Uni-Universe

Energy cannot cease from being. Energy can only travel and change form.

end of story.

Stiletto One

I'm going to go with a computer analogy on this one.

If you die, then electrical/chemical impulses stop pulsing around your brain—so you stop existing.

Your memories would be there, and maybe your body can be kept going, but you'd be a vegetable—nobody home. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Theli

Electrogod...
Obviously.

It is?
Ofcourse life existed before my birth, but how do I seperate the awareness of such life from my own?
What determines the uniqueness of a single awareness?


crocodile deathroll...
I had this thought, pretty similar to your example. Should we view the awareness as something solid, that either is or isn't? Or as something liquid, being a part of other awareness's. And also, if we were to imagine that this awareness could 'jump' between minds, that would not be noticeble even by the minds themselfs. As both longterm and shortterm memory resides in the brain, the self-identification also does. That would mean (pretty similar to what you described) that death of a mind (or an awareness jump) would mean no change in state for the awareness.
Wich ofcourse makes sense, we haven't found the awareness as an object (soul) that upon the death of the mind flies away or somehow changes.


Uni-Universe...
As we haven't found the awareness object (soul) yet, we can safelly assume that the awareness is an effect and is not made of energy.
But by definition an effect is not subject under creation/destruction.


Stiletto One...
"I" stop existing every second. Every time my memory changes, "I" am not me anymore.


It's kind of ironic that the thing closest to ourselfs is so alien to us.

Domesticator

Theli's point is well taken. Separating ourselves from the whole makes no sense. It keeps going, and us recreated in whatever similarities between our formation and future formations exist.

In other words: death is real, life is eternal.

(Theli: you're familiar with the Therion album by that name?)

Keith Russell

Theli:

'You' still exist, and don't cease to exist until you die.

With new memories, the 'you' that exists now, is different than the 'you' that existed a moment--or a decade--ago.

But, it's still 'you'.

(Unless you incorrectly define yourself by non-essentials, for example by specific memories.)

A is A.

Keith.

ELECTROGOD

Theli wrote:
Yeah.......I don't think we are going in the same direction on this one.
Since you are alive I can study you and make the determination that you are alive (not much of a suprise). If you die and I study your body I will determine that you have no life (singular awareness?) left...and the body that was you will eventually decay entirely. There also would be (is) no apparent evidence that your life has continued on elsewhere (maybe what you are pointing out as awareness?).
Our definition of reality can be said to be what our physical bodies can perceive (wherever we could take them-brain goes along too) and proving that life (human awareness in this case, not bizarre forms of simple celled life) can exist outside a living body is something that has not been done nor can it be done.
I wouldn't hold the idea that everything living shares an single awareness. Not much evidence for that. Wouldn't that be more like the "force"? Disembodied scattered energy as life containing awareness and personality or all living things part of an energy net that allows any life form to tap into it for their own benefit? Gotta prove that.
(not sure if that was where your response was going or not...not sure what your problem with my post was either)

If that wasn't it then why do you need to seperate the awareness of such a life from your own? You can be aware of it after you are born.
What determines the uniqueness of a single awareness might just lie in having your own life control and memory storage unit (your brain). If all other life on earth was extinguished while you were on the space station and then you returned then you would be able to exist alone...at least for a little while.

Chip

Beoran, thanks for the reference to Confucius. Yeah, there was wisdom there.

My opinion, life is a function of consciousness. Subjectively, there is no death. Theists and the partiots of the state would say that this life is of little consequence or importance, authority is something we should believe as something outside of ourselves, indeterminate from personal experience and only ascribable via faith.

I continuosly build new computer systems to keep them up to date with the latest and greatest technology. I reload the programs I use and have customized and written onto the new machines. If we are to say they are alive when they are running, then when the machine is off, they are dead. Whether built by me or by evolution, it is possible that the power will be turned on again given enough time and circumstance.

The question should be is there death after life. We can see it for others but I hold that we cannot see it for ourselves. Death is only an objectively discernable truth. Denying the reality of the subjective is the mistake that leads to only second-hand resolution that death is final. We cannot deduce that there is life after death. We have to use inductive logic, just as valid and important and necessary for finding scientific reality.

