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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Imagine yourself dead. What picture comes to mind? Your funeral with a casket surrounded by family and friends? Complete darkness and void? In either case, you are still conscious and observing the scene. In reality, you can no more envision what it is like to be dead than you can visualize yourself before you were born. Death is cognitively nonexistent, and yet we know it is real because every one of the 100 billion people who lived before us is gone. As Christopher Hitchens told an audience I was in shortly before his death, “I’m dying, but so are all of you.” Reality check.
In his book Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization (Crown, 2012), British philosopher and Financial Times essayist Stephen Cave calls this the Mortality Paradox. “Death therefore presents itself as both inevitable and impossible,” Cave suggests. We see it all around us, and yet “it involves the end of consciousness, and we cannot consciously simulate what it is like to not be conscious.”
The attempt to resolve the paradox has led to four immortality narratives: Staying alive: “Like all living systems, we strive to avoid death. The dream of doing so forever—physically, in this world—is the most basic of immortality narratives.” Resurrection: “The belief that, although we must physically die, nonetheless we can physically rise again with the bodies we knew in life.” Soul: The “dream of surviving as some kind of spiritual entity.” Legacy: “More indirect ways of extending ourselves into the future” such as glory, reputation, historical impact or children.
All four fail to deliver everlasting life. Science is nowhere near reengineering the body to stay alive beyond 120 years. Both religious and scientific forms of resurrecting your body succumb to the Transformation Problem (how could you be reassembled just as you were and yet this time be invulnerable to disease and death?) and the Duplication Problem (how would duplicates be different from twins?). “Even if DigiGod made a perfect copy of you at the end of time,” Case conjectures, “it would be exactly that: a copy, an entirely new person who just happened to have the same memories and beliefs as you.” The soul hypothesis has been slain by neuroscience showing that the mind (consciousness, memory and personality patterns representing “you”) cannot exist without the brain. When the brain dies of injury, stroke, dementia or Alzheimer’s, the mind dies with it. No brain, no mind; no body, no soul.
That leaves us with the legacy narrative, of which Woody Allen quipped: "I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve it by not dying." Nevertheless, Cave argues that legacy is the driving force behind works of art, music, literature, science, culture, architecture and other artifacts of civilization. How? Because of something called Terror Management Theory. Awareness of one’s mortality focuses the mind to create and produce to avoid the terror that comes from confronting the mortality paradox that would otherwise, in the words of the theory’s proponents—psychologists Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski—reduce people to “twitching blobs of biological protoplasm completely perfused with anxiety and unable to effectively respond to the demands of their immediate surroundings.”
Maybe, but human behavior is multivariate in causality, and fear of death is only one of many drivers of creativity and productivity. A baser evolutionary driver is sexual selection, in which organisms from bowerbirds to brainy bohemians engage in the creative production of magnificent works with the express purpose of attracting mates—from big blue bowerbird nests to big-brained orchestral music, epic poems, stirring literature and even scientific discoveries. As well argued by evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller in The Mating Mind (Anchor, 2001), those that do so most effectively leave behind more offspring and thus pass on their creative genes to future generations. As Hitchens once told me, mastering the pen and the podium means never having to dine or sleep alone.
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71 Comments
Add CommentIt happens that I am one who is in no need of an immortality narrative, in part due to my taking to heart two lines of Prospero's in Shakespeare's Tempest:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"We are such stuff as dreams are made on
"And our little life is rounded with a sleep."
I commend those lines--truly immortal, they are--to others in their contemplations upon that expectation; "...rounded with a sleep". Sums it up exactly, for me.
Ken Herrick
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that the author is using bad science. You do not test for sound by walking through a forest with a flashlight. Neither do you test for color with a microphone. By definition, the soul is not part of the physical world. You cannot test for the soul (or God) with physical devices.
The best statement that can be used by skeptics is that because there is no way in the physical world to determine the existence or non-existence of ‘soul’ they have a ‘theory’ that such a thing does not exist. As such, that is a valid theory. The other option is that they do not believe such a thing exists, and that goes into the realm of faith and then becomes a religion.
A true scientist will state that as there has not been a definitive test for the soul (or God) then both the existence and non-existence of soul are valid theories.
So, the theory of existing soul then opens the door for the theories of reincarnation and resurrection.
