59 replies to this topic

[Guest]

What do you mean: "Is our brain our consciousness?" This statement is about as vague as asking "Is planet earth evolution?"

 

And what do you mean with "independent"?

 

In my experience when discussing those topics it always helps to give examples or use thought experiments to clarify what you are talking about. Otherwise often people (due to different understanding of the terms used) are talking past eacher other. So please give a little more backround when using such general statements, or we can not have a discussion.

 

 

To the point: your consciousness is - as of current bioscientific understanding - a product of the coordinated interaction of billions of neurons. It is not(!) a "state" or an (static) entity. It is a process which enables your brain to reflect. Reflect about the zebra in front of you. Reflect about how to coordinate the hunt with your fellow tribesmen. Reflect about the social consequences in your tribe, if you talk with an outcast. And all the philosophy stuff we're talking about.

 

If you alter your brain, you alter the kind of consciousness it will generate. Someone else might be much more driven by random emotions or be much more controlled. So yes: "you" are your brain. No magic in that. But to make sense of this, you also should ask yourself, what this "you" - the "self" in "yourself" - actually is.

 

Also you should read up about the concept of "philosophical zombie" (I don't say I follow that concept - I am a physicist and given all knowledge we have about how brain damage alters your memories/beliefes/character/identity I think it is pretty clear, that there is no dualism involved).

Edited by TFC, 13 March 2016 - 09:50 PM.

[A941]

As far as i know it is still not known what exactly our consciousness is, so my question was a very simplified question with which I wanted to understand if our "existence" is a non permanent product of the working brain which can cease to exist even if our brain continues to function (just with another version of our consciousness), or if it is impossible to divide the two things, even making it unnecessary to divide them.

 

I hope i have put the question in a understandable form, I often make things to simple or complicated.

 

 

[Guest]

The process by which consciousness is generated is not well understood. We know about some neural correlates which seem to be involved - meaning we see some areas of the brain firering electrical impulses during times we ascribe consciousness to a patient under observation.

 

 

The question whether you cease to exist is more or less a philosophical one. I think you are still kind off working on a dualist assumption (i.e. seperation of qualia/soul/consciousness from your physical brain).

 

Imagine you had a "soul" - so an entity or "state", governing your body, but not being governed by it vice versa. Where would that soul - the "you" - go to, when you are in dreamless sleep? Would there be a little chamber in your brain, where "you" - your soul - is locked into, just to be released when you dream or awake? If this "soul" would a religious thing - no worry - it would of course survive. But what you seem to do is assuming, that you are still that "state/entity/soul" - just without surviving sleep as a "religious soul" would do. So you still follow a dualistic approach.

 

Consciousness is a process. It is the result/an expression of the coordinated interaction of your neurons - the firering patterns. What you subjectively experience might be interpretated by you as a "state" - "Oh look, it's me! I can think, therefore I am!" - because it "feels" that way. Though it would be more accurate to describe it as a stable process. If we alter that process, even while it is generated, we alter your experience. Imagine I'm putting electrodes into your brain and while you are awake, I'm trigerring strong, random emotions. Suddenly you would experience a furious rage - out of nothing, because I altered how the process is generated.

 

Also arguably this process for some peolpe is not very stable. Think of shizophrenic people or bipolar people. Therefore my initial questions: what is this "you", that you are always talking about? Are "you" guided by any rational and reflected about beliefes? Or do you let your behaviour govern by unreflected, random emotions and peer pressure? How stable than is that "you"? What is "you"?

 

Ultimately this is more a question about personal identiy (Are you the same person today, as you were 20 years ago? And is that a problem?) and control about your behaviour (or deep reflection about why are you doing what - from miniscule ticks to life decisions), than about "dying during dreamless sleep". Saying that you die during sleep is about as reasonable as saying that you died, when I induced into you a (temporary) furious rage with my electrodes.

Edited by TFC, 13 March 2016 - 10:57 PM.

