Rebirth

[LordShiva]

WTF is a Cylon?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by LordShiva
WTF is a Cylon?

This one for example


But if you have luck you might meet other models like this one


Both models might kill you at sight if they meet you (as a human), but the lower one at least looks sexy doing it

[DaShi]

I'm achieving enlightenment after this life, so I won't be back. Thank God!

[Heraclitus]

It feels wrong, and there isn't a shred of evidence.

[Dinner]

Lame subforum!

[Provost Harrison]

Does this hippie bullsh*t ever end?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Does this hippie bullsh*t ever end?

Only after their resurrection ship has been destroyed

[Geronimo]

I think there is one consciousness simultaneously experiencing all possible mind states past, present and future. The illusion of a single discrete personal linear consciousness comes from some of those mind states having linear processes underlying those mind states.

Assuming memory is tied to the underlying processes (be it a biological organism or whatever) then we'd expect any "rebirth" to leave all memories and other process continuity behind. In such circumstances, why would the rebirth need to be restricted to future processes? Why could it not "rebirth" to past processes? If we allow it to "rebirth" to a process in the past then there's nothing stopping it from "rebirthing" to every process in turn, which is essentially the same as "birthing" into them all simultaneously.

If someone believes in a "rebirth" in their stream of consciousness they might just as well believe there is only one universal stream of consciousness.

[Nugog]

Doesn't it rot in the ground with the rest of your body?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Nugog
Doesn't it rot in the ground with the rest of your body?

Consciousness probably doesn't rot.

[Provost Harrison]

Consciousness is a concept and not a tangible object. Consciousness appears to be some property of the way the mind functions. Destroy the mind and, well...I'm sure you can guess the rest.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Consciousness is a concept and not a tangible object. Consciousness appears to be some property of the way the mind functions. Destroy the mind and, well...I'm sure you can guess the rest.

It's not as simple as all that.

One brain appears to have one mind. However, if a brain could be cut in half and each half duplicated and joined with an original half, you'd have two discrete minds. Was the original mind destroyed? If one of the new pair of brains was destroyed would the mind be partly destroyed?

Assuming the above procedure didn't destroy the mind, then if a perfect record of the brain were made and used to make a perfect copy of it long after the person was dead could we be sure that the mind has really been destroyed in the intervening time?

Minds "Cease" when dead or totally unconscious but I'm not sure it's clear they are destroyed.

I think rather that minds are like algorithms in that even if a physical implementation of the process is destroyed you haven't meaningfully destroyed the mind any more than throwing a computer into smelting vat will destroy a bunch of algorithms.

When the last "copy" of a mind is destroyed it has been "lost" to the world perhaps but not really "destroyed".

[Provost Harrison]

I think you are obfuscating what is quite simple. You destroy the brain, you destroy the mind. If you take a sledgehammer to a computer, the same occurs, although you can replace it. If you could exactly duplicate a person, then there are two. If you destroy and then resynthesise then you have another copy of you, not the same consciousness but one that will function in exactly the same way.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I think you are obfuscating what is quite simple. You destroy the brain, you destroy the mind. If you take a sledgehammer to a computer, the same occurs, although you can replace it. If you could exactly duplicate a person, then there are two. If you destroy and then resynthesise then you have another copy of you, not the same consciousness but one that will function in exactly the same way.

you destroy a computer that way but not the software. You destroy a brain and the mind ceases as a process but replace the hardware and it could be re-implemented.

Mostly this is just semantics. I agree that the body rots in the ground but I think the mind simply ceases at death and does not "rot" or otherwise further deteriorate along with the body after death.

To the extant that it's probably impossible for the cessation of the mind to be anything other than permanent without the means to produce a functioning copy I would agree that the mind was "destroyed".

[BeBMan]

I change my opinion on this. First I was very sceptical, but truth is I have been reborn yesterday. Here I am, living proof that it works