What Actually Happens When You Die...

[Story]

I'm not a fan of many... ...Humans are not like this. If you remove or damage the pieces that contain our memory, you remove us.

Very very well said.

I feel a little misunderstood though. What I'm saying is not a reworking of the soul. My hypothesis is based on reasoning that is completely converse to the soul. It is inspired by the supposition that people currently replace the idea of the soul with the brain and is founded on variety of demonstrations which allude that your mind is what makes you what you are, but not what makes you consciously aware of you.

The best way for me to put it is that individual consciousness in and in itself is just an illusion. There is no system that makes you an individual person other than the fact that your mind is separated from other minds. Furthermore, there is no process that made you cognizant of your particular body (Although there's plenty of things that make you an individual personality). Which means that not only could you have been anyone else, but you may be everyone, but only individually cognizant of one.

This is because the same thing that makes you actually you (physics, math, etc) is what makes everyone else them. There is no way to separate consciousnesses into individual "soul"s, the only thing that can be separated is individual personalities and perceptions.

If this is not true, then individuals conscious awarenesses are somehow created which is not related to your memories or thoughts or brain, but in itself is it's own entity at all.

I don't think this makes sense, I don't think consciousnesses are made, I think they're all based on the same thing, they are all one, but separated only by space and configurations of matter. You are not just you, you are the universe. Individual consciousness is illusory.

 

[Gerst]

From a peripheral glance it might seem meaningless and irrelevant, but saying you are you because it's you doesn't explain anything. It's just the law of identity. Polar bears are polar bears because they're polar bears. That's true, but it's tautological and tells us nothing about the subject at all. Polar Bears are polar bears because they fit that label that we have applied to them which defines a certain genetic criteria

.
I think this analogy doesn't quite hold up, as the label 'you' is a vastly different concept then the simple taxonomy we apply to naming beasts. Because if somebody else is you. He would also be himself. So in effect, he would be you. This is why it seems irrelevant to me, you will always be who you are. And not somebody else. But on the contrary. If a polar bear is an elephant, he would not be a polar bear. He would be an elephant.

I agree we are conscious because of our brains/bodies, my only problem is the idea that you are conscious of your own body because of your brain. This is essentially true, but the brain is not what makes you conscious of your body. If it was... this would just be replacing the concept of the brain with the soul. How you ask? Because you're assuming that there was a point in time where "your" consciousness came into existence (or a gradual process). If this is true then your claim is that certain configurations of matter can itself create a consciousness an independent consciousness like a soul which is born and extinguished. You're also claiming that there was something about your conception that made you conscious of that body. You are saying that if you die it's the end or if you weren't born you would not exist, which explains well the flesh sack that is your body, personality and memories, but not the conscious awareness that is you.

But it IS the brain that makes us conscious. We have such a complex brain that we are aware that we are a body that can look, touch, taste, hear and smell. We are aware that we find ourselves within a world which we can manipulate and set to our own hand. This is our evolutionary advantage. This is why we're still here instead of mammoths or wooly rhino's. What makes you think that it isn't the brain and it's configuration of matter that creates the consciousness? A human brain will always be conscious of the body which it finds itself in. Would be quite unhandy if that weren't the case. We have good reason to believe that this consciousness doesn't initiate itself at birth. We just gradually grow into it, like waking up from a drunk night out. And if we die, our brain just stops functioning and we aren't conscious anymore.

Essentially you could be seeing through the eyes and life of any one in the world today, what makes you you?

Yes, and I am seeing through the eyes and life of any one person on the world today. And this any one person just happens to be a guy sitting in front of his computer in a room somewhere in the Netherlands. Because I am that persons brain. You make it sound like "you" can be something seperate from the brain, but it can't. You are you, I am I, he is he. You can never interchange.

 

[Cabbo]

You're applying metaphysics where there needn't be any by stating that 'we are one with the universe', or you are stating the obvious in the fact that we are part of the universe.

Yes, the only separation between person to person is the fact that they do not occupy the same brain. Rather they are not the same brain. As I've said before it is the makeup of the brain that defines the person. And again, you are you because of the brain you inherited, and because of the things you have experienced. You would not be you if you were not born as you, with that one sperm, and that one egg. You would not exist. We are all a product of chance (not in the existence of humanity as a whole, but in the individual uniqueness of all of us), and were the situations any different, then we would not be here. Other people would. No matter how similar, they would still be different people.


I disagree with the idea that 'you could have been anyone', as you could only possibly have either been you, or nothing. There is nothing external that makes you you. Without you as you are now, you would not exist.