[A941]

I dont know the answers, I just ask the questions ;-)

Iam an Atheist, therefore I dontbelieve in a god/like being which has given us a soul or something similar, I think we will have to work with matter, but because I don know what could arise form matter I ask questions to get a better image of that. To be honest, certain philosophical concepts look very strange to me and I would really like to dig into some of them deeper, allthough I fear ill get one or the other existencial crisis 8-P

 

As I mentioned i cant quite imagine how the consciousness should be "detached" in such a way from its material substrate that it will vanish, and that memories, the pattern of our neurons and the single atoms we are made of, are of such a negligible importance in this question.

 

Maybe this is a problem of our way to describe things with language. We say the car is fast, but we never say the car is "Fastnes" as a new word (I didnt use the word Speed to make the contrast visible)

 

What do you think?

 

 

[Clifford Greenblatt]

To add another question: Is our brain our consciousness, or is our consciousness in some way independent from our brain, only generated by it?

Consciousness (excluding the phenomenon of conscious experience) could simply be defined as certain psychological processes of the brain, although the idea could be extended to artificial intelligence. If we consider only the physical aspects of consciousness, ignoring the phenomenon of conscious experience. then we could ask a similar question about computers. Is a computer its computation or is computation in some way independent from the computer, only generated by it?

[Guest]

Let's try to be precise... maybe you could define more clearly, what you mean by saying "independent".

 

Consciousness is a process - not a state; although you in your subjective experience might intepret/"feel" it as a state => therefore the illusion of a "soul" which almost all religions adhere to. But still: it is the coordinated communication of billions of neurons distributed across your brain (the process that is). If I alter the material basis generating the process, I will alter the process. For example people with accidental brain damage often show various changes in their personality, values and memories. The consciousness generated is altered, as the underlying structure (a fusion of soft- and hardware - your brain) is altered. So consciousness is not independent from the underlying structure (e.g. the brain).

 

Let's again employ the example of brain-electrodes. In principle I can put electrodes into the centers of your brain generating emotions. So while the process of consciousness is running (just like a computer game that is unpaused), I can alter the how it is generated. Suddenly I can shower your conscious experience with forceful random emotions. I activate some electrodes and induce emotions of a furious rage. Some minutes later I create emotions of joy and happiness. Again some minutes later I create feelings of deep depression using the electrodes. Just for fun I also shut-off access to your long term memories for a couple of minutes. All this immediately alters the consciousness generated by your brain.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Here is an encephalogram of the brain while sleeping: 

 

https://www.google.b...aCIMQMwgcKAEwAQ

 

The brain never stops working. What death are you talking about? 

No biological definately. 

 

The consciousness not working in a working brain encephalogram? How will you proove it? It is meaningless. The centers of the brain, that make your consciousmess work, and you have no consciousness. Really? 

 

[Guest]

No one said, that the brains stops working when you are in dreamless sleep. It merely ceases to run the "consciousness-process".

 

Your second paragraph is very confusing. Maybe you could elaborate a little. Just because you can still see brain waves in deep sleep, does not mean that you are conscious - it merely demonstrates that the brain is still doing the "background work". So: please give a link to some scientific paper or encyclopedic article which implies, that consciousness is generated continuosly during non-REM-sleep. E.g. https://en.wikipedia..._movement_sleep says otherwise.

 

But again: consciousness is a process. So you are asking an inacurate/misleading category of question, if you enquire if "you" - your "self" - dies during dreamsless sleep.

[Danail Bulgaria]

As I see it, in the worst possible scenario the consciousness will be paused, but not destroyed. Otherwise when you wake up you would be unconscious lol. Since not destroyed, it is not death. 

 

[Guest]

I am still not sure, that you grasp the concept correctly. It is misleading - an illusion - to use words like "destroyed" or "death" to describe cesation of a process. Consciousness is the "computer game" - the process of the running game, the intercation of characters and environments in that game. It is not (just) the characters. It is their interaction.

