Is my argument against afterlife an equivocation fallacy?

[FlatAssembler]

Do I really need to explain that?

What do you mean? I am arguing that consciousness being the product of the brain is a lot better explanation than souls being timeless. Don't you agree?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’m not at all convinced that the Greek words matter. If you had expressed the same notion without referencing Greek, your argument would stand or fall on other issues.

Boru

Well, sometimes the language does matter when discussing philosophy. Croatian, for example, has the same word for "belief" and "faith", and it is annoying to explain people that those are not the same thing. The guy who rode the airplane in 9/11 attack presumably believed in heaven, but most people don't, most people just have faith that heaven is real.

It sometimes does, it sometimes doesn’t. In your soul argument, I can’t see how it does.

What is the difference between believing that something exists and having faith that it exists?

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Do I really need to explain that?

What do you mean? I am arguing that consciousness being the product of the brain is a lot better explanation than souls being timeless. Don't you agree?

A better explanation for what? I’m not being flippant, I don’t understand what you’re driving at.

Boru

[FlatAssembler]

What do you mean? I am arguing that consciousness being the product of the brain is a lot better explanation than souls being timeless. Don't you agree?

A better explanation for what? I’m not being flippant, I don’t understand what you’re driving at.

Boru

A better explanation for the fact that human beings who wake up from a coma have no idea how much time has passed.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

A better explanation for what? I’m not being flippant, I don’t understand what you’re driving at.

Boru

A better explanation for the fact that human beings who wake up from a coma have no idea how much time has passed.

What would that have to do with whether a soul or an afterlife exists? Who says souls have to keep track or time or impart memories?

This might make more sense if you started out by saying what you think a soul is and what qualities it would have.

Boru

[FlatAssembler]

Well, sometimes the language does matter when discussing philosophy. Croatian, for example, has the same word for "belief" and "faith", and it is annoying to explain people that those are not the same thing. The guy who rode the airplane in 9/11 attack presumably believed in heaven, but most people don't, most people just have faith that heaven is real.

It sometimes does, it sometimes doesn’t. In your soul argument, I can’t see how it does.

What is the difference between believing that something exists and having faith that it exists?

Boru

I think most of the people don't really believe in heaven, that they would behave very differently if they believed in it. Why cry when somebody dear to you dies if it's only "goodbye for now", rather than "goodbye forever"?

[FlatAssembler]

A better explanation for the fact that human beings who wake up from a coma have no idea how much time has passed.

What would that have to do with whether a soul or an afterlife exists? Who says souls have to keep track or time or impart memories?

This might make more sense if you started out by saying what you think a soul is and what qualities it would have.

Boru

A soul is some immaterial entity that is you. In order for something to be you, it needs to have your memories. That's how identity is defined in modern philosophy, as psychological continuity.

EDIT: And I think that, for something to be you, it needs to sense the passage of time, don't you think? You cannot be some timeless entity, a timeless entity would have a completely different experience than you have. Not to mention souls being timeless creates a bunch of problems: If souls are timeless, how it is that you cannot remember future events? How does a brain interact with a timeless soul?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

What would that have to do with whether a soul or an afterlife exists? Who says souls have to keep track or time or impart memories?

This might make more sense if you started out by saying what you think a soul is and what qualities it would have.

Boru

A soul is some immaterial entity that is you. In order for something to be you, it needs to have your memories. That's how identity is defined in modern philosophy, as psychological continuity.

EDIT: And I think that, for something to be you, it needs to sense the passage of time, don't you think? You cannot be some timeless entity, a timeless entity would have a completely different experience than you have. Not to mention souls being timeless creates a bunch of problems: If souls are timeless, how it is that you cannot remember future events? How does a brain interact with a timeless soul?

That’s a terribly bad definition. I am demonstrably not an immaterial entity, so how could an immaterial entity be me?

I thought identity was defined as the relation a thing bears to itself, which is not the same as psychological continuity.

I can’t address the rest of your post, since your definition of ‘soul’ seems untenable.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It sometimes does, it sometimes doesn’t. In your soul argument, I can’t see how it does.

What is the difference between believing that something exists and having faith that it exists?

Boru

I think most of the people don't really believe in heaven, that they would behave very differently if they believed in it. Why cry when somebody dear to you dies if it's only "goodbye for now", rather than "goodbye forever"?

Since that’s not even an attempt to answer my question, I’ll rephrase it: How do you differentiate faith from belief?

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

I’m not at all convinced that the Greek words matter. If you had expressed the same notion without referencing Greek, your argument would stand or fall on other issues.

Boru

Pretending great wisdom lies in the words from language that one is betting one’s interlocutors to not be fluent in matters a lot, it matters to the tune of being the bedrock of entire epistemologies, just ask Belaqua or neo.