Afterlife Aftermath

Video from Wednesday’s debate over “Death Is Not Final” is now up.

You’ll be happy to hear that the good guys “won.” In scare quotes because helping the world’s population understand that naturalism is the right way to view the universe is a long-term project that won’t be settled with a single debate. But Intelligence Squared does a fun thing where they ask people to vote before the debate starts, and then again afterward. We started out the night slightly behind in the polls, and by the time we were done we were slightly ahead. Mostly by peeling away the undecideds, as any savvy politician strives to do. [Update: oops, not right. See below.] So that counts as a victory — especially when the topic is one where many people (not all!) have fairly fixed opinions.

death-results

death-pies

It was a pleasure to have Steve Novella as a partner. The man knows his neuroscience, as well as his debating. He did a great job making the single most important point for an issue like this: the mind is the brain, full stop. It’s hard to hear the case he makes and hold on to any contrary view.

I was slightly disappointed in the folks on the other side. Eben Alexander basically relied on two things. One was his personal story of having a Near-Death Experience while in a coma. Anyone who accepts that people can experience dreams or hallucinations will not be overly persuaded by that alone. The other was to throw up ideas like “quantum mechanics” and “the hard problem of consciousness” in an obfuscatory way, to give people license to believe that science doesn’t understand everything. Which is true! Science doesn’t understand everything. Which doesn’t change the fact that no serious researcher in quantum mechanics or the hard problem thinks that those ideas provide an excuse for believing in life after death.

Ray Moody was a very pleasant gentleman, someone you’d be happy to have a beer with and talk philosophy. But he did almost nothing to defend the proposition. I was expecting him to broaden the evidence from Alexander’s own case to many others, but instead he spoke in generalities about science and philosophy and logic, concluding essentially that it’s “conceivable” that a realm exists where souls can persist after death. Indeed it is. Many things are conceivable.

At the end of my opening talk I said that the choice here basically comes down to two options we can believe:

  1. Everything we think we understand about the behavior of matter and energy is wrong, in a way that has somehow escaped notice in every experiment ever done in the history of science. Instead, there are unknown mechanisms allow information in the brain to survive in the form of a blob of spirit energy, which can then go start talking to other blobs of spirit energy, but only after death, except sometimes even before death.
  2. Physics is right. And people under stress sometimes have experiences that seem real but aren’t.

In the light of the evidence, the choice is pretty clear. We’ll get there, a couple of percentage points at a time.

Update: I was too hasty in presuming that most of our increase came from swaying undecided voters. Here are the actual data:

death-crosstabs

As you can see, the undecideds actually broke almost equally for the two sides. Our glorious victory actually came from a combination of factors, including persuading some of the “For” voters to switch.

179 Comments

179 thoughts on “Afterlife Aftermath”

  1. @robert “The public at large believes science is close to answering all the interesting questions”. Clearly not the case in the U.S. A Pew poll puts belief in an afterlife and heaven at 74%. It seems doubtful to me that these people believe that science is close to answering “all the interesting questions”. I don’t think any scientists claim that either. I think Stephen Novella sums up the situation regarding consciousness: “It is important to separate the question of HOW the brain causes consciousness from IF the brain causes consciousness. The evidence for the brain as the sole cause of the mind is, in my opinion, overwhelming. The how is a bit more tricky.. “. One thing I liked about Alexander’s heaven – there are dogs!

  2. allan J: Maybe people in the USA believe that science will shortly be proving the existence of an afterlife and Heaven. By next Wednesday morning, say. In the UK, people often say things like: “I believe there´s something”, but they are usually a bit vague if you ask for details. I was really thinking more about Commenters in atheist blogs, the people I´ve referred to earlier who appeal to science for their militant belief in atheism, yet who turn out to know almost no relevant science if you enquire.

    Atheists usually appeal to lack of evidence for a Creator, which I find a bit odd. We have a whole universe here, one which in many respects operates in spooky ways and one for whose existence no-one has an explanation. (Yes, I know – Hawking now says it was a fluctuation that did it, tho´ I´m not sure if he specifies what fluctuated, where it fluctuated and what fluctuation rules it was obeying) We have no other experience of material things just popping into existence from total nothingness, suddenly and for no reason, let alone whole universes with all the operating instructions in place. That is not, of course, proof of creation, but it´s strong evidence that something extremely odd happened.

