Knowledge, belief & agnosticism (Agnosticism)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Saturday, March 15, 2008, 12:15 (6095 days ago) @ dhw

Concerning the difference between belief in the origin of life by natural chemical processes (abiogenesis) and belief in some form of life-after-death. For me the difference is that abiogenesis does not require any radical change to the current scientific paradigm (if I may use that word) of chemistry and physics. All it requires is the discovery of a workable process. - On the other hand ideas of life after death (of which there are many different scenarios) require a radical change. According to the current paradigm, personality, soul, spirit, mind, consciousness, and other such concepts are to be identified with the physical actions of neurons in the brain. As such they must come to an end with the cessation of brain activity (death). - If it is held to be possible for these psychological attributes to somehow survive death, and live on in some form (as ghosts, angels, demons, psychic waves, disembodied spirits, emfoldment in some universal consciousness, or by reincarnation, etc, etc.) then some radical new physics, or a new science of "psychics", is needed to supplement or replace the existing paradigm. - Despite a century or more of psychic research no such new science has yet emerged, or seems at all likely to emerge, other than vague speculations involving extensions of quantum theory.