Would anybody dare ask a question, on this forum, about (gulp) life after death?

[potoole]

(gulp) I'm almost ashamed to bring up the subject. You know, the possibility, or impossibility, that consciousness could carry on, somehow, after death of the body and brain. I know most scientists abhor the subject, because it gets too close to 'religion'. I'm not a religious person, but just wondering, since I am getting quite old, if there coud be a scientific possibility.

I once read a book entitled "The Physics Of Immortality" written by a Physicist, in which he gave a difficut to understand idea of how once concious critters could be brought back into conciousness at the end of time.

Thank you

[Noclevername]

Googled the book and got author Frank J. Tipler, an Intelligent Design proponent. He proposes that eventually all of the universe will become one big computer, at which point any surviving minds will become able to simulate anything including past lifeforms.

Here's some Wikipedia about his hypotheses:

Critics of the final anthropic principle say its arguments violate the Copernican principle, that it incorrectly applies the laws of probability, and that it is really a theology or metaphysics principle made to sound plausible to laypeople by using the esoteric language of physics. Martin Gardner dubbed FAP the "completely ridiculous anthropic principle" (CRAP).[11] Oxford-based philosopher Nick Bostrom writes that the final anthropic principle has no claim on any special methodological status, it is "pure speculation", despite attempts to elevate it by calling it a "principle".[12] Philosopher Rem B. Edwards called it "futuristic, pseudoscientific eschatology" that is "highly conjectural, unverified, and improbable".[13]
...
Researcher Anders Sandberg pointed out that he believes the Omega Point Theory has many flaws, including missing proofs.[17]

Tipler's Omega Point theories have received criticism by physicists and skeptics.[18][19][20] George Ellis, writing in the journal Nature, described Tipler's book on the Omega Point as "a masterpiece of pseudoscience ... the product of a fertile and creative imagination unhampered by the normal constraints of scientific and philosophical discipline",[3] and Michael Shermer devoted a chapter of Why People Believe Weird Things to enumerating what he thought to be flaws in Tipler's thesis.[21] Physicist Sean M. Carroll thought Tipler's early work was constructive but that now he has become a "crackpot".[22]

As for the idea that the mind may somehow exist beyond physical death, that would require some means of preserving the dynamic patterns of information found in the brain. I don't know of any mechanism that can do so at present. Hypothetically it may become possible someday to copy that information into another physical medium (mind uploading), but if that's ever going to happen it won't be for a very long time.

[Solfe]

I can't help but notice how often thread topics follow topics on Through the Wormhole. Season 2, episode 1, "Is There Life After Death?"

In season three there is one called "Can We Resurrect The Dead?" which I would imagine would go hand in hand with the other episode.

[SkepticJ]

Your best shot would be one of those cryonics places. They use antifreeze now, so maybe, just maybe, someday frozen people will be able to be brought back.

Or you could donate yourself to one of those traveling body plastination shows. You're not alive, of couse, but part of you is still around. Better than rotting in an expensive box in the ground.

I'll probably have my brain pickled in ethanol, and be a decoration on a scientist's desk.

[Solfe]

"I am donating my body to science fiction." I think George Carlin said it but that seems wrong to me.

[HenrikOlsen]

So far, all available evidence shows that consciousness is a (very complicated) process of the physical brain (actually of the entire nervous system with influences from body chemistry), with no component not of the physical body.

As such, talking about consciousness continuing after the brain has been rendered inoperable would be pure wishful thinking of the magical/narrative type humans are very good at, but which has no base in actual reality.

[Trebuchet]

There's always reincarnation. With my luck, I'd probably come back as a raccoon. I hate those things.

[Solfe]

So far, all available evidence shows that consciousness is a (very complicated) process of the physical brain (actually of the entire nervous system with influences from body chemistry), with no component not of the physical body.

As such, talking about consciousness continuing after the brain has been rendered inoperable would be pure wishful thinking of the magical/narrative type humans are very good at, but which has no base in actual reality.

I tend to agree, but I could see science reaching a point where you could make an inoperable body, operable. What is version 2.0 of a person's body?

