By Mano Singham
This brings us back to the whole problem of what constitutes proof in such cases. The negative is particularly tricky. As far as I can see, to prove that life after death does not exist, the only thing we can have is the absence of proof that life after death does exist. I cannot see how there could be any other kind of proof for such a thing and would be genuinely interested in hearing from anyone (especially from those who do believe in the afterlife) what kind of evidence would convince them beyond a shadow of a doubt that no afterlife existed.
As far as I can tell, the very fact that there has been no convincing proof for thousands of years that life exists after death is all the proof we are ever going to have that it does not exist. So in my opinion, having convincing proof that there is no life after death would not change people's behavior much, since that is pretty much the state of affairs that currently exists. People may say that they believe in it but they really have no basis for believing it and I suspect that its absence would not, deep down, really surprise them. It is only having convincing proof that the afterlife does exist that would change anything dramatically.
Notice that I say 'convincing' proof. There are people who claim to have had near-death experiences where they saw something of the after life. Others claim to talk to or even see dead people. But none of these things really constitute proof because they are all individual reports in the absence of corroborating witnesses. There is a whole range of completely natural explanations that can explain the testimonies of such people, from dreams to hallucinations to misunderstandings to lying.
A real proof of the existence of the afterlife would have to consist of something incontrovertible, that simply could not be denied. If asked to be more specific, I would say that it would have to consist (say) of an event in which someone who was well known and whom we know was definitely dead (say Albert Einstein) appeared in public and spoke to a large number of people who had no vested interest in collectively lying. There would also have to be tangible evidence of the event occurring. Furthermore, to rule out any chance of fraud or misunderstanding, this dead person should promise to reappear at a designated time and place under conditions that rule out trickery so that any and all skeptics could be on hand to check the phenomenon out. Albert should also be able to bring along other well known people from the world beyond, like say Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. If something like that happened, I think everyone would be convinced.
We have never had anything even close to such a level of proof. So basically, the current state of affairs is such that there has been no convincing proof of the existence of an afterlife. That means that we have all the proof we can possibly get that there is no afterlife.
The only way that people can sustain a belief in the afterlife given the current absence of any evidence in its favor is to argue that there must be an impenetrable barrier that prevents any kind of communication at all between the afterlife world and this one, with no exceptions. In other words, there is a one-time opening between the two worlds that allows the souls or spirits of dead people to cross over but the door closes immediately afterwards preventing any return or communication. But this implies that everyone who claims to speak with the dead is either a fraud or delusional and that all the supposed encounters that people claim to have had with the dead are false. So we are back to having zero evidence for the existence of an afterlife.
If we want to believe at least some of the reports of dead people having communicated with the living, then we have to allow just some people to be able to speak to just a few of the dead. That means the barrier separating the two worlds can be crossed and this raises a whole host of problems. Why is it that the dead don't contact us more often? Why doesn't Thomas Jefferson drop by for regular chats and maybe give the current occupant of the White House some desperately needed advice on what the US Constitution says? Why don't all murdered people whose deaths were unsolved come back and tell us who their killers were?
In fact, believing in an afterlife is much harder than believing in a god. After all, with god, one is presumably dealing with a single entity. People always have the option of assigning inscrutability to god's actions and say that for reasons beyond our ken, god has chosen to keep his/her existence unproven except for highly oblique hints.
But with the afterlife, if it exists, there must be billions of dead souls out there. It is hard to argue that all of them are determined to prevent us from finding out for sure that they exist. Why would they care? Is it a crime in that world for someone to show themselves openly in our world? Is this other world like a prison in which just a few dead people are given permission to occasionally speak to a few living people under extremely controlled circumstances?
Given the overwhelming logical difficulties with postulating the existence of such a spirit world, one wonders why people continue to believe in it. One reason that I can think of is that people have a deep sense of existential loneliness that makes it comforting to think that they are surrounded by the spirits of dead friends and family and that they will join them in the future. It is such a deep psychological need that it overcomes all reason and logic.