GSnyder states that "skeptics"..."have a theory that such a thing [the soul] does not exist. As such, that is a valid theory. The other option is that they do not believe such a thing exists, and that goes into the realm of faith and then becomes a religion."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo objections to that: 1. Scientific theory is explanation convincingly supported by physical evidence. None such is available in support of a soul. Therefor no scientific theory of soul is possible. Conjecture maybe but not theory. And 2. Faith does not imply religion, faith being by definition belief in untestable propositions (see Hebrews 30-something)--and only that. Religion incorporates belief in untestable propositions but the reverse is not implied thereby.
And perhaps a 3rd objection of mine--a comment, really-- about "skeptic": The true skeptics in my view (table-turning but peeing against the tide as I am) are those who decline physicality in adhering to faith.
Ken Herrick
Ken,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTheory is testable. Faith/soul/God/gods are untestable with any of our physical tools. If you believe for or against something that is untestable then that is faith. If you are adamant enough about your 'faith' then that becomes religion. If you believe there is no soul, God, gods; then that is faith. Belief in the nonexistence of something is still faith. As long as you believe that strongly in something that is not testable, I think that qualifies as religion. Does anyone have a set of tools that can prove eithor way?
George Snyder
Oh, by the way, I have not declared what I believe in this regard. It should be easy to make a guess, but you cannot prove eithor way. My complaint is that these conclusions are reached using poor science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne more comment then I will shut up for a while.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Dalai Lama once said, "If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change"
There can be no conflice between science and religion unless you are ignorant of science, religion or both.
I agree with msg no. 4 except I don't think that unshaken faith becomes religion. Faith is faith is faith. Once shaken, it ceases to exist. Not shaken, it remains: just faith. When it encompasses the supernatural is when I think it becomes religion. Otherwise, mere stubbornness; "willful disregard", I call it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd why is it that so far it is only we two who are commenting on this piece? Where are all the other readers of Mr. Shermer's column?
KCH
Who are we to demand that death or life be what we want it to be? Instead, why not learn from what life, death and, or course, science and verifiable reason, can tell us so far about it, and accept it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou may be interested in the following article: http://the-philosophy-of-science.blogspot.com/.
Unaltre Home
Michael quotes Cave: "...we cannot consciously simulate what it is like to not be conscious." I submit that states of mind reached during certain moments of meditation, yoga, martial arts, dancing, sports, music and so forth, are not just simulations but true experiences of not-consciousness. During timeless moments (eg, "the Zone") we are aware but not aware that we are aware. We simply are. Perhaps this is how plants & animals experience the world, without messy, clueless Reason jiggling their virtual elbows. Be Here Now. Reason is like the general who says, "I'm their leader —which way did they go?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI apologize for the seemingly tautological, self-referential language I'm using, but as it says in the very first line of the Tao Te Ching, "The Tao that can be written down is not the true Tao." Many pages of writing about the Tao follow this warning.
Also, people seem to be confusing the notion of "soul" with that of "ego" or "self". Both Buddhism and Hinduism separate those realities. Our soul, out true self, is the Divine Ground of Being. Our self, or personality, or ego, is a transient emanation supported by our biological bodies. At death, both body and self decompose into their elements and provide nutrients for future generations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrian
My third, and for now final comment, about how Michael, like many others, has fallen for the Great Fallacy:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThesis - When I was growing up, people told me that God is like ____________ (fill in the blank).
Antithesis - As an adult, I discovered that God is actually NOT like _____________.
Synthesis - Therefore, there is no God.
Quid est demonstrandum sed falsum.
A note to Ken: Thanks for your comment, it looks like you encouraged others to comment also.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA note to the others: Thanks for your comments. Any discussion only gains from multiple inputs.
Now, another additional comment from me:
We do not have the science to determine the existence of intelligent life in other solar systems, and even more difficult, life in other galaxies. Therefore, can we make the statement that such life does not exist?
We can for all practical purposes make such a statement because for us we will probably never find anything to indicate anything different.
Neither can we determine, with even our best science, anything about spiritual things such as soul, God, angels, etc. These things do not exist. They do not exist at least in our physical world.
Might they exist in some other universe?
Might their existence be in some other dimension that we have as yet to define?
