atheism and death (only one life?)
Posted on: January 12, 2009 - 9:33pm
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atheism and death (only one life?)
think about this:
Being dead simply means not living.
Which means that before you were born you were dead.
Which must mean there's a possibility to be born again after you die.
Additional thoughts:
If something is created that is excactly like you, that must be you. (because what is it that isn't you?)
That means if something were to be created, that would be excactly like you, while you were still alive, then they're both you.
Correct me if I'm wrong, which I really don't think I am.
And if that's the case maybe we should stop say that we only have one life?
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Given the fine grain of matter, the possibility of this happening may be so excessively small that it may not happen before all of the protons in the universe decay.
Then again, who would really want to deal with two of me?
-Triften
Thus is the phoilosopic problem of identity.
Doctor McCoy hates the transporter but why? If he is taken apart and reassembled somwhere else, is the new structure him?
=
"Damnit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!"
"Damnit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a physician!"
Sorry, just needed to get that out.
To the OP, You can't make a copy of me, since the molecules that constetute me are allready being used for something.
Also, people have lived before I did, but I am me, I am Nikolaj, and if you are telling me that I might once have been someone else, all I can say is: "sure, possibly, but then, being someone else, I wasn't me, so what's your point?"
Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin
oh yeah well there's no reason to believe it has to be an exact replica down to the very atom.
because large parts of your body doesn't look like they did 10 years ago, but still you're the same person.
what would be interesting to discover though is what part of our body that hasn't changed, it might be a very small and simple part of us.
After I die I shall of course continue to exist in a fashion. I will reside within an urn. I expect to remain in that dessicated condition forever. No possibility of rebirth after I die....sorry
2 molecules of the same kind would have the exact same properties, wouldn't you say?
2 exact replicas of a pen would for example break just as easily, because those properties of the pen would be the exact same!
our so called "identity" is nothing else but a property of our human mind, and nothing else but a property, right? it's almost as if you think there's something more to it... like we have a soul or something
My closest friend in high school was a girl who was one of a pair of identical twins. Trust me when I say, she and her sister were not the same. They were similar, certainly. Sometimes, uncanily so, not just in looks, but in personality as well. But they were not the same.
How could only one of them be my closest friend, if she had been indistinguishible from her sister?
What is it that truly makes an individual? It is an interesting question, I agree.
But I think you are oversimplifying the matter way too much.
Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin
I always imagined the exchange of:
Kirk: "Bones... this man's arm... is broken."
Bones: "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, I-... I'll, uh, get right on that."
-Triften
yes, I very much think that they could be defined as the same identity (not the same person maybe). I mean obviously the impulses they get wouldn't transmit between their brains so they would grow up with very different experiences.
A comparison could be that while you, now, and yourself, 10 years ago, might be very different in looks, have very different experiences and your personality might even be different.
I think both you and I could agree you have the same identity. Now just as then.
Well, any detective can tell you that identical twins have different fingerprints. They share the same DNA but there the similarity ends. Such would also be true of clones.
Here I introduce quantum entanglement. Two photons can be the same photon even though they are on opposite ends of the laboratory. If one bounces off of a mirror, the other one will bounce despite the lack of a mirror to bounce off of. If that is not odd enough, it seems that entangled photons will respond without deference to the speed of light.
Proving the matter is subject to the speed of light and thus serves as a good example of why quantum mechanics can't really be expressed in English. However, the math is sound.
Just for fun, let's say that the transporter does not have to take you apart. It can copy you nondestructively. Which you is you?
=
I never said I didn't
I do believe I have a soul. But strictly in the poetic sense of the word*.
I am not a dualist. I believe that my body and my soul are not just tied together. They are one and the same. As my body changes, so does my mind.
When I was a child, my mind was different than what it is now. My thoughts, ideas, and needs were different.
When I die, my body will decompose, and I believe firmly that so will my mind. And therefore, my "soul" as it were, will do the same.
Have you ever played the computergame Final Fantasy VII? Or read the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Phillip Pullman?
In these two stories death results in the disolving of the "soul". It disolves, and so, whatever individual was that soul ceases to be, but the components from which it is made remain.
Like a drop of water into the ocean, the molecules that constituted the drop are still there, but the drop itself is no more.
This is more or less my world view, but again: strictly in the poetic sense.
*: Let me try and explain what I mean with: "Only in the poetic sense":
I am a student of the humanities. Poetry, literature, language is my game.
I do not concern myself very much with physics or mathematics, so I rarely feel the need to say anything about what is "true" or not, in any absolute sense.
I usually concern myself only with what is "true" in a poetic, or literary sense.
However, if someone else tries to tell me what is "true" about the universe in an absolute sense, then I will call that person out to substantiate those truth-claims, because far too often people will use poetic, or rather linguistic tools (which is my game) to try and sneak literal, materialistic "truthes" (which is the game of the scientists) into the conversation.
If you are going to say something "true" about the real world, then you must speak the language of science, and you must play by science's rules.
And if you wan't to speak the language of poetry and metaphor, then you must accept that here "truth" is itself a poetic expression, and cannot trespass into objective reality.
Far too many preachers, prophets and other religious demogogues have hurt humanity by breaking those very rules.
I love poetic expression.
Those that use it to cheat people into believing falsehoods about objective reality do not. They do violence to poetic expression.
Well I was born an original sinner
I was spawned from original sin
And if I had a dollar bill for all the things I've done
There'd be a mountain of money piled up to my chin
what I'm saying is both, but it wouldn't affect us a bit, because still, impulses wouldn't travel between our brains.
and I have a reason to think so, as I've stated in a previous post.
The so called "identity" is merely a property of our brain, an exact copy of that "identity" would have the exact same properties.