Would "they/it" be the same as the original? - I doubt it.
Would "they/it" have common traits? - Perhaps.
Would "they/it" be completely different? - I think this would happen.

All three are kind of creepy, in an interesting way.

[swampyankee]

Rephrasing (too many years as a computer programmer; I get too literal) to "Is there a continuation of a person's essence, personality, or soul after that person's body dies?" Right now, I'd say that's a religious, not scientific, question. There's certainly sufficient evidence to show that there is no communication with a hypothetical afterlife, but that doesn't preclude the existence of an afterlife, but there is no way, within our currently known scientific framework, to demonstrate the presence or absence of life after death.

So, the answer is "mu."

[DonM435]

Your best shot would be one of those cryonics places. They use antifreeze now, so maybe, just maybe, someday frozen people will be able to be brought back.
...

An interviewer asked Frederik Pohl why this wasn't a more popular idea. He responded that "many are cold, but few are frozen."

I think that Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams had a bad experience with this, but he's not complaining.

[Sticks]

This thread is closed pending moderator discussion

[slang]

I'm sure you understand that this topic makes some mods (and few members) a little nervous, seeing how often such a discussion ends up with someone being disrespectful, inciteful or simply flaming, and us actually having to umm... work, with infractions 'n stuff... So far there is no problem at all, thanks for keeping it a polite discussion. Please don't cross the line, in fact please stay away from the line as far as you can. Thanks!

[Noclevername]

"I am donating my body to science fiction." I think George Carlin said it but that seems wrong to me.

IIRC, it was Steven Wright.

[R.A.F.]

So, the answer is "mu."

This is the first time I had heard of that "answer"....I Like It.

[HenrikOlsen]

I tend to agree, but I could see science reaching a point where you could make an inoperable body, operable. What is version 2.0 of a person's body?

Would "they/it" be the same as the original? - I doubt it.
Would "they/it" have common traits? - Perhaps.
Would "they/it" be completely different? - I think this would happen.

All three are kind of creepy, in an interesting way.

Since the main parts determining how the process of mind is going on is at a chemical level which is kept going by actually keeping going, once it's stopped, and by this I mean once signalling has stopped being coordinated at the whole-brain level, the learned trigger levels at the synaptic level will break down through simple metabolism in minutes.
There's a reason why brain-death is the most generally accepted (where belief systems don't interfere with the making of law) criterion for real death. It's the one there's no recovering from.

We're quite capable of making bodies operable again from various modes of "death", not so with a brain once gone. There is a grey area of increasing damage up until a certain level where, if the cause of the damage is removed, further damage is prevented. It results in a sliding scale of personality change and capability loss. But non-operation per se is final.

Incidentally, and I really hope this won't be too contentious, note that brain-death is a quite well defined state of the brain which is easily distinguished from a persistent vegetative state, they definitely could not be confused and talk of one should definitely not be confused for talk of the other.

[primummobile]

Googled the book and got author Frank J. Tipler, an Intelligent Design proponent. He proposes that eventually all of the universe will become one big computer, at which point any surviving minds will become able to simulate anything including past lifeforms.

Here's some Wikipedia about his hypotheses:

As for the idea that the mind may somehow exist beyond physical death, that would require some means of preserving the dynamic patterns of information found in the brain. I don't know of any mechanism that can do so at present. Hypothetically it may become possible someday to copy that information into another physical medium (mind uploading), but if that's ever going to happen it won't be for a very long time.

I've read some of Tipler's stuff. While he is undoubtably brilliant, I think that he is going a little too far with some of his predictions. His entire thesis relies on the some assumptions that are a little hard to swallow, like that the universe is going to end in a 'big crunch', that future humans are going to spread throughout the universe, and that future humans are going to have a desire to simulate conditions from before.

Without getting into too much detail, Tipler believes that in the moment before the end, the processing power of the universe will become infinite, so that infinite simulations will be able to exist for eternity. I don't argue that an infinite number of simulations will be able to simulate every possible quantum state of the universe. But even then, what is being simulated is still only a copy of what existed before. There won't be any continuity of consciousness.

