An existential problem.

[peter]

Ok - I'm lying in bed with a bad case of 'flu' and freaking out that this rasping cough I've had for three weeks might be the beginning of the end-game.

It's 3 am and I'm pretty alone. Ok well - what do I know. Even if I die the 'stuff' of which I am made stays around. It gets spread about a bit - ok, a lot - but it continues to exist (even science seemed to agree with that). But what of the other bit of me; the mind bit. If it doesnt continue to exist, did it ever really exist at all, or is there another kind of 'existance' that is different from the existence of my 'stuff'. When you dismantle all the bits and pieces that make up 'me' what is left. Nothing I'd guess, so that elusive other bit has slipped away unseen - or it was never there in the first place. It was just smoke and mirrors - an illusion that served me well for my three score years and ten. I can't work it out. None of it makes any sense. Did any headway ever get made with this problem or does it still sit there - the elephant in the room that everybody pretends not to see.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

It continues to be a problem only because people want it to be a problem.

Clearly, when you die all electrochemical activity in your brain ceases. We won't debate this because we should recognize this as a medical fact.

Let us presume, for the sake of argument, that some part of us is able to continue existing after all biochemical activity has stopped. This part must be something that does not exist based on that biochemical activity and thus we would not be able to detect while alive, which would explain science's inability to uncover it via tests. Where does this part go? *shrug* Since we cannot directly examine it we have no way of knowing. It could hang around with the rest of us, meaning we have lots of lots of "ghosts" watching over our shoulder at the things we do. It could wander through space, seeing what is out there. It could find its way to some alternate dimension accessible only through extremely small spaces that we, being made of matter, are not able to enter (I get that because some quantum physicists theorize that there are higher dimensions that the 4 we normally inhabit but they exist only on an extremely small scale). The bottom line is this: if there really is an afterlife, it doesn't matter what kind it is. We Westerners have often had trouble with Zen koans because we are trained from a very early age that not only does an answer exist for every question but that we must find that answer. Sometimes, answers do not exist and what form the afterlife takes is one of those times.

Now...let us presume, for the sake of argument, that there is no such afterlife--when biochemical activity stops then you simply cease to exist. You won't even realize that you have stopped existing because it takes biochemical activity to have that realization. If this is the case, then only what you do with your life matters, because your actions will continue to influence the people with whom you were associated during your life.

I have no doubt that none of my rambling comforted you but perhaps something I said might have made sense. I hope you start feeling better soon.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Yes, headway has been made. It's still mysterious.

mobile.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/books/dr-eben-alexanders-tells-of-near-death-in-proof-of-heaven.xml

[Orlion]

There are various problems with spirit-body duality... namely, how do the two seemingly unrelated "substances" interact with each other? Is the "spirit" even necessarily the seat of consciousness?

And once a good portion, if not all, of consciousness is shown to be manifest by nerval connections in the brain, where does that leave us? Our minds are very much connected to our senses, what would a disembodied soul be able to do? How would it store information? And so forth?

How does this 'spirit' arise, anyway? Where were "you" fifty years ago? Sixty? One hundred? Do the potential answer to those questions bother you? Why or why not?

Ultimately, there is this idea that "a rock wants to remain a rock"... but that is not how life works. Life is nothing but change. The 'you' now is different from the 'you' of your youth. There's some build-up and purging of experiences, but in a sense, we have all ready passed through a multitude of 'deaths'. The Orlion of five years old no longer exists, nor will he ever again. Eventually, the Orlion typing this will cease to be and another will take its place.

The point? This 'change', this 'death' does not necessarily equate with oblivion. It is merely change, and the creature that may result from physical death could very well be a build up of all previous versions of that creature... much like how you are a sum of the experiences of the previous peters.

You can never step into the same river twice.

[Avatar]

I'm fixated on self-awareness / identity myself. If there is no "I" to experience anything that happens, then it is the same as if nothing happens.

If nothing happens, we'll never know. So I don't really worry about it.

What gets me is that I'll miss out on the future.

--A

[peter]

Thanks for the answers guys - you can probably tell from the posting that the last few days have been a bit rough; thankfully the antibiotics seem to be helping and today I'm a bit more 'positive' about where this bug may be taking me (I'm used to the 'colds' of old that used to last a week or so and then leave you feeling none the worse - todays bugs seem of a different order to me, or maybe my old(er) immune system just don't pack as much punch these days.