 

The consequence is pretty straight forward: if I put an electrode into your brain, and I create a random "feeling/experience" of a furious rage, while you are conscious. Is that still you? Or did that "you" die in that moment? If your answer is "I did not die" you do not need to worry about sleep.

 

It still leaves the interesting question open, what defines this "you". What keeps it from being arbitrary - why are you not arbitrary, but (think to) have a personal identity? Or do you want to be governed by random emotions and external (basically random - not in your control) circumstance?

 

 

 

[A941]

Interesting!

I wonder how that works for possible future ways of fighting death.

If you create a "clone" of some one afte rthat person died and was scanned in the last moments of their life, that clone would not continue where the original left, the original would cease to exist. I know that this is the only right way to answer the question if this method could prolongue life, but I need a very good water proof explaination for that whole concept.

What is the preservation of life?

Life is adaption and change, so life is not only about the preservation of a pattern but also about the preservation of continuity, and stayying distinguisable from the world around you (not loosing form, falling apart).

So what will happen if you stop adaption and change, and just preserve the pattern on its original substrate (cryonics etc.)

 

The question that bothers me the most is how do we prevent death from happening if we want to avoid it via biostasis and similar technologies?

Shouldnt it be possibel to find a way to test if lifeform X has effectively ceased to exist after a certain point in time?

 

[Clifford Greenblatt]

It still leaves the interesting question open, what defines this "you". What keeps it from being arbitrary - why are you not arbitrary, but (think to) have a personal identity? Or do you want to be governed by random emotions and external (basically random - not in your control) circumstance?

If the concept of the personal soul is rejected, then we are left with personal identity being arbitrary. This is true also with naturalistic dualism, which rejects the concept of the personal soul but views conscious experience as a nonphysical phenomenon. If the nature of consciousness experience is determined by physical processes alone, then personal identity is just as arbitrary as it is with pure physicalism. Although personhood might be defined by physical continuity, the person's psychological processes could vary so greatly from time to time that they may just as well belong to different persons. However, the personal soul concept proposes a unique property of conscious experience that is unique to each person and is independent of the nature of the person's psychological processes. Without this, I do not see any meaningful concept of personhood other than for legal accounting.

[Danail Bulgaria]

There is a more important question - what is it to be alive, and what is it to keep being alive.

 

This is more important than the absolute identity, including the changes of the consciousness.

 

The biological view of what is alive is:
- to be made of cells.
- to obtain and use energy.
- to grow and develop.
- to be able to reproduce.
- to respond to the environment.
- to adapt to the environment.

The fact itself of obtaining and using energy include changes in the cells. So, the absolute identity if you are alive, can't be preserved.

 

To be conscious itself includes to be able to respond to the environment (at least from what Imknow as a medical concept of consciousness).

That itself includes your brain workings an thoughts to be chaanged in time.

 

The fact of being alive and conscious is you to loose and gain parts of your absolute identity.

 

So, if you want to be immortal - lets name it to keep existing as alive, you have to swallow the fact, that you will keep changing.

 

So choose what do you want - to be unchanged, or to be alive.

 

To choose to be with absolutely unchanged identity means to start walking on the path to the sure death, and all of the branches of this path lead to different scenarios of sure death.

If you choose that path anyway, the absolute identity today (2015 - 2016) can be preserved best only if your body is being taken in the absolute zero temperature, and absolutely no change is being made in your entire body, and you to stay forever like that, like a stone, with absolutely no changes in the workings of the brain (because your brain will not work at all and the traces of your last conscious thoughts will be somewhere in the connections between the neurons in your brain). But this is not life. And you will keep existing forever death.

 

The other path is to choose to be forever alive. This is what I would choose if I had a choice.

In this path, you have to ensure your always changing biomas, that its structures are repaired and maintained successfully forever

Here comes my advise for you - if you want to be alive forever, then focus on the research on stem cells, and if you can, try making these technologies develop faster.

 

My moral task is to warn those, who try to acheive immortality through identity issues, that they are suiciding themselves. With this I consider my task done on this question. The idiots are warned. It is now up to the idiots to choose the preferred path. And.. each idiot deserves his faith. I am stopping to loose my time with this particular topic. Good luck to all !

