A Nothing For Each Existence

[universaldistress]

the implication here, whether you mean to make it or not, is that when 'you' cease to exist, so does everything else.

pov

 

[Big Chiller]

One of the reasons that I think belief in some sort of afterlife is so common is because once we exist, it's impossible to imagine not existing. It's like trying to imagine absolute nothingness, which isn't anything at all, and as such there's nothing to imagine. So when we think beyond our death, we instinctively reject the absurdity of nothingness. This may be philosophically justifiable if what we imagine is simply the existence of something by virtue of the impossibility of nothingness, but it's far less justifiable when what we imagine is the continuation of both something and our own conscious awareness of it. All one has to do is think in the reverse chronological direction back to a time beyond one's birth to recognize that the nonexistence of one's own conscious awareness is possible. So we must, as rational human beings, be prepared to consider that the absurdity of our own nonexistence is only apparent rather than real.

This is not an issue at all when it comes to afterlife imo. The afterlife contention is if we exist the way we do then why can't we exist without end but that doesn't mean that we were not non-existent.

 

[Big Chiller]

That's not how I think anymore. I think that we didn't exist before we were born, so if we don't exist when we die then we are simply born again (since nothing has no time and is beyond time and space). Same thing would simply happen the next time you become nothing. Otherwise your life is a lie. Truth must defeat nothing.


Let me tell you this again:

*nothing* life *nothing*

That the other *nothing* is after life doesn't mean a thing, as before/after is irrelevant. *nothing* is outside of time and it doesn't matter what happens before or after. If you were nothing "before" you were born, then you will be born "after" you die - as yourself, living your life again, exactly the same.

You exist where you can and this is exactly where you are. That's where you can exist. That's the truth. If your life would change even a bit that would make your life a lie.

That is logical and true if our current knowledge is correct that we were nothing and becomes nothing after death. This is also a indication that there is a nothing for each existence.

I agree that the concepts of before and after when suggested literally can only be part of existence. Having said that we cannot literally become nothing which is more clearly understood as we either cannot become anything or we can become something.

 

[Cyperium]

It is a lump of matter right now. I think your sense of self is misplaced here. It is only an illusion. If they would clone you 10 times, all of your clones would think they have a unique 'selveness'.

Then there isn't anything in our body that makes us unique as ourselves. I could very well have been you and you could very well have been me. Like teleportation where you don't destroy the original, there would be two you's exactly identical but with unique selves. If we accept that then the 'self' cannot be a part of the body configuration (it's only a part of the body in this thread because that seems to be the accepted view). Wether or not it is a part of the body configuration or is a 'soul' or anything else for that matter doesn't matter for this thread or for my idea, since it only requires that we are nothing before we exist and nothing after we die.

That is a contradiction. Your mind is a product of your brain (which is a part of your body). Ultimately it is your physical body that makes 'you' exist. 'You' is like the pattern I drew in the sand.

You say 'your' brain, but it is only 'my' brain if it draws that pattern, if it drew your pattern instead then it would be 'your' brain instead. The only thing you are arguing about is how I am manifested in the brain, but that has no implications whether my idea is true or false.

Again, the only requirement that my idea needs, is that we are nothing before we were born and something after we die (in your own terms, if any brain in the world draws my pattern, or if no brain draws my pattern). This would mean that if a brain draws my pattern in the future (say a thousand years past my death) then I would exist there instead of being nothing. However, I came to realise that nothing isn't bound by time, and even though the observable universe moves along after my death, I am still at the very same spot that I were in before I was born. That is, time didn't move on for me, neither did it stop, instead I am before time (or after). When time itself were nothing. Even before the universe (or after), when the universe itself was nothing. That's where I am when I'm nothing. So that another pattern of me arrives in sequential order of the universe, doesn't mean that I will be present there, since I don't follow the sequential order when I'm nothing.

Why do you think it's problematic that the universe might continue to go about it's business even if you don't exist? Shouldn't that in fact be the default premise for anyone who accepts that there is an external world that exists independently of our own experience (or lack thereof) of it?

The world goes on without me, I said that it would. However, I (as I am nothing) don't follow the world anymore. I don't know anything about the sequential order that the world follows when I am 'nothing', there is no world if you could ask 'nothing', there is no time or space. What happened before or after is irrelevant.

