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Author Topic: Spirituality and Consciousness  (Read 9326 times)

Reelya

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #75 on: March 19, 2015, 08:47:34 am »

there are particles that behave differently based on observation, and current phisics has no real explanation for that just yet.

Observation, means any interaction which extracts information. It's basically saying you can't get data about a particle without interacting with it. There's no mystical connotations to that, or "things science can't explain" about that fact. Quantum physics in facts makes no claims about "consciousness" at all, that's just our interpretation, and it's mainly semantic due to different interpretations of the word "observer" rather than any actual scientific discovery.

All we know about such particles is how our machinery interacts with them: there is no evidence of human "observers" playing any special role, that's just hyperbole.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2015, 08:52:13 am by Reelya »
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Grek

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #76 on: March 19, 2015, 08:58:12 am »

squrqimus:
I'm fully open to explanations of why some particular death-avoiding strategy wouldn't work, provided that they are A] well researched, and B] not just That Wolf repeating variations on the theme of "you should die" over and over again. Also: you are using the word "spiritual" wrong. It's not a pejorative, nor does it mean pigheaded. Spiritual means that someone thinks there are spirits separate from the body. Transhumanism is one of the least spiritual philosophies there is, as it actively rejects that notion. But, more generally, saying a philosophy is "spiritual" isn't the same thing as saying it is bad. You should not use that word in that way.

That Wolf:
I know I said I was done with this thread, but your latest post shows that you're at least willing to look up information about the arguments against cryonics, if not the well known counter arguments. I'll list them briefly; ask if you need more detail on any particular.
-Cryonics does money, and your numbers are actually a bit low, given that you'll probably want to pay the fee to have a standby team ready to get your health starts failing. That said, the usual way to pay for it is with life insurance, and dues plus an overfunded insurance policy comes out to around 80$ a month in my case. I feel like that is worth it.
-No, it isn't guaranteed. No brain revivals have been successful. But they've managed to preserve (yes, using the "antifreeze" method you describe) and revive a kidney, then successfully transplant it with no complications or loss of function. And there's no magical difference between a kidney and a brain. What works for one should, in principle, work for the other. The fact that they don't literally freeze people in literal ice is not a downside when the newly developed methods work better than ice.
-Getting the team to the hospital, getting you and getting your brain preserved all do indeed take time. People have considered this problem and planned around it. Alcor encourages people who have reason to suspect they will legally die soon to either pay for a standby team to get ready, or to move close to their facility so you can be transported quickly. There's even a fund set aside to help you move if you're diagnosed with an acutely fatal illness. It's also a really good idea to avoid going places where there's a strong danger of dying in a way where your brain can't be recovered.
-Mostly Alcor doesn't worry about the dead body. The majority of policies are for just the head. There's good reason to think that just the brain is all that's needed, because the contains
all of the really essential things that make a person who they are. Again, totally willing to get into this in greater detail if requested.
-It's actually quite a bit more 500$ a year, but that doesn't actually matter. The "that money could be used to help people" argument applies to everything from video games to food to posting on the internet. Obviously no reasonable person is going to spend every last dollar they earn on charity, and electing to spend 80$ out of my discretionary budget on this instead of fast food or shopping trips does not make me a bad person.
-Cloning does not work that way. First, neither bone nor hair actually have DNA in them. Secondly, you'd be better off getting the DNA sequenced and stored electronically in a digital format rather than trying to preserve the original parts. But, most importantly: a clone is not the same person as the original. It won't have any of your memories, it won't be raised in the same environment, it won't develop the same way. It's more like having a twin sibling than making a new instance of the original person.
-Brain destruction is a thing that would foil any sort of cryopreservation plan. That is rather the point - cryopreservation is about taking reasonable precautions to avoid your brain being destroyed, in hopes of preserving the contents to be revived in the future. If we ever get to the point where there's a better way to preserve brain contents (like, say, translating them into an electronic format) cryonicists will start advocating that instead of advocating the preservation of actual physical brains. The good news is that whatever future technology is going to be used to read the contents off a preserved brain will probably allow electronic backups of the brain to be made the same way. And if it doesn't, it'll be a high priority to invent something that does.

