>We're talking about the possibility of (a different kind of) life after physical death
I know what you're talking about. And it is still not possible because it's a vacuous assertion. (And there's no such thing as 'non-physical' death, so that qualifier doesn't do anything. The word 'physical' is, for the most part, useless.)
But why are you even talking about life after death? Why aren't you talking about the invisible giant crab that's eating you right now? Or the dream that you're going to wake up from? Or the existence of Hogwarts?
You simply can't argue "nobody can really know" to a rational person in a convincing way. A rational person then must conclude that it doesn't even matter -- You have to make decisions, and you can't make reliable decisions by cherry picking belief in one absurd thing over the trillions of other absurd things.
We could debate all day about the possible existence of Hogwarts, but it would be stupid: we both know that it is a fiction, even though nobody can "prove for certain" that it isn't. We know this because the world we live in doesn't change if the existence of the thing changes. Nobody can make different decisions.
And when something fundamentally doesn't matter, that means it encodes no information about (non-mental) reality, and is thus meaningless, and can't be claimed to exist by default.
>I included Pascal's wager not for his conclusion but because it supports my assertion that one can not know what happens after physical death.
We know what happens after death. Many people have died, and you can look around and see what is happening right now. If you're talking about what happens to your subjective experiences afterward, then that's an experience singularity. A "north of the north pole" kind of absurdity. I don't suppose you're willing to argue that nobody knows if there's land north of the north pole, are you?
You don't see the circular reasoning involved in claiming that someone must actually visit north of the north pole to conclude it doesn't exist? So why should anyone have to return from life after death to know that it is fiction?
I know what you're talking about. And it is still not possible because it's a vacuous assertion. (And there's no such thing as 'non-physical' death, so that qualifier doesn't do anything. The word 'physical' is, for the most part, useless.)
But why are you even talking about life after death? Why aren't you talking about the invisible giant crab that's eating you right now? Or the dream that you're going to wake up from? Or the existence of Hogwarts?
You simply can't argue "nobody can really know" to a rational person in a convincing way. A rational person then must conclude that it doesn't even matter -- You have to make decisions, and you can't make reliable decisions by cherry picking belief in one absurd thing over the trillions of other absurd things.
We could debate all day about the possible existence of Hogwarts, but it would be stupid: we both know that it is a fiction, even though nobody can "prove for certain" that it isn't. We know this because the world we live in doesn't change if the existence of the thing changes. Nobody can make different decisions.
And when something fundamentally doesn't matter, that means it encodes no information about (non-mental) reality, and is thus meaningless, and can't be claimed to exist by default.
>I included Pascal's wager not for his conclusion but because it supports my assertion that one can not know what happens after physical death.
We know what happens after death. Many people have died, and you can look around and see what is happening right now. If you're talking about what happens to your subjective experiences afterward, then that's an experience singularity. A "north of the north pole" kind of absurdity. I don't suppose you're willing to argue that nobody knows if there's land north of the north pole, are you?
You don't see the circular reasoning involved in claiming that someone must actually visit north of the north pole to conclude it doesn't exist? So why should anyone have to return from life after death to know that it is fiction?