I’m an atheist but I don’t actually preclude the existence of an afterlife. “There is no heaven or hell, it just all goes black and that’s it,” is just as patently unfalsifiable as any claim made by any religion.
It’s just as likely to be something completely different and alien from anything conceivable in our limited world view. In an infinite space of probabilities, the likelihood of it being “literally nothing” actually seems pretty low.
That kind of uncertainty is exactly what scares most people, but not me. I’m looking forward to finding out one day.
Exactly. It’s not like you experienced anything before you were born either. Your brain starts sending signals, you experience those signals. After your brain stops your experience stops. Everyone has already observed this phenomenon. Unless technology advances to a point where we can reverse entropy somehow to the point where we can resurrect your dead brain cells, you will not experience anything ever again. And that’s fine, it won’t be scary, you won’t care, because you literally can’t.
I don’t agree that the cessation of brain activity necessarily means the end of the subjective experience. That doesn’t mean I purport to know what actually happens at that point. I hope it’s some sort of reincarnation but that’s just because there’s more I want to experience in this universe than I possibly could in a single lifetime.
“You only have one life, live it the best you can” is a nice motivational mantra, but however well I live my life, it’s highly unlikely I will live long enough to experience interstellar travel, for example, or first contact with alien life. I think that really fucking sucks, and I really hope I’ll have a chance on the next go-around. But if it’s something completely different, I’m cool with that, too.
But why expect and plan for something that makes no sense? Sure, we can’t prove there’s no continued sentience once the brain dies, but there’s no logic that leads to that. It’s just wishful thinking. And that’s how people have been duped into religious mumbo jumbo for ever.
I’m not expecting or planning for anything, that’s kind of the point. I’m not expecting one specific outcome. It’s actually really freeing, because I’m not stuck searching for meaning in an existence that offers none.
And if it turns out that it does all just go black, it won’t be my problem anymore, will it?
I don’t agree that the cessation of brain activity necessarily means the end of the subjective experience.
What happens to a car when you turn off the engine and then disassemble the parts? Is the car still running? You believe in infinite possibilities so the chance of it not running is tiny?
What happens to the guy that was driving it? Does he just blink out of existence when the car shuts off? That’s my question. You might argue that there is no such thing, but my own conscious experience proves to myself that there’s something else there. I want to know what happens to that part.
Hell, for all I know, you might just be a soulless meatbag automaton, and there really is no one in the driver’s seat for you. Or I could just be the only actual human talking in a thread full of bots. With 90% of the training data going into LLMs being vapid contrarian debates on social media, I could easily see that being the case here.
I realize this is also unverifiable, but it’s just a return to non-existentence.
You already experienced that for most of human history, and then for a comparatively breif period, things were different, and then it’s back to non-existence.
The lack of memory of past existence isn’t evidence of anything. We have clear evidence that memories are physical things, stored as connections of neurons in the brain. They can be lost to disease or injury, and they’re destructively modified every time we access them.
I’m an atheist but I don’t actually preclude the existence of an afterlife. “There is no heaven or hell, it just all goes black and that’s it,” is just as patently unfalsifiable as any claim made by any religion.
It’s just as likely to be something completely different and alien from anything conceivable in our limited world view. In an infinite space of probabilities, the likelihood of it being “literally nothing” actually seems pretty low.
That kind of uncertainty is exactly what scares most people, but not me. I’m looking forward to finding out one day.
Sir this is a Wendy’s. We’re discussing drugs, not God. Arguably the same thing but still.
Life is brain activity and when that ceases it’s the fade-to-black.
Simple as.
My whole point is that I disagree with the certainty of that claim. It’s not grounded in empirical evidence, because we don’t have any.
We have proof of brain activity and it ending at death.
Exactly. It’s not like you experienced anything before you were born either. Your brain starts sending signals, you experience those signals. After your brain stops your experience stops. Everyone has already observed this phenomenon. Unless technology advances to a point where we can reverse entropy somehow to the point where we can resurrect your dead brain cells, you will not experience anything ever again. And that’s fine, it won’t be scary, you won’t care, because you literally can’t.
I don’t agree that the cessation of brain activity necessarily means the end of the subjective experience. That doesn’t mean I purport to know what actually happens at that point. I hope it’s some sort of reincarnation but that’s just because there’s more I want to experience in this universe than I possibly could in a single lifetime.
“You only have one life, live it the best you can” is a nice motivational mantra, but however well I live my life, it’s highly unlikely I will live long enough to experience interstellar travel, for example, or first contact with alien life. I think that really fucking sucks, and I really hope I’ll have a chance on the next go-around. But if it’s something completely different, I’m cool with that, too.
But why expect and plan for something that makes no sense? Sure, we can’t prove there’s no continued sentience once the brain dies, but there’s no logic that leads to that. It’s just wishful thinking. And that’s how people have been duped into religious mumbo jumbo for ever.
I’m not expecting or planning for anything, that’s kind of the point. I’m not expecting one specific outcome. It’s actually really freeing, because I’m not stuck searching for meaning in an existence that offers none.
And if it turns out that it does all just go black, it won’t be my problem anymore, will it?
What happens to a car when you turn off the engine and then disassemble the parts? Is the car still running? You believe in infinite possibilities so the chance of it not running is tiny?
What happens to the guy that was driving it? Does he just blink out of existence when the car shuts off? That’s my question. You might argue that there is no such thing, but my own conscious experience proves to myself that there’s something else there. I want to know what happens to that part.
Hell, for all I know, you might just be a soulless meatbag automaton, and there really is no one in the driver’s seat for you. Or I could just be the only actual human talking in a thread full of bots. With 90% of the training data going into LLMs being vapid contrarian debates on social media, I could easily see that being the case here.
The car is the car. I didn’t mention a person. I didn’t state that it is being driven.
I asked if you believe the car is still running after being disassembled because anything is possible.
But it’s the brain active that causes the experience.
Ah, so you’re in the ‘teleporters are just cloning machines’ camp.
What do you think they’re a 3D printer with a soul transfer function?
Nope, just aware there are different ways of thinking about it — wasn’t implying any one was wrong or right
Teleporters are a plot device.
What if I believe that after you die, you get reincarnated as the type of person you hate the most?
Ahhh dirt. I don’t want to be a transphobic trillionaire.
Yeah but on the second incarnation, wouldn’t that put you right back where you started?
Similar, but I consider myself agnostic, and I’m in no rush to reach the point of ‘find out or cease existing’
I realize this is also unverifiable, but it’s just a return to non-existentence.
You already experienced that for most of human history, and then for a comparatively breif period, things were different, and then it’s back to non-existence.
The lack of memory of past existence isn’t evidence of anything. We have clear evidence that memories are physical things, stored as connections of neurons in the brain. They can be lost to disease or injury, and they’re destructively modified every time we access them.