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

Started by NellGwyn, February 19, 2018, 05:51:39 PM

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GSOgymrat

#15
Yesterday I listened to a three-hour podcast with Anil Seth, a British professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He believes consciousness, sense of self and perception of the world is a hallucination and strictly a biological process. I won't go into the details but if he is correct when your brain dies you cease to exist. Another consequence of consciousness being strictly a biological process is it doesn't matter how intelligent we make AI it won't be conscious because consciousness isn't a product of intelligence. We also can never upload our consciousness to a machine.

I'm willing to entertain that there is some kind of experience after death but the idea that I will still be "me" makes no sense. Even if one subscribes to mind-body dualism, I wouldn't be "me" without a physical body. Many Christians recognize this and believe people who go to heaven have actual biological bodies but that strikes me as complete fantasy. Let's hope there are toilets.

PopeyesPappy

Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 07:56:25 AM
Oh, Pa-leese.  Anybody who went to high school knows who Robert Frost is. 

The personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold?
Save a life. Adopt a Greyhound.

SGOS

Quote from: PopeyesPappy on February 20, 2018, 09:30:50 AM
The personification of frost, ice, snow, sleet, winter, and freezing cold?
That was Robert's brother, or maybe it was a cousin.

Mike Cl

Well, OP, get over your ego.  There was a time in which you did not exist.  You were born and because of biological functions, you live.  There will be a time in which you will not live.  Basically, the universe will have existed without you--except for a very tiny sliver of time in which you did.  From dust to dust--yes, you will cease to exist and the universe does not give a shit one way or the other.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

aitm

A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

SGOS

Quote from: Mike Cl on February 20, 2018, 10:32:56 AM
Well, OP, get over your ego.  There was a time in which you did not exist.  You were born and because of biological functions, you live.  There will be a time in which you will not live.  Basically, the universe will have existed without you--except for a very tiny sliver of time in which you did.  From dust to dust--yes, you will cease to exist and the universe does not give a shit one way or the other.
All I can remember from my existence is the time when I was alive.  I have no recollection of the time before I was alive, and if I actually existed before then, there should be a few trace memories.  That period was at least 13.7 billion years.  Not a sound, not a sight, not the least inkling of awareness for anything in the universe since the creation of time, matter, and energy themselves have existed, while those billions of years slowly past by. 

It's easy to believe our existence must continue, because it's all we have ever known.  And indeed, sometime in the future some of my raw materials will be part of a rock sitting in a meadow, or slowing flowing in some molten state deep in the Earth's crust.  Well, Yahoo!  I could say I still exist, but that is a stretch.  Without awareness, I will be right back where I was with time passing by until the universe, matter, time themselves are gone, while I don't experience any of it.  And thank goodness for that.  After 40 billion years waiting for an experience, I would get quite bored.  At least I won't get bored.

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 07:56:25 AM
No, it's irrelevant because neither YOU or I can verify it.  It doesn't warrant consideration as anything beyond the imaginary.
And how does this verify imagining something as true?
Which I am not so I will disregard any further lecture on that point.
Oh, Pa-leese.  Anybody who went to high school knows who Robert Frost is.  But nice attempt to flounder off the topic.

Poetry isn't irrelevant.  Even video games aren't irrelevant.  Depends on the circumstances.  Wearing a French beret, quoting French existentialist poetry, and holding a lit cigarette in a funny way ... is relevant.

You people wouldn't know truth if it swatted your toked up ass in the middle of an orgy at Woodstock in 1968.  The fact that some people are artistic and others are not ... is very relevant.  Human psychology is about the only thing relevant.  It has nothing to do with epistemology among Philistines who hate philosophy (irony alert).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 06:17:28 PM
No, there is a big difference between dying and ceasing to exist.  After a person dies, his/her soul still exists.  Cease to exist means their soul will no longer be anywhere.
Where was my soul before I was conceived? That's the same place it'll be once I melt back into oblivion.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Unbeliever on February 20, 2018, 01:17:54 PM
Where was my soul before I was conceived? That's the same place it'll be once I melt back into oblivion.

In one heretical (in West) theology, we have always been existent, you actually volunteered to be "you" before you were conceived.  This puts a different twist on the Zen koan ... "what was your face before your (grand) parents were born?".  This is less of a problem for reincarnation believers.  And the Tibetan Book of the Dead is a really wild ride.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

SGOS

Quote from: Baruch on February 20, 2018, 01:10:12 PM
You people wouldn't know truth if it swatted your toked up ass in the middle of an orgy at Woodstock in 1968.
No, I confess that anything I might experience if I was toked up the ass at Woodstock, I wouldn't take too seriously.  I suppose you would, but you're more suggestible than I am.

Mike Cl

Quote from: SGOS on February 20, 2018, 11:56:07 AM
All I can remember from my existence is the time when I was alive.  I have no recollection of the time before I was alive, and if I actually existed before then, there should be a few trace memories.  That period was at least 13.7 billion years.  Not a sound, not a sight, not the least inkling of awareness for anything in the universe since the creation of time, matter, and energy themselves have existed, while those billions of years slowly past by. 

It's easy to believe our existence must continue, because it's all we have ever known.  And indeed, sometime in the future some of my raw materials will be part of a rock sitting in a meadow, or slowing flowing in some molten state deep in the Earth's crust.  Well, Yahoo!  I could say I still exist, but that is a stretch.  Without awareness, I will be right back where I was with time passing by until the universe, matter, time themselves are gone, while I don't experience any of it.  And thank goodness for that.  After 40 billion years waiting for an experience, I would get quite bored.  At least I won't get bored.
Yes--my thoughts exactly.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Mike Cl

Quote from: NellGwyn on February 19, 2018, 06:17:28 PM
No, there is a big difference between dying and ceasing to exist.  After a person dies, his/her soul still exists.  Cease to exist means their soul will no longer be anywhere.
"Soul"--Another fiction--like god and Jesus--to concoct to fool the masses. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Unbeliever

The only "soul" that exists is the music - and some damned good music, at that!
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

SGOS

Quote from: Unbeliever on February 20, 2018, 02:45:11 PM
The only "soul" that exists is the music - and some damned good music, at that!
My car's paint job is Soul Red Metallic, but someday it will cease to exist too.