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There is absolutely zero scientific, empirical basis for the materialist presupposition that nothing happens after we die. So why does seemingly every commenter

by kessog 2y ago

There is absolutely zero scientific, empirical basis for the materialist presupposition that nothing happens after we die. So why does seemingly every commenter here assume this to be the case? With the limitations of the scientific method, we can never discover what happens to a human consciousness after death. A human consciousness is undetectable in the brain, it isn't some loose arbitrarily defined amalgamation of chemicals and electrical signals. We will never develop technology sufficient to look into a human brain and see the neuronal pathways or materia that make up Logic, or Reason, or Ethics, or an individual's Sense of Self, and all the concepts that make up a human mind, because these things are immaterial, universal, and exist transcendent of the material human brain or the scientific method. So why are so many here running on the assumption that what happens after death is that consciousness (which can't be observed anyway) either disappears, or somehow ends up in a worse state than the here and now? This is a baseless assumption. Perhaps instead of chasing after the arbitrary religion of materialist Scientism, Hacker News readers should study a little philosophy and question their presuppositions.

qsdf38100 2y ago
Well we know that the physical brain is the support of mental abilities, because brain damage causes loss of abilities. It’s very reasonable to assume that you can’t be conscious without your brain.
nhinck3 2y ago
Basic extrapolation of known facts?
- qsdf38100 2y ago
  Edit: was answering to the wrong comment, sorry.
keiferski 2y ago
I mentioned this in my reply to another comment,[1] but for reference, this attitude is called Positivism and unfortunately is a common assumption nowadays. Another useful concept is the immanent frame, which is an idea by the philosopher Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age. The basic idea is that society is increasingly becoming focused on this world (immanent) and losing interest in things outside the "frame", like the afterlife. And so the default assumption becomes something like, "There is no afterlife and only this life matters," even if there is really no scientific or philosophical justification for that belief. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188210 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism 3. https://ubcgcu.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/taylor-and-immanent-frame.pdf https://ubcgcu.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/taylor-and-imm...
- kessog 2y ago
  Thanks for this. If the modern materialist skeptic did the basest level of research into their own position, perhaps by starting with the likes of David Hume, they would soon realise that their position, and most of their presuppositions, had already been proven impossible several centuries ago (or several millennia ago for some of these presuppositions if we look at Aristotle). The lack of even the most basic philosophical training in even the modern university educated population is frankly appalling.
EncomLab 2y ago
Sorry - it is precisely a "a loose arbitrarily defined amalgamation of chemicals and electrical signals" - in the same way that data in a computer is just a bunch of voltages and currents. If I load the notes to a song into RAM, those notes are just millions of voltages held by capacitors, and if I shut off the power those voltages break down into heat and the information is diffused into the surrounding air like ink washed off a page into a bathtub. Similarly, a living brain which also holds those same notes experiences a transfer of information to the surrounding environment when it dies. There is no "woo" here - and to imply that there is woo is purely religious, not philosophical.
- kessog 2y ago
  A computer is not loose, nor is it arbitrarily defined. A computer is extremely precisely and specifically defined, and is fully deterministic. A single bit in the wrong place can destroy an entire system. A human mind is non-deterministic and the analogy of mind and machine is deeply flawed.
  - EncomLab 2y ago
    It is deeply flawed - all analogies are to some extent or another - the point still correlates with observable facts. Both systems require energy to function, removal of energy causes both systems to stop producing observable functions, and there is nothing observable that would indicate either system transfers it's functions into another state where those functions continue.
dghf 2y ago
> There is absolutely zero scientific, empirical basis for the materialist presupposition that nothing happens after we die. Isn't it more the point that there is a lack of evidence for supposing that something does happen after we die? Put another way: there is absolutely zero scientific, empirical basis for the materialist presupposition that rocks are not conscious -- other than that rocks give no sign of being conscious, and lack the neurological features that seem, as far as we can tell, to be necessary to support consciousness. Dead people also give no sign of consciousness and also lack those features, at least after a sufficient period of decay. So if those reasons are insufficient, scientifically speaking, to justify an assumption that post-mortem consciousness does not exist, they are presumably insufficient to justify an assumption that rocks do not possess consciousness.
- kessog 2y ago
  If there is, in your view, a lack of evidence for either position, then why should you default to the less simple position? The simplest position to take would be that there is no change in state and consciousness continues to exist. The less simple position in this case would be to add an additional assumption that the state of consciousness changes - in that it goes from existing, to ceasing to exist.
  - dghf 2y ago
    Sorry, why is stasis a simpler position than change? Change happens all the time. Phenomena end. If a match burns out, the simpler assumption is that the flame has gone, not that it persists in some imperceptible fashion. Likewise, if a human body shows no sign of consciousness, and the brain -- which at the very least seems to be heavily implicated in the phenomenon of consciousness -- is showing no activity, it seems reasonable to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that consciousness is absent: even more so if the brain is decayed or destroyed.
    - kessog 2y ago
      How do you know that change happens all the time? Are you observing all things and all modes of being? We don't go looking for evidence for all things in the same way. When we ask, "is the match still lit?" we can answer that question by observing the match. But that is nothing like the way we go about answering questions about the reality of natural laws, numbers, the room you are in, past events, future possibilities, laws of logic, individual identity over time, causation, memories, dreams, or even love or beauty. with each of these, we don't always attempt to use empirical, visible evidence to prove their existence. Only very specific questions about the physical universe can be answered with the scientific method. By limiting the question of consciousness purely to the observed, physical world, you're making the evidence criteria arbitrarily and impossibly narrow, in a way that you wouldn't for many other types of question. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - this is a fallacy.
Xen9 2y ago
Bayesian socio-evolutionary psychology: Apes have tons of delusions. Thus it becomes likely we are also delusional about death. On the other hand, unobservable worlds in quantum mechanics increase probability of unobservable afterlife.
elihu 2y ago
Well, it's sort of the simplest explanation to think that when we die, our consciousness ceases to exist. This or any other hypothesis are un-testable -- at least, they can't be tested without dying, which is sort of a problem. And speculating about things you can't disprove experimentally feels kind of like a disreputable activity to those of us who really like the scientific method. Personally I believe (but can't prove) that there's more to consciousness than just electrical signals in my brain, but at the same time I'm aware that my physical brain is the organ I do my thinking with, and if it's not in a good state then thinking is a lot harder. Thus it's hard to imagine my consciousness existing separately from my brain. If I didn't have access to the usual apparatus I use to do my thinking with, then what's left? Perhaps on some level the situation is like a 2-dimensional being not being able to comprehend what it would be like to live in three dimensions.
- kessog 2y ago
  Is it the simplest explanation? Already by suggesting consciousness ceases to exist we're suggesting a change in state, and a simpler explanation would be that there is no change in state - consciousness, more simply, continues to exist. For your second point, there is a way to prove that consciousness exists - by proving the impossibility of the contrary. If consciousness does not exist in a non-physical space, the very possibility of knowledge at all becomes impossible to reckon with. We could not have any interaction with metaphysical ideas like logic, reason, mathematics and so on. Logic is not present in the material world, yet it is universally applicable to all objects. Mathematical prototypes (eg. The number 7) cannot be found in the particles that make up the physical universe, yet they are found in all objects and are present and graspable in all minds. If the mind was purely matter, these fundamental building blocks for knowledge itself would be inaccessible. For your 3rd point - I think you are correct. We have no way of knowing exactly what an after life might look like.
  - dghf 2y ago
    > If consciousness does not exist in a non-physical space, the very possibility of knowledge at all becomes impossible to reckon with. We could not have any interaction with metaphysical ideas like logic, reason, mathematics and so on. Why not?
tempfile 2y ago
If consciousness (whatever it is) takes energy to be generated, there is no mechanism we can conceive of that would account for that energy. Obviously it could be some exotic sensation that has nothing to do with the physical world, but if it is then we have no idea how to expect it to behave (because nothing else we know of is like that).

