Share your worldview?

[The Grand Nudger]

In case of afterlives and propositional logic it's a proof by derived contradiction as well.  The afterlife proposition implies (frankly..requires) something of human consciousness that we know to be untrue of human consciousness, therefore we know that the afterlife proposition is untrue regardless of what we don't know about human consciousness (or death).

This is why I've never understood why people says things like "we don't know what happens after we die" as a response to the afterlife proposition. OFC we do. It's just as well demonstrated as any other biological fact. It's as if we're entertaining the notion that the entirety of human sensory apparatus is redundant, unnecessary, and uninformative as to nature of human sensory experience.

[Pat Mustard]

Great responses - very helpful and well argued! I appreciate it.

All in all, quite interesting and a lot of similarities. I need to do some deeper thinking on a lot of what was said, but a couple questions do jump out -

1) How do you deal with the idea of ceasing to exist after death - or doesn't it bother you?
2) How do you explain what could be considered evidence of intelligent design (such as DNA) - or the statistical improbability we could have happened by random occurrence.

Another is - Can you explain why you became an atheist? But that could easily be a topic for another thread.

On 2 we didn't hapen by chance. We evolved to adapt to our surrounding environment. Your fundagepical "goddidit" is closer to randombess than evolution.

[polymath257]

If you know the mass of Jupiter is NOT 1kg, that doesn't mean the exact mass is knowable. It is possible to have *some* knowledge, but still not have 100% certainty in the value.

It is simply not the case that knowledge is an all-or-nothing proposition. I can know that Jupiter is more massive than Saturn and not know the mass of either. I can know the value of the mass to 3 decimal places, but not to 9. That means the knowledge of the mass is not 100% certain.

But even more, we may be able to say that the data is *consistent* with a zero spatial curvature in the universe and that there are good theoretical reasons to think it is zero, but we still do not have 100% certainty the curvature is zero.

For that matter, unless you can be 100% sure you don't live in the Matrix, you cannot be 100% sure that chair you sit on is real.

Uncertainty is part of living in the real world. ALL measurements have error bars on them.

[The Grand Nudger]

If you know the mass of Jupiter is NOT 1kg, that doesn't mean the exact mass is knowable. It is possible to have *some* knowledge, but still not have 100% certainty in the value.

It is simply not the case that knowledge is an all-or-nothing proposition. I can know that Jupiter is more massive than Saturn and not know the mass of either. I can know the value of the mass to 3 decimal places, but not to 9. That means the knowledge of the mass is not 100% certain.

But even more, we may be able to say that the data is *consistent* with a zero spatial curvature in the universe and that there are good theoretical reasons to think it is zero, but we still do not have 100% certainty the curvature is zero.

For that matter, unless you can be 100% sure you don't live in the Matrix, you cannot be 100% sure that chair you sit on is real.

Uncertainty is part of living in the real world. ALL measurements have error bars on them.

It means that the truth status of the proposition "The mass of jupiter is 1kg" is knowable.  Are you uncertain in that value?  

Knowledge is a binary proposition in conditional statements by definition, that's just a function of propositional logic in conditional statements.  Your confidence in the underlying assumptions of a conditional statement may not be.  If you know that jupiter is more massive than saturn that's another binary proclamation of knowledge, regardless of whether or not you know the exact mass of either.  That you don't is two more binary proclamations of knowledge.  That uncertainty is part of living in the real world..another binary proclamation of knowledge.

None of these examples of uncertainty, or the acknowledgement that -these- measurements have error bars...however, speak to any point of contention in any propositional statement regarding afterlives.  For this reason, in regards to that conditional statement..they are uninformative.  Making the entire post a false analogy if leveraged in that regard (also a binary statement of knowledge - of invalid argumentative structure).

