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Death After Life vs Death Before Life

suren said:
Yes, most brain neurons live with the person and few if any neurons are produced, but the atoms might still change even in the long lived cells.
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Do you know this from textbooks or scientific research papers, or is that your best guess?
 
There are many ways of being, some trivial, some perplexing.

There is only one way of not-being, and that is very very easy.

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Olmstead's "continuity is an illusion created by memory" is interesting, as is the comparison with a flame.

I would argue that in the actual world that we do observe, there is yet no real and practical way for a person (a mind with a sense of self) to feel continuous with actually being observably continuous: My mind goes to sleep for a few hours at night, then is rekindled and finds itself in a world (a brain, a bed, a house, the surface of a planet) that has changed little enough for memory to latch onto and restore the "same" sense of self as before it fell asleep. And I would say this continuity is real, is not an illusion, it is co-existent (and has in fact co-evolved) with the continuity of the physical arrangement of things in your environment.

These things get loose and shaky and untrustworthy for example when you sink into advanced dementia, and memory fails you more and more. And you don't wake up knowing where you are, and perhaps not even who you are.

*shudders*
 
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Oystein said:
Do you know this from textbooks or scientific research papers, or is that your best guess?
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Mostly an accumulation and comparison of information from popular science and the opinions of people with a biological education.

At least I haven't seen any serous resource stating that brain neuron atoms are not replaced.

I am myself not a biologist but what I write below is is not my idea.

There is virtually no doubt that brain cells cannot divide, but cell replacement and cell atom replacement are different things. The active metabolism of living cells means that many of their molecules are constantly being produced and replaced. Thus, even without replacement of neurons, there is a significant replacement of atoms during the neuron maintenance. For example, proteins break down during time and they need to be replaced. Also the neurons can form connections which also requires a new building material.

Also the idea of production of new neurons in some brain regions is still debatable, some recent paper suggest that adult neurogenesis might be extinct.
 
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MarkCorrigan said:
Yea, it is. Or rather, it's evidence that the null hypothesis should be stuck to.

Someone makes a claim, doesn't matter what the claim is. The Null is the negative of that claim. Moon is made of cheese? Null is moon is not made of cheese. Cars are sentient? Null is cars are not sentient. When you die you're resurrected? When you die you're not resurrected.

The null makes no claims of it's own, it is simply the negative of the specific positive claim being made. It is now up to the claimant of whatever the positive claim is to provide evidence, otherwise the null position is taken as correct.

Ergo, absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence. Why would anyone believe anything there's no evidence for?
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This doesn't especially make sense. If I claim that "The moon is not made of green cheese", does it follow that we should assume the negation of that claim (that the moon is made of green cheese) until I can prove my case?

The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between two datasets/populations/phenomena/whatever. It's really neither here nor there when we're talking about what ought to be believed in light of a claim.
 
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mumblethrax said:
This doesn't especially make sense. If I claim that "The moon is not made of green cheese", does it follow that we should assume the negation of that claim (that the moon is made of green cheese) until I can prove my case?

The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between two datasets/populations/phenomena/whatever. It's really neither here nor there when we're talking about what ought to be believed in light of a claim.
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That's not a positive claim, that's a negative claim.

The null is the negative of a positive claim. If someone makes a positive claim "God is real" the null is that god is not real. If I claim I ate eggs for breakfast, the null is that I didn't eat eggs.

That's what the null is.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
That's not a positive claim, that's a negative claim.
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There's no logical distinction. Any "positive" claim can be rephrased as a "negative" claim.

The null is the negative of a positive claim. If someone makes a positive claim "God is real" the null is that god is not real. If I claim I ate eggs for breakfast, the null is that I didn't eat eggs.
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"There exists a universe in which there is no God." Doesn't seem wise to stick to the negation of this claim.

That's what the null is.
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Honestly, it's not.

