Why we're immortal

[Sunflowers]

It has everything to do with whether something can become nothing.

Subatomic particles obviously can turn into energy (in other words, disappear) or turn into other subatomic particles (become something unrecognizable).

Er, that's not something becoming nothing.

Quantum physics predicts that as electrons get closer to the nucleus, their energy, that kept them farther away from the nucleus, under specific conditions, turns into a particle called photon. Similarly, if a photon enters an atom, it can, under specific conditions, turn into energy of an electron and make it go farther away from nucleus. And it's not just theoretical, LEDs are based on that.

But, er, still not something becoming nothing.

Furthermore, as far as I understand it, the quantum field theory, which is accepted by most of the physicists today, predicts that subatomic particles can indeed come from nothing (not from energy, simply from nothing) and vanish (not turn into something else, simply vanish). I don't know ow much empirical evidence there is for that (I haven't studied physics too much), but it's clearly conceivable, there are not-obviously-wrong mathematical models that predict that.

That's physicists making metaphysical assumptions. Leave metaphysics to metaphysicians.

If you want a cake, go to a baker. Don't go to a physicist.

If you want to know whether something can become nothing, you go to a metaphysician, not a physicist or a baker.

And as for minds splitting, how on earth is alien hand syndrome evidence for that? You don't seem properly to grasp what splitting a mind would involve. It involves splitting 'you'. So, if you find that 'you' are not in control of some aspect of your body, that isn't any kind of evidence that 'you' have split. You don't go with one half. You go with both. Which, of course, makes no sense at all. Which is just another way of acknowledging its inconceivability.

[Sunflowers]

All your examples use physical dividable entities. You even speak of materializing. These examples are irrelevant if you state that the soul is completely different than bodies. Therefore, your examples are not convincing.

Why should I apply physical conservation or analogous principles to minds, if they are so utterly different?

One further point, if I grant you a sort of conservation principle. Your physical examples only need physical conservation principles, which in a analogous form would only give rise to a very weak notion of immortality of the mind. The mind as a simple might still be there, but could loose or change all its content. This is a kind of immortality not worth talking about from the perspective of practical reason.

I don't understand what you're saying.

You started out by saying that you wanted to challenge my claim that simple things are indestructible. To do that you would need to maintain that things can vanish - that something can become nothing.

I have pointed out that such a claim is wildly counter-intuitive.

This claim - 'something cannot become nothing' - is far better supported by reason than this claim - 'something can become nothing'.

Once more, it is irrational to favour a weaker premise over a stronger one.

[Sunflowers]

Do you have a PhD in philosophy?

As you are a philosopher and mentioned Descartes' position, I would appreciate a statement, how you would react to the criticism of Locke and Hume of Descartes' philosophy of mind.

Do you think you have to make some qualifications to your argument, because of these criticisms?

What criticisms exactly? (Locke was also a dualist, incidentally).

[Sunflowers]

No, because Occam's razor could just as well be used to cut away material entities. Indeed, that would be a more parsimonious use of it, given that material entities don't really make sense.

Hey, listen, obviously, it's conceivable that our bodies are an illusion and that the material world doesn't really exist. But all the evidence we have points to not only the material world existing (or else our senses would have to be deceiving us constantly), but also our minds being produced by that material world. And even if the material world isn't real, we still need to act as if it were real, since we are obviously a part of it.
Yeah, it's disturbing to think we can't know for certain who we really are. But that's the truth.

No, you listen.

We are now talking about Occam's razor. Theory A posits immaterial minds and material substances. Theory B posits immaterial minds. Theory C posits material substances.

Now, B and C are equally ontologically parsimonious. Other things being equal, then, Occam's razor does not favour C over B. That is, Occam's razor will not allow you to conclude that materialism is true.

But in fact, things are not equal. We know with complete certainty that our own minds exist. We do not know with the same certainty that material substances exist, for as you've admitted we can easily conceive of them being imaginary.

Furthermore, Descartes' dvisibility argument seems to show that minds are immaterial, for reasons that I have already gone through.

So, we have excellent evidence that immaterial substances - our own minds - exist. We do not have the same quality evidence that material substances exist. Now, if you now wield Occam's razor against that background it will cut away material substances, not immaterial ones.

But anyway, note too that I said nothing about why material substances are dubious. I did not ground their dubiousness in their dubitability (one could - but I didn't).

Here is why material substances are dubious: they're divisible. As Descartes noted, you can always divide a material substance, no matter how small it may be.

That means that material substances instantiate actual infinities.

Nothing in reality instantiates an actual infinity.

Therefore, no material substances exist in reality.

The only objects that can exist in reality are indivisible objects and complex objects made from indivisible objects.

Clearly no material object can be made of any indivisible object, for an indivisible object will not possess extension. And thus building a material object from immaterial objects is as hopeless as trying to get to 1 by adding up enough zeros.

[teo123]

Er, that's not something becoming nothing.

How is a photon turning into energy of an electron not "something becoming nothing"? That photon was there, but it isn't there any more. There were two particles, and now there is only one particle.

That's physicists making metaphysical assumptions. Leave metaphysics to metaphysicians.

I strongly disagree with that. I think that, today, a productive discussion about metaphysics requires at least some understanding of modern physics. You don't need to understand to formulas (neither do I fully understand the formulas for how LEDs work, and I probably never will), but you should understand the basic theories of modern physics. Much of the metaphysics has been made testable in the last 200 years, including the atomic theory. Metaphysics means "beyond physics". What used to be metaphysics 200 years ago, today is physics. Metaphysics can be seen as the softest part of physics, and, as such, it can't be used to contradict accepted physical theories.
Similarly, a productive discussion about philosophy of mind requires at least some understanding of neuroscience and computer science, and so does a discussion about most stuff about ethics (and this seems to be accepted by nearly all philosophers today).
And, of course, a productive discussion about political philosophy requires at least some understanding of social sciences, including, but not limited to, economics and sociology.
And a productive discussion about the philosophy of language requires at least some understanding of linguistics and probably also computer science.

