44 replies to this topic

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Suppose there is no omega point. Suppose thermodynamics and nonexistence of negative mass prohibit escape into a fabricated universe through a wormhole. Suppose immortalists ultimately fail to prevent the death of the universe.

Once all life has permanently disappeared from the universe, would the events of the past matter at all? Would all the efforts of immortalists prove totally futile? Would great success in extending life spans to centuries, millennia, or even trillions of years be completely nullified by the fact that all of it eventually came to an end? Would a highly accomplished immortalist, who lived for ten trillion years, end up no different from an unborn child that was aborted? Would the greatest and most generous contributors to society end up no different from the worst of tyrants? Would all happiness, sorrow, conscious experience, creativity, purpose, and scientific accomplishment be totally erased, as if they never, ever existed at all?

Alternatively, would life, once lived, somehow have an eternal significance that cannot be erased by the permanent eradication of all life in our universe?

[DJS]

As it is, this is an utterly intractable philosophical problem with no hope of being solved at our present level of awareness.

Alternatively, would life, once lived, somehow have an eternal significance that cannot be erased by the permanent eradication of all life in our universe?

This idea makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. So I choose to believe it.

I guess we all need our existential comforts.

[jaydfox]

I'm conflicted on this one.

[stephen]

This is quite interesting... definite philosophical implications. I would like to hear DonSpanton elaborate on his surely complex views of this hypothetical situation.

I would say "No." But I'm apparently alone in that feeling (given the current poll results). If there's no metaphysical world, though, and nothing survives... what's the point? It's like nothing ever existed...

[quadclops]

I voted for . . .

Past life would absolutely lose all significance

Which may seem kinda bleak, but my reasoning was that if there were no sentient thing left in the whole universe to appreciate the significance of what had gone before, then that significance would be at an end.

The dead universe could not appreciate it's own history. Your own life and accomplishments will no longer matter to you once you are dead. A dead thing has no ability to appreciate it's former significance. A dead body cannot dream of past glories.

The significance of existance matters only to the living.

Hope all that wasn't too much of a pooper. [tung]

[RighteousReason]

lol

The answer is incredibly obvious, and it looks like the majority are entirely wrong.


"significance" is something that only exists in your mind!

If I had a really advanced brain scanner I can point to the spot in your brain (or the process carried out) when you observe the property of "significance" and then draw up a perfectly clear and accurate causal path of the brain's function that proves my point (if I wanted to go to such rediculously extreme lengths to prove something so incredibly effing obvious)

(since significance is a property of a mental state, and since the Universe contains all instances of mental states of which we have any basis of evidence of being able to relate this property to the past, if the Universe were destroyed, all instances of mental functioning with possible mental states corresponding to the property of significance would be eliminated, and thus the "significance of the past" would be eliminated as well)

[stephen]

"significance" is something that only exists in your mind!

I'd go one step further and state that "significance" only exists in MY (Stephen's) mind. Basically, if I die -- you all cease to exist. The universe ceases to matter. Sorry about that, nothing I can do.

It's not my fault that you're all figments of my imagination.

[RighteousReason]

stephen, you are using a more narrow definition of "significance". The same "significance" in your mind is just as present in all the other 6 billion minds on the planet, whether or not you can feel it.

[stephen]

whether or not you can feel it.

Pfffth -- says YOU. [lol]

[DJS]

stephen

This is quite interesting... definite philosophical implications.  I would like to hear DonSpanton elaborate on his surely complex views of this hypothetical situation.

(Compliments of MA)

[Clifford Greenblatt]

stephen

This is quite interesting... definite philosophical implications.  I would like to hear DonSpanton elaborate on his surely complex views of this hypothetical situation...

Before you set off his sarcasm detector, I think Don did have something significant to say.

Don

As it is, this is an utterly intractable philosophical problem with no hope of being solved at our present level of awareness.

His statement seems to indicate a need for a greater level of awareness to have any hope of solving the philosophical problem.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

quadclops

The significance of existance matters only to the living.

