Comment

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.

source

Sort:hotnew top

Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

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?

source
- Technus@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  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.
  
  source
  - Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    What happens to the guy that was driving it? Does he just blink out of existence when the car shuts off?
    
    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.
    
    source
CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
But why expect and plan for something that makes no sense? Sure, we can’t prove there’s no continued sentience once the brain dies, but there’s no logic that leads to that. It’s just wishful thinking. And that’s how people have been duped into religious mumbo jumbo for ever.

source
- Technus@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’m not expecting or planning for anything, that’s kind of the point. I’m not expecting one specific outcome. It’s actually really freeing, because I’m not stuck searching for meaning in an existence that offers none.
  
  And if it turns out that it does all just go black, it won’t be my problem anymore, will it?
  
  source
SantasMagicalComfort@piefed.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
But it’s the brain active that causes the experience.

source