If the universe exists for an infinite amount of time, is death still truly oblivion and eternal? : chapotraphouse

[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

Pure materialist response:

'You', your consciousness, is not a thing, but a process, produced by mainly your brain, along with your sensory organs and nervous system.

Because it is a process, it is always changing, sometimes subtly, sometimes drastically, and is never really exactly the same same as it was 10 years ago, or even 5 minutes ago.

Death is when this ongoing process of being conscious ceases, permenantly, totally, due to the failure of the biological systems and processes that produce your consciousness.

It is a total termination of the process of 'you', of your consciousness.

Even if some set of conditions somehow allowed for your exact body, brain, nervous system, exact electro chemical state of all of them that would give rise to the exact same memories, whatever, even if all of that was to somehow reconstitute themselves, that would not suddenly be an awakening, a continuation of your previous consciousness.

It would be an independent copy, which, depending on whether or not it had somehow been constructed in sufficient detail as to share all your memories up until your death, still would not be you.

It may believe it is you, but it isn't.

'You' died.

...

The teleporter in Star Trek kills you and makes a reconstructed clone of you, with your memories, when you use it.

Even if your pattern is capable of being stuck in the frame buffer and saved or lost, if it is saved, the thing that walks out is a very convincing and very convinced copy of you, despite this way of thinking being largely, but not entirely, stigmatized in the societies of the show.

The actual 'you' was obliterated upon being energized, but the illusion of this not being the case is socially normalized... somewhat comparable to how individual car ownership and usage is extremely normalized in the US, despite the well understood dangers and costs of this.

Everything 'just works' if you go along with it, and if you don't, it kind of demands a reformation of much of society, and makes people think about a lot of things that they would rather not.

...

[–] pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

We tend to define physical objects in a way that have spatial and temporal boundaries. That means if I point to a particular physical object, you can usually draw a rough border around it, as well as talk about when it came into existence and when it goes away. The boundaries are never really solid and there's usually some ambiguity to them, but it's hard to even know what is being talked about without these fuzzy boundaries.

For example, if I point to a cat and say "that's a cat," you generally understand the rough shape of a cat and thus have a rough outline, and this helps you look for where it's located. If there is a water bowl next to the cat, you immediately know the bowl is not the cat and is not what I'm talking about because it's not within those borders. These borders are, again, a bit fuzzy, if you zoom up on a microscopic scale it becomes less clear where the cat begins and where it ends, but these fuzzy borders are still important because without them, if I said "look at that cat over there" you could never figure out what I'm talking about because you would have no concept of the border of the cat at all, which is necessary to locate it.

It is also necessary to our understanding that these boundaries evolve continuously. If a building was demolished, and then a century later someone inspired by it builds another with the same plans, even if it's in the same location, we would typically not think of it as literally the same building, because they did not exist at the same times, i.e. their temporal boundaries do not overlap as there is a discontinuous gap between them. If a cat is located at one position and then later at another, its boundaries have moved, but this movement is continuous, it's not as if the cat teleportation from one point to the next.

But this is precisely why people find the teletransportation paradox difficult to grapple with. What if the cat did teleport from one location to the next such that the original cat is destroyed and its information is used to reconstruct it elsewhere? Is it still the same cat? How we define objects is ultimately arbitrary so you can say either yes or no, but personally I think it's more consistent to say no.

Consider if the teleporter succeeded in reconstructing the cat, but due to a malfunction, it failed to destroy the original cat. Now you have two. It seems rather obvious to me that, if this were to occur, what you have is a clone and not the original cat. They are obviously different beings with different perspectives of the world as they would each see out of their own eyes separately. If I cloned myself, I would not see out of my clone's eyes, so it is clearly not the same object as myself.

