What happens after you die: a theory.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So assuming that there's no souls and you're finally obliterated for good, what happens next? Well, there's no consciousness for you. 1 second of death will feel exactly the same as 1 year of death or 500 trillion years of it.

But in the universe there exists some combination of atoms that makes you you--otherwise you wouldn't have been able to feel consciousness in the first place. Even if we're our most restrictive and say that only the exact sequence of atoms like you had at your original birth will create your particular consciousness, it still doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it takes a googleplex to the googleplex to the googleplex number of years--you won't feel the intervening timespan. It'll seriously be like blinking your eye; one nanosecond you're on your deathbed and the next thing you know you'll 'wake' up again as a small child or whatever form is needed to create the sensation of consciousness again.

This holds true even if the heat death of the universe happens and makes it impossible for even time and matter to exist. You won't feel the passing of infinity at all--so that no matter how long it takes for the universe to reboot or change the physical laws, it's a meaningless sensation for you.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That said, when Lago #N+1 experiences consciousness sometime in the future, how about dealing me a better hand? I mean, being a middle-class American in the Information Age was pretty fucken rad to the max, but it's not exactly perfect. I could use some more friends. And a lot more dough. And a bigger penis.

Make it happen, infinity. ... no?

Well, fuck you, too.

[Juton]

TMI

[K]

The problem is one of the basic personal identity paradoxes, one that often gets demonstrated by philosophers using Star Trek Transporters.

It works like this: even if the exact same atoms are made into you in the exact same way, you are dead. There is some other guy with your memories.

So each time a Star Trek guys through a transporter, he dies and a new guy with his memories appears. Objectively, it's the same guy, but subjectively it's not.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So each time a Star Trek guys through a transporter, he dies and a new guy with his memories appears. Objectively, it's the same guy, but subjectively it's not.

But no one really cares as long as you have the continuity of consciousness.

A better question would be to ask: what gave you consciousness in the first place and why can't it happen again?

[Koumei]

So, if you were going to die, and you had the option to make a clone of you from the point of your death - an exact clone who thinks like you and says the exact same things to the guy at the pet store, ala that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie - would you? I mean, from your perspective, you die and it's lights out: it ends. To the perspective of the other you, who everyone else will see as you, you never died.

But you wouldn't be bringing yourself back as yourself, you'd be making a different you - activating the cloninator would be an act for someone else. So would you do it? Or would you say "Fuck em, *I* won't be there for it" and not do it? Or alternatively say "The world doesn't need another me, I've had my ride" or something?

[Lago PARANOIA]

I dunno what exactly makes up consciousness. I mean, I can be fairly sure that if a clone was made of me with my memories down to the atomic structure I still wouldn't 'feel' what was going on in my clone-firm. Though if that CAN create consciousness that would be pretty freaky.

My theory was more just a simple musing on that if I can have consciousness once, I can have it again. And since I don't have to experience the intervening timespan between when I don't have consciousness and have it again, it'll be one long string of waking up in an infant's body. Forever.

[Red_Rob]

one long string of waking up in an infant's body

Must ... avoid ... Pedobear joke

Anyway, given the extreme time it would take for a random selection of molecules to randomly form you again, wouldn't the heat death of the universe have already occurred by this point?

[Kaelik]

Garjnaslkdjfb alushd poasdf psad asjdh faher n,ZSMd :LHsefjlks;kldfhkans dkjaskdjfn kasjdbflkashdfklhasdkjfnlkk!

[Lago PARANOIA]

Anyway, given the extreme time it would take for a random selection of molecules to randomly form you again, wouldn't the heat death of the universe have already occurred by this point?

That's where things get kind of weird. Is the heat death of the universe really the end of all eternity for an infinity number of years? Whose to say that something won't happen that spans another universe? It doesn't matter even if it takes infinity minus one years for it to happen, you won't even feel it.

[Kaelik]

Anyway, given the extreme time it would take for a random selection of molecules to randomly form you again, wouldn't the heat death of the universe have already occurred by this point?

