Death doesn't make sense according to physics

Originally posted by polomontana
What does this mean? If I send you my hard drive and I have someones number on there, does this information disappear when you wood-chip the hardrive? I don't think so.

Ok, so why are you still using your computer and not sending me the hard drive to shred and burn to ash and smoke? Since physics says that energy and matter are not destroyed, you should still be able to get your phone number back, right? No? They're hopelessly lost in the smoke and ash, never to be recovered? Ah, the shame. Too bad your phone number was INFORMATION and that information is unrecoverable.

Still have a lot of hope for your everlasting (and still useful after dissolution) soul? If so, demonstrate to us how anything useful or meaningful at all will survive your death and cremation.

Energy doesn't end or go away when you die. It simply changes.
When we are alive energy behaves in one way, when we die the energy changes into something we don't yet understand.

No laws of physics broken here. Just a lack of understanding.

Dear polomontana

Your body is nothing more than a machine running on chemistry. When this machine is badly broken it shuts down, and the chemistry stops working and all the neurons in your brain cease to function. This is when your consciousness stops BEING. YOU are no longer. The "energy" you talk about which at this point is mostly heat dissolves everywhere around this broken machine and the broken machine is devoured by the little folk.

There is no soul, at least I haven't seen felt heard tasted one and haven't seen scientific proof of it existing

reply to post by just theory


My conjecture is that Polo is afraid of death, and is trying to invoke the 2nd law as proof that he will still be Polo after he dies. Perhaps because he doesn't believe religion, so he's looking for a simple physics explanation that he can buy into. That's strictly my conjecture, though.

Personally, I'd be much more inclined to go the philosophy/religion path, because I haven't seen a lot of anything to lead me to believe that there is some timeless energy state that persists in a structured way after death in order to pickle your consciousness.

Note that I'm not saying that you DON'T go on, just that I don't know of anything in mainstream physics that would currently allow for it. A lot of physicists ruminate about it, IIRC Tipler was a big Cartesianist and spent time looking for a 'quantum receiver' in the brain but never managed to find it. The other chap, Lloyd, whom he's quoting is getting all his ideas from Kantor. Whether the universe as a whole is a dataflow structure or not is an interesting thing, but it's more involved with keeping track of where things are and what they do. Not a big backup device for Polo's "soul". Polo might actually find Kantor illuminating but it's really thick going, I can't follow most of it myself at the mathematical level. It's not my chosen branch of physics.

edit:
Here is the source text for the computational universe theorists. It all starts here. You'll need a doctorate in quantum physics to really understand it, I suspect, but the text parts are interesting. I can only splash around in the shallow water on this one.


[edit on 16-9-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

reply to post by Spec01


By your use of "energy" here, are you referring metaphorically to "spirit" or "consciousness"? Or more to heat and chemical bonds?

Tom,

First off you talk about memory like it's something settled in physics. This shows you lack credibility on the subject. I can post 10 different theories on memory.

Secondly, you act as if memory is only an subjective experience. Memory is an event that occurs in time. You are just remembering the experience of the event, the event is not just stuck in your brain. The event occurs in time and time is not dependent of your observation of it.

Your ideas about memory are very primitive. I was obviously right when I said your not well versed in theoretical physics or digital physics. You actually think the event that you remember is locked away in your brain.

Consciousness is an energy state that's has been computed by our universe. I think I need to stop here because it's useless debating when one side doesn't understand what we are debating about.

Here's some homework. Read up on these things and then we can discuss these matters further. Also, if zero point energy is the ground state energy, how does it cool and become useless at death? Your not making sense here.

A good Wired article about digital physics:
www.light1998.com...

An interview with Seth Lloyd:
www.technologyreview.com...

digitalphysics.org...

[edit on 16-9-2007 by polomontana]

Sorry for this off topic question, but does anyone know how einstein viewed god and the afterlife? Was he a skeptic, a believer, or someone who was still trying to find answers to the question?