But.......strangely here.....what was bothering me so much at 3am was not whether I would have future existence - but whether I could truly be said to have ever had one at all! Lets say our mind is indeed this incredibly complex pattern of elecrical/chemical activity occuring within the incredibly complex network of neurones, synapses and what have you - well thats it. There is no significant structural or functional difference between that and say, the elements of a leyden jar exept in their degree of complexity. So this thing we revere as 'life' and give as it's highest manifestation the development of the 'human mind' is in fact (or appears so at least) a chimera, an illusion that develops slowly as we progress from less to more complexity in the arrangement (and chemical/physical interactions) of matter. There appears no difference from this perspective between the animate and the inanimate other than complexity as described above. At no point in the incease from simple to complex arrangement of matter will you a) be able to find the 'magic bullet' called life introduced into the mix or b) define the point where 'life' begins (try with viruses or prions to decide if they live or not). Life it appears, if it 'exists' at all is an inherent property of the arrangement and interaction of matter in the same way that 'spin' is a property of elementary particles - and will always be found (in one form or another) wherever a sufficient degree of complexity has evolved. ie a threshold level of complexity above which the phenomena (illusion?) will always be seen even if it's difficult to nail down where this threshold actually is.

Probably all bollocks but at 3am (and at other times in some cases ) the mind wanders on strange shores.

[Vraith]

I don't know, man.

It is obvious you had a life if you interacted with anything...it is written, permanently, on the matter/energy of the universe.

No structural or functional difference except complexity?
But complexity IS a structural and functional difference.

Especially when that complexity creates further structural, functional, and complex differences.

Including the emergence of awareness of all those.

I don't buy the idea that awareness/existence is an "illusion," even if what we think we are aware of is in some way illusionary. Just because we are certainly mistaken about some, much, or nearly all of what/how/where/why/when things [including ourselves] exist, yet we are forced to the conclusion that SOMETHING in relation with OTHER things is experiencing the illusion.

"I think therefore I am" may be as close to an absolute fact [perhaps the only absolute fact] as we can get [though "perceive" might be better than think...or not /shrug].
The alterations/criticisms around it [the "I think I think therefore I think I am] are just displacements, not arguments/refutations. It's turtles all the way down.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I think there is too much empirical evidence of some sort of dissociation between the physical and the mental/spiritual to ignore. For instance, in what way can it be explained that people are able to report with statistically significant accuracy when they are being observed by a third party, even if it is by videocamera? I don't think you can even begin to explain that without invoking some sort of aether or psychic substrate to the universe. Then you have the anomalous yet ubiquitous reports of ghost and spiritual activity. Some of this has been explained via subjective experiences under strong magnetic fields, yet there are objective physical and visual manifestations that are not so easily explained. I also find the above case of a Duke and Harvard trained research neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, MD, who underwent vivid transcendent experiences while his brain was apparently not functioning to any significant degree. I realize that introduces a great number of ontological issues, but take it FWIW. There are also some interesting cases of reincarnation with residual memory from past lives that are hard to dismiss. I think on balance, especially when we consider some of the more mysterious phenomenalistic and imagination-defying aspects of scientific models such as quantum theory, including Einstein's infamous "spooky action at a distance," that there must be a great deal more to the story than reductionist materialism. Some of the more interesting thoughts on the subject IMHO come from shamanistic practitioners and psychonauts. If death is a thing that you find troubling, pete, you may want to consider taking a test trip or two into the unknown...

[wayfriend]

I kinda lean towards the notion that death is the edge of the universe for your mind.

What's on the other side of the edge of the universe? Nothing? What is 'nothing' like when you get there? Is it dark? Is it cold? How far does it go?

You can't grok 'nothing'.

What's on the other side of death? Nothing? What is 'nothing' going to be like when I get there? Is it dark? Is it cold?

Can't grok that 'nothing' either.

Our bodies and minds are so wound up in 'things' that we have no equipment for understanding 'nothing'. It defies our attempts to get any but the most abstract and abstruse angle on it.

It's all too easy to say, 'well, there has to be something, because there can't be nothing.' 'Something' makes far more sense to our monkey/lizard brains than 'nothing'. Even believing in 'something' for which there is no evidence is easier than believing the 'nothing' for which we have ample evidence.

Is 'nothing' too complex to understand? No! Otherwise we could study it, fill in the blanks, gather the evidence bit by bit. No, 'nothing' evades our grasp by being so simple it has no corners to test, no surface to feel, no equal and opposite reaction.

'Nothing' offends us because we can't create a mental model of 'nothing'. It's unique in our experience in this way. The human mind is supposed to be able to imagine anything, understand anything. How rude that 'nothing' shows up our limitations!

