what happens when u die?

[fariyroc]

bluecherry

Been there, done that long ago and many times enough as it is with giving these things a chance to present themselves. Without the conditions having changed any since I last found that nothing happened when I gave it a good ol' honest and open chance, I conclude that that's not advice worth taking unless you have some seriously radical new information you can prove to other people, such as myself, which would alter the situation and the things that play into the equation of if it would even be in the realm of possibility and not totally illogical.

And believing something enough that you think you see it still doesn't make something become real seeing as otherwise every dirty night gown under a kid's bed would actually really become a monster and every person to ever take hallucinogens and see something like a rainbow colored panda tap dancing in their living room would actually have such a thing there and it really could go and sit on an innocent non-high person who unwittingly wandered into the room. Also, the body does have a strong connection to the mind - people have actually caused physical malfunctions in themselves by being convinced they were sick for example as I'm sure you've heard of - so perhaps believing enough could make your eyes and your brain work together wackily enough that you really do think you see something, but again, that doesn't mean it is real. That thing you see may be seen alone and stand up to no other tests for if it is real, such as say that tap dancing panda my be seen by one man, but if he can walk right through it, that's a sure sign it is not in fact exactly what it looks like. You can usually trust your eyes, but looks can be deceiving so sight should not be believed when it goes against all your other methods of obtaining knowledge.

I also don't believe reality and thus the truth comes custom fit for each individual so that such a thing as "my truth" as opposed to everybody else's exists, but that's another story too and it's possibly even a named logical fallacy. (Things can be "true of" different people differently, like it is "true of" Dana that "I have red hair", and "true of" Paul that "I have brown hair," but not "true for" like facts of existence change from person to person.)

As a funny side note though, even what people I have met in real life who believe in mystic type stuff would say your recommendation would be useless for me. They claim I've never seen anything supernatural by myself (even when I tried giving it every opportunity) and that they never see anything supernatural in my presence and that they can't read my mind or do anything to really prove anything of a mystical nature to me because I'm a "void/null psychic" and I unconsciously emit very powerful stuff of some kind which cancels out or doesn't allow near me anything of such a nature. lol Excuses, excuses . . .

Even if you opened yourself up and gave it every opportunity, did you yet hold doubt in your mind?  

[bluecherry]

If you're asking me to ever believe something fully and beyond a doubt before I have any evidence for it, I was never that stupid in my life that I can recall. Should you, because I or anyone else says so and/or because it sounds nice as the most "evidence" you have, ever believe something fully and beyond the willingness to question it ever again for any reason? If you believe this, then why have you not yet believed you can fly without mechanical aid? There are people out there who would tell you you could and may even truly believe so themselves and it does sound really nice to be able to fly doesn't it? So why has your own ability to fly unaided by machine not been one you believe even WITH doubts thus far? What if I told you the only way you could really find out is if you go out to a cliff (or any really high place) and believed completely without a doubt that you could fly without mechanical aid and jumped over the edge if you did that you could. And using a safety harness or anything like that to protect you in case it doesn't work is a sign you think it could not work and hurt you and thus means you have doubt so it doesn't count as a valid test. Supposing somebody who really believed this told you this, would you believe them? Would you believe them enough to try it? If so, why not, eh?

I myself did the most I consider reasonable for anybody to do or be asked to do by anyone or anything: when you think you haven't gotten sufficient reason for something to be the case, you don't believe it yet. That's the mindset to approach any test with. As for the tests themselves and how you interpret conclusions from there . . .

