Eternal Life (thanks, but no thanks)

Sorry for the intrusion and I did not know where to put this information. I tried under Announcements but couldnt get it to work.Anywho there is a day debate on evolution and the God of the Bible, Thursday, hosted by Apologetics Press between Kyle Butt and Dan Barker. I called them and they said they were not sure whether there would be a live feed from the internet, they were hoping there would be. They told me call back on Wed afternoon and they would probably know. I will post it it there is. At any rate it will be on the website and dvd afterwards.Here is the website above for details and sorry again for the interuption in your thread.D Bertot

Second hand car dealer: I have a great car for you. $1000!
Mod: What kind of car?
Second hand car dealer: A great one!
Mod: Why would I even want to buy a car from you, if I don't know what kind of car it is?
Second hand car dealer: Hey, if you are going to trust me to sell the car to you you have to also trust that when I tell you how great it is. You can't trust me and not trust me, that is a contradiction!
Mod: What the heck kind of logician are you?
Second hand car dealer: Look - if I convince you that the car is great will you buy it?
Mod: Maybe. I'm certainly happy to admit that the car that you are offering is great, if I think it is.
Second hand car dealer: If you give me $1,000 that means you must trust me to give you the car, right?
Mod: Yeah.
Second hand car dealer: So since you are going to have to trust that I'll hand the car keys over when you hand me the $1,000 you should also trust me that the car I'm selling you is as great as I say it is. If you don't you are the one with poor logic skills.
Mod: I can see why you guys have a reputation for fast-talking salesmanship. I knew a guy called iano who tried a similar stunt on me once.
Second hand car dealer: So you don't trust me? Fine, I'll take the $1,000 anyway and give you a crappy car with nails sticking out of the seat and I'll tie you down on to them.
Mod: What the...!?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Well now you stumped me. I truly see no way around having something more than just consciousness. Death in the temporal sense is physically observable and the results of such death or visible. The body, or temporal host, will rot in the ground, if anything survives it could only be consciousness. Well maybe it only makes sense to me, but, with the removal of the temporal body/host also goes the sensory system that the conscious mind used to gather info. Keeping that in mind, unless we are given another "similar" body/host, functionally the conscious mind will not work in any way similar to our temporal existance.Of course we can adjust our concepts to include a body/host but then I will refer back to my previous point which... But, speculation aside, if the afterlife does not take place in a physical material world how could you find it "possible for the afterlife to behave in such a way as to be very similar to how we experience things in our temporal bodies."...? If you are looking for evidence other than deductive logic, I have none.
You are right, I will not be able to show that this is necessary the case. But then again, I have no way of showing you that an afterlife is necessarily the case either. I think that the burden of "theoretical proof"(for lack of a better term) would fall on you to provide reason for this alternative to be similary in anyway to an experience like the one we have in our temporal lives.- Oni

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

I'm under the impression that no one knows what the afterlife is like. That is equivalent, to me, as the afterlife being "anything" (including nothing/oblivion).I agree with you that our current temporal host will be rotting in the ground. Are you prepared to say that you know, absolutely, that it's impossible for there to be an afterlife such that we get a new "temporal host" that functions exactly like the old one, but anyone who is alive now cannot detect them in any way?It's the afterlife, everything is speculative guess-work and anything goes. I prefer not to make any claims on how the afterlife will or will not work, since we have absolutely no data on such things. I only make suggestions on possibilities, that's all. Again, I agree with you. But what is it about our "known knowledge of the afterlife" (that is... nothing) that is telling you that your above "if" statement is true? What is preventing it from simply being false? We have no data on the afterlife, we cannot know anything about it. Perhaps it is simply an alternate, parallel universe with slightly less restrictions. That way we could have an exact copy of our current temporal hosts, we wouldn't be able to communicate or detect this universe in any way, and my proposed-afterlife-possibility would be quite possible. Perhaps not. It's the afterlife, no one knows.I agree we can say something like "well, our current bodies rot in the ground, so we cannot possibly have those." But why is it impossible that we get duplicate-bodies (in functionality, not necessarily in exact make-up) that are simply undetectable by any "living" being? Exactly. Me neither. True, and neither can I. You are only right if I was attempting to say that my alternative "is the afterlife." But that's not what I'm saying. I'm simply saying that IF my alternative was the afterlife, then it would be able to bypass Mod's dilemma.It's quite possible (and quite likely?) that my alternative is not the actual afterlife (if one even exists). But, really, my alternative has just as much support behind it as anyone elses (including yours). That is... it has no support at all.