So, what will we be like when we are nothing? Get used to not knowing.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

I don't know about that WF. I would be perfectly at ease with oblivion, which is how I was quite certain things would turn out during my many years as an atheist. You are very neatly relieved of all moral accountability and consequence. Like Hamlet, though, it's non-oblivion that concerns me.

So I think that whatever credit derives from the apparent hard-headedness of the reductionist materialist point of view is partially offset by the self-serving moralistic rationalization it entails. Courage is easy without alternative or consequence. Indeed, is it even courage, or just resignation?

[wayfriend]

Yep. Then again, you can also let an irrational wish for accountability delude you into a belief of non-oblivion. The notion of an after-life judgement as a necessity of the cosmic balance is just another form of, 'there can't be nothing, there must be something'.

Still: We cannot comprehend 'nothing'. Are we cowards or courageous for saying, 'I cannot imagine it, so it must not be'?

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

It's an interesting -- and appealing -- idea that people want accountability enough to invent spiritual and transcendent experiences upon which religious notions of post-life judgments can be erected. Indeed, a great deal of thought about religion is based upon similar suppositions. Yet I note a couple of discrepancies, at least in terms of extracting a comprehensive theory out of such a supposition: first, that spiritual / transcendent experiences are phenomenalistically if subjectively verifiable via psychedelic experience; and second, that the desire for ultimate justice must be intense enough to infuse a two-stage process of self-deception and philosophical subterfuge. I'm not saying that people are incapable of it, but impediments to this phenomenon exist, and their overcoming needs an explanation.

I don't think you can explain it all by saying that people just love rolling moral boulders uphill. That naturally invites the question 'why?'

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I kinda lean towards the notion that death is the edge of the universe for your mind.

What's on the other side of the edge of the universe? Nothing? What is 'nothing' like when you get there? Is it dark? Is it cold? How far does it go?

You can't grok 'nothing'.

What's on the other side of death? Nothing? What is 'nothing' going to be like when I get there? Is it dark? Is it cold?

Can't grok that 'nothing' either.

Our bodies and minds are so wound up in 'things' that we have no equipment for understanding 'nothing'. It defies our attempts to get any but the most abstract and abstruse angle on it.

It's all too easy to say, 'well, there has to be something, because there can't be nothing.' 'Something' makes far more sense to our monkey/lizard brains than 'nothing'. Even believing in 'something' for which there is no evidence is easier than believing the 'nothing' for which we have ample evidence.

Is 'nothing' too complex to understand? No! Otherwise we could study it, fill in the blanks, gather the evidence bit by bit. No, 'nothing' evades our grasp by being so simple it has no corners to test, no surface to feel, no equal and opposite reaction.

'Nothing' offends us because we can't create a mental model of 'nothing'. It's unique in our experience in this way. The human mind is supposed to be able to imagine anything, understand anything. How rude that 'nothing' shows up our limitations!

So, what will we be like when we are nothing? Get used to not knowing.

wayfriend advances to the next level of Zen enlightenment.

It gets even better, though--if you try to understand Nothing then you are actually making it Something and thus you fail whenever you try to succeed. Nothing simply Is.

[Krazy Kat]

Probably all bollocks but at 3am (and at other times in some cases ) the mind wanders on strange shores.

At no point in the incease from simple to complex arrangement of matter will you a) be able to find the 'magic bullet' called life introduced into the mix or b) define the point where 'life' begins (try with viruses or prions to decide if they live or not).

First things first, I'm no academic, (I had to google Leyden Jar). But isn't matter something. Something that cannot be destroyed!

The human body contains only a minuite partical of matter.
So that must mean that there is something in each and every human, past and present, which lives on in one form or another for ever and ever. Until that is, the universe eventually has no more need for the stuff.
Which may turn out to be the only thing in this universe one can rely upon for evidence of what is real.

And peter secondly, I didn't google prions. You're being too cryptic on the subject of sex. So I'll make no comment.

[Zarathustra]

Good posts, WF. I'm at a loss for words ... I have absolutely no point of disagreement with anything you've said.

Don, the experiences which you mention can be entirely valid and still not imply any kind of life after death (not that you've explicitly endorsed that), or life that transcends/disassociates from the physical. I've had several very powerful trips, reached the ecstatic experience (only on natural entheogens, never synthetic), and nothing about it convinced me that I have an immaterial spirit. However, I've always suspected that materialistic reductionism cannot fully describe reality, no more than Newtonian physics. Qualia, intentionality, ideal objects, eidectic certainty, etc. are all irreducible "remainders" that can't be explained or accounted for by science or materialism.

However, I've seen no evidence that there can be consciousness without matter. This seems to lead to dualism, but neutral monism is also an option.

