Quizzes & Puzzles2 mins ago
Is There Something Beyond?
I am a vet. Yesterday I had the horrible duty of putting down my own pet. Over the deacades of my workI have searched for the answer to my question by reading many scientific texts beyond my own specialisation. Most of them affirm the positive steps we humans have made in our understanding of the (at the quantum level) somewhat shaky understanding of reality.
It seems to come down to spacetime and the new discoveries of cosmic inflation after the big bang.
When I dug her grave and planted a rose tree over her corpse I asked myself what do we really know, except perhaps an ever-expanding awareness of our ignorance.
It seems to come down to spacetime and the new discoveries of cosmic inflation after the big bang.
When I dug her grave and planted a rose tree over her corpse I asked myself what do we really know, except perhaps an ever-expanding awareness of our ignorance.
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No, Pixie - mainly it wasnt relatives at all who were seeing and even talking with the ghost of the flight engineer. The dead captain was also seen on more than one occasion sitting in first class. He was in uniform and identified by his ex colleagues and seen by passengers....... until he suddenly disappeared!
Colmc54; This very morning on another thread, I tried to make the point to the first poster on this one along similar lines, If I may extract from it I said; - "The world you inhabit is a very strange place indeed, and nothing like it might first appear to be, for example, if you were to extract all the actual solid matter from every human being on the planet it would all fit comfortably into a matchbox. - The actual constituents of the blood flowing through your veins once flowed through the veins of a dinosaur, and some pretty smart people believe there could be a three dimensional universe just a millimetre away from you, but if that universe was measured in a fourth spatial dimension you would be completely unaware of it.
One mark of intelligence is the ability to live with as yet unanswered questions, of which there are many".
This was in response to his unsubstantiated simplistic assertion "When you are dead, you are dead" Unable to see any connection, I was told by him that what I said did not make any sense at all.
On a practical level, I sympathise with your sadness and offer the best advice I ever had at a time like this, - (which incidentally came from the son of a vet). You don't say what sort of pet it was, but go and find yourself another one, but one that is very dissimilar in type and/or appearance, and that way you not try to make comparisons.
One mark of intelligence is the ability to live with as yet unanswered questions, of which there are many".
This was in response to his unsubstantiated simplistic assertion "When you are dead, you are dead" Unable to see any connection, I was told by him that what I said did not make any sense at all.
On a practical level, I sympathise with your sadness and offer the best advice I ever had at a time like this, - (which incidentally came from the son of a vet). You don't say what sort of pet it was, but go and find yourself another one, but one that is very dissimilar in type and/or appearance, and that way you not try to make comparisons.
Thanks so much for your kind thoughts. I feel bad about sharing my sorrow with you. At times I question my own beliefs with a ruthlessness borne over many years of bitter-sweet experience.
I am a trained scientist and my belief in the ethos of science will never waver. But how far can we ever hope science can take us humans towards the truth of existence is my question.
I am a trained scientist and my belief in the ethos of science will never waver. But how far can we ever hope science can take us humans towards the truth of existence is my question.
Pixie, you’re right. The most obvious explanations are most often correct – but sometimes there is no known explanation. Experiences are not restricted to an imagined shadow in the dark, or a creak on the stairs. I don’t know why you say that if we continued after death you’re sure we would know that by now. Why would we? That assumes we have little to learn, but in this instance we’re talking about something that currently eludes science completely. I also think it’s incredibly short-sighted to attribute every claimed experience to a trick of the mind. I lived in a ‘haunted’ house – the on-going ‘haunting’, which manifested in many different ways, was experienced by several people, both family and friends, over a number of years. Funny how when we moved house everyone’s delusions were cured instantly.
Jim, I thought that was clear enough, but I’ll simplify it. Who knows HOW odd things happen? – but I’ve no doubt whatsoever that they do.
Colmc54, // how far can we ever hope science can take us humans towards the truth of existence is my question.//
When science stops assuming that, because it can find no trace, those who have experienced the inexplicable are either deluded or lying, it will be one step further towards discovering the truth of existence.
