• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: JackARoe | Cheshire_Kat

new hypothesis on "why we're here"

@ Impacto

the question "how" of how we got here, is related to HOW the physical mechanism that transfers our souls works, which is out of our reach

the question "why" is related to where we came from and where we're going... did we escape somewhere? did we fall into a hell universe? etc

personally, i think any philosophical or scientific question has a little of both "how" and "why", though

p.s. thanks :P

@ Enlixt,

there are many possibilities as to what causes qualia. i agree, it has to be more than just what we know about neurons. however, i believe you misinterpret me. i did not mean to say that we have a metaphysical or spiritual soul

by "soul", i meant whatever mechanism enables our brains to produce qualia. this includes your quantum holographic field idea

>>All available evidence suggests that your mind is you>>

yeah. notice that i mentioned that you would not take your memories with you after death. i mean, we don't have memories of our past lives

>>Once you die, that is it. >>

if there is more to the brain than what we can physically model, then that "more" could POTENTIALLY live on after the destruction of our bodies. you are right though, it would be a somewhat different person, acquiring different memories and personality, that is important to note

are you so attached to the holographic field idea, that you cannot accept that there might be something else producing qualia that could live on? i believe the possibility should at least be considered (which, i guess, is what this thread is about)

---

i created one single small graph which can represent every single graph i made in the original post. i'll post it after i get this paper i procrastinated on done (it's on psychedelics in psychotherapy, but it's due in a few hours)
 
Last edited:
Enlitx said:
I disagree with your initial assumptions about there even being a soul. There is more to the brain that neurons, but it is most probably a quantam holographic field that has a bidirectional relationship with the electric currents involved. All available evidence suggests that your mind is you. Take out certain parts of the brain or alter its chemistry and you fundamentally alter who you are. Once the brain is dead, the field ceases to exist. Once you die, that is it.
Click to expand...
I don't know if you are responding to me, but I don't understand your mentality in a way that OK, this is all assumptions and wonderings, and this is what we are all doing in this thread.
Can't you just jump onto the other side of your brain for a bit, and enjoy the ride??
Cold rationalism, owes to get a break, some time. What are you doing on threads that question what IF....if you can't wonder?

And how are you so certain, what is in the unknown anyway, except just going by science alone? What IF?
 
^Yes, exactly.

To be honest, and no offense to anyone, but hardcore "science is everything" types strike me as the opposite side of the same coin (with a similar energy)as the hardcore, stubborn Christian types (like Seanmi, that dude who was in here posting recently). Both seem so dead set in seeing things through this one particular view, and it's not even that the view is wrong, it's just like you said. Where is the room for mental exploration? Where is the room to ponder? To wonder? Where is the room to grow?

Can't you just jump onto the other side of your brain for a bit, and enjoy the ride??
Click to expand...

Yes, that's it. It seems certain people CAN'T do that, and to me, it seems that anyone who clings so desperately to a certain set of beliefs is afraid to open their minds to other options. It's not that I want to change anyone's mind, I don't; I don't even believe there is one right way to see it. I just would like to see people stop being afraid to open their minds.
 
^ if science/rational laws does not include everything, and or if some things are nonphysical,
then some things happen for reasons that are untrue or contradictory or otherwise nonsensical

so for now i am a physicalist... what could there be, that is not within the grasp of science? i mean everything in this thread is within its grasp, at least at some future date

>>Yes, that's it. It seems certain people CAN'T do that, and to me, it seems that anyone who clings so desperately to a certain set of beliefs is afraid to open their minds to other options. It's not that I want to change anyone's mind, I don't; I don't even believe there is one right way to see it. I just would like to see people stop being afraid to open their minds.>>

i am this "hardcore science" type, but i believe a lot of this amazing stuff can happen *within physical laws* that are currently known or will be known someday. anything we can dream, can exist, within the laws we've constructed.. and i'm sure even more can exist that we've never dreamed of, following laws we've never investigated or dreamed of

eg, consciousness. it has to be produced somehow, in some way. and if it is, science is what investigates that method

if it is not, then consciousness pops out for no reason at all. that doesn't happen, including in cases of emergent phenomena
 
Last edited:
the soul is a topic of much musing to me. first, i believe it's logical that we may one day be capable of creating true AI that feels love (the most complex emotion.) here's why: every day science is producing more and more tangible mathematical ways by which to explain natural phenomenon that were previously mystical to us, because we couldnt fill in all the variables. so to me, it only makes sense that one day in the distant future we will have calculated enough of the variables in love to create a working formula. since everyone's love is unique based on their immense collection of personal paradigms, a robot will never understand YOUR love or MY love but i see no logical reason to say they will never be capable of FEELING a love of their own.

