Fear of Death
Oct. 5th, 2010 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pandora_parrot2 months ago, when I fell and broke my ankle, I lost consciousness. It was probably the second most frightening thing that has ever happened to me. I fell to the ground and felt my ability to think fading away. I couldn't control myself, and my thoughts were becoming sluggish and incoherent. I was fighting it, trying to stay conscious, trying to stay awake, but I was unable to do it. Terrified of this loss of ability to use my own mind, I fell out of the world. I started to dream of a perfect wonderful place filled with light and happiness where I was surrounded by everyone I love. Everything was perfect and wonderful. Then I slipped back into this world. Once again, I struggled to make sense of what was going on around me. I tried looking around, but my vision was blurry and fuzzy, as if I couldn't properly focus. My thoughts continued to be in a jumble. I couldn't remember where I was or what was going on or even properly contemplate my situation. A single thought escaped my terrified mind and I whispered it to whoever was around me, if anyone was around me, "Help me." Then, I fell out of the world again into that happy place.
The next time I came back to this world, I was still frightened and anxious, but I was able to hold onto consciousness. Slowly, my thoughts came back to me, and I could start thinking again. At first, I couldn't figure out where I was or why I was there, but slowly, it came to me. I realized that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
viesti and dana_grrl were sitting next to me, holding me and keeping me safe. I remember that I was out on a hike. I remembered that I had just fallen and lost consciousness.
Ever since that happened, I've been contemplating it a lot. Again, it was one of the most terrifying experiences in my life, slowly losing my ability to think. Feeling my own mind malfunctioning. Losing control of my own thought processes to the point where I was non-functional. In many ways, the experience resembled some version of what many people describe death like. The entity known as Joyce stopped and I was filled with a sense of well being.
I see myself as a vastly interesting and complex bio-computer. What I identify as "me" is really just a particular arrangement of information being processed in a certain way. I am a program. An algorithm for analyzing things. And a stored database of memory that I use to influence my behavior and alter my programming.
But that day, I experienced, to some small degree, what it is like to be shut down.
And I don't like it.
I say that I plan to live forever. I say this, because if this life is all I get, and the end of it is simply being shut down and never run again... That seriously fucks with me. If pure and abject nothingness is the end of it all, then why bother doing anything? All of my accomplishments and victories... My struggles and my battles. My stories and adventures... they amount to nothing. I'll never get to enjoy the idea of having someone else hear my story. I'll never get the pride in my accomplishments. I'll never be able to take reward in any of it. I'll just... not be.
So what's the point? Why do or not do anything if the end result is all the same? If we all simply shut down someday, then what ethical or moral code can we live by that means anything? What value is there to life?
I think there's a pretty good chance that this is all there is. That once my computer shuts down, my consciousness goes with it, and the entity known as Joyce will be forever erased from the universe.
But I also think there are several glimmers of hope. In mathematics, there is a concept known as a Turing Machine. It's sort of an abstraction of a computer. All computers and algorithms have a 1-1 correspondence with a Turing machine. Additionally, because of the nature of a turing machine, every turing machine can be encoded into a number that represents it. This is called its Gödel number. Essentially, you can represent any possible algorithm or computer, along with its memory, with a single number.
Now... Numerically, all numbers *do* exist, in some fashion. Although I may never trip over a 7, the value itself appears throughout the universe. To read the number 7, all I have to do is *observe* it somehow. Perhaps count the number of objects on my desk. Contemplate how many windows a particular side of the house has, etc.
In theory, then, this means that in some abstract way, all possible computers *must* exist on some level. All it takes is for someone to *observe* them in order for them to run. The hardware doesn't really matter. What matters is that the processing takes place. Like how they can simulate computers by creating a giant billiard ball arrangement. The billiard balls *are* actually doing the processing/observing of the computer. Just more slowly. You just need someone or something to be doing the observations.
There are some theorists that suggest that human consciousness, or even the universe itself, is Turing computable. That means that it is the result of one of these Turing machines running. But for ourselves and our universe to be computed, there must be an observer that's doing the computation. There must be something doing the evaluation. How else can we exist?
Perhaps the observer of these theoretical universes are actually *inside the universe itself* In other words, we process the universe... we observe the universe from WITHIN it.
The same can be said, then, of human consciousness, if indeed it is Turing computable... "Joyce" exists because she observes herself existing. Joyce is the hardware on which "Joyce" runs. And if there is *any* possible permutation of Joyce's software and memory that *can* exist, that version of "Joyce" *MUST* exist and be conscious of itself.
Consider then, the moment of my death. The point at which I stop functioning in this universe. When the software that is "Joyce" stops running. If there is a possibility, at all, that I could have another second of consciousness. Another second of life. If that is a theoretical possibility with a corresponding Turing machine and Gödel number... then that version of Joyce *MUST* exist because she will observe herself from within that turing machine.
Death, then, is not really the end, but a hiccup in data processing. The machine shuts down for a moment and then immediately starts back up somehow. I may die someday, but that only means that processing in this thread completed. There is another thread of me that will continue after I die, and that thread will be, for all intents and purposes, me. It will have my memories, my algorithms, my processing. It will branch in new and interesting directions. Perhaps its some higher plane of existence. Perhaps I get simulated on a computer in some far flung future. Perhaps a parallel universe where I managed to avoid death. But that me *will* survive, no matter what.
A lot of this is from the Quantum immortality theory and Greg Egan's Dust Theory. According to these theory, conscious beings can never be killed. The only notion of "death" that they can experience is some sort of transition or transformation.
