immortality: the argument

[reverebison]

We are immortal: here is the argument

1. We are apart of the universe that created us. We did not ask to be born. We are not in any way responsible for our creation. It just happened. The universe around us created us out of itself. created us out of matter and or energy.

2. The universe is composed of a finite amount of matter. The amount of matter is huge but there is a limit to it as described by current cosmology. also gravity keeps matter bunched up together in galaxies. Making the effect of finite matter even more pronounced.

3. the universe has infinite time. although this statement is contested, the chances that this is true are real.

4. I am my consciousness, and i presume you are yours. My consciousness is part of the universe too. It is composed of matter and or energy. My consciousness had a chance to exist or it would not have existed at all. Like all things in the universe, what makes my consciousness unique, is its unique arrangement of matter and energy.

5. when you combine the effects of infinite time and finite matter, amazing almost magical things happen. Among other things you get a phenomenon that occurs called exact recurrence.


Exact recurrence is explained in that if somethiing has existed in the past there was a chance for it or it would had never existed in the first place. When you combine the fact that matter is finite and its possible arrangements although huge are also finite, with infinite time these arrangements will happen again and they will be exactly the same down to the tiniest detail.

This means that eventually stars will exist in the future that have precisely the same amount of hydrogen atoms and even the exact same atoms, as they do today.

this means that eventually every unique individual born on this planet since the dawn of life, every grasshopper, every starfish, every tree, every person will eventually be born again, precisely the same.

We do not have respect sometimes for the notion of what infinite means. Infinite time creates the seemingly impossible , and it does so infinitely. Look at what 3 billion years has done on our planet. From a few simple organic compounds to the DNA molecule to humans.

There is absolutely no doubt in this posters mind that immortality has to exist. Like religions and their illogical conclusions, the conclusions that some atheists draw that we live once and that is the end of everything for eternity is equally ludicrous.

the universe goes on forever, it had no beginning and has no ending. It simply exists and that existence and your consciousness go hand in hand, one cannot exist without the other. Your consciousness is as old as the universe and obeys the same rules as the parent who created it. the universe only exists when you are conscious of it. The universe in effect needs your consciousness to exist at all.

Although we do die and the matter and energy that created our consciousness get redistruted back into the universe, and all traces of memory are lost, our consciousness eventually returns. It may be a few thousand years or it may be one trillions big bang cycles, it does not matter. For infinite time means that even though our consciounesses are extremely rare and are composed of the smallest of chances, in infinite time they will return infitely and in fact already have.

 

[punshhh]

We are immortal: here is the argument

1. We are apart of the universe that created us. We did not ask to be born. We are not in any way responsible for our creation. It just happened. The universe around us created us out of itself. created us out of matter and or energy.

2. The universe is composed of a finite amount of matter. The amount of matter is huge but there is a limit to it as described by current cosmology. also gravity keeps matter bunched up together in galaxies. Making the effect of finite matter even more pronounced.

3. the universe has infinite time. although this statement is contested, the chances that this is true are real.

4. I am my consciousness, and i presume you are yours. My consciousness is part of the universe too. It is composed of matter and or energy. My consciousness had a chance to exist or it would not have existed at all. Like all things in the universe, what makes my consciousness unique, is its unique arrangement of matter and energy.

5. when you combine the effects of infinite time and finite matter, amazing almost magical things happen. Among other things you get a phenomenon that occurs called exact recurrence.


Exact recurrence is explained in that if somethiing has existed in the past there was a chance for it or it would had never existed in the first place. When you combine the fact that matter is finite and its possible arrangements although huge are also finite, with infinite time these arrangements will happen again and they will be exactly the same down to the tiniest detail.

This means that eventually stars will exist in the future that have precisely the same amount of hydrogen atoms and even the exact same atoms, as they do today.

this means that eventually every unique individual born on this planet since the dawn of life, every grasshopper, every starfish, every tree, every person will eventually be born again, precisely the same.

We do not have respect sometimes for the notion of what infinite means. Infinite time creates the seemingly impossible , and it does so infinitely. Look at what 3 billion years has done on our planet. From a few simple organic compounds to the DNA molecule to humans.

There is absolutely no doubt in this posters mind that immortality has to exist. Like religions and their illogical conclusions, the conclusions that some atheists draw that we live once and that is the end of everything for eternity is equally ludicrous.

the universe goes on forever, it had no beginning and has no ending. It simply exists and that existence and your consciousness go hand in hand, one cannot exist without the other. Your consciousness is as old as the universe and obeys the same rules as the parent who created it. the universe only exists when you are conscious of it. The universe in effect needs your consciousness to exist at all.

Although we do die and the matter and energy that created our consciousness get redistruted back into the universe, and all traces of memory are lost, our consciousness eventually returns. It may be a few thousand years or it may be one trillions big bang cycles, it does not matter. For infinite time means that even though our consciounesses are extremely rare and are composed of the smallest of chances, in infinite time they will return infitely and in fact already have.