Einstein didn't believe in an afterlife. But why would it matter if he did or didn't?

"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It

Originally posted by malakiem
Sorry for this off topic question, but does anyone know how einstein viewed god and the afterlife? Was he a skeptic, a believer, or someone who was still trying to find answers to the question?

Einstein believed in God. Here's some quotes:

Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that is there.

Here's an excerpt of an interview he gave to American magazine:

"To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?"
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

"Have you read Emil Ludwig's book on Jesus?"

"Emil Ludwig's Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot."

"You accept the historical Jesus?"

"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."

Here are some more statements from Einstein;

By way of the understanding he [the scientist] achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind towards the grandeur of reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious, in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life.

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior Spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. The deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning Power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

[edit on 16-9-2007 by polomontana]

reply to post by MajorMalfunction



I was just curious, i'm reading about einstein in some older threads here at ats. There is a new post that i'm trying to find about how many of einstein's protege's wondered if his theories were true and how einstein even question them sometimes. Altough i do agree with einstein when he wonders why god would would punsish and favor people. Good things happen to bad people mostly, i don't get it. But when he says that people who believe in souls have lots of egoisms (i think that's what he said), that's a bit harsh. There's a few nice people that believe we have souls. I believe that we survive death, but there might not be a god. We must overcome all the casualities of life, and become our own god.



[edit on 16-9-2007 by malakiem]

Einstein did NOT believe in god. What you have supplied polo, is propaganda pushed by Christians, to use Einstein as an authority as if it "proves" the existence of god. Even if he DID believe in god, that doesn't prove god exists. Just that he had a belief.

But since he did not, it is a moot point in this thread.

Einstein used the word "god" to mean natural law, as a sort of shorthand. He did not believe in god. People who say he did and supply quotes like that are lying for a personal agenda.

reply to post by polomontana


I like your thread and post, keep up the good work buddy!

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Einstein did NOT believe in god. Even if he DID believe in god, that doesn't prove god exists. Just that he had a belief.

He was a smart man, at least he believed in Jesus.

Einstein used the word "god" to mean natural law, as a sort of shorthand. He did not believe in god.

Did he ever say that's how he used the word, or are you just making stuff up?

People who say he did and supply quotes like that are lying for a personal agenda.

Ok, now your just talking out your ***. That is obviously your conspiratorial mind talking.

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Einstein did NOT believe in god. What you have supplied polo, is propaganda pushed by Christians, to use Einstein as an authority as if it "proves" the existence of god. Even if he DID believe in god, that doesn't prove god exists. Just that he had a belief.

But since he did not, it is a moot point in this thread.

Einstein used the word "god" to mean natural law, as a sort of shorthand. He did not believe in god. People who say he did and supply quotes like that are lying for a personal agenda.

you gotta give the man credit, he explains why he doesn't believe in god, bill gates never even explained why they he don't believe it a god or afterlife.

Originally posted by polomontana
Tom,

First off you talk about memory like it's something settled in physics. This shows you lack credibility on the subject. I can post 10 different theories on memory.

The links you post haven't got diddly to do with your memory. They're about the theory that the universe is a computational system.

I understand that some people are very afraid of death. But you're being a bit obsessed here.

Secondly, you act as if memory is only an subjective experience. Memory is an event that occurs in time. You are just remembering the experience of the event, the event is not just stuck in your brain. The event occurs in time and time is not dependent of your observation of it.

You keep saying this as if it were meaningful.

Of course you're remembering the experience of the event. But you're not communing with the universe through some quantum time machine. Or perhaps you can explain how memory can be obliterated by injury, or by disease process.

Your ideas about memory are very primitive. I was obviously right when I said your not well versed in theoretical physics or digital physics. You actually think the event that you remember is locked away in your brain.

Consciousness is an energy state that's has been computed by our universe. I think I need to stop here because it's useless debating when one side doesn't understand what we are debating about.

And yet, I'm pretty certain that you won't be able to answer any physics problem I pose you, and that your understanding of physics is limited to what you have read (and half understood) in Wired.