To me, being able to upload an individual into an artificial system implies that there is something to upload. If our consciousness is a product of our physical brain and nothing else, then there is nothing we can do but copy the brain itself. Assuming we could do that, and the upload would be a perfect duplicate of the original, the original would still continue to exist and you would have a divergence of consciousness at the time of upload. That means that the original would still live out his/her life and die, while the upload carries on its own life.

[Noclevername]

To me, being able to upload an individual into an artificial system implies that there is something to upload. If our consciousness is a product of our physical brain and nothing else, then there is nothing we can do but copy the brain itself. Assuming we could do that, and the upload would be a perfect duplicate of the original, the original would still continue to exist and you would have a divergence of consciousness at the time of upload. That means that the original would still live out his/her life and die, while the upload carries on its own life.

We still don't know enough about how the mind works to say for sure how that process might work-- it might be like quantum teleportation, exchanging states, in which case there could be continuity of consciousness. Or it might involve a destructive process, killing the original brain to make the copy. There are still too many unknown variables to make any definitive statements.

[primummobile]

We still don't know enough about how the mind works to say for sure how that process might work-- it might be like quantum teleportation, exchanging states, in which case there could be continuity of consciousness. Or it might involve a destructive process, killing the original brain to make the copy. There are still too many unknown variables to make any definitive statements.

Oh, I'm not making any definitive statements. I'm just starting with a premise, that our consciousness is a product of our physical brain, and then following it. I'm not saying we know that to be a fact.

[Noclevername]

Oh, I'm not making any definitive statements. I'm just starting with a premise, that our consciousness is a product of our physical brain, and then following it. I'm not saying we know that to be a fact.

I started with the same premise, but there are still so many unknowns about how the brain gives rise to consciousness.

[primummobile]

I started with the same premise, but there are still so many unknowns about how the brain gives rise to consciousness.

I just can't square the original continuing to live with any continuity of consciousness from the original to the copy. Even if the process did kill the original, how do we know that the copy didn't just 'wake up' today with all the memories of the original? How would we prove that isn't the case? Would it truly be the same person? Or would it be like what we see in Blade Runner or Dark City, where people thought they had full lives that they had in fact never lived? How would we prove it either way, absent of some outside evidence?

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just arguing the opposite point of view to try to flesh some of this out.

[Noclevername]

I just can't square the original continuing to live with any continuity of consciousness from the original to the copy. Even if the process did kill the original, how do we know that the copy didn't just 'wake up' today with all the memories of the original? How would we prove that isn't the case? Would it truly be the same person? Or would it be like what we see in Blade Runner or Dark City, where people thought they had full lives that they had in fact never lived? How would we prove it either way, absent of some outside evidence?

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just arguing the opposite point of view to try to flesh some of this out.

If the copy is good enough, we wouldn't know. Even the copies would think of themselves as the original in a new form.

But how is that any different from how we are now? I've done things that I have absolutely no memory of. Those experiences are not a part of me as I am now, yet they happened to me-- the "me" I used to be.

[HenrikOlsen]

We've had this part of the discussion in another thread, remember that the Star Trek teleporter actually works by making a copy of you somewhere else and killing your local version, with laws set up so the copy is legally you.
What would happen if the killing part was forgotten, who would legally (and morally and philosophically though I loathe getting into the latter) be the real one?

[primummobile]

If the copy is good enough, we wouldn't know. Even the copies would think of themselves as the original in a new form.

But how is that any different from how we are now? I've done things that I have absolutely no memory of. Those experiences are not a part of me as I am now, yet they happened to me-- the "me" I used to be.

? I don't know.

[Noclevername]

We've had this part of the discussion in another thread, remember that the Star Trek teleporter actually works by making a copy of you somewhere else and killing your local version, with laws set up so the copy is legally you.
What would happen if the killing part was forgotten, who would legally be the real one?

I think there was a TNG episode that covered that-- A copy got made of Riker. In the end they decided that their diverged experiences made them two different people.

[primummobile]

We've had this part of the discussion in another thread, remember that the Star Trek teleporter actually works by making a copy of you somewhere else and killing your local version, with laws set up so the copy is legally you.
What would happen if the killing part was forgotten, who would legally (and morally and philosophically though I loathe getting into the latter) be the real one?

