Centroles wrote:I'll try to find an electronic source I can reference but surely, you must have heard about the cryogenically frozen dog that cnn had a story on a few months ago.
I must confess that I missed that story. Indeed, given that the revivification of a higher mammal, even for a moment, would have been a major scientific achievement, I am rather surprised that this story wasn't more widely broadcast. As such, I eagerly await your update so that I can see for myself how thoroughly science has proven me wrong.
I thought that sounded an awful lot like Vanilla Sky. But when I went looking; I did find this:
http://www.biotimeinc.com/news/041700.html
That's very interesting,
Bill, but it can't be the story to which
Centroles was referring. Remember:
Centroles wrote:In case you missed, there was a dog which suffered from brain death due to some form of tumor I believe. The family had it cryogenically frozen after death. Due to recent advances in surgery, the tumor was easily removed. And the dog was unfrozen and its heart and respitory system stimulated. Unfortunately it didn't survive for long but never the less, the dog was indeed alive for a few seconds, respiring, and I believe even made a whimper.
So we're looking for a dog that was dead
before it was frozen, and we're looking for reports in the independent media, not press releases from companies that are actively engaged in cryogenics and related fields.
Thank you so much for a source Bill. I was having finding one and might have had to retract my statement until I could. Admittedly, this isn't exactly the experiment I was referring to but it's pretty damn similar.
http://www.biotimeinc.com/news/041700.html
"ICE-COLD BLOOD-SUBSTITUTED DOGS AND HAMSTERS REVIVED AFTER PROLONGED PERIODS OF CLINICAL DEATH; RESULTS MAY HOLD CLUES TO PROTECTING THE BRAIN"
I am interested to see how you backtrack from your blatant attacks and condescending comments aimed at my contention that such a task is indeed possible, joe.
tweryl,
I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I have never believe in individual conciousness or the self. Surely you can see where the inherent contradiction would lie between determinism and a conscious self. As I thought was quite apparent from my contentions, I only used those terms to clarify my arguement that they don't exist.
I have no idea where you got the notion that I believed conciousness or thought are materials emmited from the brain. I stated over and over again that that which "we" percieve to be thought or conciousness is really no more than a series of complex neurochemical reactions. I have never once believed or stated that we are infact individual entities. But looking back, I can where some confusion might arise as I have often used terms like "soul" and "alive" in order to argue that they cannot exist as there is no basis for them in the physical world, and that there is no evidence of a metaphysical realm.
truth
Interesting question, gentlemen. Let me ask you, if a dog dies and begins to decompose, is it possible to freeze the decomposed body and then thaw it back to life? Or can we re-vivify only a dog that was frozen before it was totally dead (i.e., decomposing)? I suspect that the state of "brain dead" while in a condition of "suspended animation" (i.e., frozen) is not actually a state of "death." All I know is that if I were cryogenically "preserved" after I died and decomposed (to any degree), I would not want to later be revived as a decomposed JLNobody. That is what Beethoven is doing right now: de-composing.
By the way, Twyvel, pu evig I.
Centroles, I wouldn't say you're off the hook just yet. The link I provided; I provided because I thought it was pretty interesting. The experiments descibed in it are still a far cry from what you described. Until someone comes up with a link like you descibed; I'm still going to think you confused reality with Vanilla Sky. I'm hoping you can find it because: Eternal life with Penelope sounds pretty good to me. LOL
Centroles
Quote: I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I have never believe in individual conciousness or the self. Surely you can see where the inherent contradiction would lie between determinism and a conscious self. As I thought was quite apparent from my contentions, I only used those terms to clarify my arguement that they don't exist.
Monism
Philosophical theory that there is one, and only one, substance. The substance may be material or spiritual. In physical monism the substance is matter. In psychical monism it is spiritual, mental or non-material. Monism is usually contrasted with dualism, where there are two substances, mind and matter.
and nondualism;
"Nonduality means non-separateness."
"The concept, often described in English as "nondualism," is extremely hard for the mind to grasp or visualize, since the mind engages constantly in the making of distinctions and nondualism represents the rejection or transcendence of all distinctions."
Quote: I have no idea where you got the notion that I believed conciousness or thought are materials emmited from the brain. I stated over and over again that that which "we" percieve to be thought or conciousness is really no more than a series of complex neurochemical reactions.
Yes, that is precisely what I mean; for you thought and consciousness are material. Unfathomable to me.
Quote:I have never once believed or stated that we are infact individual entities.
I agree, and again I did not refer to "individual entities".
