/sci/ - Science & Math

If your self is gone, what does it mean to be self-aware?

>>2129486
It means to be able to recognize things. To think and state your existence.

There is no you. There is you right now, and there is you an hour ago. They are not the same; they just share memories and personality. But there is no you after your death.

>>2129482

>we won't experience time

correct

>immediately skip to a point where entropy somehow decreases due to probability and we go back to living...

WTF IS THIS BULLSHIT? Are you just stringing random words together? How would probability decese entropy? HOW THE FUCK WOULD THAT BRING SOMEONE BACK TO LIFE?

GTFO!

>>2129507
You've ceased to exist; why state a lie?

>>2129524
How is it a lie? I was stating a definition you fool not the condition.

>"Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not"

My bro Epicurus said that sometime around noon 300 BC

>>2129568

Stop telling people we're bros. I've never even met you!

You go to Heaven or Hell actually.

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons, even death may die.

>>2129746

Why are people so hung up on death? Nonexistence didn't bother you before you were born, why should it bother you after death?

TBH its a relief compared to some of the afterlives you nutters have thought up.

i find it funny that the only proof of "nothing after death" is that the people who DO die and then get revived all say "HOLY CRAP THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE AFTER YOU GO ACCIDENTAL AN HERO"

>>2129521
Not only that but...

What sense would it make to think that time continues outside of an awareness of it.

>>2129767
Uh.. what?

>>2129794

solipsist detected

I remember some guy did an experiment on what happens after death by experiencing death.

Pretty sure what he did was hop in one of those old NASA g-force simulators. The ones that spin clockwise from a central axis at high speed.

He was put through it long enough that I believe his heart stopped and went unconscious. After a few minutes they revived him and he immediately drew his experience and what he saw. Apparently he experienced a bunch of demons tearing his flesh off or something.

I wish I could find the story but I lost it.

>>2129805
you say it like its a bad thing

You fools who say you are going to stop existing when you die need to listen to this guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3I8btxyDI4

>>implying the brain doesnt release DMT before death.

>>2129824

> Implying DMT is an excuse for "Demons? OH SHI-

There is only two options: singularity make us immortals, which is neat!, or we die. Brain dead, nothing, oblivion. A rock don't know he's a rock.
I look forward for one of these two ends.

>>2129767

Well, seeing that you can't anticipate your birth but you can anticipate your death might have something to do with it. It's instinct. It's easy to say now that you're not afraid of death since you're not in a threatening situation. If you were put in a situation where you felt like it was possible that you might die, but also that you might live, then you would be scared.

>>2129841

That's just dying. After that I've got nothing to be worried about.

As opposed to theists who have to worry about eternal torture by their all loving dictator. :P

>>2129844
Wont it suck to die?

When you really think about it, is anything real? What if everything you were experiencing right now was actually your brain making up it's own consciousness, even though you were really dead without a conscious, so your brain substituted for it's own.

You know man?

you all have already been dead for billions of years but you just don't remember.

and you won't remember next time, either.

>>2129844

"That's just dying"

No, I said in situations when you think that you might die, but also think that it's equally plausible that you might live. I didn't say anything about actually dying. I think the fear of death in a precarious situation is due to the fact that the person believes that it's more likely that they'll live, therefore the chemical involved in fear is produced to get their body to react faster to prevent death. But with people that think they're going to die i think there must be a chemical that's released that probably helps them "accept" death. Of course, this is only in situations where the person actually has time to react to a threat.

I think its just really weird and overwhelming to think about, when you die, nothing happens. You simply don't feel anything, like you were never born. It's just a feeling that is too overwhelming for anyone to truly grasp and realize, the feeling of non existence

>>2129871
Put the pipe down.

>>2129884
Imagine being unconscious. Same thing.

>>2129871

I could see it. Apparently we only use at max about 10% of our brain. The other 90% could be secretly used to stimulate our conscious and create the illusion around us.

