this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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chapotraphouse
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No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
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Don't even need to separate the lobes, let alone create separate bodies for this.
Meh, in real life it's experimentally and experientially identical to consciousness surviving an interruption. This is just like solipsism circle jerking. Use diamat
What do you mean by this?
If you don’t separate the lobes, then you still have a single connected network of neurons, which probably forms a single mass of experience. It’s cool and interesting if you want to question that, I can see some possible lines of argument, but none are obvious enough that you can just gesture at them and people know what you mean.
Experimentally yes, but not experientially. You either experience the next instant or you don’t.
We’ll probably never know, so there’s no reason to worry about it—although that won’t always stop someone in a bad headspace, hence the spoiler—but if you like thinking about how consciousness works, then the idea inevitably comes up and needs to be acknowledged.
Unfalsifiable does not mean stupid to think about.
For starters, it’s intrinsically worthwhile to map out the space of possibilities, even if you might never be able to narrow things down within that space. But also, it’s a necessary step if you want to really convince yourself that it is unfalsifiable. You have to actually consider the relevant thought experiments and their ramifications.
Unlike solipsism, continuity of consciousness is a question you can actually reason about. You can study the brain, the neurons, the synapses, to see if any physical process looks continuous for the whole brain over time and space. Roger Penrose, for quantum mechanical reasons, thinks experiential consciousness resides in the microtubules, which are cytoskeletal filaments inside the cells of the brain. Others argue pretty strongly that there is nothing special about microtubules. But there’s an actual discussion! Even if it turns out to be unfalsifiable, the discussion itself will have been fruitful because it helped us determine that.
Materialism tells you why things happen, it tells you where thoughts come from, why the brain does what it does, which is great, but continuity of consciousness is a more elusive question, because it has no effect on a person’s brain activity or behavior. A perfect clone with the same memories is indistinguishable from the original, unless you actually track the whereabouts of the original and the clone to prove which one zapped into existence 30 minutes ago.
Maybe you feel that’s worthless to think about, but we’re already in a thread where OP is thinking about it.
OP imagines their subjective experience continuing after a prolonged interruption of existence. Dialectical materialism and quantum physics do not readily tell you if that can happen.
I was under the impression she was referring to dissociation, but I’ll leave that to her.
For my part, I agree. Sorry I came off as a metaphysical chauvinist or whatever. I’m actually known to speculate openly at length on philosophical topics many find boring, irrelevant, opaque, etc. I am in this thread because I have thoughts on the topic and am interested in the thoughts of others.
My understanding is that dialectical materialism is a powerful conceptual framework that has its limits when it comes to ontology and other speculative matters. All ways of understanding have their limits, but it’s worth investigating to find the limits. In this case I don’t see any conclusion to be drawn from the scenarios presented and am instead arguing for the Buddhist position of the empty nature of the self based on dialectical materialist epistemology I presume many of us are able to agree upon in some sense and consider. From the basis that the source of all knowledge is practice, experientially we know that all changes and dies, and quantum physics empirically tells us that nothing is the same from one moment to the next. Thus no self essence can be found. This has implications for this contemplation.
I'd be quite interested in any texts along these lines you might recommend.
spoiler
If you’re up for podcasts my starting point for Buddhism was revolutionary left radio’s episodes on the overlap. I’ve read a ton on it now, but honestly I haven’t found a better introduction for non-self/anatta, one of the three marks of existence than Daniel Ingram’s Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. While other parts have helped me experientially understand it more, there are none more essential than this chapter. A 600 page book is a hard sell, but if you like the taste it’s incredible. If you have a solid grasp of dialectical materialism the parallels are obvious and if not I gotta recommend the dialectics deep dive series as well as books Anti-Duhring and the Dialectical Biologist. You may note in the linked passage Ingram explicitly establishes non-materialist philosophical assumptions. That is a pragmatic choice in service of the goal of internal insight and relief from suffering. As Lenin admits in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, we Marxists make certain materialist assumptions that can not be founded rationally or empirically but are functional in our quest to change the world and relieve external suffering.I started with the Ego Tunnel and got bored, but it establishes parallels between science and the doctrine of no-self as well.
Tell me if you have any more specific questions because I found the initial one a little vague.