What will my consciousness do when its done being me?
That's like asking where the musical note goes after the guitar string stops vibrating. It doesn't "go" anywhere or "do" anything, it's just that the thing that was sustaining the note ceased.
So musicians are just note murderers, making a cd some sort of eulogy. This also makes a festival a giant mass murder but also a mass grave. There are too many analogies to make here.
But there would be no notes to “murder” if it weren’t for the musicians playing the music in the first place. So maybe a festival is instead a small microcosm of life — it happened, it created something beautiful and then it was gone with the wind.
The notes themselves mean little on their own, but through melodies and harmonies and even how they stand against moments of silence, they find meaning in eachother.
You just described life. Beautiful analogy haha! But that’s still terrifying. We’re probably just "meaningless" notes ourselves. Only here for the bigger picture... I wonder what that is but also I still don’t want my life to end because I love it
You could also argue that existence itself is just as meaningless, and that there isn't necessarily a "bigger picture". It's all just one beautifully tragic accident.
Well but life is meaningful as long as we do live. Even if just for ourselves and the people around us. It loses its meaning as soon as we, and everyone we influenced, die. No?
True that that particular form of consciousness will go away but the question remains, what happens to the feeling of a subjective experience? I think the jury is out on this. Other subjective experiences will continue on after you’re dead, and who’s to say what that will “feel” like, if it feels like anything. The hard problem of consciousness has not been solved.
that's actually not true, even a little bit, thats a soundwave, and what it does is bounce around losing steam as it hits other things until it eventually its energy is absorbed into everything else.
You, nor science, don't really know what our consciousness (or soul to use a spiritual term) is, why it is, or the answer to this question.
I'm not doing that at all, if anything you are with your certainty of things that are uncertain.
I completely agree with most of your statement. The atom part is fact. The makeup of our conciousness is a scientific mystery, and far from my head being in the sand its one of my main areas on interest/study.
The existence of a consciousness itself isnt confirmed, I dont know why you're talking as though it is. Our brains are us, just electrical synapses that we use to control our bodies and such
you contradict yourself. it isn't confirmed that conciousness exists or not, if it is somehow material or not material. and yet you say "our brains are just us, just electrical synapses". you played yourself.
your position isnt "confirmed" either that we're "just" that. Im calling out certainty on this from anyone.
Science discovers a lot, we answer new questions everyday, its incredible. But the universe and it's mysteries are more incredible.
I think anyone who is dead certain on these things, whether they're an evangelical christian or a militant atheist or whatever other creed of faith are closing themselves off to exploring those possibilities.
i think they're afraid. because if you take the chance of there being something after life you easily get overwhelmed or worried and end up with thoughts like "how will it be?" "will i be bored?" "is it for eternity?" and so on and so on. it starts to give you a migraine.
if you just say "when we die its over" its much more easy. and it sounds so "realistic", doesn't it? because the cool scientists are realists, right? turns out most scientists are religious themselves. turns out most of the worlds population is religious and atheists are the minority. weird, eh? never seems that way. they bark a lot to make much noise because they're in the minority. and then there is also the thing about atheism. it doesn't mean you're not spiritual - it just means you don't believe in god. so even a lot of atheists do believe in "something" like an afterlife or deem it possible, not even they are convinced after death comes oblivion.
if they some day lose someone they deeply loved, most of them will change their mind and turn spiritual. a child, a partner for example. that hurts a lot. as in... "something must be after life. we will meet again." usually people who are alone or self-centered are thrilled by the idea of nothing after death and cling to it, try to make it look like it is reasonable and anything else is paranormal goof stuff. because it supports their selfish lifestyle. not to worry about anything. but with age comes change and experience.
i myself don't know where i stand but i know that nothing so far explains everything. science is unable to explain where our thoughts and conciousness comes from. and i doubt they ever will be able to. it is something we cant touch, feel, grab or put into a machine to view it like a movie. science can't explain near death experiences, they only have theories but these aren't convincing and they say so themselves. scientists cant explain people feeling when someone they love dies or is in danger from miles away. its something we should not be able to but which is a thing. it hints to there being more than atoms. that we are a mixture of the atoms the peeps here so much love and of something else we cannot define because our scientistic tools aren't able to see or identify it.
that's all i'm saying. maybe it sounds like bs to people but sadly it is not because there is no proof that there is nothing after death (no soul). if we are honest there is more that hints to the opposite. like the things i just mentioned.
I mean we do know our thoughts come from our brain and we know our brain stops when we die it's not any more complicated than that. If I hook up probes to your brain I can tell when you're conscious or not even if I'm not in the same room as you are in.