A note to Ken: Thanks for your comment, it looks like you encouraged others to comment also.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA note to the others: Thanks for your comments. Any discussion only gains from multiple inputs.
Now, another additional comment from me:
We do not have the science to determine the existence of intelligent life in other solar systems, and even more difficult, life in other galaxies. Therefore, can we make the statement that such life does not exist?
We can for all practical purposes make such a statement because for us we will probably never find anything to indicate anything different.
Neither can we determine, with even our best science, anything about spiritual things such as soul, God, angels, etc. These things do not exist. They do not exist at least in our physical world.
Might they exist in some other universe?
Might their existence be in some other dimension that we have as yet to define?
Sorry about the duplication. My bad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisresponse to number 7
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFaith that is never shaken is dead. Your faith is only alive if it is continuously tested and shaken.
Comment to bbnoonan:
God does not exist.
What ever is in your mind when you say God, that does not exist. The human mind is not capable of conceiving that which is infinite. That should in no way prevent you from some kind of faith or belief in ________ .
A response to number 8:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA good thesis on pantheism.
Mr. Shermer stated, "All four fail to deliver everlasting life." His discussion, although scientific, is unconvincing. This issue talks about the misgivings that some scientists had about the concept of the multiverse. Today, at least theoretically, it has standing. A lack of information does not disprove the validity of a theory. The fact that the soul is treated in "Climbing Mount Immortality" as if it were a heart or a brain is misleading. The soul, if it exists, exists outside of the field of science at this time. It is something that must be believed in. The article could have simply stated that there is no scientific evidence that the soul exists. The fact that the brain, and therefore the mind, are mortal casts no light on the question of the soul.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Is "God does not exist" a premise or a conclusion for you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. Guess I didn't get my point across, perhaps my references were too far from your experiences. Agreed, my 'mind' (or 'self' or 'ego') cannot conceive of Ultimate Reality.
3. My 'soul' is Ultimate Reality. So is your soul, and my dog's, and my wife's begonia's, all manifestations emergent from the Ground of Being. As Wordsworth wrote, "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting." AND, the Bard: "Our little life is rounded with a sleep."
God is something like an electron, a cloud of potentialities and probabilities, in no one place or time. When we test it, or measure it, or try to pin it down, or define it, or imagine it, God collapses into a particle, a particular here-and-now, a _______________. So each religion has some truth, but never the Truth, never the whole 9 yards.
4. (Back to my very first post..) We humans cannot conceive of God, but in meditation, etc, we can experience Him, Her, Them, or It.
5. Thou art God.
1. Does Michael Shermer himself ever read these posts? Does he ever participate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. Is 'GSnyder' the famous poet?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with number 17. That is what I meant when I said bad science.
to bbnoonanin: numbers 18 &19
- item 1:
I believe that God does/must exist. At least something much greater than any human mind can comprehend. However, being human, when the word God is said (or thought) some concept comes to mind. It is that concept that I say is wrong, at least incomplete. In that respect (only) I can honestly say that God does not exist. I really do not think God will hold my lack of intelligence against me.
- Item 2 and item 4:
I agree with this, maybe you and I are making the same point here.
- Item 3:
The last line mirrors what Gandhi said.
And as much as I think I would like to be famous, I am not the poet. I am an author though and much of the concepts I gain from discussions like this might be found in future books.
another comment on number 8
I did read that article. The author builds a beautiful house of cards that is based on accepting the previous statement in order to make the current statement true. An excellent use of logic to prove a point that may not necessarily be true. The sentences are long enough and convoluted enough to make it necessary to read them a couple of times to determine what the exact point is. The author ignores the possibility that the universe may not be large enough to contain God. I hope this does not offend anyone. This is just an observation from me, only what one blind man sees when he tries to see the elephant.
Some of the same conclusions can be reached by reading Augustine.
What is "Divine Ground of Being"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position.” ― Bill Maher
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems clear under the conditions of rot that takes over at the onset of heart/breath ceasing and subsequent brain death, that there is no future for us beyond this short exhilirating life on this pale blue dot, anymore than there would be a future for a dead mouse, bird, lion, monkey, whale, ect... To conjecture anything else is just fear of death and loss of loved ones made plain for all to see.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Ground of Being" is a Paul Tillich phrase, which one can google: God is called the “ground of being” because God is the answer to the ontological threat of non-being, and this characterization of the theology... [Wikipedia]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI prepend "Divine" the phrase because I'm probably not in agreement with him, nor do I care to be. I think others in this forum and in philosophy have the same concept that I am trying to express with this phrase, that reality has a substrate, from which it all emerges and to which it all returns, "...Like a drop of water, Flowing to the Ocean." (Starhawk's chant). Like, what existed before the Big Bang, or Brahma, or what you would see in Plato's Cave is you turned away from the shadow play and gazed upon pure forms.
