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aesu t1_j38bbbc wrote

Reply to comment by marcinruthemann in The Persistent Problem of Consciousness: an astronaut's epiphany by simsquatched

I've felt both, but it still doesn't lead me to believe consciousness is a universal property of matter. I mean, maybe there is some fundamental aspect of reality that facilitates consciousness, but I don't think matter is conscious in the sense we are.

I feel like pansychism and adjacent ideas are really a way of coping with the abundance of evidence we've gathered over the last 100 years that we are entirely biological and nothing survives our death. That's hard to deal with. It's why we invented the idea of an afterlife. Being alive is often nice, and it's sad to think it ends forever.

But it does end, even if there is some unifying consciousness, or whatever. You still will cease to exist, cease to enjoy beautiful sunsets, views of earth from space, ice cream, sex, spiritual moments. You will be annihilated, just like if you've experienced anaethesia; you cease to exist. There is no conscious experience that we can relate to, on any level. All time and space are gone. It's not even blackness. You're just gone. It's horrifying. I've experienced it. The most traumatic moment of my life so far was waking up from anaesthesia. The feeling of complete oblivion. Of being born out of nothing. That indescribable feeling that a million universes could have been born and died, or a microsecond could have passed. You just weren't there. It's so hard to describe, so all consuming. I still have nightmares and ruminate often on that oblivion. It's waiting for us all. It's not like sleep. It's like before you were born. You wont know a thing about it, and that's what makes it so awful. And you will never return, for all infinity. This is it. You could die this minute, and that's it.

It's horrifying, I'm now having an existential crisis and flashbacks to the time I came out of anaesthesia, and I absolutely understand why people choose to ignore reality and believe in an afterlife, and I also understand why those who choose to, or are forced to acknowledge reality, look for new and elaborate ways in which we might actually not be staring down oblivion.

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BrightThru2014 t1_j38p825 wrote

I mean this earnestly — I don’t think what you’re describing is necessarily an irrefutable certainty, at all. Look at existence in the first place, we are sentient beings on a rock existing in a vast expanse of nothingness. That doesn’t make any logical sense. Our scientific understanding of the world around us is beyond primitive. You don’t need religion to think that there’s more to this than what we can physically observe.

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Matrixneo42 t1_j3abab0 wrote

I’ve actually seen and felt proof of things that we don’t have normal explanations. There’s definitely more than meets the eye.

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masterofallvillainy t1_j39rij3 wrote

I'm not sure what logic has to do with the reality we have. I get that people would use logic to try and understand the universe. But with obvious gaps in our knowledge and understanding. It makes sense that we can't make perfect sense of it.

Plus with reality operating under it's own laws and properties. It's possible we'll never be able to make logical sense of the universe.

Logic is also not absolute. And is fallible.

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BrightThru2014 t1_j3a0reg wrote

I think that’s my point precisely actually — hence why the above poster is mistaken in viewing his opinion as the absolute truth regarding consciousness.

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masterofallvillainy t1_j3a1lld wrote

I have a different take on it. He said what he thinks and explains his reasoning. Nothing absolute about that.

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johnjohn4011 t1_j39ui06 wrote

Right. "Logic" is just a totally subjective self feedback loop, essentially reducible to unprovable assumptions. Nothing more.

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SecondAlibi t1_j39wrt9 wrote

Sure, but there aren’t beings pondering consciousness on the uninhabitable planets. It’s the law of large numbers. So far life’s success rate is something like 0.000000000001%.

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Heapsa t1_j39l9ug wrote

We don't know why things are, and mostly only understand how they are. Aswell as how to make them work in specific ways. Wouldn't be surprised to find out there's much more going on than we perceive. Like here we are trying to measure existence with a tape measure- wrong tool for the job.

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blackeyedangel_ t1_j399jqi wrote

To me, I find it convincing that consciousness is a fundamental property of matter. Matter is ‘aware’ on some primitive level of other matter, and interacts with it in such a way. You could also say that the universe interacts with itself in such a way. I believe evolution has harnessed this universal ‘awareness’ through the brain/nervous system, creating an ego. The ego ties all of our matter to a singular conscious entity (ourselves) for the purpose of understanding our body’s relationship with its environment (to sustain its life). When we remove the ego to a degree with the use of psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, DMT), people are said to experience a more fragmented, universal form of consciousness which transcends the human body. I really do see the weight in panpsychism, but I admit my excitement could very well be influenced by an underlying fear of/inability to properly grasp death. The conscious becoming unconscious seems more and more absurd the more I ponder it.