Riding over and above and around all of that, is that there is no requirement of complete knowledge in logic in order to determine the truth status of some specific conditional statement. Such a requirement would be irrational, as we can never know if we have such knowledge anyway. We don't know what we don't know. The only point of contention that would be informative..in summary of all of the above..however, is whether or not the truth status of the afterlife proposition is one of those things, or even remotely like the unknown exact mass of a planet.

What do you think? Is the status of human experience beyond death fundamentally unknowable? Are you less than confident in the underlying propositions which describe our understanding of human consciousness? Is an afterlife meaningfully and sufficiently similar to the mass of a planet..such that a valid and informative comparison might be drawn between them..and that some true thing regarding one would be equally true of the other? Did the existence of any listed uncertainty prevent you from making binary proclamations of knowledge, and is your insistence that you do not know the exact mass of some planet anything other than a binary proclamation of knowledge?

[brewer]

Will psalm come back?

[The Grand Nudger]

Meh, I'm not expecting substantive conversation even if he does...that's why it's on us to scare one up.

[Martian Mermaid]

Hey, I'd be happy to help. Although you probably already found someone.
I'll answer the questions just in case.
Where we came from?
We don't know and probably never will. It might be a coincidence that we are here. We are made of matter, maybe matter and energy has always been here. I do believe(based on scientific evidence) that the earth in particular was formed because gravity caused a bunch matter to come together. But where did the universe come from, I don't think I'll ever know.
Mortality?
When I die, I think all that will happen is that my consciousness will end. I am not a soul, I am my body. So I have no soul to go to an afterlife with. When my body stops working, I will lose all awareness.
Destiny?
Life is delightfully random. I don't think anything was predestined to happen.
And the general meaning of life?
That's up to the person living it. We create our own meaning, because we're the only person it means anything to. There is no long-term meaning for all of life's existence. Each individual life has meaning of its own, and that meaning is determined by the life form experiencing it.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

If you know the mass of Jupiter is NOT 1kg, that doesn't mean the exact mass is knowable. It is possible to have *some* knowledge, but still not have 100% certainty in the value.

It is simply not the case that knowledge is an all-or-nothing proposition. I can know that Jupiter is more massive than Saturn and not know the mass of either. I can know the value of the mass to 3 decimal places, but not to 9. That means the knowledge of the mass is not 100% certain.

But even more, we may be able to say that the data is *consistent* with a zero spatial curvature in the universe and that there are good theoretical reasons to think it is zero, but we still do not have 100% certainty the curvature is zero.

For that matter, unless you can be 100% sure you don't live in the Matrix, you cannot be 100% sure that chair you sit on is real.

Uncertainty is part of living in the real world. ALL measurements have error bars on them.

Are you confusing mass and weight?  https://www.reference.com/science/differ...rQuestions

[The Valkyrie]

Meh, I'm not expecting substantive conversation even if he does...that's why it's on us to scare one up.

Are we talking about a hunt?

It's tourist season here and I've already been warned away from several tourist hunting grounds...

[polymath257]

If you know the mass of Jupiter is NOT 1kg, that doesn't mean the exact mass is knowable. It is possible to have *some* knowledge, but still not have 100% certainty in the value.

It is simply not the case that knowledge is an all-or-nothing proposition. I can know that Jupiter is more massive than Saturn and not know the mass of either. I can know the value of the mass to 3 decimal places, but not to 9. That means the knowledge of the mass is not 100% certain.

But even more, we may be able to say that the data is *consistent* with a zero spatial curvature in the universe and that there are good theoretical reasons to think it is zero, but we still do not have 100% certainty the curvature is zero.

For that matter, unless you can be 100% sure you don't live in the Matrix, you cannot be 100% sure that chair you sit on is real.

Uncertainty is part of living in the real world. ALL measurements have error bars on them.

Are you confusing mass and weight?  https://www.reference.com/science/differ...rQuestions

Nope. I'm very well aware of the difference.

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Weight is a force. In MKS units, it would be measured in Newtons. Mass is, well, mass, and is measured in kilograms.