Roger Penrose: Somehow, our consciousness is the reason the universe is here.
| May 5, 2017 | Posted by News under Mind, Philosophy |
From Steve Paulson of Wisconsin public broadcasting at Nautilus:
Once you start poking around in the muck of consciousness studies, you will soon encounter the specter of Sir Roger Penrose, the renowned Oxford physicist with an audacious—and quite possibly crackpot—theory about the quantum origins of consciousness. He believes we must go beyond neuroscience and into the mysterious world of quantum mechanics to explain our rich mental life. No one quite knows what to make of this theory, developed with the American anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, but conventional wisdom goes something like this: Their theory is almost certainly wrong, but since Penrose is so brilliant (“One of the very few people I’ve met in my life who, without reservation, I call a genius,” physicist Lee Smolin has said), we’d be foolish to dismiss their theory out of hand. Indeed. Naturalism could be just plain bunk.
…
As I wondered why Penrose keeps hammering away at his theory on consciousness after all these years, I asked him if he thinks there’s any inherent meaning in the universe. His answer surprised me. “Somehow, our consciousness is the reason the universe is here.” So does he think there’s intelligent life—or consciousness—somewhere else in the cosmos? “Yes, but it may be extremely rare.” But if consciousness is the point of this whole shebang, wouldn’t you expect to find some evidence of it beyond Earth? “Well, I’m not so sure our own universe is that favorably disposed toward consciousness,” he said. “You could imagine a universe with a lot more consciousness that’s peppered all over the place. Why aren’t we in one of those rather than this one where it seems to be a rather uncommon activity?
“So, yes, we want to see the purpose of it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s attributing the wrong word. Purpose—what does that mean?” He chuckled. More.
One can’t help wondering if this is suckerbait. Challenged, will Penrose retreat back to the safe little warren of nonsense theories about consciousness? A few are offered below, just to get you started, but we don’t especially recommend it. On the other hand, just for fun, start with, Claim: Science is afraid of animal consciousness. Why? Won’t crackpot theories work as well as they do for human consciousness? What’s different?
See also: Aired on BBC: Consciousness no different than our ability to digest
Thomas Nagel: Daniel Dennett “maintaining a thesis at all costs” in Bacteria to Bach and Back
Physicist: Regrettably, materialism can’t explain mind
Split brain does NOT lead to split consciousness? What? After all the naturalist pop psych lectures we paid good money for at the U? Well, suckers r’ us.
Does the ability to “split” our brains help us understand consciousness? (Apparently not.)
What great physicists have said about immateriality and consciousness
Or else: Consciousness as a state of matter
Researcher: Never mind the “hard problem of consciousness”: The real one is… “Our experiences of being and having a body are ‘controlled hallucinations’ of a very distinctive kind”
Searle on Consciousness “Emerging” from a Computer: “Miracles are always possible.”
Psychology Today: Latest new theory of consciousness A different one from the above.
Evolution bred a sense of reality out of us
Claim: Science is afraid of animal consciousness. Why? Won’t crackpot theories work as well as they do for human consciousness?
So then: Question: Would we give up naturalism to solve the hard problem of consciousness?
Neuroscience tried wholly embracing naturalism, but then the brain got away
52 Responses to Roger Penrose: Somehow, our consciousness is the reason the universe is here.
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“Somehow, our consciousness is the reason the universe is here.”
And yet, I can consciously lie, convincingly, and it doesn’t alter the universe one whit, not for my observations nor for the observations of those who believe my lie.
If our consciousness determines the universe, why don’t lies change what we observe?
If the universe determines our consciousness, how can a true universe determine a conscious lie?
Occam’s razor: They’re not related.
That someone as intelligent and rational as Roger Penrose should say something like this only indicates that science is in horrible shape, and that the abandonment of philosophy, especially Aristotelian philosophy, has damaged science greatly.
What science needs is religious believers. Religious believers are best connected to a realistic basis for ontogeny and cosmology.
The insight that seems to be missing in contemporary “consciousness studies”, has been pointed out at this forum many times:
blind processes (stochastic or determined) do not get us to free responsible rational personhood.
So microtubules orchestrate synaptic connections into a consciousness? How do they do that? Do they have a plan? Do they steer themselves? What is directing their cooperation?
Please ….
Bravo! Yes indeed, let’s have some structure at the very least. Would ‘structure’ explain consciousness? Not likely, but ‘chaos’ sure does not.
