Future Timeline

[FlowerChild]

Except there is that one little part of ourselves, the existence of consciousness, that science can never explain. We can explain the influence our body has on perception, but not consciousness itself. Being in tune with that part of ourselves is what I call spiritualism. If there is something such as a "soul", that is it for me. Don't mistake that for a religious statement. It's not meant to be one. It's just something interesting to think about.

The question that always confounds any of my tendencies towards pure pragmatism in this regard is:

"So then, what then am I doing in here?"

As a strictly bio-mechanical organism, there is really no need for the first person. It seems like entirely extraneous functionality, which I could function perfectly well without.

As above, just food for thought. Again, I have no firm beliefs, but questions like these are part of that process.

[Elensaar]

Oh wow... What have I started..? ;)

I fully agree that the existence of reality is not something we can prove. Though given the choice between assuming reality's existence and accepting the fact you are all just figments of my deranged imagination... Anyway, even when I am in a Descartian mood, I usually end up assuming the existence of reality and the veracity of at least a few of my observations of it. Presumptuous, I know, but I'd rather believe that then believe I'm crazy enough to imagine this world...

Given reality though, and given that I have no reason to believe there's such a thing as a soul (beyond the "ghost in the machine"), I still declare death the greatest enemy of mankind.

[gftweek]

Except there is that one little part of ourselves, the existence of consciousness, that science can never explain. We can explain the influence our body has on perception, but not consciousness itself. Being in tune with that part of ourselves is what I call spiritualism. If there is something such as a "soul", that is it for me. Don't mistake that for a religious statement. It's not meant to be one. It's just something interesting to think about.

I would state that consciousness is a natural mechanic that develops in any brain above a certain complexity threshold. Once you have the ability to remember and learn, then plan ahead, I would define this as consciousness. Some animals possess this, whereas human babies do not until their brain becomes connected enough. A soul has strong religious connotations that I find to be distinct from consciousness, after all a clinically braindead (and not locked in) person is legally not conscious, but many would state that they have not lost their soul.

[Fracture]

A soul has strong religious connotations that I find to be distinct from consciousness

Why does it need to? Religion is no more than a number of people subscribing to the same belief system in regards to the metaphysical.
Thiesm =/= Religion =/= Spiritualism.

[Shengji]

I still declare death the greatest enemy of mankind.

This I would disagree with! I understand what you mean and perhaps should be written as "I still declare death the greatest enemy of any individual"

Could you imagine a world where no-one died - death is one of the driving factors that made mankind what it is today and will allow us to reach for the stars in the future - literally and figuratively :)

[Elensaar]

Except there is that one little part of ourselves, the existence of consciousness, that science can never explain. We can explain the influence our body has on perception, but not consciousness itself. Being in tune with that part of ourselves is what I call spiritualism. If there is something such as a "soul", that is it for me. Don't mistake that for a religious statement. It's not meant to be one. It's just something interesting to think about.

I would state that consciousness is a natural mechanic that develops in any brain above a certain complexity threshold. Once you have the ability to remember and learn, then plan ahead, I would define this as consciousness. Some animals possess this, whereas human babies do not until their brain becomes connected enough. A soul has strong religious connotations that I find to be distinct from consciousness, after all a clinically braindead (and not locked in) person is legally not conscious, but many would state that they have not lost their soul.

Completely agree with gft here. Science has a testable hypothesis of how consciousness works. Basically it's an emergent property of a complex, self-referential system. Our brain developed to compete against other human brains, which at a certain complexity threshold lead to our brain referencing its own processes in order to overcome. This turned out to be an evolutional advantage, and what we refer to as consciousness is a side-effect of that self-referencing behaviour. This can be tested by creating simulations of the human brain, and similarly complex systems, and observing the results. (Way to bring us back on topic, eh?) ;)

I still declare death the greatest enemy of mankind.

