Three stages

[torridon]

You still have these archaic ideas of prescience ideas and post science ideas. Reality is one. We had some models earlier and we have some models now. It is not necessary that all the models of today are necessarily correct and all earlier models are necessarily wrong.  We may have to re-look at some earlier models and see if they work along with today's models to present a more meaningful picture.

Problem is that when something goes against your fondly held models ....even if presented by eminent people of your own scientific community....you people react violently and dismissively....

The ideas I put on here are not archaic, they are from the cutting edge of consciousness research.

[ekim]

That these events are hallucinatory episodes is what research suggests.  All experience is sustained ongoing hallucination generated by brain function.  If you open your eyes and look at something, it is not the external thing you are seeing, you are having a visual experience that is generated from within by the workings of mind.  Sensory information arriving on twin optic nerve fibres merely modulates the experience, it does not generate it. This is at the heart of understanding why illusions occur.  Given this, it is hardly surprising that we sometimes experience altered states of consciousness; therefore we have no longer have any need for prescientific concepts like 'souls' which have no basis in ether evidence or reason.

https://tinyurl.com/46r4hsvd

[Enki]

Scientists are not sure what it is. They have noted instances where the two participants reported having both visual and auditory experiences while in cardiac arrest. One gave an accurate, detailed description of what took place for about three minutes of his resuscitation from cardiac arrest.

Even one such instance is enough to indicate that there is more to it than meets the eye. You people however are cocksure that it is all a hallucination....which is wrong. 

In fact, during epilepsy, heart attacks etc...the soul could leave the body temporarily.   You only accept what you can see and measure....that need not always be the truth.

As the article makes clear, the description of what took place was during the CPR phase, where the possibility of CPR induced consciousness is accepted.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9108988/

The article also makes clear that so far there have been zero instances that confirm veridical perception in OBEs(including the two cases mentioned in your original link).

You have still produced nothing of any worth which suggests that there is life after death or that there is such a thing as a soul. Hence, suggesting that the soul can leave the body is a futile exercise on your part to convince others, unless and until you can produce evidence that a soul actually exists.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Jeremy,

No I am not. I am explicitly accepting that. Squares and circles are abstract concepts defined within the framework of human reasoning. They are definitionally mutually exclusive. You may say some other reasoning framework exists somewhere in which squares and circles can be the same thing, but the objects to which you are referring are explicitly not the squares and circles of our logical framework.

But you’re saying here “if I define squares as having right angles then a shape without right angles cannot be a square”. That tells us nothing about the universal properties of squares and circles though – just about the definitions we (currently) apply to them. That doesn’t mean however that it’s impossible for a square also to be circle nonetheless because current definitions do not necessarily map to that potential reality.       

Was it? I don't believe that is the case. I think people just thought of them as different phenomena. People don't usually define things in terms of what they are not.

Yes. “Things” were defined as one thing or a different thing, but it was thought to be impossible for them to behave as both at the same time.   

I don't think the problem arose until people started observing objects that appeared to behave like particles in some circumstances and waves in others. The resolution was simple in that it turned out that quantum level objects are neither particles (in the Newtonian sense) nor waves but objects whose behaviour can be described by mathematics that looks identical to the mathematics of waves.

Yes, but the point rather is that something considered impossible wasn’t. I referenced the quantum not to have discussion about it, but rather to illustrate that sometimes things though to be impossible are later found to be not impossible – ie, we cannot rule out the possibility that anything else currently thought to be impossible isn’t impossible after all.

It is by definition because it is a definition.

But not necessarily the reality it seeks to define. That’s the point. We define “square” in a very specific way, but that’s all it is – a definition. Who’s to say that one day someone might not say, “unlike what we thought squares to be back in the 21st century, we now know that squares have all sorts of different circular properties too”?

But in our "celestial computer", 2+2=4 ids a fundamental truth. It may not be in some other celestial computer (seems unlikely though), but it is certainly true that "in our reality 2+2=4"

But what makes you think that our reality is also the reality, and in the game it’s not only a “fundamental truth” inasmuch as that’s what an algorithm tells “us” to think? Axioms are also referred to sometimes as assumptions – and for good reason: assumptions can be wrong.