All contested claims carry a burden of proof, and the sensible thing is to reserve judgment with respect to unproven claims, rather than playing opposite day with them.
 
mumblethrax said:
There's no logical distinction. Any "positive" claim can be rephrased as a "negative" claim.
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Not really, no. Negative claims are impossible to demonstrate. You can't prove a negative. That's why I said "positive" claim.
mumblethrax said:
"There exists a universe in which there is no God." Doesn't seem wise to stick to the negation of this claim.
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But that is a negative claim, which is impossible to demonstrate logically.

mumblethrax said:
Honestly, it's not.
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Yes, it is.
mumblethrax said:
All contested claims carry a burden of proof, and the sensible thing is to reserve judgment with respect to unproven claims, rather than playing opposite day with them.
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That's not what I'm doing, nor is that what logic dictates that you should do.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
Not really, no. Negative claims are impossible to demonstrate. You can't prove a negative. That's why I said "positive" claim.
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Negative claims are often trivial to demonstrate. And since P = ~(~P) it's a bit silly to imagine that there's anything special about "positive" claims in this respect.

But that is a negative claim, which is impossible to demonstrate logically.
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It's quite literally positing the existence of a universe that contains no God, and negative claims are not impossible to demonstrate.

Yes, it is.
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You could just look it up and save us some time. That's not what "null hypothesis" means.

That's not what I'm doing, nor is that what logic dictates that you should do.
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If you're "sticking with" the negation of a claim absent evidence or argument for that claim, it's exactly what you're doing.
 
mumblethrax said:
Negative claims are often trivial to demonstrate. And since P = ~(~P) it's a bit silly to imagine that there's anything special about "positive" claims in this respect.


It's quite literally positing the existence of a universe that contains no God, and negative claims are not impossible to demonstrate.


You could just look it up and save us some time. That's not what "null hypothesis" means.


If you're "sticking with" the negation of a claim absent evidence or argument for that claim, it's exactly what you're doing.
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I have looked it up.

Null Hypothesis (H0) – This can be thought of as the implied hypothesis. “Null” meaning “nothing.” This hypothesis states that there is no difference between groups or no relationship between variables. The null hypothesis is a presumption of status quo or no change.
Alternative Hypothesis (Ha) – This is also known as the claim. This hypothesis should state what you expect the data to show, based on your research on the topic. This is your answer to your research question.
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Which indicates that I'm not actually wrong. The alternative hypothesis is the claim, the null is the lack of said claim.

I've also argued the definition of the null in other threads. You're the first person who has told me I'm wrong. I'm impressed.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
Which indicates that I'm not actually wrong. The alternative hypothesis is the claim, the null is the lack of said claim.
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Well, no. The null hypothesis is the lack of a relationship, as your source says. Here's what you wrote, as a reminder:

"Someone makes a claim, doesn't matter what the claim is. The Null is the negative of that claim. Moon is made of cheese? Null is moon is not made of cheese. Cars are sentient? Null is cars are not sentient. When you die you're resurrected? When you die you're not resurrected."

There's no accordance between the definition you've now provided and what you were claiming earlier. The null hypothesis is not the negation of a claim.

I've also argued the definition of the null in other threads. You're the first person who has told me I'm wrong. I'm impressed.
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Somebody had to be first, I suppose, but that has no bearing on anything.
 
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mumblethrax said:
Well, no. The null hypothesis is the lack of a relationship, as your source says. Here's what you wrote, as a reminder:

"Someone makes a claim, doesn't matter what the claim is. The Null is the negative of that claim. Moon is made of cheese? Null is moon is not made of cheese. Cars are sentient? Null is cars are not sentient. When you die you're resurrected? When you die you're not resurrected."

There's no accordance between the definition you've now provided and what you were claiming earlier. The null hypothesis is not the negation of a claim.
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I suppose I may well be using the very specific term incorrectly then, but I stand by my actual point. The proper way to approach life is by assuming a positive claim is incorrect unless provided with evidence for it. If someone proposes a god, the proper attitude is that said god does not exist unless presented with evidence for it.

This DOES only work for any positive claim, which is why I do not make positive claims that I do not have evidence for.
 
mumblethrax said:
Well, no. The null hypothesis is the lack of a relationship, as your source says. Here's what you wrote, as a reminder:

"Someone makes a claim, doesn't matter what the claim is. The Null is the negative of that claim. Moon is made of cheese? Null is moon is not made of cheese. Cars are sentient? Null is cars are not sentient. When you die you're resurrected? When you die you're not resurrected."

