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adamzerner comments on What do rationalists think about the afterlife? - Less Wrong
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Sorry, I wasn't intending to make a reference to Devil's advocacy with that link, but to the question of whether it is reasonable to claim that there could be a slice of chocolate cake in the asteroid belt. It is true that we can't observe the asteroid belt well enough to tell directly, but the world has patterns, and what we know of those patterns, tested by the observations that we have made, rules out the chocolate cake hypothesis. We don't, indeed can't, say, "how can we know?" and give it 50% probability.
Our observations of the connections between brain states and consciousness also don't leave much room for disembodied existence. Personally, I wouldn't say it's as well established as the nonexistence of asteroidal chocolate cake, but I put souls, ghosts, and other spirits a long way below the 50% of maximum ignorance.
Any ghosts out there reading this? Show yourselves, don't just give a few people spooky chills!
1) Regarding connection we see between brain states and consciousness, how do we know that people are really "unconscious"? What if they're still experiencing and feeling things, but are just incapable of communicating this to us at the time, and are incapable of remembering it? Sort of like how when we are asleep and dreaming we're conscious but we could only confirm this is we wake up at the right time (actually, I'm not sure if this is actually true).
2) Assuming that the connection between brain states and consciousness is legit, then I think you're right. After thinking about it some more, I think the point you make below means it'd be much less than a 50/50 chance.
We have all this data that says "mess the brain up, and you mess consciousness up". It's possible that there is some underlying thing that represents consciousness, but we have data that says that this thing is messed up when you mess the brain up. It'd be crazy if your brain happens to be messed up in such a way when you die that it leaves the thing underlying consciousness in tact.
But as far as overall likelihood of consciousness remaining, it depends on 1). Could we really say that brain states correlate with unconsciousness? How can we determine unconsciousness?
A hypothesis thus described is untestable. Moreover, it's inconsequential: the observed result is the same regardless of whether the hypothesis is true or not. In such a case, the hypothesis can be safely ignored because it adds nothing to our models.
1) Untestable doesn't mean wrong.
2) What about the possibility that we just can't do a good job of measuring peoples' consciousness given our level of technology?