science

14806 readers

179 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Death: a process, not a point, says cutting-edge research (boingboing.net)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

When I fall asleep, the conscious being that I am right now is not going to just never wake up.

But how do you know this? That's the root of the question.

How would you distinguish "I woke up as the same consciousness" from "I woke up as a new consciousness with an identical memory", from the first person perspective?

One answer could be that having the exact same memories means you are the exact same consciousness. But this means that your moment-to-moment feeling of "self" is not actually intrinsic to your consciousness, since the memories alone are sufficient.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You seem to be missing the point of the philosophical question.

Just because you feel like you are the same conscious doesn't mean you are, which is what needs proving. We need to demonstrate that we have some way to know we are a different entity without just saying "I know I am". Is it enough to have the same set of memories? Surely not, as the Star Trek thought experiment implies.

For the record I do have an inner monologue. I just also think that the notion of consciousness and what it means to "be" the conscious process isn't as simple and clear-cut as you think it is.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I don't accept "I know I am" as any form of proof toward any introspective qualities, whether that is sentience or consciousness or even free will. I also don't accept "I just know it" as proof of any deity or higher power, or that there is an objective morality embedded in the universe, etc.

I'll stop responding here, because I think we are just not going to make any progress with each other. Your posit that you can just tell the difference and know it, is fundamentally incompatible with my stance that there must be some method or technique to distinguish what the difference is. I simply do not know that I am the same person today that I was yesterday - I feel that I have good reason to believe that I am, but I also accept that this might simply be an illusion because of the circumstance of having woken up with memories that lead me to that conclusion. I have no way to know that the consciousness that "ended" with sleep last night is really the same one that woke up this morning, outside of the apparent continuity of memory. I find it an interesting and thought-provoking question, but you may also simply decide that you know the answer by feeling.