It would suck if the final act of existence were painful decline, followed by eternal oblivion. It could well be the case, but I'm glad that if it is, I'll never know about it.
A logical should would be something like if I were to die I would spend an eternity in ceaseless boredom. That would be a reason to avoid death. Otherwise it is just a false anticipation, like jumping off a high rock when you know it is perfectly safe. I try to eliminate that from my life if I can, which is the rational course of action. I think this is the psychological basis of thrill seeking.
If you look at your own decision making process, you'll see that this procedure is how you also shape your psychological reactions. Say you really dreaded a certain event, such as moving out of your parents house. Then, when the time came, you found you could handle yourself alright. With that knowledge in the back of your mind, you no longer dread similar situations as much. I'm just making this process explicit in how I think about life.
Even if you don't know for certain that there is or is not "existence after death", are you saying you live your life believing in that possibility?
It's all extremely unlikely, and it's irrational to believe in it with the faith that a lot of the singularitarian atheists do.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a 150-year or longer lifespan-- in fact, it's probable that the first 150-year-old will be born before I die-- but mind-uploading makes no sense. How are we going to upload something when we don't know what it, physically, is... or even whether or not it's physical? Cryonics has the same issue, because there's no reason to believe the consciousness "sticks around" waiting to reawaken in that corpse.
no reason to believe the consciousness "sticks around" waiting to reawaken in that corpse.
That's different. Your consciousness continues while you sleep, although you usually lose all awareness, mindfulness, and capacity to form memories. There are, however, yogis who are able to remain aware of their cognitive processes during both dream and deep sleep.
However, when a person is dead, the general consensus seems to be that the consciousness has left the body-- it's either elsewhere, or it has ceased to exist entirely. If the materialist explanation of consciousness is correct, then it's plausible that "someone" will awaken when your body is resurrected and will have your memories, but it won't be you, because you won't exist to be experiencing it.
However, when a person is dead, the general consensus seems to be that the consciousness has left the body
If the materialist explanation of consciousness is correct, then it's plausible that "someone" will awaken when your body is resurrected and will have your memories, but it won't be you, because you won't exist to be experiencing it.
But it isn't quite right to say it will be me. Rather, I will be it. I wont waken when my body is resurrected, when my body is thawed and jump started, the processes that are me will be running again. An animated body is a thinking body and this particular body is me. I am not a thing that exists separately from my neurological processes, "I" am the result of the neurological processes.
Long code sections like the one above force me to have to repeatedly scroll horizontally to read the thread.
Wrapping the quoted material in asterisks will italicize it, which seems to be a better option.
I don't know if there's an existence after death, though I think there probably is one, and I consider myself lucky to believe this, for if I'm wrong, I'll never know. What's horrible about annihilation/nonexistence isn't any experience of it-- there is none, by definition-- but the rather hideous shadow the prospect, were it true, would cast over life.