Two Materialist Consolations

[Carleas]

Everlasting Life
The fear of death:
You needn’t fear death, because you will live forever, even though we have no reason to believe in an ‘immortal soul’ (at least not in the traditional sense). The latest theorizing in physics suggests that a world-line exists for each eventuality in a given situation. Every possible outcome, however slim the probability, does in fact happen on some world-line. There exist, then, a world line in which the system that comprises your consciousness continues.
Your experience, then, continues on some world-line. At any given moment, your experience is continuing. You cannot, then, cease to experience. You will always experience the continuation of your experience.

[u]The Dearly Departed[/u]:
People are patterns. They are patterned cascades of neural signals, and patterned actions, choices, and ideas. Death means the end of the pattern, both on the neural and social levels.
People are also pattern simulators. They simulate patterns to predict actions. This applies to simple cases of cause and effect, such as billiard balls and light switches, as well as to complex scenarios of strategy, such as chess or social interaction.
People simulate other people in order to predict their actions. They do this in general, and these manifest as an understanding of manners, civility, and cultural propriety. They also do it in specific, so a couple can predict each others actions and reactions pretty reliably after many years of marriage.
This simulated patterns remains after the original pattern is extinguished. But because they are simulations of the pattern, because they are neural cascades that are similar to the neural cascades of the original pattern, the simulation is of the person. Though someone close to you may die, they live on, truly live on, as a pattern simulated in you. Their person continues to exist to greater or lesser degrees in the people that knew them.

Who ever said materialism had no heart?

[f12hte]

Though someone close to you may die, they live on, truly live on, as a pattern simulated in you. Their person continues to exist to greater or lesser degrees in the people that knew them.

I Agree. Futher, I think that people live on in their actions. Whatever actions a person takes in the world start chain reactions that reverbrate down through time.

[NoelyG]

Hi Carleas,

The latest theorizing in physics suggests that a world-line exists for each eventuality in a given situation.

Do you think this is really true? I guess I’m thinking that as physics is generally considered a part of science (or a body of knowledge obtained through the scientific method), and such claims for infinite world lines seem to be inherently untestable, then such claims are really unscientific (and therefore can they really be classed as “physics”?). I’d therefore consider such claims to be metaphysics, whereby generally metaphysics seems to be diametrically opposed to the (empiricist) materialist tradition.

There exist, then, a world line in which the system that comprises your consciousness continues.
Your experience, then, continues on some world-line. At any given moment, your experience is continuing. You cannot, then, cease to experience. You will always experience the continuation of your experience.

Say that the given idea has some truth to it, is that really “you” continuing to exist in another world-line? It seems a little strange to me to suppose that “you” or your consciousness continues to “live” on. First, if one such “you” diverged a long time before your death, accompanied with no doubt massive changes in circumstances due to the non-linear nature of life in general, I wouldn’t consider that to be “you” any longer. Second, how would a “transfer” of consciousness occur when you died? It seems to me that if this world-line “you” died, other similar “you”'s may live on in other world-lines, but that would be equivalent to, say, a very similar friend who lived on after you died in this world-line. The only plausible alternative that I can see to this is to suppose some common soul between each world-line individual, that is shared regardless of bodily fate. But again, this is metaphysics with the same compatibility problems with materialism that I mentioned above.

The dearly departed:
People are patterns. They are patterned cascades of neural signals, and patterned actions, choices, and ideas. Death means the end of the pattern, both on the neural and social levels.
People are also pattern simulators. They simulate patterns to predict actions. This applies to simple cases of cause and effect, such as billiard balls and light switches, as well as to complex scenarios of strategy, such as chess or social interaction.
People simulate other people in order to predict their actions. They do this in general, and these manifest as an understanding of manners, civility, and cultural propriety. They also do it in specific, so a couple can predict each others actions and reactions pretty reliably after many years of marriage.
This simulated patterns remains after the original pattern is extinguished. But because they are simulations of the pattern, because they are neural cascades that are similar to the neural cascades of the original pattern, the simulation is of the person. Though someone close to you may die, they live on, truly live on, as a pattern simulated in you. Their person continues to exist to greater or lesser degrees in the people that knew them.