Yes its a nice theory. I used to think of reincarnation in a similar way.
Say you die and a near infinite period of time elapses, eventually the right combination of the right kind of particles will occur. Which will be an expression of you.
While you were dead you were unaware of the passage of time, it would appear to have passed in the blink of an eye. You would then experience being born again in your new body.

This kind of concept is a usefull tool in contemplation

 

[Mashuna]

5. when you combine the effects of infinite time and finite matter, amazing almost magical things happen. Among other things you get a phenomenon that occurs called exact recurrence.

And when you add in the effects of entropy, you don't get exact recurrence.

 

[slingblade]

Don't care what anyone says: when my sentence here is done, I ain't coming back.

 

[I Ratant]

As everything we see/are/experience is the result of an incomprehensible sequence of improbable events.... shoot, just that one sperm of millions penetrating that egg at that time that results in you is beyond counting the odds... an exact recurrence of everything in the past, all of which are equally chancy, is not going to occur.

 

[yy2bggggs]

I agree with statement:

We do not have respect sometimes for the notion of what infinite means.

However, I disagree with your argument.

You are, in effect, stating that the universe is necessarily symmetric in a very particular way in time, because it is infinite. In particular, the symmetry you require is that you will exist again, and the symmetry you're arguing for is that the same exact state will be manifest again.

"Infinity is so big that it is sure to happen again" doesn't work as an argument. There are an infinite number of ways that all throughout the infinite amount of time, you simply won't ever be here again.

It's easy to confuse "infinity" with "everything", and "infinite opportunity" with "all possible things". But this is nevertheless a confusion. If you're not convinced, I could give you simple examples of infinite things that lack periodicity (an infinite number of examples, in fact!)

 

[Bikewer]

Besides, who says the universe is "infinite"? It's very large, to be sure. There may even be more than one; there may be very many other universes.
But true "infinity" is really, really big....

 

[dafydd]

Yes its a nice theory. I used to think of reincarnation in a similar way.
Say you die and a near infinite period of time elapses, eventually the right combination of the right kind of particles will occur. Which will be an expression of you.
While you were dead you were unaware of the passage of time, it would appear to have passed in the blink of an eye. You would then experience being born again in your new body.

This kind of concept is a usefull tool in contemplation

There is a long thread somewhere here about proof of reincarnation. No proof has been forthcoming so far. I suppose that reincarnation is part of the packet that mystics have to believe in.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I'd appreciate any evidence that "infinite" actually means anything at all.

One concrete example will do.

 

[Beerina]

If it's any consequence, the brain can't hold anywhere near even the tiniest bit of info for every one of these possible scenarios; the number of combos, while technically finite, or at least practically so, is so vast you'd long since forget 99.999999999999% of it, much more even, and that's with a brain jammed to the gills with info.



Of more concern is that you'll live something like 18,000 years on average before dying of a bad accident. Assuming 100% cures of disease and old age.

Of course, for "you", as in the exact molecules and atoms that make up your brain, to re-form, gets around that, but doesn't address the forgetting issue.

Also it assumes there is a "downstream" configuration that will end up with it re-forming. This is also incredibly unlikely. Just because it is possible in theory does not mean it is probable, or even actually possible. To get monkeys to type Shakespeare, you have to have a rigorous method, even if it's just "try every random combo", to get there. If the universe is more akin to billiard balls bouncing around, you probably will not ever get to exist again.

Worse, in the billiard ball analogy, the downstream possibilities are all basically rational number multiples, or angles, off each other. There's a whole lot of real-number space they won't scour, ever, in any configuration. So "try all possibilities" is gonna leave out whole infinite swaths of things.

What that means in practice, don't know, since you can get arbitrarily close to any real number using just ever-closer rationals. Limits, calculus, and so on depend on this principle.

 

[dafydd]

We are immortal: here is the argument

1. We are apart of the universe that created us. We did not ask to be born. We are not in any way responsible for our creation. It just happened. The universe around us created us out of itself. created us out of matter and or energy.

2. The universe is composed of a finite amount of matter. The amount of matter is huge but there is a limit to it as described by current cosmology. also gravity keeps matter bunched up together in galaxies. Making the effect of finite matter even more pronounced.

3. the universe has infinite time. although this statement is contested, the chances that this is true are real.

4. I am my consciousness, and i presume you are yours. My consciousness is part of the universe too. It is composed of matter and or energy. My consciousness had a chance to exist or it would not have existed at all. Like all things in the universe, what makes my consciousness unique, is its unique arrangement of matter and energy.

5. when you combine the effects of infinite time and finite matter, amazing almost magical things happen. Among other things you get a phenomenon that occurs called exact recurrence.


Exact recurrence is explained in that if somethiing has existed in the past there was a chance for it or it would had never existed in the first place. When you combine the fact that matter is finite and its possible arrangements although huge are also finite, with infinite time these arrangements will happen again and they will be exactly the same down to the tiniest detail.

This means that eventually stars will exist in the future that have precisely the same amount of hydrogen atoms and even the exact same atoms, as they do today.

this means that eventually every unique individual born on this planet since the dawn of life, every grasshopper, every starfish, every tree, every person will eventually be born again, precisely the same.