>>2129893
Shut up

>>2129893
How do you imagine being unconscious? Please tell me, I would really like to know.

>>2129893
yeah but its just hard to comprehend that you will never do anything ever again, the moments before you die will be the last time you ever have any thoughts, after that you're just gone forever

>>2129899
No.

>>2129900
Imagine slowly losing your awareness until you don't have it anymore.

>>2129902
I don't find it hard to comprehend that. It's just as you say; death is the end of your awareness. Poof, no more you. It's like going to sleep and never waking up.

i have a fear of nothingness... can i be a theist?
pain > non-existance

>>2129902

So? I'll just face it with calm, knowing I'll be cut off from thought and won't suffer anymore thereafter.

>>2129895
That's an old wives tale. Read more Cracked.

>>2129924
You can be whatever the hell you want.

>>2129902

"after that you're just gone forever"

It might be possible that we'll come back together again. I don't mean reincarnation, though I can understand if someone were to make that mistake. Plenty of time in infinity to come back again.

>>2129936
i wish more people lived by that exact statement anon...

>>2129902
Whatever we are as conscious beings, it has no obvious origin in our bodies. So I can't support the assumption that it completely ends with our bodies.

>>2129936
Are you implying that we have a "free" will, something that is a separate from the causal events of everything we see in the universe? Gonna need some evidence.

>>2129946
oh man, so I'm not the only person who has thought of that concept

I figured that if youre completely unconscious, you won't have any concept of time passing away until you're woken up again, but if there ever becomes a way to bring people back to life from the dead or some crazy thing like that, you might just wake up randomly billions of years into the future, like you just awoke from a normal nap or something

in b4 >put the pipe down br0

>>2129974
No, I'm not implying that. I'm implying that you can be whatever the hell you want.

Hey faggots, back to the OP's statement

Maybe you just chill, not experiencing time or anything, until the big crunch or whatever, or until you get sucked down into a black hole and end up in some freaky new universe

and then you live again as something else in the new one

>>2130000
yeh bt wud tat actualy be possible?

>>2130007

I got quads bitch, it's a universal truth

My logic is flawless:

1) Existance is possible, non-existance is not, as there would be noone around too experience the non-existance.

2) When you die, from your own point of view, everything would cease to exist, as you are unable to sense anything or think or do anything, so you wouldnt exist. But non-existance is impossible according to (1).

3) Therefore, considering (1) and (2), when you die you must continue to exist in some form, likely as new life, most likely as sharkman.

It might be scary to think humans go through the same process of death as insects do. They die, decompose, and return to the earth. Religious people don't believe they have souls, and perhaps their conscious is as small as they are.

After thinking about this, I wonder if we are all one and related on a deeper basis. So when we all die, perhaps some type of dynamic energy is released, stored, and used in the creation of new life.

>>2129980

I don't exactly mean that either. I don't mean the same exact body. I just mean being conscious again in some body. Obviously when I say "conscious" i mean something that has consciousness on our level or even higher. Consciousness isn't a singularity (an atom) yet when we think about our own consciousness it seems that way, but really we're made of many parts/atoms. So what exactly does it mean to say coming back? I don't know.

>>2130013
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S1ZsW9JbuA6gyyqSZdKoHMMh8r0yBZRZypdnoz603AHJ_VuvNM4yA9-Fpcy5pcBoOq4GXGdI24dnMhBjxygYaqoJLUV2_9oEzLGW
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>>2129988
No, you cannot. You are shaped entirely by past events.

>>2130030
Right, and now we can apply this idea to something more abstract. Look out your window. If you don't live in a highly urbanized area, you should be able to see the horizon. Think of this as the border between the land and the sky. The land and sky are obviously distinguishable thanks to this boundary. Now, if you were to "drag" the sash between the sky and the land, or to manipulate the border between land and sky, you would end up causing the sky to become larger and the land to become smaller, or vice versa. An effect of this might be to cause something that was just on the ground to suddenly be hundreds of feet in the air. Truly a frightening situation to be in. So, look at it this way - manipulating the border between two physical things shifts whatever balance there is in the interaction between those things. Alternatively, by manipulating the border between two things, you can change the manner in which they exist.