 

[lrkun]

I'm not a fan of many... ...Humans are not like this. If you remove or damage the pieces that contain our memory, you remove us.

Very very well said.

I feel a little misunderstood though. What I'm saying is not a reworking of the soul. My hypothesis is based on reasoning that is completely converse to the soul. It is inspired by the supposition that people currently replace the idea of the soul with the brain and is founded on variety of demonstrations which allude that your mind is what makes you what you are, but not what makes you consciously aware of you.

The best way for me to put it is that individual consciousness in and in itself is just an illusion. There is no system that makes you an individual person other than the fact that your mind is separated from other minds. Furthermore, there is no process that made you cognizant of your particular body (Although there's plenty of things that make you an individual personality). Which means that not only could you have been anyone else, but you may be everyone, but only individually cognizant of one.

This is because the same thing that makes you actually you (physics, math, etc) is what makes everyone else them. There is no way to separate consciousnesses into individual "soul"s, the only thing that can be separated is individual personalities and perceptions.

If this is not true, then individuals conscious awarenesses are somehow created which is not related to your memories or thoughts or brain, but in itself is it's own entity at all.

I don't think this makes sense, I don't think consciousnesses are made, I think they're all based on the same thing, they are all one, but separated only by space and configurations of matter. You are not just you, you are the universe. Individual consciousness is illusory.

It's nice to assume that we gain our consciousness elsewhere; but in reality, it is something we acquire because of our experience from interacting with our environment, our genetic make-up, and our mind's capacity to understand patterns. Consequently, the concept or understanding of consciouness becomes apparent from these if taken as a whole.

 

[Story]

I think this analogy doesn't quite hold up, as the label 'you' is a vastly different concept then the simple taxonomy we apply to naming beasts. Because if somebody else is you. He would also be himself. So in effect, he would be you. This is why it seems irrelevant to me, you will always be who you are. And not somebody else. But on the contrary. If a polar bear is an elephant, he would not be a polar bear. He would be an elephant.

The label "you" has no special properties in my opinion, this might just arise from a confusion of pronouns here, because pronouns are relative labels that change with perspective, however if we look at it from absolute labels that don't change with perspective. Person X does not become Person Y if we were to say that the conscious awareness of Person X was to suddenly see/think through that of Person Y.

But it IS the brain that makes us conscious. We have such a complex brain that we are aware that we are a body that can look, touch, taste, hear and smell. We are aware that we find ourselves within a world which we can manipulate and set to our own hand. This is our evolutionary advantage. This is why we're still here instead of mammoths or wooly rhino's. What makes you think that it isn't the brain and it's configuration of matter that creates the consciousness? A human brain will always be conscious of the body which it finds itself in. Would be quite unhandy if that weren't the case. We have good reason to believe that this consciousness doesn't initiate itself at birth. We just gradually grow into it, like waking up from a drunk night out. And if we die, our brain just stops functioning and we aren't conscious anymore.

Yes, for a surety it is the brain that makes us conscious and it is a result of evolution. I have no problem with that notion. My only issue is defining one's own consciousness. Not the consciousness of humanity in general. My argument IS that it isn't your conception/parents/DNA that makes you consciously aware of yourself and not others. It is only your brain. Yes for sure, your brain is a product of your DNA/parents/conception. But, someone with identical DNA/parents/conception (a monozygotic twin) will not be you and therefore the fact that you are conscious of yourself is due to your brain, not your makeup... I could take the argument further from here, but I want to make sure we agree on that first.

Yes, and I am seeing through the eyes and life of any one person on the world today. And this any one person just happens to be a guy sitting in front of his computer in a room somewhere in the Netherlands. Because I am that persons brain. You make it sound like "you" can be something seperate from the brain, but it can't. You are you, I am I, he is he. You can never interchange.

My point is that "you" can not be something separate from the brain, my aim is to show you that your concept of the brain seems to yield the concept of a "you" being separate from the brain.

 

[lrkun]

Maybe you're over thinking things? since in reality we can't be separated from our body, when we look at things or experiences things, we're taking information; but if we imagine or use our imagination we can recall memories, make up memories, or see imaginary things/concepts in a first person/third person point of view.

The brain allows us to do the above, yes?

 

[Story]

Maybe you're over thinking things? since in reality we can't be separated from our body, when we look at things or experiences things, we're taking information; but if we imagine or use our imagination we can recall memories, make up memories, or see imaginary things/concepts in a first person/third person point of view.

The brain allows us to do the above, yes?

Yes, the brain allows us to do the above.

