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Inductive Argument for the Afterlife

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Inductive Argument for the Afterlife

Wosret
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Posted 10/30/09 - 08:24 PM:	#11
I'd be worried if I thought that the universe existed inside of my head, and thus would be in some way contingent on my ability to imagine them for their non/existence. This is however, not the case. This is just an example of an appeal to ignorance, in its argument by lack of imagination form.
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npage85
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Posted 10/30/09 - 09:24 PM:	#12
Wosret wrote: I'd be worried if I thought that the universe existed inside of my head, and thus would be in some way contingent on my ability to imagine them for their non/existence. This is however, not the case. This is just an example of an appeal to ignorance, in its argument by lack of imagination form. An appeal to ignorance? I don't believe that that is so. The way I see it, I am not arguing using the fallacy of an argument from personal incredulity (which I believe is what you are after). I am not arguing, "Well, because I can't imagine(or see) how it is possible, then it isn't." I am saying that events which are impossible to imagine all share a similar trait, and I use that fact inductively to arrive at my conclusion. In order for your criticism to hold up, it must be the case that I am arguing that my consciousness cannot cease to exists merely because I can't see (or imagine) that it could. However, that is not the case at all. I could explain precisely why my argument is different, but hopefully what I have said here clears it up. jsidelko wrote: Or is it a specific phenomenon that dies with the termination of the user? Either alternative is plausible. Well... according to my argument, it is highly likely that it doesn't terminate with the user, even though it still remains a possibility. I didn't quite understand what you were trying to convey with your post... but it seemed as though it was a musing on my argument, rather than a critique.

mric
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Posted 10/30/09 - 11:32 PM:	#13
npage85 wrote: I would state that your consciousness never ceases when you get knocked unconscious, your brain simply loses the ability to retain the memories of your experiences. Why would you claim that? That seems considerably more counter-intuitive than any of your argument's premises :-) The reason I would say that it is true is because I can come up with an event that has, as its first state, something impossible to imagine, yet I can imagine it with perfect fidelity: my consciousness coming into existence. The reason I can imagine my consciousness coming into existence is because I can imagine something akin to waking up from dreamless sleep: a sudden realization that "I am." Since your consciousness coming into being would be precisely like that, except that it never existed before, you are indeed imagining an "analog" of "your consciousness coming into existence" every time you awake from dreamless sleep. So, I conclude that events with the first state impossible to imagine and the second state possible to imagine are not always impossible to imagine... hence, my statement in my OP. That doesn't seem valid - I don't see why you are making the strong claim that imagining events is not symmetric under time. You appear to be claiming (I think erroneously) that imagining an event is to imagine state 1, a connection, and state 2. Yet you seem to allow for state 1 being unimaginable, but not state 2. The example you give is that you can imagine the event of waking up from a dreamless sleep. This involves (in your model) imagining the dreamless sleep, the waking up connection, and the conscious realisation, yet you have also claimed that state 1 is unimaginable.

mric
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Posted 10/30/09 - 11:51 PM:	#14
By the way, I still haven't picked out the most obvious problems with the initial argument - the section on why other possible beings imagining your consciousness not to exist is not plausible. Here's the argument for it being impossible for other beings besides you: 1. Consciousness is a subjective thing. 2. In order to know anything about a subjective thing, you must be the subject of that subjective thing. That is pretty implausible. The other ways to know about a subjective thing are to be given reports by the subject, to extrapolate by analogy to your own subjective experience, and to extrapolate on the basis of patterns of behaviour/report/reaction from similar subjects. 3. You are not the subject of my consciousness. 4. Therefore, you can not know anything about my consciousness. 5. In order to imagine anything about an object, one must know what that object is. 6. (fourth premise... a conclusion... goes here) You can not know anything about my consciousness. 7. Therefore, you can not imagine anything about my consciousness. 8. Therefore, you can not imagine my consciousness not existing. The reason you must know something about what you are imagining is because remember, I defined "to imagine" as "creating a mental representation with some degree of fidelity." Therefore, that "some degree of fidelity" that you are including in your mental representation must be known by you. For instance: If you said that you could imagine my consciousness not existing by simply imagining my body never being born... that mental representation contains no degree of fidelity about my subjective experiences. Thus, you wouldn't actually be imagining my consciousness not existing. There is another equivocation here. It actually would be completely sufficient for me to imagine the second state of you never having been born to imagine the event of your consciousness ceasing to exist. Because state 2 is imaginable, and you have suggested that even if I can not imagine your consciousness with any fidelity (state 1), that is not a problem for imagining the event under your rules for imagining events. Since we are floating around in a religion forum, another required premise of your argument is that the mind of man is completely and in principle unknowable to God, whether he exists or not. If it is knowable, then there is a possible being who can imagine all the things necessary for our annihilatory death to be possible.

