181–190 of 311 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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."
The default assumption should be that NDEs are hallucinations in a brain moving towards dysfunction.
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 like asking "Where does the car engine's 'brrrrrrrr' sound go when it runs out of petrol?" or "Where does the plane go when it spontaneously disassembles at full speed into a mountain?".
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 [citation needed] I used to have a severe drug and alcohol problem. I once drank a bunch of beers and took 3 or 4 times the recommended dose of Ativan. I woke up 24 hours later from a blackout and discovered in that time I had walked to the store and bought more beer and some snacks. I had absolutely no memory of it. So I'm going to say…
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…
What's important is what we do with the time we have, the ripples we send out into the world. That I think is the true value of our lives
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…
The sense of identity should by default be associated with the brain, not with consciousness, etc.
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…
Death will be like waking up somewhere else with no sense of time having passed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
The difference is clear. For anesthesia, it's the same brain waking up. That's not the case with death. The sense of identity should by default be associated with the brain, not with consciousness, etc.
I think that consciousness (or rather the feeling of consciousness) is very related to continuous long-term memory storing. When you're blackout drunk, or under anesthesia, your brain can still infer connections between sequential stimuli (e.g. you can understand words), but none of those memories stay in your brain long-term. I'd say that we were actually conscious during that period, but in the present moment we ha…
Are you my surgeon? About six years ago I was to undergo somewhat novel surgery and the chappie asked if he could record the procedure, it being a research hospital and all). "Sure," I said, "if you can assure me I will feel no pain."
He said that he could not promise that, but they he could assure me I would not remember it even if it did.
And that's the alpha and the omega of my philosophizing. If I can't remember it happening, did it even? How does this map to criminal justice?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I get to keep the qualia yes absolutely.
The copy would keep all your memories and would experience qualia, the question is, is it you? After all, your body was torn apart to extract the information to build the new one. Bear in mind qualia are instantaneous, you don't keep them, only memories of them. Sorry, I added the example of the SF story while you were replying to my post. In that story now there's two of the same person walking about, both of whom t…
But if consciousness is based on what is percieved from physical world, then the consciousness can really take different forms, be parallel, be one single consciousness, and even not be dependant on time at all.
I think more interesting concept, than comparing death with being partially unconscious, is losing your complete memory. If consciousness is related on having past memories and experiences, how can we say a person can be conscious and function without having any single recollection of anything that ever happened.