What Mathilda said.  If I have a plank of wood and reduce it to sawdust, it is still wood, but no longer a plank - the pattern is broken.  Similarly, what makes you 'you' isn't just matter and energy, it is a particular configuration of matter and energy. When you die and that particular configuration no longer exists, neither do you.

Boru

(September 2, 2018 at 4:52 am)Mathilda Wrote: What you are is a persistent pattern of energy and matter.

Energy flows through your physical structure. But your atoms themselves are replaced on a regular basis and your pattern changes gradually over time.

When the pattern is destroyed, so are you.

All patterns change gradually over time. My physical structure has gradually changed over time, so have my thought patterns. The version of me at certain points in time no longer exists as it did before, but the energy that made up "me" at any given point in time is and always will be in existence...so says the 1rst law. I've come to accept that what I am will always be changing.

Yea so basically your energy will always exist even long after your consciousness has gone. But...so what? The same is true for everything.

Makes it rather stupid to claim you  are immortal then, dunnit?

Boru

(September 2, 2018 at 5:22 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: What Mathilda said.  If I have a plank of wood and reduce it to sawdust, it is still wood, but no longer a plank - the pattern is broken.  Similarly, what makes you 'you' isn't just matter and energy, it is a particular configuration of matter and energy. When you die and that particular configuration no longer exists, neither do you.

Boru

The you as an embryo....the you as a child....the you as an old man.....the you as energy floating in a sea of more energy , is the same energy that made you as an embryo and so on. We are always in a state of change.

(September 2, 2018 at 5:29 am)Shantideva Wrote: All patterns change gradually over time. My physical structure has gradually changed over time, so have my thought patterns. The version of me at certain points in time no longer exists as it did before, but the energy that made up "me" at any given point in time is and always will be in existence...so says the 1rst law. I've come to accept that what I am will always be changing.

Energy is even less persistent. It's like saying that all the electricity that you have used up running your computer throughout its lifetime is also part of the computer.

Or another analogy, you can't step into the side river twice. All the water molecules that have ever flowed through the same river are no longer part of it once they leave the river.

(September 2, 2018 at 5:32 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Makes it rather stupid to claim you  are immortal then, dunnit?

Boru

It seems special to me because I can fathom it.

(September 2, 2018 at 5:38 am)Shantideva Wrote:

(September 2, 2018 at 5:22 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: What Mathilda said.  If I have a plank of wood and reduce it to sawdust, it is still wood, but no longer a plank - the pattern is broken.  Similarly, what makes you 'you' isn't just matter and energy, it is a particular configuration of matter and energy. When you die and that particular configuration no longer exists, neither do you.

Boru

The you as an embryo....the you as a child....the you as an old man.....the you as energy floating in a sea of more energy , is the same energy that made you as an embryo and so on. We are always in a state of change.

I agree that 'you'ness is not a static state (and said as much in another thread), but it does imply a certain continuity of 'self'.  Since consciousness depends on a certain configuration of a functioning brain, the end of that configuration (what makes you 'you')marks the end of 'you'.  If you had titled this thread 'Proof That The Energy That Constitutes Me Is Immortal', you wouldn't hear a people out of me.  But that is hardly the same as you being immortal, is it?

Boru

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(September 2, 2018 at 5:42 am)Shantideva Wrote:

(September 2, 2018 at 5:32 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Makes it rather stupid to claim you  are immortal then, dunnit?

Boru

It seems special to me because I can fathom it.

You fathom that energy can neither be created nor destroyed?  Bit late to the party, aren't you?

Boru

(September 2, 2018 at 5:42 am)Mathilda Wrote: Energy is even less persistent. It's like saying that all the electricity that you have used up running your computer throughout its lifetime is also part of the computer.

Or another analogy, you can't step into the side river twice. All the water molecules that have ever flowed through the same river are no longer part of it once they leave the river.

But you would never look at the river water, and say that's not the river. You would never look at the ocean and say none of this water came from the river. We are ever changing beings.

We are stardust.

And sure, in some ways eternal. I mean, not really because that's not how I define "me", but at the same time it's a nice thought for those of us that don't buy into woo. Bits of us were here before and will be after, ripples in the pond, that sort of thing.