    A motherboard or SOC's design has a lot to do with the peripherals it's intended to connect with. Interrupts directly influence control logic, for example.

jrue 5y ago

Physicist Sean Carroll’s take, based empirical understanding, and what would be necessary for some essence of a person’s conscious to remain after death. https://youtu.be/jUIjDncKZbM https://youtu.be/jUIjDncKZbM

jiocrag 5y ago
This is really bad. Inscrutable and arrogant for the layman, basic and non-explanatory for the well versed. What exactly is being “explained” here? Atomic energy post mortem? If that’s the attempt, it’s a fail.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  It's an elaboration of the fact that brain meat is not magic, and can't be magic, and everything we understand about the laws of physics leaves no room for future discoveries allowing for magic. The statement that there is no afterlife is equivalent to the statement that the sun is not made of spaghetti. There's no possible math, context, perspective, or arrangement of facts that would allow the sun to be made of spaghetti. Your consciousness resides in your neocortex, the thin sheet of neurons on the surface of your brain. We know this because when injury or illness disrupts or damages its operation, your consciousness goes away. It's maintained if there's injury or illness anywhere else. There's no room for disembodied mystery. There's no room in the laws of physics for information transfer such that the pattern of physical connections and electrochemical activity in your brain to be communicated intact when you die. Everything we know about the universe leaves no mechanism for your mind to continue after biological death. We will eventually scan brains, and at some point we might be able to extend our minds into machines and maintain our consciousness after the biological parts die. We don't know enough about the nuanced particulars of neuroscience but the challenges are a matter of resolution, scale, signal strength, and not damaging a living system. There's no mystery to the phenomena of consciousness allowed by laws of physics. Multiverse or simulation theory leaves room for some different level of reality where the substrate of your mind resides. Those are interesting abstractions, but there's no evidence or theory to suggest either of those contexts are valid. It's not arrogant to assert that the moon isn't made of cheese or the sun is not made of pasta, or that there is no life after death. It seems to me that insisting on those things in the face of evidence would be arrogant, as you would be claiming that you know better than everything that can be proven, all of those things for which we have evidence and explanation.

viach 5y ago

Short summary of the 80 min discussion: - Is there life after death? - It depends.

solididiot 5y ago

Is there before?

__m 5y ago

Is my broken computer still working in some fantasy world, detached from its hardware?

yetihehe 5y ago
For some nice science-fiction on that topic, read Permutation City by Greg Egan.

pvaldes 5y ago

The title looks like a Monty python sketch I'm in the mood to providing and alternative title Is there life after death? A comic actor discuses with Bruce Greyson, Jim B. Tucker, Edward Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly and Kim Penberthy.

forinti 5y ago

Is there ever death? If one creature ceases to function, its carbon is quickly recycled into other creatures.

aryehof 5y ago

Does it really matter? Perhaps the real challenge is instead leading a full, good and giving life.

RappingBoomer 5y ago

we don't have to die if we acknowledge that we are just information and that information once thought lost can be recovered much later due to more powerful technology. The problem is the information in the brain must be preserved until such more powerful technology comes on the scene. Hence, cryonics and chemopreservation of brains. Furthermore, one can argue that the holy bible shows that early christians understood these principles (see here: https://betterresurrectionchurch.wordpress.com/ https://betterresurrectionchurch.wordpress.com/ )

idiocrat 5y ago
Am I worth preserving, except my ego?
cblconfederate 5y ago
Scanning and archiving could be a better solution. Also, i d prefer to virtually restart my life at 30, not at 88

fargle 5y ago

John Cleese's previous take on the subject: https://youtu.be/YoBTsMJ4jNk https://youtu.be/YoBTsMJ4jNk

akvadrako 5y ago

So most of what these panelists say can't be easily confirmed. But the last one told a story about when he was at Duke's Rhine research center; there was a guy who could guess remarkably well which cards people drew from a deck or which random lights were shown behind a screen. Who is this guy and why didnt they get more evidence of these psi abilities? I assume there isn't any video or well known third party skeptics who conducted controlled experiments. I looked at Rhine's website but couldn't find anything.