If you think you have a good way to test it so the test may give you reason from there to believe it, go in an approach the test with an open mind for what the results will be, then carefully examine and/or think about the results as fits what the kind of test was. If the results have only one possible meaning that you can see and it is in favor of the thing you were testing for being true, then if these are very conclusive sure results/outweigh the evidence you may have to the contrary, then you believe it. If the results do not indicate the thing you were testing for is true, you continue to not believe in it yet, and as long as the test is one you have reason to believe can be seen as reliable, believe it is downright false too having failed the test. If the test is one which it did not pass, but the test is not necessarily on something that will always show up as positive even if it is possible to, then you become a little more suspicious of it, but do more testing until you've done enough tests that in what amount or rarity the event would have if it were true, it should still pretty surely have shown up by now. If it still hasn't shown up after that many tests, it is pretty safe to conclude it is not true. Make similar adjustments in how many times you test for something if it is a test who's results may be somewhat unreliable, in which case you do enough tests to make sure it is showing up consistently enough to be considered reliable results (this counts more for things like psychology and sociology tests more often though than for ones about the nature of existence more often though. However there are cases of things like medical tests where every so often you can get a false negative or positive or perhaps it is a test type that it will almost always show up negative and that doesn't necessarily mean it is negative, but if it ever shows up positive it IS positive.) If it is a test where there could be multiple interpretations of the results, you go with which one is more consistent with the rest of your data about everything and anything relevant and so under the original premise I stated of "you've got no substantial reason to believe it is true yet," this means you still don't believe it is true and unless you can find another test which would be more conclusive that does indicate it is true, you keep going with the conclusion that it isn't. (Have I missed anything in my list so far? O_o; I'll add on if I notice something I forgot to include in the possibilities and what to do when what type comes up.)

Generally I'd say go into tests with the mindset of not being willing to question under any circumstances a conclusion you already have is pretty much a sure way to invalidate a test. The form of the test itself if it includes assuming the conclusion as part of the test makes the test stupid, possibly risky, and probably outright invalid. If it is a kind of test you won't possibly get killed if you're wrong, then you live to have biased results that don't accurately reflect what actually is the case. In fact as a side note I think arguing for such requirements of a test as the only "valid" way to test something and thus is what you should do too if you want to say you've tested it, then I think that may be guilty of some logical fallacies. Begging the question and circular reason having to come up in there somewhere . . .

 

[fariyroc]

bluecherry

If you're asking me to ever believe something fully and beyond a doubt before I have any evidence for it, I was never that stupid in my life that I can recall. Should you, because I or anyone else says so and/or because it sounds nice as the most "evidence" you have, ever believe something fully and beyond the willingness to question it ever again for any reason? If you believe this, then why have you not yet believed you can fly without mechanical aid? There are people out there who would tell you you could and may even truly believe so themselves and it does sound really nice to be able to fly doesn't it? So why has your own ability to fly unaided by machine not been one you believe even WITH doubts thus far? What if I told you the only way you could really find out is if you go out to a cliff (or any really high place) and believed completely without a doubt that you could fly without mechanical aid and jumped over the edge if you did that you could. And using a safety harness or anything like that to protect you in case it doesn't work is a sign you think it could not work and hurt you and thus means you have doubt so it doesn't count as a valid test. Supposing somebody who really believed this told you this, would you believe them? Would you believe them enough to try it? If so, why not, eh?

I myself did the most I consider reasonable for anybody to do or be asked to do by anyone or anything: when you think you haven't gotten sufficient reason for something to be the case, you don't believe it yet. That's the mindset to approach any test with. As for the tests themselves and how you interpret conclusions from there . . .