That's where things get kind of weird. Is the heat death of the universe really the end of all eternity for an infinity number of years? Whose to say that something won't happen that spans another universe? It doesn't matter even if it takes infinity minus one years for it to happen, you won't even feel it.

Lago, stop being stupid, it is entirely possible that given infinity years, no situation will ever create exactly the same arrangement of atoms that makes up you, right down to the memories.

Since that's not ever going to happen, even in infinity years, you will not wake up after you died. You won't even wake up ever, and why do you think that the particular combination that is created it you right before you died? It's much more likely that the exact copy created is an exact copy of you when you were born, and then you just get to be a loser.

But all this is stupid, because you are stupid.

What do you think the chances are that at any point ever, even in infinity universes, a fully formed human being is going to just appear out of random particles? If you answer know to this, then the only way "you" could ever start existing again is if "you" were born to a human being, and so, you only have the finite time period before all the humans die, and then you never come again.

And also, if you were born, you would not be born with all your prior memories, because brains are intentionally not vast repositories of random collections of memories when people are born.

TL;DR:

You are a particular arrangement of atoms that is highly highly ordered, and therefore, opposed by all natural process from being created. The random interaction of random particles is never going to spontaneously create you, ever, not even once in infinity years. The only reason you exist now is because some specific machinery that is very ordered has been designed to propagate itself, and did so to create you.

No one will ever give birth to an 80 year old person with your memories. Therefore, when you die, you will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever exist after you die.

[K]

So each time a Star Trek guys through a transporter, he dies and a new guy with his memories appears. Objectively, it's the same guy, but subjectively it's not.

But no one really cares as long as you have the continuity of consciousness.

A better question would be to ask: what gave you consciousness in the first place and why can't it happen again?

But that's the point. You don't have continuity of consciousness.

So let's look at the Star Trek example. You go into a machine that destroys you, then recreates you somewhere else.

What happens if just once, it doesn't destroy you and it creates you on the other side? Well, then there is someone else with all your memories who thinks he is you but you are still on the transport pad. But, to the outside world both appear to be you.

There is no reason to even believe that there is continuity of consciousness even when we go to sleep.... we may die and someone else with the same memories wakes up thinking it is us. We may even die moment to moment as new memories change consciousness.

[Ganbare Gincun]

But that's the point. You don't have continuity of consciousness.

So let's look at the Star Trek example. You go into a machine that destroys you, then recreates you somewhere else.

What happens if just once, it doesn't destroy you and it creates you on the other side? Well, then there is someone else with all your memories who thinks he is you but you are still on the transport pad. But, to the outside world both appear to be you.

That happened already in Star Trek.

[For Valor]

But that's the point. You don't have continuity of consciousness.

So let's look at the Star Trek example. You go into a machine that destroys you, then recreates you somewhere else.

What happens if just once, it doesn't destroy you and it creates you on the other side? Well, then there is someone else with all your memories who thinks he is you but you are still on the transport pad. But, to the outside world both appear to be you.

That happened already in Star Trek.

I have an episode like this in book form. Fuckin' weird...

[K]

But that's the point. You don't have continuity of consciousness.

So let's look at the Star Trek example. You go into a machine that destroys you, then recreates you somewhere else.

What happens if just once, it doesn't destroy you and it creates you on the other side? Well, then there is someone else with all your memories who thinks he is you but you are still on the transport pad. But, to the outside world both appear to be you.

That happened already in Star Trek.

I know.

In the 80s a bunch of philosophers who wanted to talk about personal identity used Star Trek transporters as an example, but it took Star Trek writers a while to actually make an episode out of it.

I personally find it kind of amusing that TNG actually inspired real philosophers to write real academic papers using Trek stuff as an example. They even collected those papers into several books. (http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Philoso ... 0812696492)

[CatharzGodfoot]

[Lago PARANOIA]

There is no reason to even believe that there is continuity of consciousness even when we go to sleep.... we may die and someone else with the same memories wakes up thinking it is us. We may even die moment to moment as new memories change consciousness.

