What do atheists think of death?

A common train of thought among some of the atheists I know seems to be that the root cause of religion is a fear of death. People generally want to believe that their minds don't just disappear after death and so are more likely to practice a religion that tells them what they want to hear. I have heard conversations between atheists and religious people that go something like this. Religious person: "well what do you think happens after you die"? Atheist: "Nothing, I'll just stop existing. That sucks, but since there's no evidence of the supernatural, that's the most logical outcome."My question to atheists is, assuming you're right and the universe is entirely governed by logic with no supernatural phenomena, why does it follow that when you die you will no longer exist? A counterexample would be that if the universe is sufficiently large or infinite (which is certainly possible according to what is known of current cosmology unless I am well off my mark), then assuming the laws of physics are roughly constant over large distances, it is inevitable that you also exist elsewhere. Then when you die you will still exist, just in a different location.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Changed topic title from "A question for atheists" to "What do atheists think of death?".

Hello Adminnemooseus. I would be glad to change the title to whatever you think appropriate. Is this something an admin has to do? Perhaps something like "What do atheists think of death"?As for the content perhaps I should rephrase. The topic I intended to address is "If you assume no supernatural influences, is it inevitable that when you die (pick a reasonable non-supernatural definition of 'you') you will cease to exist?" I think this question is interesting because the answer has religious implications, which are what I was trying to get at in my first paragraph. It seems to me that a desire to continue to exist drives a lot of people to believe in the supernatural. But the real content I wanted to address is in the second paragraph. If you don't think that topic is interesting, then feel free to not promote it.As I tried to get at in my first post, I do not think it is at all inevitable that a person will cease to exist when they die, even in the absence of supernatural influences. Only one sufficiently large universe and the laws of statistics are necessary for my counterexample ... having multiple universes would be quite optional.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Footnote from Adminnemooseus - Topic title changes are done via editing message 1. That can be done by the topic originator. In this case, I made the change.

That stands to reason. I probably was putting a bit too simply. Well, perhaps some of those things may be possible using as yet undiscovered science. However, I would argue that continuing to exist after death is inevitable under currently understood science as well if the universe is large enough. I think bluegenes understands what I'm getting at. Let me explain what I mean in more detail.The first question is how do you define yourself? Assuming no soul, a very restrictive definition would be the precise arrangement of molecules that make up your body, where the positions and kinetic energies are specified down to a very high degree of accuracy. By that definition, of course, I am not the same person from one key stroke to the next, but even with such a restrictive definition my argument should still hold. If you could somehow build that same collection of molecules with the same relative positions and energies somewhere else, that collection *would be you* by this definition. It would think it was you, and there would be no scientific way to distinguish it from you.Next, cosmology has not restricted the size of the universe with any certainty as far as I know. If the universe is extremely large (unimaginably larger than the visible universe), somewhere in it these molecules will form themselves into the proper arrangement to be *you*. This would even happen if the only way for it to occur was by the random motions of molecules bumping into each other, although it would be much more likely to develop through evolution on an earth-like planet somewhere else. The probability for this to happen is astronomically small, but not zero. So if the universe is infinite, there are then an infinite number of you's out there. I would not say any of these you's are living in an afterlife, but it is true that when the you on earth dies, you will still exist.Gotta go. I'll have to make the other replies later.

Agreed. I often use "atheist" to mean someone who disbelieves in supernatural phenomena when I really shouldn't. Is there a better term for this? Why aren't your replicas you? If you take my example, where the replicas have a chemical structure where each molecule is arranged with identical position and momentum to yours (down to the limitations imposed by quantum uncertainty), what scientific test could possibly distinguish it from you? I don't believe that this scenario is true. I don't believe that it isn't true either. I found this concept interesting, so I brought it up. Hopefully I won't overflow any brains.

Assuming the positions and momenta of the particles are set up in an identical manner, what you describe will follow, as will all other electromagnetic phenomena. Nope, never been to that forum. As to the quote you pasted, I am afraid I don't know enough biology/chemistry to agree or disagree. If by remote you mean that the replica would be unimaginably far away and have no chance of interacting with you then I agree. If by remote you mean that it is unlikely that a replica would exist then I disagree. It all depends on how large the universe is. In a large enough universe the replica must exist. Since I don't have the knowledge to calculate the probability that the universe has a given size (nor does anyone, I think), I see no reason to assume this scenario is far fetched. As for why it should matter to you, I can't say. There is one particular atheist I have talked to in real life who was convinced that when he died, there would be no more "him" anywhere. He found this scenario interesting. For my part, I think it would be awesome if there were other me's out there, regardless of whether I could interact with them. Perhaps that's just my own arrogance talking. As for the last several paragraphs of your post, I agree with what you say here.