I’m not sure if I’d agree with the “truly live on” statement. I agree that we often mimic behaviours of those very close to us, and there exists neural behaviour which allow us to predict actions of those we are close to due to this mimic-ing ability. But isn’t this really just a caricature of the other person, i.e. their phenomenology? In a Kantian viewpoint, an other mind is really noumena, a thing in-itself, that we have no access to. Therefore, I think the “truly live on” statement is a bit of an overstatement, the thing-in-itself consciousness of a deceased person does not “live” on (with a materialist viewpoint), only our caricature of that person’s phenomenology, or outward behaviour, does.

EDIT: Just one more additional thought with regards to the above paragraph. Consider the Chinese room thought experiment. If a machine existed that followed a person around their entire life and recorded, and was capable of reproducing, their outward behaviour perfectly, could that machine then be considered to be the same “person” that “lives on” after that person dies?

[Carleas]

NoelyG,
-Whether it’s testable is hard to determine. The theory itself is proposed to explain certain phenomena, and as such it is testable in retrospect. But there haven’t been tests devised to compare to theories. But then, Einstein’s claims were widely accepted by the physics community before they were tested, because the reasoning behind his conclusions was sound. Similarly, there is significant support for multiple-worlds theory among physicists.
Anyway, I don’t think that changing the label defeats the argument: those who accept multiple-worlds theory, many of whom are de facto materialists, have to deal with this.
-I think you misunderstand the full implication of my argument. It isn’t that at some past split, there was a world-line created in which I live longer than I do in this one. It is that at every split a world-line is created in which I continue to live. Problems of defining the self and transferring consciousness don’t apply, because there is a continuous consciousness.
-You are mixing ontologies when you define consciousness in Kantian terms and bring those to bear on a materialist argument. A noumenal consciousness is not a tenet of any materialism I’ve ever encountered. Materialistically, your consciousness is the pattern, at least as far as others are concerned. From an outsiders perspective, the machine is you.
Try another thought experiment: suppose I have a machine that makes an exact copy of you. Materialistically, it’s possible. So I make a copy of you, and then I shoot the original. Assuming the copy was ideal, as far as anyone else is concerned you’re still alive.
It’s true, however, that the you that survives is somewhat charicatured, but it’s also noteworthy that it’s charicatured in the way that people perceived you when you were alive. Because of confirmation bias, people perceive you as they think about you, so their internal charicature is accurate for them, though it may be less accurate for others.

[NoelyG]

Hi Carleas,

Sorry, I don’t think I was very clear in my post.

-Whether it’s testable is hard to determine. The theory itself is proposed to explain certain phenomena, and as such it is testable in retrospect. But there haven’t been tests devised to compare to theories. But then, Einstein’s claims were widely accepted by the physics community before they were tested, because the reasoning behind his conclusions was sound. Similarly, there is significant support for multiple-worlds theory among physicists.

I find it hard to envisage experimental evidence that proves the existence of other “worlds”, considering all we apparantly have access to is our world. If we had access to other worlds, that would make them within our world. I suppose it’s within the realm of possibility, but I would consider it pretty unlikely. From what I have heard, there is significant opposition to multiple-world theories also.

Anyway, I don’t think that changing the label defeats the argument: those who accept multiple-worlds theory, many of whom are de facto materialists, have to deal with this.

Fair enough.

I think you misunderstand the full implication of my argument. It isn’t that at some past split, there was a world-line created in which I live longer than I do in this one. It is that at every split a world-line is created in which I continue to live. Problems of defining the self and transferring consciousness don’t apply, because there is a continuous consciousness.

Ok, but at every split do you experience the other possibilities? What happens when your particular continuous consciousness becomes very old, and continued life is not a logical possibility? Presumably eventually your current consciousness is the one to kick the bucket, and even if there is a split and consciousness somehow goes on, you haven’t experienced any of the other splits so why would you experience this one? Perhaps I still misunderstand what you mean.

You are mixing ontologies when you define consciousness in Kantian terms and bring those to bear on a materialist argument. A noumenal consciousness is not a tenet of any materialism I’ve ever encountered.

Ok, but that leads to Materialism being metaphysics in Kantian terms, which seems to be the normative definition of metaphysics these days. But I guess that is a topic for another thread, and may not bother you anyway.

