Protocol Paper
Protocol Paper #2- Do we Survive Death?
Recall
• Socrates thought that the soul is too simple to destroy; he thought that we are indestructible.
• Modern science disagrees with Socrates; the idea of the body-and-soul became the idea of the body-and-brain, psychology is the new soul; modern science has sees a correlation between consciousness and the brain.
• There are three main fields that try to answer life after death- near death experiences, reincarnation, and psychics.
• Near death experiences can also be answered by other hypothesis- influence of drugs, oxygen deprivation, dreaming, hallucinations.
• Reincarnation is possible, but there are problems with the theory- there are no reincarnated people with the original person’s personality (i.e. a baby is not born with the personality of the 70 year old whose theoretical reincarnation he is.); there is a problem with reincarnation when the populations do not align (i.e. there are billions more people now than there were centuries ago; when, where, how were “new” people created?
• Psychics are frauds.
• David Hume made a point that answers why modern scientists pay no attention to life after death- the experience can either be a miracle or a mistake; a mistake is always more likely.
Summarize
• Even as early as Greek thought, including Socrates, people have thought about the idea of a human soul (or ego, self, etc.). But what this soul really is or if it really exists is much harder to answer. Socrates argued that the soul is too simple to destroy; unlike other things (i.e. a shirt that can be ripped up into numerous pieces of said material), he thought that the soul was already at its simplest form; he thought the soul was indestructible. Modern science however, disagrees with the idea of a human soul. Modern science sees two issues with this idea- the brain and consciousness. The soul is not tangible, whereas modern science has proven that without the brain, the body will seize to function, and
Recall
• Socrates thought that the soul is too simple to destroy; he thought that we are indestructible.
• Modern science disagrees with Socrates; the idea of the body-and-soul became the idea of the body-and-brain, psychology is the new soul; modern science has sees a correlation between consciousness and the brain.
• There are three main fields that try to answer life after death- near death experiences, reincarnation, and psychics.
• Near death experiences can also be answered by other hypothesis- influence of drugs, oxygen deprivation, dreaming, hallucinations.
• Reincarnation is possible, but there are problems with the theory- there are no reincarnated people with the original person’s personality (i.e. a baby is not born with the personality of the 70 year old whose theoretical reincarnation he is.); there is a problem with reincarnation when the populations do not align (i.e. there are billions more people now than there were centuries ago; when, where, how were “new” people created?
• Psychics are frauds.
• David Hume made a point that answers why modern scientists pay no attention to life after death- the experience can either be a miracle or a mistake; a mistake is always more likely.
Summarize
• Even as early as Greek thought, including Socrates, people have thought about the idea of a human soul (or ego, self, etc.). But what this soul really is or if it really exists is much harder to answer. Socrates argued that the soul is too simple to destroy; unlike other things (i.e. a shirt that can be ripped up into numerous pieces of said material), he thought that the soul was already at its simplest form; he thought the soul was indestructible. Modern science however, disagrees with the idea of a human soul. Modern science sees two issues with this idea- the brain and consciousness. The soul is not tangible, whereas modern science has proven that without the brain, the body will seize to function, and