KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
your watching razorfist arcade too?
Chilling with The Styx
- Thread starter KilroywasNOTHere
- Start date
your watching razorfist arcade too?
Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
Sometimes for the interesting games. He mentioned it in his thief 2 playthrough.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
I recently watched a debate between Styx and Richard Spencer that I thought was interesting.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of Styx. I mean, I've agreed with him on a lot of things; but I've also thought his opinion on some issues are borderline insane. Particularly his spiritual beliefs, but also his refusal to take his ideological opponents seriously; or at least, any threat they might pose to him and the things he cares about. He comes across as a very passive individual, all things considered; which can be either good or bad, depending on the context.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
What are his spiritual beliefs? Is he a Satanist?
I like Styx, I generally agree with him and he seems like a pleasant guy who's even likeable when he says something that I disagree with. I think he's a bit too optimistic about politics and society, so may be disappointed with not just the recent election results but the general direction the USA moves in over the next few years.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
He's an occultist; hence his series of videos on the subject. What I personally find objectionable is his opinion on the subject of death and the afterlife; namely that he believes there is no afterlife (though there might be reincarnation; he seems to waffle on that point), and that we should all embrace oblivion.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
Well, he's right that there is no afterlife, I don't know about embracing oblivion though, that doesn't sound good.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
I thought you were a Christian; isn't belief in an afterlife a requirement of that religion? Besides if there is no afterlife, oblivion, the end of consciousness and self-awareness, is the only other possibility.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
I’m an atheist actually. Also, I do believe that everybody goes into oblivion when they die, but the idea of “embracing oblivion” sounds disturbingly nihilistic.
KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
if your right about oblivion, you don't have a choice. either you embrace it, or your dragged in kicking and screaming. Thankfully, I don't believe in oblivion.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
Oblivion will happen, eventually, but realizing that doesn’t mean that I “embrace oblivion” in any meaningful sort of way. I embrace the idea of making the most of the days I have, I embrace the goal of making the world better for those who will remain after I am gone.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
What's your proof? Because that's my problems with any sort of assertion of what happens after death; it's all assumptions. People just seem to like the idea that they know what's going to happen, and they care little about the specifics because, well; death is a tomorrow problem. I think it's far more intellectually honest to admit that we just don't know as much as we like to pretend we do.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
How could anybody prove that there isn’t life after death? Wouldn’t that be proving a negative? The burden of proof is in the person making a positive claim.
Actually, though, even if it’s not proof in a strictest sense, I’d say that thee is overwhelmingly strong evidence that there isn’t life after death. That evidence comes from our understanding of the human brain and how the physical brain and its processes create what we call the mind. People can receive brain damage that destroys memories, that alters cognitive ability, that can even change behavior in ways that have moral significance. The mind, in fact all of the things that people call the soul, arises from the physical activity in the brain and there is every reason to think that when brain function ceases, that the mind (and what people think is a soul) is gone as well.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
A computer can receive damage as well, which can drastically alter and/or impede its function; but does that damage translate to the person operating it? If you delete everything from your computer's hard drive, does that then mean that your own memory of what was on that hard drive is also deleted? What if the body is the computer, with the soul being the person using it?
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
If you are trying to argue purely materialistic origins for consciousness and the mind, you have to address a lot of problems.
1. The evolutionary utility of the extreme biological demand created by advanced brain structures, at the earliest levels.
2. How choice functions in a deterministic reality.
3. How awareness of self possibly works in any form of computing, given you are asserting the human 'self' is nothing but a phenomena of a biological computer.
There's a great deal more rolling down from these three things, but I'll leave it off there for now. To put it briefly; hardline materialists have completely failed to reconcile their ideological orthodoxy with observable reality, and the interface between human consciousness and the brain is one of the key aspects of that.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
I don’t think I need to do this, because I am not making any claim regarding the origins of the human mind, only the current nature of the human mind.
I do believe in evolution, but that belief doesn’t demand that I know exactly how everything evolved, that is actually an impossibly high standard.
Is the universe deterministic? It seems to be, I don’t necessarily assume that, but for a moment we will. We could write a computer program which is purely deterministic which makes choices by accessing a number of factors which it can observe. We can have a computer RPG that has an NPC talk with human characters but attack orc ones, unless the orcs are high level or outnumber the NPC and then the NPC runs away. That computer program analyzes the data available to it, and then makes a choice in a deterministic fashion based on its program and the situation it observes.
Of course human choices are way more complicated than that.
Awareness as we perceive it is a compartmentalization of the brain. Our consciousness is the brain perceiving itself. The above mentioned computer program doesn’t agonize over the choice it makes, the NPC doesn’t weigh its hatred of orcs and desire to protect his village from them against his fear of death, it just does as it does thoughtlessly.
A human mind though exists in parts, our conscious choice making mind is only a part of our brain and in many ways is subject to those other aspects. For example, a person needs to climb a ladder to do hole repair, but is afraid of heights, so has trouble. They want to fix the roof but fear climbing 20 feet to do it, there is a conflict. The fear is from the brain, but is largely beyond the control of our consciousness. The conscious mind makes the choice based okay that fear, which like the conscious mind is part of the brain. This sense of awareness is the brain perceiving itself. It is similar for countless aspects of conscious thought - a human feels desire, pain, happiness, sadness. The conscious mind is subject to these feeling but doesn’t directly control them. Likewise, you see an old acquaintance and can’t remember his name: that information is in your brain but the conscious brain cannot currently access it.
I’m hardly orthodox, but anyway...
I really don’t need to be able to answer any of the above questions to justifiably believe that the human mind is purely physical. Just because I don’t completely understand how brains work or why brains are the way they are doesn’t mean that I must admit that a wizard did it. I don’t completely understand how a car engine works, but I can still confidently say that there no spirit in the engine making it work.
I have yet to see anyone claim how the human mind exists as a single inseparable non-physical entity when neuroscience directly contradicts this claim - because brain damage to parts of the brain can change certain aspects of this supposedly inseparable non- physical ghost in the machine.
Once again, the onus is on the person making the positive claim to provide evidence for that claim. So a person claiming that immaterial souls exist or that the mind can exist outside of a brain or some other equivalent physical structure.
But I can believe in a purely natural mind without understanding every aspect of that mind, I can believe in internal combustion without completely understanding how an engine works, I can believe in evolution without knowing how every trait or every species evolved. If we took that kind of thinking and flipped it around on theists, then I would say that no one could believe in a deity without completely understanding that deity - that in fact you aren’t allowed to believe in an omnipotent deity without being all knowing yourself.
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LordsFire
Internet Wizard
You are also making a positive claim. I generally see you arguing in good faith, so I will assume you are here as well, and explain something of proper logical process as it applies to this sort of situation, something that you seem to not be aware of.
When a question is raised, proper rational thought does not by default take any answer as the correct one.
The default position is 'I do not know,' or 'It is unclear.'
Your assertion that consciousness is a purely materialistic phenomena is not true by default. Neither is my assertion that the mind is largely the result of the soul, and the brain is the interface with the body.
Both of these positions can be argued over, have evidence and presented, etc. But neither gets to claim 'I am right unless you positively prove your position.'
Which is what you are doing now, while explicitly admitting you are ignorant of the fine details upon which the crux of the matter rests.
I could go into a long and involved argument and present evidence on why I believe my position is correct, but while logical process is a decent match for a Styx thread, monism vs dualism as it pertains to the brain probably is not.
Lanmandragon
Well-known member
So go in fighting then? Sounds like a plan to me. Fearing death is foolish regardless of what's next. Death Md life are the same fearing the inevitable is foolish