by kessog 2y ago

qsdf38100 2y ago

Well we know that the physical brain is the support of mental abilities, because brain damage causes loss of abilities. It’s very reasonable to assume that you can’t be conscious without your brain.

nhinck3 2y ago

Basic extrapolation of known facts?

qsdf38100 2y ago
Edit: was answering to the wrong comment, sorry.

keiferski 2y ago

I mentioned this in my reply to another comment,[1] but for reference, this attitude is called Positivism and unfortunately is a common assumption nowadays. Another useful concept is the immanent frame, which is an idea by the philosopher Charles Taylor in his book A Secular Age. The basic idea is that society is increasingly becoming focused on this world (immanent) and losing interest in things outside the "frame", like the afterlife. And so the default assumption becomes something like, "There is no afterlife and only this life matters," even if there is really no scientific or philosophical justification for that belief. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188210 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41188210 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism 3. https://ubcgcu.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/taylor-and-immanent-frame.pdf https://ubcgcu.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/taylor-and-imm...

kessog 2y ago
Thanks for this. If the modern materialist skeptic did the basest level of research into their own position, perhaps by starting with the likes of David Hume, they would soon realise that their position, and most of their presuppositions, had already been proven impossible several centuries ago (or several millennia ago for some of these presuppositions if we look at Aristotle). The lack of even the most basic philosophical training in even the modern university educated population is frankly appalling.