Brief aside from a non logical, unscientific mind:
Whether or not we as individuals (or non individuals) have free will, we behave as though we do; indeed, if we were somehow able to catalogue all the variables and thus predict the future, the assumption of free will, illusory or not, is a necessary ingredient; otherwise, there would be no actions to predict, since our emotions, thoughts, and desires, whatever their source or true nature, are what motivate us to act, whether they originate within us, or from causes that precede us, or from both. Or, more properly, in the absence of a belief in free will, our actions would likely be very different than they are now. If people truly believed in determinism, it is likely they would be less emotional; that is, less envious, less jealous, and less hateful. They would also quite likely be less loving, less nurturing, less curious, and less striving. The world would be changed, but its hard to know whether it would be improved. I think the answer is no. Darwinism was an advance for humanity; Social Darwinism was not.
I don't have any idea whether determinism or free will is true, whether or not it can be proven, or even if the answer really matters. But I know which one I want the Joe Bobs and the Bubbas of the world believing. Because, regardless of whether we are the agents or reagents, beliefs influence actions, and humans freed of the ideas of responsibility, purpose, and hope are not the foundation of any society I would care to inhabit.
Free will: its either true, or a better idea than reality.
! Extemely well put Greyfan.
Joe, the hamsters in the linked article were infact clinically dead. Both their brain and heart stopped functioning. I don't know how even you could possibly argue that they are still alive. Decomposing too is chemically based. The molecular structure of your skin etc begins to break apart a bit. While this certainly makes things more difficult. Considering that tissue growth can be artificially stimulated, there is no reason to believe that someday, we can't reverse the decomposition process.
I am by no means commenting the "moral" aspects of this. But it disproves everything you passionately stated as if it were fact. It makes me question your other contentions.
Bill, I am in the process of searching for the other link now. It's a story I heard on cnn a few months ago. But it doesn't seem as though cnn has online archives that go that far back. You'll be first to know once I find a reference to that specific experiment.
Nevertheless, the article you found is exactly the same thing. The only difference is that these were hamsters, not a dog, and the hamsters survived while the dog only lived for a few moments.
Both are examples of animals that have infact died, stayed dead for many years, and yet were revived back to life. And both of them thus go against the concept of a state of death versus a state of being alive that goes any deeper than chemical reactions (ie. a soul or what ever).
twyvel, reread my statement. I don't believe in material monoism. I have never said that thought is material. I have stated that that which we percieve to be thought is biologically based. But there is no actual entity such as thought, consciouness or soul (consciousness presupposes a soul). And I have stated again and again that I donot believe in such a said soul. I suggest that you atleast take the time to read and understand my posts before claim to understand what I believe. I don't appreciate others putting words in my mouth.
Greyfan, I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. While whether determism is a good thing or a bad thing to society is actually irrelevent to whether or not it is the actual truth, I think there's something you're missing. The lack of free will in no way implies that we can actually predict our behavior. The variables involved are far too numerous and complicated to be able to do so. And as long as this remains the case, our own behavior as well as that of others will continue to remain a mystery to us. This mystery is all that is needed for emotions.
But determinism does allows us to let go of our hatred of others. Only when we let go of our intrinsic superiority complexes, can we begin to relate with and understand all other human beings regardless of how radically their lifestyles may differ from others. I would love to live in such a world. A world where racism doesn't exist. A world where Isrealis and Palestinians acknowledge that they are no different and get along with each other. A world where all humans, nay all living things are treated with compassion and respect. I refer you to my post below.
Centroles wrote:I view determinism as the path to compassion and understanding of fellow human beings. Only when you stop viewing yourself as morally superior, more good, than others can you put yourselves in their perspective and emphatize with others that you previously viewed as "bad". And only then can you understand the social roots that lead to problematic behavior.
If more people abandoned the current focus on just locking people up in jail for as long as possible and acting as though the problem has been dealt with, if more people viewed other humans with compassion and tried to understand them, if more people focused on the social roots that compel one to do things that are harmful to society as a whole and insisted on addressing the sources of criminal behavior, then our society would be a million times better off.
Jail is a place for reformation. The current approach of locking people up for every little thing from light mariajuana use to openly stating your disagreements with president Bush outside of the designated free speech zone is not the course that we should be setting. Infact, some districts have even insisted on throwing children in juvinille jail for such "terrorist" behavior as pointing their fingers into a gun like shape in the typical cowboys and indians fashion and saying bang or for saying such things as, "man I'm so sick of shool, I just wish it would burn down." Throwing people including children in decrepit cells and forgetting about them doesn't accomplish anything. It merely increases the likelihood that they would disengage from prosocial behavior and engage in more "criminal behavior" once they get out.
This my friend is social application of determism, compassion and understanding even towards those that you vehemently disagree with.