Jim, I thought that was clear enough, but I’ll simplify it. Who knows HOW odd things happen? – but I’ve no doubt whatsoever that they do.
Colmc54, // how far can we ever hope science can take us humans towards the truth of existence is my question.//
When science stops assuming that, because it can find no trace, those who have experienced the inexplicable are either deluded or lying, it will be one step further towards discovering the truth of existence.
I still think we have loads to learn. You can't prove anything negative, so claiming God or the afterlife exists is very easy. How can you be proved wrong? but birth and death are the most prolific human experiences. They happen to everyone and always have. Yet in spite of all the interest and research, there is still not a single shred of veritable evidence.
internet playing up, sorry if I've repeated/ doesn't make sense. Have had to retype!
internet playing up, sorry if I've repeated/ doesn't make sense. Have had to retype!
We all wonder what it's all about after a loss. It's philosophy time because of the assumed finality of death.
When my daughter's budgie was put down (she wasn't there thankfully) I was struck by the dying creature's final struggle, apparently to stay alive, as the whiff of anaesthetic took effect. You will recognise that reaction as a vet.
Is there an afterlife? The beliefs of Christians and other theists are dismissed by rationalists as wishful thinking. They rightly argue that any evidence is disputed. No-one has ever come back. Reincarnation is flawed because there is no conscious continuity of identity.
Metamorphosis gives us more encouragement because it does happen, and similarly, no butterfly has ever come back as a caterpillar. The butterfly has to adapt to a new environment and lifestyle.
As an alternative to God, many believe in a life force. Life (i.e. sentient existence) has shown adaptability, determination, and ingenuity in perpetuating itself as the life-form itself or its descendants. How and why did it devise a way of passing on its genes?
Philosophers or biologists may come up with an explanation of what the first life-form did once it became aware of its existence, because somehow that reaction has eventually led to us discussing it on AB.
When my daughter's budgie was put down (she wasn't there thankfully) I was struck by the dying creature's final struggle, apparently to stay alive, as the whiff of anaesthetic took effect. You will recognise that reaction as a vet.
Is there an afterlife? The beliefs of Christians and other theists are dismissed by rationalists as wishful thinking. They rightly argue that any evidence is disputed. No-one has ever come back. Reincarnation is flawed because there is no conscious continuity of identity.
Metamorphosis gives us more encouragement because it does happen, and similarly, no butterfly has ever come back as a caterpillar. The butterfly has to adapt to a new environment and lifestyle.
As an alternative to God, many believe in a life force. Life (i.e. sentient existence) has shown adaptability, determination, and ingenuity in perpetuating itself as the life-form itself or its descendants. How and why did it devise a way of passing on its genes?
Philosophers or biologists may come up with an explanation of what the first life-form did once it became aware of its existence, because somehow that reaction has eventually led to us discussing it on AB.
Science will always have more to do, thankfully.
I must again object to this idea that Scientists think people are "either deluded or lying". That just makes it an offensive statement and I don't think captures the truth of the matter at all. You don't have to lie, and you don't have to be deluded, to be wrong, or mistaken. It seems to be a similar argument in flavour to the "mad, bad, or God" bilge that CS Lewis trotted out. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.
A large volume of studies have been conducted over the years and turned up nothing. Studies are still being conducted -- there are several dedicated research centres looking at what are called "psi" phenomena. None of them has found anything. At some point you ought to at the very least accept that it's probably unlikely that they will find anything. Never certain -- but increasingly unlikely.
Perhaps tomorrow someone will publish a study to buck that trend. Perhaps
not. Such researchers will keep trying, though -- but at what point does it become unreasonable to continue down a track that is, so far, going nowhere? Eyewitness evidence has been demonstrated to be unreliable, sadly. It's hardly surprising, then, that such accounts aren't really taken seriously. Those that are subjected to scrutiny don't survive very long, and those that aren't subjected to scrutiny... well, aren't subjected to scrutiny, so it would be odd to take that more seriously than things that are looked into carefully and critically.
