Sean Carroll On Death And The Afterlife

Sean Carroll make a strong case for superimmortality by showing that other normal theories of immortality are false because there is no evidence for a soul or spirit existing and then no physical way of the information that is you to leave a body after death and reform in another body. His conclusion is then that life after death is not possible. Life after death, this way, is exactly what superimmortality says is not possible, also. Superimmortality does not break any physical laws nor require any physics that does not already exist. Superimmortality does not require a transfer of information between bodies for you to be conscious again after death. Superimmortality is based on the structure and functioning of matter. This requires no new physics or physical laws. Duplicate the same structure and functioning of matter that was produced in one body, in another body, and you will duplicate the same behavior. For a human this means reproducing the same self identity, memories, abilities, language skills, knowledge about your environment and other people, etc. The experiments can be duplicated over and over again with the same results. Experiments can also be done where conditions are varied. Experiments with variations in the structure and functioning of the body can show if the original's behavior and thus consciousness are an aberration or just part of a continuum where usually small enough changes in structure and functioning of the body produce small changes in the behavior and consciousness. For example, if there are billions of experiments where the structure and functioning is slightly different but the behavior is identical this gives extra evidence that this structure and functioning of matter is producing a specific consciousness. If in further experiments with greater changes in the structure and functioning of the body you get small changes in conscious aspects like memories, skills, etc., this gives further evidence that replicating a structure and functioning of a body replicates the consciousness and ixperiencitness.

Statement by Sean Carroll: "We can say that there is no life after death." Clearly there is life after death, because after people die there are still people alive If all people die there could still be animals alive on earth. If there is no life on earth there could still be planets that exist through out the universe that have life on them. It seems this is not what he is actually trying to prove. I think what he is trying to convey is the idea that once your body is dead you will never experience consciousness ever again. But what if we take your dead body and through science and technology restore the structure and functioning it had at a previous time in your life. Will this restored body be conscious and will you experience this restored consciousness? If the answer to this question is yes Then it is possible to have life after death. If the answer is no, then why is it no? The behavior of this restored you can be observed. If the original acted like he was conscious at that point in his life and the restored you acted like he is alive now it seems very likely that he is conscious. But is he a continuation of the original self that died?

Under these circumstances we can say that there is good evidence that there would be life after death (conscious existence. the starting conditions can be varied in many different ways like the amount of time between death and restoration, the amount of degradation of the body, the amount of original matter, the degree of identical structure and functioning produced in the restoration.

The only thing that is lost in death is the correct structure and functioning of the (a) body, not a "soul" or "unique information" "blob of spirit energy" or other "stuff" as Sean calls it.

Statement by Sean Carroll: "The mind is the brain." There is no identity here there can be a brain without a mind. How do you account for the fact that the mind changes over time? What is the scientific proof of this statement? How is the statement that the mind is the brain different from the statement that the brain through its functioning produces the mind or consciousness? Is there a test that will show which statement is true? Take a functioning brain that is producing consciousness and then stop the functioning is there still a mind or consciousness produced? No! You have to have the "correct" functioning of the brain to produce the mind. Again the brain is not the mind, the functioning of the brain is the mind or consciousness. The mind is different from an object. Two brain can be made of different matter in different places and times but still function identically. This statement that the mind is the brain is like saying the TV is the TV show or the computer is the computer game. The same brain by changing its functioning can produce all sorts of different consciousnesses or minds.

Statement by Sean Carroll: "The brain is made of atoms." Accepted as true by superimmortality.

Statement by Sean Carroll: "We know how atoms work." Accepted as likely true by superimmortality.

Statement by Sean Carroll: at min 5:22 : "When you die there is no way for you to persist after death. There is no way for the information that was you to persist after death. No way for that stuff, that knowledge, that set of beliefs and feelings, that made you you to leave your body because it is just stuck there with the atoms decaying in your tomb or being cremated or what ever your favorite way to be after death is."

It seem like Sean is postulating something that is unique to your body it can not be atoms because atoms is not unique to one body. What is unique to your body compared to other bodies is the structure and functioning of your body compared to other bodies. The structure and functioning of your body only seems unique because there are so many different way for a grouping of matter the size of a body to be structured and then function.

How did that "stuff" that makes you, you, get there in your body to begin with?

There is no need for new contradictory laws of physics to deal with the structure and functioning of matter. Matter that is made up of atoms and behaves within the bounds of laws of physics that we know about.

A TV analogy to the "stuff" that Sean is referring to being destroyed. The information that is the functioning TV there is no way for that information to persist after the destruction of the TV.

The information is just simpler

Statement by Sean Carroll: at min 14:01: "Quantum Field Theory is either true or false. All of the evidence says that it is true. And if it is true then there is no room for new physics that can in any way effect what goes on in the atoms in the brain we understand what they do. There is therefore no room for the information that is you to persist after you die." The structure and functioning of the brain does not have to be converted into information and then converted back into structure and functioning again to produce a consciousness that you will experience. You can start with an approximate structure and functioning brain and modify it until it produces the desired consciousness. Nature randomly produced a person's consciousness to begin with.

When your brain is arranged in a way that another person is created by your brain where did that "stuff" that "knowledge" come from? Did it leave another body to come into your body. There would be knowledge needed to modify a brain to keep it from dying but no specific knowledge to create the numerous brain structures and functioning that produce very different minds or consciousnesses.

Where did the stuff that makes "you", you, to begin with, come from? The structure of the brain is destroyed at death but all the things that created you to begin with are still there.

A TV is a totally physical system. It is made of atoms. All the laws of physics apply to it. It how it works breaks no physical laws. We do not tie the TV show that a TV is producing to only that TV. Other TVs can produce the same TV show without a breaking of physical laws. The brain is just like a TV in the sense that as the structure and functioning of the TV changes the show changes and as the structure and functioning of a brain changes the consciousness or mind it produces changes. The structure and functioning of a TV can be represented in many different ways by knowledge. But the structure and functioning of the TV can exist without any specific knowledge about its structure and functioning.

We do not say that the body is behavior we say the body produces behavior. In the same sense we need to say that the brain is not consciousness but produces consciousness. It becomes even clearer when we say that the brain produces ixperiencitness rather than the brain is ixperiencitness. This is because the brain produces ixperiencitness over its life time as changes occur in its: structure and functioning, consciousness, matter that the brain is made of, the places, times and environments that it exist in,

Sean Carroll Emperor Has No Clothes Award Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40eiycH077A