There was an Outer Limits episode about this. Not the original series, but the reboot. Aliens who didn't have any ability to feel emotions allowed humans to use their teleportation equipment, but the original was supposed to be destroyed when successful transport was confirmed. One time it took a long time, I believe several hours, to confirm the transport. Then the story revolved around the debate about killing the subject of the transport. The aliens were firm that she had to die, and the humans were resisting it.

[Solfe]

Since the main parts determining how the process of mind is going on is at a chemical level which is kept going by actually keeping going, once it's stopped, and by this I mean once signalling has stopped being coordinated at the whole-brain level, the learned trigger levels at the synaptic level will break down through simple metabolism in minutes.
There's a reason why brain-death is the most generally accepted (where belief systems don't interfere with the making of law) criterion for real death. It's the one there's no recovering from.

We're quite capable of making bodies operable again from various modes of "death", not so with a brain once gone. There is a grey area of increasing damage up until a certain level where, if the cause of the damage is removed, further damage is prevented. It results in a sliding scale of personality change and capability loss. But non-operation per se is final.

Incidentally, and I really hope this won't be too contentious, note that brain-death is a quite well defined state of the brain which is easily distinguished from a persistent vegetative state, they definitely could not be confused and talk of one should definitely not be confused for talk of the other.

I don't think this too contentious. I was thinking of a death like Ötzi the Iceman, except not so long ago.

What if a person expired in away that didn't do too much damage to the brain, (this is outside of our ability, but this is a flight of imagination.) and months later the body was discovered. Clearly the body experienced brain death. You might have a perfectly good working brain and body once repaired, but I highly doubt such a person would have anything in common with the person they once were.

This verges on Frankenstein or countless B-movies.

In the real world, people tend to die in ways that are "complete" or "incomplete".

For example, people (especially children) who drown in cold water can be "brought back" as they have not crossed some irrecoverable point of damage. Were they simply pulled from the water and sent home, the story would be completely different. They would not have "drown", but succumbed to any number of problems caused by low temperatures. Wait long enough before rescuing the person and it might be hard to determine what exactly caused the person to expire. There is a combination of factors that come between life and death; luck, technology and methodology being the most important. This sort of death is closer to what I was thinking of.

A more complete death would be something that directly damages the brain. If your brain fell out of your body, that would qualify as "complete" in my book. I don't want to really discuss specific methods of brain destruction, it is sufficient to say it can happen. Usually brain death occurs right around the time the body fails, although there are exceptions. I wasn't really thinking of the exceptions in this case, usually the brain has stopped functioning enough to stop higher functions.

The reason I find this so interesting is I met a gentleman who was in a car accident and suffered amnesia. His body recovered just fine, but he was a some what different person afterwards. His family described it as being "rewound by a decade". Still the same person, but with different experiences than what others remember.

[primummobile]

If the copy is good enough, we wouldn't know. Even the copies would think of themselves as the original in a new form.

But how is that any different from how we are now? I've done things that I have absolutely no memory of. Those experiences are not a part of me as I am now, yet they happened to me-- the "me" I used to be.

I was thinking along the lines of the OP's original question. A copy, while identical, still does not relieve the original of the obligation to die, unless there is some way to transfer the consciousness and not just create a copy of it.

[Noclevername]

I was thinking along the lines of the OP's original question. A copy, while identical, still does not relieve the original of the obligation to die, unless there is some way to transfer the consciousness and not just create a copy of it.

Yes, that's what I meant when I referred to quantum teleportation-- taking the state of a particle and swapping it with another. Depending on the nature of the brain's functions at the quantum level, such a transfer may--or may not-- be plausible someday using larger units of entangled information.

[slang]

[...] remember that the Star Trek teleporter actually works [...]

I know what you mean, but it's funny nonetheless.

[Noclevername]

It depends on which episodes of Star Trek you watch, which writer is handling it, and which series. Sometimes it handles matter like data, sometimes like reconstructed molecules, and it's completely inconsistent.