If the teleporter clearly is merely cloning the cat when the destructive process malfunctions, then I do not see a good reason for this to change when the destructive process is functioning correctly. Let's say the destructive process malfunctions only a little bit so there is a second delay in the destruction, that means two cats exist for a second before one is destroyed. Would the cat that is reconstructed therefore be a clone for one second, then suddenly turn into the original cat after a second has passed? That just seems very bizarre to me.

It makes more sense to me to say that all a teleporter really does is clone. That means the original object is always destroyed, and the new object created is always a new object. It is not the same object as the original.

Why do I bring all this up? Because I would be inclined to thus say the person who exists "countless eons" after you died would at best be considered a clone of yourself and not actually yourself. Your temporal boundaries do not overlap, there is no continuous transition from the "you" of the past and the "you" eons later, so they are not the same objects. They are different people.

Sure, if we assume the universe can exist eternally (a big assumption, but let's go with it), then if enough time passes, a perfect clone of yourself would be certain to exist. Yet, if we're assuming the universe can exist for that long, why not also assume the universe is spatially infinite as well? We have no reason to suspect that if you kept traveling in one direction long enough, that you would somehow stop discovering new galaxies. As far as we know, they go on forever.

Hence, if you kept traveling in one direction far enough, you would also eventually find a perfect clone of yourself, which would actually exist at the same time as you right now. If we were to accept that the clone of yourself in the far future is the same object as you, wouldn't you not also have to conclude that the clone at a far distance from you is the same object as you? I find this to be rather strange because, again, you do not see out of your clone's eyes, it's clearly a different person. I would thus be inclined to say neither are "you." One does not spatially overlap you (exists in the same time but a different location) and the other does not temporally overlap you (could possibly even exist in the same location, but definitely not at the same time).

It thus seems more consistent to me to say both are merely clones and thus not the same object. It would be a different person who just so happens to look like you but is not you.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Simultaneity is actually not something that exists for objects separated by vast distances in spacetime according to general relativity. That's why I wasn't considering a spatial infinity, our observable reality is situated inside a very much spatially finite event horizon.

We know so little about how consciousness actually works that I'm personally content to say a mere clone of me existing somewhere with my memories is actually me. Shit, even if it doesn't have my memories! As long as it is close enough to being my mind. Who says the fundamental of subjective experience can't exist in superpositions just like everything else can.

I know consciousness can be interrupted without being permanently extinguished because I've been under general anaesthesia before.

[–] pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Simultaneity does exist in general relativity, it's just relative. If your clone doesn't exist because they lie beyond the observable horizon, well, you can't observe things in the future either, so what's the point? My point was that there's not an obvious reason to say a clone existing at the same time as you is indeed a clone but a clone existing at a different time is actually "you." To me, it makes more sense to say in both cases they are clones. But you seem to be saying that they are actually both "you"? Even if they exist at the same time? What about in similar locations as well, such as standing next to each other?

Also, I do not believe in "subjective experience" nor do I believe in "consciousness." It's not true that "we know so little about consciousness" because there is nothing to know about "consciousness" as it's largely a mystical buzzword. There are plenty of things we don't understand about the human brain, like intelligence, but we are gradually making progress in these fields. "Consciousness" is largely meaningless, though, and so it cannot be studied as there is nothing to even know about it, as it doesn't refer to anything real.

I have no idea why you are bringing superposition into this despite it having no relevance here.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Simultaneity does exist in general relativity, I didn't say it didn't. I said it doesn't exist for things separated by vast distances in spacetime, and that's true. There is no simultaneity for two entities separated by an event horizon.

I don't know what consciousness, as in qualia and subjective experience are, but they seems pretty real and not a buzzword to me, it's basically all I can know for sure exists.

I brought up superposition to explain why I don't consider two mes to not both be me. Both are experiencing the universe through the processes that go on in my brain, so both are me. My consciousness is the program running in their head (yeah, I get our brains are not similar to computers, I'm just coming up with a metaphor here), why can't it be in a superposition of two locations if two conscious instances of my brain exist in the same area?