This I would disagree with! I understand what you mean and perhaps should be written as "I still declare death the greatest enemy of any individual"

Could you imagine a world where no-one died - death is one of the driving factors that made mankind what it is today and will allow us to reach for the stars in the future - literally and figuratively :)

No, I meant, exactly as I wrote, that death is the greatest enemy of mankind. You think of the drive it provides, and I won't disagree, but I still think it's doing more harm than good. Actually, the Harry Potter fanfic that was floating around here a little while ago expressed it quite well, I think (I'm paraphrasing here):

Imagine an alien species. They probably exist. And they are most probably so completely different from us that I'm quite convinced we will meet them well before realizing they are sentient beings. Maybe even long before we realize they're actually alive. But we will have one common characteristic: mind. And a mind is no small thing. It's what makes us a person, and it's also what makes a bunch of atoms following a set of laws into a wonderful sunset or a romantic, starry sky. Mind gives the universe direction, meaning and purpose. So the loss of a mind is the greatest loss. I don't know if there is anything "more", anything "beyond this life", and as a realist I can only work from what I know. For all intents and purposes, the mind of a dead being is lost to mankind and the universe - so death is the greatest loss.

Yes, I can imagine a world where no-one dies. I'm quite certain it will one day happen. Mankind will still strive for the stars, it's not only death that is a driving factor, but also our curiosity. "What's beyond that hill?" is perhaps the most dangerous, and most rewarding, question ever asked. ;) In that future, on some far away planet orbiting some star unknown to us today, small children will be told the story of how on "old earth" people were allowed to just die. To disappear and never again be part of the world. And it will be the scariest story they've ever heard.

[Shengji]

No, I meant, exactly as I wrote, that death is the greatest enemy of mankind. You think of the drive it provides, and I won't disagree, but I still think it's doing more harm than good. Actually, the Harry Potter fanfic that was floating around here a little while ago expressed it quite well, I think (I'm paraphrasing here):

Imagine an alien species. They probably exist. And they are most probably so completely different from us that I'm quite convinced we will meet them well before realizing they are sentient beings. Maybe even long before we realize they're actually alive. But we will have one common characteristic: mind. And a mind is no small thing. It's what makes us a person, and it's also what makes a bunch of atoms following a set of laws into a wonderful sunset or a romantic, starry sky. Mind gives the universe direction, meaning and purpose. So the loss of a mind is the greatest loss. I don't know if there is anything "more", anything "beyond this life", and as a realist I can only work from what I know. For all intents and purposes, the mind of a dead being is lost to mankind and the universe - so death is the greatest loss.

Yes, I can imagine a world where no-one dies. I'm quite certain it will one day happen. Mankind will still strive for the stars, it's not only death that is a driving factor, but also our curiosity. "What's beyond that hill?" is perhaps the most dangerous, and most rewarding, question ever asked. ;) In that future, on some far away planet orbiting some star unknown to us today, small children will be told the story of how on "old earth" people were allowed to just die. To disappear and never again be part of the world. And it will be the scariest story they've ever heard.

Hopefully you agree that the earth could not sustain a reality where no living creatures with a mind (for want of a better term) ever died yet kept the same birth rate. The first things to become extinct would be bacteria and the loss of diversity would travel through the food chain (there will always be death by misadventure)

So while you may lament the loss of every mind, I lament the loss of every mind not created! My son is two years old, nearly and learning to speak. It's the most amazing process and to think that three years ago, his mind did not exist! If we all lived forever, his mind and millions of other new minds created every day just wouldn't be, while the same old ones carried on and on. The fact we are all talking about the achievements of some of our long dead souls is proof enough that just because a person has died, their mind has not been lost to us.

I envisage a family in the far future sitting around laughing at how silly we were to be afraid of death, just as we laugh at previous generations for being afraid of falling off the edge of the earth if they sailed to far out

[Elensaar]

Hopefully you agree that the earth could not sustain a reality where no living creatures with a mind (for want of a better term) ever died yet kept the same birth rate. The first things to become extinct would be bacteria and the loss of diversity would travel through the food chain (there will always be death by misadventure)

So while you may lament the loss of every mind, I lament the loss of every mind not created! My son is two years old, nearly and learning to speak. It's the most amazing process and to think that three years ago, his mind did not exist! If we all lived forever, his mind and millions of other new minds created every day just wouldn't be, while the same old ones carried on and on. The fact we are all talking about the achievements of some of our long dead souls is proof enough that just because a person has died, their mind has not been lost to us.

I envisage a family in the far future sitting around laughing at how silly we were to be afraid of death, just as we laugh at previous generations for being afraid of falling off the edge of the earth if they sailed to far out

No, of course the earth could not sustain us. But we need to get off this petridish of a rock anyway. No sensible species should be living at the bottom of a gravity well waiting for random debris to hit it on the head. ;)

[Fracture]

The fact we are all talking about the achievements of some of our long dead souls is proof enough that just because a person has died, their mind has not been lost to us.