Time is on your side, though, so perhaps things will change and I hope that I'll be sensible enough to change my mind with the evidence. But I don't think it's an unreasonable position to be hugely sceptical of anything that doesn't have support beyond hearsay or eyewitness accounts or misinterpreted evidence, especially when it would appear to be contradictory to those things that do have plenty of supporting evidence garnered over a long period of time from several , essentially independent sources.
For all that, I do sometimes hope I'm wrong about this.
I must again object to this idea that Scientists think people are "either deluded or lying". That just makes it an offensive statement and I don't think captures the truth of the matter at all. You don't have to lie, and you don't have to be deluded, to be wrong, or mistaken. It seems to be a similar argument in flavour to the "mad, bad, or God" bilge that CS Lewis trotted out. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.
A large volume of studies have been conducted over the years and turned up nothing. Studies are still being conducted -- there are several dedicated research centres looking at what are called "psi" phenomena. None of them has found anything. At some point you ought to at the very least accept that it's probably unlikely that they will find anything. Never certain -- but increasingly unlikely.
Perhaps tomorrow someone will publish a study to buck that trend. Perhaps
not. Such researchers will keep trying, though -- but at what point does it become unreasonable to continue down a track that is, so far, going nowhere? Eyewitness evidence has been demonstrated to be unreliable, sadly. It's hardly surprising, then, that such accounts aren't really taken seriously. Those that are subjected to scrutiny don't survive very long, and those that aren't subjected to scrutiny... well, aren't subjected to scrutiny, so it would be odd to take that more seriously than things that are looked into carefully and critically.
Time is on your side, though, so perhaps things will change and I hope that I'll be sensible enough to change my mind with the evidence. But I don't think it's an unreasonable position to be hugely sceptical of anything that doesn't have support beyond hearsay or eyewitness accounts or misinterpreted evidence, especially when it would appear to be contradictory to those things that do have plenty of supporting evidence garnered over a long period of time from several , essentially independent sources.
For all that, I do sometimes hope I'm wrong about this.
At the end of the 19th century scientists were sure that they'd pretty much figured everything out. Then came Einstein, Curie, Bohr, Dirac, Rosalind Franklin... and a whole new tier of reality opened up before us.
Heisenberg came up with the realisation that the act of measurement of a particle such as an electron must effect the very properties being measured. Thus if an observer detects the exact position of an electron with 100% certainty then the momentum of the electron is 100% uncertain and vice versa.
This fundamental property of all things quantum became the famous 'Uncertainty Principle'. Beyond the quantum world the concept of uncertainty haunts us all from the FTSE to the EPL and so on.
It is unscientific not to accept uncertainty and the probability that there is a cut-off point in reality beyond which we cannot go poking our noses in. The same humility should be shared by people of faith, and in particular those who brainwash young children into becoming killers and suicide bombers.
Heisenberg came up with the realisation that the act of measurement of a particle such as an electron must effect the very properties being measured. Thus if an observer detects the exact position of an electron with 100% certainty then the momentum of the electron is 100% uncertain and vice versa.
This fundamental property of all things quantum became the famous 'Uncertainty Principle'. Beyond the quantum world the concept of uncertainty haunts us all from the FTSE to the EPL and so on.
It is unscientific not to accept uncertainty and the probability that there is a cut-off point in reality beyond which we cannot go poking our noses in. The same humility should be shared by people of faith, and in particular those who brainwash young children into becoming killers and suicide bombers.
Consistency has to be one of those irregular adjectives, though. "I am consistent; you are stubborn; he's just flogging a dead horse..."
* * * * *
"At the end of the 19th century scientists were sure that they'd pretty much figured everything out. "
Hmm. Obviously there's the berkish "Physics only has to fill in the sixth decimal place", which came bizarrely from one of the people whose own experiment had just destroyed a tenet of 19th Century Science -- and obviously there's a possibility that I'll look equally stupid in a few years or centuries. But I don't think it's quite right to imply that as a whole, Scientists had that attitude. It was clear to most that there was still much to figure out -- after all, why else do you think they bothered trying ? Niels Bohr and Marie Curie were students who were set on their studies by the previous generation, asked to tackle problems that were still outstanding and to study phenomena that weren't (at all) understood. To be sure I don't expect anyone thought the answers would be as incredible as turned out to be the case, but I'd object to this idea that there has ever been a point where the majority of scientists think that there's nothing more to learn and that we are "almost" finished, or something. You can always find a quote that might look that way (Lord Kelvin, one of the giants of the field, is always good for a laugh, sadly) but it's not obvious that this ever reflects majority opinion. Far from it.