Well I would not say I know anything for sure, I highly doubt there is any afterlife at all, but anything is possible. However, if we start with the premise that there IS an afterlife, and IF as you claim there could be another "host" that functions like the old one we had, then there is no "after" life, since this would simply be the same "life" in another "host". Kinda suggestive of reincarnation.Not that this senario isn't possible either, but then we are not keeping with what was proposed to me by Mod in message 67, This then takes us to the point that "life" itself is eternal and we are just experiencing it in the temporal sense now and it never truly ends. If this is the case then we will experience all we experience now, before we were born into the temporal life, and forever. Since I personally do not have any memory of "before" I was born I can only assume I will not have any memory after I die. So there is a clear distinction between what we experience in our temporal life and before/after that temporal "life".But this side-tracked our discussion so I will end it there. If the "if" you are refering to is "if the afterlife does not take place in the physical material world...", you are right, I have no known knowledge but I was under the impression that that was the original understanding of it. Are you suggesting that it can be a physical material world-type afterlife? Ok. Well at this point I think I have lost sight of what is being described as an "afterlife". If it is just going to be another universe, part of a multi-verse, with it's own laws of physics, as material as the one we are in now, with the same functioning "host", then we are not describing anything different from temporal existance. It would simply be "life" just in another place. This was not my concept of what we were speculating on, even though we don't know anything about it, if we are simply going to describe "life" the way we understand it here on Earth, just somewhere else, then I'm totally for that and see no reason not to be since I have enjoyed my experience here. Well yes now that you've been more specific I can see how your description would be enjoyable. But just note that you really draw no distinction between "temporal" life and the "after" life in your senario. Well, I would say that your senario has a lot more support than mine since I am currently experiencing what you're describing in this particular universe. You are describing life in a new host in another universe, my idea was just a surviving consciousness. You're idea we currently experience in this universe, my idea has never been witnessed.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

That was the "if" I was referring to, yes. And yes, I am (sort of) suggesting that it can be a physical material world-type afterlife. In the sense that "can be" should be taken as the afterlife "can be" just about anything (as long as it is undetectable by our current standards). I'm not really proposing any specific afterlife, I'm simply attempting to propose an afterlife that would get around Mod's presented dilemma. In order to get around the dilemma I require your "if" statement to be closer to "false", because "true" leads into "only consciousness" like what you suggested, and I agree that in such an afterlife, we end in boredom... which does not get around Mod's dilemma. I'm not so much trying to say that an afterlife "will be" simlar to this one so much as I'm trying to say that an afterlife "could be" similar to this one. And, IF it is similar enough (in the sense of functionality of our senses-to-consciousness) THEN the alternative I'm presenting could be viable to get around Mod's dilemma.Going the other way... IF the afterlife is not very similar to how we experience life right now... THEN perhaps the dilemma just plain doesn't exist because of the differences with how the afterlife may work. Mod's dilemma itself relys upon the functionality of the afterlife being rather similar to the funtionality of our present life. Change that functionality, and we can't even say if the framework for Mod's dilemma still exists. Or, we may end up in obvious "only consciousness" and therefore the horror of an eternity in boredom. Either way... it's a dead end for attempting to get around the dilemma.What I'm saying is rather superficial and very speculative... I'm just tosssing out ideas, really. I don't even have any personel attachment to these ideas. I'm just proposing them as a possibility for getting around the dilemma, without having to say "well, the afterlife is going to be totally different, so you won't have to worry about such things." (As some of the religious-defenders seem to be implying, I find such to be an unsatisfying "non-answer") Yes, you are right. But, if we draw too much of a distinction between "temporal" life and the "after" life... then Mod's dilemma may very well simply evaporate because we can't really understand how the different "after" life would even function. Or, as you suggest, IF we just have our consciousness, THEN we're going to end up in boredom (given eternity). And, well, that's just a dead-end for trying to think of an idea that gets around the dilemma.My point isn't to provide an idea that's any specific sort of afterlife.
My point is to provide an idea for a possible afterlife that would have the qualifications necessary to get around Mod's dilemma.
-Such a thing may be impossible, but I'd be much more interested in hearing why the alternative I've presented still falls into Mod's dilemma rather than hearing that the alternative I'm presenting simply "isn't likely" or "isn't all that different from our present status." Neither of those are relevent to the point I'm trying to make.
For continuity's sake, here's a link to my post where I talk about "my alternative":
Message 92I'm not proposing that the afterlife "will be" another, alternate universe.I'm proposing an afterlife that gets around Mod's dilemma.
An afterlife that is another alternate universe helps to show that what I'm talking about can be a possibility, but it is not my main point.Since you showed that the afterlife you're presenting ends in horrific boredom (and I agree with you), I find the alternative you presented to be a dead-end for the means of "finding a way around Mod's dilemma", which is my current purpose in this thread.

