Do you think anyone person on earth can cease to exist?

[Baruch]

The most significant people in our lineage will be forgotten within three generations.  We will remember our ancestors, at least that we had them, but names, visual images, and specific accomplishments go fast, and we are talking about rather huge chunks of our DNA at that.  People fuss about living forever, be it as spirits, or just in the hearts of loved ones, but the reality for most people is that 75 years from now, we will be forgotten and of no consequence to anyone.  We are carriers of an ever evolving DNA code, and nothing more.  We pass this code on, but it is only a non thinking code without gratitude, a plan, or a soul.  That's the entirety of what makes us temporarily aware and what makes us alive.  Nothing has ever been detected in the code that says it creates a soul.  The soul is an invention of man in an attempt to explain away the transitory inconsequence of his existence, comforting to some, like a Teddy Bear, but nothing more than a prop.

Your DNA code is the real you ... pass yourself on ... if you dare!  Bwahah.  Ever see the Eddie Murphy in "Meet Dave"?  Your genes are like tiny astronauts inside your space ship body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YvDY_RiUJc

[Baruch]

There are no bounds for those who are into wishful thinking.

Like those books in the HS library decades ago, for advice on future careers ... "So You Want To Be A Genticle"

[Baruch]

As someone whose hobby is acting... that was a confusing rant buddy.
I don't know about you, but...
I'm not playing at being anyone, irl or even online. I'm me. And I'm wjll continue to be me because of who I've been.
Only when I'm acting, I'm acting. And when I stop playing my part, that part does not die. It was only an act after all.
But curiously, the act does become part of the actor, through the experience and, and I cannot stress this enough, the memory of the experience accompagnying you forward.

You are confused indeed ... you are not Mr Obvious ... but that is an assumed name.  I hope that Cavebear doesn't really hibernate ;-(  Also the notion that your conscious mind or memories etc is the real you ... is an simplistic assumption.  When you are in deep dreamless sleep, do you cease to exist?

I suppose that actors get confused with their roles.  Yul Brynner played the king in The King & I, on Broadway, over 4000 times.  Consciousness is just a sustained yet pragmatic delusion ... the primal scream you have been making since you were forced out of your mother's womb.  People are like ice bergs, only not as cold.  Most of who you are, you have never experienced yet, not even in your dreams.  Of course Hindus would agree with Freud, that the atman lies unexplored in the unconscious mind.  And then again, the there is the collective unconsciousness of Jung, who must have stolen the idea from Hindus (who call it Brahman).

This addresses both Unbeliever and Mr Obvious ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElqYH2bxKtY

[Mr.Obvious]

You are confused indeed ... you are not Mr Obvious ... but that is an assumed name.  I hope that Cavebear doesn't really hibernate ;-(  Also the notion that your conscious mind or memories etc is the real you ... is an simplistic assumption.  When you are in deep dreamless sleep, do you cease to exist?

I suppose that actors get confused with their roles.  Yul Brynner played the king in The King & I, on Broadway, over 4000 times.  Consciousness is just a sustained yet pragmatic delusion ... the primal scream you have been making since you were forced out of your mother's womb.  People are like ice bergs, only not as cold.  Most of who you are, you have never experienced yet, not even in your dreams.  Of course Hindus would agree with Freud, that the atman lies unexplored in the unconscious mind.  And then again, the there is the collective unconsciousness of Jung, who must have stolen the idea from Hindus (who call it Brahman).

This addresses both Unbeliever and Mr Obvious ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElqYH2bxKtY

I feel like you are trying to make things more complicated than they should be.
I don't cease to exist in a dreamless sleep, because I wake from a dreamless sleep and that dreamless sleep becomes an experience that shapes the awakened me. And whether I remember not having dreamt or I lose it in a sanguine sea blurry memories, that fading memory is still something that helpt shape my personality. If you lose your memories however, you lose that identity.

Now, if I never wake from a dreamless sleep, yes, I cease to exist.
If I wake with complete amnesia and my memories are never restored, yes, I cease to exist.

If I party to hard and black out, I don't cease to exist either, btw.
I just have to live with the shameful memory and experience afterward.

[Baruch]

Do you have any memories of dreamless sleep?  I think not.  We mostly don't have memories of our dreams except sometimes for a short time after waking.  And memory is unreliable anyway, particularly from a dream (we are heavily into dream interpretation even if we aren't Freud).  How do you know, internally, that you are the same person you were when you went to sleep?  Given that you can't verify your memories independently?  Sure, waking consciousness seems to coherence, given other people tend to reinforce the notion that you are still you .. but given a case of amnesia, an if you wake up around people who never knew you before ... did you cease to exist?

Complicated?  Human experience, let alone whatever the hell reality may be, is a lot more complicated than anything I can possibly articulate in mere words.

[Mr.Obvious]

Do you have any memories of dreamless sleep?  I think not. 