On what basis then could we be sure that claims of impossibility that rest on axioms might not also therefore be wrong?     
 

Wrong. Axioms do not have to be "true".

Yes they do if you want to rely on them to claim a consequent universal truth – ie, that something is universally impossible. As you cannot know an axiom to be universally true though, accordingly you cannot then assert the consequent claim of “impossible” to be a universal truth.

Mathematicians use them and invent them and see if interesting things come out in the wash. For example, if you take as your axioms the five geometric axioms of Euclid, you can show by a line of logical reasoning that the angles of a triangle always add up to two right angles. However, it turns out that you don't have to accept one of the axioms - the "parallel postulate". If you substitute it with a different axiom, you find that the angles of a triangle do not add up to two right angles. The statement "the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees" is false, but the statement "if we accept Euclid's axioms including the parallel postulate, then the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees" is true."

But that “if” is what undoes you here. It’s a conditional proposition, but what if the underpinning axioms for it are wrong? All that you’ve said here is true, but there’s an unspoken suffix: “according to current human understanding”. That’s the problem with claiming epistemic impossibility.   

There really is no such thing as a square circle.

At a colloquial level that’s fine, but not necesriy at a universal level. How could you know that to be true?

Shakespeare got there before you by the way: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet)

There might be life after death, but I doubt it and I would bet my house that there isn't.

So would I, but still I can’t justifiably calling it categorically, universally, 0% chance of it being true impossible. That’s the point here. 

[jeremyp]

Jeremy,

But you’re saying here “if I define squares as having right angles then a shape without right angles cannot be a square”. That tells us nothing about the universal properties of squares and circles though

Yes it does.

– just about the definitions we (currently) apply to them.

What is a square though? It's a shape defined as having four sides of equal length and four right angles between them.

In arguments about the meanings of English words, people often say that dictionary definitions are descriptive, not prescriptive. Well, mathematical definitions are the opposite. The mathematical definition of a square is prescriptive. Shapes that don't have right angles are not squares by definition.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Jeremy,

Yes it does.

How do you know that? You’re assuming here that the map is also the territory, rather than our attempt to describe the territory (that could be wrong).

What is a square though? It's a shape defined as having four sides of equal length and four right angles between them.

Yes it is defined as that.

In arguments about the meanings of English words, people often say that dictionary definitions are descriptive, not prescriptive. Well, mathematical definitions are the opposite. The mathematical definition of a square is prescriptive. Shapes that don't have right angles are not squares by definition.

No doubt, but what makes you think mathematical definitions are necessarily universally true rather than just the most robust explanations humankind has, so far, developed?

To be clear, I’m not suggesting here that square circles are real – I cannot even conceive of such things as they seem fundamentally contradictory to me. What I am suggesting is that in epistemological terms I cannot however claim absolute certainty about that. And I don’t understand how you can either (unless you’re omniscient?).

Again: how would you eliminate even the possibility that for example you’re an avatar in a celestial kid’s computer game that’s just programmed to find square circles impossible?     

[jeremyp]

Jeremy,

How do you know that? You’re assuming here that the map is also the territory, rather than our attempt to describe the territory (that could be wrong).

Yes it is defined as that.

No doubt, but what makes you think mathematical definitions are necessarily universally true rather than just the most robust explanations humankind has, so far, developed?

The definition of a square is not an explanation. It tells us what a square is. Any mathematical object you come up with that does not have four right angles is not a square. It is that simple.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting here that square circles are real

Squares and circles are not real in the sense of existing in the Universe. They are abstract mathematical concepts that we define.

– I cannot even conceive of such things as they seem fundamentally contradictory to me. What I am suggesting is that in epistemological terms I cannot however claim absolute certainty about that. And I don’t understand how you can either (unless you’re omniscient?).

I told you how I can. A square is a shape with four straight equal length sides and angles between them that are right angles. Show mew any shape at all that does not meet that definition and I am correct to say "it's not a square". It does not meet the definition.

Again: how would you eliminate even the possibility that for example you’re an avatar in a celestial kid’s computer game that’s just programmed to find square circles impossible?     

Because it's us in the computer game that define what a square is and what a circle is.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Jeremy,

The definition of a square is not an explanation. It tells us what a square is. Any mathematical object you come up with that does not have four right angles is not a square. It is that simple.