But it has. Once they're dead, a person's ideals and works can be twisted to suit any need. I've seen, in all seriousness, quotes from the likes of Douglas Adams, Twain, and many others-- twisted for a vile purpose. Not only are nearly a hundred years of a developing consciousness lost forever, but the accomplishments it struck before it was cut short can be used by future generations for any purpose, because the original holder of the ideals is no longer there to defend them.

I understand the need for birth, but death is such an impairment to progress. The great minds of a generation grow, develop, begin to flourish. All too soon, they are cut short, and we come to hope for the next to equal or surpass them. The problem we would face without death would not be overpopulation, given that we would easily leave this little blue-green speck, but governance. From generation to generation our collective morals, ideals and needs change. What one generation needed, the next finds to be an inhibition. This is the problem I see in both education systems and the governments of today, and we would need to find an acceptable balance for ruling bodies between experience and change.

[Elensaar]

I completely agree Fracture, the biggest problem would indeed be governance. We need faster change, not slower. Though I think an end to death would make it necessary for a whole lot of our culture and way of life to change anyway. And depending on how we achieve immortality it might eliminate the problem of people being "set in their ways". Most ingrained opinions and habits of older people stem from the fact that our neural connections aren't changed as readily once we get older. Simulated neural connections in a cybernetic brain would not face the same problem, and we would be more ready to adapt to new situations and developments even beyond our 300th birthday. ;)

[Shengji]

but death is such an impairment to progress. The great minds of a generation grow, develop, begin to flourish. All too soon, they are cut short, and we come to hope for the next to equal or surpass them.

Special and general relativity is being taught to primary school children. Einstein's mind has not been lost to us, on the contrary, his brilliance is becoming as widespread amongst humanity as the knowledge that the earth is round and orbits the sun. Now I'm not claiming that 10 year-olds have as much of a grasp on the concepts that he had, but they have a better grasp of them than he did at their age!!

In 100 years time, it's quite likely that our children will be being brought up on an academic diet of string theory and repeating the experiment that first demonstrated the existence of the higgs boson particle! With the ever expanding ways humans have to communicate with each other, the previous generations work is being passed effectively on to the next.

Without death, we would have had to curtail births millennia ago. But even if humans had developed, the way the mind develops during our lives dictates the need for death. Now I'll never brook any idea which perpetuates the ignorant belief that neolithic man was any the less intelligent than us. However, the vast majority of the development of our mind occurs during our childhood - up to the age of about 17. What happens in those first 17 years of our lives dictates the way our mind will work for the rest of our lives - of course our minds can adapt, but it gets significantly more difficult. This is well documented when you compare childrens and adults ability to learn new languages, to read or write, to use new technology etc etc. The leading theories attempting to work out why humanity has achieved so much academic success compared to other species point to the length of this period of brain development - our funny, awkward teenage years are vital to our development as a species!

So if a large proportion of our society had spent it's formative years learning to hunt and survive in the wilderness, their brains will not be equipped to invent the modern world. For that, fresh minds are needed to relearn the new society man creates every generation otherwise progress would be painfully slow!

And while it might be nice to say that we'll just go jump on a space ship and live on another planet but it's not realistic. If every government, nation, race, religion, creed, industry, company, corporation, business, family, man, woman and child on this planet pooled all of our resources starting today with one aim - to colonise another planet - I believe our chances of long term success would be slim. It certainly isn't realistic for the creatures that would inhabit this earth if there was no natural death - chances are there would be no opposable thumbs, no understanding of the use of tools, no life capable of much more than surviving and reproducing into an overcrowded world.

Simulated neural connections in a cybernetic brain would not face the same problem, and we would be more ready to adapt to new situations and developments even beyond our 300th birthday. ;)

I don't believe that if you replicated a human brain down to the last connection with cybernetics that it would have a soul - and if it did, I personally would believe that our souls are indeed nothing more than an accident - a ghost in a machine.

So if you start to cut bits of peoples natural brains out and replacing them with cybernetics, as some point I believe you will begin to destroy the soul and that person will die - even if their body carries on, even if their loved ones couldn't tell the difference - you'd be left with a robot which acts like that person.

