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Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

naturalism.org

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Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#21

Post by tgflynn »

grog454 wrote: post #18
tgflynn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I think that most people don't believe in reincarnation.

> reincarnation The idea leads to so many questions. In your version, is the reincarnated person conscious of their past selves? If not, is that any different than a clone? What happens between death and reincarnation? How does the math work? Is there an upper limit to the number of human consciousnesses that can be incarnated at once? Non-human consciousnesses? Non-sentient ones? Along those lines: what is it that l…

I'm not sure why you say "in my version" because I didn't say I believed in reincarnation, just that the parent's comment kind of only makes sense if you do.

Personally I have no particularly strong views on these matters but some form of non-dualism (in the the sense of advaita vedanta) seems to me to make the most sense.

From that perspective many of your questions kind of go away because at the most fundamental level there is only one consciousness. You don't perceive the experiences of others because consciousness has created a construct within itself that filters out experiences that don't make sense from "your" point of view. The part that I admit is difficult to get one's head around is that it has created not one but many (perhaps even infinitely many) such constructs. We are only able to experience one dream at a time but absolute consciousness/brahman/God/I or whatever you want to call it experiences many.

EDIT: Sorry I did want to address one of your questions more specifically:

> How can I prove to myself that I'm not a brain in a vat?

I don't think you can, even in principle.

In fact advaita is a lot like that in some ways, or like the simulation hypothesis. Where I think it differs is that "brain in a vat" and the simulation hypothesis are both making assumptions that what's outside the simulation is something like what's inside it. Advaita makes no such assumptions.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#22

Post by bspammer »

tgflynn wrote: post #11
teekert wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm I guess after attaining my current worldview and dropping religion, I stopped worrying about death as a “state”. Because I was not uncomfortable before I was born I always reasoned. I tell my kids the same if they ask what is after death? I ask them back, what was it like before being born? It will be like that. Of course I still don't want to die.

I think that reasoning makes sense up to a point. But how do you know you weren't uncomfortable before you were born ? There were likely times you were uncomfortable when you were a baby but you don't remember them.

It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. All the evidence, not to mention common sense, points to conscious experience requiring a brain.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#23

Post by joegibbs »

drblast wrote: post #19
tarun_anand wrote: post #2

Could someone explain to a layman what this article is trying to say?

Imagine a star trek transporter was a real thing. In that show, I think the common explanation was that the transporter didn't send you places, but merely created a copy of you somewhere else and destroyed the original. Now imagine if it were possible to instantly and cheaply travel to Paris this way. Many people would likely be just fine with doing this. Now imagine that one day, the transporter doesn't destroy the…

Would many people really be totally fine with getting disintegrated and a copy made immediately, if they knew that's what was happening? Even if it's instant I think that if you told someone they would be killed and an exact clone of them could get a free trip to Paris there'd be a very low chance they'd agree to it.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#24

Post by tgflynn »

bspammer wrote: post #22
tgflynn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that reasoning makes sense up to a point. But how do you know you weren't uncomfortable before you were born ? There were likely times you were uncomfortable when you were a baby but you don't remember them.

It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. All the evidence, not to mention common sense, points to conscious experience requiring a brain.

> It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence.

I'm pretty sure you are relying on memory because how do you know this "evidence" other than by experiencing it as memories ?

What is certain is that this "evidence" is only known to you within conscious experience (either memories, thoughts, or maybe some other kind of experience I haven't thought of) so using it to infer something about the nature of conscious experience itself is a questionable exercise.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#25

Post by layer8 »

Koshkin wrote: post #15
layer8 wrote: post #12

The reification of the nothingness after death is warranted insofar as we compare it to the alternative of not dying. The continued life is certainly a real thing, so there is (negative?) reality to its absence. Otherwise murder wouldn’t be a felony.

By why would that “negative reality” of yours only extend into the future but not also into the past, i.e. the time before birth?

Because there is no hope for an earlier life in the past, as opposed to for a later life in the future. While we mentally live both in the past and in the future (and only little in the present), it’s not symmetric. We usually live for a better future. Depression for example is correlated with hopelessness for the future. You can’t lose hope for the past, because you consider it immutable and (usually) known, whereas the future is in flux and can be influenced, and is yet unknown (to some degree). The prospect of death on the other hand is incompatible with any subjective future one could hope for.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#26

Post by bspammer »

tgflynn wrote: post #24
bspammer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. All the evidence, not to mention common sense, points to conscious experience requiring a brain.

> It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. I'm pretty sure you are relying on memory because how do you know this "evidence" other than by experiencing it as memories ? What is certain is that this "evidence" is only known to you within conscious experience (either memories, thoughts, or maybe some other kind of experience I haven't thought of) so using it to infer something about the nature of conscious experie…

It’s very easy in these philosophical discussions to just throw your hands up in the air and say “well we can never know anything because everything is subjective”, but personally I think that’s boring.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#27

Post by tgflynn »

bspammer wrote: post #26
tgflynn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. I'm pretty sure you are relying on memory because how do you know this "evidence" other than by experiencing it as memories ? What is certain is that this "evidence" is only known to you within conscious experience (either memories, thoughts, or maybe some other kind of experience I haven't thought of) so using it to infer something about the nature of conscious experie…

It’s very easy in these philosophical discussions to just throw your hands up in the air and say “well we can never know anything because everything is subjective”, but personally I think that’s boring.

It's interesting that you think the fundamental nature of reality depends on what you find "boring" or not.

In any case I disagree that we know nothing. We know that subjective experience exists. I think it makes sense to start with what we actually know rather than with a bunch of concepts we've invented (like matter) to explain the phenomena we experience. The only basis I see for believing in the reality of these concepts is their apparent consistency and predictability, but even that is largely illusory once you move beyond very simple systems or machines that we've designed to be predictable.

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#28

Post by [deleted] »

Koshkin wrote: post #15
layer8 wrote: post #12

The reification of the nothingness after death is warranted insofar as we compare it to the alternative of not dying. The continued life is certainly a real thing, so there is (negative?) reality to its absence. Otherwise murder wouldn’t be a felony.

By why would that “negative reality” of yours only extend into the future but not also into the past, i.e. the time before birth?

[deleted]

Re: Death, Nothingness, and Subjectivity (1994)

#29

Post by bspammer »

tgflynn wrote: post #27
bspammer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s very easy in these philosophical discussions to just throw your hands up in the air and say “well we can never know anything because everything is subjective”, but personally I think that’s boring.

It's interesting that you think the fundamental nature of reality depends on what you find "boring" or not. In any case I disagree that we know nothing. We know that subjective experience exists. I think it makes sense to start with what we actually know rather than with a bunch of concepts we've invented (like matter) to explain the phenomena we experience. The only basis I see for believing in the reality of these…

> It's interesting that you think the fundamental nature of reality depends on what you find "boring" or not.

I did not say this, I said the discussion is boring because it’s not falsifiable. We might as well just say fairies are real but not perceivable by humans or any device humans can build. It could be true, but who cares? We’ll never know one way or the other by definition.

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