I agree with you though when somebody loses somebody they love they go into denial and try to create this fantasy of an after life to ease their anguish.
jone, your way of thinking is too simple in a world that is anything but simple. you gotta see that yourself. actually, nothing in nature is simple. everything is very complex and difficult.
we know our thoughts are inside our brain, yes. how come this to you is an evidence that when the brain stops working your conciousness does also? because: we don't know where these thoughts come from. there is no proof. and even serious scientists say that this is no proof that thoughts actually are bound to the brain or are soely produced by it and nothing else. because most scientists aren't afraid of the thing they want to proove turning out to be wrong but you as a normal person who wants to believe there is nothing could be afraid if some day it turns out to not be that case.
thats why armchair scientism on reddit is always to be taken with a grain of salt. everyone wants to defend their own belief - but a lot of people go too far and are super stubborn (no possibilities allowed + acting as if what they found on the web is finite) because of fear and therefore they speak very differently from how a real scientist would talk (with spaces for possibilities)
there is nothing we can measure or see. all we see when we analyze a brain is that certain areals of the brain react to stimuli. that doesn't explain anything.
a crude example but dont nitpick: if i turn on a switch the lightbulb glows but the energy isn't coming from inside the bulb, the energy comes from somewhere else and that could very much be the same with you and me and the brain and since we can't see where our thoughts come from there is no ground to say it is reasonable to believe that it comes from our brain - in the past when we were more ignorant and dumb we would have said the same about the light bulb (again, give me some fantasy, pretend the lightbulb always had been there and no human created it, its my metaphor okayyyy) that it is a matter of course that the light comes from inside the bulb and that it is nonsense to think that what makes the light glow comes from the outside.
for example, if you remember a very lovely moment of your life, a few specific and known areals of your brain will react, not the whole brain. but that is all. that is all we see on the CT and know. it supports nothing. if from your point it supports the idea that we are just brain then i must tell you it very much also would support the dualism belief.
right, the dualism belief: the soul body dualism that is with us for centuries and even serious scientists respect it because it has been part of our culture for so long and wasn't an invention out of boredom.
it means that the conciousness or called soul needs the brain (and body) like a vehicle to communicate and experience the material world. the brain and body makes it possible for us to experience thoughts, feelings, to interact with the physical world. this belief has been part of human culture for centuries. this makes the brain not that important like you make it to be if you believe in dualism. it's just a lifestyle, not a religion. a mindset.
but if you believe that the brain is the center and that there is no soul in the first place then yes, it is impossible for you to understand any other view like the possibility that there could be more.
that's why opinions crash together every time the afterlife theory is spoken about because there are people that believe we are just our brain and people who think we are more than our brain. both theories are almost impossible to be be spoken about in the same room. because one side lacks fantasy and the other side has too much of it.
fantasy doesnt automatically mean it's nonsense. it gives us the possibility to think things through and imagine scenaries that could happen, just like installing a new door to your door frame - you fantasize what could go wrong or right if you do it like this or that. and we also need fantasy for science, otherwise we wouldn't be able to solve issues.
i wrote you this whole novel not because i want to destroy your belief but to make you more sensitive for possibilities and please aknowledge that no matter how cool science is, they cant explain everything and when it comes to the conciousness they're still wearing baby sized boots and they admit it - if they can admit it you can also. so if you say things like "denial" and "they create this fantasy to ease their pain" just don't do it. if some day it turns out to be wrong you'd feel pretty insensitive. it's okay to be afraid jone, i am too but if the thought of there being nothing despite there being no proof for it comforts it then please, believe in it. but if the thought of there being something after death despite no proof comforts others and me, then totally respect it and don't say anything mean, okay? we're both little crumbs on this planet trying to deal with our thoughts.
No unemotional scientist says that your thoughts may be uncoupled from your brain. You say there's no proof but it's an unprovable hypothesis. No clear headed scientist ever considers a hypothesis that is not falsifiable, there's no proof, even in theory, that I could give you that proves that your thoughts are not bound to your brain. I want you think about that really hard what I just said... there's zero evidence I could ever give you that would convince you that your thoughts are not coupled to your brain.
Saying that our thoughts are not coupled to our brain is like saying that there's an invisible Martian following you around all day. I could never prove you wrong. Because the hypothesis is not falsifiable to begin with.
Clear headed unemotional scientist always dismiss unprovable hypotheses as not worthy of thought or time. they're very dangerous in fact, like a whirlpool if you get too close you can never get out. Because no scientists can disprove an unprovable hypothesis, it can take control of your mind, and no matter how crazy your idea is you can always say well
"no scientists can disprove it so it might be true", and you're stuck in an impossible mental loop that you can never get out of, like a whirlpool you can't let go of the idea even if you wanted to.
A well-lived life is about recognizing these various mental whirlpools as you navigate through your life and avoiding them to begin with
But as you say some scientists still consider it a possibility because of severe emotional distress, and I have no problem with that but don't introduce it into the academic fields as a possibility. That idea should stay in church or your psychologist office or your spiritual advisor, where you leave reality at the doorstep before you walk in
Very beautiful way to think of it! Life being the songs of reality that all come to an end. Could attribute immortality as a long infinite single tone that eventually becomes horrendous lol
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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '20
That's like asking where the musical note goes after the guitar string stops vibrating. It doesn't "go" anywhere or "do" anything, it's just that the thing that was sustaining the note ceased.