But that is ridiculous you fools! We are right back where we started …. When will you EVER learn? Microtubules do not have the decision-power to form consciousness, rationality and so forth. They don’t have the overview, plan, self-control and so forth that is required to perform such a daunting job. Why would anyone hold that they have all this?
Rational intelligence is known to be a reality. It isn’t known whether it is only associated with biological human beings. Higher forms of biological life have limited intelligence but none have anything that approaches humanity’s rationality. We don’t know that rational intelligence can only exist in association with biological humanity. This is made clear at the link provided in the article:
And by information at links provided on that page by bornagain77 and by vjtorley.
So, why is it so difficult for the scientific establishment to admit that currently the only plausible explanation of the origin of life is that it was the result of intelligent agency, and then leave it to metaphysicians, theologians and philosophers to worry about the nature of the being that that rational intelligence was associated with?
It is so difficult because the scientific establishment now sees its primary responsibility as maintaining methodological naturalism, a strategy for studying the world, by which scientists choose not to consider supernatural causes – even as a remote possibility. Yet they don’t have to assume that the intelligent agent is supernatural. All they have to do is admit that it looks as though a known reality – rational intelligence – was a necessary causal factor in the emergence of life. That’s it.
Contemporary science has been perverted by atheism. It no longer sees its primary responsibility as the maintenance of a relentlessly objective pursuit of the truth, but instead as the defense of a particular strategy it mistakenly thinks is threatened by the evidence.
The implications of an intelligent agent of some sort being a causal factor in the emergence of life threatens atheism, but doesn’t really threaten methodological naturalism because rational intelligence is known to be a natural reality.
Simply in terms of the title, it is consistent with ‘intersubjectivity’ and my contention that we each live in a little world of our own, integrated and coordinated by God, no longer seamlessly at the quantum level ; a notion first postulated by a Talmudist, perhaps, centuries ago, when he asserted that, when a human being dies, a whole world disappears with him.
Or am I mistaken in this?
Nonsense remains nonsense regardless of who says it.
Perhaps a reason why David Chalmers calls it ‘the hard problem of consciousness’ is because it places science between a rock and a hard place.
harry @ 4
Intelligent agency is one possible explanation for the origin of life on Earth. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help with the origin of life itself. There would still be the question of the origin of the intelligent agency that was the origin of life on Earth.
Tell us what you mean by “supernatural” and how we might find evidence that it exists at all and we can evaluate it as a possible cause. Otherwise, it is useless as an explanation.
It is a standard creationist canard that science excludes supernatural and/or religious explanations through an ideological commitment to methodological naturalism. The reality is that science will consider anything that can be shown to be causally efficacious. Those who promote their beliefs in supernatural and/or religious phenomena have yet to demonstrate that they are anything other than beliefs.
Minlie Huang, a computer scientist at Tsinghua University, Beijing and co-author, said: “We’re still far away from a machine that can fully understand the user’s emotion. This is just the first attempt at this problem.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/05/human-robot-interactions-take-step-forward-with-emotional-chatting-machine-chatbot
How far from a robot that can feel its own emotions?
BTW, who creates the unconscious robots?
Seversky @ 7
Please give me another plausible explanation for the emergence of the digital information-based, self-replicating nanotechnology of single-celled life forms on Earth. I can’t think of one known cause of digital information-based nanotechnology other than intelligent agency.
The investigation ends as soon as one arrives at an uncreated intelligent agent, whose existence is not dependent upon another reality, the primary reality whose essence is to be, who might identify Himself as “I AM WHO AM.”
supernatural – of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena;
You don’t have to know if the intelligent agent is supernatural to realize that intelligent agency was necessarily a causal factor in the emergence of digital information-based, self-replicating nanotechnology. If you insist on finding out if the intelligent agent is supernatural then you have to rule out natural intelligent agents.
Actually, the existence of one whose essence is to be, who is the primary reality upon which all other realities are dependent, would be the natural, ordinary reality and everything else would be subnatural. Instead of talking about the supernatural and the natural, maybe we should say natural where we now say supernatural, and subnatural where we now say natural. ;o)
So if the natural Universe — time, space, matter and energy — was known to have a beginning, and since nothing begins to exist without a cause, then science should happily consider a cause for the natural Universe that, of course, wasn’t natural since the natural is what was caused. Right? You can’t get much more causally efficacious than bringing the entire Universe into existence.
harry @9:
Please, be nicer to your politely dissenting interlocutors. Refrain from asking difficult questions that they can’t answer well. 🙂
A couple of years ago I asked a much easier biology question –right here in this website– to a distinguished Canadian biochemistry professor who failed it so embarrassingly that my question was immediately classified as ‘dishonest’ though I still don’t know exactly why. 🙂
Your question is much more difficult, hence it could be catalogued as offensive or even worse. In any case it’s politically incorrect. 🙂
What a mean pair !
