where does consciousness "go" when you die

[Travis]

It goes absolutely nowhere. You return to pre-birth stage.

 

[ladylazarus4]

With the question about the brain rearranging- technically, yes, it is possible. But the chance is so low that it is functionally impossible. The brain is incredibly complex and we don't understand it completely. It is so much more complex than Hamlet.

And to the original question- I think it is very unlikely that our consciousness persists. If our thoughts exist inside our brains (provable), then they won't exist after we're dead.

 

[Antinous]

It's easy to sell a dream to a dreamer. A more productive use of effort and time would be to read science based material. E.g., How the Mind Works (1997) by Steven Pinker; Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (2022) by Anil Seth.

 

[DarkRange55]

Infinite monkey theorem - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I feel like what I'm arguing is kind of similar to this

On a quantum level, everything appears to be reversible

 

[euphoric_freak]

Physics is a lot nicer if its laws don't cause the loss of information. That's not to say that we know for sure all information in the universe is conserved, there are quite a few paradoxes that are being worked through related to black holes and information. But if information is conserved in the universe, then some interesting (to me) philosophical implications follow.

If no information is lost, then it means that if some perfect machine for simulating the universe were to be given a complete snapshot of the state of the universe at some time, it would be able to "retrace" the steps to reconstruct any previous or future state of the universe. If this is true, it follows that the structure of the mind and body, just like anything else, are eternally encoded into the universe's state. In a way, by mere existence, one is writing themselves into the fabric of the universe. I think that's pretty neat.

Of course, no perfect machine can ever exist, and in the confines of the laws of the universe, I don't think anyone can be recreated perfectly. Furthermore even if some advanced civilization were to perfectly reconstruct you for shits and giggles, would it even be you in there?

 

[DarkRange55]

Physics is a lot nicer if its laws don't cause the loss of information. That's not to say that we know for sure all information in the universe is conserved, there are quite a few paradoxes that are being worked through related to black holes and information. But if information is conserved in the universe, then some interesting (to me) philosophical implications follow.

If no information is lost, then it means that if some perfect machine for simulating the universe were to be given a complete snapshot of the state of the universe at some time, it would be able to "retrace" the steps to reconstruct any previous or future state of the universe. If this is true, it follows that the structure of the mind and body, just like anything else, are eternally encoded into the universe's state. In a way, by mere existence, one is writing themselves into the fabric of the universe. I think that's pretty neat.

Of course, no perfect machine can ever exist, and in the confines of the laws of the universe, I don't think anyone can be recreated perfectly. Furthermore even if some advanced civilization were to perfectly reconstruct you for shits and giggles, would it even be you in there?

Physics is a lot nicer if its laws don't cause the loss of information. That's not to say that we know for sure all information in the universe is conserved, there are quite a few paradoxes that are being worked through related to black holes and information.

From our perspective, nothing ever makes it into a black hole due to time dilation. So from our perspective, does the paradox actually exist?

But if information is conserved in the universe, then some interesting (to me) philosophical implications follow.

If no information is lost, then it means that if some perfect machine for simulating the universe were to be given a complete snapshot of the state of the universe at some time, it would be able to "retrace" the steps to reconstruct any previous or future state of the universe.

Not necessarily. There may be more than one past that leads to the same current state.

If this is true, it follows that the structure of the mind and body, just like anything else, are eternally encoded into the universe's state. In a way, by mere existence, one is writing themselves into the fabric of the universe. I think that's pretty neat.

Agreed.

Of course, no perfect machine can ever exist, and in the confines of the laws of the universe, I don't think anyone can be recreated perfectly. Furthermore even if some advanced civilization were to perfectly reconstruct you for whatever reason, would it even be you in there?

You would think it is. You might even be in that situation now...

 

[casual_existence]

Well the question isn't nearly as complicated as you might think. It can pretty much be rephraed as "Can we be brought back to life?" It's unclear exactly where you as a person are. It could ve the case that the universe as it is now is necessary to produce you as you are though considering the speed of causality it's unlikely. So maybe locally it's necessary which makes being brought back to life more feasible. Yet this also has its issues one of them being that it certainly won't happen spontaneously. Entropy could potentially allow it but we aren't one state. We're a massive series of sets and it's always changing and each state is dependent on each other. The probabilities that you mentioned are not just too big they're not even close to the real probability which practically might as well be zero. Infinite time doesn't save you because as far as we know the universe is expanding and so at some point all probable configurations of matter will tend to zero.

Quantam mechanics might save this but it's unclear how. Perhaps in another universe you'll exist again but all split universes follow the laws of physics as far as we know so the situation above also applies. Maybe split universes can have different rules but at that point it's not clear what would happen.

What about time travel? Time travel significantly complicates things and important questions start to crop up that don't really have answers in a universe where time moves "forward".

Let's say for a moment that the universe can have arbitrary rules that can change arbitrarily but importantly for every moment that you are aware the rules remain fixed such that you are capable of witnessing a well behaved universe. In such a reality things quickly fall apart such that inconsistencies are inevitable and so we would have to deny it because they don't happen in our reality.

