Bear and Badger perceptions of mortality - The Bear and Badger

[Deleted User]

davyK wrote:

SpaceGazelle wrote:

I challenge you to prove anything.

There are natural occurances - such as St. Elmos Fire and ball lightning for example - where energy under certain conditions takes on an unusual form. This of course proves nothing but it does raise the question of how energy can take certain esoteric forms - and if that can be done in a controlled way - could be used to encode information. We already use electricity and light to encode binary information so its hardly a massive step to consider naturally occuring energy's other applications. We use electricity every day and equipment that depends on quantum effects and maths involving oddities such imaginary numbers every day - but we only know what cause and effect is at a basic "black box" level - not actually how it works. I admire your absolute blind belief that all science is known at this arbitrary point in time. And you still haven't explained your reasoning behind the link between evolution and an afterlife - I await that with some interest.

We've been through all this in the god thread, and I don't really want to derail this any further, but I'll say a little.

Firstly, when did I say all science is known? I used to work in science, and I don't need telling this rather obvious fact. When I said "I challenge you to prove anything" it was of course tongue in cheek, but it was also a point. It really is quite astoundingly difficult to prove anything. 2 + 2 = 4. You can't prove that completely without defining exactly what 2 is. Despite this, you're not likely to jump out of a window screaming "Logic is bollocks" without expecting the obvious.

Biology already has its grand theory of everything, and of all theories it's perhaps the most "proved" - maybe quantum mechanics gives it a good run, but certainly more than gravity (which has already been modified twice and still looks on shaky ground). Sure, there are gaps to fill in, but that's really surprising given the lengths of time involved.

Your brain is made from atoms. Those atoms (except H and He) were, as you pointed out, created by nuclear fusion in a star. Those atoms combined through gravity and electrostatic forces to produce molecules. The molecules get more complex with time, eventually being able to reproduce copies of themselves. After a few billion years your brain is made.

Your brain is a awfully complicated machine that is powered ultimately by the Sun. It's obscenely complicated because it has so many connections, and things get complicated real quick in nature. Because of this it can do extraordinary things, the main job being to keep your body alive long enough to reproduce, but it's a machine nontheless. It requires Solar energy to operate.

I find it rather silly to think that when a machine ceases to be, it can somehow still operate. Just because evolution has programmed the machine to be shit scared of death doesn't mean you're going to live on past your best-before date, however much you delude yourself.

Can I prove all this? No. But then again I can't prove 2 + 2 = 4.

davyK

Yeah - I suppose this is a derailment and really it should have been the God thread but this stuff is kind of related - though I guess we don't need a creator to have an afterlife.

Your points are well made re our brain being a machine - but I still have doubts (irrational some would say).

For a long time now I have been nagged by the thought that we really might be blinded by the blanket of perception we throw over reality and science is maybe only measuring the maze we are in (more and more accurately) without any knowledge of what is outside it or its purpose. If there is one - as depressing a thought as it is - the biggest joke on us all may be that there is no reason for anything - things just are - a thought I have held up until recently.

Maybe mathematics punches through perception the odd time - or maybe the universal constants we keep observing are only values of parameters selected by a creator? Thinking like that makes me doubt everything but then again maybe it's because I'm middle aged and I'm looking for more.

Since the age of 4 or so I have never believed in a creator - only more recently have I developed an open mind on it as there is no proof there isn't - all that creation by observation malarky in the quantum world probably started all that. Against that I found the changing by observation idea quite humdrum because it was explained by the physics of light - surely light is just an arbitrary thing we just happen to have in the universe? Or is it a fundemental thing that we must have? Find that hard to believe. Rambling now.

I also look at the possibilty that maybe our maths is flawed too. OK stuff like the three body problem shows a complicated world - but the Romans had an awful time doing long multiplication because of their systems - maybe we are overdue a change. We really haven't been around that long.

I have doubts - that's all - and they will probably remain until I shuffle off. There is always the nagging doubt that I think this way because of fear of being older - but I really don't think it is - it's just you deal with issues less in a black and white manner as you get older. You get comfortable with not having concrete opinions on things - because - well you see that you can't - the world is too complicated - and too interesting for that matter.

[Deleted User]

Life is complicated for sure. Death is simple. Too simple maybe. I'm sure that's half the problem when contemplating one's own.

davyK

There are plenty who see death as a way out - that's for sure.

My father in law, bless him, was ill for a fair bit before going - he stated in hospital that he didn't want resuscitated - he had had enough and was ready to go - which in a way is quite comforting that when get old you can be ready for it.

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