I'd like to see the evidence for people who can detect when others are watching them. I'm not saying that I think psychic abilities are impossible, but I've never heard of any experiment which has proven their existence

The human body contains only a minuite partical of matter.
So that must mean that there is something in each and every human, past and present, which lives on in one form or another for ever and ever.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here. It's true that we have relatively little matter (well, compared to more massive things), and that most of that matter is empty space. And it's also true that "something" in each of us continues on, because our atoms aren't destroyed. But in no way are these two facts connected such that one can be derived from the other, much less derive something that lives on forever. The fact that something so spectacular can be constructed from such little matter is amazing, but it doesn't necessitate an additional ingredient. Quite a bit of complexity can be achieved with the trillions of trillions of atoms in our bodies.

[ussusimiel]

One of the most uncomfortable things about postmodern life is the constant level of uncertainty that prevails. The pure existential position, in spite of its meaninglessness, is actually quite certain. However, the postmodern position allows all sorts of stuff back in like: dualism, spirit, alternative/New Age theories etc. So, I would suggest, peter, that you are not having an existential crisis, but a post-existential one

I personally cannot buy into the pure materialism of people like Vraith and Av (much and all as I enjoy their articulation of it). I now see myself as made up of two essences and consciousness (mind). The two essences are: the body (made up of the stuff of this plane of existence) and the spirit (made up of the stuff from another plane of existence). Consciousness (mind/ego) comes into being from the interaction/clash of the two substances. IMO, most angst arises from the awareness by the conscious ego that, at death, it will utterly cease to exist (being without substance). It will truly be annihilated.

The stuff of the body will continue on in this plane of existence; the stuff of the spirit, once released from the body, will pass over/back to where it originated and continue there. The poor old ego is doomed to nothingness and knows it.

Learning how to become comfortable with uncertainty is, for me, the main challenge of the world we now live in. I find it constantly challenging because I was reared within the comfortable bounds of certainty (Catholicism) and find that I regularly yearn for that certainty and comfort. Actively engaging more deliberately with the two substances: body and spirit, has been one way in which I have learned how to be more comfortable with my personal felt need for certainty. Working with body and spirit has also made me more capable of being in presence of uncertainty (rather than trying to flee or avoid it).

u.

[Zarathustra]

I've never thought of Vraith as a "pure" materialist. At least not in the sense of materialistic reductionism.

Dualism has a host of issues, not the least of which is the interaction problem. How does something that is completely immaterial "control" something that is material? How do they affect each other? What ties your spirit to your body? Why doesn't it just float away?

Basically, analogous issues between subjectivism and objectivism, except on a personal scope.

[Vraith]

I've never thought of Vraith as a "pure" materialist. At least not in the sense of materialistic reductionism.

Heh! I was just about to start typing "I'm not sure how pure I am" when that popped up.

I'm a big fan of emergence and various things similar.

Yet, at the same time, the "there has to be something besides/more than JUST material" view is the one that is really reductionist, and purely out of prejudice.

...as if the matter/energy of the universe were somehow, obviously, inferior to "real," "spirit/soul" existence.

...which, [[considering there is not, and never has been one single person we know of with total knowledge of even one single hunk of that universe, no matter how small]] seems both wildly irrational and utterly unimaginative.

And it seems highly likely to me that the irrational leap is actually caused BY the fact that we perceive all things matter as mundane, ordinary, familiar, comprehensible. But that is OUR limitation, not a limitation of the material.

[ussusimiel]

See! I was right!

Dualism has a host of issues, not the least of which is the interaction problem. How does something that is completely immaterial "control" something that is material? How do they affect each other? What ties your spirit to your body? Why doesn't it just float away?

The two substances problem is a fascinating question. Some people I have spoken to say that when the spirit leaves the body the body immediately dies, indicating a fundamental link between body and spirit. How or why this link is the way it is leads into things like reincarnation, spiritual lessons, spiritual ascension etc.

u.

[Orlion]

Hoo-ray! I'm not a materialist

I see what you mean by "existential problem" now, peter. Kinda like how sometimes I think (for the lols) that once this planet is vaporized by our expanding Sun, it will be like we never existed. No records, no signs of our existence. Just residual matter and energy which could never be analyzed as ever having been a part of something, let alone Orlion, the greatest of all General Literature Moderators.

Kinda like how, aside from Galactus, there are no signs nor can there be any indication that life before the universe began existed. It would have been wiped out... reset, if you will.

Heck, on the universal scale, we might as well not exist.

So, we can get angstful, or we can laugh at it all... foolish universe, does not even know I exist! Idiot...