No it doesn’t. What it tells us is what the (current) definition of a square is. Again, you’re conflating the map with the territory. How though would you eliminate even the possibility that some distant future person might demonstrate that our current definition of squares was wrong? 
 

Squares and circles are not real in the sense of existing in the Universe. They are abstract mathematical concepts that we define.

But they’re “concepts” that seek to describe phenomena that do exist in the universe. That’s the point – whether linguistic or mathematical they’re only ever descriptive of the “real stuff” they seek to describe, and descriptions aren’t necessarily infallible. 

I told you how I can. A square is a shape with four straight equal length sides and angles between them that are right angles. Show mew any shape at all that does not meet that definition and I am correct to say "it's not a square". It does not meet the definition.

Yes, it doesn’t “meet the description”. That’s all it doesn’t do though. How though do you know that “the description” would always be correct about what squares must be in any place in the universe and at any time in the future unless you’re already omniscient?

Because it's us in the computer game that define what a square is and what a circle is.

In the computer game, that’s right. There’s also though a reality outside the game that might have a different understanding of reality. All you’re saying here is that, within the paradigm of the game, square circles are impossible. I agree with that, but that’s not what this is about.   

At its root the problem here is the risk of unknown unknowns – there’s no way to eliminate them and, worse yet, even if there was, there’s no way to know we’d eliminated them.

[jeremyp]

No it doesn’t. What it tells us is what the (current) definition of a square is.

No! When we say "square" we are using the word as a label for the object that the definition applies to. If you change the definition of "square" all you are doing is changing the label to refer to a different object. Currently "square" means "shape with four equal length sides at right angles to each other". This is something that cannot be a circle. If you change the definition of "square" to something that is compatible with a circle, you have not solved your problem because a shape with four equal length sides at right angles to each other is still not a circle.

Again, you’re conflating the map with the territory. How though would you eliminate even the possibility that some distant future person might demonstrate that our current definition of squares was wrong? 

No. In mathematics there is no territory. It's all the map.
 

But they’re “concepts” that seek to describe phenomena that do exist in the universe.

A square isn't. A square is an abstract concept in an abstract two dimensional space. Sure, there are objects in the Universe that look like they can be modelled using squares.

You might have a field, for example and you measure its sides and find they are the same length and you measure the angle at one of its corners and find it is a right angle, so you say this field is square. And then you can use facts known about squares to measure the field's area. But the field isn't a square. The angles are never exact right angles and the sides are never exactly the same length. You might find the area is bigger than predicted by maths because the land in the field is not flat.

Mathematical concepts are not defined by the real world. Some of them were created by observing the real world. The mathematical concept of a square probably came from observing square approximations in the world. But once they are part of maths, they are no longer part of the real world.

Of course mathematical concepts can be used to describe the real world, but if the maths you are using to describe some real phenomenon turns out not to predict the phenomenon correctly in all circumstances, we don't change the maths, we use different maths.

For example, the principle of relativity* tells us that there is no special state of rest. Anybody who is moving at a constant velocity has the right to assume they are at rest and everything else is moving. So a person on a train can observe a child running down it towards the front and say the child is moving at 7mph. A person outside notes the train is moving at 50mph, so how fast is the child moving relative to the person outside? The physicists say "let's model the situation with addition and subtraction of real numbers". And it works. They calculate the child is moving at 57mph relative to the outside observer and then they measure the child's speed and find their calculation is correct.

However, trains get faster, children get faster and speed measuring instruments get more accurate. Eventually the physicists discover that there are consistent errors in the calculation. The child is never moving quite as fast as the calculation predicts.

The physicists find that instead of simply adding the velocities, you have to multiply the sum by a factor that is less than 1 and gets smaller as the velocities get closer to the speed of light. That's a new mathematical model but it does not mean that the mathematicians have to go back and change the definition of addition of real numbers.

That’s the point – whether linguistic or mathematical they’re only ever descriptive of the “real stuff” they seek to describe

That is precisely the opposite of the point. You don't change mathematics because a real world phenomenon you were hoping to describe with it doesn't behave according to the definition. You use (or create) a different mathematical concept.

*the principle of relativity was first described by Galileo.

