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Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

nautil.us

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Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#161

Post by keymon-o »

ne0flex wrote: post #132
velcrovan wrote: post #104

RadioLab did an episode on this topic “Decoding the Void” in 2014 ( https://www.radiolab.org/episodes/anesthesia ) that, for me, pretty much deconstructed the whole idea of an afterlife in 20 minutes. What happens when we die? People commonly think of this as some kind of unknowable mystery. But people lose consciousness all the time and aren't entering the spirit world when they do so. If you’ve ever awoken from gen…

While the rational side of me thinks that death is probably oblivion, I just don't want to admit it. After a friend of mine passed away, I did a lot of soul searching and basically came to the conclusion that there's nothing after death. It was mentally destructive for me and sent me into a bout of depression. I'd hate to think that we're going through all this just to have your entire life multiplied by 0 at the end…

Well, no matter how rational you are, it is still your conscious self that is perceiving the physical world and is just trying to makes sense of it. What happens to "you" after the death is really not related to understanding physical world, or at least not strictly dependant on the physical world. Which, at least for me, it means anything is more possible than just oblivion.

The not-knowing factor (of what happens in your life) is what drives most people to live, so why wouldn't give one a positive drive to actually live life and find out the same thing about death. You just don't skip high school to find out things what life in 40s will be like. :)

Edit: I hope I did't invoke illusion of being religious in any way. It's a purely philosophical way of questioning something you cannot possibly know.

Edit2: Also, other repliers (that obviously read more books than me) explain some really great theories

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#162

Post by dsego »

kahnclusions wrote: post #46

As far as we can tell consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of the physical processes of the brain, and when you interrupt those processes, you don’t form new memories, and when you wake up it’s as if you time travelled to that point. Any other explanation involves a lot of hand-waving and vast unfounded assumptions that contradict the known laws of physics. My question for those cases is: how does it work? For exa…

> For example, if there really is a “soul” that is able to influence (and be influenced by) my brain, then what is the physical mechanism for that interaction?

Apparently, something to do with brain microtubules & quantum vibrations.

https://youtu.be/xGbgDf4HCHU

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#163

Post by bowsamic »

velcrovan wrote: post #104

RadioLab did an episode on this topic “Decoding the Void” in 2014 ( https://www.radiolab.org/episodes/anesthesia ) that, for me, pretty much deconstructed the whole idea of an afterlife in 20 minutes. What happens when we die? People commonly think of this as some kind of unknowable mystery. But people lose consciousness all the time and aren't entering the spirit world when they do so. If you’ve ever awoken from gen…

> If you’ve ever awoken from general anesthesia, you know what death will be like

How? Death is obviously very different from your body being alive an unconscious. You are just assuming they must be the same thing. Why make that assumption? The only reason I can think of is that the feeling of “time just skipped” conforms to your pre existing presumption that death will also be like that, but I don’t have that presumption. You would need to argue that death is like losing consciousness, but you haven’t tried to do so, and it’s not obvious at all to me that it is true

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#164

Post by simonh »

foobarian wrote: post #158
ne0flex wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the rational side of me thinks that death is probably oblivion, I just don't want to admit it. After a friend of mine passed away, I did a lot of soul searching and basically came to the conclusion that there's nothing after death. It was mentally destructive for me and sent me into a bout of depression. I'd hate to think that we're going through all this just to have your entire life multiplied by 0 at the end…

I concluded that, with high probability, there is life after death. Simple: 1. Current life is clearly possible (cogito ergo sum etc). 2. When this one ends, statistically it's inevitable there will be another one. See e.g. Boltzmann brain [1]. The pickle is that the timespan between 1 and 2 could be very long. But since you're not aware of it that doesn't matter. Also, the other pickle is you won't remember it, and…

That's just a copy of you though. It's not you. If I offered to teleport you to work every morning, super convenient and free, but the teleporter destroys your body and creates a new identical copy at the other end every time, would you use it?

There's an SF story where someone invents a teleporter, and it becomes very popular, but then one of them goes wrong and doesn't destroy the original body.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#165

Post by bowsamic »

LadyCailin wrote: post #115
velcrovan wrote: post #104

RadioLab did an episode on this topic “Decoding the Void” in 2014 ( https://www.radiolab.org/episodes/anesthesia ) that, for me, pretty much deconstructed the whole idea of an afterlife in 20 minutes. What happens when we die? People commonly think of this as some kind of unknowable mystery. But people lose consciousness all the time and aren't entering the spirit world when they do so. If you’ve ever awoken from gen…

It’s also the same as what it was like before you were born. I “remember” nothing from that time period, I felt nothing, I was not somewhere else. I simply did not exist, and nor did my consciousness.