Bertot writes:UPDATE: This debate mentioned above will be available live on webcast. Starting at 6:00 pm central 12 Feb 09. Simply go to the above website and you will be able to access it.Sorry again for the intrusion.D Bertot

OK, so why do I care about this life? It is a jolly good question. First let me clarify something I said earlier. I mentioned that I am a different person now than when I was a teenager - this was not a true reflection of my position, but a simplification for illustration.

Token mad scientist

To me, the personality is key to personal identity. It alsmost sounds trivially true when it is worded like that, but it is a point of contention so I will underpin it with an example. A mad scientist kidnaps me (philosophy loves a mad scientist thought experiment), and he says to me:- "I will not hurt you and I will not kill you. When I am finished you will walk out of here on the same two legs you were walking on when you were kidnapped. However, I am going to reconfigure your brain. First I will erase all of your memories, beliefs, desires etc. Then I will change the configuration so that I am inserting a dead person's (Let's call them "Mike") memories, beliefs, desires etc."The mad scientist is not tinkering with my soul, he doesn't knock me out so I have experiential continuity (even if I later forget that I had it), I have the same body and the same (albeit radically altered) brain but I have for all intents and purposes, a completely new personality.When I consider that scenario, my feeling is that this is little different from being dead. My personality no longer exists, so the thing that makes me me no longer exist...I have been erased, destroyed, killed...even if the thing that for nearly thirty years was 'my body' is still biologically living.The mad scientist does this, but in an insanely benevelant twist, he goes on to say that he will configure Cynthia's brain (some other poor schmuck he has kidnapped) to have all my memories, beliefs, desires etc. after wiping out her own. So now Mike's personality will be housed what used to be called my brain, and my personality will be housed in what was once called Cynthia's brain.Then, with a malevelont change of heart (he is mad after all) the mad scientist turns truly evil and says that he will then torture one of the bodies in a horrifyingly gruesome fashion - but since he is also sometimes nice, he will give me the choice of which body that will be (remember this is happening before the mad scientist has reconfigured anybody's brains). Chivalry/altruism aside for the moment, it is my feeling that I would want my body to be tortured, since I will be in Cynthia's body and thus when you torture 'my' body you are actually torturing the body that now belongs to Mike.

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Now that is done, let us assume that eternal life is one of eternal change. And let us assume that upon death we gain a perfect memory. The example above doesn't quite cross over. After all - the future 'me' in a million years has all the memories that I do, even if he has different beliefs, desires, values, fears, hopes etc etc. That said, I still don't think preservation of my memories is quite sufficient to warrant that much desire since Futuremod has more memories that are different than me than he has in common with me.What has this got to do with the question Iano asked? I'm getting there (I did say that doing justice to the question would take longer than I had in my earlier reply...).

Mad scientist redux

The Mad scientist kidnaps two people (Cynthia and Mod) and he gives his evil spiel again. He will erase our personalities. He will put my personality in Cynthia's brain. He will then do some heavy duty tinkering. He will put my memories into Mod's brain. Then he will put Cynthia's personality in there, and he will play with things so that from Cynthia's personality's point of view there is a direct and memorable transition from my memories to hers that meshes things together so that her values/beliefs etc all make sense (thought experiments are fun like that - I appreciate the sex change and second childhood pose a practical problem, let's not worry too much about that right now. Hey look over there, something shiny!).The same question is posed, chivalry/altruism aside, who do I want to be tortured?I don't feel I have that much care about the Cynthia-Mod hybrid, my feeling is that I would much rather it was tortured than the full-Mod-personality-in-Cynthia's-brain was.

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If Futuremod has a whole new set of memories, he has the same memories as myself, but different everything else...I simply don't care what happens to Futuremod. I don't even care if Futuremod exists (well, I kind of care a little bit - but only in so far as Futuremod is a repository of my memories and no more). However, Tomorrowmod has almost all the same memories as I do, he has only a very small number of unique memories, and his beliefs, values and so on are almost indistinguishable from Mod. So I do find myself caring about what happens to Tomorrowmod.