    Many scientists have believed in a creator , including Newton (sometimes referred to as “the smartest man who ever lived”). It´s possible to find Einstein quotes in both directions, so maybe he changed his mind from time to time. Hawking was quite indignant when someone suggested to him in an interview that was an atheist, tho´ he is apparently one now. Dawkins in an Telegraph interview was asked: “Do you absolutely reject the possibility of the universe having been created, then?” He answered “Absolutely not…though you´d have to explain where the creator came from.”

    I certainly agree with you that the brain is the source of consciousness. I find it odd that people should even argue about it. The existence of so much complexity in the Universe, with the human brain probably at the pinnacle, seems odd to me. And 14 billion or so years after the start! You´d think it would all have disintegrated into chaos long ago. 13.9 billion years ago, say.

  3. So long as there are things we don’t know about, there will be superstition. It goes along with having a finite mind with even more limited cognitive ability connected to limited (but fairly amazing) senses. Intelligence could alternately be defined as the ability to be willfully ignorant of things that are like unto superstition. Even if one is discerning about what is assimilated or learned, deception by individuals or even societies with other interests is always there to confound, for reasons that are as often as not unrelated to the promotion of knowledge and/or the betterment of the individual or society. If only there were a way to know… but then you have superstition once again, don’t you?

    Although scientists are reticent to admit it, science (and even mathematics) has its roots firmly planted in superstition, even in the 21st century. You don’t really need to look all that hard to find it, either.

  4. Consciousness is associated with life and life means that you are not in thermodynamic equilibrium with the environment. When one dies one ends up in thermodynamic equilibrium with the environment and life ends and so does consciousness. When in coma one is still out of thermodynamic equilibrium.

  5. It goes back to what caused the first cause, but the first cause must be an uncaused intelligence. You can call that cause anything you want, even God. You can go back and back and back and their must be a first cause that started the train rolling from the place of nowhere, nothingness, and with no thing to begin with. Nothing pops out of nothing for nothing is absolute nothing, no fields, no space, no anything, not even fluctuations, for fluctuations require something to exist, at the least, emptiness, for emptiness is something.

  6. kashyap Vasavada: I´ve read your guest blog. You certainly make Hinduism sound appealing, so I´ll read up a bit about it. I presume, though, that it will have the root difficulty that most religions do – lack of evidence. That´s not necessarily such a huge drawback, as I don´t think there is any very convincing evidence at all on why we´re all here, together with the Universe. Absolutely none. I sometimes veer towards thinking that the Universe must always have been here in some form or other, since I find the alternatives impossible to believe.

    (I wonder why militant atheists so often insist on writing God without a capital “g”? Even fictional characters have the first letters of their names capitalised. Harry Potter – not harry potter. Gulliver, not gulliver. I think this says quite a lot about the militants.
    I also find it odd when people don´t give the Universe a capital “u”, when talking about a particular universe – our one.)

  7. Well it’s easy to win when the other side debates like a group of high school kids. I would have used one very simple concept against you. Is information lost in a black hole? Now couple that with what is conscious thought and you are on the defensive. Oh and maybe conscious thought is intertwined quantum particles. No one can explain how conscious thought arrives in the brain so how can science explain where it goes?

  8. kashyap Vasavada

    @Robert
    Thanks for taking time to read that blog. My main motivation was to remove misunderstanding in west about Hinduism and make some general statements about science and religion. To quote a few lines from that blog: “I think science and religion can have a peaceful coexistence and can enrich human life. In a way I am calling for moderation and acceptance of importance of each other by both sides. Let us have a balanced view of science and religion.” As for the *lack of evidence*, you cannot demand strictly scientific evidence since science deals with sensory perceptions only and religion with extra sensory perceptions. I am not saying that issues like NDE and afterlife should not be investigated scientifically. Such investigations should be surely encouraged. But I do not agree that what we can verify with our sensory organs is all there is to it. To quote again: “We are on a measly little planet bound to an average star (our sun) in an average galaxy with more than 100 Billion stars. There are more than 100 Billion galaxies in our observable universe. There could be an infinite number of such universes. Our eyes and brains evolved in a specific manner on earth. Both of these have limitations. For example, our eyes are only sensitive to visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Thus it would be height of arrogance and even stupidity to assume that what we can find with our sense organs and understand with our brains is all there is to it in the universe.” Also for the survival of humanity, for which we need morality, ethics, love, compassion etc., I seriously doubt if the so called “Humanism” would succeed. If it does, I would not have any problem! But there is already a framework “religious framework” for this if the followers would just follow what is written in their scriptures!