EncomLab 2y ago

Sorry - it is precisely a "a loose arbitrarily defined amalgamation of chemicals and electrical signals" - in the same way that data in a computer is just a bunch of voltages and currents. If I load the notes to a song into RAM, those notes are just millions of voltages held by capacitors, and if I shut off the power those voltages break down into heat and the information is diffused into the surrounding air like ink washed off a page into a bathtub. Similarly, a living brain which also holds those same notes experiences a transfer of information to the surrounding environment when it dies. There is no "woo" here - and to imply that there is woo is purely religious, not philosophical.

kessog 2y ago
A computer is not loose, nor is it arbitrarily defined. A computer is extremely precisely and specifically defined, and is fully deterministic. A single bit in the wrong place can destroy an entire system. A human mind is non-deterministic and the analogy of mind and machine is deeply flawed.
- EncomLab 2y ago
  It is deeply flawed - all analogies are to some extent or another - the point still correlates with observable facts. Both systems require energy to function, removal of energy causes both systems to stop producing observable functions, and there is nothing observable that would indicate either system transfers it's functions into another state where those functions continue.

dghf 2y ago

> There is absolutely zero scientific, empirical basis for the materialist presupposition that nothing happens after we die. Isn't it more the point that there is a lack of evidence for supposing that something does happen after we die? Put another way: there is absolutely zero scientific, empirical basis for the materialist presupposition that rocks are not conscious -- other than that rocks give no sign of being conscious, and lack the neurological features that seem, as far as we can tell, to be necessary to support consciousness. Dead people also give no sign of consciousness and also lack those features, at least after a sufficient period of decay. So if those reasons are insufficient, scientifically speaking, to justify an assumption that post-mortem consciousness does not exist, they are presumably insufficient to justify an assumption that rocks do not possess consciousness.

kessog 2y ago
If there is, in your view, a lack of evidence for either position, then why should you default to the less simple position? The simplest position to take would be that there is no change in state and consciousness continues to exist. The less simple position in this case would be to add an additional assumption that the state of consciousness changes - in that it goes from existing, to ceasing to exist.
- dghf 2y ago
  Sorry, why is stasis a simpler position than change? Change happens all the time. Phenomena end. If a match burns out, the simpler assumption is that the flame has gone, not that it persists in some imperceptible fashion. Likewise, if a human body shows no sign of consciousness, and the brain -- which at the very least seems to be heavily implicated in the phenomenon of consciousness -- is showing no activity, it seems reasonable to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that consciousness is absent: even more so if the brain is decayed or destroyed.
  - kessog 2y ago
    How do you know that change happens all the time? Are you observing all things and all modes of being? We don't go looking for evidence for all things in the same way. When we ask, "is the match still lit?" we can answer that question by observing the match. But that is nothing like the way we go about answering questions about the reality of natural laws, numbers, the room you are in, past events, future possibilities, laws of logic, individual identity over time, causation, memories, dreams, or even love or beauty. with each of these, we don't always attempt to use empirical, visible evidence to prove their existence. Only very specific questions about the physical universe can be answered with the scientific method. By limiting the question of consciousness purely to the observed, physical world, you're making the evidence criteria arbitrarily and impossibly narrow, in a way that you wouldn't for many other types of question. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - this is a fallacy.

Xen9 2y ago

Bayesian socio-evolutionary psychology: Apes have tons of delusions. Thus it becomes likely we are also delusional about death. On the other hand, unobservable worlds in quantum mechanics increase probability of unobservable afterlife.

elihu 2y ago

Well, it's sort of the simplest explanation to think that when we die, our consciousness ceases to exist. This or any other hypothesis are un-testable -- at least, they can't be tested without dying, which is sort of a problem. And speculating about things you can't disprove experimentally feels kind of like a disreputable activity to those of us who really like the scientific method. Personally I believe (but can't prove) that there's more to consciousness than just electrical signals in my brain, but at the same time I'm aware that my physical brain is the organ I do my thinking with, and if it's not in a good state then thinking is a lot harder. Thus it's hard to imagine my consciousness existing separately from my brain. If I didn't have access to the usual apparatus I use to do my thinking with, then what's left? Perhaps on some level the situation is like a 2-dimensional being not being able to comprehend what it would be like to live in three dimensions.

kessog 2y ago
Is it the simplest explanation? Already by suggesting consciousness ceases to exist we're suggesting a change in state, and a simpler explanation would be that there is no change in state - consciousness, more simply, continues to exist. For your second point, there is a way to prove that consciousness exists - by proving the impossibility of the contrary. If consciousness does not exist in a non-physical space, the very possibility of knowledge at all becomes impossible to reckon with. We could not have any interaction with metaphysical ideas like logic, reason, mathematics and so on. Logic is not present in the material world, yet it is universally applicable to all objects. Mathematical prototypes (eg. The number 7) cannot be found in the particles that make up the physical universe, yet they are found in all objects and are present and graspable in all minds. If the mind was purely matter, these fundamental building blocks for knowledge itself would be inaccessible. For your 3rd point - I think you are correct. We have no way of knowing exactly what an after life might look like.
- dghf 2y ago
  > If consciousness does not exist in a non-physical space, the very possibility of knowledge at all becomes impossible to reckon with. We could not have any interaction with metaphysical ideas like logic, reason, mathematics and so on. Why not?

tempfile 2y ago

If consciousness (whatever it is) takes energy to be generated, there is no mechanism we can conceive of that would account for that energy. Obviously it could be some exotic sensation that has nothing to do with the physical world, but if it is then we have no idea how to expect it to behave (because nothing else we know of is like that).