There's no accordance between the definition you've now provided and what you were claiming earlier. The null hypothesis is not the negation of a claim.


Somebody had to be first, I suppose, but that has no bearing on anything.
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The way I see it, the null hypothesis has an application within the context of a specific dialectic. It's a default assumption that holds only as long as we are considering your claim, and only until the claim is proven or abandoned.

We don't willy-nilly start believing that the moon is made of cheese, just because you say it isn't. Rather we say, "since you bring it up, let's assume for the sake of argument that the moon is made of cheese, and see how you go about falsifying that assumption."

As soon as you falsify the null, or abandon the claim, we happily go back to whatever axiom or paradigm about the moon's composition that we generally espouse.
 
theprestige said:
The way I see it, the null hypothesis has an application within the context of a specific dialectic. It's a default assumption that holds only as long as we are considering your claim, and only until the claim is proven or abandoned.

We don't willy-nilly start believing that the moon is made of cheese, just because you say it isn't. Rather we say, "since you bring it up, let's assume for the sake of argument that the moon is made of cheese, and see how you go about falsifying that assumption."

As soon as you falsify the null, or abandon the claim, we happily go back to whatever axiom or paradigm about the moon's composition that we generally espouse.
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Thank you, that's exactly what I mean.
 
MarkCorrigan said:
I suppose I may well be using the very specific term incorrectly then, but I stand by my actual point. The proper way to approach life is by assuming a positive claim is incorrect unless provided with evidence for it. If someone proposes a god, the proper attitude is that said god does not exist unless presented with evidence for it.
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Right, and I'm saying this is wrongheaded and will lead you to weird, overconfident conclusions. If someone says there's a tree outside their window and I (for some reason) challenge them on this claim, their failure to present evidence should not be construed as support for the negation of that claim. Taking the negation as a default assumption is also groundless. I cannot then declare that there is no tree outside their window. The sensible thing would be to say something like "Well, there may or may not be a tree outside your window, but you've given me no reason to believe that there is."

This DOES only work for any positive claim, which is why I do not make positive claims that I do not have evidence for.
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That cannot be true, because any "positive" claim can be expressed as a negative claim.

theprestige said:
The way I see it, the null hypothesis has an application within the context of a specific dialectic. It's a default assumption that holds only as long as we are considering your claim, and only until the claim is proven or abandoned.
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The null hypothesis has no application where you don't have at least two sets to compare. It has no relevance to simple existential claims at all.

If we're talking about supporting claims, it would make a lot more sense to talk about where the burden of proof lies (with the claimant, irrespective of whether the claim is phrased negatively) and what to do if that burden is not met (reserve judgement).
 
mumblethrax said:
"There exists a universe in which there is no God." Doesn't seem wise to stick to the negation of this claim.
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This is two claims. "There exists a universe" is a positive claim, and can be logically proven. "The universe that exists has no god" is a negative claim and can't. You don't get to conflate the two claims into one.
 
arthwollipot said:
This is two claims. "There exists a universe" is a positive claim, and can be logically proven. "The universe that exists has no god" is a negative claim and can't. You don't get to conflate the two claims into one.
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I don't see any particularly good reason to believe that I don't get to do this. What's wrong with saying "There's an empty car in my driveway?"

I also don't think "There exists a universe" can be logically proven. That seems like an empirical claim to me.
 
mumblethrax said:
I don't see any particularly good reason to believe that I don't get to do this. What's wrong with saying "There's an empty car in my driveway?"