Edited by seivtcho, 15 March 2016 - 09:04 AM.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

There is a more important question - what is it to be alive, and what is it to keep being alive.

 

This is more important than the absolute identity, including the changes of the consciousness.

 

 

If you reject absolute identity (or more accurately, a personal soul), then why not be content with the idea that life goes on? What need is there to maintain the continuity of a particular biological system when there are plenty of new biological systems to replace the old ones? Why not just be happy with the idea of many intelligent entities enjoying great scientific and technological advances in the future? Why not be content with the continuity and advancement of intelligent life in general, rather than in the continuity of a particular biological system?

[Guest]

I have a slightly different stance on this one. If we agree that there is no external codex of morality and if your personal identity is truely determinded by random circumstance (peer pressure of the particular social groups you happen to be in; random emotions being conceived in your brain etc.) basically nothing matters (this is from an external point of view; internally your unchoosen identiy matters a lot "I am a Christian and American!!"). But this goes in both directions - emphasizing the continuity of your own biological system is an equally valid point of view to "being content with general advancement" achieved by other intelligent life.

 

Arguably a majority of people on this planet are not in control of their identity - they for example strongly follow a religion (a set of rules and identities engrained into them externally by emotional appeal, not out of their reflected choice) or are entrenched in other unreflected identity determining views (e.g. nationalism; "America is best", "Canada is best" etc.). This is on top of generally succumbing to emotional impulses; people do not only conceive rationally unreflected (so random) emotions, but most actually act them out to some extend.

 

But this is the point. It does not need to be (completely) random and unchoosen. You CAN be in control (to some extend - it does not resolve the general "purpose" question). Humans are able to rationally reflect about pretty much everything. They can question and evaluate the validity of their belief systems. The can question the validity and underlying cause of their emotional setup - e.g. "I am feeling upset, because I did not get that promotion and yell at my co-workers"; But maybe there was a reason for you not being promoted (the other guy delivering better results, even if you did clock more hours?). And why is that promotion important? Do you need that extra money? Why? Is it worth the extra hours? Or is it just for reputation - but then for whom? Being an I-banker might poll well in your circle of friends, but not the society at large (and does either of those matter?). Or maybe the promotion indeed grants you much more freedom in some important respects. But does this rationally justify yelling at people completely uninvolved in that matter?

 

By (constantly) reflecting about your belief systems and emotional setup (or just random emotions flinging up - distrust and control sudden strong emotions) and realining them and your actions accordingly you can free yourself of much external/random pre-determination. Ultimately this leads to a search for "truth", which lacking an external moral guideline of course can only lead you so far. Though it still enables you much more freedom and distance from rationally unimportant identity factors - being able to rationally dismantle your nationalistic views etc. gives you a solid fundament for identity at least.

 

Nonetheless, as previously mentioned, this does require tons of effort (reflecting about you belief systems, emotions and staying in constant reflected control of your emotions - not the other way around) and facing uncomfortable realisations for most people (in addition to a minimum intellectual capability) so it is unlikely to become fashionable - unless it is implemented into the teachings of society (if it's common wisdom, that religion is not that serious, it becomes a non-issue for identity fallacies).

Edited by TFC, 17 March 2016 - 12:45 AM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

 

There is a more important question - what is it to be alive, and what is it to keep being alive.

 

This is more important than the absolute identity, including the changes of the consciousness.

 

 

If you reject absolute identity (or more accurately, a personal soul), then why not be content with the idea that life goes on? What need is there to maintain the continuity of a particular biological system when there are plenty of new biological systems to replace the old ones? Why not just be happy with the idea of many intelligent entities enjoying great scientific and technological advances in the future? Why not be content with the continuity and advancement of intelligent life in general, rather than in the continuity of a particular biological system?

 

 

What need is there to maintain the continuity of a particular biological system is not an accurate enough question. You have to specify to what or to who is the need.