Draw up simple markov state transition models of various cosmologies, that is label the various states of being defined by a universal view and draw vectors between them with approximated probability magnitudes for the vectors. The general models heretofore ascribed to by humanity hold similarities of linearity and a finite number of steps. Current science appears to find a much more dynamic state of affairs. Both the linearity and finiteness of present models may be mistaken.

Regards, Chip

Theli

Electrogod...

Are you defining me as a corpse?
The problem here is that my body cannot maintain awareness, but an awareness cannot be destroyed (being an effect). All we use to define ourselfs is inherit in our short/long-term memory, wich constantly changes. So, what keeps the unique identification of "you"? Is it the temporary 'me' as you percieve yourself, is it the individual atoms that make up your body or is it the temporary status of the mind? I would say that individualism (is that a word?), the idea of the unique self is illusive. So, how can "you" die, when "you" is just a temporal illusion.

"The force" is a pretty missplaced example. Yet in many ways it's true (except for the lightsabers), if you have a look in "REAL free will" you will see that the process of choice -&gt; action is never of the single person alone. When you examine the process of a choice, it's difficult to know where not-you end and you begin. This also goes for the physical 'self'. Wich thing is a part of you? Your hair or your shoes? If you were to loose your arm, would you still be you? What if you lost your memory?

I've earlier opposed to the awareness to be considered either an object, or something made of energy. But the universe is one big process, and we are not seperated from it. If we were to define ourselfs as organisms then we are parts of yet another large process. Judeo-christian teachings would however disagree, regarding the awareness as an object in itself, unattached to the larger process's (the universe).

In what sense do you use the word "you"? Are you refering to me as the person writing to you now, or the newborn child? Or perhaps a specific awareness? Or am I the electronic impulses being read by your modem?

Ofcourse, but remember that the word "alone" is only limited by the english language, as it refers only to people (and sometimes animals). You can interact with "dead" objects just as you interact with people. Wich leads us to a question we haven't really found the answer to yet, what is required for a thing to be aware? Is a computer aware, it interacts and it has a selfidentification. "Aware" is a term based un fussy logic, very much like "cold" or "high".

Thanks for replying.

Chip...

This is a good point, what is subjective for a program?
If you stop a program running on one computer and then continue running it on another computer, is it the same program? It's running under different circumstances, and it's process differs some, but if it's the same program or not only depends on how we define it. And the universe does not obey human definitions.

ELECTROGOD

Theli:
Only if you were to die, Of course. Does that bother you?
That is a problem...to show that awareness cannot be destroyed that is. I don't think that anyone has ever sucessfully shown that awareness exists outside the body of living things. When a living thing's body dies then the awareness is extinguished along with it (unless you can show us otherwise as opposed to speculating) if it ever had it in the first place (single-cell life forms, among others, aren't capable of awareness).
What makes us unique is that we are each a self-contained "unit" and all the experiences (and possible affecting factors such as genes) that each unit goes through and processes adds up to make it what it is. This why the individual can remain as the individual but still keep changing as it continues through experiences throughout it's life. If an experience is too harsh and damages the body of the individual then the awareness can be affected and the individual can be completely changed in how it views it's self and how others view it. This would also show that awareness is particularly fragile and depends upon the body for life and "health".
We of course are a part of the universe but I have not seen you or anyone else show that our "awareness" exists anywhere but within our living bodies. Many religious people love the idea of our thoughts, memories, personalities and "energy" floating around in the vastness of space or heaven but other than very small amounts of energy changing from one form to another without any awareness attached, there is nothing that can be shown to support this position.
Ok, why would "one"...
Doesn't really matter if it's you now or a baby, you were talking about the individual. You "now" are the same awareness as a baby but with more experiences under your belt (a whole lot more) but it's you and only you collecting your individual experiences.
About electronic impulses, don't get too carried away with how tricky you can try to make things, that one has been dealt with before in these forums. We all know that the electronic impulses are there because real people who can be identified put them there and the accepted view of reality that recognizes computers and how they work to be real and created by real humans can be followed through with proof whereas speculating about whether my memories are hanging around in space as some form of intelligent or semi-intelligent energy cannot.
How does that go? If all people, animals, plants, simple cell life forms, germs, etc. are eliminated from the Earth, there is no way I am going to interact with non-living things like I did living things. Rocks don't talk, have sex, get sick, breath air, look at me, etc. Now if you mean I can throw a rock just like I can throw a mouse or a baby (not that I would interact with living things that way) then that may be a form of interaction but in no way comes close to the interaction I have with living beings and is even farther from the awareness sharing you seem to be describing. Sensing and interacting aren't necessairly the same.
We can interact with an energy source like fire but that doesn't give it awareness or self-identification. We can build a simple slingshot or a mouse trap which use energy but that doesn't make them intelligent. Computers are much the same, just more detailed. They work because we built "traps" for directed energy that hold or release that energy according to our imput (think binary). There is no intelligence involved on the computer's part at all.