Nothing is the closest to truth that we can ever come, cause if something starts to exist when it was nothing, then it will start to exist exactly the same way again when we are nothing. Why wouldn't it? There isn't any information that has changed in the perspective of 'nothing'. The world hasn't 'moved on' when it comes to 'nothing'. There are no world that nothing can relate to.

Think of it this way. Tomorrow, thousands of people will die. In fact according to one source that google just provided me with, it will probably be somewhere around 150,000. But in spite of that fact, I would imagine that you believe that the universe will continue to unfold, and that you will continue about your business. Those 150,000 (or so) people might indeed enter into some timeless void, and if they do indeed reemerge, how do you justify your assertion that it could happen in our past?

First of all, it isn't a timeless void, it's *nothing*, before the universe, before time, before you and before me. It is also what is after the universe, after time, after you and after me. It is the same *nothing* and if something happens so that we aren't *nothing* anymore, how could that ever change so that it becomes something different than the last time? There are no new information in *nothing* that could ever change what we become or what we are. Nothing can only produce the truth and how could the truth be different from the last time?

You presented a diagram to me, so let me do the same:

[ ] - this is nothing before we were born (the state we were in)
[ ] - this is nothing after we die (the state we become)

There are no difference, and nothing has no time or space, and isn't relative to any time or space. Nothing doesn't 'follow' the timeline of the universe, and hence even if the same configuration presents itself in the future (after I was dead) that must be a different me, as I can only ever become what I became last time I was nothing. Ask yourself, how can it be any different when nothing holds no information that can change?

I've heard lots of people say that. It's kind of a common-place among a certain kind of philosopher. Thomas Kuhn argued for it with his "paradigms", for example.

After all these years, I'm still undecided whether the assertion is meant metaphorically or literally. People adamantly insist that the idea is NOT merely that different people interpret and describe the same world in different ways. (That's kind of trivial.) But if the stronger assertion really is that we do literally occupy different realities, then how do we avoid all kinds of philosophical difficulties, including solipsism?

How is it that Christians and Muslims can argue with each other at all, or Newtonians or Einsteinians, if they literally occupy different universes? Do the different universes interact and communicate in some mysterious way? How do people with different religious or scientific ideas manage to work for the same employer, cheer for the same sports team or drink in the same bar?



Presumably our births didn't consist of reality just popping into existence from out of nothing. We were conceived by our parents having sex (yep, it's true) and our mothers were pregnant with us for approximately nine months before spewing us forth. There was a whole world, a whole universe, happily ticking along and doing its thing before we ever showed up.

In other words, in the realist scheme, we are embedded inside something that's larger than we are, something that isn't ultimately just us and our own psychological states. The causes that account for us are found in the prior states of that larger universe.

But it's true that modern post-Cartesian philosophy has assigned itself the (probably hopeless) task of someow constructing the rest of the universe from the contents of an individual's own subjective experience. Seen from that fundamentally subjective (and seemingly solipsistic) perspective in which 'to be is to be perceived', a problem like yours does seem to arise. My personal experience only extends back so far and no further. So it would seem that the/my universe (the world I construct) couldn't have had any existence before my own personal birth when my experience commenced.

'Nothing' is certainly one of the conceptual contents of my own private world, in the sense that it's a word that I use that seems to have some (negative) meaning for me. So does my use of 'nothing' in my world only apply inside my own world? Is 'nothing' just another content of my own personal subjective thought-world, or is it a larger and more objective matrix in which all subjective worlds exist and out of which they arise?

When it comes to individuating 'nothings', I'm out of my depth and start to sense the presence of serious logical difficulties. What's more, I start to suspect that the whole thing might be some kind of pseudo-problem, a difficulty that's being generated by how we choose to conceive of things.

Of course I'm not sure that individuating 'nothings' is the correct and only truth, it is a way to understand and perceive nothing and it's implications if it was that way. It gives a foundation for exploration, even if it turns out to be false. I also suspect some serious errors about individualising 'nothing', but I can't seem to see them and they aren't the errors that have surfaced in this thread, but rather deals with how 'nothing' that was me can become something when 'nothing' has no information at all. The fact that 'nothing' can have no information at all seems to suggest that it is individualised. Cause otherwise how could I be me instead of anyone else? If 'nothing' isn't individualised then there must be information in some existence that points to me - that I should become something instead of anyone else. I'm not sure if that information would then follow time, if so then a arrangement in the future could be me if it applied to the information that is me.

