JillSwift

One only has to believe to deny, no need to actually know. Frankly, the behavior can be triggered without even belief, just a fear that it might be true. You mean the repeatable experiments of modifying the brain (structurally or chemically) that then modifies the personality, observable via behavior? Evidence as basis for a conclusion?

I think this will satisfy: Enchanted Learning: Brain Cells

Good thing I never claimed that.Thought it's not an aesthetic - it's a useful tool. Keeps one from chasing shadows. What?I'm talking about the observed and demonstrable behavior of the majority of human beings - where the nexus of the instinct to preserve one's self with the ability to predict the inevitability of death induces a state of denial. Not versus, the personality is the meat. Or, more accurately, the personality is an emergent property of the meat.

Here: Wikipedia article on the Axon Eh. Report it and a mod will likely move it. They're pretty good about dat.

Fortunately, I'm immune to that effect. Until someone manages to get Minecraft* running on a kindle. Then I'm doomed. Doooooooooomed! *Or Diamond Mines, really. Or Angry Birds. Or... oh crap.

This is the thing about trying to understand reality. We have imaginations, very powerful imaginations. We can posit an impressive array of explanations for any given phenomenon. How we can start to tell which explanations might be true requires parsimony, aka "Occam's Razor". If we don't need an entity to explain a phenomenon, we should leave it out. This doesn't mean that such entities have been debunked or dis-proven, simply set aside as unnecessary. This should leave us with only that which we have some evidence for, albeit sometimes with with un-evidenced entities that can be falsified. As for the subject itself, I am leery of accepting anecdotes as even suggestions of evidence because of the subject matter - that of the instinct driven avoidance of death, in this case by positing one can transcend it and live again. There is simply far too much room for denial, projection and disassociation (as well as straight up lies and deception) for anecdotes to be considered. All we have left, then, is the evidence we can re-observe and the experiments reproducible. Change the meat, change the personality. Watch the personality act, see the meat act. Affect the meat, affect the personality. The self seems to be the meat. Thus, no evidence for reincarnation.

What's being insinuated? I'm not seeing it.

Bunnies, chicks, eggs... what is this, some kinda fertility holiday? == I celebrate "Chocolate and peeps are half-off day" tomorrow.

Nope. Since one of the many things atheists self-identify as is "freethinker" (including moi), a "bible" seems a bad idea. I assume he's being a bit tongue-in-cheek with the title, though, but it still rubs me the wrong way. I do intend to buy and read it, however. I'm madly curious as to what A. C. Grayling thinks counts as important "good stuff", plus he rather makes good reads IMO anyway. ==

Oh my gaWD I love The Onion.

==

This rings a bell. I think it's been tried before... As I recall, a "vacuum balloon" would be significantly more efficient (in the 7-10% range or so) than a helium or hydrogen balloon, except for the weight penalty incurred by the need for a rigid envelope. Oh, right here on these forums: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/30004-vacuum-balloon/

This isn't a cite either.

That's not a citation. I did a search on Google and didn't find anything evidential about an electron "being everywhere".

Cite, please?

No, they are NOT "inevitably" labled crackpots or mystics. It's when they have no evidence at all of their assertions that such labels are applied. It's purest bigotry - in the form of guilt by association and group identification with individual behaviors - to claim otherwise.

This is not a religion forum. Nor is it a discussion of ethics or morals.

Linguistically, no problem. Conceptually, I'm not sure I get how science could even be used that way. Well, contrast over conflict. ==

I never made the claim that "science should become a boundary-defining discourse for what questions people should ask". (I'm not even certain what that means.) But, when no reasoning is given for an assertion, not a lot can be discussed. As in this case, all I know is Yoseph believes in reincarnation. I don't know why, so I can't really comment on it in any meaningful way. Since he asked, I offered my take on death as it involves the mind. I find this a useful thing to do as a matter of contrast between our points of view in hopes it will help Yoseph give us some reasoning to discuss.

The first sentence of my previous post explains to a T why there's no discussion of any "potential avenues" for duality.

You never mention why you think this is so. So far, all the evidence more than strongly suggests that "self"/mind/consciousness is a property of matter - specifically the brain and its interaction with its sub-systems and the world around it - and as such consciousness simply ceases to be then the brain is wrecked in the same way 75mph ceases to be when the car is wrecked. (Why do I keep using that metaphor? People say they find it depressing. )

I'm sorry again, but you can't just change definitions to fit your needs. the·o·ry –noun, plural -ries. 1. a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein's theory of relativity. 2. a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. 3. Mathematics: a body of principles, theorems, or the like, belonging to one subject: number theory. 4. the branch of a science or art that deals with its principles or methods, as distinguished from its practice: music theory. 5. a particular conception or view of something to be done or of the method of doing it; a system of rules or principles. 6. contemplation or speculation. 7. guess or conjecture. As you can see, it has many definitions. In science, the first definition is the one used.

Sorry, but you're using the wrong definition of "theory". In science, a theory is something that explains facts. Thus, a theory can not be a theory unless there is evidence to explain. No faith is required for science, as it can all be tested.

I smell agenda in that video. Plus, no evidence is given, only utterly vague references to "studies". I can't find any that suggest the conclusions they're claiming. Finally, if this decline were so, why is it not showing up on the official population estimates?