Roger Penrose:
In other words, dear reader, consciousness ‘somehow’ causes the universe. “But what caused consciousness?”, you might ask. Well, Penrose and Hameroff have that covered as well:
There is your answer: “microtubules” … Microtubulus, billions and billions of them, cause consciousness.
Let’s summarize (a coherent picture is emerging here):
In the beginning there were the Microtubules who caused Consciousness, which in turn ‘somehow’ causes the Universe.
Questions anyone?
Do you knuckleheads deny that conscious is primary?
What a funny group
harry @ 9
Argument by analogy. Current computer and miniaturized robotic technologies provide useful concepts with which to model what happens in a biological cell, that’s all. They do not necessarily warrant a conclusion of design.
Consider this, current thinking is that life on Earth began roughly 3-4 bya. If it was created, it was by an intelligence that was already way more advanced then than we are 3-4 billion years later. Why should what they designed then look like what we are just learning to design now? Remember Arthur C Clarke’s dictum about any sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic? If some really advanced alien intelligence created or interfered with life on Earth, the chances are we would never know it unless they wanted us to. So are we looking at evidence of design or pareidolia?
How do you know you’ve arrived at an uncreated intelligent agent? Do you stop investigating just because He says “I am who am”? How do you know He’s not just pulling a Donald Trump?
Okay, I’d accept that as a working definition of “supernatural”. Now, what did you have in mind which fits that definition and that we can investigate?
Why not simplify it still further and just call it all natural but admit that although we know a little about it and are slowly learning more, there’s still an awful lot we don’t know. We could call it “naturalism”.
We have evidence that this universe had a beginning but how do we know it was the beginning?
Dionisio @ 10
I have no problem admitting I don’t know where I don’t know. If anything it’s believers who have a problem admitting to ignorance apparently lest they be accused of an unseemly lack of faith or grasp of their chosen theology.
Seversky @15:
OK. Now I have a few simple questions for you:
1. Do you know what the concept “complex functional specified information” (CFSI) means? Please, respond just “yes” or “no”. No need to explain your answer now.
If your answer is “no” then you don’t have to read the rest of this comment. Thank you.
If your answer to question #1 is “yes” then proceed to the following questions.
2. What does the concept “complex functional specified information” (CFSI) mean?
3. Do you know any example that illustrates that concept “CFSI”?
Please, respond just “yes” or “no”. No need to explain your answer now.
If your answer is “no” then you don’t have to read the rest of this comment. Thank you.
If your answer to question #3 is “yes” then proceed to the following question.
4. Do you know any example that illustrates that concept “CFSI” in Biology? Please, respond just “yes” or “no”. No need to explain your answer now.
Thank you.
Seversky @15:
What do you mean by “believers”?
Seversky @15:
Assuming you responded the question @17, can you provide an example in this website UD to illustrate your affirmation @15?
Thank you.
Discussion thread associated with some of the questions @16:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/functional-information-vs-classical-information-two-mistakes/
Sev, we are familiar with digital tech and systems, including machine code and NC machines. The differences with cell based life are: (1) 4-state elements (the Russians built 3-state element computers FYI . . . ), (2) molecular nanotech (we are just beginning to go down this road), (3) far greater sophistication, including implementation of a molecular tech von Neumann kinematic self replication capability. In addition, a key point of note is, there is but one plausible source of alphabetic coded text in quantity with associated execution machinery — language-capable intelligence, here, antecedent to cell based life on earth. The attempt to dismiss by mis-applying the “failed/dubious analogy” claim, fails and in fact inadvertently tells us just how strong the argument is. Resort to hyperskeptical dismissal is an indication that the objectors are fending off a strong, but unwelcome case. KF
seversky @ 14
You avoided giving me another plausible explanation for emergence of the digital information-based, self-replicating nanotechnology of single-celled life forms on Earth. That is because you can’t.
No analogy is perfect, but some are very good, as is the one between the digital information-based nanotechnology we find in cellular life and man-made, modern technology. Google up biological computer. You will find that restricting one’s conception of computing technology to that which is silicon-based is to be living in the past. Even those with your world view see the analogy:
Just as it would be virtually impossible for self-replicating robotic equipment to be mindlessly and accidentally assembled, so it is with the digital information-based, self-replicating nanotechnology of cellular life. They are both quite obviously the result of the application of scientific knowledge for a purpose, which is the very definition of technology.