Genghis Khan is who your talking about and it is said that 25% of all Chinese are related to Him . He had a boat load of Women in his life . That would be if 4 people in a room in china there is a good chance one is related to Genghis . I wonder how many people are related to Charlemagne? I don't think I am , but Clovis is a different story . Yeah I seen the split of the Family when researching Me Ridgely Genealogy . Funny how those recorded are recorded in history . Now with the information age with everybody being front and center you can trace histories of individuals real good . Like Maurice Strong . I traced his linage once . Don't remember the details , but rest assured it reveals why he is like he is . His history reveals the monster in him . I think this could be true of anyone . Well maybe not . Some people have bigger microscopes on them than others . Public Spectacles .

The past is not gone for you that think it is . No not even . Ghosts from the Past haunt . Don't believe Me ? Look at the Ideology of Christianity . That Jesus haunts big time still . We rely on the past and build on the past . Easy concept don't you think . You go to school and learn about the things dead people thought up . They haunt you to learn what has been left for you like a gift from the past .
There is that Tribe in South America that S.A.M. introduced use to that live in the now . They are the exception . Very unique culture . I was totally blown away by there culture . Apparently they have no god conception , but they do have spirit conception . Animal spirit I think .

Genghis Khan, you're right! I'm not sure entirely how this relates to a 'nothing for each existence' but you're definetly on to something. I felt it applied much better to the other thread I made though, that the brain can render the consciousness of people that might have lived before us or has yet to have lived.

How this manner of extinctivism is arrived at: Matter/energy is considered normally non-experiential and does not manifest as anything to itself. Therefore, pre-development and death of a biological brain equals an encounter with the absence of everything.

But complete absence would seem to be the same absence common to all dead and pre-living humans, regardless. That is, there would be no information presented to make one person's "nothing" distinct from another person's "nothing". So any subjective constructivism of reality grounded in this manner of extinctivism seems to collapse, and indicate that the "many" engaging in such individual realities would actually be the illusionary product of a "one" that underlies them all (the absence).

To simplify this a lot: There is no 'information' in the absence of everything, as such "how could I exist as myself instead of anyone else?", that's really the question that I'm trying to answer here. If there is a nothing for each existence, then it wouldn't need any information to make me exist as myself, as it is my own non-existence. However if all share the same absence, then there must be information in that absence to make me be a different individual from you, but how could that be? As far as I know there are no information in the total absence of everything, if something started to somehow exist from that then it would become 'all' as there are no diversity in the absence of everything.

Consciousness is merely a building. The building is made of blocks that once they, have the roof on say, become water-tight. Before the consciousness has developed to the point of awareness it is merely building blocks.

When death comes the consciouness that is subject of the physical brain ceases to exist. Whether anything continues after this, like some kind of quantum imprint, is at present undetectable and therefore pure conjecture.

Yes, this is philosophy, and we need to assume some things in order to investigate them. That doesn't mean that what we assume doesn't follow logic or at least follows the conceived concepts of what we are discussing, hence that 'nothing' is the absence of everything, or that we are nothing before we were born and become nothing after we die.

I agree that the concepts of before and after when suggested literally can only be part of existence. Having said that we cannot literally become nothing which is more clearly understood as we either cannot become anything or we can become something.

Yes, this is much what I'm saying, since we have already become something, we must always become something.

 

[Enmos]

Then there isn't anything in our body that makes us unique as ourselves.

No, that's not what I said. Or, at least, that's not what I meant.
It is obvious that humans are physically different from each other. I was referring to the self.

I could very well have been you and you could very well have been me.

Well, yes.

Like teleportation where you don't destroy the original, there would be two you's exactly identical but with unique selves.

Yes.

You say 'your' brain, but it is only 'my' brain if it draws that pattern, if it drew your pattern instead then it would be 'your' brain instead.

Ok, how about this:
The self is to brain as green is to plant.

The only thing you are arguing about is how I am manifested in the brain, but that has no implications whether my idea is true or false.

If the self, or consciousness for that matter, is just a simulation made possible by the complexity of the physical brain then there was no real 'you' to begin with. Unless, of course, you are talking about the physical body, the lump of matter if you will. Each human body is a uniquely organized conglomeration of matter while still all being immensely similar to each other.

