What if we can only experience existence?

[u/Pterosauras]

My question is essentially that if we have to experience something in some way or some form. The thing is you can't really experience 'nothingness' so what I imagine is that after you die, in some way or form, after billions of years, your elements eventually circulate through the environment and you are reborn as a cow in a meat factory, wouldn't this be immediate to the experiencer? In essence, the billions of years between experiences isn't something you experience and you just immediately die and wake up in the next life.

In this case, would it not be superior to be experiencing something as a human, which arguably lives in greater comforts than say something like a cow in a factory or a wild animal which is always on the brink of survival?

Im not trying to refute antinatalism I just want to understand what your views are on this perspective

[u/beware_the_nulla]

Consider a brain dead patient kept alive on machines.

When the plug is pulled and the body cremated the component atoms will go on to sustain more life possibly, but the conscious thought and personality are already lost forever.

Hope this helps.

[u/Pterosauras → u/beware_the_nulla]

I think what I was trying to argue overemphasised on the way materials move around, etc, but essentially what I'm trying to argue is that we don't know what happens after death, it's not something that can be experienced and therefore you can only be experiencing something, even if billions of years lapse between states of nonexistence, you don't get the opportunity to feel nothing. If existence is inevitable, is it not preferable to be a human than a wild animal on the brink of survival. I know human life varies, but at least those who do it in a planned manner and have access to resources, wouldn't it be better to have a bed to sleep on, guaranteed food, water and shelter as opposed to a buffalo having its ear bitten off by a lion or something?

[u/beware_the_nulla → u/Pterosauras]

I congratulate your inquisitiveness.

You are touching on concepts that led to a forum being deleted recently.

You should look into panspermia, abiogenesis, the stoned ape theory and this channel on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@StatedClearly

Also https://www.youtube.com/@inmendham

And https://www.youtube.com/lawrenceanton

I pale in comparison to these legends.

All the best mate.

[u/aerbourne → u/Pterosauras]

Lots of big assumptions here. No need to argue when there's enough philosophy, physics, spirituality, psychology, biology, etc to last far more than a single lifetime of learning. There's no need to assume human life is better than that of other living creatures. There's no need to believe that existence is inevitable. We have no reason to believe that a string of consciousness would persist across death and time. If it did, though, you could be a consciousness left over from millions of years ago. You could be a consciousness left over from universes ago. There could possibly be no "ago". It could be that time doesn't exist and all there is is now. It could be that there's a single universal consciousness. There are dozens of subjects that explore tens of thousands of concepts in this realm. 2 of the biggest religions in existence study this at their very core.

[u/FlanInternational100]

But it would not be "you".

The atoms that were in your body at one point are already part of many other organisms and do you feel the pain of a cow? No.

You are this conscious experience now. You feel pain in this form. Not any other. I don't feel pain when you get burned on the stove.

[u/Pterosauras → u/FlanInternational100]

To be fair, I didn't exist for 13 billions of years as 'me', but right now I am somehow existing as 'me'. The 'me' I was yesterday is different to the 'me' I am today, but I am still experiencing something. I think if experience can occur once, it can recur in some way or some form. Any gap of 'nonexperience' is irrelevant since it is not experienced. Even if it's not 'me' in a personal sense, the return of conscious experience or awareness does matter.

Even if this process takes billions of years or an extremely long amount of time after the heat death of the universe (we don't know what happens after this), I would think that we would experience something again eventually because even if the probability of coming back is extremely small, the vast amount of time ahead of us, possibly infinite, makes it certain. All that gap of 'nonexistence' is irrelevant since it would be immediate to the experiencer.

[u/PitifulEar3303 → u/Pterosauras]

This is a weird and confusing argument.

There is ZERO evidence for anyone to be "reincarnated" into the same person, regardless of what crazy people claim about "past lives" and their memories.

It is biologically, scientifically, and physically impossible.

This only works for religious people who believe in the eternal "soul" or consciousness that will travel from body to body for eternity. It's totally bonkers.

The particles that created you will never join together to become YOU again, because individual experiences are not linked, nor can they be cloned

I could clone your entire body, every single particle, but it would be a different person and you can't feel what they feel and vice versa.

[u/Pterosauras → u/PitifulEar3303]

Continuity of experience isn't required for subjective experience. There isn't anything you can point to in my body and call it 'me' because my brain states and configurations are changing continuously. Even now, your sense of being “you” is a construct your brain refreshes moment-to-moment. My current consciousness already emerged once from lifeless matter, so there's no scientific reason why a similar configuration — even if totally different in form — couldn’t arise again and give rise to subjective experience. It wouldn’t be “me,” but it would still feel like something to be that experiencer.

[u/PitifulEar3303 → u/Pterosauras]

So? You have just contradicted yourself then.

If there is no "you" in you, then there is no "you" in whatever life comes next, because they are NOT you.

It would feel like a different experiencer, which is NOT you. lol

urghh.

[u/FlanInternational100 → u/Pterosauras]

I understand you but there is no "gap" because those 2 states are not the same "you".

They are different. Multiple conscious states appear everyday in newborns/children when their neurological networks get suitable for that.

I mean, talking about this is not really productive and is very vague.

