Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris on is there an afterlife full debate
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This discussion can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlCjy52h0hc It is called Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris on is there an afterlife full debate
Wolpe 1:40 Do you believe that human beings are entirely material? Are you only made of stuff? Or is there something non physical? Is there something etherial and eternal about you about us, some mystery at the heart of this stuff? And if there is then there is a possibility yeah that we'll all, I don't want to say go somewhere because that assumes that it is spacial and again that is the way people think and the way we think is not necessarily the way the world is are minds are much to limited to grasp it. But I will just close by saying that I have always assumed that human beings were more than stuff.
Being entirely material is what makes people superimmortal. We are only made of stuff and what make us consciousness is the change or functioning of that stuff over time. Consciousness is something that appears nonphysical. Matter and energy last long enough that it seem eternal. The different structures and functionings of matter that matter can potentially produce is not permanently destroyed just because one body that once produced it now no longer produces it. Matter and energy can do so many amazing things they seem magical, so magical, in fact, that they can produce, through their structure and functioning, alone, consciousness without any supernatural help.
Wolpe 2:26 ... my father died, and as many of you know, it is a jewish custom to throw dirt on the grave. I though this was going to be extraordinarily difficult to take a shovelful of dirt and throw it on the coffin of somebody that I loved very dearly but I actually I didn't find it nearly as difficult as I anticipated and the reason is I knew that what ever was in that coffin he wasn't there. But I also knew that wasn't the same thing as he wasn't, It just meant he wasn't there but he was, and he is, I just don't know how?
Superimmortality does explain how and why. The body that lies in the grave did produce your fathers consciousness. It no longer does. It produced while alive a behavior that you experienced. You did no see the consciousness that this body produced. It is possible that your father was not consciousness. In fact, the father that you experienced could have been produced by an experience machine producing only the experiences of a man that you can to call your father. An experience machine could produce the experience of your father again. In fact, your brain is an experience machine and likely has and will produce experiences of your father in your dreams. One way to produce a consciousness that your father will experience, superimmortality predicts, is by producing cidentireplicas and many different videntireplicas of your father
Hitchens says at 12:56: What happens to all of us, at some point is you get taped on the shoulder and told not just that the party is over but slightly worse, the party is going on but you have to leave, and its going on without you. Thats the reflection that, I think, most upsets people about their demise. All right then lets, because it might make us feel better pretend the opposite. Instead you get taped on the shoulder and told great news this party is going forever and you can't leave. You've got to stay and the boss says so and he also insists that you have to have a good time.
To use Hitchens analogy for a better understanding of Superimmortality; because of the multiplicity of of each of us we get to leave the party, take breaks from the party, come back to the same party, repeat the party, go to other parties, repeat other parities, make improvements to any part of any parties, see the different parties from other peoples perspectives and do this for a very long time into the future and past.
Superimmortality does not have a problem with gods imposing their will on us because superimmortality does not require souls, gods, spiritual after worlds, or other supernatural objects or concepts for a person to be superimmortal. There is always a potential for a structure and functioning of matter to come into existence that will produce a consciousness that you experience. Just like what happened with your current body. It likely was a random process created by nature. But it can also be produced deliberately by other conscious beings.