  9. Have you ever wondered what kind of universe or universes an unintelligent creative force would create? Perhaps chaotic ones, without form or direction, most certainly without intelligent creatures for I wonder what is intelligence, why does it exist at all. The Universe can exist without it, doesn’t need it, it serves no purpose, it cares not, nor should it, especially in an eternal universe without cause, without feeling or caring or any way to know that it self exists.

  10. Hola, kashyap Vasavada: (from sunny Spain) I don´t see science and religion as being in conflict on the important things. I don´t believe science will ever know what brought the Universe into existence nor find out why the spooky, frankly inexplicable, things are so. The Sun has another 5 billion or so years to go, but I think the human race is living on borrowed time. Any day now………………

    Do you have a blog – if you do, I´ll follow you!

  11. “I was slightly disappointed in the folks on the other side.” That was my first reaction too, except for the “slightly” part, but my second reaction is that the I^2 debate organizers probably did the best they could (and still have a debate). That is, the fact that the other side had bad arguments is because the other side doesn’t have good arguments.

    A quick skimming of other comments shows that some people are hung up on the so-called magic of consciousness, so I’ll take that as license to repeat one of my pet ideas, which answers (to my satisfaction) “the problem of consciousness”.

    First, as to why intelligence exists, you need to understand what it consists of. Based on my personal experience, intelligence consists of these general steps:

    1) Random generation of ideas. There are many computer programs which can do this (e.g., genetic algorithms) – so no magic there.
    2) Selection criteria, to filter out good ideas from bad ideas (survival of the fittest in the marketplace/arena of ideas).
    3) Some kind or kinds of memory, to preserve the good ideas for re-use and iterative refinement.

    That’s how I personally have solved engineering design problems and an independent proof of Fermat’s Prime Theorem (the one that says every prime that is of the form 4N+1 is the sum of two squares). Thomas Edison used it to invent the light bulb. You may notice that it is the same process that biological evolution uses, which indicates that it is a naturally-occurring process, and one that seems bound to work in any interesting universe.

    Next, consciousness. As I see it, it is the operating system for our brains, as Windows or unix are for PCs. It receives external inputs and assigns work to background applications, then receives the application results. For example, Windows does not know how to do spreadsheet calculations, but when a user wants to run Excel, it can mediate between the user and the Excel application. From Window’s point of view, the Excel results which it displays on the screen might have arrived by magic. Similarly, the brain has no nerves which monitor its neurons, so ideas seem to arrive in our consciousness without much work on our part.

    I could go on at great length, but this is too long already. I hope it helps (those who need help) a little.

  12. James petterson

    I can not believe the amount of people praising Sean Carroll. Of particular significance is the perposterous idea that Sean Carroll is a great debater. If being a debater is even the point. A 6 year old can debate the Bible theology or the “saved by the light” near death experience. Both debates he has done this year has been done with “hacks”. Popular hacks to be sure but hacks none the less. What bothers me the most is how little the the debaters know about Physics in general or how so many people following Physics threads/blogs have a zeal that rivals the believers they so despise.

    A book I read the other day had one comment that seemed to hold a lot of truth.

    “Physics is the illusion there is a reality.” In this regard, Sean Carroll and his bloggers are not even wrong!

  13. James petterson

    BTW, I have the upmost respect for all three blogs I referred to in the post above. I just do not get why these debates are even relevant to the discussion at hand.

    Given a possible infinite universe that has possibly always existed it seems at least somewhat likely that if there was not a God or afterlife, one could at least in principle be made or has been at one time….in fact intelligence almost begs or should I say demands this very question and an answer. Evolution might demand this question and answer.

    “Why can I not build something better,faster, and smarter?” Why can I not improve upon the slow process of natural selection and random mutation. I did it with dogs after all and I did not even have a computer:)

    I am fading out of science here..but am I?

  14. James petterson

    Before anyone rants. god,atheism,naturalism are all just words that convey ideas much like words like real, imaginary, and complex describe ideas. Nothing knew folks.

    Science and Religion are way more similar then either one would like to think. Blasphemy!

  15. Aleksandar Mikovic

    I have a simple logico-philosophical argument why death is not final: Deciding this question is equivalent to choosing a metaphysics, and the “no” camp is clearly choosing the materialistic metaphysics. I will argue that a platonic metaphysics is more rational, and since a platonic metaphysics allows existence of ideas outside of spacetime, than a human soul will continue to exist as an idea after the death of the body.

    Why a materialistic metaphysics is irrational: assuming that only objects that exist are space, time and elementary particles, one has to allow the existence of laws of motion, since otherwise everything would happen by chance – which is highly improbable and contrary to our experience. If we have laws, these objects are different from space, time and matter and we are introducing a platonic realm. By Goedel theorems we know that the list of laws cannot be finite, and hence we need a full platonic space of ideas.

