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Trying to be comfortable with death

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Auriga ---Philosophical thread ahead:

I've long tried to find some peace with the reality of death and the inevitability of it, but the whole thing just doesn't sit well with me. I'm not exactly in a depression, but it's bothering me.

The most likely result of death is just the total obliteration of the self - since pretty much all scientific evidence shows that consciousness and personality are totally dependent on the existence of the material brain (and so is "free choice", which isn't really free and spontaneous at all), then that will be the end of it. Death comes, conscious experience goes. The End.

There's only really one other option, that there's some sort of metaphysical law where my conscious experience is transferred to some other place, maybe into a deeper reality that the human mind isn't aware of. But all this quantum alternate-universe stuff just seems pretty unlikely.

Buddhist-style reincarnation doesn't make sense to me.

I'm trying to prepare myself for the first option (total ending of all conscious experience). Obviously, I realize that there's nothing to be prepared for - if my personality and consciousness is totally over at death, it won't feel like an "eternal nothingness" because I'll simply return to that state we all were before we were born, a blank state of not existing at all. (And not having memories of ever existing.)

I can't come to peace with that idea. It just bothers me, and I can't shake this from my mind. I want to let go (especially since it's stupid to gripe about something inevitable), but I can't.

Any thoughts?
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Auriga ---Just expanding a bit on my post:

I can't just relax and accept the whole reality of "dying is like going back before you were born, so it's okay". Before you were born, you had no knowledge or past experience of having consciousness, since you never existed before, but now that we're all existing in the present, we do have a knowledge of existing, which gives us the feeling that we're losing something when we die. (And that something is conscious experience).

Conscious experience = all the memories we have, the perception of things like beauty, ugliness, happiness, sadness, love, hate, all that stuff. I just feel depressed at the idea of all this vanishing with death, just a total ending of it all.

Something very important is lost in death. Obviously, other people similar to my own self will definitely emerge, but it will never be my consciousness, the one that experiences reality in this body, this brain, this combo of atoms and neurons and stuff.

I used to be all "death is only a natural part of life, no point in sulking about something inevitable," but when you face the fact of your total ending upon death, it's impossible not to feel sad about it. (I know that sadness, just like all my other thoughts, are a part of my living brain. Since we're all tied to a limited block of conscious experience, we know those limits are there, but can't think of anything beyond them. The human brain can't observe itself, for the same reason a fingertip can't touch itself. Knowing these limits, but not being able to do anything about them, is pretty depressing.)

What should I do about my death-obsession? Is there any way to go back to my previous "go with the flow" view on life and death?
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Meyna ---I want to bear witness to more of the existence of the universe than an 80 year sliver. I will also concede that conscious experience is interesting to take part in, and I want to continue to do so, even though I do not believe that there is a "me" to guide this experience.

Humans are on the verge of creating digital brains. Perhaps in my lifetime I will be able to download a blueprint of all that I am from my brain to a computer so that more experience can be added to the foundation that is "me".
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Auriga ---
--- Quote from: Meyna ---I want to bear witness to more of the existence of the universe than an 80 year sliver.
--- End quote ---
I agree 100% (although my grandparents have lived way over 90, so I'll probably be long-lived by low human standards - but it's still just the fraction of a second on a cosmic scale). I like being who I am, and want to continue witnessing the universe as "I". To me, there's nothing worse than simply disappearing and never having existed at all.

This is why I've never been into Gnostic theology and all that "the material world is evil, life on earth is insignificant and pointless compared to life in Heaven" stuff. Self-hatred and just not caring about life would probably solve my problems, but I can't keep myself from caring. 


--- Quote ---I will also concede that conscious experience is interesting to take part in, and I want to continue to do so, even though I do not believe that there is a "me" to guide this experience.
--- End quote ---
It's an illusion created by our physical brains and environment, yeah. Still, it's a very useful illusion, one we couldn't get by without. How do we even think about the meaning of biological non-existence, if all we know is this existence? Is there any point to it at all? I don't know.


--- Quote ---Humans are on the verge of creating digital brains. Perhaps in my lifetime I will be able to download a blueprint of all that I am from my brain to a computer so that more experience can be added to the foundation that is "me".
--- End quote ---
Then it will just be the AI on the computer that is experiencing things, not you (because you're still biological and have an expiration date). I've always found this idea creepy, that somewhere there's a God who makes thousands of copies from you and your personality.
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: Meyna ---
--- Quote from: Auriga ---
--- Quote from: Meyna ---I want to bear witness to more of the existence of the universe than an 80 year sliver.
--- End quote ---
I agree 100% (although my grandparents have lived way over 90, so I'll probably be long-lived by low human standards - but it's still just the fraction of a second on a cosmic scale). I like being who I am, and want to continue witnessing the universe as "I". To me, there's nothing worse than simply disappearing and never having existed at all.

This is why I've never been into Gnostic theology and all that "the material world is evil, life on earth is insignificant and pointless compared to life in Heaven" stuff. Self-hatred and just not caring about life would probably solve my problems, but I can't keep myself from caring.
--- End quote ---

Yes, it doesn't do me any good if there is another being out there ever experiencing the universe, because that being doesn't have the desire that is being manufactured in the illusory "me". The fact that I have such a desire is evidence that I am playing along with the illusion.


--- Quote from: Auriga ---
--- Quote from: Meyna ---I will also concede that conscious experience is interesting to take part in, and I want to continue to do so, even though I do not believe that there is a "me" to guide this experience.
--- End quote ---
It's an illusion created by our physical brains and environment, yeah. Still, it's a very useful illusion, one we couldn't get by without. How do we even think about the meaning of biological non-existence, if all we know is this existence? Is there any point to it at all? I don't know.
--- End quote ---

Some who recognize that the illusion exists may see no purpose anymore. What is purpose, though? Even if there is no higher purpose for conscious beings, the point of playing out our roles in the freak accident that is life and the evolution of life still exists.


--- Quote from: Auriga ---
--- Quote from: Meyna ---Humans are on the verge of creating digital brains. Perhaps in my lifetime I will be able to download a blueprint of all that I am from my brain to a computer so that more experience can be added to the foundation that is "me".
--- End quote ---
Then it will just be the AI on the computer that is experiencing things, not you (because you're still biological and have an expiration date). I've always found this idea creepy, that somewhere there's a God who makes thousands of copies from you and your personality.
--- End quote ---

I see less and less difference these days. It's like the Ship of Theseus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

If I replace my brain cells with identical biological cells, one by one, is there ever a point where I cease being "me"? What about artificial cells, whatever that may be? If the only difference between the biological and artificial cells is that the artificial cells don't degrade, so memory becomes permanent and expandable like with a computer, then what's the difference, really?
--- End quote ---

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