It's evolution, baby!

[LanceGary]

You missed out a major point he is making - that the discontinuity in consciousness you and he describes is happening to you anyway. You do go to sleep and when you wake up you don't notice that gap in your experience. (Anaesthesia would be the same). So if your experience is so full of gaps right now which you don't notice why should the gap of death be any different?

I think his point is rather Buddhist. The self is an illusion...

Memory across selves. I wonder. Dostoevsky (in The Brothers Karamazov) gets one of the characters to ask how he could ever be happy in heaven after experiencing such unhappiness in this life. He says that no matter how great heaven might be the memory of his suffering would cast a gray pall over heaven. His companion cheerily replies that there is no problem - God would wipe his memory clean. This reply doesn't please however, for the suffering character then asks indignantly, Why should I have had to live through this if all memory of it is simply to be wiped away?

Lucretius once asked why people worry about dying (coming to an end) but not about the fact that their consciousness had a beginning? How do you react to that question?

Lance

[danbaron]

[font=courier new][size=8pt]I know that when I go to sleep or if I undergo anesthesia, there is a discontinuity in my experience. The difference, I think, is, I also know that the
discontinuity is only temporary. When I awake or recover consciousness, everything, is approximately the same.

If, someone was going to flip a switch, and, I would be "turned off" for five hundred years, I would be more hesitant to do it, than I would be to go to sleep
at night. In that case, when I awoke, everyone and everything that I previously knew, would be long gone. Generally, people are also afraid of anesthesia,
because, they know there is the possibility that they will never regain consciousness.

I cannot argue against the idea that the self is an illusion. I cannot argue against the idea that the memories I have of childhood, are actually those of
someone else, which have been "forwarded" to me, through the (illusional?) continuity of brain functioning. Certainly, most of the cells in my body are not the
same as when I was a boy. I cannot argue with the idea that the "self" is not actually a thing, but rather is a process, which is constantly changing.

For a long time, when I had no hope in the possibility of God, I consoled myself by thinking that I already was previously dead, and, apparently it did not
bother me. If death means not existing, then, it seemed to me that, for instance, I was dead in the year, 1850. I guessed it didn't bother me, then. So,
similarly, I guessed it wouldn't bother me when I became dead again in the future.

Most of my worry about death, and, I think most people's worries, are involuntary. I guess I would say to Lucretius that humans are wired to worry about the
future, and not to worry about the past. Before we were conceived, we had nothing to lose. Once we struggle day by day through life, and form relationships, it
seems, we have a lot to lose, and we develop the wish that the reason we struggle today is not only so that we will again be able to struggle tomorrow. I guess,
the strongest human instinct, is for survival, and that instinct, that wish to survive, extends beyond the boundaries of this life.

If God is only imaginary, then, some force has produced the elaborate religions which exist today. The Christian religion seems to me to be based on the idea
that we continue in a better form and in a better place after death, and that, so do those who we know in this life. I guess that idea appeals to many people,
because, there are so many Christians. I know that I would choose that alternative for after my death, to, simply ceasing to exist. And, I know that my wish is
at least as strong for those I care (have cared) about, as it is for myself.

Apparently, humans have the ability to imagine an existence infinitely better than this one. That ability seems to give rise to the hope that such an existence
is a future possibility. It absolutely could be that the ability, and the resulting hope, are just parts of our genetic programming, designed only to trick us
into having offspring and raising them until they are able to function independently. However, the conviction causes many people to become depressed,
dysfunctional. Generally, humans want to believe that there will be, "a happy ending". Many humans, maybe most, do not accept the alternative idea of a hard
life, and then the cessation of existence, well. Of course, I think, how well a person accepts the alternative idea, also usually depends on how difficult
survival is for the particular person. Most likely, on average, a billionaire will be able to accept the alternative idea, much more easily, than someone
struggling each and every day not to starve to death.

Here is a "thought experiment". Assume that, Buddhists believe that the self is only an illusion. What percentage of them do you think would be willing to drink
poison? You can't harm an illusion, correct? (Maybe, all human fears are irrational. But, in practice, it doesn't matter. They still are there. Not much can be
done about them, short of undergoing a lobotomy (in my opinion).)

Anyway, it does provide me with some comfort, some feeling of community, to think that we all have the same basic fears, the same basic feelings, and the same
ultimate fate. Why else would the thoughts of Dostoevsky still have meaning for us today?

(Incidentally, if I remember correctly, Dostoevsky was a Christian.)


Dan