Quote:
Originally Posted by cardboard adolescent
I think scientific materialism is unable to account for subjectivity. Atoms, black holes, galaxies, even the brain are merely symbols which we have somehow been able to create out of nothing. As such, I don´t think I=my brain is a fair statement. I am able to create representations but as such I cannot be equivalent to them. I have the ability to create rules of logic and the trajectories of propositions to their conclusions, but I also have the ability to doubt the efficacy of language, even of the reality of my perceptions. What am I, the representations I generate or the force that generates them? To you I am the sum of my actions, and you assume that these actions are the results of thoughts or impulses I experience. But I am not their slave, I can rebel. I can refuse reason just as you refuse faith. I am able to transcend. I don´t necessarily think I´m going to Heaven after I die, but my essence may persist, even if only through others. To crudely paraphrase many great thinkers, nature does not know beginnings and ends, only progressive transformations. I can talk about this forever, I don´t have any firm beliefs one way or the other because this question is, like most interesting questions, beyond the limits of experience.
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But if you can't experience your essence's persistence then is it really life? What is your essence anyway? I consider myself defined by my thoughts and all my actions are usually presupposed by some thought. So if my brain dies and I stop thinking then I stop acting and ultimately experiencing any form of life as I know it. I don't believe that just because some subatomic matter continues that I will necessarily continue as I am now. I have never in my life heard someone define God or Soul or a soul in any way that can be really sensibility discussed.
I understand that the world exists to me only as a manifestation of my senses and for all I know I'm some alien experiment and this is all fake but I may as well operate in the reality I'm dealing with. And in doing that I've concluded that there can't really been an after life unless my brain somehow takes on a ghostly form, which I don't believe could happen. I think if you choose to operate and think within these rules than you'll find we know way more than you're giving credit for. As I stated there's rules of logic that everyone follows in every realm of life except the spiritual realm and when you apply it there the existence of an after life looks highly unlikely.