For me, any naming, formulation, definition, imagery, etc of that foundational Something is valid but limited and incomplete, simply a mask upon the godhead. So a Trappist monk and a Buddhist monk and a Muslim mystic and a Hindu sinyasi can all recognize the unity of their individual visions without worrying about who has the true vision and who has only a false idol. "The words just get in the way."
I jump around like this because poetic language as such concentrated power and because so many thinkers realize this unity, and all our words are straw, as Aquinas came to see.
Just as our physical bodies precipitate out of the biosphere, our personas ("masks") aggregate out of our culture and it's mythology. Upon death, both decompose; our bodies melt into the ground, our personalities into the Ground of Being. Both provide nutrients for new life. Nothing is ever lost, or wasted, simply recycled "star stuff", as Sagan termed it. If you think we are just "dust in the wind", check out the Eagle Nebula, where the dust is giving birth to new stars in the solar wind from a nearby nova. Reality is fractal.
on the whole I'd rather be in Philadelphia.....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"We do not have the science to determine the existence of intelligent life in other solar systems, and even more difficult, life in other galaxies."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...? We most certainly do, but it also requires a heck of a lot of luck in terms of timing, if we're to catch any signals that may or may not be emitted from distant worlds with technology of a sort we can detect.
In the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life there's at least a concrete framework of how to search and a distinct event to watch for. The odds of making this contact in a given lifetime are poor, but how to go about it is quite understood (not that we can't come up with even better ways in the future).
There is no such experiement with an "infinite supernatural", because we don't know what it is we're looking for or how we'd tell if we found it.
Therefore I find the question of extraterrestrial life fascinating and important. I find the question of an immortal, omniscent, omnipotent, omniwhatever deity to be without merit or meaning for human beings.
One week? Or Two......
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust to add a third commentator,Mr Herrick, it is my intent to enjoy my life to the fullest, for however the issue of afterlife resolves, I have done the math and the calculations clearly indicate that I will be dead much longer than I will be alive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems the point of this discussion (if it has only one) is to ask you this: After you are dead, will you be aware of your condition or not, and if yes, will you be glad or sad at the change?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for how to live your life, "Primum, innocente". First, do no harm. Second, Pursue your Happiness. That is not only an inalienable right but a darn good ethical principle.
It is for the best, given the various consequences of various religions for what, I think, are normal, healthy activities, that I shall be unaware. I think not, therefore I am not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think so too, therefore I am so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisam not
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo's the Old Man in the Sky!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article... and given its constraints (ontologically speaking) i agree that "legacy" (and sex... the "selfish gene") are fundamental drivers of human behavior.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOnly an arrogant fool could look about The Natural world... or the vastness of the ever-evolving Cosmos, where NOTHING escapes change... and propose immortality for ... themselves. Such a notion is adolescent in the extreme, and patently absurd.
The Greek philosopher Epicurus best sums up my POV:
"Death is nothing to us, for when we are, death has not come... and when death has come, we are not."
What an amazingly clear distillation... and guide.
Live each day... and without regrets.
When someone talks about a god-construct in any sort of personal way... as if they have special knowledge, they are clearly delusional... and grandiose. However, to philosophically speculate about an intelligence in the Universe in some unknowable and ethereal form... is in play, but of course utterly lacking evidence. For me, you can equate a god with Nature... it matters... not at all.
Finally, once you fill in the blanks... the parameters of the god you imagine to exist or have been indoctrinated to accept, it then becomes a testable hypothesis. Read Victor Stenger's book... and yes, the hypothesis utterly fails to comport with... (wait for it)... reality.
Ditto for the "soul"... some etheral, super-natural agency somehow supervening on our physical brains. This "ghost" residing somewhere in our evolved neural network is so ridiculous it would be merely hilarious, if it were not the basis for so many religions... and their misdeeds.