Centroles wrote:
Bill, I am in the process of searching for the other link now. It's a story I heard on cnn a few months ago. But it doesn't seem as though cnn has online archives that go that far back. You'll be first to know once I find a reference to that specific experiment.
Nevertheless, the article you found is exactly the same thing. The only difference is that these were hamsters, not a dog, and the hamsters survived while the dog only lived for a few moments.
Both are examples of animals that have infact died, stayed dead for many years, and yet were revived back to life. And both of them thus go against the concept of a state of death versus a state of being alive that goes any deeper than chemical reactions (ie. a soul or what ever).
I think you'd better read the link again. The animals were dead for hours, not years. They were kept at near freezing, not deep frozen. While I'll agree that the experiment may provide a glimpse at what may one day be possible, it certainly does not provide any proof of your claim about the dog. Near freezing for a few hours is a far cry from deep frozen for several years. They accomplished extending the length of time they have to resuscitate
nothing more. I would consider this a "baby step" in the direction of Cryogenic success. Your dog example would be astonishingly close to success. I'll be checking in; to see if you can verify it.
And indeed, I'll post the link as soon as I find it.
But I would hardly consider the dog example as a success considering the dog died in a few moments. That's hardly as big an accomplishment as reviving the hamsters to full sustainable health.
I guess I misread the article. I read dead for prolonged periods of time repeatedly and thought that the 4-6 hours refered to the transfusion time.
Death is death, whether for hours or years. I personally believe that there is no difference between death and life (ie. a soul), except for chemical reactions. So I don't care either way. But surely, even for someone who doesn't believe this, you're not argueing that some one who's been dead for a five or six hours is any less dead than one that's been dead for five or six years.
Centroles your manner invites hostilities, you have a rude way about you don't you? No one is putting words in your mouth. You are being asked questions in a variety of ways.
There are not many choices either you believe a material world exists or you don't. I've looked over your writings and as far as I can make out your words show that you believe a material world exists. You also show in your words that you believe
that nothing else but a material world exists, everything is material. If you are not saying that please explain.
You wrote:
Opening Post, frist paragraph.
Quote: The evidence is clearly out there. Our emotions are determined by hormones, our thoughts by electrochemical impulses. And these in turn are dependent upon the sensory input we recieve, the food and chemicals we absorb. And these inputs we recieve, these chemicals that we absorb, these impulses that we experience are in turn all governed by absolute laws of physic.
Quote: i'm posting what i am right now because of the specific genes i've inherited, the specific experiences i have seen which formulated the neurons in my brain in a specific fashion, the proteins and hormones inside me right now based on what i ate in the past few weeks.
and each of these events were themselves a direct byproduct of what happened in the past.
and what i am doing now, which is like i said directly as a result of what happened in the past will contribute to what happened in the future.
thus if everything we do now is a result of what happened in the past and everything we do a moment from now is a result of the past and what we are doing right now, then essentially, everything is an action reaction chain that we have no control over.
Posted: Wed Nov 26, 2003 11:57 am Post: 458075 -
Quote: I believe that our brain is no different than a very intricate and complex computer. Our genes are the basic hardware, the architecture with which to code off of us. Our experiences and the inputs that we recieve continuosly adapt and change our programming, the algorithims with which the output is determined. These algorithams are analogous to the chemicals and toxins we take in and how they effect us; the stimuli we recieve and how we steadily become desensitized to it, due to the down regulaton of neuroreceptors; how all these influences our dendritic cells to direct the growth of neurons at certain locations, to congegrate into certain neural centers, to associate in specific ways.
I believe that there is nothing more to us than this. There is no innate soul that directs our actions. We are in every sense of the word highly complex and specialized machines (directed to evolve and reproduce ourselves, with the fittest being the most likely to suceed, identical to how certain complex algorithams operate to find the simplest, most efficent process).
And I believe that our brain is no more than an incredibly complex and powerful computer. It's based upon our genes, which we have no control over, it's programmed based on the inputs we recieve, which we also have no control over. And using these two, our brain spits out an output based on these inputs. There is nothing else at work here (I challenge any of you to find evidence that we are influenced by anything other than these two mechanisms).
So if we really are analogous to computers, if there is no innate soul or being that directs our actions. If everything that we do, everything that we are is due to things which we have no control over. Then do we really have any more control over what we do than a computer does over the output it spits out? Without such a control, we clearly have no free will. Such a thing, a free will doesn't exist.
Matter cannot be created or destroyed, neither can energy. Nothing in this universe can be created or destroyed. And everything else that happens in the universe is a direct result of everything that has happened to it. Nothing else has control over what it does. If one car hits another car head on, both cars slow down. One car can't choose to simply not slow down. The car's movement is controlled entirely by the forces/influences acting upon it. So what is allows us to believe that thought is any diffent. What allows us to believe that we can do something that ISN'T controlled entirely by the forces/influences acting upon us?