Materialistically, your consciousness is the pattern, at least as far as others are concerned. From an outsiders perspective, the machine is you.
Try another thought experiment: suppose I have a machine that makes an exact copy of you. Materialistically, it’s possible. So I make a copy of you, and then I shoot the original. Assuming the copy was ideal, as far as anyone else is concerned you’re still alive.
It’s true, however, that the you that survives is somewhat charicatured, but it’s also noteworthy that it’s charicatured in the way that people perceived you when you were alive. Because of confirmation bias, people perceive you as they think about you, so their internal charicature is accurate for them, though it may be less accurate for others.

I agree with that, but I wasn’t referring to the third person view of the person, I was considering the first person perspective. What I mean is, “truly live on” in my view is a continuation of the consciousness (somehow) of the person who has died. A machine caricature could be perfect outwardly, but the person (consciousness) who has been shot is gone (materialistically). Because that person has lost their consciousness, the fact that their may be a caricature of their phenomenal behaviour existing in a brain (or machine) doesn’t give me much consolation for that person if I am feeling emphathetic, as that person’s experience is gone. However, that’s just my view of consolation though, and you may have another.

[Uccisore]

The idea of other worlds can be examined logically to a great extent without waiting for science to prove this or that.

For example, it’s quite possible that the idea of there being one location that is not any distance or direction from another location is logically impossible with a standard definition of what a ‘location’ is. That would need to be worked out before the science of it matters at all.

[Carleas]

NoelyG, you’re right that there is a lot of opposition to the multiple world theory, but it is certainly a physical theory. The proof I’m offering makes assumptions, no doubt, but there are many people who accept the assumptions I’ve made. I just want to show that given the multiple worlds theory, and other materialist propositions, eternal conscious existence results.
Picture a single line, which represents your present world line. At every instant (assumably separated by the Planck time), the line splits into an infinite number of branches. On at least one of them, you continue to live. Now, you can’t die between instants, because multiple worlds theory comes out of quantum physics which theorizes a smallest possible interval of time, i.e. things happen in discreet intervals and nothing happens in between. So, whenever it’s possible that you would die, it is possible that you would live. Your experience then, because it cannot experience the end of experience, always continues to experience.
One huge problem is with sleep, drunken black-outs, and other forms of unconsciousness. I think the only way to deal with then is to say that you are still experiencing, even when you are black-out drunk. The system that is your consciousness is still intact, and the real problem is likely memory related.

I’m afraid I don’t understand your point about “Materialism being metaphysics in Kantian terms,” but I’m curious. Could you flesh it out more?

My argument about the robot and the copy aren’t intended to show that you experience living forever. The two argument’s I’m offering are both lacking: the multiple-worlds argument allows me to live forever, but I see other people die; the pattern argument allows others to live for me but doesn’t do anything for them. However, together they show that everyone lives forever somewhere, and that those I’ve lost are still here with me. Emphatically, I can say that there is a world-line in which they survived the instant when I experienced them dying. Selfishly, I can still have some access to the person I miss.

Uccs, you’re spot on to point out that multi-worlds theory can be examined logically before it can scientifically. If that weren’t true, it wouldn’t even exist.
I don’t think, though, that the problem of location is a big one. Maintaining the contemporary definition, I can deny that they are in a ‘location’ at all, and simply refer to them by relation. “Where” is the wrong question. They are the world as it would be if X were the case. It’s therefore possible to accurately refer to other world-lines, and so to come to relevant logical conclusions. Like eternal life, and its possible ethical implications.

[Uccisore]

Oh! I didn’t realize you were talking about possible worlds. Since those aren’t real, (by definition of possible), I guess we don’t have the disagreement I thought we did.

[tentative]

The concept of patterns continuing doesn’t mean that patterns altered aren’t in keeping with a multiple-universe theory. Processually, the pattern that we are changes every pico-second. What is “you” is a a constantly evolving pattern.

Actually, if you think about it, this fits the Christian notion of leaving the corporeal body and becoming heavenly spirit.

I agree with NoelyG, while it is possible to couch a theory in a materialistic way, it is still speculation, and this takes us in to metaphysics. Talking about possible is amusing, but it ends up in the same place as all metaphysical arguments.

