An ideal ultimate truth? (Origins)

by George Jelliss , Crewe, Monday, May 10, 2010, 20:04 (5099 days ago) @ dhw

On the quantum arguments, it seems to me that the different effects found depend on the type and degree of the experimenters' interference with the system. It is not simply a matter of 'looking' - which normally means shining a light, i.e. a beam of photons, on the subject. To get the Buridan's Ass effect, where the quantum system cannot decide what to do, seems to require particularly delicate 'looking' if I've understood the article correctly.-dhw writes interestingly: "This thread has arisen out of BBella's question concerning what we would regard as the ideal ultimate truth. My own response, after a few refinements, is that the bodiless self would survive death, and maintain its personal identity in a world filled with the spiritual pleasures of life ... without any suffering and without a God ... and free to choose at any time to sacrifice its identity, perhaps by taking on a new form. I don't know to what extent others would regard this as an ideal, but I have suggested that we should consider what evidence there is, if any, for at least part of this dream scenario."-I'm intrigued however as to what dhw considers to be "the spiritual pleasures of life". I know he likes music and cricket, but I would have thought that these would require a material substrate for the sound vibrations, produced by the vibration of catgut or of reeds or of the human larynx, or the impact of leather on willow, to impinge on the material ear drum, and be sensed my the material nervous system. If there is no matter in the spiritual realm how are these pleasures of life to be experienced? Are they all made of "spirit stuff" whatever that is? (Maybe ectoplasm?) If so why is this spiritual stuff more spiritual than matter?-I take the view that spiritual experiences like music are dependent on matter and are thus also materialistic experiences. Once our matter decays we can no longer have any spiritual existence. We are no more.

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GPJ