So... how is this different from having continuity of consciousness? Even assuming your theory is correct, there's at least one discrete moment (conveniently always being pushed up to 'now') where I have a head full of memories arranged so that it feels like I had continuity of consciousness? What created it in the first place and more importantly why can't it happen again?

You are a particular arrangement of atoms that is highly highly ordered, and therefore, opposed by all natural process from being created. The random interaction of random particles is never going to spontaneously create you, ever, not even once in infinity years.

That's fallacious reasoning. Even if you ran a lottery which had a googleplex to the googleplex to the graham's number of participants but only one winner, if you ran the lottery an infinite number of times you'd eventually have a repeat. There's only a finite arrangement of particles that make up my brain or whatever caused my particular arrangement of consciousness. Even if you subscribe to K's theory that there's no continuity of consciousness there's still a chance of it happening. And it doesn't matter how unlikely it is for the arrangement to take place given enough time it will happen again. And it doesn't matter how many parameters you add onto it down to requiring the universe to be in the exact arrangement of molecules a second time, if you do it an infinity amount of times it will happen again. And if the only way for someone to experience a particular consciousness is to have that happen again you're still not going to feel the intervening timespan.

The whole 'there's a unique set of forces and history that will never happen again' loses it's 'never' part when you don't set an upper limit for it. That's the beauty of infinity.

[Chamomile]

Did this thread have continuity of consciousness between October and today?

[Kaelik]

That's fallacious reasoning. Even if you ran a lottery which had a googleplex to the googleplex to the graham's number of participants but only one winner, if you ran the lottery an infinite number of times you'd eventually have a repeat. There's only a finite arrangement of particles that make up my brain or whatever caused my particular arrangement of consciousness. Even if you subscribe to K's theory that there's no continuity of consciousness there's still a chance of it happening. And it doesn't matter how unlikely it is for the arrangement to take place given enough time it will happen again. And it doesn't matter how many parameters you add onto it down to requiring the universe to be in the exact arrangement of molecules a second time, if you do it an infinity amount of times it will happen again. And if the only way for someone to experience a particular consciousness is to have that happen again you're still not going to feel the intervening timespan.

The whole 'there's a unique set of forces and history that will never happen again' loses it's 'never' part when you don't set an upper limit for it. That's the beauty of infinity.

1) There is continuity of consciousness if and only if the new you comes into being having your exact structure down to the molecule, and therefore, identical memories. This will not happen because see 2.

2) No you idiot, it's not that it's exceedingly unlikely that you will spontaneously generate out of thin air, it's that it's actually impossible. Given infinite time in this universe or infinite universes with the same set of physical laws, at no point will a bunch of molecules randomly collide into a fully functional human being with memories. That will not ever happen. (If the universe has different physical laws, a) fuck you, how can you exist under different physical laws as you, that's incoherent. b) there is no reason to believe that any physical laws would allow a human being exactly as they currently exist on earth to collide into being)

3) Having established the actual fucking impossibility (not improbability) of a bunch of random molecules forming a human being from the whole cloth all Adam and Eve style, we turn to someone being born and having all your memories.

This is merely improbable, but not really significantly more improbable than it happening the first time, but it's also irrelevant.

There might be three other universes "prior" to this one, or possibly even a really coincidentally similar planet in another galaxy that has already had a "you" on it, with all your memories and everything. So fucking what? You don't remember their lifetimes because by definition if you did remember their lifetimes, you would no longer be you, you would have double the memories of them, and thus not be them. You don't have any memories of other yous, and any other yous that might exist in the "future" definitionally won't have your memories plus their own. If they are born to parents, and undergo all the experiences you have undergone, they will remember those experiences, and not remember doing them exactly the same "twice" whatever the fuck that means.