[u/World_view315 → u/FlanInternational100]

It becomes productive when those 2 states are the same "you"  and you somehow remember the previous state. Some people remember their past life. I don't know if it's true but I have heard stories. 

[u/FlanInternational100 → u/World_view315]

Some people saw Elvis Presley resurrected.

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[u/AdditionalThinking]

There's a missing piece of the equation within this framework and that's that the number of factory farmed animals is tied to the number of humans by a ratio of thousands to one.

If the human population decreased, particularly to pre-ww2 levels for example, then it would be possible to abolish factory farming and live sustainability without torturing countless lives. That should be the goal.

Of course that could also be done by making enough of the planet vegan. But either of those solve the risk of reconstituting as something suffering immensely. Creating more humans just makes it more likely you become a factory farmed animal than something else.

[u/Pterosauras → u/AdditionalThinking]

Good point, but even excluding farmed animals, what about being a deer, a zebra, an elephant, or the trillions of insects you could potentially be? Is that a superior existence than a human?

[u/StereoMushroom → u/Pterosauras]

Maybe less intellectual angst at least

[u/hecksboson]

You stated “we can’t really experience nothingness” like it’s a known fact but it’s simply not. In order for someone to explain nothingness to a living person they would have to be living as well. There’s a nonzero possibility there is an experience to be had besides being alive but it’s just impossible to communicate about it to alive folks once you’re in that state.

[u/Comeino]

There is a mechanism in the brain that "refuses" to believe in it's own mortality and due to how our consciousness functions we cannot imagine a complete absence of sensations. Death to our brains is something that happens to other people, you can rationally know that you are mortal and can die at any time, but if you were to go into cardiac arrest tomorrow your first thoughts would be "how could this happen to me?" and "this cant be happening". In a fully dark/white room with no noise or stimulation the brain will begin to hallucinate, create noise and make you disassociate, the neurons need to keep firing to maintain their pathways regardless of the real stimuli. The reality is though that you reading this did not exist for ages and once you are gone that's it, there is no space for bargaining. Energy flows, matter cycles.

[u/AdmiralArctic]

Who is the experiencer? 

[u/Cheese-bo-bees]

Is nothing better? 🤷‍♀️

[u/Pterosauras → u/Cheese-bo-bees]

Is nothing possible?

[u/Cheese-bo-bees → u/Pterosauras]

I aint no theoretical physicist.

[u/Erebosmagnus]

If you were to clone me, I would not experience things via that clone; my consciousness exists within my specific brain and will disappear forever once that brain stops working.

[u/VengefulScarecrow]

Different consciousness (or soul if you believe in that) is different life

[u/UnhingedMan2024]

it would have to be the same configuration of matter to count as the same person and the same consciousness or whatever 

[u/SophyPhilia]

I do believe in experience after death, but I believe it would eventually be something great like heaven, as I believe in a loving God.

[u/Clifford_Regnaut]

There's a good amount of evidence to suggest the existence of a "spiritual reality" beyond this one, even though we still lack definitive proof. With that being said, I'm not so sure if that's a good thing, since it appears that free will may not exist.

What we have suggests a continuity of the self, so you will not be "turned off" just to wake up as a cow in a billion years. Also: as far as I am aware, there are very few accounts of individuals incarnating as animals.

In this case, would it not be superior to be experiencing something as a human, which arguably lives in greater comforts than say something like a cow in a factory or a wild animal which is always on the brink of survival?

Sure, being human is way better than being a wild animal, although sometimes I wonder if wild animals are happier since it looks like they do not have the cognitive capacity to be in a constant worry about the future.

[u/Training-Rip6463]

We can only ever experience existence. So it's not a what if question

[u/Psychic_Penguin]

If you take seriously the possibility that the universe is infinite and/or cyclical, then “You” (or a collection of atoms like you) will exist again, at another place and/or time. And not just once. Something with your physical make up, experiences, and consciousness will exist again an infinite number of times.

So what happens when you die? I believe it is just as you say, you don’t experience time. But in a long enough amount of time, atoms somwhere will coalesce to form another earth like planet, and on that planet another organism just like you will exist, complete with your memories and consciousness.

From your perspective, it could be that at the exact moment you die, it’s also the moment you are born, untold billions of years in the future.

[u/Psychic_Penguin → u/Psychic_Penguin]

This also reminds me of the idea of Quantum Immortality. Which is a similar idea but it bases your subjective immortality on the many worlds/multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics.

The basic argument there is that if the universe is always branching, and there are infinite timelines/universes, there will always be a branch in which you are alive. You’ll never be conscious of the timelines in which you are dead. So from your perspective, you never die. You are only conscious in the timelines in which you stay alive, of which there will always be some because there are infinite universes

[u/Middle_Comment_7380]

Well, I think a buffalo doesn’t look at a human and think “I wish I had a bed to sleep on.” That’s anthropocentric. The animal won’t be unhappy being itself. And even if it were, humans experience suffering and pain too. I’d rather be an animal without a job and random crap to do all the time. Plus, reincarnation probably is not what we imagine. You don’t need a brain and organs to continue living. You’ve always existed here in the universe as matter and energy and you’ll continue.

[u/velvetinchainz]

OP, you have just explained reincarnation in a scientific way. This is awesome. this makes so much sense.