psood0nym
Bluelighter
The best discussion of this I've read comes from Derek Parfit's "Reasons and Persons." He uses a thought experiment to demonstrate that there is no such thing as personal identity, at least not in any traditional sense. If there is no identity, there is nothing to “go on” after death. The extremely abridged version of his thought experiment goes as follows:
There are people who have suffered strokes who lose nearly an entire hemisphere of their brain yet retain their essential characters and memories. Though most people have asymmetrical brains, a minority of people have more symmetrical brains, and so a perfectly symmetrical brain, with the same memories and character traits encoded on each side, is possible. Therefore, given advanced technology, it is within the realm of possibility to transfer one hemisphere of a symmetrical-brained person into an exact clone of that person’s body while retaining the essential character and memories of the person in BOTH. Traditionally the soul contributes something to character, and cannot be 'split' -- it is an "all-or-none" entity.
So which one did the soul go into and why? Both emerging entities are essentially the same at the level of experience (which is what matters) and appearance. Each would have one continuous memory of an operation taking place, opening their eyes, and feeling as though nothing had changed. If one of the pair dies, nothing changes. Put them back together after a few years and the resulting entity will have the memories and experiences of both! When you die your unique experience is gone, unless your exact brain state is somehow replicated/resurrected. It doesn’t matter that much though because "you" never existed in the first place and experience continues.
As far as the phenomenology of non-being is concerned, I find what a certain breed of panexperientialism entails plausible, which states that subjectivity -- the "what it is like to be-ness" of our existence -- is inherent at all levels of matter, not just brains and bodies. This entails even sub-atomic particles possess some sort of inherent subjectivity of being, though it is most likely totally incomprehensible for us to imagine such a state of being as we are the most complex physical systems in the known universe. The qualitative experience of a lone carbon atom, for instance, is different from bound carbon atoms in graphite, which is in turn different from bound carbon atoms in diamonds, as the quality of experience in the panexperientialist philosophy I'm referring to is contingent on both the type and arrangement of matter. Likewise CO2 has a different quality of subjective experienece, and on up through cells and organs and bodies and brains. The real mystery of this view to my mind is not how subjectivity arises from nothing, as it exists everywhere, but how the special configurations of neurons and bioelectrical activity UNIFY or compound trillions of organic molecules, each with their own experience, into a semi-autonomous self-aware ego. I think when we die there will still be experience, but it won't be of ourselves or of anything we can conceive from the perspective of our human selves.
There are people who have suffered strokes who lose nearly an entire hemisphere of their brain yet retain their essential characters and memories. Though most people have asymmetrical brains, a minority of people have more symmetrical brains, and so a perfectly symmetrical brain, with the same memories and character traits encoded on each side, is possible. Therefore, given advanced technology, it is within the realm of possibility to transfer one hemisphere of a symmetrical-brained person into an exact clone of that person’s body while retaining the essential character and memories of the person in BOTH. Traditionally the soul contributes something to character, and cannot be 'split' -- it is an "all-or-none" entity.
So which one did the soul go into and why? Both emerging entities are essentially the same at the level of experience (which is what matters) and appearance. Each would have one continuous memory of an operation taking place, opening their eyes, and feeling as though nothing had changed. If one of the pair dies, nothing changes. Put them back together after a few years and the resulting entity will have the memories and experiences of both! When you die your unique experience is gone, unless your exact brain state is somehow replicated/resurrected. It doesn’t matter that much though because "you" never existed in the first place and experience continues.
As far as the phenomenology of non-being is concerned, I find what a certain breed of panexperientialism entails plausible, which states that subjectivity -- the "what it is like to be-ness" of our existence -- is inherent at all levels of matter, not just brains and bodies. This entails even sub-atomic particles possess some sort of inherent subjectivity of being, though it is most likely totally incomprehensible for us to imagine such a state of being as we are the most complex physical systems in the known universe. The qualitative experience of a lone carbon atom, for instance, is different from bound carbon atoms in graphite, which is in turn different from bound carbon atoms in diamonds, as the quality of experience in the panexperientialist philosophy I'm referring to is contingent on both the type and arrangement of matter. Likewise CO2 has a different quality of subjective experienece, and on up through cells and organs and bodies and brains. The real mystery of this view to my mind is not how subjectivity arises from nothing, as it exists everywhere, but how the special configurations of neurons and bioelectrical activity UNIFY or compound trillions of organic molecules, each with their own experience, into a semi-autonomous self-aware ego. I think when we die there will still be experience, but it won't be of ourselves or of anything we can conceive from the perspective of our human selves.