I think the point I'd like to try to make is that while it might well turn out that these things are real after all, it's not wrong to say that it's unlikely that they're real, at least not at the moment. In the future evidence may change that. But then again, it may not. You can only go on how things look at the moment. And at the moment, it's not looking promising for things like this to be real.
If the time comes when that turns out to be wrong, I hope I'll not be stubborn enough to ignore the evidence.
* * * * *
"At the end of the 19th century scientists were sure that they'd pretty much figured everything out. "
Hmm. Obviously there's the berkish "Physics only has to fill in the sixth decimal place", which came bizarrely from one of the people whose own experiment had just destroyed a tenet of 19th Century Science -- and obviously there's a possibility that I'll look equally stupid in a few years or centuries. But I don't think it's quite right to imply that as a whole, Scientists had that attitude. It was clear to most that there was still much to figure out -- after all, why else do you think they bothered trying ? Niels Bohr and Marie Curie were students who were set on their studies by the previous generation, asked to tackle problems that were still outstanding and to study phenomena that weren't (at all) understood. To be sure I don't expect anyone thought the answers would be as incredible as turned out to be the case, but I'd object to this idea that there has ever been a point where the majority of scientists think that there's nothing more to learn and that we are "almost" finished, or something. You can always find a quote that might look that way (Lord Kelvin, one of the giants of the field, is always good for a laugh, sadly) but it's not obvious that this ever reflects majority opinion. Far from it.
I think the point I'd like to try to make is that while it might well turn out that these things are real after all, it's not wrong to say that it's unlikely that they're real, at least not at the moment. In the future evidence may change that. But then again, it may not. You can only go on how things look at the moment. And at the moment, it's not looking promising for things like this to be real.
If the time comes when that turns out to be wrong, I hope I'll not be stubborn enough to ignore the evidence.
For me, understanding is paramount to choosing what to believe and determining how best to live. Reality is an unforgiving mistress when it comes to understanding what is real and how reality works if you don't get it right. Understanding is limited by the very nature of the need to and process by which we come to understand. But ultimately it is only on the basis of what we do understand from which we can begin to build a reliable world view, one that serves our own and each others rational best interest.
Imagination is best that is tempered by the wisdom of experience and reason. Mutual understanding of our common reality is essential and key to building mutually beneficial relationships, the only kind worth pursuing and the only kind that ultimately reward our efforts. Healthy relationships begin and rely on the constant ability to relate to our common reality to the extent we can share and understand common experiences. Beyond that only lies grief.
Imagination is best that is tempered by the wisdom of experience and reason. Mutual understanding of our common reality is essential and key to building mutually beneficial relationships, the only kind worth pursuing and the only kind that ultimately reward our efforts. Healthy relationships begin and rely on the constant ability to relate to our common reality to the extent we can share and understand common experiences. Beyond that only lies grief.
Jim,// I must again object to this idea that Scientists think people are "either deluded or lying". That just makes it an offensive statement and I don't think captures the truth of the matter at all.//
Firstly, I’m getting a bit tired of people finding offence in practically anything that anyone says that disagrees with their own opinions. It’s ruining far too many decent discussions lately. Secondly, where are you drawing the line between mistaken beliefs and delusion – and how do you know that such beliefs are mistaken?
//surely it's just common sense that if an approach isn't working you shouldn't keep trying the same thing and expect it to work this time?//
It would be common sense to try something else.
// I don't think it's quite right to imply that as a whole, Scientists had that attitude. It was clear to most that there was still much to figure out -- after all, why else do you think they bothered trying ?//
A bit of a contradiction going on between those last two statements of yours, Jim, so which is it? Is it worth persevering or isn’t it?