This petty pace aka In Conclusion

It is seemingly paradoxical that every Todaymod cares about Tomorrowmod, but Mod doesn't care about Futuremod. So what to make of that? It should be made clear that in the eternal change/eternal life scenario it isn't that I don't want eternal life per se - it's that I simply don't care if I have it. This all assumes that there is infinite unique experience to be had and that boredom won't ever be an issue...I know a few people, myself tangentially included have brought up boredom as a possible problem.From what I can tell, it is possible to live for quite a number of years while retaining the same core personality, though I'm willing to entertain that eighty years of adulthood is enough time to potentially qualify the end person as a Futuremod sufficiently different that Agedtwentymod wouldn't care what happens to him.I appreciate that this answer is still incomplete, and certainly as a result it is imperfect. Hopefully it should illuminate why I don't blow my own brains out (besides, I don't have a gun - in order to get one I'd have to mix with some very shady people (have you any idea how dangerous hanging around with shady people can be? ))Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I think on the same lines.But I also believe that what I believe or disbelieve will not change what is.I could only give answer according to/from my own scriptures, which will probably not satisfy the present Modulous. Please understand my ineptitude in the recent climate, if the recent climate is stable, and I AM not.Personally, I believe your body changes, and to an extent your attitudes, knowledge, etc... but that YOU are essentially that which remains stable.Gud 2 hear from ya.

Honestly I like the fact that here on earth your life could be over at anytime. I look at life like this "Dream like you'll live for ever, Live like you'll die today"(I don't know where I got that quote from). In an existance that is eternal you wouldent have that feeling, you would always know that heaven will be there and you'll be in it. I donno, to me it seems uneventful and boring. If you can't lose something you cannot fully appreciate it, so it can't be truly blissful. And if life in eternity can be taken away, then it is not eternal life to begin with.I don't want anything to do with the war between "Good" and "Evil" and I never have, so why should I get the punishment for taking a side that I didn't want in the first place? Seems very stupid to send the undecided people to the place where the worst of the worst go. But when you are talking about an irrational and illogical God I guess it makes sense in a sadistic kind of way.Well you know what they say "You go to Heaven for the weather, but you go to Hell for the company"

It sounds to me like you are advocating a form of macro-evolution of personality by means of lots of micro-evolution of personality such that the two are indistinguishable even if the end result is not.Evolution to the point where the future you and the current you are incompatible "species" despite every link in the chain being utterly compatible with the ones that surround it.Is that a fair analogy?(Before anyone takes me macro-micro bilogical evolution analogy to heart - Please read the OP!!!!)

if I could wake in spells of twenty years or long enough to get a good understanding of the larger aspects of the world and then sleep for 10,000 years or long enough for geology and evolution to be obvious; mountains eroded and Morlocks breeding Weenas by the truck load. But what is one to do after the Sun goes red giant?

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Genesis 2
17 But of the ponderosa pine, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou shinniest thereof thou shalt sorely learn of thy nakedness.
18 And we all live happily ever after.

Why would God advise against our own understanding if that is what he has given us?If we can't rely on our own understanding then how could we ever come to know the god of the bible?How can we "let go and let god" if that requires our own faulty human understanding (which your god advises against)?

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

But what is "vile and ugly" about myself (I'm sure our mileage varies...) is what makes me human and alive and a free agent (something your god seems to be so concerned about). I can (and do and have) choose to learn and grow from my mistakes and choose to not repeat those which have caused harm to others or myself (of course with the license to repeat them either intentionally or not...ya know free will and all).What license will I have in heaven? Or hell? I will either have to suffer forever for temporal "sins" or have my mind wiped clean so that I can kiss the feet of your god for eternity (aka suffering).What was the point of free will for either of those circumstances?Didn't God have angels who could disobey?At any rate, what makes me value life is that I believe that this is all I have and that I believe that this is all any one else has, so I want to make our shared time on Earth a more enjoyable experience as much as I possibly can. It mostly radiates to my local area (family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc), but I try to make a larger effect whenever I can. I don't care about what might happen after they die. I care about how they live.

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"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -The Iron Heel by Jack London"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea

I'd like to bring up a point that may or may not have been brought up earlier in the thread: assuming an afterlife exists, as well as the assumed prerequisites and consequences (by Mod), would we really want to worship/follow this God person anyway?

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I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
- Stephen RobertsI'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in
- Dan Foutes"In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has widely been considered as a bad move."
- Douglas Adams