 

If you point the nature as general, the cosmos, then it needs nothing. It simply exists. And it will exist with or without any speciphic biological system. It will keep existing even if the entire our solar system stops existing.

 

If you mean what is your need to keep being alive is a second question. Everyone has a different reason for being alive. If you ask me, my need for being alive is to help making the things better for me, my familly, the people arround me, and the people as general. Also to enjoy, make my dreams come true, and to be happy forever.

 

And if you mean what is the society's need of the continuity of a particular biological system is a third, completely different question. For the third, I think, that each of the existing today societies needs everyone, who wants to work and to be usefull for the society. So, simply work, try to develope, try to be usefull, and each one society all over the world will need you.

 

 

And I continue to think, that the question of what is it to be alive is more important than the absolute identity.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

There is a more important question - what is it to be alive, and what is it to keep being alive.

 

This is more important than the absolute identity, including the changes of the consciousness.

 

The biological view of what is alive is:
- to be made of cells.
- to obtain and use energy.
- to grow and develop.
- to be able to reproduce.
- to respond to the environment.
- to adapt to the environment.
 

 

From this definition of what it means to be alive, it would appear that the most economical and effective means of immortality would be a strategy that focuses on the welfare of the world population rather than on the longevity of individual persons. The world population is made of many more cells and obtains and uses far more energy than any individual person. Large societies can grow and develop in science and technology in ways that far exceed the limitations of individual persons. An immortal person has no need to reproduce, but reproduction is a vital part of a world population composed of mortal individuals. With its great diversity, the world population can respond and adapt to many environments with far greater ability than individual persons.

 

There is a more important question - what is it to be alive, and what is it to keep being alive.

 

This is more important than the absolute identity, including the changes of the consciousness.

 

There is a more important question - what is it to be alive, and what is it to keep being alive.

 

This is more important than the absolute identity, including the changes of the consciousness.

 

If you mean what is your need to keep being alive is a second question. Everyone has a different reason for being alive. If you ask me, my need for being alive is to help making the things better for me, my familly, the people arround me, and the people as general. Also to enjoy, make my dreams come true, and to be happy forever.
 

 

All these things can be more easily accomplished with a view toward world population rather than a view toward individual immortality. The family of man could work to make things better for all of its members. The members of a large society could pool its resources to make many dreams come true and promote happiness throughout the society. Individuals could enjoy a happy but finite life, whilst the world population continues to advance the happiness from generation to generation ad infinitum.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Not completely agree on both main statements.

 

The definition of what is it to be alive has nothing to do with the economy, not mentioning the effectiveness of your means, If you spread your means among a large group of lazy gipsies, and you expect they to push the science forward, or to build a city, you will not have effectiveness of your invetment. If you invest the means in a small number of individuals, who want to work and develop, however, you will have far greater effectiveness of your investment. The effectiveness of the means is not getting higher when you spread them among many random people, but when you spread it among people, who work and develope, because they are exctly those, who make the product. And effectiveness of your means will be to get maximum product for your investment.

Plus you may have an economy of immortal people, who want to work. The product is the most important for an effective economy, not simply the mass of people. The development of the economy means the people to work. Immortal or not, it doesn't matter. Only to work.

 

 

"Individuals can enjoy happy, but finite life"

 

Yes, but they also may enjoy happy, but infinite life. I am sure they would choose that option if it existed.

 

No life, that is finite can be happy. At least not the happiest possible. Ofcourse, it is again a matter of what is happines for you.

If your happiness is to get drunk several times, to fuck several bitches outthere and thats all, then you are easy. You can do that, and then you may pleasantly shoot yourself in the head.

 

However, if you have other desires, then the finite length of the life will never be enough.

For example, in a finite lifetime you can't read all of the books, because new ones will continue to appear.

On the same way you can't watch all of the movies.

Or listen to all of the good music.

The fact itself, that the population will continue to advance the happiness, means, that in a finite lifetie you will never get the more advanced form of hapiness. Because there always will be better than your maximum at the time point of your death.