Wosret
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Posted 10/31/09 - 03:51 AM:	#15
npage85 wrote: I am not arguing, "Well, because I can't imagine(or see) how it is possible, then it isn't." No, your logic pretzel does more than that. It goes, I can't imagine X, ergo no one can, ergo, X is false. In order for your criticism to hold up, it must be the case that I am arguing that my consciousness cannot cease to exists merely because I can't see (or imagine) that it could. Which is precisely what you're doing, only going the step further to infer that because you can't, that no one can. Not just no one of the people you've seen or know either. You have implied that no one could fundamentally for this reason. However, that is not the case at all. I could explain precisely why my argument is different, but hopefully what I have said here clears it up. All you have said is "nope, nope. I didn't do that! Now that I've cleared that up..." Give a reason that it couldn't exist beyond failures of imagination then. This isn't obvious to me.
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie. "I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.

npage85
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:25 PM:	#16
To mric: mric wrote: The example you give is that you can imagine the event of waking up from a dreamless sleep. This involves (in your model) imagining the dreamless sleep, the waking up connection, and the conscious realisation, yet you have also claimed that state 1 is unimaginable. Precisely... That's why I really don't bother focusing on that aspect of the argument anyways. It doesn't really matter to me if it concludes with your consciousness most likely always existing and always continuing to exist. mric wrote: The other ways to know about a subjective thing are to be given reports by the subject, to extrapolate by analogy to your own subjective experience, and to extrapolate on the basis of patterns of behaviour/report/reaction from similar subjects. True, but then you wouldn't be talking about the same sort of "knowledge about X" that I am in the argument. Remember, "to imagine" in this argument requires fidelity. Since I cannot convey to you any information which would give you a clear representation of my subjective experiences, not even second-hand information can do it. I believe it is referred to as the ineffable quality of them. mric wrote: It actually would be completely sufficient for me to imagine the second state of you never having been born to imagine the event of your consciousness ceasing to exist. Actually... no. You would be imagining the nonexistence of my body... but not my consciousness. Who are you to say that by imagining the my body not existing is to imagine, necessarily, my consciousness not existing? If you relied with, "Well, if you're body didn't exist, then your consciousness wouldn't either..." you would simply be assuming the opposite of my conclusion. mric wrote: Since we are floating around in a religion forum, another required premise of your argument is that the mind of man is completely and in principle unknowable to God, whether he exists or not. If it is knowable, then there is a possible being who can imagine all the things necessary for our annihilatory death to be possible. True. Many people have already pointed that out to me in other conversations I've had. I am perfectly okay with a God not being able to imagine the existence, or non-existence, of other being's subjective experiences. You must realize that it doesn't imply that He couldn't know our thoughts... as those might be deduced from our brain state. A great many things could possibly be deduced from our brain states... so I don't think this argument conflicts with any religions. To Wosret: Wosret wrote: it goes, I can't imagine X, ergo no one can, ergo, X is false. First of all, that it a complete misrepresentation of my argument, and it is therefore clear to me that you didn't read through my OP. I'm not saying that I can't imagine X THEREFORE no one can. I'm saying that (insert sound deductive argument here) concludes with it being impossible that I can imagine X. Also, (insert another sound deductive argument here) concludes with it being impossible for anyone else to imagine X. Then I say that from those two sound deductive arguments, it is impossible to imagine X. Then, I have an inductive argument which is NOT just "X is impossible to imagine, therefore X is false." It is actually, paraphrased, "Since all events impossible to imagine are impossible to happen that we know of, if X is impossible to imagine, then X is impossible to happen." You can't just leave out the necessary logic to try to show that there is a fallacy. After all, I could take any sound deductive argument, remove one of the premises, and then show that there is some sort of fallacy in it. So, in conclusion, it seems to me that you are just not understanding that there is logic between "X is impossible to imagine" and "X is impossible." You seem to think that I am just jumping from one to the other without any logic in-between, and that is why you mistakenly think that I am making an argument from ignorance. Hopefully this explanation helped in your understanding of it.

Wosret
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:46 PM:	#17
I just ignored the fat and struck the heart of your problem s'all. Both of your arguments rely on the basic axiom "If X cannot be imagined, X is impossible". This is clearly an argument by lack of imagination. If your argument relies on imagination skillz, then it's fallacious. The objective ontology of a thing is not contingent on our imaginations -- this ain't never never land.
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie. "I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.