I also don't think "There exists a universe" can be logically proven. That seems like an empirical claim to me.
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Again, "There's an empty car in my driveway" is two claims. One, that there is a car in your driveway, and two, that it is empty.
 
arthwollipot said:
Again, "There's an empty car in my driveway" is two claims. One, that there is a car in your driveway, and two, that it is empty.
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It's a single claim that entails at least two others. So, for that matter, is "There's a tree outside my window." But what's the relevance? Why, specifically, do you think I can't make such a claim?
 
mumblethrax said:
It's a single claim that entails at least two others. So, for that matter, is "There's a tree outside my window." But what's the relevance? Why, specifically, do you think I can't make such a claim?
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You can't make a single claim, and the reason is because it conflates both a negative claim and a positive claim. It's only by breaking a claim into the smallest possible units that any logical conclusions can be drawn from it. Compound claims are much more complicated.

"There is a duck that is not green." First, you have to establish that a duck exists. That's the positive claim. Only having first established that can you discuss what colour the duck might or might not be.

In the case of the original claim, I think "a universe exists" is trivially easy to prove, leaving only the negative claim that the universe has no god, which cannot be proved.

Disclaimer: I am not well-versed in formal logic. But the above seems logical to me. Someone with more expertise in logic may want to fact check what I've said.
 
arthwollipot said:
You can't make a single claim, and the reason is because it conflates both a negative claim and a positive claim. It's only by breaking a claim into the smallest possible units that any logical conclusions can be drawn from it. Compound claims are much more complicated.
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There's no innate distinction between positive claims and negative claims.

"There is a duck that is not green." First, you have to establish that a duck exists. That's the positive claim. Only having first established that can you discuss what colour the duck might or might not be.
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"There is a duck" in this case is non-specific, and "breaking the claim down" in this way leads to incorrect assumptions about how to evaluate the claim. If I can establish that birds don't exist, the claim is false, and there's no need for further evaluation. These are conjoint conditions.

In the case of the original claim, I think "a universe exists" is trivially easy to prove, leaving only the negative claim that the universe has no god, which cannot be proved.
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The claim is non-specific. If you were to somehow establish that God exists in the only universe available to us, "There is a universe with no God" would remain unproven.

But it's notable that it's the difficulty of proving the claim that is the stumbling block, and not whether or not it is phrased as a negative. "There's an empty car in my driveway" is not even slightly difficult to prove or disprove. If there's no car in my driveway, it's false. If there is a car in my driveway, and it's empty, it's true. If there's a car in my driveway and it's not empty, it's false. Nothing about any of this would make the assumption that there is not an empty car in my driveway reasonable.
 
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mumblethrax said:
There's no innate distinction between positive claims and negative claims. The fact that the claim entails other claims is sort of immaterial.
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There is an innate distinction between positive claims and negative ones. How would you go about proving the claim "there are no green cats"? You would have to point to literally every single cat in the world and say "that one's not green, that one's not green, that one's not green" and even then the chances are that you will miss a cat that's hiding under the couch from the weird human trying to find it.

Similarly with the claim "the universe (which has for the purposes of this argument already been established to exist) contains no gods". You have to literally point to every place in the universe in order to establish that there isn't a god hiding in that place. And that is absurd.
 
arthwollipot said:
There is an innate distinction between positive claims and negative ones.
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No, there isn't. P = ~(~P). These are equivalent propositions--one is negative, the other is not (necessarily).

How would you go about proving the claim "there are no green cats"? You would have to point to literally every single cat in the world and say "that one's not green, that one's not green, that one's not green" and even then the chances are that you will miss a cat that's hiding under the couch from the weird human trying to find it.
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Yes, that's how you'd do it. How would you go about proving the claim "There are green cats?" In exactly the same way. The problem has nothing to do with "positivity" or "negativity"--it has to do with unconstrained search areas.

Similarly with the claim "the universe (which has for the purposes of this argument already been established to exist) contains no gods". You have to literally point to every place in the universe in order to establish that there isn't a god hiding in that place. And that is absurd.
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Oh, it's worse than that. The claim was "There exists a universe with no Gods." Even if you found God hanging out around Alpha Centauri, you still wouldn't be able to falsify the claim.

But this is a positive claim--it's positing the existence of such a universe. Again, the stumbling block has nothing to do with positivity or negativity.
 
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mumblethrax said:
No, there isn't. P = ~(~P). These are equivalent propositions--one is negative, the other is not (necessarily).


