Sean Carroll Emperor Has No Clothes Award Speech
More actions
Death is either final or death is not final. The the reality that superimmortality proposes is not that simple. Death is more like fuzzy logic. The shirt that I am wearing is either blue or not blue. It has to be be "either, or", that is the way logic is. But most things in reality are not clear cut as an "either, or" statement. What if my shirt has blue and white strips? Is it still true that may shirt is blue? You might say that if it has any blue in it the statement is true. But eventually you can reduce the amount of blue down to a point so small that you can only see it with a microscope. Lets say that you have a shirt that has ten different colors all the same area amount. Is it true my shirt is blue if ten percent of it is blue? The same question can be asked for each color. If being ten percent blue makes the shirt blue then all the other colors being ten percent that color makes them that color as well. Is my shirt blue the answer then is true. Is my shirt green true again, if green is one of the ten colors. The answer to the question: "Is death final or is death not final?" Is a question that is much more complex. It can be answered either way with reasons supporting either answer. According to superimmortality death can be final for you but not for me or visa versa. Again the problem is with definitions what does the finality of death mean? Is death final if you die and your body never produces consciousness again. Or is death not final if another body produces a consciousness that you experience? It is very likely that when you die your body will not produce a consciousness again. It is however possible that another body will produce a structure and functioning of matter that will produce a conscious that you will experience. It is then possible that some people will experience being conscious again after death and others will not. So is death final will be true for some and not so for others, according to superimmortality.
The mind is the brain, or does the brain produce the mind? The brain and mind are not identical the brain can exist when the mind does not. The brain by changing the structure and functioning enough can produce any mind. The brain in what appears to be within your body, your brain is not always tied to producing a consciousness that you will experience. If the mind is the brain this would not be the case. The fact that the brain has to be functioning to produce the mind means that the mind and brain are not identical. A specific functioning brain will produce, correspond to, or map to a specific mind. It is not the specific brain that matters it is the specific structure and functioning of the brain that matters. Identity of structure and functioning of the brain in another brain produces identity of the minds in the two brains.
Sean Carroll says at min. 7:52 We know how atoms work. They are not a mystery to us. And they work in such a way that when you die there is no way for the information that was you to persist after death. There is no way for that stuff, that knowledge, that set of beliefs and feeling that made you, you, to leave your body because it is stuck there with your body decaying in your tomb or being cremated or whatever your favorite way to be after death is.
The human body is a physical functioning object like a TV set. Although the TV's structure and functioning is much simpler than a human brain it can be made to be endlessly more complex in structure and functioning. The functioning of the TV produces the TV show. Your body is like the TV set. Your consciousness is like a TV show. To say what Sean Carroll sayings about you above is like saying there is no way a TV show can be recreated after the TV set you are watching the show on dies. He thinks that there has to be some way of communication of stuff, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, etc. between the old TV and a singular other TV. Just by producing identical structure and functioning in another TV you get the production of an identical TV show. The assumption that is made is that there is only one possible "you" and for this to happen there has to be the unique transfer from one body to the next of some unique stuff. But as Sean justifiably points outs there is no physical way this can happen. There is no such stuff, No way matter can transfer the self between physical bodies.
The way we define the self is part of the problem. People frequently believe that what they are now is what they are. superimmortality defines the self as all of the structures and functioning paths of matter that produces a consciousness that you experience
story of your life versus stories of your lives
a perfect life the striving for a perfect life
Striving for a perfectly happy life there are many happy lives that you can experience according to superimmortality
Sean Carroll says at min. 35:59 Our lives will not last forever and that is what makes them matter so much.
Our survival as conscious beings may depend on believing that you can consciously exist again after death. If you believe that you only live once you may want to go down in a blaze of glory and take as many people with you as you can. Or if you think that an after life is somewhere else than in this universe you may not care what happen in this world. Evidence of this is that when people have committed suicide where in deliberately causing plane crashes they kill other people in the process.
The belief in the singularity of yourself with all of the selfishness that it can create may bode and end to all mankind. Even though most people have some degree of empathy for others, some still believe that "I" will be dead so who cares what happens on earth to others. If however, people realize that they can exist again on earth or other places in the universe after death, as superimmortality predicts, and the quality that these other lives experience depend on the state that the earth is in, the beliefs that others hold. and how people treat each other, they may not want to destroy it or cause unnecessary suffering to others. Because another person may be a conscious version of you, causing them to suffer is in reality causing you to suffer. It is like spreading glass shards on the floor where you know you will eventually walk bare foot. You do not experience the pain this will inflect on you from your current conscious perspective now, but you will nonetheless suffer. We do believe that what we do now influences what will happen to us in the future. That is why we work to get a paycheck to buy food and housing. We even work hard now in the belief that we can have a fun vacation in the future.