TempAcc:
Quantum physics does not work that way. "Observation" in a quantum physics sense of the word is not the same thing as observation in the humans looking at things with eyeballs sense of the word. Likewise, the reputable quantum physics version of the many worlds hypothesis has to do with phase configurations of self-interacting particles, not with parallel universes. Robert Lanza is a very good biologist, I'm sure, but his physics credentials are shaky. In particular, I found his "A New Theory of the Universe" article in American Scholar to be very wooly. It's one thing to embrace block time. I'm all for that. Even timeless physics, if that pans out. But insisting that empiricism is false, space and motion are the result of biological observation and anything that can't be observed by a biological entity is mere speculation is less a step for far and more sprinting into the distance.
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TempAcc

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #77 on: March 19, 2015, 09:13:58 am »

The Wheeler's delayed choice experiment, which puts a photon in a measuring device with a beam splitter, which would cause said photon to behave as a particle or as a wave, depending on how its measured. Current phisics dictate that something cannot be both a particle and a wave, but must be one or another. Yet, photons have been observed behaving either as a wave or as a particle, depending on how they're observed, so its been assumed that photons exist in a quantum state, and seemingly either become a particle or a wave depending on how they're measured.
Unfortunely, an actual device that would be capable of perfectly executing Wheeler's experiment does not yet exist and, according to current phisics, will probably never exist, since it would require the ability of transmitting information at a faster then light rate.

Of course, none of this in any way proves that biocentrism is real or anything like that, I just mentioned it to point out that the specific phenoma of photons supposedly changing their state depending on how they're measured is still something that has not been conclusively explained.
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Reelya

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #78 on: March 19, 2015, 09:18:29 am »

No, current physics doesn't dictate that. Classical physics, i.e. stuff up to the 19th century dictates that things must be waves or particles. I know that might sound like nitpicking, but it's a big difference. "Current physics" has no issue with wave/particle duality, it's been accepted for over 100 years.

"Photon measuring device" must actually interact with the photon to get information. We just take for granted  that we can get information about macro-scale objects because they have stuff bouncing off them - photons - that we can measure.

Photons just don't have any conveniently smaller photons bouncing off them that we can intercept, the only way to get data about a photon is to directly fuck with it. It's like if the only way to get the position of a ball was to poke it with a larger, heavier ball, then estimate how much the heavier ball was moved. What do you think would happen to the position data for the ball you poked?
« Last Edit: March 19, 2015, 09:24:33 am by Reelya »
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Cryxis, Prince of Doom

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #79 on: March 19, 2015, 09:22:27 am »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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TempAcc

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #80 on: March 19, 2015, 09:34:30 am »

I see, I guess the gap between current phisics and classical phisicals was obscure to me, but its good that I got corrected on that end.
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Arx

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #81 on: March 19, 2015, 09:40:41 am »

Personally, I believe the self and the body are separate. This might change if/when I understand the brain better.
What is the "Self" that you think is separate? what are his characteristic/qualities? what is it composed from?

My body is not what makes me myself. That's the sum of my experiences, thoughts, impressions, that kind of thing. If I were a brain in a jar, I'd still be me. If my hand gets cut off, it's not less a part of me because it was never a part of me in the first place.

I am acutely aware at almost all times of the fact that I'm just a brain in a complicated self-balancing system that acts as a jar, and the brain is just a jar for the thoughts, experiences, and memories that make up my self. My soul, if you will.
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SirQuiamus

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #82 on: March 19, 2015, 09:46:24 am »

@Grek:
"Spirituality is bad" is absolutely not what I meant. What I'm getting at is that the dogged belief in technological resurrection and apotheosis is the effective "spiritual" component of transhumanism, which actually makes it quite similar to certain eschatological religions. It may not be traditional body-soul-dualism per se, but it still expresses the same dichotomy between the fallen, corruptiple state of worldly existence, and the purified -- resurrected or uploaded -- existence after the salvation. That is your form of spirituality, and I'll do my best to respect it. But I don't have to like it.

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Cryxis, Prince of Doom

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #83 on: March 19, 2015, 09:56:46 am »

Personally, I believe the self and the body are separate. This might change if/when I understand the brain better.
What is the "Self" that you think is separate? what are his characteristic/qualities? what is it composed from?

My body is not what makes me myself. That's the sum of my experiences, thoughts, impressions, that kind of thing. If I were a brain in a jar, I'd still be me. If my hand gets cut off, it's not less a part of me because it was never a part of me in the first place.

I am acutely aware at almost all times of the fact that I'm just a brain in a complicated self-balancing system that acts as a jar, and the brain is just a jar for the thoughts, experiences, and memories that make up my self. My soul, if you will.
+1
That sounds pretty similar
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TempAcc

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #84 on: March 19, 2015, 09:57:16 am »

This reminds me of a news article I've read about italian surgeons that will attempt to transplant a human head to another body in about 2 years. If it works it'll be a big step for transhumanism, since with sufficiently advanced technology it would be possible to graft a human head to a robot body that supports its needs. Full transition of the human mind into a machine is something thats hard to imagine though, since there's still no proof that the brain and the "self" are anything other then one and the same, but yea, I also adhere to the notion that we are more then just chemical reactions in the brain.
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Reelya

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #85 on: March 19, 2015, 10:00:01 am »

They've done monkey head transplants for decades. It doesn't work. Don't put faith in it. Have you ever seen a working animal head transplant in the news? If not, it's doubtful they're two years away from a fully working human one.