We do not have respect sometimes for the notion of what infinite means. Infinite time creates the seemingly impossible , and it does so infinitely. Look at what 3 billion years has done on our planet. From a few simple organic compounds to the DNA molecule to humans.

There is absolutely no doubt in this posters mind that immortality has to exist. Like religions and their illogical conclusions, the conclusions that some atheists draw that we live once and that is the end of everything for eternity is equally ludicrous.

the universe goes on forever, it had no beginning and has no ending. It simply exists and that existence and your consciousness go hand in hand, one cannot exist without the other. Your consciousness is as old as the universe and obeys the same rules as the parent who created it. the universe only exists when you are conscious of it. The universe in effect needs your consciousness to exist at all.

Although we do die and the matter and energy that created our consciousness get redistruted back into the universe, and all traces of memory are lost, our consciousness eventually returns. It may be a few thousand years or it may be one trillions big bang cycles, it does not matter. For infinite time means that even though our consciounesses are extremely rare and are composed of the smallest of chances, in infinite time they will return infitely and in fact already have.

Did the universe exist before the Big Bang?

 

[Wowbagger]

We are immortal:

Correction: I am immortal. But, it only happened by accident....


...stupid liquid lunches....

 

[mike3]

Did the universe exist before the Big Bang?

Yes, that's the big question. We don't know. But that's what this really hinges on. Moreso, it hinges on an infinity of existences before and after the Big Bang.

 

[phantomb]

3. the universe has infinite time. although this statement is contested, the chances that this is true are real.

If you admit that this is contested, then you shouldn't say that "there is absolutely no doubt in this posters mind that immortality has to exist" later on.

.
.
.

the conclusions that some atheists draw that we live once and that is the end of everything for eternity is equally ludicrous.

Again, the evidence right now only tells us that this universe is going to continue expanding until a "heat death" phase. There are plenty of hypotheses that predict an infinite number of universes in space, or time, or both, but we haven't proven any of them yet. I don't see how you can say that going with the current evidence is ludicrous.

It simply exists and that existence and your consciousness go hand in hand, one cannot exist without the other. Your consciousness is as old as the universe and obeys the same rules as the parent who created it. the universe only exists when you are conscious of it. The universe in effect needs your consciousness to exist at all.

What?

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

If we're all immortals, I'd better start carrying a sword. (Cue Queen song)

 

[punshhh]

If it's any consequence, the brain can't hold anywhere near even the tiniest bit of info for every one of these possible scenarios; the number of combos, while technically finite, or at least practically so, is so vast you'd long since forget 99.999999999999% of it, much more even, and that's with a brain jammed to the gills with info.



Of more concern is that you'll live something like 18,000 years on average before dying of a bad accident. Assuming 100% cures of disease and old age.

Of course, for "you", as in the exact molecules and atoms that make up your brain, to re-form, gets around that, but doesn't address the forgetting issue.

Also it assumes there is a "downstream" configuration that will end up with it re-forming. This is also incredibly unlikely. Just because it is possible in theory does not mean it is probable, or even actually possible. To get monkeys to type Shakespeare, you have to have a rigorous method, even if it's just "try every random combo", to get there. If the universe is more akin to billiard balls bouncing around, you probably will not ever get to exist again.

Worse, in the billiard ball analogy, the downstream possibilities are all basically rational number multiples, or angles, off each other. There's a whole lot of real-number space they won't scour, ever, in any configuration. So "try all possibilities" is gonna leave out whole infinite swaths of things.

What that means in practice, don't know, since you can get arbitrarily close to any real number using just ever-closer rationals. Limits, calculus, and so on depend on this principle.

Did you read my concept in the occams razor thread recently? I use a concept similar to your billiard ball analogy there.
Basically given infinite timespace, every combination of balls(particles) will occur, while it logically seems impossible.

 

[PixyMisa]

We are immortal

Hang on, let me check with these dead people...

No, you're wrong.

 

[gambling_cruiser]

Did you read my concept in the occams razor thread recently? I use a concept similar to your billiard ball analogy there.
Basically given infinite timespace, every combination of balls(particles) will occur, while it logically seems impossible.

The bolded part is not given. That is a major drawback, isn't it?

 

[Seismosaurus]

5. when you combine the effects of infinite time and finite matter, amazing almost magical things happen. Among other things you get a phenomenon that occurs called exact recurrence.


Exact recurrence is explained in that if somethiing has existed in the past there was a chance for it or it would had never existed in the first place. When you combine the fact that matter is finite and its possible arrangements although huge are also finite, with infinite time these arrangements will happen again and they will be exactly the same down to the tiniest detail.

No. The universe may last for infinity, but it does not recycle and rearrange matter and energy indefinitely. There will come a time when there are no more light elements to fuse, and so no more stars, and so no more life like you and I, let alone exact copies of you and I.

 

[Cayvmann]

Hang on, let me check with these dead people...

No, you're wrong.

No, the dead people are all plants. They were put there to deceive you into believing in your "mortality", so that "the man" can control you. If you knew that you were immortal, then you'd be free to act and do as you please, which wouldn't keep "the man" rich. </paranoid delusion>