 

 

 

 

 

P.S.

 

I noticed, that you avoid the question about what is more important for you - to be unchanged or to be alive. What of these two you would choose?

 

You can do them both

 

If you want to be forever unchanged, then freeze yourself to the Absolute zero and stay in a hermetically sealed cotainer. It is possible for you to be kept forever death. Do you prefer that?

 

If you want to be alive, simply live and know, that you are constantly changing yourself. Do you prefer that?

 

If you want to be forever alive, then you have to make what depends on you to develope the science needed for your perpetual existence. Try to help the research of stem cells, for example.

 

 

So, it is up to you to decide - alive, forever death, and forever young.

 

My personal choice is forever young.

 

[Clifford Greenblatt]

I noticed, that you avoid the question about what is more important for you - to be unchanged or to be alive. What of these two you would choose?

 

I never avoided this question, but I answered it in my initial post to this topic. So, I will restate my answer here and then try to clarify it. The personal soul involves a nonphysical property of conscious experience that is unique to each person. THIS IS COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT OF A PERSON’S PHYSICAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL MAKEUP, NO MATTER HOW RADICALLY THAT MAY CHANGE. The personal soul is not a matter of choice. It is either true or false, no matter what a person may want it to be or try to do about it. You correctly observed that the idea of preserving absolute identity by means of physical invariability is total nonsense.

 

Now, if we go back to an assumption that there is no personal soul, I can take your comments to refine my definition of a You. You may not want to be identified with a band of gypsies or with DAESH or with a lot of other groups, whether good or bad, that do not share your worldview. Instead, we could define a You that is composed of a society of dedicated, hardworking people that share dreams and a worldview view very similar to your own. You could then consider You to be immortal if this society forever continues its active pursuit of its dreams. Rather than have a single individual read all the good books, watch all of the movies, and listen to all of the good music, the You society could do it all. Not only that, but a sufficiently diversified You society could actually write all the good books, write, direct, and act in endless movies, and compose all the good music in addition to enjoying all these things forever.

 

Individuals in the You society could be viewed as cells composing a super person. The individuals composing the super person would be differentiated and coordinated to advance the common purpose and worldview of the whole in ways far more effective than any individual could do alone. Just as cells in an individual person die and are replaced with new cells, individuals in the You society super person would eventually die and be replaced with new individuals sharing the same desires, purpose, and worldview. Unlike a single individual, the You society super person could propagate itself throughout the universe. Although the individuals composing the You society would be mortal, the You society super person would be immortal. Would the You society super person fulfill your desire to be immortal if it is composed of individuals sharing your desires, purpose, and worldview?

[Danail Bulgaria]

Well, my dreams are not exactly as you write them. There are some things, which are nice, an some, that are not my points.

 

"a society of dedicated, hardworking people"

That would be wonderfull. This is what makes the things better - the dedicated, hardworking people - from the cleaning ladies to the medics and the scientists. Thanks to them the world becomes better and a better place to live. People simply have to be willing to develope - to work or to get education and then work. And to be willing to search ways for the things to become better - new inventions, better medicine, whatever nice you imagine. This is the most important. Shareing common dreams and ideas, including mine is nice, but not obligate.

 

"Just as cells in an individual person die and are replaced with new cells, individuals in the You society super person would eventually die and be replaced with new individuals sharing the same desires, purpose, and worldview."

This is not a part of my dreams. The society you describe is not made from immortal individuals.

 

Yet, we live in a world,in which everything is possible. If you create a world, in which I can be biologically immortal, then I join lol. I don't care what the social system will be in your way for immortal beings. I will work or will not work for your society as long as I am biologically immortal.

[shifter]

There is biological 'immortality'. Its called 'children'. If you have kids you can see what I mean. They are pretty much you, with the help of (hopefully) somebody you love. You will also find after having kids, you are more content with your existence and dying is not as scary anymore (unless you outlived your children before they had any kids of their own).

