Existence - an unusual perspective

[sadman710]

I do have the perception that once we are gone it's "like the way it was before we were born", just nothingness. But the nothingness seems more of an erosion of the ego at the core.

There are a few things that pop into my mind that make me have doubts.

A. Our reality is shaped by our brains, with limited perceptions because we are controlled by senses and chemicals. Could higher evolved organisms see things in a way we can't?
B. When you pass, in reality what happens is your chemicals and genes are spread around in a sense. Mold, bacteria, insects, etc finish you off and distribute your material. So are you really "gone" in a way?
C. The idea of plant cloning makes me question this a lot too. If you rip off a branch, an exact genetic copy is produced, and in theory could go on forever. So even though one plant might die and be harvested, its exact self goes on forever.

Any thoughts?

 

[INTJme]

A. Our reality is shaped by our perception, which is indeed a part of the brain, but our perception is not just controlled by senses and chemicals. Our perception or how we react to things is shaped by both our genes and our learnings from experiences.
Not just higher evolved beings, even we can see things in a way we previously couldn't as long as our perceptions change, which is what therapy and medication try to do. So then, why do they often fail? Because getting to the root of the problem is no easy task and there's only so much you can do if the issue is genetic.

B. We're not our body and it's only our body that gets distributed/decomposed. Our consciousness is a beautiful thing but physicality is just a part of it. There are unexplained phenomena that we don't fully understand yet causing our meta-cognition. We're an anomaly of sorts on this planet. So when we switch off, we're really gone or at least that's how I think it goes.

C. You've stumbled upon the "Ship of Theseus" paradox. Highly recommend everyone reading up on the thought experiment if you don't already know about it! My take is... similar to the above argument that we're not our bodies, we merely have one. So when we're gone, we won't come back, at least not with the same body or circumstances. Because everything can be replicated/cloned except time. The tree branch example you mentioned also has to respect time. If you were to be born again in a hundred years' time, you'd still be different.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Animals perceive the world differently to us. They even experience time in a different way to us. It's hard to imagine what their lives 'feel' like. We can imagine pain and fear- of course and we can perceive that animals experience those emotions too- as well as nicer ones. But, as for how they think about their lives, we have no idea- which is where I find it problematic when we control their lives. Factory farming and even the promortalist idea that everything would be better off dead. How do we know? Jelly fish may be having a grand old time.

Sure, when we die, we rot or burn or feed insects. Our physical energy in the form of fat, protein etc. is transfered but, as for living on, kind of depends what you believe I suppose. Didn't cannibals believe they would inherit the strength of their enemies if they ate them? If you eat a chicken, does that chicken become a part of you- and others presumably- if you didn't eat the whole thing? I'd say once we've been gobbled up by insects or burnt, we've been changed beyond recognition. But sure- I guess atoms of us remain somewhere.

That's interesting. I've never really thought about that with plants. But still- we can't regenerate ourselves. The plant can still die though can't it? It's just whether someone took a cutting from it earlier as to whether it will live on. Or- if it produced seeds or fruits that propogated. I actually don't know if a plant grown from a cutting is an exact replica of the parent plant. I guess it would be. How does evolution work there then? I guess growing a plant from a cutting is more of a human intervention though.