This is an excellent and concise observation.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

I voted that I have a problem with the implicit assumptions. Although I accept neither omega point speculation nor MWI, I still do not believe universal annihilation is possible. However, I have met many who seem to assume that eventual universal annihilation is a fact of life. Mainstream humanists seem to emphasise making the most of this present life without regard to whether we will have a distant future. The distant future seems to be rather crucial to many immortalists.

[stephen]

This is quite interesting... definite philosophical implications.  I would like to hear DonSpanton elaborate on his surely complex views of this hypothetical situation.

I was actually being quite serious! [thumb]

Your responses in my religion thread were rather abrasive, but you have solid, well-thought philosophical viewpoints. Your post in this thread was a bit vague... you dismissed the topic than said you'd like to believe! That doesn't sound consistent with the small sampling of your posts I've read (over the last week I've been an active member).

Enlighten us!

[DJS]

stephen

I was actually being quite serious! [thumb]

Damn sarcasm detector, must be on the fritz.

Mainstream humanists seem to emphasise making the most of this present life without regard to whether we will have a distant future. The distant future seems to be rather crucial to many immortalists.

The implicit assumption which all of the [Immortalist] participants of this thread have been making is that *the present* is all that exists. This is the intuitive view of time, known as presentism.

The opposing view is that of Four dimensionalism, with a number of variants including eternalism, growing block and the shrinking tree theories. (For an indepth, pro-four dimensionalist, review of the philo of time check out Four Dimensionalism)

Eternalism is by far the most popular variant of four dimensionalism, and was fairly common in the time of the ancient Greeks. Hence, their fascination with the concepts of *fate* and *destiny*.

Nietzsche, a forerunner to existentialist philosophy, 'rediscovered' the significance of eternalist thought with his concept of the Eternal Recurrence - which makes sense, as he was a classical philologist by training.

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.'~ The Gay Science

One can find out much more about Nietzsche and his "Amor Fati" simply by wikiing it, but it is also important to note that Nietzsche wasn't making any specific cosmological claims. This is in contrast to the modern debate between presentism and four dimensionalism, where such topics as the Special Theory of Relativity are often found.
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But tell me Cliff, did you just finish reading Slaughterhouse 5 by any chance? Your universal annihilation is what supposedly happened in Vonnegut's fictional world when the Tralfamadorians made a mistake building one of their new warp drives (or something like that).

The Tralfamadorians were these weird aliens shaped like toilet plungers that could 'see' the dimesion of time. This was obviously a (somewhat preposterous) play on the concept of eternalism by Vonnegut.

The Tralfamador's reponse to your your universal annihilation scenario, "So it goes."

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Random thoughts...

In some schools of Buddhism there is considerable emphasis placed on "the fleeting moment" and "the mere appearance of reality". This can be seen as a form of presentism.

Party line Immortalism is also a presentist philosophy.

What is at issue? Ontological status of past, present and future objects.

Strange similarities. Both Immortalism and Buddhism are presentist philosophies. Reductionist materialism and Buddhism tend to devalue the notion of self (and are dipolar monisms).

With eternalism, does fatalism become a problem?

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Other notables that come to mind:

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

[DJS]

Your post in this thread was a bit vague... you dismissed the topic than said you'd like to believe!

Indeed, I like to fancy some form of eternalism or, even better, growing blockism. If either of these are true then we are already immortal, albeit temporally finite (or infinite?!?), beings.

At the same time, a rational mind must always be skeptical, always inclined to doubting itself. And, with a subject such as the philosophy of time, I would never be arrogant/confident enough to strongly believe my philosophizing! Besides, even if some variant of four dimensionalism were true this wouldn't affect my goal set, or the likelihood that I will need to extend my life span to have a chance at attaining said goal set.

[RighteousReason]

Don, none of this is relevant to the "significance of the past" assuming a Universal annihilation.

If the information is gone, it's gone, unless you introduce some hypothetical super-Universal medium through which this information can be theoretically accessed.


I'm no astrophysicist but...

[DJS]

Assuming significance is mind dependent:

Cliff's hypothetical posits a future time when no minds exist at that moment, and is asking whether minds in the past still actually exist ( to create significance in this universe).

So yes, Hank, my speculations are very relevant.

[DJS]

unless you introduce some hypothetical super-Universal medium through which this information can be theoretically accessed.

