Maybe we should move on to the third discovery. Can you explain this one, peacegirl?
I really don’t want to get bombarded with questions when no one has read the chapter. It’s very comforting though because he proves that death is not the end since we (not the same person) are born again and again. I’d rather go back to his discovery that lies locked behind the door of determinism because, when extended, has the power to bring about peace on earth.
I think we beat determinism to death. Some people in this thread are determinists. Can you post some of the writings of Lessans on this point? I'm curious as to how pronouns could have anything to do with evidence for being born again as another person.
Compatibilists are determinists by definition.
Compatibilism is incoherent. It’s an effort to make free will compatible with determinism by defining free will as being able to choose “appropriately” in their estimation and it disregards a person’s internal reasons for doing what they do altogether. They do this to keep the status quo of holding people accountable. It’s a semantic shift in an effort to look coherent but, by definition, these two ideologies are opposites. You have one, you can’t have the other.
Light at the eye/ instant vision is incoherent. It doesn't relate to how the world works, or determinism.
If the world is deterministic, light must be radiated by its source, have a travel time to the eye where it is detected, absorbed and the information used by the brain to form mental visual imagery.
Light is radiated by its source but is not reflected. That is why we can see an object when viewing it directly due to the fact that the wavelength of light is revealing the object. There is nothing far-fetched about this version of sight. This account does not involve physics since the information is not traveling through space/time. Light is traveling, but again, it does not bounce off of objects and take the wavelength of light with it to be processed as an image. Information in this account can still form mental imagery in the brain. Seeing in real time doesn't take away from experiences that produce mental imagery in our mind's eye that relates to those experiences.
the mental faculty of conceiving imaginary or recollected scenes; also : the mental picture so conceived… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com
The Brain and Mental Imagery
Mental imagery is the ability to visualize things and scenarios in your mind, without actual physical input.
For example, when you think about your best friends, you may automatically picture their faces in your head without actually seeing them in front of you. When you daydream about an upcoming vacation, you may see yourself on the sunny beach.
People who dream about taking a penalty kick could visualize themselves like they are watching a video of it in their mind. They may even experience the smell of the turf or hear the sounds that fans would make.
Scientists believe your
primary visual cortex, located in the back of your brain, is
involved in internal visualization. This is the same part of the brain that processes visual information from the eyes and that lets you see the world around you.
Some people can visualize things perfectly in their mind’s eye, while others can’t.
www.discovermagazine.com