Yes, that's how you'd do it. How would you go about proving the claim "There are green cats?" In exactly the same way. The problem has nothing to do with "positivity" or "negativity"--it has to do with unconstrained search areas.
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The difference is that I can point to one green cat to prove the positive claim. I would need to point to a potentially infinite number of non-green cats to prove the negative.
 
arthwollipot said:
The difference is that I can point to one green cat to prove the positive claim. I would need to point to a potentially infinite number of non-green cats to prove the negative.
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You can point to one green cat to disprove the negative claim.

There's no difference vis a vis the search for green cats.
 
arthwollipot said:
Disproving a claim is not the same as proving one.
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Disproving the negation of a claim is, in fact, the same as proving the claim, provided that there are only two possibilities (that the claim is true or false). If "There are green cats" is true, "There are no green cats" is false. A pretty common approach in mathematics to proving a claim is to disprove its negation.

In both cases, discovery of a green cat ends the search and allows us to evaluate the truth of the claim. Which is why the idea that there's something special about negative claims in this respect is odd.
 
mumblethrax said:
Right, and I'm saying this is wrongheaded and will lead you to weird, overconfident conclusions.
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You would be wrong. See theprestige's comment above for how you're not actually understanding what I'm saying.

ETA: Also the amount of scepticism I have towards a claim depends entirely upon the size of the claim and it's importance. If you claim you have a tree outside your window, unless I already know in advance that you do not I'm probably going to accept it as read because 1. Why would you lie? and 2. It's not important even if you did lie.

If you want to claim you had pizza for lunch, sure why not? If you want to claim that there is a soul...no. No that I will need evidence for before I accept it, thus I will accept the negative until such time as you have demonstrated it.
 
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MarkCorrigan said:
You would be wrong. See theprestige's comment above for how you're not actually understanding what I'm saying.
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I'm understanding what you're saying just fine. It's a very commonly believed bit of pseudologic.

No that I will need evidence for before I accept it, thus I will accept the negative until such time as you have demonstrated it.
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And this is, and always will be, an error. A lack of evidence for P does not imply ~P.
 
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But I'm not saying it MEANS not p. I'm saying that we have no reason to accept P, therefore we take not P as true until shown otherwise.

How the hell else would you deal with any claims?

Someone claims there is a god. That is claim P.

Now, I say provide evidence, if you cannot provide evidence, I will operate under the assumption ~P until shown evidence for P. Once I am shown convincing evidence I will change my view to P.

You deal with this...how? How do you deal with any claim made about the world?

There are only two possibilities afterall, P or ~P. Once presented with the claim for P, you can either accept P and live as though it is true, or not accept P and live as though it is false until shown otherwise.

It's hardly pseudologic, it's literally logical argumentation.
 
In case if someone don't know what the null hypothesis is. The null hypothesis is the assumption that no relation exist between two (or maybe more?) observable events/phenomena. We are certain that those events/phenomena have taken place/exist, but we are not certain whether those events/phenomena have any relation or not.

Here is an example of null hypothesis:
"People with depression are not smarter or dumber (on average) than people with no depression".
 
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MarkCorrigan said:
But I'm not saying it MEANS not p. I'm saying that we have no reason to accept P, therefore we take not P as true until shown otherwise.
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I know. This is an error.

Now, I say provide evidence, if you cannot provide evidence, I will operate under the assumption ~P until shown evidence for P. Once I am shown convincing evidence I will change my view to P.
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There are no grounds for doing so.

There are only two possibilities afterall, P or ~P. Once presented with the claim for P, you can either accept P and live as though it is true, or not accept P and live as though it is false until shown otherwise.
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You are conflating the possible truth values of a proposition with propositional attitudes. I do not need to take a position for or against a proposition. P will be either true or false, but it does not follow that I need to take a position on whether it is true or false if I don't have enough information to make a judgment. It's ok to say "I don't know."

I mean, consider what you're proposing here. Say someone claims there is life on other planets. My view, prior to talking to him, is that I don't know whether there is life on other planets. If he spectacularly fails to persuade me that there is life on other planets...I should then take the view that there isn't life on other planets? A bad argument for is not a good argument against.

