A good and balanced article on NDEs

[Jim Cross]

If an exact copy of you were created in Antarctica right now would you find yourself sitting in your office and freezing your butt off at the same time in some superimposed reality?

Nope. That would be my duplicate freezing. I'd still be here in Atlanta.

[Papanca]

If an exact copy of you were created in Antarctica right now would you find yourself sitting in your office and freezing your butt off at the same time in some superimposed reality?

Nope. That would be my duplicate freezing. I'd still be here in Atlanta.

So if you travel to another city, it's not you anymore ?

If you are copied atom by atom, neuron by neuron, what's the difference between you and your duplicate at moment t under materialism ?

[Jim Cross]

If an exact copy of you were created in Antarctica right now would you find yourself sitting in your office and freezing your butt off at the same time in some superimposed reality?

Nope. That would be my duplicate freezing. I'd still be here in Atlanta.

So if you travel to another city, it's not you anymore ?

If you are copied atom by atom, neuron by neuron, what's the difference between you and your duplicate at moment t under materialism ?

Traveling is a different scenario altogether. I am not the same person that left one city that arrived in another city. My atoms and neurons have changed.

Since the duplicate is freezing and I am not, we are obviously not the same.

[Papanca]

Nope. That would be my duplicate freezing. I'd still be here in Atlanta.

So if you travel to another city, it's not you anymore ?

If you are copied atom by atom, neuron by neuron, what's the difference between you and your duplicate at moment t under materialism ?

Traveling is a different scenario altogether. I am not the same person that left one city that arrived in another city. My atoms and neurons have changed.

Since the duplicate is freezing and I am not, we are obviously not the same.

Forget about the freezing, let's say you are copied atom by atom/neuron by neuron two meters next to your current body.

What would happen in this case ? Would there be two current "you" ? And in what sense ?

In a similar vein, if there was a technology to replace one of your neuron while keeping you alive (this doesn't contradict any law of physics), would you stop being you after an X amount of neurons are replaced ? Once a specific function is no longer operationnal ?

The problem of personal identity and the hard problem of consciousness is one of the most complex philosophical problems, you seem very sure of your position, and i understand you consider the hard problem of consciousness as an illusory problem, i don't share this position, and i prefer to remain an agnostic ala John Horgan.

[AshvinP]

So if you travel to another city, it's not you anymore ?

If you are copied atom by atom, neuron by neuron, what's the difference between you and your duplicate at moment t under materialism ?

Traveling is a different scenario altogether. I am not the same person that left one city that arrived in another city. My atoms and neurons have changed.

Since the duplicate is freezing and I am not, we are obviously not the same.

Forget about the freezing, let's say you are copied atom by atom/neuron by neuron two meters next to your current body.

What would happen in this case ? Would there be two current "you" ? And in what sense ?

In a similar vein, if there was a technology to replace one of your neuron while keeping you alive (this doesn't contradict any law of physics), would you stop being you after an X amount of neurons are replaced ? Once a specific function is no longer operationnal ?

The problem of personal identity and the hard problem of consciousness is one of the most complex philosophical problems, you seem very sure of your position, and i understand you consider the hard problem of consciousness as an illusory problem, i don't share this position, and i prefer to remain an agnostic ala John Horgan.

The reality of the Spirit-Soul is the only reasonable philosophical and scientific explanation for this continuity despite no physical continuity. Physicalists have simply forgotten that explanations really matter and also need to make at least a little bit of sense.

[Jim Cross]

So if you travel to another city, it's not you anymore ?

If you are copied atom by atom, neuron by neuron, what's the difference between you and your duplicate at moment t under materialism ?

Traveling is a different scenario altogether. I am not the same person that left one city that arrived in another city. My atoms and neurons have changed.

Since the duplicate is freezing and I am not, we are obviously not the same.

Forget about the freezing, let's say you are copied atom by atom/neuron by neuron two meters next to your current body.

What would happen in this case ? Would there be two current "you" ? And in what sense ?

In a similar vein, if there was a technology to replace one of your neuron while keeping you alive (this doesn't contradict any law of physics), would you stop being you after an X amount of neurons are replaced ? Once a specific function is no longer operationnal ?

The problem of personal identity and the hard problem of consciousness is one of the most complex philosophical problems, you seem very sure of your position, and i understand you consider the hard problem of consciousness as an illusory problem, i don't share this position, and i prefer to remain an agnostic ala John Horgan.

I can't forget about it. My duplicate occupies a different place in space time. From the moment of its creation, it has a different history, breaths different air, sees and feels different things from me. I am not the same person I was at ten years old. The more time passes the more I change and the more a duplicate would diverge from me. Personal identity is an illusion that seems real because consciousness permits an integration of perception and action. As I wrote on another thread, my two feet can't go in different directions. I can't both climb a tree and run across the savanna to escape the lion at the same time. Consciousness integrates senses, decisions, and action. This provide an illusion of personal identity.

Anyone who believes in some personal identity survival after death needs to answer the question about which of the many people they have been survives. Is it the child, the young adult graduating from college, the one who married the love of their life, the one who suffered the death of a loved one, the one celebrating the birth of a first child, the ill and infirm older self. All of those things make up what we are. You can't pick and choose or imagine some ideal form of yourself.