If you think you have a good way to test it so the test may give you reason from there to believe it, go in an approach the test with an open mind for what the results will be, then carefully examine and/or think about the results as fits what the kind of test was. If the results have only one possible meaning that you can see and it is in favor of the thing you were testing for being true, then if these are very conclusive sure results/outweigh the evidence you may have to the contrary, then you believe it. If the results do not indicate the thing you were testing for is true, you continue to not believe in it yet, and as long as the test is one you have reason to believe can be seen as reliable, believe it is downright false too having failed the test. If the test is one which it did not pass, but the test is not necessarily on something that will always show up as positive even if it is possible to, then you become a little more suspicious of it, but do more testing until you've done enough tests that in what amount or rarity the event would have if it were true, it should still pretty surely have shown up by now. If it still hasn't shown up after that many tests, it is pretty safe to conclude it is not true. Make similar adjustments in how many times you test for something if it is a test who's results may be somewhat unreliable, in which case you do enough tests to make sure it is showing up consistently enough to be considered reliable results (this counts more for things like psychology and sociology tests more often though than for ones about the nature of existence more often though. However there are cases of things like medical tests where every so often you can get a false negative or positive or perhaps it is a test type that it will almost always show up negative and that doesn't necessarily mean it is negative, but if it ever shows up positive it IS positive.) If it is a test where there could be multiple interpretations of the results, you go with which one is more consistent with the rest of your data about everything and anything relevant and so under the original premise I stated of "you've got no substantial reason to believe it is true yet," this means you still don't believe it is true and unless you can find another test which would be more conclusive that does indicate it is true, you keep going with the conclusion that it isn't. (Have I missed anything in my list so far? O_o; I'll add on if I notice something I forgot to include in the possibilities and what to do when what type comes up.)

Generally I'd say go into tests with the mindset of not being willing to question under any circumstances a conclusion you already have is pretty much a sure way to invalidate a test. The form of the test itself if it includes assuming the conclusion as part of the test makes the test stupid, possibly risky, and probably outright invalid. If it is a kind of test you won't possibly get killed if you're wrong, then you live to have biased results that don't accurately reflect what actually is the case. In fact as a side note I think arguing for such requirements of a test as the only "valid" way to test something and thus is what you should do too if you want to say you've tested it, then I think that may be guilty of some logical fallacies. Begging the question and circular reason having to come up in there somewhere . . .

Ah... Bluecherry... Sorry but I have flown without mechanical aid of any sort. With three witnesses...
I respect your opinions, your beliefs, and the facts that you threw out there. This has been an interesting debate and discussion.
The mind itself has much more power than people give it credit to.

However, I have no desire to continue this debate upon this select subject. I'm sorry if I intruded upon a rule of anyone of yours. If you really wish to continue it, you can PM me or we can find a different subject. Your quite a lovely person to talk with and thank you.  

[bluecherry]

*smacks forehead* Beside the point though. It was a random example and that exact case is not necessary. The case I presented works equally well with being able to spend as much time as you want wandering naked in fire and not getting burnt, but only pleasantly warm. Or the same with ice. Or being able to walk through walls. The list is long.

But, if you're already gone, I suppose I speak to myself . . .

 

[fariyroc]

I understand what you are saying and it does make sense. But so do those other things...  

[bluecherry]

Could you clarify what these "other things" you mention in your above post are?

 

[fariyroc]

Other things, like death not existing... Some Truth messages...

That kind of stuff.

Yours makes sense, but as does mine to me and others at least.  

[bluecherry]

Actually, there are many claims I've heard of similar natures which don't just happen to be cases of only questionable anecdotal evidence supporting somebody's belief of something (on a case where we had no real evidence for something at all one way or the other that could be proven, if you personally experience something and can be pretty sure you aren't just paranoid/reading too much into things/misinformed/in a less than stable and reliable state of mind, that probably is good enough for the witnesses themselves to believe something as long as they know they were careful not to jump to conclusions, like say assuming something that looks like a dragon must be a dragon before considering it is just a model, however, again, that kind of evidence is only really conclusively valid for the witnesses themselves alone) but were in fact by their very nature contradictory to other well known things that, unlike the anecdotes, could be reproduced and reproved to other people again. So some things I'm willing to give you that personal experiences maybe could have proved something to some people which they have not yet been able to reprove to others, but a lot of other things I'm not.

First of all, you have to admit that your own phrasing at least here of "death not existing" is at a minimum a poor choice of words. We both know full well people die, just you contend that there is something in people which does not cease to exist upon death. Death surely exists (heck, if nothing else the wording is so poor I could say "plants even you won't argue most likely have nothing in them which could reincarnate and thus really die-die. And so death exists for something at least.) After that interesting enough I think I could argue you straight out (aided by argument from a philosopher I just did an oral presentation on from one of my text books in my Italian Renaissance class today oddly enough) to why it is not logically possible for people to survive in any way as a human, as a person, and/or as themselves after death and why if you want to accept anything as "outside" logic (in order to continue to believe in anything in humans that could survive to count as a person still after they die,) you must reject ALL logic and go with ONLY "faith" (and the disastrous consequences that would inevitably follow.)