I don't know. The possibility of a true death is terrifying to me. To completely lose control and be utterly shut down. Ugh. It makes me sick to my stomach and gives me a sense not unlike falling.
I hope that as a conscious being, I *do* continue somewhere/someway after death. That I get to continue to have wonderful and amazing experiences. That I get to explore more worlds and more places. That I can continue to gather knowledge, observe the beauty of the universe, and create things within it.
That... last bit seems to be my life's goal: To learn, to see, and to create. And it is something that I want to do literally forever.
The next time I came back to this world, I was still frightened and anxious, but I was able to hold onto consciousness. Slowly, my thoughts came back to me, and I could start thinking again. At first, I couldn't figure out where I was or why I was there, but slowly, it came to me. I realized that
viesti and dana_grrl were sitting next to me, holding me and keeping me safe. I remember that I was out on a hike. I remembered that I had just fallen and lost consciousness.Ever since that happened, I've been contemplating it a lot. Again, it was one of the most terrifying experiences in my life, slowly losing my ability to think. Feeling my own mind malfunctioning. Losing control of my own thought processes to the point where I was non-functional. In many ways, the experience resembled some version of what many people describe death like. The entity known as Joyce stopped and I was filled with a sense of well being.
I see myself as a vastly interesting and complex bio-computer. What I identify as "me" is really just a particular arrangement of information being processed in a certain way. I am a program. An algorithm for analyzing things. And a stored database of memory that I use to influence my behavior and alter my programming.
But that day, I experienced, to some small degree, what it is like to be shut down.
And I don't like it.
I say that I plan to live forever. I say this, because if this life is all I get, and the end of it is simply being shut down and never run again... That seriously fucks with me. If pure and abject nothingness is the end of it all, then why bother doing anything? All of my accomplishments and victories... My struggles and my battles. My stories and adventures... they amount to nothing. I'll never get to enjoy the idea of having someone else hear my story. I'll never get the pride in my accomplishments. I'll never be able to take reward in any of it. I'll just... not be.
So what's the point? Why do or not do anything if the end result is all the same? If we all simply shut down someday, then what ethical or moral code can we live by that means anything? What value is there to life?
I think there's a pretty good chance that this is all there is. That once my computer shuts down, my consciousness goes with it, and the entity known as Joyce will be forever erased from the universe.
But I also think there are several glimmers of hope. In mathematics, there is a concept known as a Turing Machine. It's sort of an abstraction of a computer. All computers and algorithms have a 1-1 correspondence with a Turing machine. Additionally, because of the nature of a turing machine, every turing machine can be encoded into a number that represents it. This is called its Gödel number. Essentially, you can represent any possible algorithm or computer, along with its memory, with a single number.
Now... Numerically, all numbers *do* exist, in some fashion. Although I may never trip over a 7, the value itself appears throughout the universe. To read the number 7, all I have to do is *observe* it somehow. Perhaps count the number of objects on my desk. Contemplate how many windows a particular side of the house has, etc.
In theory, then, this means that in some abstract way, all possible computers *must* exist on some level. All it takes is for someone to *observe* them in order for them to run. The hardware doesn't really matter. What matters is that the processing takes place. Like how they can simulate computers by creating a giant billiard ball arrangement. The billiard balls *are* actually doing the processing/observing of the computer. Just more slowly. You just need someone or something to be doing the observations.
There are some theorists that suggest that human consciousness, or even the universe itself, is Turing computable. That means that it is the result of one of these Turing machines running. But for ourselves and our universe to be computed, there must be an observer that's doing the computation. There must be something doing the evaluation. How else can we exist?
Perhaps the observer of these theoretical universes are actually *inside the universe itself* In other words, we process the universe... we observe the universe from WITHIN it.
The same can be said, then, of human consciousness, if indeed it is Turing computable... "Joyce" exists because she observes herself existing. Joyce is the hardware on which "Joyce" runs. And if there is *any* possible permutation of Joyce's software and memory that *can* exist, that version of "Joyce" *MUST* exist and be conscious of itself.
Consider then, the moment of my death. The point at which I stop functioning in this universe. When the software that is "Joyce" stops running. If there is a possibility, at all, that I could have another second of consciousness. Another second of life. If that is a theoretical possibility with a corresponding Turing machine and Gödel number... then that version of Joyce *MUST* exist because she will observe herself from within that turing machine.
Death, then, is not really the end, but a hiccup in data processing. The machine shuts down for a moment and then immediately starts back up somehow. I may die someday, but that only means that processing in this thread completed. There is another thread of me that will continue after I die, and that thread will be, for all intents and purposes, me. It will have my memories, my algorithms, my processing. It will branch in new and interesting directions. Perhaps its some higher plane of existence. Perhaps I get simulated on a computer in some far flung future. Perhaps a parallel universe where I managed to avoid death. But that me *will* survive, no matter what.
A lot of this is from the Quantum immortality theory and Greg Egan's Dust Theory. According to these theory, conscious beings can never be killed. The only notion of "death" that they can experience is some sort of transition or transformation.
I don't know. The possibility of a true death is terrifying to me. To completely lose control and be utterly shut down. Ugh. It makes me sick to my stomach and gives me a sense not unlike falling.
I hope that as a conscious being, I *do* continue somewhere/someway after death. That I get to continue to have wonderful and amazing experiences. That I get to explore more worlds and more places. That I can continue to gather knowledge, observe the beauty of the universe, and create things within it.
That... last bit seems to be my life's goal: To learn, to see, and to create. And it is something that I want to do literally forever.