what i'm trying to emphasize in that is that the soul is not genuinely magical, mystical or mythical. it's just another natural phenomenon that we can't yet comprehend. now to the topic of where the soul comes from, where it resides, and where it continues to. my theory is that the soul begins to split from the physical brain when conditions in the brain are at the the point of chaos, but not before or after those conditions are met.

fortunately, the conditions are met on a daily basis or nobody would ever feel the need to wonder whether the soul does exist. unfortunately, MRI proves the average person's soul remains locked in their skull. so we know at least that the "soul" doesn't typically leave our bodies while we're alive.

i have no accompanying theory for where the soul may potentially come from before we're born, but i'm fairly certain that it's generated entirely within our brains since our thought processes and emotions change and evolve through our childhood and teen years, then stabilize in our mid-20s after which point only earth-shattering personal revelations can change the way we think about things.

what i do have a theory of though, is what happens after death. it's already known to us that the brain goes into massive overdrive at the moment of death (providing the brain is intact of course.) all the energy consumed at that moment is enough to bring the entire brain into the moment of chaos which i described.

at this point, i can't help but bring up that DMT pre-death secretion since it ties into my theory. all psychedelics do. the brain, to a brain cell, is a massive fucking place and yet only a few regions are severely influenced by each psychoactive substance individually. i believe this is only step ONE of introducing enough chaos to dislodge the soul. step TWO would be some immense revelation (in case of death, the sudden realization that you are DYING seems like a pretty intense one to me.)

add them together and you may expel the soul before the brain calls it quits, but where it goes right after it's expelled is a further mystery. some believe the spirit of people who passed live on in their friends, and i believe that the soul can't survive if the brain dies and ceases to produce the energy necessary to maintain the chaotic state required to generate said soul.

i do have an afterthought, which is that we'll be able to digitize our souls within the next few decades by probing our memories for our vast collection of paradigms, downloading those paradigms to solid state memory, then hooking it up to a powersource and a not-yet-existing bioelectrical processor that would function as a real human mind, able to sustain chaotic conditions enough for a soul to be generated from them. given that we're capable of growing some organs in a petri dish already, i'm sure it won't be long before we can generate brain-like tissue.
 
qwe said:
@ Enlixt,

there are many possibilities as to what causes qualia. i agree, it has to be more than just what we know about neurons. however, i believe you misinterpret me. i did not mean to say that we have a metaphysical or spiritual soul

by "soul", i meant whatever mechanism enables our brains to produce qualia. this includes your quantum holographic field idea

>>All available evidence suggests that your mind is you>>

yeah. notice that i mentioned that you would not take your memories with you after death. i mean, we don't have memories of our past lives

>>Once you die, that is it. >>

if there is more to the brain than what we can physically model, then that "more" could POTENTIALLY live on after the destruction of our bodies. you are right though, it would be a somewhat different person, acquiring different memories and personality, that is important to note

are you so attached to the holographic field idea, that you cannot accept that there might be something else producing qualia that could live on? i believe the possibility should at least be considered (which, i guess, is what this thread is about)
Click to expand...

The problem for me is that the idea of a soul or something else living on after death is wildly speculative. We don't know exactly how the mind-brain issue works, but so far there has been no evidence to suggest you would live on after death, and if all your memories changed anyway, for all intents and purposes you wouldn't live on after death. It just seems like a moot point. I am just giving my two cents, of course you guys are free to discuss any idea.

qwe said:
^ if science/rational laws does not include everything, and or if some things are nonphysical,
then some things happen for reasons that are untrue or contradictory or otherwise nonsensical

so for now i am a physicalist... what could there be, that is not within the grasp of science? i mean everything in this thread is within its grasp, at least at some future date

>>Yes, that's it. It seems certain people CAN'T do that, and to me, it seems that anyone who clings so desperately to a certain set of beliefs is afraid to open their minds to other options. It's not that I want to change anyone's mind, I don't; I don't even believe there is one right way to see it. I just would like to see people stop being afraid to open their minds.>>

i am this "hardcore science" type, but i believe a lot of this amazing stuff can happen *within physical laws* that are currently known or will be known someday. anything we can dream, can exist, within the laws we've constructed.. and i'm sure even more can exist that we've never dreamed of, following

eg, consciousness. it has to be produced somehow, in some way. and if it is, science is what investigates that method

if it is not, then consciousness pops out for no reason at all. that doesn't happen, including in cases of emergent phenomena
Click to expand...

I 100% agree with this statement.
 