As someone who is currently dying, I'd like to think that my life has not been wasted; I suppose that would be my immortality. Not from my only child, whom is sterile and resides in an institution. Not from my work, which is little known and not of the variety to last the ages at any rate. Where else, then? My friends? They will dies as well, taking the remnant of my memory into the Void with them. What then? In my case perhaps nothing, except for the odd facts about me that may or may not emerge over time, all eminently forgettable, I assure everyone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, I will be gone. I will be forgotten, like most of the masses of Mankind and my loved ones will follow soon, a forgotten footnote in a book that turns to dust. Depressing? Not really, just . . . wistfulness. The doctors say it could be a few months and I hope they are wrong, is that fear? Maybe, although I don't feel terribly afraid. I just feel tired right now. Be happy, and don't yell at each other so much.
E.O Wilson has recently repudiated his own theory of the "selfish gene" to explain altruism and now opines that cooperative groups simply outperform competitive groups. Pure Darwinism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLife and death of the body is quite simple. Physical matter- that which seen and heard and felt - it changes. This is understood but what about consciousness? How do explain that which sees and hears and feels. If we are to apply science and physical law to consciousness as we apply it to the rest of the world there must be laws of conservation. Stuff does not appear and disappear. It comes from some place and it goes to some place. So, what about consciousness? Where does it come from and where does it go? In my mind this is where the science people get mystical and the religious people imitate science. The science orientated mind might say that consciousness is some sort of effect that appears and disappears. Our most central connection to our world, our very essence magically appears and disappears as if it weren't real. Everything is real and concrete and measurable but consciousness is somehow unreal? The religious people imagine a soul which as far as I see is kind of like a second body. It apparently hold memories and has brain, feels stuff and sees. So supposedly it exists in some sort a parallel reality but not the same as this one? Not very imaginative. Why would it necessarily be the same as our corporeal existence? Consciousness is troubling but I am sure it is more real than anything else. Any effect could be created in your neurology. The blue light that reaches your brain isn't light, it's the response of neurons stimulated. What causes it is the subject of investigation, the fact that you experience it and that you feel things is the only real certainty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the figure of 100 Billion humans have lived and died is high from other sources I have read. Even if you go back to the start of the genius Homo I just don't see it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you, Superstring, and whether you believe in it or not, I will be saying a prayer for your comfort. You have put things back into perspective for the moment at least.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are all SuperStrings (#35), the only difference is that some of us are more aware of it than others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImagine yourself dead. What picture comes to mind? this statement made me say to myself DEATH!? Ha! I laugh at DEATH. hahaha. the reason i say this is because when the human shell of a body goes back to the ground from where it came (WE) meaning all of the humans on earth continue to move on to another plane of existence. the body is made up of 21.3 grams of energy (mass) this can be calculated as 1100 watts 62hz which mind u varies. so the question then would be does energy die? i think not. energy only gets placed in the areas for which energy was designated. so again i say i laugh at death. hahaha
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour new "plane of existence" will be the state of food for other creatures. Yes, your mass/energy will not "disappear", but will be recycled. Except, it will not hold the same information anymore, so it will not represent you anymore. Imagine recycling a computer, disassembling it down to the molecular level: all the information in that computer will be lost.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only silver lining in your "new plane of existence" will be that you won't be able to post such foolish messages anymore.
"energy only gets placed in the areas for which energy was designated"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSounds a lot like Intelligent Design, at which I laugh. hahaha.
And what's so special about your "energy" that your "the human shell of a body" does not share? Is not your body as much "you" as your "energy"?
I agree with GG: Please post silly thoughts on a silly forum.
"The soul hypothesis has been slain by neuroscience showing that the mind (consciousness, memory and personality patterns representing “you”) cannot exist without the brain. When the brain dies of injury, stroke, dementia or Alzheimer’s, the mind dies with it. No brain, no mind; no body, no soul."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "soul hypothesis" has most certainly NOT been slain by neuroscience. You are assuming that the consciousness is damaged when the brain is damaged, but it's entirely possible that the soul, or consciousness, is NOT damaged, but unable to be expressed fully because the hardware it runs on, the brain, is incapable of it. That's just one of many holes in this article.