What evidence do you have that consciousness has anything at all to do with some single energy state, computed by the universe or otherwise?

Also, if zero point energy is the ground state energy, how does it cool and become useless at death? Your not making sense here.

Yet, this statement makes as little sense as your statement about energy dying. Why are you summoning up "zero point energy", when it's not applicable here at all? Other than, of course, it's the latest pseudo-babble term.

Zero point energy is the lowest state that a system can have. It hasn't got squat to do with memory.

Here's you about 1.7 million cites on how memory works.

If you want scholarly cites, Here's about 55,000 of them.

There's really quite a large body of evidence on how your memory works, and it doesn't much involve the zero-point field. You might concentrate your time on cAMP and tPA.

Ta.

reply to post by thehumbleone

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

Albert Einstein, in a letter March 24, 1954; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 43.

“The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.”

Albert Einstein in a letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 217.

“I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.… This is a somewhat new kind of religion.”

Albert Einstein, in a letter to Hans Muehsam, March 30, 1954; Einstein Archive 38-434; from Alice Calaprice, ed., The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 218.

“I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.”

Albert Einstein, letter to a Baptist pastor in 1953; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 39.

www.stephenjaygould.org...

There's a million of 'em just like it, some on this site.

Your ideas about memory are very primitive.

Well, for one.

1. Primitive, maybe, correct? Most probably.
2. YOUR the one trying to place memory and religion (such as external ideas of self) in the same statement. Which is a very very old way of looking at it.

Consciousness is an energy state that's has been computed by our universe. I think I need to stop here because it's useless debating when one side doesn't understand what we are debating about.

But you started the thread, and you still dont know what your debating about.

Bodies die because the energy (using the chemical ideas of energy) that keep it constantly circling stop, they leave the body, change do a different kind of chemical or energy, or it is disrupted, etc.

The mind is a creation of the brain, in my opinion, which means when the body dies, the mind dies with it.

the mind can be damaged physically, trauma and brain damage, so why can it not be killed?

reply to post by Tom Bedlam



I read the site dude.

To me, it seems like Einstein is not your typical hardcore atheist that you would find on this site. Instead I find him leaning more to the agnostic side. Not believing in a God, and yet he doesn't entirely dismiss the possibility either. If I was to do a psychological analysis on him according to his quotes, I think he flip-flopped between agnosticism and belief, sort of a confused man.

Plus I gotta give him props for acknowledging Jesus existence.


[edit on 16-9-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by Badge01
OK, remember how early computers were? Just a set of on - off switches (the early Altair).

So what computers do that simulates 'intelligence' of a sort, is just do everything -VERY- quickly. Ones and Zeros.

So in the near future when you boot up a PC that uses an 'Interface' like Max Headroom, the interface will seem almost alive to you.

The closer we get to solving the 'Turing Test', the more alive your PC will seem. Move further and drop 'monitors' and move to a 3-D Hologram, and the illusion of 'aliveness' is even stronger.

Turn off the PC and that 'alive' person you were just talking to is gone. Do they still exist in the absence of the PC? No.

Same way for the 'Meat-based Super Quantum Computer' that is you.

When the meat and flesh becomes so disorganized that the necessary reactions can not proceed, the 'you' die.

Is there a 'you' when the 'human computer/brain/neuron net' is gone? Well, by analogy, the answer is the same as with the electronic computer.

2 cents.

But what happens to computers when there turned on? It's sort of like they take a temporary nap. You don't have a computer that permantly doesn't turn on. And you don't have a computer were all the memory is destroyed unless you save it.

Originally posted by malakiem

But what happens to computers when there turned on? It's sort of like they take a temporary nap. You don't have a computer that permantly doesn't turn on. And you don't have a computer were all the memory is destroyed unless you save it.

The contents of DRAM are lost when the power goes. Heck, they're lost if you don't "rehearse" the contents of the memory every 15 msec or so. Same thing with the register values in the CPU.