I’m an atheist but I don’t actually preclude the existence of an afterlife. “There is no heaven or hell, it just all goes black and that’s it,” is just as patently unfalsifiable as any claim made by any religion.
It’s just as likely to be something completely different and alien from anything conceivable in our limited world view. In an infinite space of probabilities, the likelihood of it being “literally nothing” actually seems pretty low.
That kind of uncertainty is exactly what scares most people, but not me. I’m looking forward to finding out one day.
I don’t agree that the cessation of brain activity necessarily means the end of the subjective experience. That doesn’t mean I purport to know what actually happens at that point. I hope it’s some sort of reincarnation but that’s just because there’s more I want to experience in this universe than I possibly could in a single lifetime.
“You only have one life, live it the best you can” is a nice motivational mantra, but however well I live my life, it’s highly unlikely I will live long enough to experience interstellar travel, for example, or first contact with alien life. I think that really fucking sucks, and I really hope I’ll have a chance on the next go-around. But if it’s something completely different, I’m cool with that, too.
I don’t agree that the cessation of brain activity necessarily means the end of the subjective experience.
What happens to a car when you turn off the engine and then disassemble the parts? Is the car still running? You believe in infinite possibilities so the chance of it not running is tiny?
What happens to the guy that was driving it? Does he just blink out of existence when the car shuts off? That’s my question. You might argue that there is no such thing, but my own conscious experience proves to myself that there’s something else there. I want to know what happens to that part.
Hell, for all I know, you might just be a soulless meatbag automaton, and there really is no one in the driver’s seat for you. Or I could just be the only actual human talking in a thread full of bots. With 90% of the training data going into LLMs being vapid contrarian debates on social media, I could easily see that being the case here.
I’m an atheist but I don’t actually preclude the existence of an afterlife. “There is no heaven or hell, it just all goes black and that’s it,” is just as patently unfalsifiable as any claim made by any religion.
It’s just as likely to be something completely different and alien from anything conceivable in our limited world view. In an infinite space of probabilities, the likelihood of it being “literally nothing” actually seems pretty low.
That kind of uncertainty is exactly what scares most people, but not me. I’m looking forward to finding out one day.
Life is brain activity and when that ceases it’s the fade-to-black.
Simple as.
My whole point is that I disagree with the certainty of that claim. It’s not grounded in empirical evidence, because we don’t have any.
We have proof of brain activity and it ending at death.
I don’t agree that the cessation of brain activity necessarily means the end of the subjective experience. That doesn’t mean I purport to know what actually happens at that point. I hope it’s some sort of reincarnation but that’s just because there’s more I want to experience in this universe than I possibly could in a single lifetime.
“You only have one life, live it the best you can” is a nice motivational mantra, but however well I live my life, it’s highly unlikely I will live long enough to experience interstellar travel, for example, or first contact with alien life. I think that really fucking sucks, and I really hope I’ll have a chance on the next go-around. But if it’s something completely different, I’m cool with that, too.
What happens to a car when you turn off the engine and then disassemble the parts? Is the car still running? You believe in infinite possibilities so the chance of it not running is tiny?
What happens to the guy that was driving it? Does he just blink out of existence when the car shuts off? That’s my question. You might argue that there is no such thing, but my own conscious experience proves to myself that there’s something else there. I want to know what happens to that part.
Hell, for all I know, you might just be a soulless meatbag automaton, and there really is no one in the driver’s seat for you. Or I could just be the only actual human talking in a thread full of bots. With 90% of the training data going into LLMs being vapid contrarian debates on social media, I could easily see that being the case here.
The car is the car. I didn’t mention a person. I didn’t state that it is being driven.
I asked if you believe the car is still running after being disassembled because anything is possible.