Suggestion
Well, concerning survival of consciousness, how would we ever be able to detect it? Since our own consciousness is indetectable at the time, though it now has a theory, but is still unable to be proven, how could we prove afterlife until then? We wouldn't know about consciousness if we didn't experience it. If we somehow didn't, it would probably be dismissed as false. Also, if people can talk to the dead, it would only be a select few with a unique condition that allowed them to. And there as been some scientists, who claim there is proof some are correct: http://www.newsnet5.com/news/2893543/detail.html.
If the theory that consciousness is like an electric current is true, picture it leaving the body the way energy leaves other objects in science. Unable to be seen, nor really do anything to anyone. Except for special circumstances.
Dead is, unfortunately, dead.
I really enjoyed this article and plan to pass it around to some of my friends who entertain the idea that there may be "something more" after this life other than decomposition. Unfortunately for them, the logic of your arguments precludes that. It seems to me that in positing some continued existence for consciousness one assumes that consciousness is a "thing" separate from the brain, sort of like positing that sight is a "thing" that continues to exist after the eye is damaged or destroyed. We never ask, "Where did the 60 Miles Per Hour go after the car hit the cement pylon?" and it seems just as silly to ask that question about consciousness. Those who believe in the continued existence of consciousness assume (wrongly, IMHO) that it is in some sense seperate from the brain which produces it. Why then, I am fond of asking, does a change in the chemical make-up of the brain (go have a few pints at your local pub to see what I am talking about) so dramtically change consciousness? I think the answer is so obvious that one could almost say that question is rhetorical.
Another great article!
Where did the 60 MPH go? Somewhere...
'We never ask, "Where did the 60 Miles Per Hour go after the car hit the cement pylon?"'
That's not a very good example. We do, in fact, ask where the '60 Miles Per Hour' went, in the sense of asking questions about the transfer of kinetic energy. As most people know, when a car slows down its kintetic energy is transferred into heat, sound, energy in other bodies and so on. Asking 'where the speed went', or, more accurately, where the energy went, is a legitimate question.
If anything, your example highlights something important by mistake that erodes your case. When people wonder 'where did the consciousness go?' they are implicitly appealing to the Principle of Conservation in much the same way that a scientist appeals to it when they wonder about energy beings transferred. There's nothing immediately stupid about that.
Given this, I think that we face a stark choice about consciousness as follows:
1 Consciousness is real and the Principle of Conservation is universal. Therefore, consciousness is permanent and is always conserved in some form, though not necessarily a visible or obvious form. Just because we cannot see consciousness after death doesn't mean it no longer exists; our trust in the Principle of Conservation should override this.
2 Consciousness is real but the Principle of Conservation is not universal. It only applies to certain things. (Which things, and why?) Therefore, consciousness is not necessarily conserved.
3 Consciousness is not real. It never existed in the first place.
On a side note, even if you disagree with people who think that consciousness is separate from the brain, I think they are far less foolish than you seem to. What they are implicitly appealing to is the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness', which is something along the lines of 'How do seemingly unintelligent, physical brain states produce private, conscious states?' I can understand if you think this is a non-question, many people do, but that far from necessitates you thinking that anyone who takes the question seriously is a fool. To briefly deal with your 'alcohol' example, for instance, the brain and consciousness can easily be seen as related, but distinct. I can believe that drinking alcohol will affect my consciousness without thinking that consciousness IS the brain. Simply noticing the effect of alcohol on my body enforces no particular interpretation.
To summarise my doubts, I think that your beliefs about death are far more interpretative than you realize. It is not a simple case of 'I am paying attention to the evidence, and my opponents are not'. Evidence needs interpretation, and people can disagree about this as well. Many of your opponents are interpreting things differently from you, not refusing to consider evidence. Of course, some interpretations are better than others...
Another possible argument contradicting an afterlife
Quote:
"As far as I can tell, the very fact that there has been no convincing proof for thousands of years that life exists after death is all the proof we are ever going to have that it does not exist."