Still, this isn't *that* abstract, since it's still dealing with real things in the real world. Many believe that in this world, there are those things that are true, and those that obviously aren't. This divides reality into two extremes: truth and falsehood. But, since we have two extremes, logically one can imagine a boundary between those two extremes - the border between truth and lies. If one were to manipulate this border, suddenly things that were pure fantasy (flying pigs, for the sake of argument) have become reality - or things from reality have ceased to exist. This is how Yukari is said to have invaded the moon - by manipulating the border between truth and lies, as applied to the reflection of the moon on a pond, she was able to make the reflection of the moon into a manifestation of the actual moon, and so send her youkai army onto it. This is what's truly amazing about Yukari's power - the ability to manipulate the border between completely abstract concepts allows her to fundamentally change reality as we know it

>>2130020
Entertaining the thought that souls = "dark energy?"
It's the energy we can't see or capture. Maybe even a combination of dark energy and matter. If it makes up entirely most of the universe, then that would only mean there isn't enough life created to use it.

>>2130020
Yeah but what about china they have lots of people growing there and the world population is constantly increasing at a huge rate

ITT: people who don't know anything making unverifiable claims (or patently false once)

IITT debate cannot be solved

>>2130041
Yes, you can. Particularly with the aid of lucid dreaming or delusions.

What is a soul? I've never understood the concept.

explain plox

>>2130045

>>2130057
There's quite possibly much more energy for life to be created from than there is life in the entire universe.

Unless you want to use myths such as magicians and ancient gods as supporting evidence that our individual powers are diminished or spread amongst, every time the more of us are created.

when you die it's like dream levels in Inception except the level you go down to is infinite.

so basically you forever live in the moment right before your death. and in that moment, you're tripping on DMT.

unless you get your brains exploded. then you just die.

>>2130018
So you're stating in "1)" that if "noone", i take it you mean a "sentient being" of sorts, is around to "experience" something (see it? hear it?) it doesn't actually take place. so each and everything happening depends on at least one dude being around or else it's not happening.
So a tree will never fall in the woods unless someone is around to stare it down.
That would mean everything stops as soon as it leaves anyones area of perception. So I'mm guessing there must be some kind of barrier blocking of molecules from leaving ones perception or maybe they just freeze until one comes near again. With all this stuff your first random premisse is implying it gets ridiculously hard to make sense of anything at all now and I mean ANYTHING. (hint: that's because it's baloney.)

It all depends on how a person defines himself, which differs from person to person. What does he really mean when he says "I?"

Am I this living body?
Am I this living brain?
Am I this personality?
Am I this set of memories?
Am I simply the thoughts I have? (I only exist as an idea)

The problem of teleportation (I'm sure there's a better name somewhere) would probably allow a person to get to the heart of how he defines his identity. If we create a perfect copy of you and kill the original, have you really died? I would vote no. Since the copy is--for the sake of argument--exact, the original's thoughts are continuing exactly as he would will them.

I go for the last listed position: that when using the word "I," I'm referring to the thought I am having at the time. No matter what that thought it, other people likely had similar or analogous ones in the past, and will most certainly have them in the future as well. In that sense, "I" exist whenever and wherever that thought is had, though as an amnesiac.

Oh well.

To branch off of what the previous person said, when you really get down to it, is anything real, really? Are you really alive? Everything you see from your point of view, everything you hear, it's just information being processed by your brain. When you think of yourself, in reality, all you really are is the perception that your brain has, which it receives from everything around your body. These perceptions are fueled on by chemical reactions in your body, which projects an illusion of consciousness, even though it is really just a series of chemical reactions working simultaneously to produce what you view as consciousness. All you are as a human, is just the perception of all the information processed by the brain, you really aren't the body or what you think of when you think of 'yourself'.

