(April 25, 2015 at 9:45 pm)whateverist Wrote:

(April 25, 2015 at 8:20 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I can just imagine living for eternity. Even if it was the best place ever, eventually I would have done everything that everyone could ever think of doing an infinite number of times. How could you not eventually want to end it completely?

Maybe create a race of beings inferior to yourself, impose a bunch of rules with grave consequences and give them the disposition to fuck up so you can torture them.  That shit never gets old.

The Sims: Eternal Hellfire Edition.
Someone ring EA. They're roughly as evil as this God bloke everyone keeps talking about, they'll lap it up.

(April 25, 2015 at 9:45 pm)whateverist Wrote:

(April 25, 2015 at 8:20 pm)Chad32 Wrote: I can just imagine living for eternity. Even if it was the best place ever, eventually I would have done everything that everyone could ever think of doing an infinite number of times. How could you not eventually want to end it completely?

Maybe create a race of beings inferior to yourself, impose a bunch of rules with grave consequences and give them the disposition to fuck up so you can torture them.  That shit never gets old.

Sounds good. Yet that would eventually get boring, and I wouldn't want to do it anymore. Think of the coolest thing you can imagine, do that for a few million years, and get back to me. You'll be begging for something else to do.

(April 25, 2015 at 8:12 pm)robvalue Wrote: A generic deity just seems to imply a lot of power, and maybe being immortal. I'd be interested to know if there is any kind of consensus between people who regularly use the word as to what the minimum requirements are.

Resume qualification of deities is a good question. I doubt there's much consensus, see for instance

Forum I Love Philosophy: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic...7fc550449f

Egyptians didn't even require immortality, just "millions of years." Distinguishing a race of gods from a race of advanced alien beings whose technology looks like magic to us might not be easy, as Arthur C. Clarke suggested. I would guess that ability to accomplish at least some end states without going through normal causal channels might be expected of any decent god. That would rule out aliens using tech to do it.

(April 25, 2015 at 6:23 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote:

(October 28, 2013 at 8:51 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: A scientific fact is often misunderstood or rather ambiguously defined by most non-specialists.  It does not mean that science has demonstrated what the truth is nor that what science says is the way reality is.  A scientific fact  is a hypothesis...corroborated to a sufficiently high level...if the exact mechanism by which the phenomenon occurs is unknown or implausible, it is considered appropriate to require greater significance.

I like your take on scientific truths and dare say you're way more current on monism vs. dualism than I am. As well as filiing one's own posts for retrieval 2 years later. My computer's so cluttered I'm thinking I might be less prone to reject the null hypothesis inappropriately were my brain replaced by a Turing machine. Paul & Pat Churchlands' "luminous room" in Scientific American (Jan. 1990) is fascinating yet I'm unsure it overcomes John Searle's maxim that syntax cannot generate semantics, a thing nearly all linguists accept.

I'm unfamiliar with that, so I'll have to get back to you.  Are you familiar with the 'Korean Room' thought experiment?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation...Zx4U23oBDE

(April 25, 2015 at 11:12 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:  Are you familiar with the 'Korean Room' thought experiment?

Yah, it was in the same Scientific American issue, in John Searle's article, except it was in Chinese there.

(April 25, 2015 at 6:23 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: I like your take on scientific truths and dare say you're way more current on monism vs. dualism than I am. As well as filiing one's own posts for retrieval 2 years later. My computer's so cluttered I'm thinking I might be less prone to reject the null hypothesis inappropriately were my brain replaced by a Turing machine. Paul & Pat Churchlands' "luminous room" in Scientific American (Jan. 1990) is fascinating yet I'm unsure it overcomes John Searle's maxim that syntax cannot generate semantics, a thing nearly all linguists accept.

I think I'd agree with them that, "[r]ather than exploit one’s understanding of these things [semantics and meaning in us], Searle’s argument freely exploits one’s ignorance of them." We don't know enough of what our understanding of meaning is to say that the room's understanding of meaning isn't. (The Churchland paper is long so I've only read the luminous room part so far.)

I remember desiring it years ago, but have no idea why I did. I guess being weak minded and not being able to comprehend not existing and leaving living family and friends behind, is a good reason to try to delude yourself from the harsh reality of not being around anymore. It sounds nice to live in eternal bliss forever at first, but makes no sense at all, who would want to live forever?

I can imagine what the conversation is like in heaven after 1,676 years with your family. How'd you sleep? Nice weather we're having.. What do you want for dinner?

Must not be that nice, since millions of people on this planet decided to reincarnate...

I have no interest in eternal life, I accept that death is a natural part of the life process. You're born, you live, you die, you leave the world to whoever comes afterwards.

(April 26, 2015 at 8:28 pm)Cephus Wrote: ...."You're born, you live, you die, you leave the world to whoever comes afterwards".

Too true but I want to live forever (at lease as long as I am mobile) so I can see how it all turns out.

Never heard the word "necropost", huh?