The entire notion of free will depends on something, a soul persay, that comes from within and influences our actions independtly of the forces/external influences acting upon us. But as far I am concerned, to believe that is no different that the car can act indepently form the forces/external influences acting upon it, that the car can make it's own force and thus direct it's own motion. I don't believe that being able to do so merely violates a law of physics. I believe that it violates a law of logic. Something can't come from nothing. Free will/free choice also cannot arise from nothing. It is an illusion we accept to believe that we are more than mere objects. It is one that persists because the incredible amount of influences that direct our actions can't possibly be comprehended and anaylized, that the complexity of the computer that directs our actions (the brain) can't be fully understood. But never the less, there is an inherent unwavering pattern, an incredibly complex but set in stone series of actions and reactions, that underlie every decision we make.
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 9:56 pm Post: 470531 -
Here's a nice comment of your's:
Quote:] similarly, if the actions people take are merely the byproduct of reactions governed entirely by inherent laws of physics and chemistry, then they certainly can't be blamed for what they have no control over. in fact, without free will, there is no distinction between living and nonliving organisms. killing a human being is no different than breaking a rock in half. in essence, all that you are doing is rearranging molecules.
(bolding added)
Lets keep in mind, by "human being" you appear to include , thought and consciousnes as well as the physical body. A human being is 'material' and nothing but 'materail'. Is that correct?
Quote: this is the issue joe. most scientists do believe that there is nothing in this universe that isn't composed of matter and/or energy.
the basis for this is simple, there is no evidence that points to anything besides these two. you would probably that thoughts themelves, life itself is composed of something other than these two, a soul perhaps.
Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2003 11:28 am Post: 476927 -
"What we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."
Since i believe the universe consists out of either matter or energy, i believe thoughts are also matter or energy or most likely a combination of both. It has to be noted that a biochemical reaction is a combination of both matter and energy.
Centroles wrote:
Quote: I believe that our brain is no different than a very intricate and complex computer. Our genes are the basic hardware, the architecture with which to code off of us. Our experiences and the inputs that we recieve continuosly adapt and change our programming,
hasjonat3
Quote: Since i believe the universe consists out of either matter or energy, i believe thoughts are also matter or energy or most likely a combination of both. It has to be noted that a biochemical reaction is a combination of both matter and energy.
I would say the same to you
based on the above. I.e.
What is observing these words?
Matter/energy.
What is observing the matter/energy observing these words?
Quote:I would say the same to you ? based on the above. I.e.
What is observing these words?
Matter/energy.
What is observing the matter/energy observing these words?
Why does matter/energy that observs the words need an observer? Matter/energy is. Our mind is. We are. In other words, we exist, because we exist. We think ourselves seperate of the universe, so we think our minds and the universe are two seperate entities, while i believe they are one.
jonat3
Quote: Why does matter/energy that observs the words need an observer?
Quote:Matter/energy is. Our mind is. We are. In other words, we exist, because we exist. We think ourselves seperate of the universe, so we think our minds and the universe are two seperate entities, while i believe they are one.
I believe they are one as well. And in that belief I do recognize a blind spot. That blind spot being the I that believes, even though there is no I that believes.
Quote:It isn?t a question that it ?needs? an observer, but rather that it doesn?t have one. If it doesn?t have one, if it is not being observed how can it be said to be matter/energy?
As long as there is a separation of subject and object there is an observer that cannot be said to be matter/energy because it cannot be observed.
Do you mean to say that only if we are able to observe it can we say for sure that thought is matter/energy? That kind of conclusion hints at that thought is something different from matter/energy thus is a 3rd element in the universe.
Quote:From dualism there is an aspect(?) of this existence, ?the observing? that cannot be referred to, as such it cannot be said to be matter, energy, or any ?thing? else.
It is true that unless we observe it, we cannot say for certain that thoughts are matter/energy. But still, your conclusion implies that there may exist something else out there. It may quite be possible, but i deem that doubtful, since matter and energy are the only thing we found in the universe. And i deem it even more unlikely that matter and energy can form something like the human mind that is neither matter or energy nor a combination of the two. We originated from a strand of DNA, which is a large molecule. Molecules are matter. I find it unlikely that something that consists of DNA/matter can produce a 3rd mysterious force called the human mind.
Quote:I believe they are one as well. And in that belief I do recognize a blind spot. That blind spot being the I that believes, even though there is no I that believes.
By implying that thoughts are neither matter/energy, you are seperating our minds from that of the universe, thus making that two different entities. Unless there is a 3rd element from which the universe consists such a thing is very unlikely.