//it's not wrong to say that it's unlikely that they're real, at least not at the moment.//
Actually, I think it is wrong. As I’ve said so many times, rather than potentially misleading people, if you don’t know the only honest thing you can say is that you don’t know.
Firstly, I’m getting a bit tired of people finding offence in practically anything that anyone says that disagrees with their own opinions. It’s ruining far too many decent discussions lately. Secondly, where are you drawing the line between mistaken beliefs and delusion – and how do you know that such beliefs are mistaken?
//surely it's just common sense that if an approach isn't working you shouldn't keep trying the same thing and expect it to work this time?//
It would be common sense to try something else.
// I don't think it's quite right to imply that as a whole, Scientists had that attitude. It was clear to most that there was still much to figure out -- after all, why else do you think they bothered trying ?//
A bit of a contradiction going on between those last two statements of yours, Jim, so which is it? Is it worth persevering or isn’t it?
//it's not wrong to say that it's unlikely that they're real, at least not at the moment.//
Actually, I think it is wrong. As I’ve said so many times, rather than potentially misleading people, if you don’t know the only honest thing you can say is that you don’t know.
As there has been no refutation of my own imported post above, I'll make so bold as to import another which I wrote yesterday on the same thread; " In the 4.5 billion years since this planet was formed, nothing has left it, and nothing on it has any independent concrete existence. Everything including you has been, and will continue to be, re-cycled. Everything that surrounds you, the chair you sit on, the computer you are using, was once something else, and that, is the sheer brilliance of life."
-- answer removed --
Why should god be irrelevant to this discussion. I have read books by renowned scientists who marvel at the fact that, from the cosmos down to the quantum, mathematics appears to describe all of it like a perfectly crafted glove fits the hand it was made for.
Yes even the most emminent scientists are subject to whimsy but their comments are surely suggesting something. The late Ian M Banks, in one of his culture novels had a sentence that I would surely have highlighted if I'd been reading it on Kindle. It goes along the lines of 'by this time most of all the galaxy's advanced sentient species had come to the conclusion that reality was a virtual one created inside the CPU of an incomprehensibly advanced computer or in the mind of someone or something(s) analogous to a god.
Yes even the most emminent scientists are subject to whimsy but their comments are surely suggesting something. The late Ian M Banks, in one of his culture novels had a sentence that I would surely have highlighted if I'd been reading it on Kindle. It goes along the lines of 'by this time most of all the galaxy's advanced sentient species had come to the conclusion that reality was a virtual one created inside the CPU of an incomprehensibly advanced computer or in the mind of someone or something(s) analogous to a god.
I think it is a little bit offensive to imply that scientists sneer at other people, or at least make frivolous assumptions about their being deluded or lying, although what I was trying to say was that I don't think it's right to think that scientists hold such distasteful and offensive views. It's never really seemed accurate in my experience. One or two people have said to me, or to my friends, something along the lines of "oh you must think I'm stupid all the time" and I get tired of saying "No, I really don't think that at all".
At any rate, the point is that there are more than the three possibilities other than deluded, lying or right. There is also the possibility of making an honest mistake.
The line between mistaken beliefs and delusion" is a bit of a difficult one to draw, and I'm not going to attempt to do it here for any specific cases, but the dictionary definition ought to do well enough. Something is a delusion if it's maintained "maintained despite being contradicted by reality" -- obviously if I were to continue to trot out the same argument above after strong and convincing evidence against it emerged, I'd be deluded. Personal accounts aren't strong enough evidence, I don't think, but that doesn't necessarily mean I think you are wrong (or deluded, or lying) -- just that I'll need more convincing than just a personal account. I don't see that this is unreasonable, either. It's meant to be healthy scepticism rather than anything else. (Admittedly, sometimes I do think you're wrong -- other times it's just as much a case of "I'm hardly going to change my views of the world based on a conversation with a stranger on the internet" as anything else. But I do find these discussions thought-provoking sometimes.)