[ziggylol]

Spoiler

Show

'Nuff said.

you said apocalypse then a 20-40 years later population reached 9 billion, i see that we might of got excited

[Zhil]

you said apocalypse then a 20-40 years later population reached 9 billion, i see that we might of got excited

I think you missed the joke there. Try reading the top of the image again

[Elensaar]

Simulated neural connections in a cybernetic brain would not face the same problem, and we would be more ready to adapt to new situations and developments even beyond our 300th birthday. ;)

I don't believe that if you replicated a human brain down to the last connection with cybernetics that it would have a soul - and if it did, I personally would believe that our souls are indeed nothing more than an accident - a ghost in a machine.

So if you start to cut bits of peoples natural brains out and replacing them with cybernetics, as some point I believe you will begin to destroy the soul and that person will die - even if their body carries on, even if their loved ones couldn't tell the difference - you'd be left with a robot which acts like that person.

Well, this is certainly a point. The way I see it there are two possibilities. Either our "soul" is a result of some part of our body, or it's something beyond the reach of science at all.

In the first case replacing any part of the body becomes trivial, assuming we have the technology to simulate it in every detail. Now of course, the technology part is non-trivial to the extreme, but look back a few years and look at what seemed possible to us to do tech-wise then, compared to now. One possibility would be (as is mentioned on the site that started this) to replace it "in place" bit by bit. If this was done carefully enough, the person concerned would never even have to notice any difference.

The second case becomes far more spiritual, but begs the question: which part of the body is essential for the soul to remain? If you say everything, than you're saying that people that have lost an arm or a leg no longer have souls, so that can't be it. It most probably isn't internal organs other then the central nervous system either, as these can be replaced without people becoming soulless (or at least without themselves noticing any lack). So at this point we could theoretically replace the whole body except for the central nervous system without loosing the "soul". (Why, hello Ghost In The Machine) Now, the entire central nervous system probably isn't necessary either, because people with serious damage to it, that are still alive, don't seem any less soulful than the rest of us. So we're left with the brain. But wait: does this mean that people with brain damage are soulless? I don't really believe so, and I don't think you do either. So it's not the entire brain.

In the end this leads us to the same conclusion - most of the brain, or all, can be replaced by a simulation, without loosing the soul. That or there are a whole lot of people that have lost their souls without noticing it. In which case it's really hard to make a case for it being there in the first place.

(Note, when I say simulation I don't mean a simulation of the personality. I mean a simulation of the behaviour of the biological system in question.)

[Shengji]

Well, this is certainly a point. The way I see it there are two possibilities. Either our "soul" is a result of some part of our body, or it's something beyond the reach of science at all.

In the first case replacing any part of the body becomes trivial, assuming we have the technology to simulate it in every detail. Now of course, the technology part is non-trivial to the extreme, but look back a few years and look at what seemed possible to us to do tech-wise then, compared to now. One possibility would be (as is mentioned on the site that started this) to replace it "in place" bit by bit. If this was done carefully enough, the person concerned would never even have to notice any difference.

The second case becomes far more spiritual, but begs the question: which part of the body is essential for the soul to remain? If you say everything, than you're saying that people that have lost an arm or a leg no longer have souls, so that can't be it. It most probably isn't internal organs other then the central nervous system either, as these can be replaced without people becoming soulless (or at least without themselves noticing any lack). So at this point we could theoretically replace the whole body except for the central nervous system without loosing the "soul". (Why, hello Ghost In The Machine) Now, the entire central nervous system probably isn't necessary either, because people with serious damage to it, that are still alive, don't seem any less soulful than the rest of us. So we're left with the brain. But wait: does this mean that people with brain damage are soulless? I don't really believe so, and I don't think you do either. So it's not the entire brain.

In the end this leads us to the same conclusion - most of the brain, or all, can be replaced by a simulation, without loosing the soul. That or there are a whole lot of people that have lost their souls without noticing it. In which case it's really hard to make a case for it being there in the first place.

(Note, when I say simulation I don't mean a simulation of the personality. I mean a simulation of the behaviour of the biological system in question.)

Oooh, really interesting points!

I will most certainly agree with you that losing an arm or a leg doesn't mean you lose a part of your soul, nor any part of your body or nervous system. If someone were to have a brain transplant - I don't believe that person would be that person anymore - they would be the person who owned the transplant! This is why I think the soul is so closely bound to the brain.

So, putting this as delicately as I possibly can - and taking direct inspiration from Richard Hammonds account of his brain damage (and the accounts of people he met with brain damage since his accident)- I most certainly believe that brain damage changes the soul. I wouldn't call it a damaged soul or a dead soul but I would say that if one were to suffer from brain damage, one would have a change in their soul.

