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Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

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Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#171

Post by mistermann »

stvltvs wrote: post #153
pmarreck wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an amount of concordant eyewitness testimony that should count as evidence? If your answer to that is "no", you're not being reasonable. The courts of most countries would also disagree with you. This even takes into account the fact that "eyewitness testimony is bad"... Like sure, maybe if it's 10, but if it's 100 people all making extremely similar claims? 1000? 10,000? The NDE people often use language li…

I don't dispute that people have NDEs and that they sincerely believe what they say. The problem is that that kind of evidence cannot in principle support the continuity of consciousness after bodily disintegration because 1) the body is still intact and 2) they don't test the difference between experiences near death and those after death. There is no way for a person to know if what they experienced happened during…

> There is no way for a person to know if what they experienced happened during a time that an outside observer could see no brain activity.

Exactly...so, when a human on planet earth, 2023, encounters such a scenario (indeterminateness), they project an illusion upon it, declare that illusion to be true, and most other humans will agree with them, depending on the metaphysical framework (aka:culture - currently, we are in the age of "science", before that it was "religion") they have been trained upon (like an LLM....if there are differences, I'd very much like to know).

You can literally see this in action as people talk, relatively highly rational people will literally make things up, utilize very well known (by science) cultural/psychological exists, etc etc etc.

For fun, try this: point out where they claim something (in general, or specifically), and then ask them for proof/evidence - then, do this 1000+ times - you will see a normal distribution of stories emerge, reliably.

There is something very weird about humans in 2024.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#172

Post by mistermann »

pvg wrote: post #169
mistermann wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

harangue. / (həˈræŋ) / verb. to address (a person or crowd) in an angry, vehement, or forcefully persuasive way. I don't see how this applies, especially since if anything it is other people who are engaged in persuasion, and experiencing anger or other negative emotions. I am sincere in that I believe that truth matters, and should at least be taken into consideration. Seriously, what is the big issue with disagreei…

I don't see how this applies Yes, hence the feedback. it is other people You've been here plenty long to know it's not how HN works, everyone is responsible for their own commentary. I am sincere in that I believe that truth matters, and should at least be taken into consideration. I'm sure most people share that sincere belief, it's just that few enjoy, well, being harangued. Seriously, what is the big issue with di…

[flagged]

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#173

Post by pvg »

mistermann wrote: post #172
pvg wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this applies Yes, hence the feedback. it is other people You've been here plenty long to know it's not how HN works, everyone is responsible for their own commentary. I am sincere in that I believe that truth matters, and should at least be taken into consideration. I'm sure most people share that sincere belief, it's just that few enjoy, well, being harangued. Seriously, what is the big issue with di…

[flagged]

Do you write software for a living, or at least write scripts, deal with complexity, ambiguity, and humans?

I think both the moderator and I are trying to explain to you that you can't talk to people on HN like this because because it's not what the forum is for. That's all.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#174

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #166
dang wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll answer, but as your comment here is doing exactly what I just asked you to stop doing, I need first to tell you that these interminable cross-examination barrages are not what HN is for, and if it keeps up we're going to have to ban you. We've already had to ask you this many times. I don't want to ban you, but slack isn't infinite here either. The answer is that HN is for curious conversation on topics of intel…

Do you know that banning me is necessary, or even an improvement? Do you even care? You happen to have landed in a position where you hold substantial power on this planet Dang, I recommend you wield that power wisely and with humility.

I do care! and I don't want to ban you. But there's a really long history of us having to ask you to use HN as intended:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25830600 (Jan 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22746689 (April 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21068892 (Sept 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20308569 (June 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20157648 (June 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16782569 (April 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16719891 (March 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16691736 (March 2018)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14973671 (Aug 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13952958 (March 2017)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13199347 (Dec 2016)

If you can't or won't stop posting in ways that break HN's rules and the intended spirit of the site, we're not going to have much choice. I'm happy to be patient, but 7 years is a long time.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#175

Post by pmarreck »

mistermann wrote: post #171
stvltvs wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't dispute that people have NDEs and that they sincerely believe what they say. The problem is that that kind of evidence cannot in principle support the continuity of consciousness after bodily disintegration because 1) the body is still intact and 2) they don't test the difference between experiences near death and those after death. There is no way for a person to know if what they experienced happened during…

> There is no way for a person to know if what they experienced happened during a time that an outside observer could see no brain activity. Exactly...so, when a human on planet earth, 2023, encounters such a scenario (indeterminateness), they project an illusion upon it, declare that illusion to be true, and most other humans will agree with them, depending on the metaphysical framework (aka:culture - currently, we…

What did you think of my idea of treating eyewitness claims with a Kalman filter (after quantizing the elements of the claims)?