A true scientist is busy answering real questions through research, testing, challenging results to eliminate error.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article brings forth the notion that religion
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand science can accept each others presence though
the two can not, by definition, share the same spot.
Science attempts to explain existence by examining
the real world.
Religion for all its benefits, has been inclined to
dismiss reality absent of the super natural.
Faith is a natural defense against hopelessness.
The power of faith provides a bridge across the
unknown. Science attempts to explain the unknown.
1. This articles has been published recently on 04/06/2012, however, within this short period, it has attracted so may comments. This proves that faith is very closer and dearer to our hearts,, whether to skeptics or believers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. No serious mission can be pursued without faith. If faith is supported by rational logic, this assumes a potential strength.
3 Michael Shermer mentions that during the past, about 100 billion people died yet we can not feel death cognitively. This cognition arises primarily from our "spiritual ignorance" which is very much deep rooted and difficult to remove than "Informative" and "factual" ignorance. Whenever, any person who is our near and dear relative/friend dies, cognition of death becomes intense in us, though temporarily.
4. Author has mentioned that consciously we can't know the unconscious state. There have been people ( at least in India, I know such people), who after years
deep contemplation, Samadhi,( for 40-50 years) have found that mind and consciousness are realities in the planes above the physical plane of brain/body.
5. Our whole thinking apparatus comprises of BRAIN , in the physical body, and MIND in the astral body, which is embedded in brain, in the astral plane of existence And the whole thinking process is perceived by consciousness which lies beyond astral plane. Modern scientific tools are unable to investigate astral body probably due to fact that science has not evolved to the extent of exploration the astral plane But inability by modern science in investigation of astral body/mind/consciousness should not lead to conclusion that astral body/mind/consciousness does not exist beyond physical plane.
6. Though MIND/ASTRAL BODY and BRAIN/PHYSICAL body are distinct entities, but at operational level they operate as SINGLE and COMPOSITE entity. Brain serves in the body as hardware viz key-board, monitor, internal circuits of computer & MIND serves like E.M./Electric Signal in Computer. A change in either of hardware or E.M. signal affects the output on the monitor. In the same manner, a change in the chemical/electrical property of brain thro' drugs/electrical impulse/deficiency of oxygen affects the output on the brain monitor but this does not establishes that MIND equivalent of e.m./electric signal in computer does not exist.
Humans for thousands of years have known about things like fermentation, infection and decomposition. However we interacted with these mysterious processes, we treated them as diverse and unrelated phenomena. Until Leeuwenhoek invented the microscope in the early 17th Century were completely unaware that all of them shared a common source: microbes. Technology introduced us to a whole world of plants and animals that had always existed around us but remained completely invisible except for their by-products.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy analogy, will technology ever show us something about the source of consciousness-related phenomena that is presently invisible and undetectable? Will such a discovery unite such apparently diverse phenomena as awareness, ghosts and UFO sightings?
To bbnoonan
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think during the next 20-30 years, there is no likelihood of technology unraveling the mystery of consciousness, mind, astral world. During the past thousand years, aspirants have made exploration in this area thro' subjective methodology by meditation/contemplation under the guidance of a Living Master. Objective scientific methodology, based upon deductive logic and empirical evidence, is one way to explore the nature and reality. But that is not the only way. In spiritual area, there are other methodologies also to reach reality. However, one heartening development of modern era has been that boundaries between Physics and Mysticism are become more and more blurred.
