Life After Death Atheist Experience
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Either we have an after life or we do not is a passive way of looking at life after death. We do not want to be passive when it comes to achieving a life or lives after death. We often want, and most people seem to believe, that there is something that we can do to improve our chances of achieving an after death life. This is why many people are religious because it gives them something to work toward in this life time. If you do x, y, and z you will go to heaven. Or another example is If you are mummified and placed in a pyramid that you have built etc., you will have an after life. There are all sorts of rituals that cultures has to achieve some form of life after death. In this clip from the Atheist Experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEWztlIteo4, they say there is either an after life or not but there is no evidence that there is an after life so the rational thing to do is to make the most of this life. If there were evidence that certain sets of behaviors producing specific accomplishments increases the likelihood of an after life it might be worth sacrificing some of the better aspects of this life to achieve it. But since there have been proposed numerous ways of producing an afterlife for a person and no proof, why should we waste the one life we have chasing an illusion of an after life?
There is extraordinary evidence for superimmortality. People are superimmortal whether they know it or not. Superimmortality does not guarantee conscious existence for every person after death. It does however show how it is possible and what you can do to increase the possibility of it occurring. The evidence that the universe is so big and can last so long adds to the probability of consciously existing again after death. Knowing how and having many different way to create a consciousness that you will experience again after death also increases the probability of consciously existing again after death.
Superimmortality is not a post modern belief system where every belief is true. Very few beliefs about life after death that have been developed by humans over their history are correct. Superimmortality based on the science of superimmortality may be the closest theory to being true so far developed. Since the science of superimmortality deals with every possible consciousness that can exist and how to produce or reproduce them, it will deal with how to produce any belief about any possible imaginable theory of the after life, life after death or immortality. The ability to produce any belief system in a conscious being is not the same as letting any or all belief systems control society and reality. Knowledge, the pursuit of more knowledge, the use of knowledge to create positive things and positive consciousnesses need to be the controlling factors for a society. The fear of knowledge, the fear of the pursuit of more knowledge, that many religious and other belief system propagate are the antithesis of what superimmortality is trying to achieve. The more we know the more likely you are to consciously exist again after your death. Religious and other belief systems that do not believe in the value of knowledge and it pursuit decrease the probability that any one will consciously exist again after death.
Matt says that in many cases we should be able to figure out what is more likely when a statement is made. Matt says that the statement: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is not always true. He gives the example of the cat in the truck of a car if there is no evidence of a cat in the truck of a car then this does give us evidence that there is evidence by absence of evidence.
The statement that "There is a cat in the trunk of may car." is analogous to the statement that "A replica of me is not me". When this statement is restated as "A cidentireplica of me will not have my ixperiencitness", it becomes more scientifically useful and exact. This is because the term "replica" is very vague and can apply to many different replica varying properties. For instance, a "bronze replica" of a human has few identical properties to an actual human. The term "me" is a singular term so by using the definition of the term "me", a replica can not be me or the I -- me would be or could be multiple. This is a truism with little useful meaning toward trying to understand life after death and immortality. This is why the statement has to be rewritten to produce a statement that has much more useful scientific meaning.
What is the proof that a cidentireplica will not have the ixperiencitness that the original has? The problem is there is no proof of this statement, and thus this gives evidence for the statement "A cidentireplica will have the same identical ixperiencitness as does the original me.", being true. Ixperiencitness seems to be a property that is created by the functioning of a brain. What is the evidence that a particular ixperiencitness is only producible by one brain? There appears to be no evidence for this belief. But there is evidence that a cidentireplica will produce the same behavior, consciousness, and ixperiencitness as does the original. The lack of evidence for the alternative theory does add evidence for superimmortality. One experimental argument that a cidentireplica will produce the same consciousness as the original that has the same identical structure and functioning is that a cidentireplica always produces the same behavior as the original meaning all the same memories, self identity, skills, knowledge, feelings, emotions, self reference, and self beliefs. Further evidence is that when the cidentireplica is allowed to diverge from the structure and functioning of the original he still caries this self identity with him. He now can even sometimes remember things that actually happened to the original that the original has forgotten, but because his brain is now functioning differently it can generate different memories than the original can. Many of these memories can be more accurate than the original's recollection of these memories.
See the Cat in the trunk analogy argument for replicas for a more expansive discussion on the topic
See also: Atheist Experience videos about life after death