  16. So two identical twins, exact same DNA, yet they are two distinct individuals with different thoughts, emotions, feelings etc. The conscious mind isn’t a progrom. And even if it is we have no clue how the source code is even delivered to the brain.

    Here is the issue. Both sides are based on belief and faith. So in many ways both sides are just a religion. There is no proof for either point of view. Like the multi-verse it is based on you faith or belief.

    And that means it boils down to two simple possibilities. Either the Universe was designed or it happened strictly by chance.

  17. John: I agree with most of what you say – tho´it´s a shame about the last sentence. It takes us back to the beginning of the argument

    I struggle on the elementary question of how, assuming it happened by chance, it was able to pop into existence from the absolute and total nothingness. No space or anything else for one of those handy “fluctuations”. There weren´t even any laws of physics yet in existence, making such fluctuations of the nothing in the nothing possible! I wonder, what fluctuated? Where did it fluctuate? Why did it fluctuate? Why 13.8 billion years ago – why didn´t it fluctuate the day before yesterday? And how did this, presumably, modest little fluctuation manage to give rise to the stupendous Universe we see today?

    It was also born with exactly the right parameters to enable the appearance of stars like the Sun with planets like the Earth, giving rise eventually to you and me. I forget how many of these critical ratios and amounts there are, but it´s a lot – and the chance of them all “happening” to occur is infinitesimally small. Enough to make you think there must be trillions of universes, then you can say one just like ours will appear from time to time quite naturally.

  18. “Here is the issue. Both sides are based on belief and faith. So in many ways both sides are just a religion. There is no proof for either point of view. Like the multi-verse it is based on you faith or belief.”

    You’re wrong. Absence of any sort of evidence to prove your claim qualifies the one side as belief; it also supports the opposing view. The presence of evidence to prove your claim qualifies Sean’s side as factual. There is actual proof for one side, and the complete absence of proof for the other.

  19. First Billy “the kid” Craig now these two jokers. Keep going Sean, there’s a lot of delusional suckers out there, it’s good to see you get to some of them.

  20. @john “So two identical twins, exact same DNA, yet they are two distinct individuals with different thoughts, emotions, feelings etc. The conscious mind isn’t a progrom. And even if it is we have no clue how the source code is even delivered to the brain.” I’m puzzled that you think that anyone would believe that identical twins are not distinct individuals. If I hit one identical twin on the toe with a hammer I wouldn’t anticipate the ‘other twin’ feeling the pain. The ‘source code’ isn’t delivered to the brain. The brain configures during development. The configuration is due to a combination of genetic factors and environmental factors.

    “Both sides are based on belief and faith.”. Watch the lecture again. One side is telling anecdotes. The other side is talking about the findings of brain science.

  21. While I can usually watch a good debate without getting frustrated or angry, I must say I choked a little on my coffee when I heard Eben Alexander bringing up Quantum Mechanics in his own defense. I think good physicists such as Sean or Lawrence Krauss who are also active in the skeptic movement, should someday take the time and dedicate an event like this to explaining why consciousness has probably nothing to do with the collapse of the wave function, and why it’s an outdated interpretation of QM. It might make it a little harder for people like Eben Alexander to use such ambiguous scientific jargon in later debates.

  22. kashyap Vasavada

    @ Robert : Thank you for your offer to follow my blog if I have one. No I do not have one now. That is probably too much work. But you can google and find my e-mail address very easily. Luckily I am the only one in U.S. with this name !!! If I write something on another blog, I can let you know. Thanks again.Even though, you say you are atheist (not a militant one though!) I agree with many of your ideas.

  23. Pingback: Afterlife Debate Review | Truth Is Elusive

  24. Thanks for debating! I never heard of you before the Bill Craig debate, but I have avidly followed Dr. Novella’s blog for years. As someone who is not a naturalist and am ‘for’ the motion, I do think your side clearly won this debate. Dr. Moody was terrible and wasted most of his speaking time – maybe this just isn’t a good format for him (?). Dr. Alexander, though his account is interesting, would be better as a supplement to someone who could better defend the motion.

  25. How are you going to argue that the afterlife doesn’t exist when you are not even asking the right questions? The afterlife and soul is not physical meaning not part of the universe. Yet Steve Novella and Sean Carroll expect it to conform to elementary physics, i.e. standard model, TOEs, string theory, etc. By the way, string theory – that’s a faith based theory in itself!

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