Just as anybody even slightly familiar with what goes into the creation of modern computerized hardware and software knows you are never going to get self-replicating robotic equipment mindlessly and accidentally, those capable of objectively assessing the likelihood of arriving at digital information-based, self-replicating cellular nanotechnology mindlessly and accidentally – the functional complexity of which is light years beyond our own – realize that that is virtually impossible, too.
Do you still believe in math? It has been repeatedly mathematically demonstrated that the temporal and material probabilistic resources provided by the entire Universe are hopelessly insufficient to have allowed the mindless and accidental assembly of the proteins required for the simplest conceivable single-celled, reproducing life form. This is why the assembly instructions for the required proteins had to be recorded in the coding regions of DNA by an intelligent agent. To suggest that the coding regions of DNA were correctly populated mindlessly and accidentally is like suggesting that one could repeatedly fill a cargo plane with Scrabble pieces and dump them out over an empty parking lot as the plane flew over it, and eventually there would be a pass over the parking lot where the pieces would land such that they spelled out a coherent mystery novel. That just isn’t going to happen, and neither were the coding regions of DNA going to be populated mindlessly and accidentally.
When you insist that somehow life came about mindlessly and accidentally, you are like one insisting that the faces on Mt. Rushmore are the result of mindless and accidental, albeit peculiar erosion. You can believe such a thing if you want to do so, but you must admit that doing so requires a huge, blind, irrational faith.
Until the scientific establishment admits that currently any plausible explanation of the emergence of life on planet Earth must include intelligent agency as a causal factor, it is seriously undermining its credibility. And that is a good thing. It helps people to understand that contemporary science has been perverted by atheism and will remain so until it restores to itself the relentless objectivity genuine science requires.
KF @20,
You’ve mentioned a very interesting area of advanced nanotechnology that seems associated with Professor Tour’s expertise, doesn’t it? Thank you.
Here’s a couple of links to videos that show Dr. Tour’s comments on the subject you referred to:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/UoXQ75jlT3c
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_zQXgJ-dXM4
Topic related =>
Dissecting Dembski’s “Complex Specified Information” by Thomas D. Schneider
https://schneider.ncifcrf.gov/paper/ev/dembski/specified.complexity.html
“So what was Dembski’s mistake? It was that he proposed that the design by necessity had to come from outside the living things, whereas it comes from within them and between the organism and its environment!
Normally this is called evolution by natural selection.”
An interesting refutation to Specified Complexity in Information
(Complex information is generated by living things and environment thanks to natural selection and mutation)
KF @20:
Thank you for referring to this.
Here’s some information associated with that interesting ternary computer topic you brought up:
http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/setun.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun
http://mason.gmu.edu/~drine/Hi.....puters.htm
#24 addendum:
More on ternary computers referred by KF @20:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TlEILts_pIM
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TfJxAb0owj8
Definition of complex according to Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Definition of functional
Definition of specify (in relation to specified):
Definition of specific (in relation to specified):
Definition of information:
From the same article:
“In some ways, Penrose and Hameroff are the odd couple of science. Hameroff is upfront about his spiritual views, talking openly about the possibility of the soul existing after death. Penrose is an atheist who calls himself “a very materialistic and physicalist kind of person,” and he’s bothered by New Agers who’ve latched onto quantum theories about non-locality and entanglement to prop up their paranormal beliefs.”
It seems Penrose and Hameroff viewed consciousness from two, somewhat opposite, angles.
Penrose from materialistic/atheistic point of view-consciousness is a product of human brain and could be explained by quantum mechanics.
Hameroff leaned toward the spiritual explanation of consciousness, such as the possibility of existence of a soul that survives death.
I believe one can still believe in the origin of consciousness as a product of human brain that could be explained by quantum mechanics and still maintain spiritual views.
Here is why:
Where was the soul/consciousness before conception?
Did the soul/consciousness come from the father, mother or both?
Did the soul come from God? If yes, where was it before being given to the newborn?
If God gave Adam a soul, he surely forgot to mention it:
Gen 2:7
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”
God also forgot to mention to Adam that due to sin, his soul would live on either happily or not so happily…
Gen 3:19
“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Are we conscious when we sleep? If we are, how do we know that? If we are not, what makes us regain our consciousness?