[–] pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Simultaneity does exist in general relativity, I didn’t say it didn’t. I said it doesn’t exist for things separated by vast distances in spacetime, and that’s true. There is no simultaneity for two entities separated by an event horizon.

Event horizon has to do with black holes which are not relevant here, I am assume you are talking about the cosmological horizon, which nothing in GR prevents you from defining simultaneous events from a particular frame of reference for other events beyond the cosmological horizon. If you do define such events, well, of course you could not perceive something beyond the cosmological horizon, so you might argue it's "metaphysical" so to speak. But, again, this is also true for something that exists in the future, it also not observable.

I don’t know what consciousness, as in qualia

Qualia is just a category of objects. Redness, loudness, etc. All objects are socially constructed norms used to judge reality to be something. There's nothing special about one set of objects over another, as if objects of qualia require a special explanation that physical objects like trees and cats do not, or mathematical objects like circles and triangles.

subjective experience

Experience is not subjective.

why can’t it be in a superposition of two locations if two conscious instances of my brain exist in the same area?

Particles have a wavelength associated with them that depends upon their mass caled the de Broglie wavelength and this represents the statistical spread of the position of particles. A superposition of states is really just a list of probability amplitudes presenting the likelihoods of where the particle may show up. If the statistical spread (determined by the de Broglie wavelength) is too narrow then it would be basically impossible to get the object to be noticeably in a superposition of two different locations, while if the statistical spread is very large then it would be very easy.

The de Broglie wavelength depends upon mass, and gets narrower the more massive an object is. That means for any macroscopic object the statistical spread is just too small to place its position into a superposition of states. Massive objects like a human brain simply cannot be in a superposition of positions with another brain. The closest you could get is to a kind of Schrodinger's cat type scenario whereby the brain is entangled with another event that determines its trajectory, but I see no physical mechanism that would establish something like this between these two copies of "you."

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 50 minutes ago)

Hey not here to talk about any of the weird consciousness stuff, just science, came back to this thread because I was interested in what you were saying about relativity. Like aren't event horizons as found in black holes and the cosmic horizon the same thing?

It's my understanding that it's not possible to synchronize two clocks without bringing them together. And regardless if two clocks are separated by an event horizon (i.e one of them fell into a black hole) or if they're separated by the cosmic horizon (i.e one is outside the observable universe) they can't ever be brought together. Doesn't that mean you can't meaningfully define a moment in time that is simultaneous for them?

Like in the case of a clock inside a black hole, that's in the infinite future of another clock outside the black hole, right?

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I disagree, experience is very subjective. You can not convey what it feels like to exist with quantifiable data. No amount of information is sufficient to impart the sensation of seeing the color red on another observer without them actually experiencing it.

I'm saying maybe the consciousness itself briefly exists in a superposition, not the entire mass of the brain. If for some weird happenstance two copies of your mind existed at once, then your consciousness would briefly be in a superposition of two locations. Then this superposition would inevitably and immediately decay as the two minds begin receiving different sensory data.

You seem to fundamentally disagree that subjective experience even exists, so I'm not sure if you're still following, but my thinking is that the qualia is in essence literally just the physical system that makes up my brain functioning correctly. So if my brain exists in the universe, a mind similar enough to my own that it experiences the same qualia I'm experiencing now, then I exist and am conscious, regardless if there's any continuity to the physical body and location I currently inhabit.

[–] pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I disagree, experience is very subjective. You can not convey what it feels like to exist with quantifiable data. No amount of information is sufficient to impart the sensation of seeing the color red on another observer without them actually experiencing it.

None of this establishes it is subjective in the slightest. The reality we experience just is. Of course it is not equivalent to quantifiable data. If I go see the Shanghai Tower in person, and if I look at a picture or a written description of the Shanghai Tower, of course the real thing is categorically different than the thing in reality. How does that demonstrate the real thing is "subjective"?