>>2130151
If you clone somebody like that you create another instance of that person, he is still his own consciousness it doesn't matter if he's just like his clone at the time of cloning he will still be another being. If you kill the original you will still be a murderer. though most likeley noone will find out, so go ahead

>>2130190
What do you define yourself as? It can't be the body, since a perfect copy was made but still isn't you. Can't be memories for the same reason. What makes a perfect copy NOT you?

Genuinely curious. This stuff intrigues me.

What if, when we apply this philosophy, we really aren't just one single person, we are everyone? What if the all the perceptual information processed by every brain in the world is actually part of your perception, and you are in fact everyone in the world at the same time, rather than just processing information from one brain, you process information from every brain because they are all part of your reality

I thought this was /sci/, not /religion/, but I digress.

In the spirit of this thread, I will state that I feel like when we cease existing in our current state, we ascend to a more pure existence.

>>2130290
I'm not sure how you would classify it as religion, seems more like pholosiphy tome

Death is like sleep.
When you sleep, you don't experience the process of sleeping, (unless you're dreaming) you simply wake up & the whole process is instant. You don't have a concept of time while sleeping, you're unconscious. That's what death is like, but you never wake up.

I personally believe that after dying, you might be alive again. I'm not talking about reincarnation, I'm simply referring to being born again, given the probability.
"You" will probably be a completely different person, with a consciousness of course, but never realizing that death was part of your history. It's hard to explain, but given the nature of non-existence, I believe we infinitely exist - similar to how we're always woken up - sleep is instant, just like death - that's what I think happens.

im going to have to thi=03AHJ_VuuEaruS77eURX3udmp0w2gTCgP6l9W6zVVztGR98Ffu3KsbyM_14DKurdcN1_1jfnznvxbCKWgbcj6r90QVoObHgr
AJTqgKRFpb4tihfqBfVqXKOT7vQDLHd-SvSytJnmrMYLWjnmN_Ecs-psOpYL9W_n31_g this next time i

>>2130321
wut

>>2130213
What makes YOU not any other person in the universe? I'd say it's the fact that your brain is contained within your skull and the electrochemical processes can't react with another someone as closely as with eachother. That's why you can't see through someone else's eyes or think their thoughts. To be fair though, your mind can interact with them through "longer" means of reaction, your senses that is. So yeah, the mind ends where the process of electrochemical/hormone/whatever reaction reaches a certain amount of convolutedness to take place, if that is somewhat understandable. Yes, the boundary is not "set by nature" or anything like that, that I acknowledge, but it's obvious enough to be recognized and defined as such.

In conclusion: Although nothing is defined by "nature" or anything, we can, as inquiring and intelligent minds, define our own framework to simplify the mess of molecules and magnetism that is our universe. We don't need to get our panties in a twist over how mystical it all is. While we're growing up and into philosphy we should be able to disregard the temptation of falling for mysticism and see the logic behind it all. Only then can we succeed in making sense of it all and better everyone's lives in the process.
I think I went way off topic whith that one, but all this "listen guys! everything is magic!" stuff I read and hear everywhere is getting on my nerves.

One more thing: There is no philosphy. It's just what science used to be called back in the day. There is no one philosphical question that isn't part of a real science.

>>2130298
There is nothing to hint at any type of reincarnation and all the evidence of neuroscience hinting against it. You most likely do end when you die.

>>2130000
You dont even know what a black hole is.

>>2130041
dude, your "wanting" is part of the causality, too. You are just as free as you perceive yourself to be

>>2130348
I'm wasn't referring to reincarnation.
Reincarnation requires a belief in a "soul."
I don't believe in God, souls or any of that stuff.
I'm simply referring to the process of molecular binding which enables birth.
It's very hard to explain because words like "you" & "I" don't have a literally meaning in this case.
Think of it as the monkey typing a Shakespeare work.