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Mustelafan t1_j38iijs wrote

I don't ignore reality and I still believe in an afterlife 🤷‍♀️

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aesu t1_j38p2va wrote

How do you incorporate the idea of an afterlife with the reality we're part of an unbroken lineage of self assembling carbon chains? Have you constructed a theory of afterlife which is compatible with this basic fact, or are you ignoring it?

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Mustelafan t1_j38rlwq wrote

As a dualist I recognize the existence of phenomenal conscious experience alongside physical existence, and as a theist (not of any religion) I believe this conscious experience could persist beyond death. Consciousness is contingent on our physical bodies while we're alive but it's not a logical necessity that it must always be that way. I'm not trying to convince you of theism or dualism, I'm just stating that it's possible to believe in both an afterlife and the existence of a physical universe.

Also Nietzsche's concept of eternal return could count as a sort of physicalist afterlife, no? Provided that the universe turned out to be cyclical? You could also return as a Boltzmann brain or something. Iunno, physicalist afterlives are weird.

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aesu t1_j38woeu wrote

> but it's not a logical necessity that it must always be that way.

I agree with this 100% in principle. Which is why I asked a specific question. One which you didn't even address. That is my point. You have to ignore specific observable facts of our reality, to hold the belief that molecules, and the structures they form are redundant constructs, and that although it is not a logical necessity they are not, it is an observable reality that they evolved into greater complexity over billions of years, without any phenomenological change in their nature.

Or you can construct a logically, or even empirically consistent theory of reality which is consistent with both your assertion and these observables. That's fine, but until you do that, or even acknowledge the observable nature of reality, you are actively ignoring it.

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Mustelafan t1_j390p0f wrote

I'm not sure we're operating with the same definitions and/or understanding of physics here. By 'phenomenal conscious experience' I mean qualia. Qualia is a (by?)product of brains but not necessarily a property of physical matter, hence why I'm a dualist. I'm not sure how a molecule would change phenomenologically because I don't attribute such conscious phenomena to them in the first place. All of the afterlife stuff has nothing to do with observable (physical) reality, but is an addition to it; it's the statement that observable reality is not the total sum of reality.

>Or you can construct a logically, or even empirically consistent theory of reality which is consistent with both your assertion and these observables.

That's what I've done. This is what I've been trying to say; you can fully accept a scientific understanding of the physical world and also incorporate a belief in non-physical phenomena (through the direct observation of one's own arguably non-physical consciousness/qualia), and through some reasoning and epistemological coherentism deduce the existence of an afterlife.

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RanyaAnusih t1_j38k28v wrote

Nobody knows reality. There is nothing to ignore. You just think you know something

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aesu t1_j38qcgf wrote

There's observables, upon which we build all of our technology and engineering, because they are not a product of our subjective beliefs or imagination. While it is absolutely possible that everything we know about chemistry and biology is completely wrong, and genetic engineering, all medicine, toxins, etc work by sheer coincidence between what we think we observe, and what actually is there, we can at least say, the more stuff works, and the more we can build upon what we think we see, the more likely that what we see is what's actually there. And, given the extraordinary body of observables, and derived technologies in medicine and biology, the likelihood we've made accurate observations is extraordinarily high, and grows every day we don't see any falsifying data.

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RanyaAnusih t1_j38to1g wrote

Just the word observables is problematic. We dont even know what are space or time to begin with, nor consciousness. It would be a huge coincidence if human brains have the potential of understanding the nature of reality. Either we are special or we arent. It can't be both

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aesu t1_j391ibc wrote

>upon which we build all of our technology and engineering

Not knowing what space or time "is" does not negate what we do understand. We can build stuff which works based upon it. There are known knowns, and they do prohibit alternatives. For example, no matter how mysterious space or time turns out to be, it will not ever negate the existence of the moon, or the golgi apparatus, or dna, or any other highly observed structure emerging from and existing within it. Human brains understanding of reality has nothing to do with anything. The point of observables is that they do not emerge from our mind, they are there before our minds even evolved, and will be there long after we've gone. That will be true no matter how detailed our observations have become.

I have no clue what you mean by

> Either we are special or we arent. It can't be both

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RanyaAnusih t1_j392veb wrote

All your observations are filtered and modeled by your mind. That things work means only that you have a model that can predict, nothing more; Just because you have an equation for it does not mean gravity is any less bizarre or "explained"

Just your use of the words before and after implies an understanding of the concept of "time" which we havent.

You know, nothing is solved but there is a reason Albert Einstein had to ask his colleagues if they seriously believed the moon is not there when nobody looks at it.