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#176

Post by pmarreck »

stvltvs wrote: post #159
pmarreck wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do believe most demon experiences are sleep paralysis. (I can't assert that all of them are, no more than I can assert with certainty without existing in every female body ever that reports of "female ejaculation" are just urine.) Regarding brain activity or lack thereof during an NDE, here's a perspective: https://old.reddit.com/r/NDE/comments/188i98i/ndes_with_conf... “In cardiac arrest, even neuronal action-pote…

My thought is that NDEs might occur before or after the cessation of neural activity. From a first person perspective, there would be no way to distinguish whether it happened when there was no neural activity. From an outside perspective, it would need to be a rigorous, carefully designed test to distinguish. If not properly designed, it would be easy to bias the results through unblinded participants, etc. I'm not…

https://www.reddit.com/r/NDE/comments/188i98i/ndes_with_conf...

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#177

Post by CooCooCaCha »

autio wrote: post #151
CooCooCaCha wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free will is an illusion

A bit of thinking through what freedom is and what will is will show the claim that free will is an illusion to be an illusion.

No. You are made of physics.

Your brain will act according to physics.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#178

Post by CooCooCaCha »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #156
CooCooCaCha wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free will is an illusion

It is for some, but not all. Also, for whom is it an illusion? ;)

Everybody's brains act according to the laws of physics. The feeling that you have a choice is an illusion.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#179

Post by mistermann »

pmarreck wrote: post #175
mistermann wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no way for a person to know if what they experienced happened during a time that an outside observer could see no brain activity. Exactly...so, when a human on planet earth, 2023, encounters such a scenario (indeterminateness), they project an illusion upon it, declare that illusion to be true, and most other humans will agree with them, depending on the metaphysical framework (aka:culture - currently, we…

What did you think of my idea of treating eyewitness claims with a Kalman filter (after quantizing the elements of the claims)?

I think it is an excellent approach, I expect that we could benefit from applying it to all claims, including all the not actually/necessarily factual "facts" that inevitable emerge when these sorts of topics are discussed. But applying it in epistemically inconclusive areas like this seems like something worth trying, for more reasons than one (there is a lot of harmful social disharmony in such areas).

Part of the point I'm completely unsuccessful in making here, or a way to look at it, is: different ideologies have different methodologies and standards for practicing epistemology (belief, "reality", etc) - the "NDE type" (religion, woo woo, etc) of thinkers have their form and quality, and "scientific"[1] thinkers have theirs. To me, the scientific folks have an objectively and vastly superior methodology to the others....however, it is far from the best - the best genuinely wonders what is true, which in my experience is always(!) considered a literally unacceptable approach (as can be seen in such conversations: I have been told that asking such question is not allowed here on HN).

I propose that if even our very best "intellectual hangouts" culturally insist on suboptimal thinking, if not denying that it is even possible (~trying to cover it up), it increases risk within the system (I always like to use climate change to substantiate the claim).

[1] to some degree - like the religious, science practitioners are also unable to follow their scriptures to a T, like remembering that their theories are theories (that is just one example).

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#180

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #174
mistermann wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know that banning me is necessary, or even an improvement? Do you even care? You happen to have landed in a position where you hold substantial power on this planet Dang, I recommend you wield that power wisely and with humility.

I do care! and I don't want to ban you. But there's a really long history of us having to ask you to use HN as intended: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25830600 (Jan 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22746689 (April 2020) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21068892 (Sept 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20308569 (June 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20157648 (June 2019) https://n…

I'm not trying to be difficult Dang, but there is more than one very legitimate issue with "as intended".

While I acknowledge my comments are upsetting to many, I do not think you are substantially taking into consideration that it takes two to tango when it comes to getting upset. And while it is often good policy to please the majority over the minority, sometimes the majority is actually incorrect.

Further, is it not also true that many others are doing, and repeatedly so (though not ~solely), things that are also upsetting, and at least arguably worse (telling untruths)? I do not deny you or others their right to their opinion, I am saying that it is often wise to realize that what one is dealing with is an opinion.

Look at all the "serious" conversations we have on this site, day after day. I do not deny that it is enjoyable, but I think it is worth considering whether maximizing enjoyment to the detriment of everything else (risk management, for example) is the way to go. You are welcome to disagree, but can we at least mutually admit that we are comparing opinions on the matter?

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