[Outrider]

It starts with a belief and faith and later turns to a conviction based on personal experiences. Events like NDE's only confirm our beliefs.

If you have to start with belief you have no basis for accepting the claim - faith is belief without evidence. In what way can starting with accepting a claim without evidence lead to being 'convinced'? Convinced by what, you've already accepted that you are believing on no basis.

Woo, right the way through.

O.

[Outrider]

Beliefs are not without reason.

Beliefs are not always without reason, but sometimes they are.

They are based on insights of forces working behind the scenes.

Sometimes, yes. Often, perhaps. But the fact that they are based on insights does not mean they stand up to investigation. Regardless, if your ideas were amongst these then you could have started with the belief, but you could offer us the insight and the reason. You don't.

Imagining these forces in real terms results in mythology. These myths could be proved to be false from time to time. But the real forces don't go away.

No, but your explanations remain, at best, conjecture, and at worst rigorously demonstrated to be nonsense.

You people might dismiss NDE's and OBE's as just brain related phenomena....your habitual skepticism doesn't allow you to think otherwise.

Of course it does, it just doesn't allow us to accept a claim based on your admitted preconception that you're going to accept the claim. Skepticism is a hurdle your claim has to clear if we're to accept it, it's not an impassable barrier unless you have no basis for your claim.

But I am convinced that they are real after life events.

No, you aren't convinced at all. You started, by your own admission, with an acceptance of the claim without basis - a 'faith' in the claim. Then you went looking for explanations that could justify your pre-existing belief, and dismissed or attempted to deride anything which contradicted it. You say this isn't a religion, that's its a 'new' way of looking at things, but it's the same old story: belief, either in the absence of, or in spite of, the evidence. It's religion all over again.

O.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Jeremy,

No! When we say "square" we are using the word as a label for the object that the definition applies to. If you change the definition of "square" all you are doing is changing the label to refer to a different object. Currently "square" means "shape with four equal length sides at right angles to each other". This is something that cannot be a circle. If you change the definition of "square" to something that is compatible with a circle, you have not solved your problem because a shape with four equal length sides at right angles to each other is still not a circle.

You’re not getting it still. Using “square” to describe “the object the description applies to” is a conceptualisation of that object’s characteristics but, like any other conceptualisation, at some level it rests on axioms because axioms are the bedrock of our understating of anything. There’s no way to dig beneath axioms though so they have to be assumed, and assumptions necessarily can be wrong.

That’s all I’m saying here. We could dance around whether, say, some more profound maths could ever be discovered that would show our definition of squares to be wrong or whether we only define “square” as we do because we’re just computer game avatars programmed to think that while oblivious to deeper truths but, ultimately, these are all second order speculations. The primary one is that any claim to knowledge must rest on axioms. Unless you can find a way to dispense with that, then epistemically any claim to absolute impossibility about anything cannot be justified.     

No. In mathematics there is no territory. It's all the map.

That’s a big claim. Are you suggesting that mathematics somehow doesn’t rest ultimately on its axioms?

How so?
 

A square isn't. A square is an abstract concept in an abstract two dimensional space. Sure, there are objects in the Universe that look like they can be modelled using squares.

You might have a field, for example and you measure its sides and find they are the same length and you measure the angle at one of its corners and find it is a right angle, so you say this field is square. And then you can use facts known about squares to measure the field's area. But the field isn't a square. The angles are never exact right angles and the sides are never exactly the same length. You might find the area is bigger than predicted by maths because the land in the field is not flat.

Mathematical concepts are not defined by the real world. Some of them were created by observing the real world. The mathematical concept of a square probably came from observing square approximations in the world. But once they are part of maths, they are no longer part of the real world.

Of course mathematical concepts can be used to describe the real world, but if the maths you are using to describe some real phenomenon turns out not to predict the phenomenon correctly in all circumstances, we don't change the maths, we use different maths.

For example, the principle of relativity* tells us that there is no special state of rest. Anybody who is moving at a constant velocity has the right to assume they are at rest and everything else is moving. So a person on a train can observe a child running down it towards the front and say the child is moving at 7mph. A person outside notes the train is moving at 50mph, so how fast is the child moving relative to the person outside? The physicists say "let's model the situation with addition and subtraction of real numbers". And it works. They calculate the child is moving at 57mph relative to the outside observer and then they measure the child's speed and find their calculation is correct.