If we accept that then the 'self' cannot be a part of the body configuration (it's only a part of the body in this thread because that seems to be the accepted view). Wether or not it is a part of the body configuration or is a 'soul' or anything else for that matter doesn't matter for this thread or for my idea, since it only requires that we are nothing before we exist and nothing after we die.

[...]

Again, the only requirement that my idea needs, is that we are nothing before we were born and something after we die (in your own terms, if any brain in the world draws my pattern, or if no brain draws my pattern). This would mean that if a brain draws my pattern in the future (say a thousand years past my death) then I would exist there instead of being nothing.

Perhaps I misunderstood then. But to me right now it sounds like you are confusing life experience (memories, habits, etc) with the self or consciousness.
How do you figure we were nothing once?

However, I came to realise that nothing isn't bound by time, and even though the observable universe moves along after my death, I am still at the very same spot that I were in before I was born. That is, time didn't move on for me, neither did it stop, instead I am before time (or after). When time itself were nothing. Even before the universe (or after), when the universe itself was nothing. That's where I am when I'm nothing. So that another pattern of me arrives in sequential order of the universe, doesn't mean that I will be present there, since I don't follow the sequential order when I'm nothing.

Well, perhaps this is the problem. Nothing, or nothingness, doesn't appear to exist. To say nothing, or nothingness, exists seems to be a logical contradiction.

 

[Cyperium]

No, that's not what I said. Or, at least, that's not what I meant.
It is obvious that humans are physically different from each other. I was referring to the self.

Me too, you said that it is the pattern that the brain draws that are our selves, that there isn't a property of the matter itself. So it isn't the configuration of brain cells itself that makes us, but rather how that configuration draws the pattern. In other words, it isn't our body that makes us unique, but rather how the pattern looks like that the brain draws (probably more complex that a simple pattern in the sand, but still a pattern - in which I take it you mean a pattern of signals and thus not a part of the body itself, as signals are merely information that are processed).

Ok, how about this:
The self is to brain as green is to plant.

I think that is simplifying it too much. I don't see how that could further any understanding about the mind, rather I see it confusing the issue and basically avoiding the implications that are unique for a 'self' which is that it exists in it's own right, as it is self-proven to exist.

If the self, or consciousness for that matter, is just a simulation made possible by the complexity of the physical brain then there was no real 'you' to begin with.

How come then that I am so effectively drawn to that particular simulation and not the simulation of any other you's out there?

You see, that's also something that we can't just ignore, if it weren't so then this entire thread would be irrelevant and I just wouldn't make it. There's something about 'my green' that makes me belong to that 'green' instead of every other 'green' if we take the plant analogy.

Unless, of course, you are talking about the physical body, the lump of matter if you will. Each human body is a uniquely organized conglomeration of matter while still all being immensely similar to each other.

No I'm not talking about my physical body, it wouldn't be my physical body if I weren't present there, if it had no 'self' or recognition about itself.

Perhaps I misunderstood then. But to me right now it sounds like you are confusing life experience (memories, habits, etc) with the self or consciousness.
How do you figure we were nothing once?

My memory can change, my habits have changed, etc., I'm not confusing the self with such things. The only thing that is important is that I am in my body instead of anyone elses, the self itself is what I'm referring to.

How I figure that I was nothing once? I can't prove that I was nothing once, but that seems to be the accepted idea amongst the scientific community. In other words, that my self couldn't exist without my body. My idea works within the framework of the commonly accepted ideas amongst scientists, go ahead and ask them and you'll see. Ask them if the self can exist without our body. If it can't then surely it must have been nothing before our body (before our body could draw that pattern, if you like).

Well, perhaps this is the problem. Nothing, or nothingness, doesn't appear to exist. To say nothing, or nothingness, exists seems to be a logical contradiction.

It doesn't exist, that's the point. That's why time/space doesn't matter anymore to it, nothing matters anymore, the sequence of time doesn't matter, the universe and the world doesn't matter. It is at the the same place that everything started to exist from - before it existed. Even if everything has always been, and nothing started to exist, then it is still 'nothing' which is a state that can't change (because then it would be something) and if it did change because something existent (like your brain) suddenly makes it alive, then it doesn't matter at what point of time your brain existed in, as there is no relative time for nothing and we know it (the self) exists now and therefor must always exist now, as that is the only place proven that it can exist.