As for "Truth messages" -- I don't know what you mean by that, but seeing as you capitalized the "T" in the middle of a sentence I'm guessing it isn't just your average true statements, like "apples are apples, not peaches" or "Eight is a larger number in value than two."

And hey, I extend to you the same message I do to everybody -- If you can give me more substantial reason, reasons that if I ask can be fairly well demonstrated to me and not just relying on me taking your or anybody else that I find questionable's word for it, for your position than I have for holding my position, I'll change my position. (And yes, I have done this in the occasional argument I've found myself on the wrong side of before, I don't stick dogmatically to my side just because it's "my side" or "I like the sound of this better." I have rarely done this though only because it is very rarely I get into arguments I don't believe I have a very good case for already. Usually I don't even form a strong enough opinion worth doing an actual argument for - as opposed to just asking questions to get a better idea of the situation to form my position on - before I have a pretty darn decent amount of stuff to go on for what the issue at hand is.)

 

[fariyroc]

I'd try to unravel it for you... but I don't know where to start...  

[angelatheist]

Assuming that quantum physics is true, if a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it does not make a sound then some form of afterlife must exist. 100 points to anyone I don't have to explain this to.  

[bluecherry]

Eegads, not the quantum physics thing. I'm still irritated as anything after somebody told me about the "Schrödinger's cat" thing. I have to say, my answer has always been and still is to the "tree falls in a forest" thing that yes, even if nobody hears it it does make a sound, just nobody heard it and that is all. For example, a tape recorder left outside and later retrieved could, with some good timing, prove this to be true I'm sure. Reality is the independent of perception, perception just observes reality, it does not create or sustain it. As for the Schrodinger's cat -- I haven't read the whole wiki article, but from what I was told of it I just have to wonder why people can't just admit the cat is either dead OR alive, not both and they just don't know yet which it is is all. It sounds like a classic problem people have fallen for is all - not wanting to have to accept current ignorance, so accepting or making up all kinds of things that make no sense and/or have no evidence to support them.

To two posts above me, take your time if need be to get it sorted out, I can wait however long it takes as long as I don't die first. I know it can take some time on occasions to straighten out and untangle your thoughts.

 

[angelatheist]

i guess i have to explain it a bit, first of all, putting a tape recorder out there counts as hearing it, any evidence at all that there was sound counts. The question is: is there sound even if it is never observed by anyone or anything, even indirectly? As for schrodingers cat, the way quantum mechanics works is that picking either dead or alive for the cat would violate rules of quantum mechanics. They did an experiment where A is corrolated with B 99% of the time, B is corrolated with C 99% of the time and A is corrolated with C 96% of the time. This was shown in multiple independent trials. The only explanation for this is that the act of observing one effects the other. So until the cat is observed, it is effectively in both states superimposed. Normal laws of statistics break down in quantum mechanics and the only explanation so far is that observation effects the state that it was in.  

[bluecherry]