Last edited:
LivingInTheMoment said:
I don't know if you are responding to me, but I don't understand your mentality in a way that OK, this is all assumptions and wonderings, and this is what we are all doing in this thread.
Can't you just jump onto the other side of your brain for a bit, and enjoy the ride??
Cold rationalism, owes to get a break, some time. What are you doing on threads that question what IF....if you can't wonder?

And how are you so certain, what is in the unknown anyway, except just going by science alone? What IF?
Click to expand...

Well, there is so much stuff that you could talk wonder about and make conjectures about that at least have a good probability of being true. Like the various interpretations of quantam theory, time travel, string theory, etc... All of these ideas can lead to wonderful and startling conclusions. It just bugs me that people entertain ideas that are so unlikely or we know nothing about simply because of emotional reasons. People have talked about what happens afer you die forever because people don't want to die, and all evidence says you cease to exist. Now, you may live on, who knows, but nothing has ever suggested it.

I mean, would you seriously make a thread discussing the merits of a spaghetti meatball monster ruling the world? I doubt many people would think that was important or interesting at all. Never mind that it is just as likely to be true as the idea of a soul, people don't care because they don't have a vested emotional interest in the subject. For me, since I don't fear death or feel like I must live on after death, the soul is my spaghetti monster.
 
MynameisnotDeja said:
^Yes, exactly.

To be honest, and no offense to anyone, but hardcore "science is everything" types strike me as the opposite side of the same coin (with a similar energy)as the hardcore, stubborn Christian types (like Seanmi, that dude who was in here posting recently). Both seem so dead set in seeing things through this one particular view, and it's not even that the view is wrong, it's just like you said. Where is the room for mental exploration? Where is the room to ponder? To wonder? Where is the room to grow?



Yes, that's it. It seems certain people CAN'T do that, and to me, it seems that anyone who clings so desperately to a certain set of beliefs is afraid to open their minds to other options. It's not that I want to change anyone's mind, I don't; I don't even believe there is one right way to see it. I just would like to see people stop being afraid to open their minds.
Click to expand...


I ponder quite a few things, and I wonder, and I make conjectures. I am constantly growing intellectually. I am not afraid to open my mind either, like I have stated numerous times, I just think some people don't want to have to work in discovering the truth. They like quick answers or answers that could never be scrutinized, because then they can never be wrong or doubted. They can put in almost no effort in actually understanding the universe, because once you start gaining an actual understanding, you can no longer look at every theory being just as good as the next one.
 
Well, there is so much stuff that you could talk wonder about and make conjectures about that at least have a good probability of being true. Like the various interpretations of quantam theory, time travel, string theory, etc... All of these ideas can lead to wonderful and startling conclusions. It just bugs me that people entertain ideas that are so unlikely or we know nothing about simply because of emotional reasons. People have talked about what happens afer you die forever because people don't want to die, and all evidence says you cease to exist. Now, you may live on, who knows, but nothing has ever suggested it.

I mean, would you seriously make a thread discussing the merits of a spaghetti meatball monster ruling the world? I doubt many people would think that was important or interesting at all. Never mind that it is just as likely to be true as the idea of a soul, people don't care because they don't have a vested emotional interest in the subject. For me, since I don't fear death or feel like I must live on after death, the soul is my spaghetti monster.
Click to expand...

evidence points that our brains/personalities end when our bodies die, yeah. but you could say that a lack of evidence about what produces our qualia means that ANYTHING could happen to our qualia when our bodies die; our bodily death may not even matter to whatever is producing our qualia, we have no clue

which is what separates a thread about life after death, from the spaghetti monster

but of course, most threads about life after death do not approach from a "these are the few possible scenarios, and a couple have been eliminated in terms of probability" direction :P i'd agree that many "life after death" threads are indeed as baseless as a thread asking about the possible attributes of the FSM. but some do have some golden ideas in them as well
 
^ but I disagree that we have a lack of evidence about what causes qualia. In fact we have very large amounts of evidence that our brain produces qualia. So, no brain, no qualia.

I think that none of us wants to die, and so we all have a strong interest in believing that there is life after death---and I don't think any of us has any similar interest in the spaghetti monster (which, after all, could be easily defeated by a fork, knife, and a handful of the more enthusiastic folks at the Cannabis Forum :) ). Hence threads about life post death are inevitably more interesting to us than threads about spaghetti monsters. Although now I'm getting hungry...

I enjoyed the graphs. How did you make them and import them into your posts?
 
Enlitx said:
Well, there is so much stuff that you could talk wonder about and make conjectures about that at least have a good probability of being true. Like the various interpretations of quantam theory, time travel, string theory, etc... All of these ideas can lead to wonderful and startling conclusions. It just bugs me that people entertain ideas that are so unlikely or we know nothing about simply because of emotional reasons. People have talked about what happens afer you die forever because people don't want to die, and all evidence says you cease to exist. Now, you may live on, who knows, but nothing has ever suggested it.