[Carleas]

Uccisore, they aren’t ‘real’ in the sense that I can reach out and touch them, but they might be meta-real in some sense in which their theorized existence has practical implications. Tent, my response to you is much the same: they are metaphysics in a sense, but every theory is metaphysics until it is tested. Just because the experiments haven’t been devised (and that’s a debateable claim) doesn’t mean that the claims are merely amusing. As long as the theory is indirectly testable, they fall comfortably within the realm of a materialist philosophy.

[tentative]

Carleas,

OK As long as it is understood that we’re falling into the rabbit hole…

[Show-Me]

Carleas,

@Carleas

Tent, my response to you is much the same: they are metaphysics in a sense, but every theory is metaphysics until it is tested. Just because the experiments haven’t been devised (and that’s a debateable claim) doesn’t mean that the claims are merely amusing. As long as the theory is indirectly testable, they fall comfortably within the realm of a materialist philosophy.

I don’t agree that all scientific theories are metaphysical until they are tested. One requirement for a theory to be called “a scientific theory” is that is must be potentially falsifiable by empirical evidence. If you can’t conceive of a way to falsify a theory with empirical evidence, it’s not a scientific theory. Otherwise, you can’t make any distinctions between scientific theories and any other theory.

For this reason, I don’t think your comparison to Einstein’s theories is valid. Einstein’s theories were immediately recognized as being testible because they predicted things that could be observed. His and all other “scientific” theories are potentially falsifiable from the moment that they are proposed, because they make predictions that allow the theory to be falsified through empirical evidence. It is merely a matter of time and technology before they can be tested. I have yet to hear an even remotely possible way that the multi-worlds hypothesis could be falsified. I think NoelyG’s comment that, “If we had access to other worlds, that would make them within our world.”, is dead on, in that you can logically deduce that it can’t be tested empirically.

If every theory is metaphysical until it is tested, then you need to already have in mind a test for the theory. Exactly what is the test that would be used for the multi-worlds theory?

I have to agree with Tentative and NoelyG on this one. This is pure metaphysical speculation which is OK as long as it is understood as such. However because of this, it and any other metaphysical theory is completely incompatible with naturalist/materialist philosophy. Think about how wide the door you’re opening up for all kinds of theories. You’re not falling into a rabbit hole, you’re falling into a black hole.

[Carleas]

Well, the multiple worlds theory is testable in some ways, though most of them are in retrospect. The whole idea of undecideability, of entanglement, or of a lot of quantum weirdness, all make sense in multiple worlds theory. Take entanglement: prior to observing one of a pair of entangled particles, we can think of them as occupying multiple world-lines, or of occupying an ambiguous world-line. But once one is observed, the other must be in the same world-line, and so must correspond to it. It is therefore indirectly observable, and therefore testable, and therefore falsifiable.
Furthermore, it embodies the same set of data as any of the proposed theories regarding the quantum equations. In many senses, it is simpler, thereby satisfying Occham. It resolves many paradoxes that result from quantum equations. (And, apparently, according to the Wiki article, it allows the quantum equations to be derived using a different set of assumptions, although that’s the first I’ve heard of it and I haven’t looked into it any further yet. But if that is the case, it would lend significant support to the theory.)

But I don’t think it matters as much as you are claiming. Materialism can absolutely involve metaphysics: It involves an epistemology that claims we can only know what we can observe; It involves an ontology that claims a physical monism; It can involve prescriptive ethics and an idea of justice; and none of these have led us down a black hole. These don’t pose any inherent problems for materialism.

[NoelyG]

Carleas,

NoelyG, you’re right that there is a lot of opposition to the multiple world theory, but it is certainly a physical theory. The proof I’m offering makes assumptions, no doubt, but there are many people who accept the assumptions I’ve made. I just want to show that given the multiple worlds theory, and other materialist propositions, eternal conscious existence results.

Ok, that’s fair enough.

Picture a single line, which represents your present world line. At every instant (assumably separated by the Planck time), the line splits into an infinite number of branches. On at least one of them, you continue to live. Now, you can’t die between instants, because multiple worlds theory comes out of quantum physics which theorizes a smallest possible interval of time, i.e. things happen in discreet intervals and nothing happens in between. So, whenever it’s possible that you would die, it is possible that you would live. Your experience then, because it cannot experience the end of experience, always continues to experience.

