Scientific afterlife hypothesis

[onewheeldave]

Scientists are to extract DNA from a dodo for the first time, raising the prospect that the animal whose name is synonymous with extinction could be resurrected.

 

http://www.mauritiusencyclopedia.com/Nature/Fauna/Birds/Extinct/DodoRebuild.htm

 

But it's not resurrection. It's simply making life out of some DNA, which is no more a resurrection (or afterlife) than a straightforward cloning, or, indeed, normal sexual reproduction (i.e. you came from DNA (your parents DNA) but you're not resurrected)

[Cyclone]

That's just it, I'm talking about thinking outside the box, hypothesising on the universe OUTSIDE our current observations. Not to simply say "there can't be an afterlife". That's what the religious threads are all for isn't it?

 

Okay, let me put it more simply:

 

Let's say your an atheist in ancient times. Everyone around you insists that the sun is a god. You don't believe this so you sit and hypothesise with some friends on a cavepainting of a monitor with "forum" written in heiroglyphics above it to come up with a more reasonable explanations for it.

The purpose of the thread is not to deny possibilities, but think OF possibilities.

 

(please don't reply with stuff about "Ah but we can observe the sun, it has light, heat and seasonal/daily behaviour patterns" )

 

Also, I didn't mention anything about magnetic fields!

 

 

 

Suh-weet!

 

That isn't 'more simple' It's completely different.

 

Hypothesising about something observable is completely different to making things up. Which is what you're currently engaged in.

You aren't trying to explain something observable (like a big ball of fire in the sky), you're just playing a what if game.

 

And if you have to end your analogy with "please don't point out the obvious flaw in my analogy" then you should probably just rethink it in the first place!

[Cyclone]

As much as I appreciate you know more about science than me, as I asked FJ, how do you KNOW the above to be right?

 

An atheist saying that things are impossible or that the universe isn't infinite (although based on current observations to the best of our abilities) is somewhere along the same lines (although nowhere near as unreasonable) as a christian/muslim etc. saying that there is a god and we have a soul.

No, it's nothing like that.

We can measure the size of the universe. It's not a perfect science and there is still room for doubt. But the best hypothesis at the moment, which explains the observations we can make, is that the universe is bounded (or actually closed upon itself) and that time, weird though this is, has a start.

It doesn't require faith, you can calculate these things for yourself, you can check the evidence and see if you agree, thus completely the opposite of any religious statement.

 

We simply don't know everything and never will. And being open to the way of thinking that things are possible outside our realm of knowledge is NOT solipsism

Accepting that we don't know everything, is not the same as setting out to invent functions and behaviours of the universe that we see no evidence for.

[Grahame]

But it's not resurrection. It's simply making life out of some DNA, which is no more a resurrection (or afterlife) than a straightforward cloning, or, indeed, normal sexual reproduction (i.e. you came from DNA (your parents DNA) but you're not resurrected)

 

My parents were not dead, so you are right I was born not resurrected, you have to wait until I am dead for that to happen.

 

[blanco]

That isn't 'more simple' It's completely different.

 

Hypothesising about something observable is completely different to making things up. Which is what you're currently engaged in.

You aren't trying to explain something observable (like a big ball of fire in the sky), you're just playing a what if game.

 

And if you have to end your analogy with "please don't point out the obvious flaw in my analogy" then you should probably just rethink it in the first place!

 

What's the problem with playing the what if game? This thread was set up as a what if game from the first post. Anyone is permitted to state an IF, and then ask questions about how that if could be.

[Cyclone]

i'm not religious, don't believe in an "afterlife" in the common sense, and don't believe in any god or diety etc...

 

I do however believe that something happens after we die, what it is, no one knows...

 

here's my idea (similar to yours)..

 

Everything is made up of waves (light waves, sound waves etc) and everything is vibrating constantly.. just like enrgy or sound waves never disappear (they just shrink and get weaker and weaker) I believe that our electrical impulses and brain waves simply emmerse into the atmosphere/world as our body no longer has the capabillity to contain/sustain them, they 'choose'* the next best place they can remain/sustain..

 

 

 

* 'choose' being a representative word as I cannot think of a better way of putting it

 

More likely they just disperse as a tiny amount of heat into the environment around you. They are no longer sustained, no longer have any informational capacity.

[onewheeldave]

My parents were not dead, so you are right I was born not resurrected, you have to wait until I am dead for that to happen.

 

Similarly, anything brought into existence from the DNA of a dodo will be born and not resurrected.

[Cyclone]

Yes, I absolutely agree.

 

But what if? The amount of information that can be gathered from a pattern of energy is not related to the intensity of the energy itself.

 

My point was that my EKG is different to your EKG and both can be detected from outside our bodies. However small the effect, in a very real way our minds are affecting the air around us and in a different way.

 

Can I download your mind just by standing near you? No, clearly not, at the moment. Can I infer your likely emotional state from a sensor held very near your head. Yes, I can.

 

And given an arbitrarily advanced level of science, it should be possible to reconstruct a snapshot of your mind from the radiation you give off over a distance of light years.

But the electrical emanations aren't your consciousness, they're just a by product of electrical behaviour in your brain which is your consciousness (although self awareness is a pretty difficult thing to explain itself).

 

A bit like someone a few light years away with a HUGE telescope could observe you after you were dead. You'd still be dead and they'd only be seeing old light and old pictures of you (current to them). It wouldn't be like you'd be resurrected though.

[Cyclone]

Yes, and at the risk of monopolising the thread, I've been thinking about your point.

 

The (initial) structure of your brain is determined by your genes. The structure of your brain determines how you think and react and therefore might have some bearing on this soul concept (I say that because I think we're talking more about essence of consciousness than a Soul in the classical sense).

 

So maybe your DNA can (after you are dead, or even before) be used to infer how you might think and react. What do you think?

 

Your mind is more of a result of experience than of DNA, so no, without being able to replicate every experience all you could replicate would be the gross physical structure (and possibly not even that since neuron formation and trimming is heavily dependent on early stimulation).

[Cyclone]

Seeing as genes are contained within the DNA I imagine all the information is there?

 

We can forget the body and the brain because they have rotted away but if my understanding is correct the genes and the DNA remain? If they have consciousness or became conscious perhaps due to electromagnetic energy? or something similar, then I suggest we may have what people call the soul?

 

DNA is just a structure that tells the body how to build itself. It doesn't contain anything like as much information as the brain and it's just organic material like the rest of your body and equally susceptible to rotting away.