>>2130337
I'm
>>2130151
>>2130190

I don't really think it's delving into mysticism. It seemed like people were talking here without first asking the major question of what they even mean when they speak of themselves, which seems like it would be a more logical starting point than jumping straight into which parts of that vanish upon death.

I'm certainly not religious or even a dualist. I just enjoy the discussion.

>>2130385
well, since consciousness is most likely not just the molecules in the brain but the processes they take part in, even if the molecules form to another form of consciousness it will most likely be somebody else

For the record, to the 'imagine being unconscious' guy. You CAN'T imagine being unconscious. You only recognize it as the case by having two distinct points of reference, the interim is not understood because the mind doesn't process it.

>>2130404
That somebody else is "you" though.
You know what I mean.
That someone else that is born, is potentially "you."
Not you as of now, just you being that person, which defines you in a sense.
I'm probably not making sense at all, but I genuinely believe this.
And given the abstract nature of the Universe, I wouldn't rule this out of the possibility.
Rare events are common in something as large as the Universe.
And you have to remember that the state of being non-existent is instant, with no concept of time, so time is in your favor.

>>2130348

You are just a single expression of an infinite and eternal energy - there are no separate things - a 'thing' is a measure of thought and is a byproduct of language - in reality, you are inseparable from your environment just as space is inseparable from solids and light in inseperable form darkness - you just can't have one without the other, and so too can you not have existence without non-existence. You are apart of a wonderfully complex and intricate self-sustaining network in which literally EVERYTHING is interconnected, and it shows every sign of being intelligent - there is logic to it, as you say. You are god playing hide and seek with himself and you don't yet realise it.. but what's the fun in that? Hide and seek is especially rewarding when you've found a particularily good hiding spot.

"Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things."

(not the guy you're quoting btw)

>>2130041
How would a universe allowing for free will be noticeably different than a completely causal one?

If it's completely non-deterministic, then there's just total randomness with no causes or effects. Things simply happen. I think we'll agree we can be pretty sure we don't live in one like that. If it's completely deterministic, then absolutely all effects have immediate causes, all actions have perfectly predictable reactions. The timeline is set and our entire lives are predestined.

So where's middle-ground? Instinct tells me it would be a universe that's pretty much deterministic, but not totally, which seems suspiciously similar to the one we're in now what with apparently random motions taking place in certain scales. I'm not saying that's a case for free will, though, since all it would show to our knowledge is that our choices are random at best.

If you're claiming to know certainly which kind o universe we live in, you'd do well to consider how the kind you're shooting down behaves.

>>2130450
that in no way means that your consciousness is eternal

Paranoid people think I'm the mystical dude and discredit my ideas because of him. Sometimes I envy tripfags.

>>2130495

The underlying energy of the universe is eternal, and so too is consciousness, as that is simply an expression of it. It will exist for a while and then it will not exist for a while, but where does it begin and where does it end? Can you point to the beginning of the ending of a circle?

>OP posts unsupported, untestable, unfalsifiable and irrelevant pseudo-scientific bullshit
>85 posts and 8 image replies omitted. Click Reply to view.

>>2130459

things "happening" requires determinism. Time itself is determinism. Now you could say if there was no determinism everything would simply "be" or not but the very essence of existence is logic, the one law that can never be broken, the only absolute and universal truth, 1=1 0=0 and so on. Now logic+time=determinism and there is nothing you can do about it.

If you can't wrap your head around that thought, you're not fit for any sort of philosophy whatsoever.

So, no, we won't all agree

>>2130520
Consciousness is a process at some place in time. It is not eternal, man. And stop that "underlying energy" nonsense or get back to /x/

>>2130528
So non-deterministic things can't happen? You're presuming the apparently random but probabilistic motions of sub-atomic particles actually have no randomness to them whatsoever? Is it just that they're governed by variables we don't know about yet?