Thanks for the elaboration of the theory, however I’m still having difficulties envisaging the continuity of a person’s experience. My biggest difficulty lies in the fact that at every Plank time split of possibilities, there are an infinite (or very large) number of other conscious possibilities, none of which you experience i.e. you only have a singular experience. Why then, should we assume that your world-line conscious experience continues, when you haven’t experienced other conscious possibilities before? Also, presumably at every Plank time split there exists extinguished consciousness and continuing consciousness. Therefore, say that your world-line dies, which of these continuing conscious experiences do you then experience? Perhaps I’m still missing something.

I’m afraid I don’t understand your point about “Materialism being metaphysics in Kantian terms,” but I’m curious. Could you flesh it out more?

Perhaps it was a bit of a bold statement, but I think there is some truth to it so I’ll attempt to defend it. It’s basically the problem of other minds. You know your own experience, you are conscious of your consciousness, therefore within your realm of experience is an experience of your own “mind” or consciousness. When you interact with people, you experience their phenomological behaviour but you do not experience their “mind”, i.e. your experience does not contain something similar to what you yourself experiences of your own mind or consciousness. Therefore, to say that the other person has a mind like yours is to attempt to go beyond the phenomenological experience of them and therefore deduce a priori a “thing in itself”, which is metaphysics. With regards to materialism then, which assumes that all mind is matter, a similar process occurs. Now in support of this materialist proposal you may cite brain experiments affecting behaviour etc., or behaviour being correlated with certain brain measurements, however again this is phenomenology being observed, not a “mind” (whereby the only experience of a “mind” or consciousness is a personal experience of your own). Therefore to assume that consciousness or minds are due to matter is a metaphysical assumption. Now of course, we all make this metaphysical assumption on a day to day basis (that there exists other minds, not that minds are due to matter, though materialists may assume this also), which is not really a problem, it is only a problem to those who consider materialism to have no metaphysical assumptions involved with it, which I see in your last reply to Show-Me you are not one of those.

[Carleas]

NoelyG,
First, I should say that, although I thought I was really clever, it turns out that “Quantum Immortality” was actually proposed in the eighties. However, this gives us the benefit of a Wiki page which explains what I’m proposing from a different direction. I’ll try to continue my explanation here, but you might get more out that.

It’s important to realize that all worldlines that will result from the infinite possible outcomes of a probability curve in this worldline occupy the same worldline before the wave function collapses and the probability becomes actual. If there is a resultant worldline that results from the collapse on which my conscious experience doesn’t exist, it never existed on that world line. So there is actually no world line on which my conscious experience ends, only those on which it never existed.
I’ve attached a picture that is an extreme simplification of what’s happening. In the picture, the branching worldlines are drawn in black, and those on which my consciousness exists are overlayed in red (time moves up the page. At each split, though there are branches on which my experience doesn’t it exist, it never existed on them. It therefor never ends, and there is always a continuous run of red overlay.
And although there may in fact be many branches on which the red is overlayed, they do not affect that ultimate I am on one of them. There would be some doubt as to whether they remain “me” after their worldlines have split, but whenever I utter me, I am referring to the me on this worldline. That there will be many me-s one planck time later doesn’t change that.

I see what you’re saying about metaphysics and Materialism, and of course I agree that Materialism entails a metaphysical position. Claiming that it doesn’t is like saying “there is no truth”: you are making a claim de facto, whether you acknowledge it or not.
But I don’t think Materialism makes the metaphysical assumption that minds are material, or at least not all Materialism. The ‘assumption’ that ‘there are other minds’ (or rather, that other objects have internal perspectives similar to my own) is supprtable itself (using other metaphyscial assumptions), as is the proposition that minds are material. Both rest on the metaphysical assumptions that my senses convey information about a world, that my memory is reliable, that I live in the same world today as I did yesterday, etc. I would argue that these are the assumptions needed for Materialism. If Materialist metaphysics actually included the assumption that minds are material, Materialism would be true by assumption, rather than by argument.