And for anyone to prove that wrong, they would have to prove that there's something more to matter than we allready know. Something that would distinguish any same particle from another.
or am I way off?
This brings up an interesting thought experiment: You and your best childhood friend always spent summers at a lake, spending days rowing about, sightseeing in a small boat. Your friend moves away, but you keep the boat up, replacing parts as the become rotten or worn. You've eventually replaced EVERY SINGLE part on the boat. At some point your friend gets back in touch with you and is able to visit. You two get in the boat and he says "Wow, you've still got the same boat!"... Is he right?
One could argue that, no we aren't the same people we were 10 years ago. We've got 10 years of experience affecting who we are.
-Triften
Whether or not we would define it as the same boat is maybe out of less interest, because surely, it's not built up with the same particles so in a way it's a different boat.
However it's functions would still be the same. And that is what I believe our "identity" is, just a function, a mere product of our human mind, and that function can be replicated.
No I wouldn't say we're the same people now as then, however, I still feel like I am I the same way I did 10 seconds ago or 10, my veiws on myself and everything around me might change, but I still feel like I am I, and that's good enough for me.
A question to someone who knows:
suppose we have braincell in our body that lives with us our entire lives.
And even though the braincell is seamingly the same, isn't it possible though that it's buildingblocks consisting of whatever molecules and atoms it's built of, have been replaced over time?
Nikolaj: Finally someone, who's list of forbidden words is shorter
Well, then poetically said, we can have a twins of the same soul, or even two completely unrelated people, of the same soul. This could solve the question of an inner identity - they belong to each other, this is poetically possible. However, is it possible that a person alone may belong to his/her soul?
(of course, Deludedgod is an expert on all this and more)
Simply said, the cell is a small organism and it's a very busy one. A brain cell for example, can change it's attachments to other cells, creating, strengthtening or weakening a neural nets, and thus our behavior.
So what's the point? Probably a bad example, because the cells doesn't stay the same, I don't know of anything living that does.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Just to put an emphatic... um... emphasis... on a point, identical twins are most certainly not completely identical. Genes are templates, not molecular accountants. Consider, if I give two construction companies identical blueprints for a particular building, I will get two remarkably similar buildings, but they will be far from identical. Each workman is an autonomous unit, and even in the simple act of nailing wooden beams together, there will be significant differences in the number and placement of nails. Perhaps one building has two or three supports that were not connected as firmly as the blueprint dictated. Perhaps the other used a different concrete brand for the foundation. Once the building is finished, two different interior design companies were contracted, so the interiors look significantly different, even though they have guidelines for that, too.
It's not a perfect analogy, but you should get the point. Genes work with what they're given, and from the moment of conception, identical twins experience unique -- even if remarkably similar -- environments. This results in substantially different humans that share identical DNA.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Even though I really think it wasn't necessary to know. But if Luminon is right then the following argument of yours doesn't hold up Nikolaj, right?
- meaning you are allready an entire copy of yourself.
Or: death is the absence of life. Which doesn't suggest past lives or more lives to come. Just absence; nothingness.
No offense, but this seems like an extreme semantic argument. Playing with definitions doesn't give one immortality. It merely plays with definitions.
For a few seconds, sure. But the more time that goes on, the more the two subjects will variate. Within a month, the clone will not be you. The clone will be a seperate individual that shares your memories and experiences up until the point in time where the two individuals deviated from one individual.
I can already say that we should stop saying that we only have one life. The person you are today didn't exist 10 years ago. The person you were 10 years ago is dead and gone today. Nothing in your body remains from that time. Your mind has changed significantly since that time. Memories have been made and forgotten. Opinions and education has changed. The old you is as dead as petrified wood.
Unless he uses your molecules to make the copy.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Can you really say that a person is defined by certain molecules? We are constantly exchanging molecules with the rest of the world. You eat a bucket of fried chicken and then the dead chickens molecules become your molecules. As you reconstruct your skin, the molecules of your old skin flake off. So the definition of "you" can't really be defined as this certain clump of molecules because they never stay the same.
Free your mind.
I believe they call that possibility "reincarnation" or "transmigration" of the soul.
This probably explains why there appears to be an inordinate amount of women who believe they are the reincarnation of Marie Antoinette.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Shouldn't someone give Lundburgerr a "Hindu" badge?
"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." (CS Lewis)
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." (CS Lewis)
You're right, I was dead before I was alive. However, these premises do not add up to a coherent deductive argument. In order for your argument to be true, I would have to accept some form of dualism, which it so happens I don't. I am my cells, my mind is my brain. Before I was born my brain didn't exist, and after I die my brain won't exist. I do not believe the essence of my consciousness will linger on in some corner until a new body can be found for it. Now, unless my brain can be preserved until it can be placed in another body, there is a 0% chance that my brain will form again.
Even if I am cloned, the clone won't be me. The clone will have exactly the same genotype, but it would be impossible for it to be phenotypically the same. I have scars, I have memories, which aren't genetic at all. Are two identical twins the same person when they have exactly the same uprbringing, go to the same schools, do the same homework, eat the same food, start work in the same factory, marry other identical twins, have very similar children at the same time. They may be totally alike in almost every aspect of their lives, and indeed have very similar memories, but are they the same person? Even if they have almost identical experiences in life, they can never be exactly the same, physically they will have seen the world from different angles. They do not share a consciousness, since telepathy is way beyond human capabilities.
What if I travel to a parallel Universe where another version of me exists. I might think alike to this other individual, but our lives will be totally different, we might have had no shared experiences whatsoever, and certainly I cannot experience some of the things the other me will have done. Nor can the other me share my experiences. We are two different people living two completely separate lives, with no shared consciousness.
I'm correcting you. You're wrong.
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