Hey evenbob, I have a question for you.

There's the added problem that is you square the units of measurement, they stop making sense. For example, the square of 2 miles per hour would be 4 square miles per hour every hour. Suddenly you're covering an area rather than a length, and you're accelerating!

Try the cube of a speed. I dare you :)

Heh. Speeders.

Quote:

In 2370, the Hekaran scientist Serova opened a subspace rift by overloading her ships engines to a warp core breach in the Hekaran sector, demonstrating that conventional warp engines did in fact cause severe damage to the fabric of spacetime. In order to slow the rate of the damage, the Federation Council shared the findings with all known warp-capable species and imposed a speed restriction of warp factor 5 on all Federation vessels in all but extreme emergencies. The areas of space most damaged by that point were restricted to essential travel only. The Klingons were expected to follow the restrictions, but Deanna Troi and Worf thought it unlikely that the Romulans, the Ferengi and the Cardassians would. (TNG: "Force of Nature")

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Speed_limit

I should have split this thread off a long time ago. How did we get from reincarnation to the speed of light? Maybe that is how fast the soul jumps between bodies.

I'll just sit back and see where this train of thought leads next.

I've been wanting to post on subject myself but it's a difficult to put into words if you get seriously into it. We seem to all agree that quantum states don't account for "what is the entity that survives death". Of course if that means there is no survival after death then the question is mute anyway and trying to discuss it is a waste of effort. There is I think another problem though, and that is the fact of self awareness, self consciousness, I, Me ect. that virtually every single human has a sense of. I'm sure it's the "thing" that people think survives the grave. It's also real to people who don't believe it survives so how do we account for it in a purely materialistic world? Is it electric impulses jumping synapses willy nilly? If that's the case what is the entity that feels pain or pleasure, gets angry or loves their kids? Self is surely not a material thing is it? Mind is some kind of energy? What kind of energy is it and where is mind located? I'm getting tired.

Quote: pew

There is I think another problem though, and that is the fact of self awareness, self consciousness, I, Me ect. that virtually every single human has a sense of. I'm sure it's the "thing" that people think survives the grave. It's also real to people who don't believe it survives so how do we account for it in a purely materialistic world?

Unknown.

If it helps, self-awareness has been seen in great apes, and I think in other animals. This was determined by measuring whether an average chimp, for example, recognizes himself in a mirror. The experiments were simple. Paint a spot on the chimp's forehead, show him a mirror, and see what he does. Most reached to their foreheads, not at the image in the mirror. Cats and dogs, for example, if they see a mirror image assume it's another animal and tray to reach it.

Whether this is evidence of self-awareness can be argued, but I think it is. If so, then either these animals have souls (and if they do, should Christians try to convert them to their faith? Did Jesus also die for the sins of the great apes, or do they await a separate messiah?), or self*awareness comes from normal brain function on some animals.

Studying the brain is rather difficult. For example, we can't find any correlations between raw mass, gray matter ratios, etc. to intelligence. As recently as the 90s glial cells were described in medical and biology textbooks as structural support cells in the brain. Now it seems they are an active part of it.

I return to a refrain I usually tell someone else: The fact that we may not be able to explain something (yet) does not mean any alternative proposed is true.

Also if it helps, the mind is material, but also intangible.

Quote: Wizard

I should have split this thread off a long time ago. How did we get from reincarnation to the speed of light? Maybe that is how fast the soul jumps between bodies.

If you reincarnate faster than the speed of light, can you meet yourself in your new life from your current one? :)

Quote: Nareed

Unknown.

If it helps, self-awareness has been seen in great apes, and I think in other animals. This was determined by measuring whether an average chimp, for example, recognizes himself in a mirror. The experiments were simple. Paint a spot on the chimp's forehead, show him a mirror, and see what he does. Most reached to their foreheads, not at the image in the mirror. Cats and dogs, for example, if they see a mirror image assume it's another animal and tray to reach it.

Whether this is evidence of self-awareness can be argued, but I think it is. If so, then either these animals have souls (and if they do, should Christians try to convert them to their faith? Did Jesus also die for the sins of the great apes, or do they await a separate messiah?), or self*awareness comes from normal brain function on some animals.

Studying the brain is rather difficult. For example, we can't find any correlations between raw mass, gray matter ratios, etc. to intelligence. As recently as the 90s glial cells were described in medical and biology textbooks as structural support cells in the brain. Now it seems they are an active part of it.

I return to a refrain I usually tell someone else: The fact that we may not be able to explain something (yet) does not mean any alternative proposed is true.

Also if it helps, the mind is material, but also intangible.

It's what I'm getting at. If mind is intangible then there is something other than matter and energy. Could it be mind or consciousness itself? If so it opens a huge can of worms for the materialist/naturalists. Many on this board included. You cannot sense or perceive it physically so science can't deal with it. What is it?

To do a proper experiment on consciousness would likely be unethical. Basically, you would have to keep destroying parts of the brain.

Will consciousness be there once you have systematically gone through the destruction of brain areas. And if the brain transfers functionality to different parts as it sometimes does when something is destroyed you've still got problems. But then again it could work. No way to know.

One way to figure something out is recreate it (simulation) or break it up, except reverse engineering is going to be destruction short of some other clever way to deactivate very specific parts. I mean they can look at radioactive dye on cat scans or neurons firing, but that's still a big guessing game.

Quote: pew

It's what I'm getting at. If mind is intangible then there is something other than matter and energy. Could it be mind or consciousness itself? If so it opens a huge can of worms for the materialist/naturalists. Many on this board included. You cannot sense or perceive it physically so science can't deal with it. What is it?

Let me try a quick analogy: you can see and measure every part of the process of package delivery, but the package delivery process as a whole is intangible.

Quote: Nareed

Let me try a quick analogy: you can see and measure every part of the process of package delivery, but the package delivery process as a whole is intangible.

Package delivery[?] is very tangible and easily understood. I don't see an analogy there at all.