Of course this leads quite naturally onto what is the soul and why do I feel it could be changed. Well the first part I absolutely cannot answer with any confidence (and I'm all ears), but the second part - I believe our souls express themselves through our personality. It is common for people who have suffered head trauma to have a personality change - often temporary.

Now, to get down to the meat of what I said before - I believe that something, perhaps everything in the brain binds the soul to reality. I think this explains effects like people seeing a tunnel if they die for a short time or seeing the operating theatre from above while under aesthetic - I don't believe these things are real, but I do believe these things were really seen by most of the people who claim it. I believe these effects are a result of becoming disconnected from our souls abilities to express ourselves through our brains.

So I believe that if you were to cut out a part of a persons brain, no matter how slowly or subtlety it is done and replace it with parts which attempt to replicate it's function, I don't think that section will be accessible to your soul any more - unless you do exactly replicate it's function and the materials from which it was originally made, including it's built in death ;)

I believe if you were to replace my brain tomorrow, the whole brain with some amazing cybernetic whizz piece of technology, my soul would be as disconnected from reality as if I were in a coma. I believe I would experience at some point death and I also speculate that the death of my soul would coincide with the biological death of my real brain!

EDIT: Please be aware, I see a difference between the state that doctors describe as brain death and the death of a brain. If a brain is resisting the process of rotting, it's still alive!

[MoRmEnGiL]

Except there is that one little part of ourselves, the existence of consciousness, that science can never explain. We can explain the influence our body has on perception, but not consciousness itself. Being in tune with that part of ourselves is what I call spiritualism. If there is something such as a "soul", that is it for me. Don't mistake that for a religious statement. It's not meant to be one. It's just something interesting to think about.

The question that always confounds any of my tendencies towards pure pragmatism in this regard is:

"So then, what then am I doing in here?"

As a strictly bio-mechanical organism, there is really no need for the first person. It seems like entirely extraneous functionality, which I could function perfectly well without.

As above, just food for thought. Again, I have no firm beliefs, but questions like these are part of that process.

It's simple really. That sense of I is just a complex brain reaction. Think of it as this. Huge amounts of data is stored in the brain. In that data lies all human knowledge said individual possesses. The brain, being never idle, processes that data and tries to rationalise everything. Part of that process, is the observation and realization of self...which is just a mechanism for the brain to cope, otherwise it would fall into an endless loop trying to move another person's hand :P

We might think we control ourselves, but actually at the most basic level our brain functions using it's ROM, without consulting with the user, just with the built in functions. Just like a windows computer tries to understand wtf is that new device that penetrated it's usb port :P

I write down the sense of self to that particular property of ALL brains, not just the human. And conciousness for me is..just me gathering sensory data, processing it and coming to conclusions.
Animals also have a strong sense of self, take for example my cat. She knows she is "better" than other cats, and acts jealously when I focus my attention to one of them. We can understand a lot about ourselves if we observe and compare to other forms of life.

[Zhil]

Yeah, but that still doesn't explain consciousness. All you are explaining is perception. Consciousness is not about observing one self, it's about being. The fact that you are, that you exist, through thought, can never be explained through chemistry.

I think I lack the proper wording to express it correctly though

[Elensaar]

Oooh, really interesting points!

I will most certainly agree with you that losing an arm or a leg doesn't mean you lose a part of your soul, nor any part of your body or nervous system. If someone were to have a brain transplant - I don't believe that person would be that person anymore - they would be the person who owned the transplant! This is why I think the soul is so closely bound to the brain.

So, putting this as delicately as I possibly can - and taking direct inspiration from Richard Hammonds account of his brain damage (and the accounts of people he met with brain damage since his accident)- I most certainly believe that brain damage changes the soul. I wouldn't call it a damaged soul or a dead soul but I would say that if one were to suffer from brain damage, one would have a change in their soul.

Of course this leads quite naturally onto what is the soul and why do I feel it could be changed. Well the first part I absolutely cannot answer with any confidence (and I'm all ears), but the second part - I believe our souls express themselves through our personality. It is common for people who have suffered head trauma to have a personality change - often temporary.

