A short sum of th1
File name -- a short sum of th File created date --08:16 am Wednesday, June 2 2004
There is nothing mystical or supernatural about this of immortality. This is a scientific theory of consciousness, survival, death, and immortality. It is based on the experimental evidence that consciousness is produced by the nervous system specifically the brain. Replicateability is the cornerstone of all science. One example of an physical event means little. For science to understand consciousness duplicateability has to be shown to be the basic cornerstone. For instance, we make a radio it functions as a radio. We make a second radio if it is made enough like the first, it will behave like the first radio. If we apply this to people we find that if we make two people exactly alike to the point that they behave exactly the same at every level, we will produce the same identical consciousness. Does this make then the same person? No! Is one a case of survival for the other. Yes! If you at this point agree that an identically functioning person will produce identical consciousness you might say that this will never happen because of the complexity of the human body. The body is constantly changing.
The importance of a theory of immortality for secular humanists
Lets imagine a universe where the functioning of the brain produces consciousness, where there are no souls, mind substance or the like, and identical structure and functioning of the bodies produce identical behavior and consciousness, could survival of death or immortality be possible? The key concept in survival for an original person is that he experiences the consciousness that a body produces in the same sort of way that you are experiencing your life now. If you do not experience any thing now or in the future it is not surviving for you. Death is usually defined as the body stopping its normal functioning and that there is no more consciousness produced by this body. For you to survive death you have to have a body that stops functioning normally where you are no longer conscious, and then at a later time for you to experience existence again -- For you to be conscious again. For you to be immortal there has to be no time in the future where you will not experience consciousness at a later date than this. It does not require that you be conscious all the time, only that no matter what time it is there will be a time in the future that you will be conscious again.