It's hardly pseudologic, it's literally logical argumentation.
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It's exactly pseudologic. You will not find a logician who will sign on to this.
 
I think the problem here is in the attempt to discuss real-world questions with Formal Logic. Propositional calculus is useful for deriving theorems of pure mathematics, but it doesn't apply to situations like whether there is a tree outside the window, whether a cat is green, or whether there is a god.
 
It would be strange if formal logic could not be applied to the real world, because that would mean that the formal logic is wrong.

I read Mumblethrax’ posts as arriving at the same conclusions as MarkCorrigan, but using other words, and stricter logic.

Isn’t the problem here that we often use shortcuts, or rules-of-thumb, like “you can’t prove a negative”, or Occam’s Razor as if they lead to insights that are always true? And we use concepts like the Null hypothesis from formal logic in combination with the rules-of-thumb.
 
steenkh said:
It would be strange if formal logic could not be applied to the real world, because that would mean that the formal logic is wrong.
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No, just that formal logic applies only to a very strict set of circumstances. That doesn't mean that real life can't be logical, but it can also be illogical, and it can be logical without conforming to the structured rules of the propositional calculus.

steenkh said:
I read Mumblethrax’ posts as arriving at the same conclusions as MarkCorrigan, but using other words, and stricter logic.

Isn’t the problem here that we often use shortcuts, or rules-of-thumb, like “you can’t prove a negative”, or Occam’s Razor as if they lead to insights that are always true? And we use concepts like the Null hypothesis from formal logic in combination with the rules-of-thumb.
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Exactly. Formal logic doesn't apply to rules of thumb.
 
arthwollipot said:
No, just that formal logic applies only to a very strict set of circumstances.
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That is not true. A necessary condition of any "set of circumstances" is that they be consistent with the rules of formal logic. However, it is not sufficient that they conform to the rules of logic.
 
suren said:
I didn't exist long before I was born and similarly I will not exist after I die. At least that's what many people on this forum think.

If so, does it mean that the nonexistence before I was born (let's name it nonexistence 1) the same thing as the nonexistence after my death (let's name it nonexistence 2)?

Even some famous people seems have claimed a similar thing:

So if they are 100% identical it seems that nonexistence 2 can be followed by life (consciousness) like nonexistence 1. So in some sense life after death is possible. Or perhaps there is no "self" or "consciousness". :confused: What are your thoughts about that?
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There is absolutely no evidence for consciousness and intellect beyond the physical activity of the living brain.
 
This debate is surely influenced by the importance, that we, on this forum and elsewhere, attribute to individual consciousness. Understandable, for the reasons of a widespread fear of one's own death, and the unknown. We know we are made of the same stuff of the universe, and the universe contains the essential ingredients in at least one part of itself, that created through the laws of physics an evolved form of organic life that ponders on its own existence. It can be argued that we, human life, is a common consciousness of the universe, and that it is the more relevant description rather than apportioning it to individual humans. If we accept that, then non-existence before and after death, ceases to become important, rather like Twain's quote. More importance perhaps should be given to humanity as an ever growing wave of mass consciousness, dynamically moving along a timeline of existence, where that total of reflexive thought is part of an inevitable development in the evolution of our universe.
 
Explorer said:
This debate is surely influenced by the importance, that we, on this forum and elsewhere, attribute to individual consciousness. Understandable, for the reasons of a widespread fear of one's own death, and the unknown. We know we are made of the same stuff of the universe, and the universe contains the essential ingredients in at least one part of itself, that created through the laws of physics an evolved form of organic life that ponders on its own existence. It can be argued that we, human life, is a common consciousness of the universe, and that it is the more relevant description rather than apportioning it to individual humans. If we accept that, then non-existence before and after death, ceases to become important, rather like Twain's quote. More importance perhaps should be given to humanity as an ever growing wave of mass consciousness, dynamically moving along a timeline of existence, where that total of reflexive thought is part of an inevitable development in the evolution of our universe.
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Got any skins, mate? :D
 
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