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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?

#151

Post by bowsamic »

2snakes wrote: post #101
bowsamic wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Buddhist answer is that all of physical reality is also in the mind. Rather than physical and mental being separate, physical reality itself is constructed by the mind

Right. In Kastrup's idealism, a scalpel, for example, is actually a transpersonal mental process. So it modifies brain-consciousness much like an emotion or thought modifies other thoughts.

No, the scalpel doesn’t actually exist except as an idea in the mind that is attached to, thus it can’t be said to really exist in any way. It is empty of self existence (svahbhava), as is our own mind. Nothing has fundamental essence or identity

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#152

Post by dsego »

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…

Plenty of NDE reports to keep your hopes up. Unless the whole reincarnation trap and erasing memories is real, that would suck.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#153

Post by simonh »

galangalalgol wrote: post #91
simonh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but would that be the same you, or as though someone had made a copy of you?

"A difference that makes no difference is no difference.'

So how would you feel if I offered to make two copies of you, but in the process your body would be instantly and painlessly destroyed. That's twice as much of you. A good deal, yes? I could offer to do the same for your children. You'd have twice as many loving kids to look after you in your old age.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#154

Post by canjobear »

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.

The experience of general anesthesia is: you go under, and then suddenly you are awake (hopefully) after your operation, with no intervening memories.

I don't see how this tells you what death is like. Death is like the stuff in between when you go to sleep and wake up, which you have no memory of (because there is nothing to remember). Nor is going under general anesthesia like going into death, because you believe with high probability that you are going to wake up, whereas if you are going to die you know you won't wake up.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#155

Post by rolph »

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…

endeavor to create somthing beyond your mortality, something that persists in peoples minds and exists in reality, something that proves you were more than just a story.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#156

Post by dsego »

e_i_pi_2 wrote: post #140
danhau wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not arguing for or against anything here, but regarding your comparison: > If the brain is a receiver for consciousness, surely my consciousness should exist independently of my brain? Interfering with a radio doesn’t change what’s happening in the recording studio. Interfering with a radio distorts the transmitted, outcoming sound. You could say your perceived consciousness is just that: something transmitted fr…

I totally agree with the parent post but was coming here to say the same thing - the best argument I've heard along these lines is that the signal is still transmitting but "you" aren't receiving it. This kinda makes goes against the idea of consciousness where you're aware of stuff, so in this case it should be more like an out-of-body experience that you do remember, but I could easily see someone arguing that it's…

There are crazier theories out there.

> There is only one reality per person. It is set up by the soul specifically to obtain experiences from. We do not share our reality with anyone. It only looks that way.

> To facilitate educational growth, Souls create “Realities”. Realities are a classroom that Souls can grow through a surrogate “human”

> Soul places an “interface” within the constructed “reality”. This is known as “consciousness”.

> The universal template consists of every single human, and every possible action that they were involved in, from the earliest dates to the end of humanity. The soul selects individual realities out of this universal template.

> Once the experiences, and the lessons, are finished the consciousness leaves the physical reality. It returns home to soul.

> There are a (near) infinite number of world-lines that a consciousness (person) can experience.

> Consciousness can migrate from one reality to another reality. This is commonly known as world-line travel. As such, these changes help to bring about desired experiences and lessons

... and so on

https://metallicman.com/laoban4site/consciousness-migration-...

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#157

Post by simonh »

canjobear wrote: post #154
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. The experience of general anesthesia is: you go under, and then suddenly you are awake (hopefully) after your operation, with no intervening memories. I don't see how this tells you what death is like. Death is like the stuff in between when you go to sleep and wake up, which you have no memory of (because there is nothing to remember)…

The point I think that death is just like losing conciseness completely and being just totally gone, and you just had that experience. The only difference is that with death you never come back.

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#158

Post by foobarian »

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…

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 one really burns.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#159

Post by pavlov »

dsego wrote: post #152
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…

Plenty of NDE reports to keep your hopes up. Unless the whole reincarnation trap and erasing memories is real, that would suck.

How are near-death experiences proof of anything else than brain activity when in a critical state but not yet dead?

IMO it's like saying "exception handlers are proof that Unix processes can't be terminated."

Re: Under anesthesia, where do our minds go?

#160

Post by tmountain »

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…

Yeah, it's interesting to think about. I've often wondered what would happen if a structurally identical configuration of matter and energy representing "me" manifested somewhere.

Taking it further, is the atomic world the only medium where this "me" could be represented? What if there were a perfect digital model of "me"? Would that be conscious?

What other mediums might be able to support something similar to our notion of consciousness?

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