Reality is just not that simple

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aesu t1_j399cx0 wrote

I'm not talking about my observations. Of course my personal observations are subject to bias. That's why empiricisms foundation is producing repeatable, testable, independent observations.

Although many things are not observed yet, because we lack the instrumentation capable of doing so, that does not negate that which we have already observed. Planes fly. Computers function. Medicines work. Chemical engineering is possible. The nuclear bomb works. And on, and on and on. Every single invention we have is the result of repeated, independent empirical observations. You can't just say maybe everything we know about chemistry or biology, or nuclear physics is incorrect, but by coincidence, everything will build with that knowledge, works. I mean, you can, but at that point you're just rejecting any common reality. Which is fine. maybe you are plugged into a simulation, and everything is an illusion. But, if that's the case, why bother with all the mysticism and god of the gaps, and just say that.

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RanyaAnusih t1_j39bhb7 wrote

Im also not talking about your personal observation. All of us come from the same species so of course our brains will decode reality almost the same and we will all agree. For a truly unbiased perspective, you would need a different entity. As a colorful example think of the movie Arrival if you have seen it.

That something works, just means it works. There is nothing more to conclude. Just like when a mouse pushes a lever and someone always gives it a piece of cheese after doing so

As i said, the mysticism comes from admitting thai it would be a huge coincidence if humans have access to fundamental truths just based on their limited reason and logic. We already know that there are truths that presumably escape your pets, so why assume it ends with us. That is what i mean in saying that humans are either special or they aren't; we cant just put ourselves on a pedestal of knowledge and at the same time claim we are just another animal

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aesu t1_j39iei9 wrote

Are you suggesting all our inventions, which work, as far as we know, specifically because they were designed to work based upon our robust empirical knowledge of the physical reality upon which they work, are actually working by coincidence?

For example, genetic engineering doesn't work because our incredible, and entirely unfalsified library of empirical knowledge of chemistry and biology allows us to precisely manipulate genes to produce expected proteins, and expected results, but because by sheer coincidence all these observations happen to be entirely consistent with a completely different system, and all of our direct observations, include electron microscopy, are erroneous, while, again, being, by a coincidence in the order of quintillions to one, entirely consistent with actual reality?

Things we do not yet know about reality cannot negate what we do already know, and testably and consistently works. No matter what we learn about quantumn physics, time, space, etc, will stop chemistry from working the way we know it works. No discovery will magically change the structure or function of proteins, or the structures they form.

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idiveindumpsters t1_j3a4tg0 wrote

Your experience is not the same for everyone. Mine was quite different. I was surrounded by peace and love. I had a group of beings surrounding me with a love and joy that I had never experienced on Earth. I just wanted to go with them. It was a euphoria that I can’t even describe. I heard people in the room say my name several times, but I just wanted to go go go. They kept trying to pull me back and I just kept trying to stay unconscious. When they finally woke me up, I was so very disappointed.

I really think that you were in hell. Hell is the absence of love. In my opinion the only way to “heaven” or the plane where the love is, is through Jesus. BUT there may be lots of other ways. I’m not saying that I have all the answers because obviously none of us really know much of anything. I think you might find some peace in some sort of religion. Do some research on different philosophies, if you haven’t already.

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Caring_Cactus t1_j3a8a12 wrote

If you look at our cells in our body, together they form this individual. Tons of cells are born and die everyday, that does not mean the individual ceases to exist.

Maybe higher complex thoughts are surrendered at times, but at its core where matter forms connections together is still there.

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d34nxvi t1_j39ub17 wrote

I actually think the fact that it just ends isn’t that bad. Like you said until you gained the consciousness and knowledge to contemplate your being, there was nothing.

Somehow you came to consciousness and as yourself. Not one of the other billions of people on this rock that has that same insane ability. Knowing how lucky we are to have it in the first place makes me ok knowing it’ll end. It’s sad it will but it would be sadder to waste it always thinking about it ending. Sadder still to not realise how lucky you are to have it in the first place, which you obviously do.

The anaesthesia does sound really weird though.

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aesu t1_j39woei wrote

Intellectually this all tracks, but the emotional reactio to coming out of the oblivion of anaesthesia, and knowing I never wanted to go back to that oblivionz and how sweet life is, still haunts me. I still have nightmares about dying. The irony is, in my nightmares, I'm panicked because I'm about to die and lose consciousness, but I'm not even really conscious in the dream state. I'm unconsciously repeating my conscious dread.

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decalkomanya t1_j3apvb9 wrote

I had this realization over a year ago. Couldn’t stop crying or having panic attacks. Being conscious is such a cruel thing, it’d be easier to have never been.

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