So, if you find that 'you' are not in control of some aspect of your body, that isn't any kind of evidence that 'you' have split.

Look, alien hand syndrome involves the hand acting somewhat sensibly, but contrary to your will. For example, when you embrace your wife, the part of the brain that controls your alien hand might decide it doesn't love love your wife and push her away. Or, when you open the door, the part of your brain that controls your alien hand (almost always the left hand) might decide it wants to stay in that room (for whatever reason) and close the door. My psychology textbook even includes an anecdote (though I can't find reliable source about it on the Internet) about a hand of some mentally ill person taking a pencil and writing some words on paper (perhaps because that part of the brain which got separated didn't have access to the Broca's area to talk, but it still wanted to say something), to a surprise of that person. That alien hand doesn't have to be acting randomly, it's as if it had an actual mind. It's as if your mind has indeed split.

As Descartes noted, you can always divide a material substance, no matter how small it may be.

So he denied the existence of atoms, and was wrong to do that. It wasn't as obvious in his time that atoms existed as it's obvious now.

[teo123]

You know, when I was denying Vukovar Massacre on the TextKit forum, Barry Hofstetter (one of the most active members of that forum) told me:

Si onera probendi ordinaria non accipis tibi auxilium sufficere non possum. Mihi huius collocutionis satis est

Maybe that's the right attitude to have with Sunflowers here. If they doesn't accept mainstream physics contradicting his metaphysical (though they today belong to physics) statements as a valid counter-argument, there is little we can do.

[Not The Real JReg]

I'm a professional philosopher.

No you are not.

Are you?

No, but I've never claimed to be. I've claimed to be a philosopher, but not a professional one. I am, however, good friends with several individuals with PhDs in Philosophy, and so I can indeed provide links to articles that are behind paywalls. I could have used those to convince you that I had an academic background. I'm not going to do that, however. Not just because I'm not a liar, but also because I have better things to do than waste time trying to win the favour of somebody who actually is a liar. You claim to be a professional philosopher, and this is a blatant lie. I have shown your posts to three actual professional philosophers. Two of them believe that you are just a troll and that you don't actually believe in antinatalism or dualism or any of the other viewpoints that you profess to believe and that you are mocking those who do. The other one (who I might add, is herself an antinatalist) thought that you might actually believe in the viewpoints that you have expressed a belief in, and that you could be lying about having a PhD in order to try to gain credibility, until I showed her your post where you stated that you were a better philosopher than Socrates, at which point she burst out laughing and said "Ok, he's got to be joking!". None of them believe that you are any sort of philosopher, academic or otherwise. Stop lying and come clean.

[Sunflowers]

Er, that's not something becoming nothing.

How is a photon turning into energy of an electron not "something becoming nothing"?

Er, because it isn't.

I strongly disagree with that. I think that, today, a productive discussion about metaphysics requires at least some understanding of modern physics.

Just wrong. You wouldn't say the reverse, would you? This is a 'philosophy' forum, not a 'physics' forum. The claim that something does not become nothing and that from nothing nothing comes are metaphysical claims.

Once more: if a physicist makes metaphysical assumptions in how they interpret data, that is not evidence that the metaphysical assumption is true.

No doubt most contemporary physicists are materialists, for instance. But that is not evidence that materialism is true.

So, assuming that the mind is the brain is not evidence that the mind is the brain. I mean, that should be obvious.

The baker down the road makes excellent cakes. He's really, really good at cake making. He assumes cakes are material substances. That isn't evidence that cakes are material substances. No matter how excellent his cakes are, his assumption - an assumption that he makes as he makes them - that the cakes he is making are material substances and not ideas in the mind of a god does not thereby become true or supported by his excellent cake making.

Anticipated reply from you: ah, but physicists aren't making cakes.

Anticipated counter-reply from me: well done for missing the point so spectacularly.

Your description of the alien hand syndrome does not constitute evidence of a mind being split. It is evidence of a mind losing conscious control over aspects of the body. That's all. It isn't - absolutely isn't - evidence of a mind being split.

[Sunflowers]

No, but I've never claimed to be. I've claimed to be a philosopher, but not a professional one. I am, however, good friends with several individuals with PhDs in Philosophy, and so I can indeed provide links to articles that are behind paywalls. I could have used those to convince you that I had an academic background. I'm not going to do that, however. Not just because I'm not a liar, but also because I have better things to do than waste time trying to win the favour of somebody who actually is a liar. You claim to be a professional philosopher, and this is a blatant lie. I have shown your posts to three actual professional philosophers. Two of them believe that you are just a troll and that you don't actually believe in antinatalism or dualism or any of the other viewpoints that you profess to believe and that you are mocking those who do. The other one (who I might add, is herself an antinatalist) thought that you might actually believe in the viewpoints that you have expressed a belief in, and that you could be lying about having a PhD in order to try to gain credibility, until I showed her your post where you stated that you were a better philosopher than Socrates, at which point she burst out laughing and said "Ok, he's got to be joking!". None of them believe that you are any sort of philosopher, academic or otherwise. Stop lying and come clean.

I don't think anything in that passage is true, apart from the bit about me joking about Socrates. I was indeed joking. I do not consider myself a better philosopher than Socrates. We're level pegging.

[Not The Real JReg]

I don't think anything in that passage is true

So you think that I am a professional philosopher?