A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988) • Hacker News Board

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#161

Post by _alternator_ » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 3:08 PM UTC

smokedetector1 wrote: post #160

_alternator_ wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence is abundant and continues to chip away at the "hard problem". For example, we can through anesthesia turn on and off conscious experience. Through various drugs we can manipulate the character of conscious awareness, inducing ecstasy, visions, abiding serenity, terror, pain, grief... all states that were previously described as ineffable. To say we haven't made progress on understanding consciousness is…

I don't mean to be insulting but, you don't seem to understand what the hard problem is. It is not "is the brain intimately linked with conscious experience?" I would agree we've made progress on that question. It is the harder question of "why is there conscious experience at all? Why does it feel the way it does?" I would argue no progress has been made on this whatsoever, and possibly can't be done. You can try to…

In light of the fact that the entire universe is perceptible only through conscious awareness, the 'hard' question is equivalent to the question "why is there anything instead of nothing?" When asked this way, it's clearly not answerable. Everything short of that seems to have a material answer.

Edit: happy to chat more about this, as it's deeply interesting to me and I do want to understand your perspective. It may need a longer form than this thread allows. I've added a link to get in contact with me on my about page.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#162

Post by smokedetector1 » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

_alternator_ wrote: post #161

smokedetector1 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be insulting but, you don't seem to understand what the hard problem is. It is not "is the brain intimately linked with conscious experience?" I would agree we've made progress on that question. It is the harder question of "why is there conscious experience at all? Why does it feel the way it does?" I would argue no progress has been made on this whatsoever, and possibly can't be done. You can try to…

In light of the fact that the entire universe is perceptible only through conscious awareness, the 'hard' question is equivalent to the question "why is there anything instead of nothing?" When asked this way, it's clearly not answerable. Everything short of that seems to have a material answer. Edit: happy to chat more about this, as it's deeply interesting to me and I do want to understand your perspective. It may…

Not answerable != immaterial/nonmeaningful.

I'd be happy to talk more as I am passionate about this. I think the idea that there is no soul is actually extremely dehumanizing, and involves someone essentially saying "I don't really exist" (even if they redefine "I exist" to mean something more Materialist, it is, in my view, still saying that). I'll ping you on bluesky.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#163

Post by ericmcer » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

smokedetector1 wrote: post #152

ericmcer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never remotely believed this because I don't even believe in a "me" really. One hard hit in the head can literally change your personality entirely, then you have alzheimers and all the other degenerative brain diseases that will erase "you". Even if you avoid all that "you" will be wildly different every 15-20 years. Christianity gets through this by saying you will return to your prime. That just seems kind of ch…

The brain is like a sail thats catching the wind of the soul. The wind pushes and shapes the sail, and the sail limits the shape of the wind inside it. If the sail is in bad condition, it changes how the wind catches it, or prevents it from catching altogether. So the brain is animated by the soul, and also limits and shapes its experience. When we're affected by anesthetic, or we're badly injured, or have a stroke,…

It is a nice thought, but still has a pre-requisite that there are "souls" floating around that get ensnared by human bodies. If that is true then life is a kind of prison we endure before being liberated by death.

Even if we assume those giant leaps of faith are true, it still means "I" go away when I die. My soul will only remember "me" as a brief torture where I was forced into a human shell and had to endure being "me" before being released once more to be a higher being. All my struggles, battles, self-improvement, etc. will be meaningless and my kids will be a cruel trick I played that imprisoned other souls.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#164

Post by TrnsltLife » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 10:14 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #114

chubs wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The traditional concept of an 'embodied' resurrection (as opposed to ghosts playing harps) makes me lean towards: yes (eg the gut is part of the body). Who knows though, it's a fun question!

yeah it is :) Like, do we eat in heaven? If not, then all our little passengers must also be immortal in their resurrected form. But part of the biome is the dead bodies of those critters, and those dead bodies also affect our mood (chemistry doing its thing). So how does this work? Does heaven automatically maintain the correct chemistry in our guts to maintain our emotional and hormonal stability with needing the a…

John's vision of heaven in the book of Revelation includes both the wedding feast of the Lamb and the trees of life that will bear 12 different fruits in season. Jesus also ate fish a few times after his resurrection to demonstrate the physicality of his resurrected body. So there is the concept of eating in the resurrected paradise of the new heavens and the new earth.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#165

Post by smokedetector1 » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 10:16 PM UTC

ericmcer wrote: post #163

smokedetector1 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain is like a sail thats catching the wind of the soul. The wind pushes and shapes the sail, and the sail limits the shape of the wind inside it. If the sail is in bad condition, it changes how the wind catches it, or prevents it from catching altogether. So the brain is animated by the soul, and also limits and shapes its experience. When we're affected by anesthetic, or we're badly injured, or have a stroke,…

It is a nice thought, but still has a pre-requisite that there are "souls" floating around that get ensnared by human bodies. If that is true then life is a kind of prison we endure before being liberated by death. Even if we assume those giant leaps of faith are true, it still means "I" go away when I die. My soul will only remember "me" as a brief torture where I was forced into a human shell and had to endure bein…

I won't deny it takes giant leaps of faith. I think the questions are inherently unanswerable so any theory that's not in conflict with things we can know scientifically, and which doesn't lead to harming others, is as good as it can get. We can't really do better than thoughtful faith in this domain (and indeed I would (controversially) argue that the notion of inevitable scientific progress in this area is also a sort of faith, since there hasn't been any progress on the "hard problem" of consciousness..).

To your points, I would say that

> life is a kind of prison we endure before being liberated by death

Not exactly. More like a journey that we go through for mysterious reasons. Maybe so our soul can grow by learning lessons and having challenges that can only be when the stakes are real.

> "I" go away when I die

Not necessarily. Certain aspects of you, which are more contingent on brain traits, e.g. intelligence, some temperament. But the deepest self wouldn't disappear.

> All my struggles, battles, self-improvement, etc. will be meaningless

I see what you mean, but I wouldn't call it meaningless just because it wasn't "completely real." Also, I do believe that lessons learned here are learned for good. The soul is here to grow.

> my kids will be a cruel trick I played that imprisoned other souls.

I don't really see how you got here. In this theory, your kids are also here for their own purpose. Relationships and love are still meaningful and real. Life is cruel and involves a great deal of suffering, but that doesn't mean that existence is inherently bad.