Simulation is a theoretical possibility, though this would run the thread off topic.

[Infernity]

Once I die, the world ceases to exist. Loses significance .

Moreover, as it is irrelevant what was before the big bang , it doesn't matter what will be after the universe "devastation" as the theory claims it to be.


-Infernity

[RighteousReason]

Once I die, the world ceases to exist. Loses significance .

my speculations are very relevant

Wrong.

Significance is not a property of the Universe. It's a property of your mind.

[kandarian]

Very interesting points about "significance" and many other things i have read.

I like to think on this terms: if we lived trillions of years... that would be quite an achievement already. I would love to believe 100% that we all can live forever in our normal state of mind and body forever and ever...but that is not true.
The universe doens't have trillions of years (well..maybe it has, maybe we are just part of a new expansanble sub-universe).

It's always the same, isn't it? "Angels envy us because God (or what ever you believe) made us mortals, so that we value more all the limited life we can get"
Nevertheless I see nanotech, genetics and physics as the next toos for human evolution. Probably the solution is in creating our own universe or transform ourselves in some form of parallel existence beings...

The purpose of this website is to be a shrine to that belief- that we, one will be able to be immortal, or at list to prove we are already immortal.

Universal annihilation is a mith. Once someone said: "Why did the creator waited an endless time in an endless void, to create a Time and space limited Universe?"
For me that answers all: because it probably existed another Universe, concept of infinitum may be difficult, but i think it hard to believe "in the beggining there was nothing". Simple chemistry can teach us this: "nothing is created, everything transforms itself".

So my vote goes to all the past has significance, cause thats what makes us in the present and always directs us to a future, even if we are the trillion universe in existence of time.

[DJS]

Hank

Wrong.

Significance is not a property of the Universe. It's a property of your mind.

Hank, that first statement you quoted isn't mine, it's Infernity's.

Second, if "significance" is a property of minds, and minds are an aspect of reality, then wouldn't it be safe to say that "significance" is also an aspect of reality. [glasses]

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And finally, you are not actually presenting an argument,. You're simply stating your POV, which is fine, but also of little value when it comes to getting to the bottom of things. (Just because you say it's so doesn't make it so.)

[DJS]

Observe th typical Hank response:

Hank

Wrong

Right.



(There, take that!)

[DJS]

Can I get some substance, please?

Somebody, anybody?

[RighteousReason]

Second, if "significance" is a property of minds, and minds are an aspect of reality, then wouldn't it be safe to say that "significance" is also an aspect of reality.

It is an aspect of reality in that not only does Infernity's mind posses this mental state, but every other human (and animals?) do as well. Thus she is wrong.

If all of these entities that have the capacity to actively posses this mental state, by some extremely improbable coincidence, are all not possesing that mental state, technically, in that instant, the Universe has no "significance".

Significance is not separate from the actual mental instances of "significance".

[RighteousReason]

Sorry to flush thousands of years of philosophy down the toilet.

[Kalepha]

By my construal, I don't think Don disagrees that 'significance' is a mental property. The issue he seems to bring up is that if every configuration of reality exists together as a static array, then 'significance' exists as part of that, "simultaneously" with the post-annihilation element. Our own perspectives in this sense need only once to arise, perceive 'significance,' and imbue this array with significance.

Personally, I don't know if I'd want to mentally augment that high unless I was actually reality's array.

[RighteousReason]

The issue he seems to bring up is that if every configuration of reality exists together as a static array, then 'significance' exists as part of that, "simultaneously" with the post-annihilation element.

Is there a static array of "what could be" that is the Universe? No, the Universe merely is, and as such, can change in some discrete number of ways every instant of time.

The abstract extrapolation of what could be is a mental construct as well.

[RighteousReason]

Sure, the Universe is modelling itself, but only in the sense that we are stable instants within the real Universe that happen to be modelling (to a degree) the real Universe via our mental representations of significance. And the MWI stuff is interesting, but we have no empirical justification for infinitely many alternate instances existing simultaneously to ours. They COULD exist, and they DO exist (transiently and incompletely) in our MINDS, but there is no evidence for them affecting anything in reality except via our mental representations of these hypothetical entities (and by entirely 'single Universe'-complete mechanisms).