 

The problem with an individual living too long is they end up competing for resources their children would otherwise have. Biological immortality would never work. One day technology may be able to upload peoples consciousness into a super computer and people can live indefinitely in there or something.

 

I don't see why sleep would be seen as a 'death'. You go to sleep, you wake up. Your body was simply in a different state for a time. Nothing about you dies in that time. I've lost count of the trillions of times my cells has divided or been completely recycled with using different atoms. My entire skeleton, the cells that make my heart, brain and eyes etc, are as different today compared to you, as I was when I was a kid. I'm still waking up in this body, same as always. According to Vsauce on YouTube, people who may walk on Mars in the future could be made up of a billion of my present day atoms or something like that. So I can take comfort that potentially some of the atoms which make up my colon could find their way to the Red Planet :D

 

 

 

 

[Clifford Greenblatt]

If you create a world, in which I can be biologically immortal, then I join lol. I don't care what the social system will be in your way for immortal beings. I will work or will not work for your society as long as I am biologically immortal.

 

 

This brings us back to the question of what it means to be biologically immortal. We both agree that it is foolish to attempt to preserve an absolute identity through physical invariance. However, questions arise as to how much and what kind of change you would be willing to accept. My position is that radical physical change, even to the point of total replacement of the biological system with a new one differing radically from the original, both physically and psychologically, is fully acceptable provided that the nonphysical, personal soul is the same. However, I assume your position is that immortality is strictly a physical thing. So, what kind of physical changes are you willing to accept?

An individual person is composed of mortal cells. Old cells die and are replaced with new cells throughout the individual’s lifetime. If over the next 200 years, all of your present cells die and are replaced with new cells, would you still consider yourself immortal? If over the next 5000 years you were to find your old memories to be needless clutter and discard them to make room for new ideas and newer and more relevant memories, would you still be immortal?

Going back to the super person idea, does not a large biological population consist of many more cells than an individual? Could not a large biological population consist of individuals so single-minded and so well coordinated that it could consider itself to be an immortal person? The individuals in such a super person would be like cells in an individual. Although the person’s cells die, they are continually replaced with new cells. However, the super person has the advantage of being able to survive many orders of magnitude longer than individual persons. This super person idea is not compatible with the personal soul concept, as this is strictly an individual thing, but would it not be compatible with a purely physical view of immortality?

[Danail Bulgaria]

That would be wonderfull, if the soul exists.

 

I am not sure, however, that the soul exists. This is why my position is that immortality is strictly a physical thing.

 

The kind of physical changes, that I would accept are the changes that prevent the biological object from stopping to exist, in biological meaning, e.g. the criteria I wrote above. I would consider myself immortal in this case.

 

I don't know if a large biological population can be considered as an alive being, or not. I think, that you are talking about immortality of the specie, not the individuals.

 

[A941]

 

The problem with an individual living too long is they end up competing for resources their children would otherwise have. Biological immortality would never work. One day technology may be able to upload peoples consciousness into a super computer and people can live indefinitely in there or something.

 

Then dont have children, you will not have to compete with them. Your genetic code wants to be remodeled and propagated, and you never now what will come out, it could be Einstein, or a 2nd Hitler, that person ha snothing in common with you but 50% of its genetic information, thats in no way immortality, it is throwing dice without knowing the outcome.

Edited by A941, 06 April 2016 - 05:59 AM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

...

 

I don't see why sleep would be seen as a 'death'. You go to sleep, you wake up. Your body was simply in a different state for a time. Nothing about you dies in that time. I've lost count of the trillions of times my cells has divided or been completely recycled with using different atoms. My entire skeleton, the cells that make my heart, brain and eyes etc, are as different today compared to you, as I was when I was a kid. I'm still waking up in this body, same as always. According to Vsauce on YouTube, people who may walk on Mars in the future could be made up of a billion of my present day atoms or something like that. So I can take comfort that potentially some of the atoms which make up my colon could find their way to the Red Planet :D

 

People, who started the topic have choosen to believe, that we are our consciousness. Not the DNA, not the mass of changing cells, not even the brain as a biological part of our body, but we are exactly the consciousness, that somehow is produced from the brain. Secondly they suppose, that while we sleep, there are moments, when we loose consciousness. This is why they think, that we die while we leep. Perhaps they think, that we are revived again when we wake up.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

The kind of physical changes, that I would accept are the changes that prevent the biological object from stopping to exist, in biological meaning, e.g. the criteria I wrote above. I would consider myself immortal in this case.