"How do you know such beliefs are mistaken?...if you don’t know the only honest thing you can say is that you don’t know."
Well I don't know, no, but I can feel reasonably sure. I think that is also an honest assessment of the situation at the moment. I don't know -- but the evidence suggests that this sort of thing is unlikely. Why is that not being honest? As you have said, and I hope I am quoting you essentially correctly here, there is always the possibility that future technologies, or techniques, or evidence, or knowledge, emerge that show these "paranormal" (for want of a better word) goings-on to be, after all, just normal that we didn't understand. Equally, though, isn't there the possibility that this will never happen? That, after all, the explanations we have today for these (tricks of the mind, that sort of thing) were the correct ones?
This is why I was querying your "no doubt whatsoever" remark earlier. It seems odd that I must constantly be asked to concede that "I don't know", which is one of those statements that is true for anything from 0% to 99.99999999% certainty about something, so without the qualification of how much I don't know it's a bit of a meaningless thing to say anyway. Anyway, yes, it seems odd that I have to keep admitting this but that on the same topics you can be perfectly comfortable with having "no doubts whatsoever". Isn't this contradictory?
Which is the right side of the debate? I cannot say with absolute certainty that the side I'm taking is the correct one, no. Or, if you like, "I don't know". But given the current state of things, it seems unlikely -- perhaps even, for many (but not all) such phenomena, very unlikely indeed. To say that it's (very) unlikely is not a dishonest position. It's the truth, or at least the truth for the moment.
* *
I've been chopping and changing the above a few times so if it turns out to make no sense then sorry about that.
At any rate, the point is that there are more than the three possibilities other than deluded, lying or right. There is also the possibility of making an honest mistake.
The line between mistaken beliefs and delusion" is a bit of a difficult one to draw, and I'm not going to attempt to do it here for any specific cases, but the dictionary definition ought to do well enough. Something is a delusion if it's maintained "maintained despite being contradicted by reality" -- obviously if I were to continue to trot out the same argument above after strong and convincing evidence against it emerged, I'd be deluded. Personal accounts aren't strong enough evidence, I don't think, but that doesn't necessarily mean I think you are wrong (or deluded, or lying) -- just that I'll need more convincing than just a personal account. I don't see that this is unreasonable, either. It's meant to be healthy scepticism rather than anything else. (Admittedly, sometimes I do think you're wrong -- other times it's just as much a case of "I'm hardly going to change my views of the world based on a conversation with a stranger on the internet" as anything else. But I do find these discussions thought-provoking sometimes.)
"How do you know such beliefs are mistaken?...if you don’t know the only honest thing you can say is that you don’t know."
Well I don't know, no, but I can feel reasonably sure. I think that is also an honest assessment of the situation at the moment. I don't know -- but the evidence suggests that this sort of thing is unlikely. Why is that not being honest? As you have said, and I hope I am quoting you essentially correctly here, there is always the possibility that future technologies, or techniques, or evidence, or knowledge, emerge that show these "paranormal" (for want of a better word) goings-on to be, after all, just normal that we didn't understand. Equally, though, isn't there the possibility that this will never happen? That, after all, the explanations we have today for these (tricks of the mind, that sort of thing) were the correct ones?
This is why I was querying your "no doubt whatsoever" remark earlier. It seems odd that I must constantly be asked to concede that "I don't know", which is one of those statements that is true for anything from 0% to 99.99999999% certainty about something, so without the qualification of how much I don't know it's a bit of a meaningless thing to say anyway. Anyway, yes, it seems odd that I have to keep admitting this but that on the same topics you can be perfectly comfortable with having "no doubts whatsoever". Isn't this contradictory?
Which is the right side of the debate? I cannot say with absolute certainty that the side I'm taking is the correct one, no. Or, if you like, "I don't know". But given the current state of things, it seems unlikely -- perhaps even, for many (but not all) such phenomena, very unlikely indeed. To say that it's (very) unlikely is not a dishonest position. It's the truth, or at least the truth for the moment.
* *
I've been chopping and changing the above a few times so if it turns out to make no sense then sorry about that.
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