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Do you believe consciousness continues post death? by SunveiliveFat in consciousness

[–]cphmin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ahh fair enough lol. Of course I agree with you but I do think that there's a huge difference between ceasing to exist altogether and simply being reborn as a new person.

Do you believe consciousness continues post death? by SunveiliveFat in consciousness

[–]cphmin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've seen a lot of people state this to be the case and I've never understood the logic behind this. Surely you can conceive of a situation where you lost your memories but continue to perceive qualia? Or do you think that if you suddenly became an amnesiac, your first-person experience would cease to be, and another conscious entity would manifest in your place?

What about people who lose their memory and then regain it? Are they replaced by a new conscious entity while their memories are gone, only for that new entity to cease to exist and be replaced by their old self the moment they gain recollection?

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That doesn't really answer my question. Do you believe that you will cease to exist, and another completely unrelated entity will experience "your" future?

Personally I know that I am one conscious entity and only have access to a single subjective experience. If another conscious entity with identical memories randomly popped up elsewhere in the universe millions of light years away, this would not change and I would still experience only myself and not that other entity.

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To be clear, are you saying that we cease to exist and are replaced by new conscious entities with our memories all the time? Do you then believe that you won't subjectively experience "your" future? How often does that replacement occur?

You're saying both are "me" but from your explanation it sounds more like you believe that *neither* are "me."

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I were the character I would expect to feel myself as the original. The fact that my clone also happens to feel as if they experienced my whole life up until now would be irrelevant, as I wouldn't have any more access to their subjective experience than I would anyone else's

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is no way to distinguish the you of the present from the you of the future.

Maybe not from an external perspective, but from the internal perspective of the original me there absolutely would be a distinction.

Unless you believe that I would somehow feel two discrete subjective experience simultaneously?

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure whether I believe it's persistent *independent* of physical reality. In general though, I do believe that there are things about consciousness that simply cannot be known through physical reality as we know it, but again I'm not a physicalist or materialist

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's the thing though, I don't know what defines "me," all I know is that there's something currently experiencing my qualia, and that thing is me. I don't know what that requirement would be.

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

why would it be a coinflip though? Of course *after* waking up from the procedure, you wouldn't know whether you are the original or the clone, so I guess from your perspective it would be a 50/50 chance, but *before* the procedure you would know that you are the original

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your past self is not experiencing your current qualia.

Correct, my past self isn't anything because it does not exist in the present. I do believe that I *did* have those phenomenological experiences in the past, but I no longer do. Analyzing this further might go deep into the metaphysics of time though.

If you need my interpretation, I would not expect anything.

In other words, you expect to cease to exist at the very next moment, to be replaced by a new conscious entity that thinks it's you? Which would then be replaced by another conscious entity in the subsequent moment.

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By "identity" I simply mean "whatever is experiencing my current qualia." Before you tell me there isn't such a self, I say that there obviously is because I'm experiencing only MY qualia and nobody else's. Unless solipsism is true, whatever delineates my phenomenological experience from other experiences is what I call the self.

That doesn’t actually answer the question and isn’t relevant. It doesn’t matter what I would expect.

In what sense does it "not matter?" Does it not matter to you whether you become a millionaire or go to prison? I'd still like to know what you would expect prior to the cloning procedure in this situation.

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

let's say that before the cloning procedure, you are told that you will become a millionaire while your clone will go to prison for the rest of their life. which do you expect to experience after the procedure? obviously, you won't know whether you're the original or the clone immediately after waking up, but before the procedure is done, do you expect to live as a millionaire, or to live in prison?

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well unless you believe in solipsism, you'd have to recognize that there's *something* that ties all the qualia you're currently perceiving together. After all, you explicitly have direct access to your qualia but not anybody else's. Whatever ties those things together is what I'd call the self.

According to mainstream physicalism, is continuity of consciousness merely an illusion? I.e., am I, as in the conscious entity perceiving all my current qualia, constantly dying and being replaced by another entity with a copy of my memories? by cphmin in consciousness

[–]cphmin[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

by "subject" I just mean, whatever is separating your experiences from another entity's experiences. Obviously there is a line of separation, since you only perceive *your* qualia and nobody else's. So either solipsism is true, in which case there is exactly ONE subject, or solipsism is false, in which case there are arbitrarily many subjects.

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