 

[SweetItalianS]

Well the question isn't nearly as complicated as you might think. It can pretty much be rephraed as "Can we be brought back to life?" It's unclear exactly where you as a person are. It could ve the case that the universe as it is now is necessary to produce you as you are though considering the speed of causality it's unlikely. So maybe locally it's necessary which makes being brought back to life more feasible. Yet this also has its issues one of them being that it certainly won't happen spontaneously. Entropy could potentially allow it but we aren't one state. We're a massive series of sets and it's always changing and each state is dependent on each other. The probabilities that you mentioned are not just too big they're not even close to the real probability which practically might as well be zero. Infinite time doesn't save you because as far as we know the universe is expanding and so at some point all probable configurations of matter will tend to zero.

Quantam mechanics might save this but it's unclear how. Perhaps in another universe you'll exist again but all split universes follow the laws of physics as far as we know so the situation above also applies. Maybe split universes can have different rules but at that point it's not clear what would happen.

What about time travel? Time travel significantly complicates things and important questions start to crop up that don't really have answers in a universe where time moves "forward".

Let's say for a moment that the universe can have arbitrary rules that can change arbitrarily but importantly for every moment that you are aware the rules remain fixed such that you are capable of witnessing a well behaved universe. In such a reality things quickly fall apart such that inconsistencies are inevitable and so we would have to deny it because they don't happen in our reality.

I like how you started with - well the question isn't nearly as complicated as you might think... - and then ended with arbitrary rules of the universe xD

 

[treestumpbootsneo]

You either exist as a pattern or you don't. If the pattern can be reformed your consciousness will resume. It doesn't have to be biological.

 

[frog problems]

Write a story on a piece of paper and then burn it. Where did the story go?

 

[itswhatits]

People tend to think of consciousness either as a discrete unit, confined to itself (i.e., a soul, or something similar) or as a emergent phenomena of material reality, just the result of the chemistry of your brain. I tend to take a third option.

What if it isn't that nothing is truly conscious, and everything is just the result of atomic billiard balls bouncing around, but that everything is conscious? You, other people, the animals, the plants, down to the rocks and dirt on the ground? What if consciousness isn't this blip in a vast void of unconscious nothingness, but is all around you -- perhaps in forms too alien to interact with, or understand, but there nonetheless?

I can never really bring myself to deny the fact that I am conscious, because as long as there is an "I" to deny it, there is consciousness. Descartes, "I think therefor I am", and all of that. Likewise, in spite of arguments about how all human action is determined, I experience myself as being able to make choices. Maybe not always the choices I'd like to make, and maybe influenced by my past, my mood, my fears, and such, but I can still choose. I went into the woods yesterday, swung branches at trees as hard as I could, because I chose to, not because I was conditioned to. To prove I was a man, and not a piano-key, as Dostoyevsky said.

This is the article that first introduced me to the idea of panpsychism. It's by David Graeber, who wrote Bullshit Jobs and Debt: The First 5000 Years. Fantastic writer, very fascinating man, passed away a couple years back before he could finish another one of his books.

 

[maylurker]

nothing physical "disappears" does it? like when you blow out a flame, the hydrogen and carbon exists, just in a different form?

but it is different for the non physical? when you sleep, where does your consciousness go? and the same when you die?

consciousness cant go it has no legs

 

[ceelobling]

We don't know. Unless someone has physical proof of what happens to our consciousness we don't know. I'd prefer our consciousness to disappear when we die.

 

[Abort!]

I personally find reincarnation to be a rather metaphysically plausible answer. You basically popped up out of nowhere. If another sperm met your mothers egg, "you" (if consciousness is dependent on the aforementioned variable) would have never been born. That goes for your entire lineage, all the way down the chain.

This would technically require some flavor of an infinite universe to be plausible, but if you take that theory (you're consciousness being dependent on the sperm which won) to be true, the chances of "you" being born is something truly astronomical like 10²⁵⁶ million. (Don't qoute me there, forgot the exact number. It is insane though.)

This is why I personally find reincarnation, and therefore an infinite cyclic universe, to be one of the more plausible explanations. If we beat those odds once, who's to say we won't again? But then again, nobody really knows. It's a rather terrifying to think about really. Perhaps it is a one-off thing. Anybody who claims to know is most likely being disingenuous or deceived imo.

Disclaimer:

The appeal of reincarnation here isn't moral or spiritual. It's that under infinite trials, even vanishingly unlikely events recur.

 

[itsgone2]

Consciousness is interesting because it can't be denied. But what is it? It doesn't seem physically made of anything. Perhaps it dies with us, but what if it doesn't. What if we retain consciousness somehow. Kind of terrifying.

 

[Liebestod]

It ceases permanently.

 

[Unlucky777]

The scariest thought I've ever had is "what if after we die the consciousness lives on forever?"

Not sure how the hell I came to that conclusion but it terrifies me if that were to be true. That would be really fucked up.