28th August 2018, 5:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 26th September 2018, 2:00 AM by ff. Edited 8 times in total.)
EDIT: I now realize this entire thought process is a result of a complete misunderstanding at what "brain death" means. If you are brain dead, then the part of your brain that defines who you are as a person is gone. basically i'm dumb and thought that there isn't just a "part of the brain" that represents your consciousness. i mean its not that simple but i don't know anything about it so i'll leave it at i'm dumb
TL;DR - Cloning is now possible. You are cloned. Do you see through both your current body's point of view, and your clone's point of view? Probably not, right? Your clone would be "you", but some other consciousness/point of view would be controlling it.
Say something happened to your brain (like dying/going brain-dead, but through some circumstances you're brought back to life) that caused your "point of view" to stop existing. Your brain and body continue to exist normally. Nobody else would notice anything different, and would believe without question it is 100% you.
But it really wouldn't be you per say. Instead it would be some other point of view controlling your body (like a clone)? Then... what? I don't know what's supposed to follow that question, I was just thinking and wanted to share I guess.
(end of TL;DR) (edits were for the TL;DR, making grammar easier to read)
My dog found a dead rabbit </3 in my backyard right before I was going to take a shower, and it got me all sad. Then in the shower you just start thinking (showerthoughts
), and with death on my mind it led to this.
note that this assuming there is no god, since otherwise you'd assume the consciousness I'm referring to is your soul, something preserved beyond death.
Death is freaking scary. You're just gone, no thoughts or anything. It's impossible for me to imagine, because even with 0 senses (no sight, hearing, feeling, taste, smell etc), I'd still have thoughts going on in my head. But when you're dead, you wouldn't have awareness of anything, time and the like. I used to think, wow, for eternity I'm just going to see nothingness when I am dead... But no, I wouldn't exist so I wouldn't be able to grasp that time is passing.
So then I started thinking, what if at some point somehow in the future after I'm dead, for whatever reason my brain had somehow been preserved and I'm successfully brought back to life. I don't have grasp of time while dead, so wouldn't I just immediately wake up after being dead?
Then, would my current self be aware of it? Would it even be me? You know what, it doesn't even have to be after millions of years. Say after an accident I'm braindead for maybe 2 seconds. What if something happens to my brain and when my brain and body wake up, my consciousness that exists now typing this is gone and something else is there?
Right now I'm typing and I know I'm the same person as every other day because it is still in my point of view. I am conscious, not just my brain and body but I myself am here. But then am I just my brain? What in my brain makes me me? What if something happened to my brain such that my brain and body continue to exist normally, but its not "me" anymore, and the part of me that exists typing this right now is gone? I look at everyone else and they are like me, people with a brain and body and their own consciousness controlling themselves. They are seeing things in their own point of view just like I am.
What if after some accident, my own point of view is gone, and my brain and body has some new person exactly like me with my thoughts and memories - they themselves wouldn't be aware that they are different, but my current self is gone.
Basically, the same idea with cloning. A clone of myself wouldn't be me, right? I would be in my body, and my clone would be me, but not in my point of view.
I think that should make it more clear what my rambling is about here. If I were dead for millions of years and brought back to life, to everyone else that "being" brought back would be me, but I myself might not actually "be" there. It'd basically be a clone of myself I guess.
It is impossible to know, isn't it.
My goal during this thought process, I guess, was to try and reason with myself about death and whether or not it should be something to be afraid of. I think I shouldn't be. It would suck, yes, but after it happens I just don't exist anymore. If I am brought back to life for whatever reason, then fine, I'll be awake again immediately maybe? Whether that happens or not, while dead I wouldn't be aware of it anyway, and then there's the whole conflict on whether or not my current consciousness/point of view would be there or if it'd be someone else, like a clone.
With that being said death is still damn scary.
I wasn't sure if I should put this in the discussion hall or not but I figure death is too depressing and I already wrote a whole freakin essay about it (meaning this post >_<), it'd be kind of hard to add anything I imagine. Discussion would be like "I agree/disagree" or "I don't know" or "What are you going on about" or "get help you looney".
TL;DR - Cloning is now possible. You are cloned. Do you see through both your current body's point of view, and your clone's point of view? Probably not, right? Your clone would be "you", but some other consciousness/point of view would be controlling it.
Say something happened to your brain (like dying/going brain-dead, but through some circumstances you're brought back to life) that caused your "point of view" to stop existing. Your brain and body continue to exist normally. Nobody else would notice anything different, and would believe without question it is 100% you.
But it really wouldn't be you per say. Instead it would be some other point of view controlling your body (like a clone)? Then... what? I don't know what's supposed to follow that question, I was just thinking and wanted to share I guess.
(end of TL;DR) (edits were for the TL;DR, making grammar easier to read)
My dog found a dead rabbit </3 in my backyard right before I was going to take a shower, and it got me all sad. Then in the shower you just start thinking (showerthoughts
), and with death on my mind it led to this.note that this assuming there is no god, since otherwise you'd assume the consciousness I'm referring to is your soul, something preserved beyond death.
Death is freaking scary. You're just gone, no thoughts or anything. It's impossible for me to imagine, because even with 0 senses (no sight, hearing, feeling, taste, smell etc), I'd still have thoughts going on in my head. But when you're dead, you wouldn't have awareness of anything, time and the like. I used to think, wow, for eternity I'm just going to see nothingness when I am dead... But no, I wouldn't exist so I wouldn't be able to grasp that time is passing.
So then I started thinking, what if at some point somehow in the future after I'm dead, for whatever reason my brain had somehow been preserved and I'm successfully brought back to life. I don't have grasp of time while dead, so wouldn't I just immediately wake up after being dead?
Then, would my current self be aware of it? Would it even be me? You know what, it doesn't even have to be after millions of years. Say after an accident I'm braindead for maybe 2 seconds. What if something happens to my brain and when my brain and body wake up, my consciousness that exists now typing this is gone and something else is there?
Right now I'm typing and I know I'm the same person as every other day because it is still in my point of view. I am conscious, not just my brain and body but I myself am here. But then am I just my brain? What in my brain makes me me? What if something happened to my brain such that my brain and body continue to exist normally, but its not "me" anymore, and the part of me that exists typing this right now is gone? I look at everyone else and they are like me, people with a brain and body and their own consciousness controlling themselves. They are seeing things in their own point of view just like I am.
What if after some accident, my own point of view is gone, and my brain and body has some new person exactly like me with my thoughts and memories - they themselves wouldn't be aware that they are different, but my current self is gone.
Basically, the same idea with cloning. A clone of myself wouldn't be me, right? I would be in my body, and my clone would be me, but not in my point of view.
I think that should make it more clear what my rambling is about here. If I were dead for millions of years and brought back to life, to everyone else that "being" brought back would be me, but I myself might not actually "be" there. It'd basically be a clone of myself I guess.
It is impossible to know, isn't it.
My goal during this thought process, I guess, was to try and reason with myself about death and whether or not it should be something to be afraid of. I think I shouldn't be. It would suck, yes, but after it happens I just don't exist anymore. If I am brought back to life for whatever reason, then fine, I'll be awake again immediately maybe? Whether that happens or not, while dead I wouldn't be aware of it anyway, and then there's the whole conflict on whether or not my current consciousness/point of view would be there or if it'd be someone else, like a clone.
With that being said death is still damn scary.
I wasn't sure if I should put this in the discussion hall or not but I figure death is too depressing and I already wrote a whole freakin essay about it (meaning this post >_<), it'd be kind of hard to add anything I imagine. Discussion would be like "I agree/disagree" or "I don't know" or "What are you going on about" or "get help you looney".
