1a) No I would choose the generally accepted diagnosis of western medicine. There are a battery of tests which at the end conclude one way or another (c 25-30 tests). If they all say brain dead, then brain death is extremely likely. Please note here that I think you are in danger of being a little too boolean in your logic. Yes there is a point when we die, but brain death is a process and not a point in time following a single diagnosis (hence the battery of on-going tests). This doesn't rule out 2 things: 1) we do not fully understand neurology and there should be other steps, which we haven't uncovered yet to help the diagnosis and therefore there is a risk of misdiagnosis (I would consider this likely to happen a small number of times across a very large sample given all science is tentative and the relative 'newness' of this science 2) human error and misdiagnosis (also likely a small number of times across a very large sample). My main point here is that there are powerful inductive reasons which suggest that if there are unknowns/misdiagnosis in a very small number of cases that a material cause/s will be uncovered, and no inductive reasons or deductive reasons at all to assume that an immaterial cause is responsible. It doesn't rule it out...but how far do you stretch credulity in doing so?
1b)What are we to conclude from reporting people who experience NDE. For them its a real experience and I may have one too. If all my faculties recover I would be tempted to put it down to brain chemistry and neurophysical processes as that excerpt concluded, whatever the point reading of my EEG was. Again its a process not a point in time following one test.
3a)I had a number of exmaples, one was a brain damaged person, another just a murder I would commit. With my soul ONLY being an observer of my material self, I would not be judged harshly in either case. This view seems contrary to most centuries of xtian thought and teaching as well as as sense of justice, although it is consistent with the material realities we know of. An active rather than passive presence would falsify this, but would be more consistent with centuries of xtian teaching and justice but inconsistent with the material world.
3b) they don't exist? you mean they're not testable. You can't make a shadow conform to a shape (shadow puppets)? You can't make it go away? It's insubstantial, useful, natural, controllable , observable and we can explain it? Technically it can't be separated from it's "physical generator" but it can be simulated. If I was standing in the sun and had a shadow, and then poof I disappeared and my shadow stayed... that would be the analogy, separate distinctly from it's physical counterpart. You could argue that upon returning to witness it would then indistinguishable from the physical form, but if someone verified it remaining after I left, what would we have?
No I mean that shaddows do not exist. They are effects of our physical instantiation in the universe. I am happy for now to run with the shaddow analogy. The example you quoted of a shaddow remaining post the removal of its physical owner is a good one. There are ahgain powerful inductive reasons to suggest that this has never happened nor will and again nothing to suggest otherwise.
3c)x is necessarily zero, but as you cannot show it isn't necessarily zero and there are no inductive reasons to believe it is anything put zero, what is one left to conclude?
1b)What are we to conclude from reporting people who experience NDE. For them its a real experience and I may have one too. If all my faculties recover I would be tempted to put it down to brain chemistry and neurophysical processes as that excerpt concluded, whatever the point reading of my EEG was. Again its a process not a point in time following one test.
3a)I had a number of exmaples, one was a brain damaged person, another just a murder I would commit. With my soul ONLY being an observer of my material self, I would not be judged harshly in either case. This view seems contrary to most centuries of xtian thought and teaching as well as as sense of justice, although it is consistent with the material realities we know of. An active rather than passive presence would falsify this, but would be more consistent with centuries of xtian teaching and justice but inconsistent with the material world.
3b) they don't exist? you mean they're not testable. You can't make a shadow conform to a shape (shadow puppets)? You can't make it go away? It's insubstantial, useful, natural, controllable , observable and we can explain it? Technically it can't be separated from it's "physical generator" but it can be simulated. If I was standing in the sun and had a shadow, and then poof I disappeared and my shadow stayed... that would be the analogy, separate distinctly from it's physical counterpart. You could argue that upon returning to witness it would then indistinguishable from the physical form, but if someone verified it remaining after I left, what would we have?
No I mean that shaddows do not exist. They are effects of our physical instantiation in the universe. I am happy for now to run with the shaddow analogy. The example you quoted of a shaddow remaining post the removal of its physical owner is a good one. There are ahgain powerful inductive reasons to suggest that this has never happened nor will and again nothing to suggest otherwise.
3c)x is necessarily zero, but as you cannot show it isn't necessarily zero and there are no inductive reasons to believe it is anything put zero, what is one left to conclude?
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