The real thing is not subjective, but it is perspective-dependent. The physical sciences allow us to describe all possible perspectives, as both general relativity and relational quantum mechanics are perspective-dependent theories. But there is a categorical distinction between a description of a perspective and the reality of a perspective.

No matter how detailed a description of fire becomes, the paper it is written on will not suddenly burst into flames, as if it becomes a real fire. The reality of a thing, and the description of a thing, are always distinctly different. The physical sciences are descriptive, we can describe all possible perspectives, but there is still a categorical distinction between the reality of actually occupying such a perspective.

It makes no sense to ask how to quantify the reality we experience. It is false to qualify it as well. Reality just is what it is. When we assign quantities and qualities to it, we are moving beyond reality and into interpretation of reality. Reality does have the property that it is capable of being quantified and qualified, but the specific quantities and qualities we choose depends quite a bit on contextual factors and only makes sense in relation to social institutions as all object-labels are socially constructed norms.

This is, again, true for all objects. There is no reason to separate "the experience of seeing color" from any other experiential realities, such as "the experience of seeing a cat" or "the experience of seeing a triangle." Perspectives are defined in terms of physical systems, and so by definition two different physical systems occupy different slices of reality from two different perspectives. The only way to make them share the same perspective would be to make them the same object, which then they would no longer share the same perspective because the original two objects would no longer even exist, definitionally.

It is just fallacious to jump from reality being perspective-dependent to it being subject-dependent. You have not actually established some fundamental role for subjects here. Again, the physical sciences allow us to describe reality from all possible perspectives of all physical objects, so there is no physical reason to state that reality only exists from human perspectives. If you want to point out the fact that you only occupy the reality of your own perspective and thus cannot actually verify the reality of other perspectives described by the physical sciences, sure, but this is also true of other people. You cannot occupy, as a matter of definition, the perspective of other human beings, so you would be forced to conclude that the slices of reality corresponding to other human perspectives don't exist, either, i.e. devolving into solipsism.

Are you a solipsist? I guess I never actually asked.

I’m saying maybe the consciousness itself briefly exists in a superposition, not the entire mass of the brain.

If consciousness is a quantifiable object (which is necessary to be in a superposition of states which is a mathematical statement) then you should be able to give me a definition of consciousness I can quantify. You have yet to do so.

If for some weird happenstance two copies of your mind existed at once, then your consciousness would briefly be in a superposition of two locations.

You have no mechanism for this to actually occur. You are just devolving into complete quantum mysticism, believing if you abuse terminology from quantum theory then suddenly it gives it legitimacy. It does not.

Stating that if two identical objects exist simultaneously they would be in a superposition of states is making a very specific quantifiable physical claim which you have not even attempted to explain the possible physical mechanism.

You seem to fundamentally disagree that subjective experience even exists, so I’m not sure if you’re still following, but my thinking is that the qualia is in essence literally just the physical system that makes up my brain functioning correctly.

No, qualia is just a category of objects. Things like "redness" or "loudness," these are socially constructed norms we use to identify aspects of reality in a way that allow us to communicate them to other people. There is nothing special about "qualia" over any other category of objects, such as mathematical objects or physical objects. Experience itself is not a category of objects, it is not "qualia," nor is it "subjective." What we experience is just reality as it exists from our own perspective.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm not a solipsist, I'm not an anything -ist, I've never seriously studied philosophy, I'm just a person trying to make sense of why I as a collection of atoms just like everything else in this universe have an experience at all. Why is there a feeling to it? "It" is all I can for sure verify, you seem similar to me so I grant you have "it" as well as animals with brains and such. I generalize this further to everything else around us, that surely they too also have an innate feeling of existence, maybe perhaps just one far simpler than the sensations dreamed up by living organisms.