Now, to get down to the meat of what I said before - I believe that something, perhaps everything in the brain binds the soul to reality. I think this explains effects like people seeing a tunnel if they die for a short time or seeing the operating theatre from above while under aesthetic - I don't believe these things are real, but I do believe these things were really seen by most of the people who claim it. I believe these effects are a result of becoming disconnected from our souls abilities to express ourselves through our brains.

So I believe that if you were to cut out a part of a persons brain, no matter how slowly or subtlety it is done and replace it with parts which attempt to replicate it's function, I don't think that section will be accessible to your soul any more - unless you do exactly replicate it's function and the materials from which it was originally made, including it's built in death ;)

I believe if you were to replace my brain tomorrow, the whole brain with some amazing cybernetic whizz piece of technology, my soul would be as disconnected from reality as if I were in a coma. I believe I would experience at some point death and I also speculate that the death of my soul would coincide with the biological death of my real brain!

EDIT: Please be aware, I see a difference between the state that doctors describe as brain death and the death of a brain. If a brain is resisting the process of rotting, it's still alive!

I'm really enjoying this far too much... ;) It's a delight to discuss this with you. :)

I would say that the simplest explanation for personality changes as a result of brain damage still is that the personality is an emergent property of the brains neural network. Change the network, change the emergent properties.

But let's assume the existence of the soul, and see if we can't solve the problem of death anyway. ;)

You say that it would be necessary to replace the part of the brain with something that behaves the same, and is of the same materials. At what level? Let's assume individual brain cells, to be really thorough. In which case we only need to wait for nanomachinery that is able to replace damaged or old brain cells with younger versions of them. In this way you could also bypass the problem of "old" brains not being able to change and adapt to new situations: if all the cells were replaced with young cells, they would be more willing to form new connections. Rejuvenation treatments, anyone? ;)

I really hope this isn't the case, though, as I probably won't live to see this happen. There's too much to see on this one planet for just one lifetime, dammit! And then there's the rest of the universe to see, too! ;)

Yeah, but that still doesn't explain consciousness. All you are explaining is perception. Consciousness is not about observing one self, it's about being. The fact that you are, that you exist, through thought, can never be explained through chemistry.

I think I lack the proper wording to express it correctly though

I rather think that consciousness is possible to explain. Basically, we have a complex electrochemical network (our brain), programmed to react to input. Part of the input is it's own output (our thoughts). You get a self-referential loop, and a complex and (mathematically) chaotic system. Consciousness and self-awareness can very well be emergent properties of this system. The brain thinks about itself thinking about itself.

A good book that explains this hypothesis very well is "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. It comes highly recommended by this geek, at least. ;)

[MoRmEnGiL]

What do you mean the fact that I exist? I exist because my parents didn't use contraception and I didn't die since I was born :P

Thought, you see, is pure brain biochemistry and nothing else.

[Zhil]

What do you mean the fact that I exist? I exist because my parents didn't use contraception and I didn't die since I was born :P

Thought, you see, is pure brain biochemistry and nothing else.

Yeah, I see we aren't on the same page, but I can't fix it. We aren't talking about the same thing really. You are talking post-perception, I am talking pre-perception.

You can't even discuss the existence of consciousness if you consider perception (parents, contraception, biochemistry, reality itself) first. Existence of your own consciousness precedes all that, while the existence of everyone else comes after it, it's confusing, but you are talking about an entirely different concept.

I rather think that consciousness is possible to explain. Basically, we have a complex electrochemical network (our brain), programmed to react to input. Part of the input is it's own output (our thoughts). You get a self-referential loop, and a complex and (mathematically) chaotic system. Consciousness and self-awareness can very well be emergent properties of this system. The brain thinks about itself thinking about itself.

A good book that explains this hypothesis very well is "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. It comes highly recommended by this geek, at least. ;)

Yeah, same here, how can you explain that which precedes it? The concepts you use are entirely based on the axiom that you exist to have those concepts. You are trying to prove the existence of something with concepts that already assume it exists, it just doesn't work that way

[Elensaar]

What do you mean the fact that I exist? I exist because my parents didn't use contraception and I didn't die since I was born :P

Thought, you see, is pure brain biochemistry and nothing else.

Yeah, I see we aren't on the same page, but I can't fix it. We aren't talking about the same thing really. You are talking post-perception, I am talking pre-perception.

You can't even discuss the existence of consciousness if you consider perception (parents, contraception, biochemistry, reality itself) first. Existence of your own consciousness precedes all that, while the existence of everyone else comes after it, it's confusing, but you are talking about an entirely different concept.