"any evidence at all that there was sound counts" -- so even something which is not itself capable of really observing, as it does not think, and merely is there and picks up something which a later being that is capable of observing could observe and thus make conclusions and such about counts? Suppose sound waves from that falling tree exerted just enough pressure to effect the growth of the trees around it so that later somebody comes by and gets samples of the rings of those nearby trees and concludes that there was a sound made by that tree falling -- this would then count to, the trees around the fallen tree count just like the tape recorder? But if no observer ever comes and observes the records left in those tree rings, even if they exist, then the sound did not necessarily happen? Wow, this is blatantly ******** with the rules of time. It is saying that the act of observation changes what actually happened in the past. Before I go any further with this I have to ask if quantum physics is really following the rules that the rest of the sciences are built around and not running off and basing itself around entirely different philosophical principles which may leave them pretty much invalidated. Those correlations you mentioned and that observation seems to be the only difference noticed in them -- this I question again if it isn't falling for the logical fallacy of confusing the correlation of observation to the changes with causation. Yes, the correlation with observation may be high, but seeing as it goes and does things which make no sense with so much else, I am very hesitant to say that that correlation is enough to conclude causation. I wonder if maybe there is a case of the fallacy of ignoring common cause. I know this is the only difference they've noticed and they have looked for more, but seeing the very odd and (at least seemingly) absurd conclusions (if not downright illogical and contradictory) that must be drawn from this once you start comparing it to logic and all other areas of science and so on and so forth I think that it is much more sensible to conclude that this one known difference thus far noticed is not the cause and maybe there is something they simply have not figured out yet which is related to both the difference and the observations. Again, sometimes you just have to accept you don't know something just yet.

But back to the tree falling in the forest thing again, I think the VERY VERY VERY high rate of (if not pretty much 100%) predictability if you just know all the factors involved with what should happen and what does happen with things like a tree falling and the creation of sound should mean you can conclusively say "yeah, the tree falling makes the sound even if we can not later retrieve the proof of such." We know how sound works, we know a falling tree would cause the things that make up what we would call "sound" , so why does our lack of direct observer to have evidence of that particular tree that fell making a sound mean that it may suddenly have just stopped functioning correctly? It isn't like the tree is a conscious being capable of observing the presence or absence of an observing force to know when it has to make a sound and when it doesn't -- if it could do that, then it would meet the criteria to count as an observer itself now wouldn't it and thus an observer would always be present and it would always have to follow the rules of a present observer and make a sound.

(I do not know much about quantum physics; all I have heard thus far just makes me think these people are at least in some respects idiots, crazy, and or drunk/high if they really believe these things. Reading up on why these people believe these things and seeing if it doesn't get down to just following different philosophical beliefs than all other sciences has long been on my "to do list." I have tried following through the long link trails in wikipedia articles on the subject for some time, but I never have gotten to the end of the main article because I always spend so much time following links from one article to the next to try to understand everything back to what they are saying in the first, main article about quantum physics that I keep running out of time and thus, I still haven't finished it to come to really solid conclusions.)

If I can take a short cut though, does or does not quantum physics support the consistent application of logic and reason or is it selective about when it takes logic and when it will take things on faith with insufficient evidence and/or in contradiction to evidence?

 

[angelatheist]

if you go and decide that everything must happen one way or another then then normal logic and reason does not apply to what can be observed at the quantum level. If you take into account that, yes, things can be in multiple places/states at once, that, yes, observation can change which state something is in, then quantum physics is consistent with all known facts. It does not really matter if observation changes something that happened in the past since the moment of observation is the by definition the first time that difference in state matters. quantum physics is based on attempting to explain actual scientific experiments when all possible "normal" explanations fail.

As for the sound thing, the question is "does something exist if you have absolutely no way of knowing about it?"

My explanation of the afterlife is this: by quantum physics there are many different possibles for the future. At the moment of your death there are some in which there would not be an afterlife and some in which there would be. Clearly it is impossible for you to observe possibilities for the future when you do not exist. So relative to what you observe, it would seem to me that you could only possibly observe some kind of afterlife.  

[bluecherry]

At least as far as your conversation with me goes so far, I think you're "begging the question" on pretty much everything I was asking about. confused You said, I think, that we have to assume that it is possible for things to be two things at once, in two places at once, that after live are possible, and that reality is dependent upon observation to settle it and then it all makes sense. This is exactly things I'm trying to question here if that is the case. And again I ask of quantum physics "Why? Why would you rather accept answers that when applied consistently make no sense to try to make sense of some observations than just admit you don't know yet and keep thinking and looking for the answers?" Seems to me that quantum physics so far gives you answers just for the sake of having an answer and may well end up stopping people from pursuing what may be the real answers . . .