What do atheists think of death?

Perhaps you can define "you" in a way where my argument would not work without involving the supernatural? Under the restrictive definition of "you" that I used, the replica is "you". Unless you involve some absolute position coordinates within the universe I don't think it will work. I agree that this is largely an exercise in probability. Is that bad?

Would you mind clarifying "with identical position and momentum to yours"? Does this refer to experiences, as well? That would be my guess how to distinguish "me" me from me somewhere else, some sort of psychological test to recall memories and experiences.

Sure. Just think about all the particles that make up your body. If you cloned the properties of each of those particles ... the relevant properties being their position relative to the other particles, and how fast and in what direction they were moving (momenta), then that clone would be identical to you in all respects. This assumes there is no such thing as a soul, or any other supernatural aspect to who "you" are. There are complications to this definition involving quantum uncertainty, but they're not really relevant to the point. Yep. Memories and personality are encoded somehow in the body. I really don't know enough biology/chemistry to say how it is done, but such a clone would have the same memories and personality as you do.

You follow this with: How do you know memories and personality are encoded in the body if you cannot explain it?Edited by Infixion, : grammar

(a) Because a replica, by definition, is never whatever it is it is replicating.(b) Because I'm consciously aware of myself, but only aware of their possible existence. I automatically refer to them with third person pronouns, and that would not be the case if they were me, would it? If they were me, I would be as sure of their existence as I am of mine, and I'm not. Two "identical" molecules of water, one in the Pacific and one in the Atlantic, are not the same molecule. Who needs a test to know that?

Observing lots people with various kinds of brain damage is one way of knowing. Another is by changing the chemistry of the body temporarily, and you can easily try this on yourself.Try drinking ten double whiskies over the course of an hour, for example, then later, see how good your memory of the last fifteen minutes of that period is, and ask your friends whether your personality changed during the hour.

Where else could that information possibly be kept? We're assuming nothing supernatural here, and any other conclusion would get us into some absolutely ridiculous sci-fi scenario.

At some point this is probably just going to degenerate into an argument about semantics, but I'll push a little bit farther. Assuming those water molecules are both "normal" water molecules (that is: the molecule is in its ground state, none of their atoms are in an excited state, and there are no extra neutrons), the two molecules are identical in every possible way, except in their location. I would say this makes them the same molecule, just like I would not say I am a different person just because I am in my kitchen instead of in my office at work.And so, I think I will stick to my point. Any other bluegenes that may randomly exist in the universe will be the same as you, and if the only way to distinguish the two of you is based on location, I would claim he (she?) is you. You’re welcome to use a different definition of “is you” if you want, I just don’t think such a definition would be useful.

Naturalist (as opposed to supernaturalist), materialist or physicalist are possible alternatives that might be of use to you. An interesting thought experiment to highlight your point would be teleportation. If teleportation worked by essentially destroying the body so that any observer would conclude that the person was very much dead, but if it also creating an exact duplicate in an alternative location, did the person actually die? I would say no, they haven't; but it is an interesting philosophical question and I wouldn't dream of concluding that my intuition on the subject was conclusive.An interesting variation of this theme can be found in the afterlife proposed by Philip Jose Farmer in his Riverworld saga. In this scenario aliens have used supertechnology to record all the relevant variables that go into making a person a person up to just before the moment of death. At a certain point in time they then recreate all these persons at once on the banks of a designed river that runs the length of the planet. So there are 12th Century people from Languedoc interacting with 20th Century Americans all with the subjective impression that they had just died and woken in a strange afterlife.Does this count as far as afterlifes go? Sure. Can a materialist believe it is philosophically possible to therefore have an afterlife? Absolutely. They might think it is highly unlikely or technically impossible - but they could easily concede that it would be, for all intents and purposes, an afterlife.Though there would still be the question of 'am I who I think I was?'. Which sounds nonsensical, but it is compelling to some people and it isn't inherently trivial as far as I can see.

Won't being dead be a pretty significant difference? Surely any alternative version of 'you' identical enough to deserve the name is also going to be in the same fatal situation? Those who don't die have obviously diverged significantly enough at some point to not be in the exact same situation. And the further your experiences have diverged the less likely they are to be 'like' you.TTFN,WK

Of course. I should stay away from this forum when it's 2am.

O.K. If we agree on that for the sake of argument, you must agree that the two locations in space-time have to be identical in order to produce two bluegenes, and have to remain identical. When I look up at the stars, what I see must have some chemical effect on my brain, so the two blues would have to be looking out at identical visible universes. So, that's what I mean when I say that the universe would have to be effectively infinite.The effect is a bit like the effect of reincarnation, which never particularly appealed to me, because, if we do get reincarnated, nobody seems to remember their past lives, if you discount a few apparent nutters who were always Napoleon or Cleopatra!In the same way, the other bluegenes or fgarbs do not know of our existence, or we of theirs, so the whole business would have no effect on existence whether it happens or not.What's the difference between living your life once, and living an exactly identical life millions of times over?So, it could be, and like you I have no opinion on it either way, other than that having an infinite number of identical lives and deaths is no better or worse than just having one, and it is not really the same as the ideas of eternal on-going existence, which certainly account for some of the appeal of religions.The idea of an infinite number of slightly diverging lives as parallel universes split from one another might be more interesting, although it wouldn't seem to bequeath immortality, as we would cease to exist at some point in the space-time of every universe, presumably.

I would argue that it is zero. Even in an infinite space, which can't be explained at the moment, the probability is out of the question. One, this would prove that life and all that that involves is predictable, which it's not. And two, if you believe in a Diety, it would remove the personal God that all faiths share. This hypothosis of yours poses a problem for both theist and atheist but, I rather enjoy it. I would agree that 'you' somewhere else is still 'you' experiencing life subjectly. This is a great idea but something fit for a sci-fi movie rather than science. Nothing is predictable, especially the galaxy we are in, the planet we inhabit, the species that have walked on it, the meteors that have caused extictions, and the species that have survived(us being part of that). I don't see how you can draw a senerio where this could be remotely probable to happen identically the same.Personally I don't think theres a possibility of life after death simply because we have what we refer to as a "consciousness", its a by product of our brain which is one of many organs in our bodies, not to mention that we share the same type of organ with many species. I don't think theres anything special in any one particular species that gives it eternal life, especialy if the idea of eternal life was proposed simply because of a lucky evolutionary draw that grew an organ to the point of being able to postulate it(life after death). It simply doesn't make sense.

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All great truths begin as blasphemies

Neither do Animists or Jains. I think that some forms of animism even grant souls to inanimate objects, so that a rock could have an eternal existence.Sounds a bit of a waste, as it would be indifferent to the privilege, but it does show a charming lack of elitism amongst some human cultures that live close to nature.Edited by bluegenes, : called onifre "onfire"!!!

Someone -- I believe it was Douglas Hofstadter in hos "Metamagical Themas" column in Scientific American in the '80s -- used the Star Trek transporter as an illustration of this very point.

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If I had a million dollars, I'd buy you a monkey.
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
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