Is Eternal Life Even Desireable?

[Hatshepsut]

Very few atheists I know of are philosophical materialists. Most are methodological materialists. What are these good reasons to believe in the divine you refer to?

Then I shan't accuse those methodologicals of placing unnecessary restrictions on epistemology. Or anything beyond "Just the facts, Maam" in Adam-12. Such an attitude is to be admired when you want to solve problems. Yet while no unwarranted assumptions of purpose should be laid on physical, biological, or cosmological processes in the course of analyzing them to obtain first principles, I find the leap from this to excluding the divine from our universe of possibility a bit long.

Even the handiwork of molecules and living things and galaxies itself seems too smart to allow me the mantra "pattern but no design or purpose." I can't prove existence of deity and doubt such an existence can be proved via application of an objective method. We don't even know how to define the category of "deity" properly and have wasted lots of time projecting our own social psychology onto our god concepts. Including our conflicts with other people and groups. Ideas of divine involvement, however, can arise when we ask questions like "Why are we conscious?" After all our brains can take input from our physical sense organs and compute behavioral outputs without any fluff of a subjective sense of being alive. Yet those roses are so red and the usual explanations proffered, awareness as epiphenomenon and awareness as consequence of the brain's complexity, so unsatisfying. We should by rights be androids doing all our stuff while dead as a doorknob inside.

Mother Nature doesn't invent epiphenomena: things which causally depend on other things but have no reciprocal influence in turn. Newton's 3rd law was action-reaction. If our consciousness is caused by our brains, then it must be able to kick back yet we see no signs of it doing so-always just the neuronal activity.

Emergence from complexity: A car is indeed more than a pile of auto parts, yet a car really doesn't possess any new properties its parts didn't have. Instead, a car possesses functional abilities: It can do things like drive that the parts can't do by themselves. While our brains are more than a pile of cells, we're imputing more than computational ability to brains: they have a new property of consciousness the cells didn't seem to have.

Finally, consciousness is completely private. We can't tell directly whether any other person or thing is conscious, or if we're walking around in a world of androids. We can't even rule out consciousness in rocks or bacteria for that matter. This cutting off of information from the rest of the universe like it went down a hairless black hole is suspicious. It leads me to believe reality includes more than just the physical universe we can study with science. And both physical and mental complexity suggest a designed thing with a reason for coming into existence, though I don't claim to understand this reason or think it has to be a traditional god which did this. Snowflakes and fractals aside, I think there's a limit to how much complexity can emerge from a small number of basic laws without design. Galaxies and brains aren't fractals or Lorentz attractors anyhow.

So, while I cannot say much about the nature of deity, I'm convinced that an intelligent consciousness is there, behind all the wonders we can see and feel. 

[Angrboda]

All that for an argument from incredulity. Wow.

[Hatshepsut]

All that for an argument from incredulity.  Wow.

I was asked only what my own reasons were. I haven't made an argument that religious devotion is justified by objective criteria, although it's not always held uncritically as many atheists seem to think. Belief is hardly a matter of logic or scientific discovery to begin with. Beliefs of course should be examined, but that doesn't mean that those who choose theism are obligated to defend their choice in arguments with atheists conducted on the atheists' preferred terms. If we do so, it's a courtesy. 

[Neo-Scholastic]

I think you mean Dragnet.

[Whateverist]

I was asked only what my own reasons were. I haven't made an argument that religious devotion is justified by objective criteria, although it's not always held uncritically as many atheists seem to think. Belief is hardly a matter of logic or scientific discovery to begin with. Beliefs of course should be examined, but that doesn't mean that those who choose theism are obligated to defend their choice in arguments with atheists conducted on the atheists' preferred terms. If we do so, it's a courtesy. 

Hello and well met.

Sounds like you are holding whatever your religious beliefs may be in a completely defensible manner. Good on you. Where in the world did you come from? Very glad to have you here.

Now, can I pry? I wonder if you would characterize yourself as an agnostic theist? The way I use the word, if you concede that only private reasons can justify theistic beliefs, I'd say you are agnostic. (Me too.) Doesn't mean you can't be plenty certain that belief is right for you. Likewise, I'm as certain as I can be that theism isn't for me. But I don't see that as an impediment. Worthy people can disagree over such things.

[noctalla]

There are two types of people in this world: those who cannot comprehend infinity and those who cannot comprehend that they cannot comprehend infinity.

[robvalue]

"Do you want to live forever?"

"Who gets to decide what this life will be like?"

"This guy. He's cool, don't worry. You'll love it."

"No thanks. Don't call me again."

[Whateverist]

Very few atheists I know of are philosophical materialists. Most are methodological materialists. What are these good reasons to believe in the divine you refer to?