 

Suppose there is no personal soul, so that immortality is strictly a physical thing. From your criteria, I think that the biological object would have to be a system of live, contiguous biological cells that always maintains you as an intelligent being. Let us then look into the future of a such a biological object that never ceases to exist and see if it is always you or do you continually change from being one person to another person?.

 

In the year 2525, you are in the early stages of a gradual process of genetic modifications and accompanying physical and mental changes that will span over several millennia. Is your personhood preserved throughout this process?

 

In the year 3535, your brain has been modified to interface with a system of supercomputers. You no longer have to do difficult problem solving or remembering for yourself, but rely on the supercomputers for difficult information processing and massive memory storage. You have gradually offloaded your old memories to the supercomputers and have simply discarded most of them as no longer relevant. Is the year 3535 person still you?

 

In the year 4545, genetic modifications and accompanying physical changes have gradually resulted in radical changes to your digestive system. It is now designed to take in nothing but a highly advanced synthetic food. You no longer ingest anything by mouth, but inject this synthetic food into a digestive entry tube. This and many other gradual modifications have dramatically changed your physical appearance. You now look like everyone else in the world. However, no one cares about how anyone looks; they care only about the benefits of perfect genetics. Is the year 4545 person still you?

 

In the year 5555, your arms and legs have been phased out, as your brain is interfaced with machines that can do far more powerful things than biological arms and legs can do. Is the year 5555 person still you?

 

Fast forwarding to the year 9595, you are physically and mentally far different from the way you started out, but you have remained a system of contiguous living cells that maintained you as an intelligent being all along. The physical and mental changes are extremely radical, but were done very gradually over a span of several millennia. Is the 9595 person still you?

 

Now, suppose exactly the same end result happened through a much different historical path. Suppose you never made it to the year 2525, but someone happens to exist in 9595 with exactly the same physical composition and mental content that you would have had if you had survived to the year 9595. However, his life began in a test tube in the year 6565. Would this person be you?

[Danail Bulgaria]

Hahahaha

 

There is a simmilar song by the way

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=vdSqLfuRN18

 

In the years many things will change. The science will develope further and further. But you never can be sure what exactly will be. The longer we live the more changes will allow a better human life. The further in time the less we can say about the future. In the year 2525, if we reach it, we may be in the early stages of a gradual process of genetic modifications, but we may be not. Imagine, that a therapy is found, that can replace a gene in all of your body cells. Thus you will be able to keep your genetics unchanged.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Yes, the scenario I wrote is an adaptation of the song by Dennis Zager and Rick Evans. The purpose of it was to show that, if there is no personal soul, you might be able to accomplish biological immortality, but there would not be any really meaningful personhood associated with it. On the other hand, if there is a personal soul, you could be resurrected in the year 7510, and that truly would be you, no matter what kind of biological system and mental content may become associated with your soul.

[Danail Bulgaria]

If you have a soul, then you will be you, no matter if you are death or alive. So, being immortal biologically, you will not loose your soul.

 

If there is no soul, then simply you have to accept the fact, that you are one large, slowly changing mass of cells, that does not have one constant, like frozen identity, and live happily with this fact. This is my choice.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Here is an interesting challenge for significance of purely physical immortality. Suppose your life comes to an end in this universe, but suppose there happens to be a practically perfect copy of what you are at this moment in some other universe at some point in its time. If the life of the copy does not come to an end, would you consider yourself to be biologically immortal in the other universe or would you consider the copy to be a different person?