BTW: Some people with PTSD reported temporary losing and regaining their consciousness. If they didn’t remember anything then they did remember being conscious…
I couldn’t edit my last comment even though there were 5 minutes left….
Message was You don’t have rights to edit
Further to my #27
If humans don’t have a soul, what made Lazarus conscious? He must have been resurrected with a new body as he had been dead for over 4 days, which means his body was disintegrated beyond recognition.
J-Mac @27:
Gen 2:7 (ESV)
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries
The Origin of the Soul
by R.C. Sproul
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/.....-the-soul/
The Duality of Man
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/.....ality-man/
J-Mac @27:
Genesis 2:16-17 (ESV)
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries
ICR
http://www.icr.org/bible/Genesis/2/17/
“You Shall Surely Die”
by Dr. Terry Mortenson
https://answersingenesis.org/death-before-sin/genesis-2-17-you-shall-surely-die/
ICR
http://www.icr.org/bible/Genesis/2/17/
Genesis 3:19 (ESV)
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries
Apparently there are different biblical interpretations regarding the association of verse 2:17 with physical death. But there seems to be consensus regarding the spiritual death: all humans are spiritually dead forever – i.e. separated from God’s glorious presence. Only God’s grace can rescue us from that horrendous fate (which we chose), and make us spiritually alive forever, through saving faith in Christ’s redemptive death and resurrection. God will not do it against anybody’s will. Anyone who genuinely desires to be in His glorious presence worshiping Him forever will be given that choice by God’s grace through saving faith in Christ. However, there’s mystery associated with God being fully sovereign and our free will associated with the multiple references to the elect. But that’s off topic in this particular case.
Of course our consciousness is the reason why the universe exists.
Why else would this thing exist?
(This is for the theists)
The reason everything exists is explained here:
Genesis 1:1; John 1:1-3
D, did a little poking around on esp SETUN and its balanced trit with state possibilities 1/0/-1. The idea of a negative base place value notation also pops up which exploits the idea that (-b)^2m = b^2m, and of course odd values become negative so one adds and subtracts alternative digits, much like the effect we get from using i in complex numbers . . . and that is suggestive, of using complex numbers in computing too. [Can someone tell me why Java did not have complex numbers as a native, core feature? Comparing, say Fortran?] All, quite unusual, but then this pops up as in effect a summary from one formerly interested:
Muy interesante, no?
Especially, as regards using base 2^n as computational elements and the point that if you are interested in storage a 4-state element is going to be more efficient than 3, on the reasonably available components. So, there seems to be a logic of structure and quantity, technological possibility-linked reason for 4-state storage in molecular nanotech devices. Hence we see a new angle on using 4-state, two complementary pair elements in D/RNA.
KF
F/N: Setun, with refs: http://www.computer-museum.ru/english/setun.htm
F/N2, I second EA on how the 20 min edit time is eating its lower end so if you are close, nope you do not have permission. WordPress gets weirder and weirder. KF
KF @ 34:
Si, muy interesante. Gracias.
Da, ochen interyesno. Spasiba.
Here’s more:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-22816-2_10
Dionisio,
Most sources say more or less the same thing:
“The History of the Immortal-Soul Teaching
Despite widespread use of the phrase immortal soul, this terminology is found nowhere in the Bible. Where did the idea of an immortal soul originate?
The concept of the soul’s supposed immortality was first taught in ancient Egypt and Babylon. “The belief that the soul continues in existence after the dissolution of the body is…speculation…nowhere expressly taught in Holy Scripture…The belief in the immortality of the soul came to the Jews from contact with Greek thought and chiefly through the philosophy of Plato, its principal exponent, who was led to it through Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries in which Babylonian and Egyptian views were strangely blended” ( Jewish Encyclopedia, 1941, Vol. 6, “Immortality of the Soul,” pp. 564, 566).
Plato (428-348 B.C.), the Greek philosopher and student of Socrates, taught that the body and the “immortal soul” separate at death. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia comments on ancient Israel’s view of the soul: “We are influenced always more or less by the Greek, Platonic idea that the body dies, yet the soul is immortal. Such an idea is utterly contrary to the Israelite consciousness and is nowhere found in the Old Testament” (1960, Vol. 2, “Death,” p. 812).
Early Christianity was influenced and corrupted by Greek philosophies as it spread through the Greek and Roman world. By A.D. 200 the doctrine of the immortality of the soul became a controversy among Christian believers.