[–] pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I’m not a solipsist

Again, my point is that (1) we can describe reality from the perspective of any physical object in the natural sciences, independently of whether or not it is a mammal with a brain, (2) I can experience the reality of the perspective in which I occupy directly for myself, and (3) it seems rather intuitive to then conclude that all possible descriptions of reality from all possible perspectives also correspond to an actual reality from that perspective (i.e. each possibly description of reality from any possible perspective also has a corresponding "what it is like to be" in that perspective).

Rejecting #3 seems to fall into solipsism since you would only be left with the reality from your own perspective, and descriptions of other perspectives would not have a corresponding reality to those descriptions. Accepting #3 would assign reality to all possible perspectives, and thus there would no reason to treat mammals with brains as anything special requiring a special explanation with some special "consciousness" property, since the physical sciences allows us to describe reality even from the perspective of inanimate objects like rocks.

It is clear you need an additional fourth premise to insist that mammalian brains do something special that requires a special explanation, and I do not see what that fourth premise could possibly be.

I’m just a person trying to make sense of why I as a collection of atoms just like everything else in this universe have an experience at all.

As I said, experience is just the reality of a particular frame of reference. To ask why there is a reality to it, you are just asking why there is a reality rather than no reality, i.e. not much different than a "why is there something rather than nothing" question. It cannot be meaningfully answered. You can explain why something in reality exists, but then whatever explanation you give will still deal with aspects of reality, which you can then just ask why those aspects exist, and repeat this as an infinite regress, constantly asking "why" to every question. At some point, you just have to respond, it is what it is. Reality as a whole cannot have an explanation. It just is. You just have to accept reality is as a start point or you will never get anywhere.

“It” is all I can for sure verify, you seem similar to me so I grant you have “it” as well as animals with brains and such. I generalize this further to everything else around us, that surely they too also have an innate feeling of existence, maybe perhaps just one far simpler than the sensations dreamed up by living organisms.

Experience is not something created by brains. Experience is, again, just reality as it exists from a particular perspective. Brains play a role in what we experience, but so does everything else as well. Every object we posit to exist, including our brains, play some predictive role in allowing us to explain and forecast experiential reality. But none of these objects create reality, as if reality is something that is "given rise to." Reality just is. We can identify objects within reality and use those objects to explain and forecast reality, but none of them can possibly play any sort of creative role in giving rise to reality itself. Logically, it makes no sense, as it is reality which grants objects the quality of being by definition.

I am not a fan of the interchanging of "experience" with "feeling" as you are using, kind of like when you also interchange it with "consciousness," because these words like "feeling" and "consciousness" clearly have human-centric implications to them. This is obvious if we apply these different words to inanimate objects. It clearly has rather mystical implications to say things like a rock can "feel" or it has "consciousness." However, to say the rock can have an experience is part of everyday language, i.e. "the rock is experiencing erosion in the rain," or "the rock is experiencing fluctuations in temperature." The word "experience" just means to undergo a real event, so this kind of language is rather natural, while assigning "feeling" or "consciousness" to a rock seems to anthropomorphize it too much.

[–] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 1 points 4 days ago

Shit, even if it doesn't have my memories! As long as it is close enough to being my mind.

So you’re most people. Welcome to Aldous Huxley thought. You might like monism tbh.

[–] Gorb@hexbear.net 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Somewhere between now and the end of time my pants will be shid

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 6 points 6 days ago

put me down for $5 on later today

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[–] bubbalu@hexbear.net 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The thing that's helped me understand this argument is that there are different forms and sizes of infinity. let's say you add 1 infinitesimal (1/infinity) every given time interval. Even if time is infinitely long, you will never surpass 1. So you will never produce 100 or 1000, or any arbitrary number greater than 1.

Similarly there are so much variables required to form your conciousness that even in an infinite amount of time it can never be reformed spontaneously. The size of infinities involved in producing a given person's conciousness is orders of magnitude greater than the infinity of time.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Similarly there are so much variables required to form your conciousness that even in an infinite amount of time it can never be reformed spontaneously. The size of infinities involved in producing a given person's conciousness is orders of magnitude greater than the infinity of time.