Then I shan't accuse those methodologicals of placing unnecessary restrictions on epistemology. Or anything beyond "Just the facts, Maam" in Adam-12. Such an attitude is to be admired when you want to solve problems. Yet while no unwarranted assumptions of purpose should be laid on physical, biological, or cosmological processes in the course of analyzing them to obtain first principles, I find the leap from this to excluding the divine from our universe of possibility a bit long

I don't disagree with you so far. Not so long as you are talking about validating your personal beliefs. The problem comes when your private musings overlap matters of fact about the cosmos or even your physical being. In those cases your beliefs can be verified or rejected. No methodology exists to check whether you do in fact love your kids or value honesty above other values. You can believe those things all day long without worrying about being proven objectively wrong.

Even the handiwork of molecules and living things and galaxies itself seems too smart to allow me the mantra "pattern but no design or purpose." I can't prove existence of deity and doubt such an existence can be proved via application of an objective method. We don't even know how to define the category of "deity" properly and have wasted lots of time projecting our own social psychology onto our god concepts. Including our conflicts with other people and groups. Ideas of divine involvement, however, can arise when we ask questions like "Why are we conscious?" After all our brains can take input from our physical sense organs and compute behavioral outputs without any fluff of a subjective sense of being alive. Yet those roses are so red and the usual explanations proffered, awareness as epiphenomenon and awareness as consequence of the brain's complexity, so unsatisfying. We should by rights be androids doing all our stuff while dead as a doorknob inside.

There you did it. Drove right off the path from where your opinions and private musings are safe from objective study. You can wonder about whatever you like. Enjoy the flights of your own fancy. But bring them to the table without anything more to support them? You've got to expect some disagreement. We all have our own flights of fancy. Some of us don't even think assertions regarding objective reality are fit topics for interpersonal discussion.

Mother Nature doesn't invent epiphenomena: things which causally depend on other things but have no reciprocal influence in turn. Newton's 3rd law was action-reaction. If our consciousness is caused by our brains, then it must be able to kick back yet we see no signs of it doing so-always just the neuronal activity.

Fine go ahead and ask the question. Why do our brains provide us with conscious experience rather than just provide us with instinctual responses? Or even, how do autonomous cells even give rise to multicellular creatures with coordinated, purposeful intent? Truly wonderful questions. But jumping to magical solutions may just undermine your pursuit of those fine questions. Your choice of course. But no one who respects the questions is going to be content to plug in your fanciful, just-so story. Good questions are not nuisances to be swatted away.

Emergence from complexity: A car is indeed more than a pile of auto parts, yet a car really doesn't possess any new properties its parts didn't have. Instead, a car possesses functional abilities: It can do things like drive that the parts can't do by themselves. While our brains are more than a pile of cells, we're imputing more than computational ability to brains: they have a new property of consciousness the cells didn't seem to have.

Finally, consciousness is completely private. We can't tell directly whether any other person or thing is conscious, or if we're walking around in a world of androids. We can't even rule out consciousness in rocks or bacteria for that matter. This cutting off of information from the rest of the universe like it went down a hairless black hole is suspicious. It leads me to believe reality includes more than just the physical universe we can study with science. And both physical and mental complexity suggest a designed thing with a reason for coming into existence, though I don't claim to understand this reason or think it has to be a traditional god which did this. Snowflakes and fractals aside, I think there's a limit to how much complexity can emerge from a small number of basic laws without design. Galaxies and brains aren't fractals or Lorentz attractors anyhow.

So, while I cannot say much about the nature of deity, I'm convinced that an intelligent consciousness is there, behind all the wonders we can see and feel. 

Have it your way. But you may be missing out on better answers by jumping the gun this way. Not that I have them. But I prefer my own speculation, which you could no more undermine than I can yours. I guess if you may just be asking: "does anyone else see things this way?" It doesn't seem too likely that an atheist hangout is the most likely place to find kindred spirits in this regard.

[Hatshepsut]

But bring them to the table without anything more to support them?  You've got to expect some disagreement.  We all have our own flights of fancy...But jumping to magical solutions may just undermine your pursuit of those fine questions.  Your choice of course.  But no one who respects the questions is going to be content to plug in your fanciful, just-so story.  Good questions are not nuisances to be swatted away....But you may be missing out on better answers by jumping the gun this way....It doesn't seem too likely that an atheist hangout is the most likely place to find kindred spirits in this regard.

Well, rather boring if everyone agreed with me. Never underestimate magic, however. Perhaps the one thing where Australian Aborigines and ancient Egyptians were a little smarter than we. While a lot of mental and material benefits were gained by our discarding magic, we paid a price for that.

I don't think I gave any "just-so" stories in my post. At least not intentionally. I certainly hope I wasn't swatting at questions as if they were flies. I was arguing that explaining subjective consciousness as an epiphenomenon or as an emergent property of complexity is too facile. These two explanations are popular, I see them everywhere. But neither of them proposes a mechanism. I was under the impression that mechanism is central to any scientific theory. Explanations that don't include a causal mechanism are usually considered unscientific. Yet the privacy aspect of consciousness seems to make it impossible to find a mechanism for it.

I don't bump into many kindred spirits anywhere I go. While belief in deity may not be the best answer, neither is the denial that a deity is possible.

[Cyberman]

Fortunately, not many here would make that last claim.