It's theoretically possible, but not currently do-able. EDIT: I won't say it's not do-able, but at best I think it's decades away.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2015, 10:10:38 am by Reelya »
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Vilanat

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #86 on: March 19, 2015, 11:55:55 am »

Personally, I believe the self and the body are separate. This might change if/when I understand the brain better.
What is the "Self" that you think is separate? what are his characteristic/qualities? what is it composed from?

My body is not what makes me myself. That's the sum of my experiences, thoughts, impressions, that kind of thing. If I were a brain in a jar, I'd still be me. If my hand gets cut off, it's not less a part of me because it was never a part of me in the first place.

I am acutely aware at almost all times of the fact that I'm just a brain in a complicated self-balancing system that acts as a jar, and the brain is just a jar for the thoughts, experiences, and memories that make up my self. My soul, if you will.

So what you are saying is that basically, there is no "true" Self? at least not a unique, independent, permanent "Self"?

What happens to that Self as you defined when the body dies?
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Angle

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #87 on: March 19, 2015, 12:40:04 pm »

Well, as I understand it, The "self", if you will, is basically just a pattern. This pattern is most present in the brain, but it does extend beyond it - what you feel has as much to do with the chemicals in your blood as it does with the electrical impulses in your brain. Even more than that, your identity extends beyond  even the confines of your body. This is why we take away people clothes and hair when we imprison them - we're essentially trying to take away their identity. This is also why it hurts so much to lose people you care about, or why moving can be so uncomfortable - because you've essentially lost a part of yourself.
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Arx

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #88 on: March 19, 2015, 12:55:31 pm »

Personally, I believe the self and the body are separate. This might change if/when I understand the brain better.
What is the "Self" that you think is separate? what are his characteristic/qualities? what is it composed from?

My body is not what makes me myself. That's the sum of my experiences, thoughts, impressions, that kind of thing. If I were a brain in a jar, I'd still be me. If my hand gets cut off, it's not less a part of me because it was never a part of me in the first place.

I am acutely aware at almost all times of the fact that I'm just a brain in a complicated self-balancing system that acts as a jar, and the brain is just a jar for the thoughts, experiences, and memories that make up my self. My soul, if you will.

So what you are saying is that basically, there is no "true" Self? at least not a unique, independent, permanent "Self"?

What happens to that Self as you defined when the body dies?

I'm saying my self is my soul, and my soul is my self. My self-soul-self will persist after my death, independent. I may have phrased my previous post poorly; to clarify, my self is the sum of my consciousness, thoughts, memories, and experiences.

If you want to take it to another meta-level, my soul is the vessel for my self in a similar way as my brain is. Or possibly my brain is the interface between my soul and my body, which is the interface with the world.

When I die, that will be in stasis until the Day of Judgment, but that's organised religion and I won't get into that.
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That Wolf

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Re: Spirituality and Consciousness
« Reply #89 on: March 19, 2015, 03:17:53 pm »

Well, as I understand it, The "self", if you will, is basically just a pattern. This pattern is most present in the brain, but it does extend beyond it - what you feel has as much to do with the chemicals in your blood as it does with the electrical impulses in your brain. Even more than that, your identity extends beyond  even the confines of your body. This is why we take away people clothes and hair when we imprison them - we're essentially trying to take away their identity. This is also why it hurts so much to lose people you care about, or why moving can be so uncomfortable - because you've essentially lost a part of yourself.

I thought it was because of change, the fact that you cant do something a specific way anymore due to the 'object' being dead, destroyed or missing.


As for the partical observation, let me dip a toe.

As a passive observer myself I have noticed that when you observe somebody for long enough you begin to truly focus on this person like watching a movie. But when the person sees you and your eyes meet all of a sudden you become a body, you become something for the other party to observe and you no longer are really observing them because your mind is filled with thoughts of the self, so you begin to act and put up a mask, perhaps you look away pretending you where never staring, or perhaps you continue to stare to gain attention, whatever happens you begin to act and wear an ego mask and the pure observation changes into something its not.
Perhaps all matter does the same.

Whats with all the +1 magic?

I locked it on accident. I think?
« Last Edit: March 19, 2015, 03:34:09 pm by That Wolf »
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