However, trains get faster, children get faster and speed measuring instruments get more accurate. Eventually the physicists discover that there are consistent errors in the calculation. The child is never moving quite as fast as the calculation predicts.

The physicists find that instead of simply adding the velocities, you have to multiply the sum by a factor that is less than 1 and gets smaller as the velocities get closer to the speed of light. That's a new mathematical model but it does not mean that the mathematicians have to go back and change the definition of addition of real numbers.

Yes I know. All of these models make perfect sense insofar as we’re capable of understanding such things, and insofar as they haven’t been replaced or amended by subsequent “different maths”. Let’s agree on that.

Now then. How do you know that any of this also maps to an ultimate reality, and not just to the reality we’re capable of perceiving and modelling? That’s the point here – not the specifics of maths or of physics or of any other field of knowledge, but rather the hard barrier that all knowledge sits on that we can’t get behind, namely its axioms. 

This is why we can never be sure the map is the territory rather than just our constructions of what the territory appears to be – at some level we must rely on assumptions.       

That is precisely the opposite of the point. You don't change mathematics because a real world phenomenon you were hoping to describe with it doesn't behave according to the definition. You use (or create) a different mathematical concept.

No, it is the point. You can use or create different mathematical concepts as much as you like and, no doubt, when you do that you’ll obtain more robust models to describe reality. Try as you might though, you can never be certain that those models are definitive descriptions of reality.   

*the principle of relativity was first described by Galileo.

Which means that before Galileo it wasn’t. The point here wasn’t about the historical specifics, but rather about the general phenomenon of certainties being undone by subsequent discoveries – and that there’s no way to determine that you’ve reached a hard end to that possibility.   

[jeremyp]

Jeremy,

You’re not getting it still.

Really stop saying that. It's a lie.

I do get it. It's you who seems to be having a problem getting your head around what we are talking about. 

Using “square” to describe “the object the description applies to” is a conceptualisation of that object’s characteristics

No it isn't. "square" is just a label. The conceptualisation in maths is the definition.

but, like any other conceptualisation, at some level it rests on axioms because axioms are the bedrock of our understating of anything. There’s no way to dig beneath axioms though so they have to be assumed, and assumptions necessarily can be wrong.

Again you miss the point. Axioms are assumptions, but in maths, they don't need some sort of underlying truth in the real world. They just have to be interesting and not mutually contradictory.

That’s all I’m saying here. We could dance around whether, say, some more profound maths could ever be discovered that would show our definition of squares to be wrong

One again, in maths, definitions are prescriptive. They cannot be wrong.

That’s a big claim. Are you suggesting that mathematics somehow doesn’t rest ultimately on its axioms?

No. I'm saying that axioms do not have to embody somer truth in physical reality.
 

Yes I know. All of these models make perfect sense insofar as we’re capable of understanding such things, and insofar as they haven’t been replaced or amended by subsequent “different maths”. Let’s agree on that.

But we don't change maths based on our experience of the real world, we use different formulas. equations and models grounded in the same maths.

Now then. How do you know that any of this also maps to an ultimate reality

We don't. Our only tool for finding out if a certain mathematical model is a map of any kind of reality is by doing experiments. If you are saying there is some ultimate reality that we are incapable of observing, then we can never know if it is real or if any particular model describes it.

, and not just to the reality we’re capable of perceiving and modelling? That’s the point here – not the specifics of maths or of physics or of any other field of knowledge, but rather the hard barrier that all knowledge sits on that we can’t get behind, namely its axioms. 

Axioms aren't knowledge.

No, it is the point. You can use or create different mathematical concepts as much as you like and, no doubt, when you do that you’ll obtain more robust models to describe reality. Try as you might though, you can never be certain that those models are definitive descriptions of reality. 

This is true, but a certain model turning out not to describe reality does not invalidate the maths used in it. We did not throw away addition just because special relativity shows it doesn't model velocities correctly.

Which means that before Galileo it wasn’t. The point here wasn’t about the historical specifics, but rather about the general phenomenon of certainties being undone by subsequent discoveries – and that there’s no way to determine that you’ve reached a hard end to that possibility.   