Theli

Electrogod...

It seems like a very weak base, that's all. When excacly do I stop being me? I see no base for defining a dead person as the previous living individual, unless it's for practical use. If "dead" matter coming from a persons body can be defined as the person himself then we are constantly falling to peaces. Anyway...

Not excacly, it's simple logic. It's like a program, do you define the program by what temporary status it has while running?

And noone has claimed such at this thread either. Although, the question has been brought up, what defines life? Must something be part of the eco-system to be considered alive or aware? The only base for such 'discrimination' is our common concept of "life" that limits the term to things of flesh and blood.

Halt! Are you still refering to the awareness as an object? Something that can be created and then taken apart? The body becomes unaware would be a more accurate interpretation. Or else it would be like saying: If you burn a blue woodball, the color blue is extinguished.
It seems that your view of the awareness is very strict, as if it existed independent of other processes.

Not a chance. All our decitions, thoughts and actions are pre-determined and influenced by "external" (whatever that means) events. Neither our actions or our thoughts simply pop into existence. There has been several threads on the topic, so I won't go deeper into it. I suggest you have a look into those (regarding free will and determinism). Even your physical appearence depends on our actions (or lack thereof ) and those actions is determined by our surroundings and an extensive DNA string, wich might be the only thing that can be regarded as us. And even that changes.

Again, the same problem... what limits our bodies? Take for instance you arm, you only refer to it as a part of you because it responds to electrical signals sent by your brain, and it sends information back. But, then again so does a TV.
And as for thoughts floating around, I don't agree with any religious beliefs that holds that literally. But your memories and thoughts does get inprinted on objects. One could say that they 'radiate' from your mind through your actions.

And how would you possibly know that? How would you know that the awareness you are now is the same that inherited your body when you were a child? Your personality and your self-identification has changed under the passage of time, so why must your own awareness be the same as it was?
The awareness isn't even constant, it "dissapears" every time you fall asleep.
And as for electrical impulses, it's completely irrelavent weither they were created by people, or if you desire to call them real. You haven't brought forward any arguments that would limit a person to the body we tend to refer to as a person. The electrical impulses read by your modem is as much manifested by me as the motion of my fingers when I type on my keyboard.

Tricky

I would think that the central part of discussing philosophy is to be tricky, not to settle for common terms and norms, but to actually examine what we "know for certain" at the best of our abilities.

This is inheritly false as you only mention the earth, but I'll leave that part out for now. The fashion of your interaction was not in question, and I don't think it has any baring anyway. But consider that your interactions with a simple coin would probably be more fruitfull than that with a germ or a carrot. You are interacting with your computer just now, and I'm sure that it's on a much higher level than you would interact with a rabbit or a cat. And you have again limited "alive" to products of the eco-system, and if that is the definition of alive that we are going to use, then I seriously question it's relevance on the awareness and interactions.

In what sense excacly do you use the word "intelligence"? Why should a mouse be considered intelligent, while a computer capable of performing the mouse's actions (and more) is not?
There are several types of intelligence, for instance does a computer master mathematics far far better than any human. It also masters strategy on a level that can compete with humans.