quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: lickenforyou

After years of debating religion I know that I'm not going to change someone's mind who believes that they're going to live forever.

I'm not debating religion. But thanks for confirming my impression that you have been.

Nuff said, eh?

K.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: lickenforyou

If it were anyone else I would assume you were being snarky, but I think you actually think I'm arguing religion because I mentioned the word religion.

Nah, I was being snarky. Heh.

But seriously, the reason I mentioned your sarcastic remark is because it shows your attitude toward the data. And that attitude seems to carry through your posts. I say there is no detectable brain activity; you argue that there might still be some going on at an undetectable level. I point out that even if that's true we don't have the kind of coherent cortical activity that we know to be a correlate of consciousness; you say, well maybe decades of neuroscience are wrong! I mean, ya gotta admit it looks like you're reaching.

So yes, it has appeared to be the case that you've been trying to defending a belief. And when you characterized our exchange as "debating religion," on the basis of a vacuous claim that I'm someone "who believes that they're going to live forever," that really did pretty much cast it in stone as a "belief" issue. But it's clear why you're certain of that: It's your belief that's at stake. Because your mind-reading claim notwithstanding, you don't have a fucking clue what I believe!

K.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: lickenforyou

If it were anyone else I would assume you were being snarky, but I think you actually think I'm arguing religion because I mentioned the word religion.

Nah, I was being snarky. Heh.

But seriously, the reason I mentioned your sarcastic remark is because it shows your attitude toward the data. And that attitude seems to carry through your posts. I say there is no detectable brain activity; you argue that there might still be some going on at an undetectable level. I point out that even if that's true we don't have the kind of coherent cortical activity that we know to be a correlate of consciousness; you say, well maybe decades of neuroscience are wrong! I mean, ya gotta admit it looks like you're reaching.

So yes, it has appeared to be the case that you've been trying to defending a belief. And when you characterized our exchange as "debating religion," on the basis of a vacuous claim that I'm someone "who believes that they're going to live forever," that really did pretty much cast it in stone as a "belief" issue. But it's clear why you're certain of that: It's your belief that's at stake. Because your mind-reading claim notwithstanding, you don't have a fucking clue what I believe!

K.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: rawtape

I think a more accurate statement would be "Thoughts occur." Implicit, but not explicitly articulated, in his formulation is the premise that for thoughts to occur, there must be a thinking entity, him.

Well hold on. What does that mean? Who is making this claim? And on what basis? Follow it through: "Thoughts exist." How do you know? "I experience them." Ergo Sum. That is Descartes' argument. It does not rest on agency. He acknowledges that the thoughts he experiences might not originate with him. That is irrelevant. It is the fact that he experiences them that establishes being: "I am. I exist."

So it seems there's a semantic quibble either way. To simply say, "thoughts occur," explicitly (if not intentionally) ignores the experiencer. To say, "je pense," implicitly (if not intentionally) attributes agency to the experiencer. We do, however, know what Descartes meant. The question I'm left with is, are you trying to say something different?

K.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata



There has been a lot of speculation about what might be going on, but nothing yet that sticks....

Not all NDEs occur when the brain is shutting down. And it is difficult to see how any conscious experience, from any cause, could occur under conditions where there is anoxic loss of brain function during cardiac arrest. As for memories, to have a clear memory of events that occured in the operating theater during flatline EEG would require at minimum perception of those events. It is difficult to see how there could be any coherent perceptual processing going on under those conditions.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

As I understand it, Descartes was claiming that his non-sentient human entity deprived of all sensory stimulation was doing the thinking.

I suppose you could check yourself on that. Personally, I can't even begin to imagine what a "non-sentient human entity" might be.

K.