The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology notes that Origen, an early and influential Catholic theologian, was influenced by Greek thinkers: “Speculation about the soul in the subapostolic church was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. This is seen in Origen’s acceptance of Plato’s doctrine of the preexistence of the soul as pure mind ( nous ) originally, which, by reason of its fall from God, cooled down to soul ( psyche ) when it lost its participation in the divine fire by looking earthward” (1992, “Soul,” p. 1037).
Secular history reveals that the concept of the immortality of the soul is an ancient belief embraced by many pagan religions. But it’s not a biblical teaching and is not found in either the Old or New Testaments.”
http://www.ucg.ca/booklets/wha.....l-teaching
Ecl 9:5
“For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten”
“10Whatever the activity in which you engage, do it with all your ability, because there is no work, no planning, no learning, and no wisdom in the next world where you’re going.”
Just because you really want to believe this teaching it doesn’t make it true…
Ecco 3
…19For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed, they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for man over beast, for all is vanity. 20All go to the same place. All came from the dust and all return to the dust.…
J-Mac @38:
What exactly do you mean by “Origen, an early and influential Catholic theologian”?
J-Mac @38:
Please, tell me, how do you interpret this:
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries:
J-Mac @38:
Please, tell me, how do you interpret this:
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries:
J-Mac @ 38
Life after bodily death — and it was known all along that the body decomposes after death, so life after death must be the life of the soul — is found in both the Old and the New Testaments. In 1 Samuel 28 we find the account of the Witch of Endor arranging for Saul to be able to speak with Samuel who had already died.
In the New Testament we have after the deaths of the poor man Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus in the company of Abraham and the rich man in torment. (Luke 16). We have the “cloud of witnesses” of Hebrews 12. We have in Matthew 17 the transfiguration where a glorified Christ is talking with long dead Moses and Elijah, and in Mark 12 and Matthew 22 Christ reminding the Sadducees that God had said to Moses: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ and proclaiming to them that “He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong.” As is the idea that there is no biblical teaching about the soul living on after bodily death.
J-Mac @38:
Please, tell me, how do you interpret this:
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries:
harry @42:
Thanks.
J-Mac @38:
Please, tell me, how do you interpret this:
Matthew Henry’s Commentary
Matthew Henry’s Commentary:
J-Mac @38:
Please, tell me, how do you interpret this:
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries:
MacArthur Study Bible (NKJV)
Matthew Henry’s Commentary:
J-Mac @38:
Someone could say:
But the concept “Trinity” is implicitly expressed in the Bible.
As you may have seen in a few preceding comments, the concept of the soul that may exist beyond the physical death –according to God’s will– is implied in the Scriptures, sometimes more clearly than others.
English Standard Version
Ezk 18:20
“The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”
If the soul can die, then how could it be immortal?
But if the word soul could mean person or life as it should, then it is much easier to understand most of the verses that seem to contradict each other maybe with the exception of the metaphorical ones where there seem to be a difference between death of a soul/person/life with the hope of resurrection or not.
Gehenna, Sheol, Hades, hell if accurately translated seem to indicate the difference between death with or without the possibility for resurrection.
Here are some of the most commonly misinterpreted verses about seeming existence of an immortal soul:
http://pdf.amazingdiscoveries......-45-48.pdf
J-Mac @ 49
There are many indications in the Scriptures (see my post @ 42) that there is conscious life after death even though God’s people knew full well that the body decomposes after bodily death and returns to the dust from which man came: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:19) This life after death can only be the life of the soul.
In Ezek 18:20 where the “soul” dies, one who is living a bodily, earthly life is being referred to, not someone who has already died a bodily death and whose living soul then dies. That makes no sense. It is obvious that what dies is one’s good standing before God, not that one’s soul ceases to exist.
A bodily resurrection would make no sense if the risen body wasn’t going to be animated by a soul. The body dies. The soul doesn’t. At the resurrection the risen body is reunited to the soul.
J-Mac- Just so I understand your position ,are you saying there is no Resurrection from the dead for mankind, once we die thats it, we are no more.
harry and Marfin,
apparently J-Mac missed the question @39?
https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631128
Also he didn’t argue against the following comments:
@30: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631046
@31: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631047
@40: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631129
@41: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631130
@43: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631133
@45: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631150
@46: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631155
@47: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631158
@48: https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/roger-penrose-somehow-our-consciousness-is-the-reason-the-universe-is-here/#comment-631190
There’s much more that can be added to the list. Much more. His arguments are void. They seem trollish.
You may want to consider ignoring his comments.