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I think it is quite profound since many people seem to fear death because they imagine it is nothingness. But nothingness contains neither things to be feared

I think it is quite profound since many people seem to fear death because they imagine it is nothingness. But nothingness contains neither things to be feared nor a perceiver to fear them if they did. On the other hand I highly doubt that nothingness actually exists. Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ? If the void exists it has a major bug because experience (ie. non-void) somehow arose from it and every programmer knows that bugs always repeat.

simonh 4y ago
>Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ? Given 7.9 billion people alive right now, give or take, I'm not quite sure where the idea it might be a one-off occurrence comes from. But even if you mean our individual personal experience, I'm not sure what that would mean. A copy of me would think and experience in ways similar to me to a point, but we would still have different and distinct actual individual experiences of being.
- tgflynn 4y ago
  Well, I think that most people don't believe in reincarnation.
  - grog454 4y ago
    > reincarnation The idea leads to so many questions. In your version, is the reincarnated person conscious of their past selves? If not, is that any different than a clone? What happens between death and reincarnation? How does the math work? Is there an upper limit to the number of human consciousnesses that can be incarnated at once? Non-human consciousnesses? Non-sentient ones? Along those lines: what is it that links (solely) my body with (solely) my consciousness? Why do I experience only my own experiences and not that of my friend's? How can I prove to myself that I'm not a brain in a vat?
    - tgflynn 4y ago
      I'm not sure why you say "in my version" because I didn't say I believed in reincarnation, just that the parent's comment kind of only makes sense if you do. Personally I have no particularly strong views on these matters but some form of non-dualism (in the the sense of advaita vedanta) seems to me to make the most sense. From that perspective many of your questions kind of go away because at the most fundamental level there is only one consciousness. You don't perceive the experiences of others because consciousness has created a construct within itself that filters out experiences that don't make sense from "your" point of view. The part that I admit is difficult to get one's head around is that it has created not one but many (perhaps even infinitely many) such constructs. We are only able to experience one dream at a time but absolute consciousness/brahman/God/I or whatever you want to call it experiences many. EDIT: Sorry I did want to address one of your questions more specifically: > How can I prove to myself that I'm not a brain in a vat? I don't think you can, even in principle. In fact advaita is a lot like that in some ways, or like the simulation hypothesis. Where I think it differs is that "brain in a vat" and the simulation hypothesis are both making assumptions that what's outside the simulation is something like what's inside it. Advaita makes no such assumptions.
      - grog454 4y ago
        > I'm not sure why you say "in my version" because I didn't say I believed in reincarnation That was just shorthand for "in what you mean when you say reincarnation".
teekert 4y ago
Hmm I guess after attaining my current worldview and dropping religion, I stopped worrying about death as a “state”. Because I was not uncomfortable before I was born I always reasoned. I tell my kids the same if they ask what is after death? I ask them back, what was it like before being born? It will be like that. Of course I still don't want to die.
- tgflynn 4y ago
  I think that reasoning makes sense up to a point. But how do you know you weren't uncomfortable before you were born ? There were likely times you were uncomfortable when you were a baby but you don't remember them.
  - bspammer 4y ago
    It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. All the evidence, not to mention common sense, points to conscious experience requiring a brain.
    - tgflynn 4y ago
      > It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. I'm pretty sure you are relying on memory because how do you know this "evidence" other than by experiencing it as memories ? What is certain is that this "evidence" is only known to you within conscious experience (either memories, thoughts, or maybe some other kind of experience I haven't thought of) so using it to infer something about the nature of conscious experience itself is a questionable exercise.
      - bspammer 4y ago
        It’s very easy in these philosophical discussions to just throw your hands up in the air and say “well we can never know anything because everything is subjective”, but personally I think that’s boring.
        4y ago

simonh 4y ago

>Why should we expect the arising of experience to be a one off occurrence ? Given 7.9 billion people alive right now, give or take, I'm not quite sure where the idea it might be a one-off occurrence comes from. But even if you mean our individual personal experience, I'm not sure what that would mean. A copy of me would think and experience in ways similar to me to a point, but we would still have different and distinct actual individual experiences of being.

tgflynn 4y ago
Well, I think that most people don't believe in reincarnation.
- grog454 4y ago
  > reincarnation The idea leads to so many questions. In your version, is the reincarnated person conscious of their past selves? If not, is that any different than a clone? What happens between death and reincarnation? How does the math work? Is there an upper limit to the number of human consciousnesses that can be incarnated at once? Non-human consciousnesses? Non-sentient ones? Along those lines: what is it that links (solely) my body with (solely) my consciousness? Why do I experience only my own experiences and not that of my friend's? How can I prove to myself that I'm not a brain in a vat?
  - tgflynn 4y ago
    I'm not sure why you say "in my version" because I didn't say I believed in reincarnation, just that the parent's comment kind of only makes sense if you do. Personally I have no particularly strong views on these matters but some form of non-dualism (in the the sense of advaita vedanta) seems to me to make the most sense. From that perspective many of your questions kind of go away because at the most fundamental level there is only one consciousness. You don't perceive the experiences of others because consciousness has created a construct within itself that filters out experiences that don't make sense from "your" point of view. The part that I admit is difficult to get one's head around is that it has created not one but many (perhaps even infinitely many) such constructs. We are only able to experience one dream at a time but absolute consciousness/brahman/God/I or whatever you want to call it experiences many. EDIT: Sorry I did want to address one of your questions more specifically: > How can I prove to myself that I'm not a brain in a vat? I don't think you can, even in principle. In fact advaita is a lot like that in some ways, or like the simulation hypothesis. Where I think it differs is that "brain in a vat" and the simulation hypothesis are both making assumptions that what's outside the simulation is something like what's inside it. Advaita makes no such assumptions.
    - grog454 4y ago
      > I'm not sure why you say "in my version" because I didn't say I believed in reincarnation That was just shorthand for "in what you mean when you say reincarnation".

teekert 4y ago

Hmm I guess after attaining my current worldview and dropping religion, I stopped worrying about death as a “state”. Because I was not uncomfortable before I was born I always reasoned. I tell my kids the same if they ask what is after death? I ask them back, what was it like before being born? It will be like that. Of course I still don't want to die.

tgflynn 4y ago
I think that reasoning makes sense up to a point. But how do you know you weren't uncomfortable before you were born ? There were likely times you were uncomfortable when you were a baby but you don't remember them.
- bspammer 4y ago
  It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. All the evidence, not to mention common sense, points to conscious experience requiring a brain.
  - tgflynn 4y ago
    > It’s not memory I’m relying on, but evidence. I'm pretty sure you are relying on memory because how do you know this "evidence" other than by experiencing it as memories ? What is certain is that this "evidence" is only known to you within conscious experience (either memories, thoughts, or maybe some other kind of experience I haven't thought of) so using it to infer something about the nature of conscious experience itself is a questionable exercise.
    - bspammer 4y ago
      It’s very easy in these philosophical discussions to just throw your hands up in the air and say “well we can never know anything because everything is subjective”, but personally I think that’s boring.
      - 4y ago