From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Fri Jan 25 2002 - 20:23:29 MST
On 25 Jan 2002 at 19:40, ben wrote:
> [Bill2] In order to suggest that God was the first object in the universe
> would
> be like saying "The most complex entity formed from nothing, and the simple
> stuff came later". I have never considered the notion of complexity before
> simplicity before, but it does seem awfully unlikely. I am not aware of
> something as complex as I imagine a god to be forming spontaneously with
> consciousness and power to boot.
>
> [ben 2] Which is more complex? A single being housing all possible energy
> and sentience directing it all to the same goals, or thousands of trillions
> each having a small portion of it and directing it sometimes with, sometimes
> against each other seemingly at random?
>
Simple. The much greater complexity required to marshall all
matter/energy in the service of a single complexly recursive self-
conscious awareness. It would have to not only subsume all the others
as parts, but supervene its own level of organization upon them.
Random, lacking all organization whatsoever, is the opposite of complex.
>
> > [ben 1] I was suggesting the possibility that they are not physical places
> > in any universe, but are more like states of being. States of existence
> are
> > commonly referred to in English by the same mechanisms as physical places:
> > "Person X is in ecstasy" or "Person X is in a foul temper" or "Person X is
> > on the net" - another linguistic detail that could have been lost over
> time.
>
> [Bill 2] A state of being is nice, good sex makes me feel like I am in
> heaven,
> and cleaning up after my cats makes me feel like I'm in hell - however, all
> emotions that we have, with few exceptions, are identifiable chemical
> processes
> happening in an electro-chemical dance inside the brain.
>
> [ben 2] The brain under certain circumstances emits radio waves (
> http://www.hhmi.org/senses/e/e120.htm ), providing at least a basic
> 'wireless' capability. Theoretically (expanding that idea, and making up
> neuroscience fiction as I go along here) it is then possible for a human
> brain to project its entire conscienceness outwards. If it is possible for
> anything to receive, translate and organize the data then we have just had a
> direct host-to-host soul transfer. Perhaps Heaven is the name given to the
> electrochemical dance in the recipient brain resulting from a successful
> transfer in the seconds before death, and Hell is the name for the error
> message if it fails... (STP error 403: Access Denied = bad bad painful
> dance)
>
Death is the irreversible degradation of dynamic cerebral complexity
below the level at which it can maintain as a material/energetic substrate
for the emergence of recursively complex self-conscious awareness.
And if someone is shot in the head with a howitzer and their head
explodes in a single millisecond, where's the dance? And what about
those who die in their sleep?
The near-death illusion of white light and universal sound is quite simply
the result of the perceptions shutting down as the oxygen and nutrients
supplied to them by failing cardiopulmonary systems fall below
subsistence level. In such cases, the neurons fire wildly as their input
ceases and as they, too, starve to death, resulting in all colors and
sounds at once being induced in the network. It's a cognitive death-rattle.
>
> [Bill 2] We can specifically affect these actions with drugs, EM fields,
> pain, sound, light..... lots of things. Though there is still much to learn
> in this field, the pieces seem to be falling together in a manner consistent
> with what we know about electro-chemical processes.
>
> [Ben 2] Absolutely. I see no logical barrier to Heaven's synthesizability in
> this model.
>
Now heaven is something that each and every individual brain has the
capacity to differentially synthecize at the point of death, ayy? That would
make heaven plural, and more than that, a multiple naturally occuring
terminal illusion. Which is better than negotiating between Bin Laden and
Gandhi in which version of heaven both are required to reside.
>
> [Bill 2] It's not because we lack the evidence to to see souls that we do
> not believe (or
> myself anyway), it's because of the unnecessary nature of the soul.
>
> [Ben 2] We're getting dangerously close to the part where we have to define
> a soul...
>
Souls (if that term includes post-mortum survival) do not exist; selves do,
but they die when their life-support bodies die.
>
> [bill 2] If we make a clone, and it lives as a normal human being, then if
> you believe in souls, you have to believe that this clone has one, or how
> could they function? If they have a soul, then god must have given it to
> them.
>
> [Ben 2] Just for the record, I love the clone/soul argument :) However, I
> can't remember if it says anywhere that god gives _each_ human a soul, or if
> he gave souls to the species in general. If the latter, then the clone
> example fails in this discussion, in no means of course detracting from its
> efficacy vs. fundies who are against cloning for religious reasons.
>
And what do you say to identical twins, which are the same thing
produced by more natural means? that one of them is soulless, Do they
then flip a coin and leave it in god's hands to give them a heads or tails
sign?
>
> [Bill 2] See my point - what is the purpose of the soul when man does fine
> without one?
>
> [Ben 2] We haven't yet built a human from scratch, and couldn't "test" for a
> soul if we did, so we don't know in fact if man would do just fine without
> one. Regardless, we do just fine without tonsils or appendixes, but we still
> beleive in their existence.
>
We can build a human from a de-nucleized egg and some DNA (from
most cells). Where would the soul reside there? In the DNA (a chemical
definition of soul)? Or does the Ol' Santa Claus clone do the 'breath of
life" trick when the scientist applies the cell division kick-starting electric
current? And does (s)he sit around and wait for the scientist to decide
when?
>
> [Bill 2]I simply seems much
> more likely that man is just an animal living on a planet in the far reaches
> of
> the Orion arm of th Milky Way galaxy. Alone. Not that the galaxy might not
> be
> teeming with life, but that we are still somewhat simple apes just learing
> about
> the Universe - to weak and distracted to make an effort to find our
> neighbors.
> And lets face it, the cost to find them can only be measured in time,
> technology
> and expense.
> [ben 2] Agreed.
>
> [bill 2]Fun conversation Ben, thanks!
> [ben 2] Likewise!
>
> -ben
>
>
>
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