Your negative prediction is completely baseless, mere wishful thinking. It's safe to say than NO one can predict what technology will or will not illuminate in the near future. The Web did not exist 20 years ago; could anyone have foretold this forum's existence?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn a different note, but on the same Web, today's NY Times has an interesting article on superstition and its effects:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/opinion/sunday/in-defense-of-superstition.html?hp
Mr. Shermer and many of the commenters are committing a common scientific error, namely conflating the natural, which is within our purview as scientists, and the supernatural, which is not. God and the soul are not physical realities; they exist (if they do) in a different reality inaccessible to our minds, which are physical to the extent that they depend on the brain. I know that when I die I will be wrapped in linen shrouds, then the woolen prayer shawl that I use in life, then placed in a plain pine box and lowered into the plain earth. Friends and relatives will shovel earth into my grave and then leave to observe the mourning rituals. All biodegradable (and relatively inexpensive). Shortly thereafter I will decompose, return to the earth from which I came, and nourish new life, i.e. push up daisies. If I ever forget that, the prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will starkly remind me: Man is founded in the earth, and his end is to go back to the earth. . . It sounds better - and starker - in Hebrew. Since my molecules will end up in other organisms, perhaps other humans, resurrection, if it occurs (I believe it will but I can't prove it) will be a supernatural phenomenon and we don't gain much by dwelling on it. Our lives possess whatever meaning and purpose we impart to them. Let women fear death, weep and wail (Jer. 9:16); we hunters and fighters accept that it can come at any time, and pray to meet the deaths of our loved ones and ultimately ourselves with the dignity that befits a man. That much we promise to six million souls that were not so lucky.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI "experienced" what death must be like. I was once anaesthetized for a hospital operation and had absolutely no experience or recollection of the time that I was "out". Unlike sleep where some agent of the mind provides some accounting of the passing time, it was like the hours (and I) did not exist for the period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally speaking death only give meaning to our life.Our greatest urge is survive in any condition.If we are physically immortal,there is no meaning to evolution,we never created civilization, our progress stand still, we live as animals are living.I know animal are also conscious of death but their consciousness remain elementary stage.I had seen tears in eyes of buffalo when her calf died.Another incident I had seen five buffalo were lingering on railway track from opposite side train was coming,buffaloes knows danger of death is there but unable understand from which side danger is coming so in confused position they ran here and there and all were killed As our consciousness developed we unconsciously know about our death..Only human being struggle to avoid the death in any condition.that is why only death gave meaning to our life.We try our best to create literature, give birth to child,and do many thing to achieved immorality but unconsciously we know these effort are futile,we never became immortal our last destiny is death.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPhysical immortality is impossible; the Universe will eventually run out of energy to power thought, among other ways for thought to cease. If somebody said that I would be "reconstructed" at some time in the future, (different atoms, same personality and thought), I would consider that returning from death, though not immortality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut Souls? They are not part of this Universe and have no spatial dimensions, but if they exist, are created blank by God and given to Men so that a Man's personality and memories will impress upon a Soul and so live after physical death. This would be how God makes us his Children, for He works in simple ways. Richard Kaplan
The fact that you completely omit any mention of women in your procreation process implies a rigid and dogmatic slant to your viewpoint. It's hard for me to discuss things with someone who claims to know the mind of God. And if this universe is the handiwork of God (which language I would not use), it doesn't look "simple" at all, but infinitely rich, complex and full of wonders to behold.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know what's worse than being alive? Being trapped in the body of someone who's suffering a fate worse than death, like those starving and diseased souls perishing in third world countries. That's why eternal non-existence is preferable to any teaching on "reincarnation." Who would choose to be born as someone who occupies 99.9% of the poor on this planet?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI often wonder, what if reincarnation is an ungodly game of 'musical chairs' where you keep being born to some random couple somewhere on Earth? Then it means that YOU are a celestial "lottery winner" by sitting there in your comfy office chair reading this, instead of outstretched on dirt under a relentless sun as you lay there dying.
So Americans' rather pathological avoidance of thinking about their own individual deaths, or death in general (except that which they 'experience' vicariously in films and on TV) would explain the decline of American society over the past sixty years. An interesting theory.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only form of immortality that is truly available to we humans is the creation of truly innovative and creative works of Art, Novels, Sculptures, accurate Scientific Theories and all other forms of creative endeavors.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo think that the human body and brain/mind will continue to exist after the onset of death is pure foolishness. No matter what science may create there will never be anything beyond death. There is no such thing as a soul or an eternal personal human spirit.
There is no heaven, no hell, and no afterlife. We are just like every other species in the universe. We are born by a normal physiological process. We then live our lives within the emptiness of nothingness. When we die we then go back into the realm of nothingness. There is no immortality. We die, and that is all there is folks!
We are born out of nothingness, we live our lives (for whatever duration), and then we die into nothingness.
Dear Michael, your human bias is showing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are problems with the opening sentence. "Imagine yourself dead." To do that you must understand what it means to be alive. Most people assume that they are alive, but cannot explicitly say why. The article goes on to talk not about life, but about consciousness. Immortality is seen not as staying alive, but as the preservation of the personality, and the memories that give personality depth. The usual definitions of what it means to be alive include self-maintenance, reproduction, information storage, metabolism, stability, control, evolution, and death. Notice, thought is not listed.