I only put that note in to avoid confusion with the Theory of Relativity.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Jeremy,

Really stop saying that. It's a lie.

I do get it. It's you who seems to be having a problem getting your head around what we are talking about.

Well, I think it’s up to me to decide whether you’re getting the point I’m making but ok – let’s see…

No it isn't. "square" is just a label. The conceptualisation in maths is the definition.

But at some level a definition is “just” a label too. It’s our best attempt to describe something but that’s all it can be – our best attempt. 

Again you miss the point. Axioms are assumptions, but in maths, they don't need some sort of underlying truth in the real world. They just have to be interesting and not mutually contradictory.

But now you’re abandoning mapping to an objective reality entirely and retrenching just to a subjective and abstracted approximation of reality. Which is fine so far as it goes, but it gives you no basis to claim anything about the objective, “out there” world to be impossible. It’s espistemically equivalent to me saying “leprechauns are musical, therefore non-musical leprechauns are impossible”.

This is essentially tautological – “when my definition of something is contradicted by a different definition of that thing, the different
definition is impossible but only by reference to my definition” (which, presumably is also what the super-advanced alien with a different definition to yours would say about your definition). That doesn’t make either of them objectively impossible though – just contradictory.           

One again, in maths, definitions are prescriptive. They cannot be wrong.

No. I'm saying that axioms do not have to embody somer truth in physical reality.

I’m not sure how, if a prescription cannot be wrong and another prescription contradicts it, neither can be wrong (ie, impossible) even when they contradict each other, but in any case presumably prescriptive definitions still require justification so as not to be white noise don’t they? And if they do, those justification too must at some level rest on axioms mustn’t they?   

But we don't change maths based on our experience of the real world, we use different formulas. equations and models grounded in the same maths.

But it was you who introduced real world phenomena to make your point – trains and running children. If you want to talk about maths purely in the abstract instead though that’s fine, but to be meaningful still these abstracted ideas must rest on something mustn’t they? 

We don't. Our only tool for finding out if a certain mathematical model is a map of any kind of reality is by doing experiments. If you are saying there is some ultimate reality that we are incapable of observing, then we can never know if it is real or if any particular model describes it.

Not quite. I’m saying that while there may be an “ultimate reality”, in any case we can’t know for certain that we know what it is even if we do. Why? Because any knowledge we do have about reality (ultimate or not) rests at some level on assumptions, and assumptions can be wrong.     

Axioms aren't knowledge.

But they underpin everything we think to be knowledge. That’s the point.

This is true, but a certain model turning out not to describe reality does not invalidate the maths used in it. We did not throw away addition just because special relativity shows it doesn't model velocities correctly.

I’m not suggesting it should be thrown away, just that we cannot be sure that it’s correct in all possible circumstances – which I think is what you’ve just said too. And if that is the case, on what basis could we say that something is definitively impossible even when the maths that say it it’s impossible aren’t invalidated?     

I only put that note in to avoid confusion with the Theory of Relativity.

Fair enough.

[jeremyp]

Jeremy,

Well, I think it’s up to me to decide whether you’re getting the point I’m making but ok – let’s see…

You are trying to make a point that is wrong.

But at some level a definition is “just” a label too. It’s our best attempt to describe something but that’s all it can be – our best attempt.

No it isn't.

And for the umpteenth time. Definitions in mathematics are not descriptive, they are prescriptive.

I'm not going to answer any of the rest of your points because this is the key issue that you do not understand. The square is not  described by its mathematical definition, it is defined by it.

[jeremyp]

I lied slightly. I am going to answer some of your points.

I’m not sure how, if a prescription cannot be wrong and another prescription contradicts it, neither can be wrong (ie, impossible) even when they contradict each other,

They can't. Did anybody say they can?

In mathematics, if you have a system in which contradictory results can be derived, it is called "inconsistent". The consistency of a system is of great concern because "from a contradiction, anything follows". I'll admit that proving consistency is often a difficult task (and impossible in the general case).

Anyway, if you have a definition that contradicts my definition then our definitions are obviously of different objects. I'm talking about mathematical objects here - definitions of objects in the real world can be (or appear to be) contradictory e.g. the wave/particle duality. That usually signifies an incomplete understanding of the phenomenon.