Why? It's a finite system. There's a finite number of particles. Why would it take a "larger infinity" than a countably infinite amount of time for, after the heat death of the universe, enough space dust to come together again and spontaneously cause another big bang? If the universe keeps going infinitely, what's to stop it from happening again, and again, and again, until the big bang and all subsequent events are exactly the same as the universe we know? Or at least arbitrarily close if you want to think of it as a continuous system.

To counter your argument about adding up 1/infinity an infinite number of times: it's not 1/infinity. The chance that a bunch of hydrogen particles fuse together to form the necessary elements, then happen to react to form the necessary chemicals, to form a human brain in the vacuum of space, is clearly very unlikely. It might be 1 / 10^10^1\0^10^10^10... or whatever. The denominator in that fraction is a number that is freakishly large and impossible to conceptualize. But it's definitely finite. There's a world of difference between that number and infinity, and there's no reason at all for it to be infinite.

Edit: also, small nitpick, infinity * 1/infinity actually can surpass 1. Or it can equal 0. It's an indeterminate form. If you get it as the result of taking shortcuts while solving a limit e.g. lim x -> inf x^2 / 4x^2 which you could substitute the x by infinity and get infinity / infinity, it just means you have to do more work. In this case, you can factor out the 1/4 and get x^2 / x^2, which simplifies to 1, and the limit is equal to 1/4. So even if the probability was actually 1/infinity, it wouldn't be sufficient to say that over an infinite period of time it would never add up to anything. Maybe your point would be better illustrated with a geometric series? Like when you add 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8.... you'll tend towards 2 but never above it.

[–] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (11 children)

Yeah, the idea that space dust could randomly form a brain for a moment is pretty odd. We are products of infinite causal factors including millions of years of stable life, and I’d have to guess are consciousnesses reformation would occur under vaguely similar circumstances. “This happened once so within infinity it will happen again” is a little absurd if you think it will happen again in totally different circumstances.

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[–] FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

this just tripped me out real hard, my tiny brain can't comprehend

[–] Abracadaniel@hexbear.net 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Nothing will cause a new "you" with your current memories and personality to be recreated, but new blank slate subjects are being created all the time, which we all started as.

https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/death/death-nothingness-and-subjectivity

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Why does the universe have to exist for an infinite amount of time? Or is that part of the thought experiment sorry I'm tired

[–] Dessa@hexbear.net 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What else would it do?

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 5 points 6 days ago

Clock out at the end of its 15 billion year shift at the factory. "i swear if i get another human infection Im out of the black hole production game for good!"

[–] luddybuddy@hexbear.net 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If this were meaningfully true, I think we’d remember that having happened already. If the universe has just as much infinite time before now as after now, I’d already have lived, died, and been born again. If this has happened, and I don’t remember it, what is the use of saying that that person and I are the same?

[–] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 2 points 6 days ago

I agree it’s absurd if there’s an assumption memories are maintained. But it’s more plausible if you just forget everything and have a whole new life in the samsaric fashion.

[–] 666@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

What case do you have that the universe will exist for an infinite amount of time?

Personally, my mindset on the matter is asking yourself if you remember what it is like before you were born. That's what it will be like after you die. There is no material evidence to perceiving anything after death or a rebirth at all. Oblivion.

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's exactly my problem with just imagining before my birth! That period of nonexistence literally ended spontaneously! I know for sure that happened once, I don't see why it can't happen again.

[–] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Then why should the next life feel like it is a continuation of this one?

[–] cosecantphi@hexbear.net 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I don't think it should necessarily, just that the conscious feeling of experience should start back up again.

[–] QueerCommie@hexbear.net 2 points 4 days ago

Sure. If you give a mystical explanation the benefit of the doubt. An explanation in obvious conflict with “brain qualia” and “if it feels like me.”