Arguably the part of the human body that does the rational thinking is not alive. Like hair, teeth, and fingernails neurons are insensate. Like epidermis and muscle, neurons give up their reproductive capability, and are, therefore, functional, nonliving body structures.
The tragedy of human existence is that we know that our memories and reason will go away when our body fails. Reason is so important to us that it is of little comfort that our capabilities for emotion are fully transmissible to our children. Instinctive emotions and values have something like immortality. Our children have the capability to feel as we do. The emphasis may be different, but elation and misery go with our genes to our offspring.
People think they want to remain alive forever, but we have neither the capacity for, nor the understanding of what living forever would be like.
I don't really believe that ``sitting there in your comfy office" is such a blessing. Sometimes on the contrary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeing confined to a hermetic glass structure, chained to the computer screen... Living in a crowded polluted city, enslaved by your greed or ambition, manipulated, with few real friends.... Unhealthy food, monstrously overweight people with nervous and cardiovascular problems...
All that is in fact torture, so often to be observed around us.
Most of the so-called less-civilized people may in fact be living happier lives than those trapped by what we call progress. Do we really comprehend our existence _before_ death?
Reincarnation is real
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut how, will reduce its appeal.
It's your seeds and your deeds
Not your soul it recedes
hopping off after once round the wheel.
;-) Jeremy Sherman
I don't believe in reincarnation any more. I used to, but that was 7 centuries ago when I was a Buddhist monk.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, most people have a general anaesthetic at some time in their lives. We know nothing, and there is no sense that any time has passed. No dreams either. We are just not there in mind. Death would be the same, except that we don't wake up from it.
Death is nothing to fear. We just need to make provision for those who are left.
Comment #22: Bill Maher lost his faith because he discovered that what he had been told God was, that is what did not exist. ... and yes, perhaps abstinence is a sex position if you want to think of it that way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI haven't been following for a while so I will have to catch up.
response to comment # 26
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI still maintain that our science is not able to detect other life forms especially in other galaxies. Perhaps if we are lucky, or our grandchildren are lucky, science may grow to that point.
As to attempting to discover/understand that which some of us might call God, my question is: "Why not at least try?"
first prize one week,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissecond prize two weeks.
I would like to add one more:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat ever God is, what ever soul is, what ever any possible continuation after physical death is, what ever!
We cannot know one way or the other.
Perhaps your heaven or hell is just that you will have to spend eternity with YOU.
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could explore just a little deeper into the impossible idea of the "resurrection of the body"? Mr. Shermer unfortunately fails to see the mystery that is imbedded in that phrase and so he begins his comments assuming that resurrection is linked somehow to physical death. What if it isn't about physical death at all. What if it is about another kind of death, just like the gospels are all about another kind of life. Now that is an idea with some substance. Resurrection without physical death.....hmm-m-m. Wonder where that thread of an idea can take us?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr Shermer peddles a skeptic bias that does not necessarily map to reality. I would like inquire for evidence to back these two claims: 1) Death is cognitively non existent, and 2) The soul hypothesis has been slain by neuroscience showing that the mind (consciousness, memory, and personality patterns representing "you") cannot exist without the brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI didn't know neuroscience was in its final golden years of discovery I was under the assumption that this work is in its infancy as stated by many practitioners running neurology departments here in CA. Even more interesting is that my own spiritual work over the last 30 years provides conclusive yet subjective evidence that not only does consciousness survive physicality but that mental faculty is preserved as well.
If Dr Shermer could provide access to the studies that led to his conclusion this would help me in my work to understand the mysteries surrounding spirit.
I know little of neurology, but it seems pretty obvious that our consciousness is intimately connected to our biology. One approach is to consider the reverse situation. In Alzheimer’s Disease or other dementia the body continues to function but the personality has disintegrated. To me this suggests that our persona ("mask") is ephemeral.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother thought is that personalities must exist in a temporal environment with a beginning, middle and end marked out by irreversible changes. Heaven is supposed to be an eternity where time does not exist at all. How can our conscious continue if nothing ever changes, if we never grow and learn? If we are still aware of our surroundings in the supposed Afterlife, we must experience a long, long, boring experience.