See, Rik, what you keep failing to grasp is that most of us here are skeptics, which means we change our minds when evidence is presented. Testimony, no matter where it comes from, is just testimony, and dreams, regardless of when they happen or what condition the brain is in, are not sufficient evidence for believing that consciousness can exist independent of matter.


That's why your poll question has literally 100% in the "it's probably just a dream" category. Given the information at hand, that's the most likely explanation, and until more (and better) evidence arises, we have no reason to accept your god as a better explanation for the hypothetical facts described.

(June 23, 2016 at 10:39 am)Little Rik Wrote:

(June 22, 2016 at 11:34 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: Sounds like a DMT trip.   You got anything more than your fee fees that you experience 'God' while meditating?

You surely can have an ejaculation by going with a prostitute but that is not the same as making love with
the one you love.

I'll take that as a 'yes' that you only have your feelings about your meditational experience telling you that you are experiencing God. DMT naturally occurs in the brain so your analogy to an artificial experience not only misses the point, it's simply wrong. You have no way of knowing that your experiences aren't simply the result of chemicals in the brain. You've already admitted that damage to the brain can affect consciousness, well so can chemicals like DMT and oxytocin. Your analogy is simply asserting that by meditating you are having a genuine experience. Once again you have nothing but a bare assertion to back up your claims. Do you have any actual evidence that your experiences aren't simply due to chemicals in the brain? No, you do not. You haven't tapped into the transcendent, you've simply activated mother nature's chemical factory. That's the simplest and most logical explanation, and if you have nothing but analogies and stories to offer as evidence, then you've simply lost. You're addicted to naturally occurring chemicals in your brain. You're an addict. It isn't any wonder you won't listen to any other explanation than the one which encourages you to continue. You're hooked.

(June 23, 2016 at 10:39 am)Little Rik Wrote: Not only that but the price that you will pay for screwing up your brain will be very very high and not worth the try.

What? What are you talking about now? This is just another bare assertion which you'll no doubt back up with stories of drug addicts ruining their lives. Again, DMT occurs naturally in the brain, so comparing it to the effects of street drugs is a false analogy. By repeated engagement of meditation, you're conditioning your brain to the chemicals produced every bit as much as a junkie is to his heroin. You can no longer distinguish between a healthy practice and an obsession. Thus all your talk about how important it is to practice. You're a meditation junkie.

(June 23, 2016 at 11:12 am)Little Rik Wrote:

(June 22, 2016 at 11:26 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: This is just a bare assertion.  In cerebral achromotopsia (color blindness), some patients lose the ability to experience color.  It's not that they simply can't perceive color.  They can no longer remember scenes with color, and they can't imagine a colored object.  This is a result of trauma to the brain which has affected a component of consciousness.  It would seem that a component of consciousness is physically accessible after all.

That we haven't succeeded in localizing consciousness in the brain is not evidence that it cannot be localized and henceforth measured and manipulated as any tangible object can.  All you have is negative evidence and that makes it an argument from ignorance.


More bare assertions.  This again is not evidence that consciousness is intangible.

. . . .
It is obvious that a trauma in or to the brain will affect the consciousness.
When you have a car accident the car get smashed and you also will get hurt.
That is normal as it is normal that a trauma in the brain will affect your consciousness.

More bare assertions.  It is normal that a brain trauma will affect consciousness if that consciousness is a product of the brain.  If consciousness is separate from the brain then you have an event that requires explanation for how it can occur.  Simply declaring that it's normal doesn't explain anything.  You're claiming that a change in the physical affects what you claim is non-physical.  How?  You've offered no mechanism, just the bare assertion that it does.  That's not demonstrating anything, it's just making things up.  I can make up bare assertions all day long, it's meaningless.

(June 23, 2016 at 11:12 am)Little Rik Wrote: The consciousness is stuck inside a body and until this situation persist body-brain-consciousness
will have to experience each other in any situation.

More bare assertions.  Do you have any actual evidence that consciousness is not a product of the brain besides some questionable NDE accounts?

(June 23, 2016 at 11:12 am)Little Rik Wrote: All what external eyes can see is how the brain is affected but the brain is not you.

Do you actually know how to make anything other than an unsupported argument?  I asked you earlier to back up your assertions with evidence and you declined.  It appears the reason you declined is because you can't back up your assertions with evidence.  Again, pointing out that we can't yet 'see' consciousness in the brain is an argument from ignorance.  It's conclusion is simply not reliable, so you've said nothing but a non sequitur.  Your conclusion doesn't follow from what you've provided.  That we can't currently pinpoint consciousness in the brain is not itself evidence that consciousness does not lie in the brain.  It's a false argument.  So once again you've got nothing to back up your claim that consciousness is intangible.

