Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

aesu t1_j38p2va wrote

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

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?

5

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.

5

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.

7

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.

1