I mean, would you seriously make a thread discussing the merits of a spaghetti meatball monster ruling the world? I doubt many people would think that was important or interesting at all. Never mind that it is just as likely to be true as the idea of a soul, people don't care because they don't have a vested emotional interest in the subject. For me, since I don't fear death or feel like I must live on after death, the soul is my spaghetti monster.
Click to expand...
Yes and some empty core to go with it!
 
Heuristic said:
^ but I disagree that we have a lack of evidence about what causes qualia. In fact we have very large amounts of evidence that our brain produces qualia. So, no brain, no qualia.

I think that none of us wants to die, and so we all have a strong interest in believing that there is life after death---and I don't think any of us has any similar interest in the spaghetti monster (which, after all, could be easily defeated by a fork, knife, and a handful of the more enthusiastic folks at the Cannabis Forum :) ). Hence threads about life post death are inevitably more interesting to us than threads about spaghetti monsters. Although now I'm getting hungry...
Click to expand...


Yup.
 
uh... no universe, no qualia. of course qualia is linked to the brain! that's ALL we know, though

i made the graphs in MS Paint, from the start menu-->accessories. just play around with it for an hour and you'll be able to make similar quality stuff (those are sketches)

i use the image tags: (img) hyperlink to where the image is stored on the net (/img), where "(" is replaced by a bracket, to incorporate the image. eg (img)http://ahostingsite.com/user/apicture.png(/img).

PNG format is good for diagrams since PNG file compression takes advantages of large "boxes" that are all one color (and there are lots of those in a diagram since diagrams have lots of space that is a background color) in an image, and PNG is lossless unlike JPG (pixel perfect, no loss in pixel quality). PNG has a better compression ratio for diagram type images, while JPG has a better compression ratio if every pixel is slightly different from its neighbor, as in a photograph, and blurring the image to compress it won't change its overall look

not a young one? :P
 
Well, but hold on, knowing that the brain causes qualia is pretty important. If know that by destroying X part of your brain, I also destroy Y qualia, and so forth, the powerful inductive argument is that by destroying all of your brain, I also destroy all of your qualia.

I don't think that this means that life is meaningless of course. Nor do I think it makes our emotions less meaningful. If anything it makes life all the more precious. But I think we can safely say that we've all got an expiration date.

:) I appreciate the advice on the graphs. I'm pretty computer literate, but have never learned how to actually post a graph or picture in a forum like this.
 
Well, but hold on, knowing that the brain causes qualia is pretty important. If know that by destroying X part of your brain, I also destroy Y qualia, and so forth, the powerful inductive argument is that by destroying all of your brain, I also destroy all of your qualia.
Click to expand...
we know that qualia is related to the brain, but we don't know how qualia is produced

i would say that, since nothing about qualia's production is known (except that it sends, and recieves, data with the brain; that does not imply that it is produced BY the brain, though), we cannot say that the brain itself produces qualia. that would be assuming something about how exactly qualia is created. if qualia is a physical phenomenon, and is created in some physical process, our physics is nowhere near there yet;

this suggests that the mechanism may be too small to detect, which means that, for example, there could be a little pattern of energy so small that a blast of photons from a neutron bomb would mean nothing to it; the brain would disintegrate, but this little "soul box" would still exist, and perhaps inhabit some other capable vessel
I don't think that this means that life is meaningless of course. Nor do I think it makes our emotions less meaningful. If anything it makes life all the more precious. But I think we can safely say that we've all got an expiration date.
Click to expand...
while i didn't think you meant that for a second, i also think it's important to point that out. we don't need an afterlife to make life meaningful for ourselves.

we also don't need an expiration date to make it meaningful. we also have no clue either way yet, so meaning must be found somewhere else (eg the beauty of math and the universe and its mysteries, as we are discussing; or raising kids; or doing heroin; or winning a war for your country; different people choose different meanings, then act as if that meaning found them and is the only "true" meaning out there) if we want to be "sensical" about our "meaning"
 
^ Ockham's razor.

And the information gleaned from lesion studies indicates that loss of a part of the brain means a loss of various qualia associated with it; no soul box.
 
LivingInTheMoment said:
The substance that you deny its existence! Go figure! You won't be able to uderstand anyway, for you are missing it, and all you try to do is, measure academically!
Click to expand...

What the hell are you talking about? You didn't answer my question. I can't really know what I am missing until you define what "it" is. That is quite a presumption to say that I am missing it in the first place, whatever it is.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top