>>2130542
You got it brah

It's funny how people still challenge EVERYTHING based on that one misty experiment. It's like "hey we found this stuff but we don't quite get it yet!" - "HURR DURR EVERYTHING IS MAGIC NOW"

>>2130533

You are the one breaking down an incomprehensible existence into a million little bits - can you tell me what time is? Simply the measurable relationship between two events. What's an event? Something that takes place in time. See the connection? This is really all you need to understand if you want to understand anything about the universe (this is of course in my very ill-informed and fallible opinion, but hey, we all got 'em right?) is that for every yin there is a yang.

You are not what you perceive your 'self' to be - you are not your personality or the 'you' you present to other people. You are An individual that is inseperable from his time and place - you are a product of the 21st century and so too are your ideas and the entire framework for ordering the world.

At one point you will not exist, and at another point you will, because to have one without the other would be incomprehensible.

>>2130557
Alright. I'm not the mystical whackjob, BTW. Into the matter of whether certain apparently random motions actually are random or not, I'm withholding judgement.

>>2130564
see
>>2130528

time is logic in consequence

>>2129813
Well shit.

>>2130564
>At one point you will not exist, and at another point you will, because to have one without the other would be incomprehensible.

At one point pigs won't fly, and at another point they will, because to have one without the other would be incomprehensible.

>>2130612

Pigs flying is not logically necessary and is actually logically impossible. Existence and non-existence are insepearable - pigs flying and pigs not flying are not.

The fact that we are communicating proves you exist now and have at one point not existed, because how would you know you were alive had you not once been dead?

>>2130626
At one point Cthulu will not exist, and at another point it will, because to have one without the other would be incomprehensible.

>>2129841
>If you were put in a situation where you felt like it was possible that you might die, but also that you might live, then you would be scared.

It's not really death itself that scares me, but more the method.

A lot of that is biological too and not something people have any real control over.

>>2130213
Oh fuck, I'm late to this discussion, but I can never resist it when it comes up.

The teleportation question is excellent, and my answer to it is this: The difference between you and the teleported clone, is simply history. That clone had to be "assembled" somehow, from some pile of carbon atoms, or converted to matter from energy, or whatever. So, if you could trace the history of each atom in him versus the history of each atom in you, you could tell which was which.

But you must also consider that it's false to say that those atoms *are* you. If you shed a few skin cells in the process, you aren't any less "you" than you were before.

It's what philosophers talk about when they say that a river isn't the water. Every drop of water is moving from one place to another, but you can look at a river and say "that's a river." In exactly the same way, a person isn't skin cells and bone cells.

But I feel that if you include the history of each drop of water, or each cell of a person, then you can say what that thing "is." For example, you can say that the Mississippi River *is* all the atoms of water that flowed from Bimidji, Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico between the time when the glaciers receded to some point a million years later when the Sun burned out and destroyed the Earth, etc...

>>2130636

You're stuck thinking in terms of 'things' - think of existence as a concept, not as an atribute.

>>2130866
This man knows what he's talking about.

However, defining the self is a little more difficult that you are suggested. I would recommend this book if you're really interested:
>http://www.amazon.com/Being-There-Putting-Brain-Together/dp/0262531569/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qi
d=1291136986&sr=8-2

For example, if a person is blind and they use a cane to help get around. Then would you agree that assaulting them and taking the cane would be equivalent to harming their body?

If someone has a disease or whatever and their long term memory is gone and they need to figure out how to get places, they may compile a notebook which instructs them on how to get from location to location. How could this be any different from storing the information in the brain. [Location in and of itself does not justify the distinction, because parts of the brain are not as localized as we have thought they are]

When you do long division on a sheet of paper, where is the computation being done?--sure not just in your brain for if that was the case, you wouldn't need the paper in the first place.


Clark's view, simply put, is that cognition is distributed in the brain, body, and environment [though mostly in the brain] and that a distributed notion of self is one to take seriously.