Regarding swapping out neurons - this is what actually is happening to us all of the time. There is actually evidence of this from brain scans. The neurons that fire over time while performing the same activity change.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ch/619145/

[Ben Iscatus]

Jim, you said,

Anyone who believes in some personal identity survival after death needs to answer the question about which of the many people they have been survives.

You also said,

Personal identity is an illusion that seems real because consciousness permits an integration of perception and action.

So, assuming memory is not stored in the brain, why can the illusion of personal identity not persist as a continuing illusion?

[Eugene I]

Anyone who believes in some personal identity survival after death needs to answer the question about which of the many people they have been survives. Is it the child, the young adult graduating from college, the one who married the love of their life, the one who suffered the death of a loved one, the one celebrating the birth of a first child, the ill and infirm older self. All of those things make up what we are. You can't pick and choose or imagine some ideal form of yourself.

What survives is a localized process of conscious activity. It's not a "thing" or a "self".

[Eugene I]

The proofs are at 14:00-17:00, at 21:30-22:00 and at 24:30:25:20:

[Papanca]

Traveling is a different scenario altogether. I am not the same person that left one city that arrived in another city. My atoms and neurons have changed.

Since the duplicate is freezing and I am not, we are obviously not the same.

Forget about the freezing, let's say you are copied atom by atom/neuron by neuron two meters next to your current body.

What would happen in this case ? Would there be two current "you" ? And in what sense ?

In a similar vein, if there was a technology to replace one of your neuron while keeping you alive (this doesn't contradict any law of physics), would you stop being you after an X amount of neurons are replaced ? Once a specific function is no longer operationnal ?

The problem of personal identity and the hard problem of consciousness is one of the most complex philosophical problems, you seem very sure of your position, and i understand you consider the hard problem of consciousness as an illusory problem, i don't share this position, and i prefer to remain an agnostic ala John Horgan.

I can't forget about it. My duplicate occupies a different place in space time. From the moment of its creation, it has a different history, breaths different air, sees and feels different things from me. I am not the same person I was at ten years old. The more time passes the more I change and the more a duplicate would diverge from me. Personal identity is an illusion that seems real because consciousness permits an integration of perception and action. As I wrote on another thread, my two feet can't go in different directions. I can't both climb a tree and run across the savanna to escape the lion at the same time. Consciousness integrates senses, decisions, and action. This provide an illusion of personal identity.

Anyone who believes in some personal identity survival after death needs to answer the question about which of the many people they have been survives. Is it the child, the young adult graduating from college, the one who married the love of their life, the one who suffered the death of a loved one, the one celebrating the birth of a first child, the ill and infirm older self. All of those things make up what we are. You can't pick and choose or imagine some ideal form of yourself.

Regarding swapping out neurons - this is what actually is happening to us all of the time. There is actually evidence of this from brain scans. The neurons that fire over time while performing the same activity change.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ch/619145/

I can see where the disagreement is if you think you are a different person than the person you are 10 years ago. Of course, if you take into account the homunculus self, it's mostly an illusion, and the narrative self changes all the time, our personality, values, priorities etc may change. But i consider all those type of selves as contingent, i could've liked different musics, followed a different paths, had different memories, and still once i stub my toe, it feels like something to stub my toe. What i'm concerned about is the perspectival self, not something in addendum to experience, but the meeness of experience itself, something that is not separate from experience.

If i'm told that all my memories be erased but i'll be beaten painfully, i feel it is rational to be concerned about that, that it'll be me undergoing that ordeal, and irrational to be unconcerned.

Whereas you think that personal identity is an illusion, i think there is a chasm between us that can't honestly be abridged. I have the same problem with the eliminativists, it's not that i'm 100% sure they're wrong, my intuition and conviction may be false, i'm open to that, but once i make that assumption, than anything can be illusory and we may just shut up and stop talking : the patterns of regularities we see in nature may be illusory, communication is illusory, the arguments you are making right now are illusory etc etc, i consider that a dead-end. 

I don't believe in personal survival, but i have never seen convincing arguments - even from materialism/physicalist postulates - against impersonal survival. As in : https://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/d ... bjectivity. All i know is that the universe/consciousness/whatever ground even if it's relational, is capable of spawning "me", or the "illusion that feels like me", everything else is a story, a narrative.

Also, i find it ironic that Mystics often use the same interrogation you made (about the child, the adult etc) but reach opposite conclusions:

"Nisargadatta Maharaj : M: When you use the word "i" what exact image do you have about yourself? When you were a child you considered yourself nothing other than a child and were happy enough to play with toys. Later, you were a young man, with strength enough in your arms to tackle a couple of elephants, and you thought you could face anything or anyone in this world. You are now in your middle age, a little mellower but nonetheless enjoying life and its pleasures, and you think you are a happy and successful man, blessed with a nice family. At present you have an image about yourself that is quite different from the images you had earlier. Imagine yourself ten years hence and further twenty years later. The
image you will then have about yourself will be different from all the earlier ones. Which one of these images is the
real 'you'? Have you ever thought about it? Is there any particular identity that you can call your very ownand which
has remained with you throughout, unchanged and unchangeable?"

"Regarding swapping out neurons - this is what actually is happening to us all of the time. There is actually evidence of this from brain scans. The neurons that fire over time while performing the same activity change."

Okay, then what difference does physical death makes ? If we are already dying all the time.

Remember that i'm not mainly concerned about the narrative self, i'm concerned that it feels painful/joyful to stub my toe and eat strawberries.