post fun consciousness ideas"afawk the brain is where consciousness emerges from, from the activity of neurons. these structures produce our selfhood.matter is made of atoms. structures are made of atoms. however, atoms do not stay in the same place. the atoms that make up our body, including our neurons, are not the same atoms that were there years ago, or even last year i believe.so, that raises the question of whether we are the same entity as before that exchange. after all, if your consciousness was re-created in a simulation, you would presumably not see that recreation as yourself. when i say yourself, i mean the self that is currently reading this passage; the self that experiences life through the eyes you're using.the simulation is not something you can experience, as it is not connected to your sensory system. you are experiencing senses like sight, sound, touch, smells, temperature, but a simulation or even an exact clone of you will not give you access to any new sensory experiences. it's not like you can see through other people's eyes.but what makes two brains separate? it's the spatial difference between the two brains, and the fact they comprise different atoms, i'd say. but, in the past, your brain was made of different atoms. so, if you manifested another person with an identical brain, but that brain was made of different atoms, that's not really different than your brain in the past being made of different atoms. so, are you not the same person as you were before?"
Why am I me and not someone else?
>>43095418Neural rewiring happens, the self is changing and growing
>>43095418I think you could find some answers in the extremes of experientialism. The self of experientialism accounts for such changes and separations. But the extremes of the philosophy are often disconcerting for individuals.
>>43095767i feel like one reason why i prefer the former viewpoint is because, okay, let's say that you had another person's brain grafted onto yours. there are actual conjoined twins who share two brains... or, well, is it one brain? my point is that they would've had two brains, but they're fused together into one. and these twins have said that they can read each other's minds. so, while the chances of someone getting their brain fused to mine is probably close to zero, if it did happen, then i would be expanding my consciousness to include that person in some way. which, to me, indicates that they are also a conscious being independent of myself, and i was just 'boxed' into my old perspective due to not sharing a skull with them. does this make sense? otherwise, would i somehow uniquely be giving them consciousness by grafting them onto my brain? even if my consciousness exists in a discrete box, i feel like other people have those boxes too. and that's regardless of their position in space-time relative to myself, just to add.i do think it's interesting to wonder about whether we do die every second or so, if we see ourselves as not tied to the structures creating emergent consciousness, but rather the momentary product electrical impulses that do not last very long at all. feel like, either way, our unique identities are more-so tied to the patterns that form us. otherwise, it would be odd to think that i've been snuffed out countless times as i type this message.this is why i hope that time and space are both infinite, since i'd like to think myself from the past and future are still existing, or that i exist in infinite iterations (multiverse theory).>>43095807i agree with that. i'm not sure how i'd fold it into my existing ideas, though. i think my focus is more on the underlying structure of neurons; their unique parts that give rise to that specific brain matter. but yes, they do shift both in shape and in their underlying parts.
>>43095832it is always a bit disconcerting to think about existence, but existential ocd has made me think about consciousness so much that i'm number to it now
>>43095866Existentialism is an interesting school of thought to be sure. I do think certain neurotypes are more or less predisposed to pondering such topics as experience and meaning or even mortality. Those with a strong sense of self, or those with a strong need for a self, tend to struggle at the extremes of experientialism where the self becomes so narrowly defined that it breaks down and atomizes. Many quest for continuity at that point, to varying degrees despite said atomization.
>>43095888for me, i can sort of 'turn off' existential thinking if i want to, unless i have an existential question that's making me anxious. for a while i was pretty bugged out about death and non-existence, but i've come to a place where i am (in a fairly scientific way) able to see possibilities for life after physical death. but of course i can't just turn off human emotions or instincts towards the whole thing.i can also see situations where i'd possibly still exist before and after that point, depending on how time and the universe works. unfortunately that opens up the idea of things like being eternally tortured if such a scenario is possible, but i kind of just have to take that in stride and not think about it too hard; i suppose eternal joy would also be possible.and, again, if i am not even a persistent thing, then i guess it'd be more like a bunch of people getting tortured in succession. or a lot of individuals being tortured who just think they were being tortured for longer. is that still bad? i don't know. it's kind of funny the more i break it down, like at some point the selfhood of the tortured and torturer could be flipped in some minute or large way, especially if we think of a multiverse scenario.