Perhaps you can define "you" in a way where my argument would not work without involving the supernatural? Under the restrictive definition of "you" that I used, the replica is "you". Unless you involve some absolute position coordinates within the universe I don't think it will work. I agree that this is largely an exercise in probability. Is that bad?

Sure. Just think about all the particles that make up your body. If you cloned the properties of each of those particles ... the relevant properties being their position relative to the other particles, and how fast and in what direction they were moving (momenta), then that clone would be identical to you in all respects. This assumes there is no such thing as a soul, or any other supernatural aspect to who "you" are. There are complications to this definition involving quantum uncertainty, but they're not really relevant to the point. Yep. Memories and personality are encoded somehow in the body. I really don't know enough biology/chemistry to say how it is done, but such a clone would have the same memories and personality as you do.

Where else could that information possibly be kept? We're assuming nothing supernatural here, and any other conclusion would get us into some absolutely ridiculous sci-fi scenario.

At some point this is probably just going to degenerate into an argument about semantics, but I'll push a little bit farther. Assuming those water molecules are both "normal" water molecules (that is: the molecule is in its ground state, none of their atoms are in an excited state, and there are no extra neutrons), the two molecules are identical in every possible way, except in their location. I would say this makes them the same molecule, just like I would not say I am a different person just because I am in my kitchen instead of in my office at work.And so, I think I will stick to my point. Any other bluegenes that may randomly exist in the universe will be the same as you, and if the only way to distinguish the two of you is based on location, I would claim he (she?) is you. You’re welcome to use a different definition of “is you” if you want, I just don’t think such a definition would be useful.

I like the terms naturalist and physicalist, but I think I'll avoid materialist. Feels like I'd be saying someone likes to shop. I would say that's the point where death becomes an ambiguous term. I suppose I would say that the original person "died", but who cares? what matters is that they exist. The sci-fi scenario you mention also sounds interesting. I might look up those books the next time I am looking for something lite to read.

Picky, picky, picky. Sure, when I'm dying of some disease I would have to admit that there might be other me's out there that are also dying of this disease. If so, then there are probably also creaters out there that are identical to what I used to be when I was healthier as well.

Having the surroundings be very similar is the most likely scenario. In a sufficiently large universe, of course, you will also have bluegenes's forming spontaneously in completely different types of places, such as in the void of space as the result of random particle condensation ... but they would be in the extreme minority. Such bluegenes should be pitied, for they would most likely have a fast, confused, and painful death ahead of them. Certainly, identical bluegenes in other locations would only be exactly identical for an instant, after which their properties would change relative to one another as you say. Agreed. Perhaps there are no deep religious implications here at all. I still think it's kind of cool to think about though.

I don't disagree that the probability is fantastically small, but that doesn't matter if the universe is even more fantastically big. And it very well might be, for all we know. Just remember that in an infinite universe, everything with a non-zero probability will happen an infinite number of times ... even the things with probabilities fantastically close to zero.

Oh, boy. I was afraid someone might bring that up. Time for the complications . I agree that the relativistic combination of time+3space is probably closer to the true nature of things than the common sense way in which most of us think about space and time, and your way of not considering a person to not really be left behind at the time of their temporal death seems like a valid perspective. I could also modify my example so that instead of saying "there might be other you's existing even after you die", it goes "there could be other you's out there experiencing different parts of the universe at some other location in spacetime". That would actually make things easier because it would reduce the necessary spatial size of the universe for the argument to hold. Hell, if the universe turns out to be stable over time (no big crunch, big rip, or heat death ... don't know how that could be possible), then the necessary spatial size would drop to zero.Or I could just stick with my original example and be more specific. "There may be other you's out there at some spatial coordinate and at the same time as you, according to your frame of reference". Thinking about philosophy in terms of relativity is fun, but also tough, at least for my small mind.*Whew*. I think I'm finally caught up in responses, but I'll have less time on my hands the next couple of days, so if things keep up at this rate I may just have to drop out for a bit.

Since I don't understand the theoretical physics behind the multiple universe hypotheses I try to avoid them. I am just thinking about our own universe. Cosmologists/astrophysicists have determined that the observable universe is at least ~90 billion light years across, but the unobservable universe may be infinite, at least if wikipedia is to be believed.If *this* universe does turn out to be sufficiently large or infinite, and if the principles of physics do not change significantly over large scales, then it is inevitable that other me's must exist. That is the point I am trying to make. No parallel universes are needed, though if they do exist, they would only make the argument more likely to be correct. Does that make sense?