I think I may be over thinking things, so I'm going to explain my dilemma in the simplest way. Tell me which conclusions of mind you disagree with.

a) Firstly, what happens when you die? It's basically just nothingness right? We don't know, but there's no reason to assume that you'll reincarnate or move on to an afterlife, the death of your brain is the death and complete end of your perception. Agreed?

b) Throughout the course of your life, all the atoms and matter you're made of (Including your brain) will be recycled and replaced by others through nutrition and respiration etc, correct? Which means that no matter what particles you're made of or where it is as long as it constructs your memories and personality you will always be alive. (The implications of this conclusion is the most important)

c) If you died during a time where technology was able to determine the exact composition of your brain during your life and memories etc. If they preserved your body and restructured your brain after death you would return to consciousness. Your death would have only been a period of unconsciousness. Because it doesn't matter what you're made of as long as it yields the same memories, personality etc.

d) If your body was destroyed and they restructured it completely the results would be just the same as the above. A period of unconsciousness. Remember, it doesn't matter what you're made of, what matters is that it makes your memories and thoughts.

e) If they accidental reconstructed 2 bodies with your memories and thoughts, which one would you return to consciousness as?

 

[Story]

You're applying metaphysics where there needn't be any by stating that 'we are one with the universe', or you are stating the obvious in the fact that we are part of the universe.

Personally I think that "you are one with the universe" is a slightly different concept than "you are the universe".

"You are one with the universe" just means you're part of the universe, which is obvious but not very interesting.

"You are the universe" means to me that there's no difference between you and any other part of the universe. What this means is mostly that the universe follows a set of laws which your body is also subject too. Your body includes your mind, your mind and all it's processes are subject to laws of physics and chemistry that you have no control over. However, these processes give you the illusion of control. So with fundamentally no control over what your actions are you're just a machine. Just saying "you" is confusing... you're a part of lots of different things in the universe, stuff from the centre of stars, bits that landed on earth from the vessel of an asteroid, and you continue to interchange particles now with other stuff, what you are made of currently is not what you will be made of in 10 years or so. The "you" of the future is currently spread out around the earth in little pieces that the system that is your body will pull together to slowly make a new body and brain, this new body and brain will only be similar to the last, but not the same. The system that defines "you" is just the mind, just the system. Nothing more...

Which brings up my problem.

My problem was initially that if we are just stuff and processes that we have no control over, simple machines, then the only thing that defines a "you" is what those processes result in. "I" only refers to a process in a mind you can't even control, that being said free will may not be completely an illusion. Basically you are your brain, the processes that follow from it's configuration are you. You have no control over the laws of the universe, but this only means that you won't do anything that your mind doesn't tell you to do. Your mind being you... Still a machine, but still you. Clearly you won't do anything you decide to you... This just led to another problem for me however. If my consciousness is just a conglomeration of millions of tiny processes, each individual process not being very impressive, but the conglomerate on a whole being magnificent.

If you're following me at this point then we've come to the conclusion that lots of simple processes working together create consciousnesses. But we're not the only thing that are a bunch of simple processes working together... A brain is not the only kind of thing that has lots of tiny processes working together. Computers do too... so are computers conscious? I assume they are... just not in any similar way to us. I think that if you are to assume that something like a mind, which is just simple processes working together to make something magnificent. You have to assume that something simpler than a mind could also be only a little less magnificent. That being said... you must also assume that these individual processes no matter how simple must hold some faint signal of this magnificence. To assume that the magnificence that is consciousness only applies to brains flies in the face of how brains produce consciousness.

That being said, I had a few problems I couldn't find the answer to... I'll go into those later.

 

[lrkun]

e) If they accidental reconstructed 2 bodies with your memories and thoughts, which one would you return to consciousness as?

I don't know. It's nice to assume that in one of those bodies, I'll be conscious; but this has never been tried, so it's either both bodies will have my memories and act like me, or if they'll have new consciousness, or only one of them will have my consciousness and the other a new consciousness.

 

[Story]

e) If they accidental reconstructed 2 bodies with your memories and thoughts, which one would you return to consciousness as?

I don't know. It's nice to assume that in one of those bodies, I'll be conscious; but this has never been tried, so it's either both bodies will have my memories and act like me, or if they'll have new consciousness, or only one of them will have my consciousness and the other a new consciousness.

I think that concept is inconsistent with the progression of conclusions.

You have three options:

a) You'd be conscious of neither of them.

b) You'd be conscious of one of them.

c) You'd be conscious of both of them.

If you assume that you'd be conscious of neither of them then that would presume that your consciousness is dependant on certain matter, when we know it isn't.

