Non-Religious Life After Death

[SinkRox]

If we assume there is no God and relative after-life, how confident are you guys that there's some 'other' afterlife / re-incarnation?

I haven't studied it at all, but after talking to friends I've a few ideas:

1. Atoms

Our atoms are still around, whizzing off around the universe, maybe we continue with a completely different consciousness.

2. Infinity

Will the universe go on for an infinite amount of time? If so then over infinite time almost anythings possible right? (e.g monkeys writing shakespare with a typewriter) therefor eventually one day *wham* you may come back, as yourself or a different entity. Interestingly it may be almost instant if we do not experience the time in transition.

3. Simulation

There has to be some chance (no matter how remote) that we are in a simulation. What if we perfect ai and simulate the creation and evolution of a universe / life. A simulation of our own world.... Then that creates a simulation and so on. So it would be incredibly flukey to be someone in the very first 'real life'. Therefor we could come across any kind of afterlife. Or maybe just a BEEP 'System is out of memory. System is shutting down'?

[drzen]

[ QUOTE ]
If we assume there is no God and relative after-life, how confident are you guys that there's some 'other' afterlife / re-incarnation?

I haven't studied it at all, but after talking to friends I've a few ideas:

1. Atoms

Our atoms are still around, whizzing off around the universe, maybe we continue with a completely different consciousness.

[/ QUOTE ]

If "you" continue with a completely different consciousness, how can "you" be said to continue?
[ QUOTE ]
2. Infinity

Will the universe go on for an infinite amount of time?

[/ QUOTE ]

No. Maybe.

It depends.

[ QUOTE ]



If so then over infinite time almost anythings possible right? (e.g monkeys writing shakespare with a typewriter) therefor eventually one day *wham* you may come back, as yourself or a different entity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would everything be possible?

[ QUOTE ]
Interestingly it may be almost instant if we do not experience the time in transition.

3. Simulation

There has to be some chance (no matter how remote) that we are in a simulation.

[/ QUOTE ]

One wonders why anyone would bother.

[ QUOTE ]
What if we perfect ai and simulate the creation and evolution of a universe / life. A simulation of our own world.... Then that creates a simulation and so on. So it would be incredibly flukey to be someone in the very first 'real life'.

Therefor we could come across any kind of afterlife. Or maybe just a BEEP 'System is out of memory. System is shutting down'.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would anyone bother recreating you?

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Atoms

[/ QUOTE ]

Not with atoms,not with materialism.

[ QUOTE ]
2. Infinity

[/ QUOTE ]

Not with infinity,a vague generalization without reality

[SinkRox]

Obviously 'you' wont be 'you' in any afterlife. Please don't pick at my badly picked terminologies...

I'm wondering if you guys agree there's *some* kind of possibility to these theories and also interested in other similar thoughts and ideas.

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously 'you' wont be 'you' in any afterlife. Please don't pick at my badly picked terminologies...

I'm wondering if you guys agree there's *some* kind of possibility to these theories and also interested in other similar thoughts and ideas.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes you will be, You are not your material body. for this you have to consider the soul/spiritual nature of man.

[Nielsio]

[ QUOTE ]
If we assume there is no God and relative after-life, how confident are you guys that there's some 'other' afterlife / re-incarnation?

I haven't studied it at all, but after talking to friends I've a few ideas:

1. Atoms

Our atoms are still around, whizzing off around the universe, maybe we continue with a completely different consciousness.

2. Infinity

Will the universe go on for an infinite amount of time? If so then over infinite time almost anythings possible right? (e.g monkeys writing shakespare with a typewriter) therefor eventually one day *wham* you may come back, as yourself or a different entity. Interestingly it may be almost instant if we do not experience the time in transition.

3. Simulation

There has to be some chance (no matter how remote) that we are in a simulation. What if we perfect ai and simulate the creation and evolution of a universe / life. A simulation of our own world.... Then that creates a simulation and so on. So it would be incredibly flukey to be someone in the very first 'real life'. Therefor we could come across any kind of afterlife. Or maybe just a BEEP 'System is out of memory. System is shutting down'?

[/ QUOTE ]


Reincarnation is thusly a metaphor.

[Metric]

I think all of these ideas deserve to be thought about. I'm also a big proponent of thinking covariantly -- your existence may be bounded in time as well as bounded in space, but evolution in time doesn't mean that you cease to exist. The past is as real as the present and the future (just as the universe to the left of you is every bit as real as the part of the universe that makes up "you") -- they're all part of the covariant state of the universe, which manifestly "exists" (all of it, including all times, though you don't have access to all regions of it simultaneously).

[MaxWeiss]

1. Think back to a happy childhood memory. You remember it well, you were there. Well.... actually you weren't there. None of the atoms in you currently were there. You leak hundreds of billions (or way more, not entirely sure) every day. You eat food and get more of them. Your body is much like a wave in the ocean in this respect, to give you a better picture of the idea. Drink a glass of water. One of the molecules of water probably passed through Newton's bladder, statistically speaking. Defining atoms that make you "you" and thinking of them as "you," or your property in some way, is completely absurd.

2. There is no reason to think that the universe will go on for infinity.

3. If it were a simulation, the odds of them changing it before or around the time of your deletion is very small. Also, any fully accurate simulation of the universe must be at the very least as big as the universe. You would undoubtedly take short cuts, but still it is a very large effort.

[Alex-db]

4. Ability in the future to upload conciousness into technology

Is probably worthy of discussion. Others are fairly pointless since they don't imply a memory of the previous life. If we show that an infant contained some carbon used in a previous person, noone would care to call it reincarnation.

