Everything we know - could it be wrong?

[joigus]

On 5/20/2020 at 5:08 PM, zapatos said:

Thanks. I often use laymen's terms as, well, I'm a layman.

We are all laypeople in some sense or other, aren't we?

On 5/20/2020 at 5:08 PM, zapatos said:

Thanks again! Learning these details are why I skulk around the science threads. 😀

You're most welcome.

[dimreepr]

39 minutes ago, MFE said:

I should rephrase my question. What I meant with auto-conscience is "my" auto-conscience, that "thing that makes me John" (sorry for not being able to express this concept with better words).

The question is, at some point in the future, is it possible that "I" will feel again? 

'There 's not one atom of yon earth
But once was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain,
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,
But flowed in human veins;
And from the burning plains
Where Libyan monsters yell,
From the most gloomy glens
Of Greenland's sunless clime,
To where the golden fields
Of fertile England spread
Their harvest to the day,
Thou canst not find one spot
Whereon no city stood.

'How strange is human pride!
I tell thee that those living things,
To whom the fragile blade of grass
That springeth in the morn
And perisheth ere noon,
Is an unbounded world;
I tell thee that those viewless beings,
Whose mansion is the smallest particle
Of the impassive atmosphere,
Think, feel and live like man;
That their affections and antipathies,
Like his, produce the laws
Ruling their moral state;
And the minutest throb
That through their frame diffuses
The slightest, faintest motion,
Is fixed and indispensable
As the majestic laws
That rule yon rolling orbs.'

Another one from PBS...

[joigus]

29 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

And perisheth ere noon,

I like the way you say "perisheth," Rippa.

[dimreepr]

57 minutes ago, joigus said:

I like the way you say "perisheth," Rippa.

I'd love to take the credit, for such wise word's... So thanks, and don't forget the +1... 😇 

PBS, Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by dimreepr

[Strange]

15 minutes ago, joigus said:

I like the way you say "perisheth," Rippa.

"Rippa"? As in Japanese 立派 ?

[joigus]

8 minutes ago, Strange said:

"Rippa"? As in Japanese 立派 ?

That's my lame attempt at sounding British.  

What part of 欧羅巴 are you from?  

18 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I'd love to take the credit, for such wise word's... So thanks, and don't forget the +1... 😇 

I gave you +1. Be nice when it's time to come for me.

Edited May 23, 2020 by joigus
typo

[Strange]

3 minutes ago, joigus said:

That's my lame attempt at sounding British.  

Ah, got it. (I'm more familiar with "ripping"?)

4 minutes ago, joigus said:

What part of 欧羅巴 are you from?

Oh, that's just an out-of-date experiment! I should change it

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, joigus said:

Be nice when it's time to come for me.

I will toll your bell with love and kindness... 👌

[MFE]

3 hours ago, joigus said:

You don't have to apologise. I understand perfectly what you mean, and I was just trying to apply an old Chinese technique which is called "koan" for those kind of difficult questions about "I." It's a well-meaning technique. It's about making you drop our common human need to stick to the "I."

In more scientific terms, an electron in my brain is fundamentally indistinguishable from an electron in yours, or another one being kicked off from an atom in the atmosphere. Quantum field theory tells us that elementary particles are just instantiations of one thing called the quantum field. Information is the relevant quantity for describing an "I," or any other physical object.

Very recently a very good friend of mine has died. He was younger than me. I lost my parents when I was very young too. To me, all those people are still living in the only sense that I can find physically meaningful: They uploaded software snippets and applets to my brain, so they are still in the world in this particular sense of information processes. Some day I will die too. Hopefully, I will be able to upload my applets --those that prove to be useful, or good in any sense--, to somebody else's brain.

That's the only way I can conceive of in which we can perpetuate ourselves.

I don't mean to be facetious; only to bring some consolation to you by trying to make you feel more relaxed about the eventual loss of the "I," but I can't think of a better way to finish except with another koan: What is it that makes you John?

I hope that helps.

Thank you for the inspiring thoughts. I have to admit, you definitely uploaded uploaded meaningful thoughts inside of me. 

I wonder where the auto-conscience resides. Perhaps it is a result of neural connections. If it is correct, the question would be, can other future neural connections generate "John's" auto-conscience again.

3 hours ago, Strange said:

As someone said, "do you remember your previous consciousnesses (or those that exist elsewhere in an infinite universe) ?"

No.

So, obviously future ones will not remember you. So it will not be the same "I" even if it happened.

Personally, I find the bare "John's" auto-conscience reappearance consolatory enough, regardless of whether "John" remembers any past consciousness. On the other hand, there are also people who believe to remember past consciousnesses.

In your opinion, given the current scientific knowledge, what is the most likely response to the hypotesis of a future re-generation of today's "John" auto-conscience (like: it is possible, it is unlikely, or we cannot answer to an appreciable degree of accuracy...)?

Thanks for all your contributions. I find this discussion really meaningful.

Edited May 23, 2020 by MFE
"Believe" describes better what I wanted to say

[Strange]

6 minutes ago, MFE said:

there are also people who admit to remember past consciousnesses.

You spelt "believe" wrong

[MFE]

3 minutes ago, Strange said:

You spelt "believe" wrong

Yes, I also think "believe" is more appropriate. I will edit the message

Edited May 23, 2020 by MFE
misspelling

[joigus]

2 hours ago, Strange said:

"Rippa"? As in Japanese 立派 ?

Should've said reappa or reeppa. Sorry.

rip/reap mistake

[dimreepr]

21 minutes ago, Strange said:

You spelt "believe" wrong

LOL.

[joigus]

19 minutes ago, MFE said:

If it is correct, the question would be, can other future neural connections generate "John's" auto-conscience again.

My answer would be yes, but as instantiations or "runnings" of a program. My father used to say "We're not starving today!" after supper. It was his way of phrasing something that has been repeated throughout the millennia by humans, and many hominines before us, up to 2.5 million years or more. Every now and then I repeat that sentence after supper. In what sense and to what extent do I know it's not my father again who's saying that? It's his applet running on my hardware, and our atoms are instantiations of a quantum field. So...

27 minutes ago, Strange said:

You spelt "believe" wrong

Dead right!

[Mordred]

On 5/17/2020 at 9:49 AM, joigus said:

What the mathematics of physical theories suggest is: If time were infinite and the universe were a closed dynamical system, then it would follow that anything that has happened is bound to (approximately) happen again given enough time. The name for that statement is Poincaré recurrence theorem.

 

Now there is a theorem I had forgotten about my thanks for the reminder.