I think there is another proof/hint that life after death does not exist.
Some presumptions:
-------------------------
Neuroscience, amongst others, is trying to find neuronal correlates (NCs) for certain mental features. NCs can be identified with some certainty by...
1. thoroughly designed fMRI experiments
2. studies that look at patients with brain injuries of the brain area (the NCs) in question and find that damage to the NC does cause a change in the specific mental feature.
In the philosophy of mind there is a problem of judging whether an other subject has an inner mental life. I intend to draw an analogy between this problem and the problem whether or not there is an afterlife.
For the the mind the are basically there two methods to find out. First is behaviorism - the way the subject reacts in certain situations. In the way that the argument reasons through objective available experience it resembles the authors argument that there is no afterlife.
The second way is to analyse how close the other subjects central nervous system (CNS) resembles our own CNS. As the CNS is the (today largely accepted) manifestation of our mental abilities the similarities will lead us to the conclusion that the other subject does have mental features. My argument considering the afterlife will be in some way similar to this anatomical argument for mental entities.
The argument
---------------
IF
science could find the neuronal correlates for all our mental features.
AND
science could conclusively explain how these NCs cause all our mental features
THEN
Science will thereby be able to strongly suggest that mind EXCLUSIVELY exists through the ACTIVITY in our physical NEURAL STRUCTURES within our brains.
After death and decay the obvious absence of both, the activity and the needed neural structure (NCs), would therefor make an additional strong point that we cant expect an afterlife.
To assume that our minds might "survive" in any meaningful sense by conservation of energy cant reasonably be expected. Though the energy of our decaying body is preserved in some diffuse way (heat, electric field) it can hardly be assumed that this form of energy is able to sustain our minds as a mind needs a specific structure and activity.
--Garak
Life After Death
Probably "consciousness after death" would be a better way to put it.
The only viable concepts are those that can be examined experimentally and scientifically. An afterlife based on somebody's "revelation", especially somebody dead for millenia, isn't much amenable to this and the best study is simply a study of similar "revelations" and the biographies of persons who supply them and of their historical contexts.
Ghosts and reincarnation, however, can be examined. It's possible to go to some supposedly haunted place and conduct all manner of measurements as well as wait to see the ghosts. It's been done, and not too convincingly, but at least the direct investigation can be carried out.
If a person claims to remember a past life -- more convincing if that person is a child -- the records can be investigated for that life. If someone says they were an insurance salesmen named Joe Blow who lived in Omaha and dies in 1939 of a heart attack, then it's possible to look at Omaha phone books and city directories and newspapers for the alleged Joe Blow as well as go over geneaologies of Blow families. Since most people except for a significant number from recent centralized states for a bit more than a century have vanished from memory and records this will only work for very recent alleged lives.
But at least the investigation can be carried out according to established criteria.
A problem with either of these options is the mass of mystical and theological drivel connected with both beliefs -- you lived once as a person who was murdered because of the "karma" of a prior existence, or you hang around the old house because there was something you should've done but didn't. In view of actual, physical connections discovered between events once thought to be supernaturally caused (the plague as punishment for sin, for example), these explanations don't hack it even if validity of the phenomena were supported.
I doubt it would or will be, because when you're dead you're dead, but measurability gives an idea some possibility.
Where did the 60 MPH go? Somewhere...
I think the 60 MPH example is a great example, actually. The same loss of energy applies to living beings as well as automobiles and notice how your answer waxes scientific, as if you want to claim some legitimacy for it. I wasn't making a case; I am not claiming anything, ergo, I am not obligated to make a case. Those who claim the existence of a phenomenon are obligated to make the case. This is basic logic. All bodily functions cease at death, some quicker than others. Those who claim that consciousness is special need to provide evidence and make a case. The fact that you seem to be unaware of this basic rule of logic, well, it erodes more than just your case.