(June 23, 2016 at 10:30 am)Little Rik Wrote: I did asked you to show me the contradiction.
Where is it?
Can you also show me where I made any comment about NDEs that you relate to your point?

*sigh*

I said NDEs provided no objective evidence for an afterlife, and you responded with:

Quote:...As God your intention is to teach something only to those who are ready to learn.
Why would you teach to someone who is not ready?
It wouldn't make sense that is why only some of the people who had an NDE experience God.

God is not there to show himself to those who don't care about him.
Not only that but he-she (God has no sex) is also not engaging in games or give evidences that he exist such as to show to skeptics tricks when an NDE can see things put there by skeptics as experiments.  

You're saying God only appears in NDEs to teach people who are "ready to learn" (which is false, as I pointed out--many skeptics experience God in NDEs and do not find the experience convincing), and you also said that God is careful not to provide evidence of his existence to skeptics.

What you're describing is called "subjective experience." Now, if you want to dispute my claim that NDEs provide no objective evidence for an afterlife (or God), you're going to want to come up with some objective evidence.

it's great this.. We're all sitting here going "duh!?" and LR is sitting there going "duh!?".

http://listverse.com/2015/04/14/10-scien...periences/    
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...ear-death/     
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Near-death_...xplanation     

(June 23, 2016 at 4:42 pm)Gemini Wrote:

(June 23, 2016 at 10:30 am)Little Rik Wrote: I did asked you to show me the contradiction.
Where is it?
Can you also show me where I made any comment about NDEs that you relate to your point?

*sigh*

I said NDEs provided no objective evidence for an afterlife, and you responded with:

Quote:...As God your intention is to teach something only to those who are ready to learn.
Why would you teach to someone who is not ready?
It wouldn't make sense that is why only some of the people who had an NDE experience God.

God is not there to show himself to those who don't care about him.
Not only that but he-she (God has no sex) is also not engaging in games or give evidences that he exist such as to show to skeptics tricks when an NDE can see things put there by skeptics as experiments.  

You're saying God only appears in NDEs to teach people who are "ready to learn" (which is false, as I pointed out--many skeptics experience God in NDEs and do not find the experience convincing), and you also said that God is careful not to provide evidence of his existence to skeptics.

What you're describing is called "subjective experience." Now, if you want to dispute my claim that NDEs provide no objective evidence for an afterlife (or God), you're going to want to come up with some objective evidence.

In Matthew 11:21 Jesus said if the miracles he performed for the Jews had been performed for the cities that god destroyed, they would have repented. So we have god withholding evidence from those he knew would have accepted him and instead giving it to people who rejected him. There seems to be a vast dichotomy between the god you want to believe in and the god of the bible.

I'd plagiarizer their idea, start a religion based upon their account, and start counting the money. 

That was not a poll option, so I added it 

(June 23, 2016 at 12:01 pm)Redbeard The Pink Wrote: See, Rik, what you keep failing to grasp is that most of us here are skeptics, which means we change our minds when evidence is presented. Testimony, no matter where it comes from, is just testimony, and dreams, regardless of when they happen or what condition the brain is in, are not sufficient evidence for believing that consciousness can exist independent of matter.


That's why your poll question has literally 100% in the "it's probably just a dream" category. Given the information at hand, that's the most likely explanation, and until more (and better) evidence arises, we have no reason to accept your god as a better explanation for the hypothetical facts described.

Evidence that one day you will stop being a clown and become rich will never ever eventuate unless you get off and move your backside and start doing something that will take you out the monetary sewer in which you are at the moment.  

That is how rich people did.
Hard work but most of all taking some risks.
Feeling God within work along the same lines but unlike materialism there is no negative sides.
To enter the dimension in which lie the real McCoy of life involve a lot of hard work and taking the risk
that after all there is no McCoy.
And also the risk that believers tell you lies.
That however is up to you to decide.
Good luck son.  

(June 25, 2016 at 7:33 am)Little Rik Wrote: Evidence that one day you will stop being a clown and become rich will never ever eventuate unless you get off and move your backside and start doing something that will take you out the monetary sewer in which you are at the moment.  

That is how rich people did.
Hard work but most of all taking some risks.
Feeling God within work along the same lines but unlike materialism there is no negative sides.
To enter the dimension in which lie the real McCoy of life involve a lot of hard work and taking the risk
that after all there is no McCoy.
And also the risk that believers tell you lies.
That however is up to you to decide.
Good luck son.  

Lol...you're not even attempting to argue with me any more. You're now reduced to nothing but personal attacks. Thanks for admitting defeat, Rikki.