Controversial views

[Edwardo Piet]

I would argue that "self-destructiveness masquerading as self-sacrifice is immoral."

[ApeNotKillApe]

Given the nature of infinity and probability, it doesn't sound too mad to me that our lives may inevitably occur "again" for lack of a more appropriate term, and we may be trapped in a cycle of eternal occurance.

[Edwardo Piet]

Probability above zero of a re-occurrence + infinite amount of time = guaranteed re-occurrence.

But... the question is is 'exact-replicas-of-our-lives-in-matter, energy, time-and-space' exactly the same thing as simply 'our lives'?

[Edwardo Piet]

If you destroyed my atoms and replaced me with an exact replica of myself, atom for atom, even my own conscious thoughts being identical, would I be conscious again or would someone else identical to myself in every way be conscious and my consciousness would be permanently gone forever?

[Edwardo Piet]

If you destroyed my atoms and replaced me with an exact replica of myself, atom for atom, even my own conscious thoughts being identical, would I be conscious again or would someone else identical to myself in every way be conscious and my consciousness would be permanently gone forever?

@ ANKA

Not sure if you're aware or not but there's already the following philosophical thought experiment on this matter:

In Reasons and Persons, Parfit asks the reader to imagine entering a "teletransporter", a machine that puts you to sleep, then destroys you, breaking you down into atoms, copying the information and relaying it to Mars at the speed of light. On Mars, another machine re-creates you (from local stores of carbon, hydrogen, and so on), each atom in exactly the same relative position. Parfit poses the question of whether or not the teletransporter is a method of travel—is the person on Mars the same person as the person who entered the teletransporter on Earth? Certainly, when waking up on Mars, you would feel like being you, you would remember entering the teletransporter in order to travel to Mars, you would even feel the cut on your upper lip from shaving this morning.

Then the teleporter is upgraded. The teletransporter on Earth is modified to not destroy the person who enters it, but instead it can simply make infinite replicas, all of whom would claim to remember entering the teletransporter on Earth in the first place.

Using thought experiments such as these, Parfit argues that any criteria we attempt to use to determine sameness of person will be lacking, because there is no further fact. What matters, to Parfit, is simply "Relation R", psychological connectedness, including memory, personality, and so on.

Parfit continues this logic to establish a new context for morality and social control. He cites that it is morally wrong for one person to harm or interfere with another person and it is incumbent on society to protect individuals from such transgressions. That accepted, it is a short extrapolation to conclude that it is also incumbent on society to protect an individual's "Future Self" from such transgressions; tobacco use could be classified as an abuse of a Future Self's right to a healthy existence. Parfit resolves the logic to reach this conclusion, which appears to justify incursion into personal freedoms, but he does not explicitly endorse such invasive control.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletransp...on_paradox

[ApeNotKillApe]

But... the question is is 'exact-replicas-of-our-lives-in-matter, energy, time-and-space' exactly the same thing as simply 'our lives'?

What's the difference?

EDIT: Ah, right. Yeah individual consiousness is something I was wondering about in regards to it.

[Edwardo Piet]

And here's Derek Parfit, on the nature of identity and the self:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS-46k0ncIs

[ApeNotKillApe]

Thanks for sharing. Stupid cosmos.

[ApeNotKillApe]

Chances are good that either Nietzsche was totally right or once I die my presence of mind will have to roll up a new character, probably end up a lamprey eel or something.

Don't know how you even begin to quantify individual consciousness.

[Edwardo Piet]

The latest scientific evidence supports the theory that there is no big crunch and therefore no eternal recurrance.

Current evidence suggests that the cosmological constant is not zero, or that we live in an open universe. We examine the implications for the future under these assumptions, and find that they are striking. If the Universe is cosmological constant-dominated, our ability to probe the evolution of large scale structure will decrease with time ---presently observable distant sources will disappear on a time-scale comparable to the period of stellar burning. Moreover, while the Universe might expand forever, the integrated conscious lifetime of any civilization will be finite, although it can be astronomically long. We find that this latter result is far more general. In the absence of possible exotic and uncertain strong gravitational effects, the total information recoverable by any civilization over the entire history of our universe is finite, and assuming that consciousness has a physical computational basis, life cannot be eternal.

Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9902189