I rather think that consciousness is possible to explain. Basically, we have a complex electrochemical network (our brain), programmed to react to input. Part of the input is it's own output (our thoughts). You get a self-referential loop, and a complex and (mathematically) chaotic system. Consciousness and self-awareness can very well be emergent properties of this system. The brain thinks about itself thinking about itself.

A good book that explains this hypothesis very well is "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. It comes highly recommended by this geek, at least. ;)

Yeah, same here, how can you explain that which precedes it? The concepts you use are entirely based on the axiom that you exist to have those concepts. You are trying to prove the existence of something with concepts that already assume it exists, it just doesn't work that way

Well, no. Not really. I get where you're coming from, but I'm saying there doesn't have to be anything before perception. The illusion of you existing to observe yourself, is created by you observing itself. The process bootstraps itself.

The way I see it is akin to Langton's Ant. In that simple, yet chaotic, system, you have an ant walking on an large grid, following a few simple rules (like your neurons have simple rules for when they fire):
1. If the ant enters a black square, the square turns white and the ant turns right.
2. If the ant enters a white square square turns black and the ant turns left.
The systems looks completely disorganized for 10000 moves or so, the ant drawing random patterns. But then it enters a loop of 104 moves that creates a "highway". There is nothing in the rules to say this must happen, it's an emergent property.

I see our consciousness and personality as being the same type of emergent pattern in our brains. There doesn't have to be a me before my thoughts and observations. Rather my thoughts and observations create me by changing the patters the neurons firing in my brain make. And this is a hypothesis testable by science. :)

EDIT: Langton's ant

[MoRmEnGiL]

Thing is, pre-perception is Schroedinger's cat. It's not important. Existence of consciousness? I don't follow you on this.

Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: "Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives."

I'm conscious because of brain activity. Before that I'm not. I don't exist and neither does anything for me. Without any form of perception you and the entire universe simply isn't there.

EDIT: Let me make myself clear, I'm not arguing you are wrong and I am right. I am saying that this is my point of view on this matter. I'm just classifying anything beyond biology and chemistry as by-products of those two factors.

[Shengji]

I'm really enjoying this far too much... ;) It's a delight to discuss this with you. :)

It most absolutely is! I've rarely seen such a constructive thread on any topic, let alone one along these lines. When Flowerchild see's how the thread went in his absence I think he'll be quite proud that his little community contains such a high proportion of intelligence and maturity :)

Ok, so back on topic, I'd like to explain why I feel personality is more of a function of the soul than the chemistry of the brain. In doing so, I'll have to go back 3 years or so to a time when my beliefs were very similar to MoRmEnGiL's***

***Please don't think I'm getting on my high horse and saying "I used to believe what you did but then I grew up", if anything I feel like "I used to hold independent views based on my love and passion for science then I turned into the type of person who I used to be see so clearly as wrong! What I'm trying to say is that I'm not dismissing MoRmEnGiL's point of view because I have moved on from it, in fact the opposite is true!

So anyway, three years ago or thereabouts I fell pregnant and this triggered the biggest change in beliefs that I've ever had in my life! To put it in perspective, my first degree was in theoretical physics and my second in biomedical science - I'm a scientist through and through! I was fully aware at how much change happens in the brain of a foetus from the start of it's development to the neonatal stages and even then from neonate (first week after birth) through to 1 years old, the brain changes at an astonishing rate - unrecognisable from day to day! However, from the first time I felt him move to this very day, his personality has remained consistent! How can his personality be affected by the neural network and chemistry of his brain if it can change so much and yet not affect his personality?

So I became a firm believer in a soul, although I still cannot for the life of me pin down what one really is, this is where the preformed beliefs come in I suppose. So looking at how we can solve the death problem, I said that we would need to maintain the same material that the brain is created from because quite frankly as we don't properly understand how the brain does everything it does, it would seem to be an error to believe that they can just be replaced with a completely different way of forming a neural network and expect it to work properly - Perhaps one day we will understand every possible reason why the cells that make up the brain need to be exactly how they are and then we could engineer a synthetic solution, but I put forward the theory that part of that understanding will involve a scientific understanding of the soul and the way it binds to our brains.