> It’s also the same as what it was like before you were born.

1. How do you know this? It doesn’t seem obvious that it would be the same before being born as after death

2. How do you know you just don’t remember what happened then?

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#166

Post by lisper »

velcrovan wrote: post #104

RadioLab did an episode on this topic “Decoding the Void” in 2014 ( https://www.radiolab.org/episodes/anesthesia ) that, for me, pretty much deconstructed the whole idea of an afterlife in 20 minutes. What happens when we die? People commonly think of this as some kind of unknowable mystery. But people lose consciousness all the time and aren't entering the spirit world when they do so. If you’ve ever awoken from gen…

One could argue the exact opposite: the fact that you wake from anesthesia (and sleep) with your identity intact indicates that it still exists even during these periods of unawareness. So if your identity can be restored after sleep and anesthesia, why not after death as well?

(For the record: I'm totally with you that there is no life after death. All I'm saying is it's not a slam-dunk, and it is particularly not a slam-dunk on the phenomenology. You need to know a lot about how the brain works in order to conclude that there is no afterlife.)

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#167

Post by foobarian »

simonh wrote: post #164
foobarian wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concluded that, with high probability, there is life after death. Simple: 1. Current life is clearly possible (cogito ergo sum etc). 2. When this one ends, statistically it's inevitable there will be another one. See e.g. Boltzmann brain [1]. The pickle is that the timespan between 1 and 2 could be very long. But since you're not aware of it that doesn't matter. Also, the other pickle is you won't remember it, and…

That's just a copy of you though. It's not you. If I offered to teleport you to work every morning, super convenient and free, but the teleporter destroys your body and creates a new identical copy at the other end every time, would you use it? There's an SF story where someone invents a teleporter, and it becomes very popular, but then one of them goes wrong and doesn't destroy the original body.

If I get to keep the qualia yes absolutely.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#168

Post by lurquer »

upsidesinclude wrote: post #138
tmountain wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occam's razor. In philosophy, a razor is a principle or rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate ("shave off") unlikely explanations for a phenomenon, or avoid unnecessary actions. In essence, they provide guardrails to keep discussions centered within the realm of reason when venturing to the edge of our knowledge and beyond.

Except it fails the deeper you go in understanding physical phenomena. We should not exist per Occam. If you can hold on your awareness that the atoms of your body are not 'matter' but signatures of energy bound in a field, then the physical brain is much harder to consider the real and constructing element of reality. I think many of these discussions are just measuring the difference in what we each perceive as the…

> We should not exist per Occam.

Good point

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#169

Post by velcrovan »

foobarian wrote: post #158
ne0flex wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the rational side of me thinks that death is probably oblivion, I just don't want to admit it. After a friend of mine passed away, I did a lot of soul searching and basically came to the conclusion that there's nothing after death. It was mentally destructive for me and sent me into a bout of depression. I'd hate to think that we're going through all this just to have your entire life multiplied by 0 at the end…

I concluded that, with high probability, there is life after death. Simple: 1. Current life is clearly possible (cogito ergo sum etc). 2. When this one ends, statistically it's inevitable there will be another one. See e.g. Boltzmann brain [1]. The pickle is that the timespan between 1 and 2 could be very long. But since you're not aware of it that doesn't matter. Also, the other pickle is you won't remember it, and…

Another (competing) conception of “consciousness after death” is that (perhaps depending on the manner of death) consciousness continues but degrades further and further into an obscene, wretched stupidity. See https://thelocalyarn.com/article/death-decay-and-the-haunted...

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#170

Post by ne0flex »

jck wrote: post #143
ne0flex wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the rational side of me thinks that death is probably oblivion, I just don't want to admit it. After a friend of mine passed away, I did a lot of soul searching and basically came to the conclusion that there's nothing after death. It was mentally destructive for me and sent me into a bout of depression. I'd hate to think that we're going through all this just to have your entire life multiplied by 0 at the end…

Some would argue the exact opposite - that the ephemeral nature of existence makes being alive that much more special. That our finite existence here is a gift to treasure and enjoy and not just something you tolerate while you wait for the "real thing"(eternal existence in heaven or whatever)

I don't necessarily view life as a toleration of living and waiting until death, o hope for a "real thing" after death. I'm more hoping for something along of the lines of a "next phase" like transition from school life to working life. The idea the equation of experiences and knowledge if your life ends with an ...)*0 is just depressing. I'd like to continue to build on my life experiences and reconnect with loved ones, at least in some sense in relation to my individual experience, not a metaphorical one - if that makes sense.
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