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
4. Ability in the future to upload conciousness into technology

Is probably worthy of discussion. Others are fairly pointless since they don't imply a memory of the previous life. If we show that an infant contained some carbon used in a previous person, noone would care to call it reincarnation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now here is one that raises a few interesting questions. If you copy your consciousness, is it you? I mean, we are ourselves, not a copy, so in essence we'd die and some electronic blueprint would live in with its sense of self.

Sort of like if you made a perfect carbon copy of yourself, you would not be it, you could not feel what it felt and you can't go past your own death just because the CC lives on.

And when you think about this stuff I get this sensation that the more I think the more mad I slowly get, because in some weird messed up way it doesn't make any sense to be 'someone'.

[Sephus]

you're using your conclusion as evidence. it would be just as easy to say:

[ QUOTE ]
Now here is one that raises a few interesting questions. If you copy your consciousness, is it you? I mean, you would be yourself, and so would the copy

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Sort of like if you made a perfect carbon copy of yourself, you would be it, you could feel what it felt and you can go past your own death just because the CC lives on. because it would be you.

[/ QUOTE ]

[tame_deuces]

Well, it isn't very advanced thinking, just basic information processing science. If you copy an information handling procedure the working of procedure one won't be available to procedure two unless an interactional link exists between the two. If one procedure seizes to exist it will be lost to the other procedure.

[Sephus]

but if you're information handling procedure one and two, it doesn't matter.

[tame_deuces]

Well, it does and it doesn't, that is the part where go mad when you think about it. The minute you make the copy you have created something different. It might be next to identical, but it isn't the original. For the same reason you can't be some other human being, you can't be your copy.

And then you really go cross-eyed and you start to wonder if individuality exists beyond some perceived image of it in a universe of inter-dependence. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, it does and it doesn't, that is the part where go mad when you think about it. The minute you make the copy you have created something different. It might be next to identical, but it isn't the original. For the same reason you can't be some other human being, you can't be your copy.

And then you really go cross-eyed and you start to wonder if individuality exists beyond some perceived image of it in a universe of inter-dependence. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

All hydrogen atoms are different? or are they 'next to identical' and what does that mean?

luckyme

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Well, it does and it doesn't, that is the part where go mad when you think about it. The minute you make the copy you have created something different. It might be next to identical, but it isn't the original. For the same reason you can't be some other human being, you can't be your copy.

And then you really go cross-eyed and you start to wonder if individuality exists beyond some perceived image of it in a universe of inter-dependence. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

All hydrogen atoms are different? or are they 'next to identical' and what does that mean?

luckyme

[/ QUOTE ]

All are different because:
1.) Not sharing the same matter or position.
2.) Experiencing different things, which is a given from the above.

Next to identical:
1.) They share very much of the same properties. For most observations they would seem identical.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Now here is one that raises a few interesting questions. If you copy your consciousness, is it you? I mean, we are ourselves, not a copy, so in essence we'd die and some electronic blueprint would live in with its sense of self.

Sort of like if you made a perfect carbon copy of yourself, you would not be it, you could not feel what it felt and you can't go past your own death just because the CC lives on.

And when you think about this stuff I get this sensation that the more I think the more mad I slowly get, because in some weird messed up way it doesn't make any sense to be 'someone'.

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, but how do you know that there is "a" consciousness to begin with? You experience a sense of personal continuity - how do you know that sense of continuity isn't an illusion?

What if two identical "yous" were created from a device that splits the atoms in your body evenly between the two clones, and reconsitutes the rest of the "yous" from outside atoms? There are now two of you, but both share equal parts of the original you.

How do you know that you are the same you that you were in the past? The classic example is a slight re-imagining of the Ship of Theseus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus): Imagine that one lobe of your brain is replaced with a computer component that performs exactly the same functions in exactly the same way as the original "fleshy part." Are you still you, or did replacing that lobe change you? If you're still you, imagine another lobe being changed. Are you still you now? Keep going until the whole brain is changed - at what point are "you" no longer "you?" If you like, you can replace individual neurons instead of lobes. When do you change, or are you the same you even when your brain is 100% machine?

On that note, each atom in your body is replaced with new atoms on a regular basis. The atoms that are in you now aren't the same as the atoms that were in you 10 years ago. So looking back at the replacement analogy, doesn't that mean you're a different person?

[tame_deuces]

Well, easy enough: You are not the person you were 5 minutes ago, and you are not the person you will be in 5 minutes. Though great similarities will be shared ofcourse.

[madnak]

Then how is being uploaded into a computer any more significant than spending 5 minutes alive?

[tame_deuces]

If I really knew that I'd start a new religion with myself as the big kahuna.

With the danger of sounding dangerously like carlo - it would seem that a logical conclusion regarding a sense of self is that we are at any given time merely a result of the properties of the universe affecting whatever atoms cling together to form us and how the same properties affected the universe until this point. And then you can start pondering these crazy things that makes you feel all cross-eyed and crazy.

I see where you are getting at, and I think I even agree - but illusion or not, this 'consciousness' we like to think of as ourselves: Even if it can be copied, it won't be the original.

Maybe it could perceive itself as the original due to the process involved. It would after all have all the memories and influences of the original, but would the original ever (ever is the keyword) perceive this 'illusion of self' if we assume it walks the earth?

A gradual transformation process is indeed an interesting thought, and makes more sense intuitively than a mere copy in my eyes.

[madnak]

Well, when the grand computer-people become a reality, you can have them do you in steps /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, when the grand computer-people become a reality, you can have them do you in steps /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I homage of all the great b&w scifi shows I think I'll go with the 'brain in jar with lots of electrodes sticking out of it' option. /images/graemlins/smile.gif