No. But you don't understand. If I wake up from a dreamless sleep, I realize I didn't have any dreams or memories to recall. But that experience in itself is a realization I shall carry with me forward, no matter how insignificant and blurry it will get as time passes. It's a grain of sand, impossible to locate once you take your eyes off it, in the beach that is my mind.

We mostly don't have memories of our dreams except sometimes for a short time after waking. 

Agreed. But again, not relevant to my point (of view).

And memory is unreliable anyway, particularly from a dream (we are heavily into dream interpretation even if we aren't Freud). 

Agreed. But not relevant to my point (of view). And I've mentioned this same phenomenon in the posts that came before.

How do you know, internally, that you are the same person you were when you went to sleep? Given that you can't verify your memories independently?

Simple. I'm not. I'm not the same person I was when I started typing this reply either. Because my experiences keep growing and building, along with my memories. We are never truly 100% the same person(ality) we were ever before.
But there is a difference in growing your entire life and waking up one day without any of that history and starting over.

Sure, waking consciousness seems to coherence, given other people tend to reinforce the notion that you are still you .. but given a case of amnesia, an if you wake up around people who never knew you before ... did you cease to exist?

If people forget me, to them I cease to exist, but I don't cease to exist truly.
If I forget me, then I do cease to exist.
You can get mystical and woo-ey about this all you want. But it's simple, my friend.

Complicated?  Human experience, let alone whatever the hell reality may be, is a lot more complicated than anything I can possibly articulate in mere words.

Truly? I always figured the human experience to be amongst the simplest of things I can think of.

[Baruch]

Well, doesn't that response take all!

A human being is the most complicated entity in a whole galaxy, we have more atoms than all the stars in the Milky Way.

Also ... do we really have dreamless sleep, or are we just consistently amnesiac about it?

If you are amnesiac and around people who don't know you ... but there are still other people elsewhere who knew you before ... then to them, you still exist (somewhere) ... they just don't know where you wandered off to.  And people were just arguing earlier, that other people's memories of you, means you continue on after death.  What about if you only left the room?  Babies have to learn otherwise, regarding their mother.  Also people's memories of you, are no less perception bullshit than your own memories of yourself.  Memory isn't a VCR, let alone a tricorder.

[Mr.Obvious]

Well, doesn't that response take all!

A human being is the most complicated entity in a whole galaxy, we have more atoms than all the stars in the Milky Way.

I thought we were talking about the human experience. Not the human being.
I mean, we can talk about is the whole of reality, physics and biology 'truly' complicated or is it just something our human minds don't understand. But that, I could easily concede, is semantics.

Also ... do we really have dreamless sleep, or are we just consistently amnesiac about it?

Relevancy?

If you are amnesiac and around people who don't know you ... but there are still other people elsewhere who knew you before ... then to them, you still exist (somewhere) ...

Yes. In their memories.

And people were just arguing earlier, that other people's memories of you, means you continue on after death.

If this is to be taken literally. I don't agree.
I think most mean it metaphorically, however. Your impact on their lives, the memories you created for them, persist after you die.

What about if you only left the room? 

What about it?

Babies have to learn otherwise, regarding their mother.

Relevancy?

Also people's memories of you, are no less perception bullshit than your own memories of yourself.  Memory isn't a VCR, let alone a tricorder.

So?

[aitm]

52 replies to only one burp.

[SGOS]

The power of the fly-by.  We end up talking amongst ourselves.  Well, past each other mostly.  What started as a marginally silly OP has become meaningless chaos, more incoherent than the original post, as far as I can tell.

[Baruch]

The power of the fly-by.  We end up talking amongst ourselves.  Well, past each other mostly.  What started as a marginally silly OP has become meaningless chaos, more incoherent than the original post, as far as I can tell.

I know what I am talking about (it is coherent to me, if not to anyone else).  I also know what others are talking about, because we are the same species, and I have had many of the same experiences that other posters have had.  The perception (had I been there instead f you) would have been different of course .. different personalities.  I was non-theistic for over 10 years myself (too much physics).  The universe is a hologram, and the planetarium projector is broken ;-(

No matter how many electrons you have, they are all the same.  Boring repetition ... that isn't what complication means.  Physics is intelligible precisely because it is simple enough even a cave man, more or less, can understand it.

[SGOS]

Did someone just fart?

[Baruch]

Did someone just fart?

Swamp gas ... there is no Washington DC ... it is called the Swamp for a reason.  Lots of lobbyists go there to make furry love to Congress-critters.

[Unbeliever]

A human being is the most complicated entity in a whole galaxy, we have more atoms than all the stars in the Milky Way.

I bet an elephant has more atoms than the Andromeda galaxy. Does that make elephants more complicated than us?

[Baruch]

I bet an elephant has more atoms than the Andromeda galaxy. Does that make elephants more complicated than us?

Yes.  Unlike people, they never forget ;-)