But really, you just can't come to grips with the fact that there is nothing about you, me or anyone else that transcends existence. You don't argue for the continued existence of a dog's consciousness, or an elephant's, just (implicitly) yours. Why should humans be special, so that their consciousness, unlike any other living thing, has some sort of a claim to existence after death? Because this whole thing relates to YOU and you are just by golly, gee wilikers soooo special that the universe couldn't possible get along without you! Therefore, you must continue to exist after your body ceases to. Some argument. I don't think people fools; they just need to look at their presuppositions a bit more closely.
Again, you present ad hominems and critiques. A critique is not a refutation; there is a difference between the two that escapes most. ID/creationists think that a critique of evolution is a refutation of evolution and it seems that you have that same frame of mind. How do two gases when combined together, produce "wetness"? They do, in the very same way that if you put some very specific types of matter together in a specific way, you will produce consciousness, both human and otherwise. Change that structure and you change the consciousness (see alcohol example). Giving a detailed explanation as to "why" does not legitimize any phenomenon nor does the lack of the "why" answer call into question the facts surrounding the phenomenon. We currently lack the sophistication to answer the "why" question at the present time vis-a-vis consciousness and the mechanism for gravity, but we will never be able to deal with the intellectually immature "that can't be all that there is" or, let me phrase it correctly "that can't be all that I am".
Yes, it sure can and once your life has been lived, it'll be over and that is that. In the words of Dan Dennett, "It's not that bad." My view of death is simple; the cessation of life. We have no problem applying that to a squid, a squirrel or a giraffe. No talk about the continuation of anything as regards those animals. But when we come to humans, its a different, or should I say "ad hoc" issue, for you. You are right, some interpretations are better than others and a good rule of thumb is that ad hoc interpretations suck. You have evidence that consciousness continues after death then present it and make your case based on that evidence. All this other stuff is nonsense, like arguing what color is a unicorn's horn. You can end this discussion rather quickly by simply presenting evidence. But let me guess, you won't and your response will be all sorts of "what ifs" and "there is always that" but no unicorn's horn. :)
Rich
NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX
Animal Afterlife
"You don't argue for the continued existence of a dog's consciousness, "
Here is one of the questions. Aside from the fact that if I were going to live on in some otherworldly "heaven" I would want all the dogs I've owned or known to be there, there should be some evolutionary afterlife gradient. That is, animals at least should have some developing property that makes them more likely to survive death: self-awareness, perhaps.
The problem here is how natural selection would operate on it since natural selection requires death before reproduction in many individuals in order to affect future generations.
It might be possible that such a quality could emerge randomly as a product of neurological or other development and that selection for it might actually operate on attendant factors.
That would be untestable as far as I can see, so it might as well not be so.
It would be similar to the lack of ageing in some animals such as many crocodilians. They don't enter old age but of course they eventually die of accident, disease, or trauma due to fighting. Despite that, their behavior doesn't change: they still act like alligators as long as they live, the only effect being that the longer-lived ones are able to have more offspring. But what effect on "earthly existence" would translation to another plane or world have?
There's a barrier of untestability to any afterlife except, as I noted, reincarnation and ghosts. But how would those arise or be affected by natural selection? They'd have to influence biology or they would simply be random happenings. Is this a question worth pondering, or is it even a real question?
Evidence That Would Be Proof Exists Already
You state that near-death experiences and the like are not convincing proof. Then you state that real proof would be something such as having someone who is well-known and obviously dead appear before a crowd of witnesses. But the proof that you demand has already happened; look up Leslie Flint, a medium who has talked with many well-known dead people in the presence of other people.
Also, I'd like to comment that there is real proof in terms of near-death experiences not being dreams or hallucinations. The real proof is when a blind person has an NDE, and during the NDE she sees what's going on in the hospital room. Witnesses such as doctors and nurses confirm what the blind person saw during the NDE.
If you ask me, this is incontrovertible evidence. I think God is trying to show us more of what life really is, but die-hard skeptics simply refuse to listen to Her.