So to me the obvious way to attempt immortality is to trick the body into growing fresh brain cells (and of course every other cell in the body) using technology to manipulate stem cells. I do think that by encouraging the brain to do things it was not designed to do like this kind of rapid regeneration will lead to unforeseen problems and I whole heartedly believe that should such advancements become commonly available, outside of the trial and error that will occur with potentially horrendous results, people regenerating themselves in this fashion, certainly in the early times of doing this will change after their first treatment.

I think we will get to the point where people can live forever and it will likely be a good combination of cybernetics, stem cell tech and nano tech. I think by doing so we will learn a lot about the soul and potentially create an entirely new branch of science and another new frontier to explore. Certainly exciting times, however I maintain my belief that we need to keep the birth rate up no matter what is happening with the death rate in order to maintain humanities ability to adjust to a changing universe.

I'm with you, I'd love to see every mystery that the universe has to offer, but then, as others have pointed out - we can't make assumptions on what happens after death because at the moment we have no way of conducting any scientific research on the subject. I think one day we will be able to but until then to assume that death precludes you from experiencing any more is a theory which may not be correct!

EDIT: And just to conclude, I'd like to say that I really don't see a problem with making assumptions, holding preformed beliefs and having a religious point of view, especially if they are a comfort of bring some other positivity into your life - anything to help in this crazy world! However that comes with the caveat that one is prepared to abandon those views should a better theory or view come along.

[MoRmEnGiL]

The problem with immortality is, after how many years of life does a person start losing his humanity? If you had experienced with perfect clarity of mind everything from 1800 onwards, would you

A) be able to adapt
B) still retain your basic human feelings
C) still have the will to go on?

Also, to humour myself: @Shengji

You believe what you believe and you wrote what you wrote because your brain performed a very specific chain of reactions. If a few of them were different you could easily have had polar opposite views, or chosen not to reply at all. In other words, even your changed beliefs are a result of biochemistry, and of the most potent kind in nature, one influenced by parenthood! :] There is nothing that can change a human more profoundly than his own offspring :]

[gftweek]

The problem with immortality is, after how many years of life does a person start losing his humanity? If you had experienced with perfect clarity of mind everything from 1800 onwards, would you

A) be able to adapt
B) still retain your basic human feelings
C) still have the will to go on?

Also, to humour myself: @Shengji

You believe what you believe and you wrote what you wrote because your brain performed a very specific chain of reactions. If a few of them were different you could easily have had polar opposite views, or chosen not to reply at all. In other words, even your changed beliefs are a result of biochemistry, and of the most potent kind in nature, one influenced by parenthood! :] There is nothing that can change a human more profoundly than his own offspring :]

Peter F Hamilton deals with the concepts of rejuvenation and transhumanism quite well in his series of books (The Starflyer War trilogy and the Commonwealth Saga trilogy in particular). Rejuvenation is of particular interest because it becomes the new retirement, people save during their lifetime for the procedure, then get rejuvenated to a point where they become almost teenager like in their concepts and often reinvent themselves and study a new topic and take a different career path, so each "life" can be unique.
I think most people have pipe dreams that they think they could never accomplish, but these would often be solvable given enough time, and as long as we retain the ability to learn, we subtly alter ourselves enough that we will have new dreams to chase that life would not get stale for a very long time.

I think the brain is more than just a series of biochemical reactions, it is also similar in some ways to a reprogrammable electrical circuit and has elements of random noise. These combine to make a much more complex system than just a test tube of reactions could achieve. The chemistry promotes learning and changes our moods, the electrical side stores our memories and allows processing of perceptions and allows feedback that generates as thoughts, and the noise stimulates dreams and the formation of ideas. These combine to a whole that is greater than the sum of it's parts and exceeds a complexity level that generates consciousness.

There is not a simple switch for this, it is a learned and developed process over our lifetime. As most parents or development psychologists will be able to attest, a child goes through stages of brain development that build complexity until full consciousness as we experience it emerges. Babies have little sense of their surroundings and cannot plan what effect their actions will have, toddlers have difficulty understanding others points of view (I want ice-cream, so everyone must want ice-cream. Why does Daddy say no. Cry), and young children cannot process logical gains (give them a single cookie and tell them they can eat it now, or if they don't can have 2 cookies after 5 minutes. Below a certain age, most children will just eat the first one, above it most will wait painfully till so they can have 2).
Likewise animals of a certain brain complexity can achieve some of these developmental stages, do they have souls? People certainly assign personalities to their pets, and many can learn and figure out goal oriented problems.