swstephe
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Posted 10/31/09 - 08:33 PM:	#18
I think the OP has the missing premise, "if it is objectively impossible to imagine" ... the example given is a contradiction ... "then it is impossible to exist". On the outside, it appears to be "argument to ignorance", which means that something is supposed to be "true" or "false" based on the condition of us not knowing it, such as "we don't know if there are unicorns", so it is possible that they exist. But the OP also includes a second argument of the classic circle-square, a logical contradiction can't exist. Perhaps it is better to avoid "imagine" and focus on contradiction? Is it a contradiction to imagine something "not existing"? The idea of something temporarily not existing can be problematic to strict realists, but we use non-existence as a reference to something that exists all the time. We understand that, (for most of us), the period known as the Renaissance occurred at a time which we didn't exist. It is possible to understand that we couldn't possibly have met anyone during that period because our non-existence contradicts this possibility. Just on these two steps, it argues that it is possible to imagine ourselves not existing, (but not imagining ourselves being consciously aware of not existing). It's the final leap that is the strangest: that something impossible mandates or supports the existence of its opposite. If I argue that "wet fire" is impossible, by definition, that doesn't imply that you are on fire or that you are wet, it merely dismisses the contradiction and leaves you in that state of "ignorance" about the existence of anything else. If you accept that the opposite of impossible situations mandates the existence of alternatives, you have an unlimited resource of contradictions mandating and unlimited alternatives.
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npage85
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Posted 11/01/09 - 07:02 PM:	#19
Wosret wrote: Both of your arguments rely on the basic axiom "If X cannot be imagined, X is impossible". This is clearly an argument by lack of imagination. Umm... no. Like I said, you are missing the bulk of what my argument is. Also, it seems like you are confusing "impossible" with "cannot." My argument does not say that "if X cannot be imagined," but actually "if X is impossible to imagine." Also, it would only be an argument from ignorance if all I was saying was "if X is impossible to imagine, then X is impossible," but I don't. I back up the inductive inference with logic... I don't see how going from: "For all known events X, if X is impossible to imagine, then X is impossible to happen." to "For all events X, if X is impossible to imagine, then X is impossible to happen." by way of induction. As far as I've read and studied, it is a cogent inductive argument. Would you perhaps like to demonstrate why it is not? Wosret wrote: If your argument relies on imagination skillz, then it's fallacious. But see... that's where I believe you are getting mixed up. You use "cannot" in place of "impossible to," and that illustrates your misunderstanding (at least to me). I am not saying that because we lack the ability to imagine something, then it is impossible... I'm saying that because something is impossible to imagine, then it is impossible. There is a gigantic difference in meaning there that you aren't picking up on. Wosret wrote: The objective ontology of a thing is not contingent on our imaginations -- this ain't never never land. I agree... and I would respond with: Our imaginations don't have to dictate what is real according to my argument, but it could be reality which limits our imagination. Since both your straw-man interpretation of my argument's implications, and the above implication, could both be what follows from my argument, I think that it is intellectually dishonest to pick the one that sounds the most absurd when responding to it. swstephe wrote: Just on these two steps, it argues that it is possible to imagine ourselves not existing, (but not imagining ourselves being consciously aware of not existing). I would say, in response to your Renaissance objection, that you are forgetting the part in my definition of "to imagine" that specifies the necessity of fidelity. It seems like you anticipated that I would say that, and responded that it is actually impossible to imagine being consciously aware of not existing, but I would respond with "While that is also impossible, I have a deductive argument which concludes with the state of affairs in my argument being impossible to imagine as well." swstephe wrote: It's the final leap that is the strangest: that something impossible mandates or supports the existence of its opposite. In no way am I doing this. I am saying that if the event is impossible to imagine, then it's impossible to happen. Since it is therefore impossible for your consciousness to cease to exist (and it does exist presently), then we would say that it will forever exist. You see? It's nothing about opposites like you suppose, but it can be in only the context of certain impossible to imagine events. For example... your example of it being impossible to imagine "wet fire" does not mean that one must be wet or on fire... it means that the existence of "wet fire" is impossible (according to my argument).

Mako
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Posted 11/01/09 - 07:56 PM:	#20
npage85 wrote: I am saying that if the event is impossible to imagine, then it's impossible to happen. Since it is therefore impossible for your consciousness to cease to exist (and it does exist presently), then we would say that it will forever exist. . To suggest that limitations for physical events are consistent with limitations on our imagination is a form of idealism, and one which is founded on a false inference. It would seem that a feature such as 'capacity/scope of imagination' is a contingent one. How could that possibly prohibit/allow physical states/events? Here, you're actually suggesting a logically necessary relationship between the limitations of a contingent feature of the universe such as consciousness and other features of the universe, including one's own disembodied consciousness. I think that's a case of having 'one thought too many.' Why would there be a correlation between the two, and are you implying a causal relation between 'imagination' and 'existents?' As for we 'possibility vs impossibility,' it is certainly possible to imagine other people's consciousnesses 'not' existing, and the fact that one can't imagine one's own consciousness 'not existing' merely exposes the subjective nature of your claim rather than making it an objective fact. Could one also make the same claim regarding an infant, who can scarcely imagine anything as complex as what adults imagine? What about non-humans? There is little evidence that they can imagine anything, (depending on how one wants to define 'imagination' here) and would that suggest that physical limitations accord with their own limited scope of consciousness? Edited by Mako on 11/02/09 - 01:56 AM
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