[Show-Me]

Carleas,

@Carleas

Well, the multiple worlds theory is testable in some ways, though most of them are in retrospect. The whole idea of undecideability, of entanglement, or of a lot of quantum weirdness, all make sense in multiple worlds theory. Take entanglement: prior to observing one of a pair of entangled particles, we can think of them as occupying multiple world-lines, or of occupying an ambiguous world-line. But once one is observed, the other must be in the same world-line, and so must correspond to it. It is therefore indirectly observable, and therefore testable, and therefore falsifiable.
Furthermore, it embodies the same set of data as any of the proposed theories regarding the quantum equations. In many senses, it is simpler, thereby satisfying Occham. It resolves many paradoxes that result from quantum equations. (And, apparently, according to the Wiki article, it allows the quantum equations to be derived using a different set of assumptions, although that’s the first I’ve heard of it and I haven’t looked into it any further yet. But if that is the case, it would lend significant support to the theory.)

But I don’t think it matters as much as you are claiming. Materialism can absolutely involve metaphysics: It involves an epistemology that claims we can only know what we can observe; It involves an ontology that claims a physical monism; It can involve prescriptive ethics and an idea of justice; and none of these have led us down a black hole. These don’t pose any inherent problems for materialism.

The multiple worlds interpretation is an interesting thought exercise but I still don’t see it as a scientific theory. I would say that it is worth continued thought, but at this point I don’t think it can pass muster as a scientific theory. The fact that the multiple worlds interpretation explains certain things doesn’t make it a scientific theory. There are plenty of theories that explain things, but are not scientific. As near as I can tell it is only falsifiable in the sense that it is dependant on quantum theory. If you were able to falsify quantum theory, you would falsify the multiple worlds interpretation. However quantum mechanics is not dependant on the multiple worlds theory, so quantum mechanics can be true and the multiple worlds interpretation could be false at the same time.

I still don’t see any specific predictions that it makes versus other theories that allow you to falsify it specifically with empirical data. Einstein’s theories made predictions that were specific to his theory, such as the prediction that time was affected by gravity. So not only did it explain things, it also made predictions that were specific to his theory that could be tested empirically. If empirical experiments would have shown gravity had no effect on time, then Einstein’s theory would have been proven false.

[Carleas]

Quantum suicide?

[Uccisore]

Carleas

Uccisore, they aren’t ‘real’ in the sense that I can reach out and touch them, but they might be meta-real in some sense in which their theorized existence has practical implications.

No, they mayn’t, because of what ‘possible world’ means. Consider that you said ‘might’ above. Going with possible world semantics, that means there are possible worlds in which possible worlds are meta-real, and possilble worlds in which they are not. This is clearly nonesense unless we’re equivocating, and mean two different things by ‘possible world’ in each instance. So, I suppose there may be ‘other realities’, but they must by necessity be something other than ‘possible worlds’.

[Mad_Man_P]

Hello all… it’s been a while…

If i may Inject something…

multiple world theory Is a theory that practically means we are all immortal… but not to eachother…

In case you have truble with the simple semantics of “possible worlds” or “meta-worlds”… then think of it as a theory that states that whatever pattern is “you” will never discontinue… the surroundings might be altered and the pattern will of course change over time… but it will never end.

In short… people around you will die… they will grow old… but you, yourself will never die… this is where our eternal “life lines” cross pathes… in your existence i will die… in mine… you will… but we will never die in our own worlds… balh balh…

This is all facinating… but even if i belived in the theory I would hardly feel better about being a materialist… I didn’t “choose” to be a materialist for the perks… if i wanted to believe something to make me feel better I would be a theist… but anyway… it’s an interresting thought.

P.S. WOW this place has changed!

[Carleas]

Uccisore, I think there’s some equivocation surrounding “possible worlds”. Possible worlds aren’t defined by anything you can think of, or even anything you can express. It’s perfectly consistent to maintain the reality of possible worlds without maintaining the reality of any expressible world. And here, I’m not suggesting any system under which a possible world might exist for which no possible worlds exist.
The possible worlds theory I’m advocating is that all worlds that could result from the collapse of a probability wave function, in fact exists. That doesn’t entail that any time I say “might”, there are a bouquet of possible worlds that exist for that situation, and that doesn’t require an ad hoc patch to remove the contradiction entails: I don’t believe that the non-existence of possible worlds is possible result of the collapse of a wave function, so that isn’t a possible world that needs to be rectified.

Mad Man, I’m not a Materialist because it’s comforting (though I think I’m right, and that’s comforting), but everyone needs some comfort. I thought the issue of death was something that religion has a lot of comforting things to say about, but I don’t think Materialism should concede the point just yet. Along with everything else it has, Materialism can be comforting, too.