What happens to us when we die?
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Re: What happens to us when we die?
- Sy Borg
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Re: What happens to us when we die?
There are also undercurrents to all of this, some that have been found, others that have not.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?
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- Sy Borg
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Jan, most are familiar with the conventional materialist narrative. However, logical positivism is far from the only school of thought, and is generally considered to gloss over the mysteries of existence, starting with the first "miracle" and moving forward as though the way things are is simply a given. This is practical. If one wants a healthy and happy life to the ripe old age of 92 and beyond, then that's probably a terrific way to go.Jan Sand wrote: ↑January 20th, 2018, 6:38 pm As I have mentioned We do not live in what is assumed as reality, Our brain combines the input of the outside world from our several senses into a model which is incessantly updated into a dynamic model. That model is where we operate to control what we think is the real world. Our brain is very creative and what we don't actually see and hear the brain cab manufacture into what we believe is the true world. That is why hypnotized people actually experience what is suggested to see and hear but which are not actually there. As we accumulate memories through life, they are stored in our brains and they are the source of many things we presume are there to fill in the blanks of sense input that we presume must exist. That also explains hallucinations and are the materials that we use to form dreams. The more we know about some people who are close the more we have memories of people who have died and, even when they are alive, they can only exist out of the models we have made of them and continuously create as we experience them. Those dynamic models in our minds continue to function even when they no longer exist after they die. Although they can, then, only exist in full measure in our dreams, they remain a part of us and we can still react with them in our thoughts. Perhaps what we call ghosts are hallucinations that recreate them after they die . But even if they only exist in thought, they and all their characteristics still remain in our minds.
However, for some of us, our probing need have nothing to do with leading a long, healthy happy life and everything to do with simple curiosity about the nature of reality and being. It doesn't matter that the search is futile because, for some of us, the search is interesting and enjoyable.
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I think of it like a particle/wave dichotomy, where the "particle" is the centre of complexity and the wave. If the particle dissipates, the wave continues for a little while. By the same token, when we clinically die it's generally accepted that one can still experience consciousness with the last few minutes of the brain's oxygen, perhaps with a sense of information compression/time dilation, as in dreams.
The notion of being dead and being aware that you are dead is mind-blowing to me - suspended in the silent blackness and nothingness of a senseless body, wondering what happens next.
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That's the first time I've been accused on anthropocentrism. Quite amusing and rather bizarre. Usually I am chastised for focusing on the biosphere over humanity. I have never had time for philosophers who failed to consider evolution seriously when considering why human beings do the things they do.
Meanwhile, Jan, you are in denial if you think humans are not the pinnacle of evolution on earth so far. Do you believe bacteria, cockroaches, lizards, parrots, chimps and humans to be all equally sentient and complex? Sixty million years ago dinosaurs were the pinnacle. Do you deny that? Do you deny that trilobites were the pinnacle of evolution when they dominated the Earth? If so, why is it so hard to believe that humans are the current pinnacle of evolution?
The fact is that the human brain is the most complex entity that we know of for many trillions of kilometres. This cannot be denied.
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I agree that persistence matters - everything that is present today is just that which has persisted. Innumerable other forms have come and gone since. Rather than natural selection I think of it as physical selection, because rocks and other things either persist or not in much the same way as life does. However, persistence is just one aspect, as is complexity - there is also the quality of that persistence and complexity.
What humans do seems to fit normal natural patterns, though. Our activity and role in nature has been thus far been strikingly similar to that of imaginal discs within metamorphosing insects. Imaginal discs essentially turn a metamorphising insect's innards into mush (like us breaking down ecosystems) and then they use the mush as resources with which to become the structures of the animal's reproductive form. That's what humans are doing on the Earth - taking other parts of nature and turning them into space programs which will send Earth's genetic and memetic material off-world to spread and/or reproduce.
I expect that the bulk of this furthering of the Earth's legacy will be performed by AI rather than humans, who seem to be too fragile for deep space travel. This seems a likely way that AI would replace us in time, not through revolution but through simply being more durable. As things stand, the Earth's biosphere was entering its dotage long before humans arrived and is probably in its last 10% of life. In well under a billion years' time the Earth's surface will be sterilised by the Sun.
This, however, may not be much of an issue for any remaining AI. I find it a beautiful thought that, in time, the Earth's surface will probably be entirely populated by communities or cities of AI, beavering away at whatever projects matter to them. It would be as if the circle turned - with geology spawning biology, which then turned back into geology, having gained biology's intelligence. Like the Earth itself, they would not be biological but they would be alive in their own way.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?
Consider the good: this word has meaning in ordinary affairs, as in "that cup is a good one." In this sense, the goodness of the cup in embedded in a context that defines what good is. It is good as a drinking vessel, the stem is sturdy, the volume sufficient, and so on. Most common goods are like this. Note how context changes the goodness: You have a knife that is very dull and I say that it is a bad knife, but then, you tell me the knife is supposed to be dull for a performance of Macbeth and a dull knife is a safe knife. Suddenly, being sharp is bad. And it changed instantly, there being no residual good of the sharpness to be now applied. Indeed, sharp is now bad.
This is the world of contingency, and most things go like this as all meanings are in play, not just their being good. This is an ink well, but makes a fine paper weight, but on being robbed it becomes a weapon. Nothing is fixed in this world. No meanings are stand alone (difference and differance? ring a bell?) What does it mean to say "Is there a text in this class?" Does it refer to a book? A standard interpretation? Is the student looking for a textbook she left behind? All are in play.
But now, consider the good in ethics. Take an extreme case of suffering as this makes the case most effectively (keep in mind, all I need is a single example to serve as a counter example to make my case. No matter if I ignore other kinds of experiences). I am told if I torture this child for one minute then the torturing of a thousand children for a solid day (or how about an eternity) will be averted. Obviously, I should torture the one child, based on pure utility; this is the clear choice.
Now the point: Notice the sharpness of the knife vanishes as good when the new context is applied. But the torture of the child for one minute abides as bad regardless of how strongly the contextual conditions apply. It could be for just ten seconds of torture vis a vis an eternity for a million children, and this does not change one whit the awfulness of the five seconds. In fact, and this is what I'm getting at: No matter what, the torture is bad. No matter how you conceive of a way to recontextualize the badness, it never becomes good. And this means that ethical goodness and badness is absolute. To be unchanging and fixed AS IF it were written in stone by the hand of God, God being here that which cannot be overturned.
Why is this important? Because all this talk about science and the way We fit into ITS objectifying theories puts human values, its ethical goods and bads, into frameworks of contingency, that is, of meanings that are in play. All this talk about how meaningless things get when at the mercy of the savages of nature does not recognize this extraordinary feature of human (and animal) reality, which is value. This changes everything, for as valuative creatures, ones that care and do so deeply (imagine you're that child), there is a dimension that science cannot touch, which is ethical value. It cannot touch it because, and this is the kicker, the badness in the ethical sense is outside of observation. As Wittgenstein put it: Take all the facts of the world and you will not find any fact of value. Yet, value is what being human/animal is all about.
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Re: What happens to us when we die?
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023