Afterlife or nothing?

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We seem to be talking at crossed purposes. I'm referring to the lack of consciousness / lack of sense of self / existence when in deep sleep. From a subjective (experiential) point of view it is no different to being dead.

Not so. When you dream you know you are dreaming. The dead know nothing. Their means of knowing anything are gonzo. Ceased functioning.

ruveyn

He has a point. Dreams happen in REM-sleep, when your mind is partially conscious.

You don't dream in deep sleep; only REM sleep. In deep sleep you know nothing.

True. But there's still electrical activity in your brain; you're no more dead than any invertebrate with no consciousness.

For alive sleeping people, the brain is active all night long. This is true whether one is dreaming or not.

One of the ways we have to tell whether someone is dead, is a total flat line of the brains neuro-electrical activity. In fact a persistent flat line is a better indicator of death, then the ceasing of heartbeat. People can have their hearts stopped for surgical purposes and they still are alive.

ruveyn

The point I was making that seems to have escaped everyone or I've expressed it badly is simply this: During deep sleep we are totally unconscious, there is no subjective sense of existence, nor of time passing. In that sense I'm comparing it to being dead.

It is a bad comparison. All objective measurement clearly indicate one is alive during sleep or being put under by an anesthetic.

ruveyn

Of course objective measurements indicate one is alive when asleep! I was speaking of a subjective comparison not an objective comparison! I give up. Nobody seems to understand what I'm trying to say.

Subjectivity is ka ka. Objectivity rules, subjectivity hinders.

ruveyn

The answer to your first is currently unknown.



As for your second question, at the present time current science cannot accurately explain consciousness. The human brain is modular and compartmentalized, rather than being holistic. The ONLY clue is that the frontal lobe plays a critical role.

What is most interesting to me is that the reductionist approach to artificial intelligence, which views sentience as process has FAILED to produce anything to remotely close to consciousness. In fact, modern physical theory does not predict nor explain how self-awareness can exist at all.









Something to keep in mind about Death: Biological death is thermodynamically irreversible. NO ONE has ever been able to successfully revive someone who's biologically dead and ask them about what it was like. Nonetheless, what truly happens to your mind after you die is non-falsifiable. Claim what you want, but I will believe it when I actually find out.

[quote="AspieRogue"]

What is most interesting to me is that the reductionist approach to artificial intelligence, which views sentience as process has FAILED to produce anything to remotely close to consciousness. In fact, modern physical theory does not predict nor explain how self-awareness can exist at all.[quote/]

And neither does crap psychology or religion. In short we have either an unsolved problem or a mystery. So far, materialist reductionism has the best track record of making the world a better place for human beings. It might not be the last word, but so far it is the -best- word.

ruveyn









S

WTF makes you think I'm against materialism? Consciousness is indeed a MAJOR unsolved problem and Death is certainly a Mystery. But the thing is that materialism is a bit of a misnomer because if souls do exist, then they are made out of matter(albeit some very exotic matter that has yet to be experimentally observed). Science is ultimately an endless quest to understand how the Cosmos(and whatever is beyond it)works. But there will never be a "theory of everything" because this would violate Godels incompleteness theorem.

Goedel's Incompleteness Theorems are about first order formal logics capable of formulating arithmetic. They are NOT about theories of the physical world. Why not study what Goedel had to say.

And I agree that we will not get a theory of Everything for no other reason than that we are 16 orders of magnitude removed from Planck Length. We have neither the brains nor the money to completely bridge that gap.

One thing for sure though. Philosophy and Religion will do us little good, either now or in the future.

ruveyn

I got it.