If you assume that you'd be conscious of one of them then that would make your consciousness a soul that isn't dependant on matter or the configuration of matter (memories, thoughts, cognition) but separate.

However, if you assume that you'd be conscious of both of them, this would fit the conclusion that your consciousness is a product of the configuration of matter (your memories, thoughts and cognition), but not the matter itself.

Do you agree?

 

[lrkun]

I think that concept is inconsistent with the progression of conclusions.

You have three options:

a) You'd be conscious of neither of them.

b) You'd be conscious of one of them.

c) You'd be conscious of both of them.

If you assume that you'd be conscious of neither of them then that would presume that your consciousness is dependant on certain matter, when we know it isn't.

If you assume that you'd be conscious of one of them then that would make your consciousness a soul that isn't dependant on matter or the configuration of matter (memories, thoughts, cognition) but separate.

However, if you assume that you'd be conscious of both of them, this would fit the conclusion that your consciousness is a product of the configuration of matter (your memories, thoughts and cognition), but not the matter itself.

Do you agree?

I'm more to the idea that a person's genetic makeup, his interaction with the environment, and his experiment makes him who he is, not the matter itself. Because if it's the matter alone, and since we're all made up of the same thing, how come we don't act or think of the same thoughts? I think it's how those stimulus was experienced by the person and how he reacted to it and how he recalled or chose to forget how he reacted is what makes a person who he is. It's the pattern.

 

[Story]

I'm more to the idea that a person's genetic makeup, his interaction with the environment, and his experiment makes him who he is, not the matter itself. Because if it's the matter alone, and since we're all made up of the same thing, how come we don't act or think of the same thoughts? I think it's how those stimulus was experienced by the person and how he reacted to it and how he recalled or chose to forget how he reacted is what makes a person who he is. It's the pattern.

Yes, I completely agree with you, but essentially psychology isn't what my theory is concerned with. More of what happens when you die, which to me is just like unconsciousness. That being said, our idea of it teaches us that when we die our consciousness is extinguished and we are nothing more. This to me would only occur if things such as souls existed. Your consciousness is not a result of matter being in a certain place, but by the laws of physics itself, which produce your personality. These laws continue to be in effect after your death. Only not with the matter that was labelled "you".

 

[lrkun]

I'm more to the idea that a person's genetic makeup, his interaction with the environment, and his experiment makes him who he is, not the matter itself. Because if it's the matter alone, and since we're all made up of the same thing, how come we don't act or think of the same thoughts? I think it's how those stimulus was experienced by the person and how he reacted to it and how he recalled or chose to forget how he reacted is what makes a person who he is. It's the pattern.

Yes, I completely agree with you, but essentially psychology isn't what my theory is concerned with. More of what happens when you die, which to me is just like unconsciousness. That being said, our idea of it teaches us that when we die our consciousness is extinguished and we are nothing more. This to me would only occur if things such as souls existed. Your consciousness is not a result of matter being in a certain place, but by the laws of physics itself, which produce your personality. These laws continue to be in effect after your death. Only not with the matter that was labelled "you".

How did you come up with this conclusion?

Let's say you know me. I die. You resurrect me. Then the new me acts the same way as how you remember me to be, then the new me is still me yes? Let's say you make two of us, we both act the same way; but we don't do the same thing at the same time, doesn't this mean we follow the pattern of the original me, except that we don't do it at the same time?

The problem is this, from the point of view of the person who was resurrected, he's still him. No matter how many times he could have been formed, he'll still think he's him. This is not because of matter etc, but because specific information was already encoded on his genetic material.

 

[Story]

How did you come up with this conclusion?

Let's say you know me. I die. You resurrect me. Then the new me acts the same way as how you remember me to be, then the new me is still me yes? Let's say you make two of us, we both act the same way; but we don't do the same thing at the same time, doesn't this mean we follow the pattern of the original me, except that we don't do it at the same time?

The problem is this, from the point of view of the person who was resurrected, he's still him. No matter how many times he could have been formed, he'll still think he's him. This is not because of matter etc, but because specific information was already encoded on his genetic material.

Yes, so either one would believe that they were always your consciousness and would never know if it was true or not.

This would be so even if neither of them was your original consciousness, only one of them was or both of were.

Saying that neither of them are assumes that your consciousness is bound to certain matter.

Saying that one of them is assumes that your consciousness is neither bound to matter nor the configuration of matter (Memories and personality etc).

Saying that both of them are fits the facts best. That consciousness is a result of a configuration of matter but not a result of certain matter.