I mean, if we cloned you tomorrow, and made sure that every environmental factor was identical from womb to grave, and raised the clone in a virtual reality that was perfect in every way, and specifically designed to mimic every event that ever happened to you, (it's not actually possible for us to do those things, but if we could) that you would actually have all the exact same memories and be in every way identical to you. But you wouldn't have continuity of consciousness with it. You wouldn't remember both sets of identical events, and neither would it, and when you died, you wouldn't magically be it, it would still be it, and you will be dead, it will just be identical to you at a certain point in the past. But it was already identical to a past you before you died, so this is not some magic way for you to come back to life.

[Josh_Kablack]

What happens after you die: a theory.

Good luck recruiting subjects for the experiments to affirm or disprove that.

[Whatever]

Isn't it more likely that you'd (re)appear in a computer simulation, rather than in reality?

[DSMatticus]

I'm not entirely convinced continuity of consciousness is a thing that actually exists. It certainly seems that way, but that's because you are seeing things from the perspective of an entity that is capable of remembering the shit that just happened a few seconds again, so you assume there is some meaningful link between the you now and the you then. I see no reason to actually believe that link exists, though.

It's just silly to think we're different from a rock in any way but complexity.

[Kaelik]

I'm not entirely convinced continuity of consciousness is a thing that actually exists. It certainly seems that way, but that's because you are seeing things from the perspective of an entity that is capable of remembering the shit that just happened a few seconds again, so you assume there is some meaningful link between the you now and the you then. I see no reason to actually believe that link exists, though.

It's just silly to think we're different from a rock in any way but complexity.

I assume that when people say continuity of consciousness, they mean "remembering the conscious state of 6 seconds ago." Hence why my entire post is about what you do or don't remember.

If by continuity of consciousness they instead mean "MAGIC SUPERNATURAL BULLSHIT!" They can suck a barrel of cocks.

[Lago PARANOIA]

2) No you idiot, it's not that it's exceedingly unlikely that you will spontaneously generate out of thin air, it's that it's actually impossible. Given infinite time in this universe or infinite universes with the same set of physical laws, at no point will a bunch of molecules randomly collide into a fully functional human being with memories.

Err, who said anything about a random bunch of molecules colliding to form a functional human being? The process of creating me or anyone or anything in the universe can be determined by reverse branching. There was a random but finite number of ways my mother could've spawned the molecules that led to me. The same applies to my grandmother and her. You continue up the chain however many times (which is a ridiculously large number but still <infinity) until you get to primordial soup. Then you have to calculate the odds of a particular set of chemical and geological reactions making that happen. Then you go backwards still among the ebb and flow of the stars and matter as far as you feel like. And you can keep going up that chain and counting the possible branches. It doesn't matter how many variables you add, you'll still get a finite number of possible branches the universe could have gone. And it doesn't matter what kind of variables you add; you could make it so that my great meemaw had to walk in a certain pattern of steps 68 years ago and a deviation a trillionth of a picometer would not make what I now recognize as consciousness happen. Again, it multiplies the odds against my particular consciousness happening a huge amount but still does not make it non-zero.



RE: DSM Even so, assuming such a thing as cause-and-effect exists I can make the observation that 'hey, I have consciousness' right now and then 10 minutes later I can make the same observation. What was going on when I made this observation and when I make it 10 minutes later?

Good luck recruiting subjects for the experiments to affirm or disprove that.

Well, the amusing/horrifying thing about it is that the stricter the requirements you set to make it so that someone feels a particular consciousness the more it will make your lives seem like a groundhog day's loop.

[Kaelik]

Err, who said anything about a random bunch of molecules colliding to form a functional human being? The process of creating me or anyone or anything in the universe can be determined by reverse branching.

Except that by fucking definition you would not have continuity of consciousness with any clone of you unless it remembered the things you did. And so in an infinite number of infinite universes the only way that could happen is if you fucking spontaneously generated out of nothing, because as the rest of my post that you ignored pointed out, otherwise it will just have memories of the things it did, and you will still be dead. You fucking idiot.