July 20th, 2023. Does Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity Suggest That There Is an Afterlife?

Tecumsehsbones

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Yes, it’s just a shorthand for something like “Observed and predictable regularities we expect to continue.”
No, that's theories. Mathematics can have unbreakable laws because it's an artificial construct. A scientific theory just rolls on, gathering weight, until an unexplained counterexample arises. Then it needs modification. My favorite is "For all practical purposes. . ."
 

Dexter Sinister

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No, that's theories. Mathematics can have unbreakable laws because it's an artificial construct. A scientific theory just rolls on, gathering weight, until an unexplained counterexample arises. Then it needs modification. My favorite is "For all practical purposes. . ."
No, a theory is a well supported body of observations and analyses that serve to describe and explain a range of phenomena. A law is a summary statement of the conclusions of that.
 

petros

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.All that means is that nothing goes away, it just changes form, but there won’t be anything identifiable as some part of the personality that survives the death of the body.
Unless there is a soul and we are spiritual beings that need to possess a life form in order to reproduce.
 

Dexter Sinister

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Unless there is a soul and we are spiritual beings that need to possess a life form in order to reproduce.
Being very much aware of my own needs and feelings I’ve no doubt we’re spiritual beings in some meaning of the phrase, but there’s no good evidence any part of the personality survives the death of the body.
 

socratus

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We all find out eventually.
Life after death: Brian Cox says physics 'ruled out' the human soul at particle level:
"Particle physicist and TV presenter Brian Cox has, however, taken the discussion
one step further and explained why there is no measurable evidence of humans
having souls that could live on after death."
By Sebastian Kettley
PUBLISHED: 11:33, Sat, Jan 23, 2021
 

socratus

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Conversation in the Womb – A Parable of Life After Delivery
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In a mother’s womb were two babies.One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?”The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

/a parable from Your Sacred Self by Dr. Wayne Dyer/
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Being very much aware of my own needs and feelings I’ve no doubt we’re spiritual beings in some meaning of the phrase, but there’s no good evidence any part of the personality survives the death of the body.
What meaning would you assign that phrase? As a species, we have a notable propensity to make up stuff to explain what we can't understand. And a notable refusal to accept the idea that you live, and then you're gone.

Animals have minds, varying levels of intelligence, and some form of self-awareness, yet most religions hold that when they die, their identity simply vanishes, or disperses, or whatever concept best expresses "is no more."
 

petros

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Only if some part of our awareness survives death, otherwise we can’t know anything at all, we’re just gone.

And a broken radio cant play your favourite song. Are you a broken radio that cant pick up the frequencies so youre attempting to reclassify the radio as a bullshit detector that doesn't work either?

Maybe its you?
 

Dexter Sinister

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What meaning would you assign that phrase?
Only that we have non-physical needs, we need to be happy (unfortunately many of us aren’t), we need to feel part of something larger than ourselves, we need to love and be loved, stuff like that. But the notion that there’s an incorporeal part of us that survives physical death isn’t sustained by the evidence.
Maybe its you?
Of course it is, couldn’t very well be anyone else. I try to go where evidence and reason lead, not always successfully, I’m as prone to the same weaknesses in cognition and perception as all humans are, but I’ve carefully disciplined myself in critical thinking and find myself unable to buy the notion that anything like a soul exists.
 

petros

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Only that we have non-physical needs, we need to be happy (unfortunately many of us aren’t), we need to feel part of something larger than ourselves, we need to love and be loved, stuff like that. But the notion that there’s an incorporeal part of us that survives physical death isn’t sustained by the evidence.

Of course it is, couldn’t very well be anyone else. I try to go where evidence and reason lead, not always successfully, I’m as prone to the same weaknesses in cognition and perception as all humans are, but I’ve carefully disciplined myself in critical thinking and find myself unable to buy the notion that anything like a soul exists.
What sort of evidence do you have to the contrary without saying its because bad things happen to people who do pick up the frequency.
 
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Tecumsehsbones

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Only that we have non-physical needs, we need to be happy (unfortunately many of us aren’t), we need to feel part of something larger than ourselves, we need to love and be loved, stuff like that. But the notion that there’s an incorporeal part of us that survives physical death isn’t sustained by the evidence.
I concur. In order, I think "happiness" is an emotional response to the satisfaction of the other needs you mention.

The need to be a part of something larger could be just a sophisticated response to the fact that we are pack-hunting, predatory omnivores. Our awareness of "packs" that are not within sensory range could account for our ability to feel belonging in non-tangible groups.

The need for and pleasure in loving and being loved springs naturally from the reproductive and nurturing drive.

My point is that there are plausible explanations for these "spiritual" phenomena that involve neither big hairy guys sitting on clouds smiting folk with thunderbolts nor the conviction, unsupported by evidence, that a dead human is any more still extant than a dead rat or a dead houseplant. We are arguably the species with the most complex minds on the planet, and it appears to me that this is an adequate explanation for the observed phenomena. Certainly none of the alternatives is supported by anything but wishful thinking and fear of death.
 

55Mercury

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Conversation in the Womb – A Parable of Life After Delivery
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/a parable from Your Sacred Self by Dr. Wayne Dyer/
interesting

I wonder how that baby in 2001: A Space Odyssey fits into this.... is space one big sea of amniotic fluid?

why the heck not!

and this reasoning of somehow 'particulate' has to factor in as some kind of proof? hell, who says a soul or cosmic conscience, or even reason requires atoms? maybe for your brain to think it, sure, but it doesn't mean it can't exist without it.

let's all meet up after death and compare notes, ok?

:?D
 

petros

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The need to be a part of something larger could be just a sophisticated response to the fact that we are pack-hunting, predatory omnivores. Our awareness of "packs" that are not within sensory range could account for our ability to feel belonging in non-tangible groups.
There is only one pack on this planet that has mastered geometry and chemistry.

That takes a unigue consciousness.
 

Dexter Sinister

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What sort of evidence do you have to the contrary…
It’s not the contrary evidence that counts the most, what matters is the evidence in favour of the proposition, and as far as I‘ve ever been able to discover, there isn’t any that can withstand even the most minimal sceptical scrutiny. But if you want contrary evidence, Socratus’ post about Brian Cox above is a good start. That argument is essentially that there’s no known way an intelligence or awareness can exist without a physical substrate and as far as we know physics does not allow the possibility.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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It’s not the contrary evidence that counts the most, what matters is the evidence in favour of the proposition, and as far as I‘ve ever been able to discover, there isn’t any that can withstand even the most minimal sceptical scrutiny. But if you want contrary evidence, Socratus’ post about Brian Cox above is a good start. That argument is essentially that there’s no known way an intelligence or awareness can exist without a physical substrate and as far as we know physics does not allow the possibility.
If "no evidence to the contrary" is valid, then Martians, trolls, fairies, Atlantis, several thousand gods, and politicians' integrity exist.

"Fairies make the flowers grow. Prove me wrong" is the height of idiocy. And illogic.
 
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