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Author | Topic: Eternal Life (thanks, but no thanks) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2698 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Modulous.
I certainly agree with you that an eternity of praising God with trumpets or lounging with 72 virgins feeding me grapes is an extremely anti-climactic way to reward my good service in my mortal life. However, there is something I disagree with you on.
Modulous writes: The me aged eighteen can be said to be 'dead' since it doesn't really exist any more. It has been replaced with me aged twenty eight. If I have eternal life and I grow and change, I will be so radically different by the age of five hundred, what difference would it make to my twenty eight year old self if that five hundred year old person exists? I would care if that person exists because, even if that person is very different in personality from me, he is still the same as me in perspective. To me, my physical senses are closer to the phenomenon I consider "self" than is my personality. My personality, my opinions and my values will surely change several times in my life, but I will still always see through my own eyes. To me, that's what I consider "myself," and that's the phenomenon that I would want perpetuated throughout eternity. Edited by Bluejay, : Too much in the quote box. -Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2698 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Modulous.
Modulous writes: It sounds like you are arguing in favour of experiential continuity as a definition of identity (or something akin to it). To provide an analogy courtesy of Shelly Kagan... I should have suspected that there were people who specialize on stuff like this. And that they had special terminology for it, too. -----
Modulous writes: If we were to duplicate Bluejay perfectly - which of the two Bluejays has the perspective that present day Bluejay wants to preserve? Both of them?Or, is there anyway for the Bluejay 'perspective' to no longer exist, but for all other elements of Bluejay's personality to continue? Can Bluejay's personality and values change so greatly that the 'perspective' is no longer Bluejay's? Subjective reasoning is very difficult. I assume that, if we were to create two identical Bluejays in the future, each would see himself as experientially continuous with present Bluejay (unless one was created without incorporating the original Bluejay's experiences, somehow). I can't imagine that the two would both be somehow bound into one "self," so I imagine that separate, subjective perspectives will continue in both individuals, and each will perceive the world as the same "self" phenomenon as I do now, but neither will experience the other's perspective. This is too confusing to continue right now. I'll try to post again sometime after I've developed enough perspective to work through this. -Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2698 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, John.
John 10:10 writes: The chief aim for those who enter into relationship with Him is for us to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I have often heard this. Most often, I have heard "glorify" Him interpreted as singing songs. For eternity. You don't think we'll get bored of that eventually? I even get tired of Bon Jovi after awhile. -Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2698 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Modulous.
Modulous writes: I hope to see if Bluejay or cavediver have any ideas. I apologize for taking so long on this. I have tried multiple times to formulate a response that would contribute somehow to the discussion, but it keeps coming out as really bizarre gibberish that I am frankly embarrassed to post, even under the anonymity of the internet. Because my comprehension is so significantly dependent on the phenomenon that I think of as my “self,” I am not afforded the capacity to fathom what a universe without my “self” in it would be like, so I am at a loss to definitively answer any dilemma about the consequences of the existence or non-existence of my “self.” Thus, I am completely unable to render an appropriate response to your argument that perpetuating a mutable “self” will eventually end in the dissolution of that “self.” If the “self” is me, I just don’t see how it could ever cease to be me. Sure, things change regularly: I could not accurately describe myself as the same person I was ten years ago. All future Bluejays will likely also differ from right-now Bluejay, and from each other, and there may be a long succession of different Bluejays before the sequence comes to an end. But, so far, there has always been a common thread that unites all Bluejays together. That common thread, the experiential continuity, seems to be the only phenomenon that is actually identifiable with “myself” by any standard that holds any sort of meaning to me. I’m afraid I simply cannot wrap my brain around the concept of this phenomenon transforming into or being replaced by another, just as I’m unable to fathom the sensation of “being Modulous” and reading this post for the first time. I can’t wrap my brain around the concept of this phenomenon of “self” actually coming to an end, or of a universe that exists independent of my own existence. And finally, I also cannot wrap my brain around the concept of existence "outside of time." My perspective reaches a singularity at these points. I just don’t know what else to say about this. -Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2698 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Modulous.
Modulous writes: ...if you showed me who I was in a million years and said see Mod survives his bodily death... I might be tempted to say 'So what?', since it doesn't give me what matters (all traces of this Mod have long gone). I think I would feel differently. But, your basic dilemma seems to be real: either you always remain the same, or you change into something else. I can certainly understand why you would consider this a problem. To me, changing into something else doesn't seem as disturbing as perhaps it seems to you (though I suppose it would have to depend on what I change into). But then, as a Mormon, I have always been taught that such a transformation is the entire point of my existence, so perhaps I have been conditioned for acceptance of that. ----- I gather that you are mostly indifferent towards the perpetuation of the Modulous "experiential continuity"? -Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2698 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Modulous.
Modulous writes: In fact - if you showed me who I was in a million years and said see Mod survives his bodily death... I might be tempted to say 'So what?', since it doesn't give me what matters (all traces of this Mod have long gone). I don't want to drag your thread into the interminable "can someone see the future?" debate (Straggler has done a nice job making sure that has been addressed in other threads), but I wanted to perhaps add a tiny snippet of my personal perspective on that issue with my personal perspective on this issue. Like Straggler, I think that showing me the future changes everything. In this case, it disrupts the whole concept of experiential continuity (which is my viewpoint on "self"), which requires that future Bluejay be a culmination of all past Bluejays. Thus, when right-now Bluejay is shown what will, in essence, replace him in the future, it does not preserve the continuity, and the resulting response would obviously be the same indifference you would feel toward some other person you’ve never met, as you have suggested. But I don't think seeing oneself in the future is the same as being oneself in the future. It still provides only a third-person view. If I was able to see right-now Bluejay from someone else's point of view, I might very well disapprove of what I saw (some people have proven this, in fact). But, because I see the universe as right-now Bluejay, I feel that right-now Bluejay is worth preserving. So, what I see as right-now Bluejay is only relevant right now. What if you were instead given the opportunity, not to see future Modulous, but the see the universe as future Modulous? While “being” future Modulous, would you be less concerned about personal safety than you are while “being” right-now Modulous? Or, right now, could you see yourself saying, "So what?" about right-now Modulous? If your dilemma is real, you’d have to expect that you’ll reach a point where right-now Modulous no longer cares about right-now Modulous. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s a dilemma. I’m not saying that that won’t happen (in fact, you’ve made a pretty good case for the likelihood of that happening), but, I think this is a better exposition of my perspective on immortality than what I have previously provided. I get the feeling that this will hardly be new to you, but I still think posting it will be of some benefit. -Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus Darwin loves you.
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