Kevin comments on Welcome to Heaven - Less Wrong

23 Post author: denisbider 25 January 2010 11:22PM

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Comment author: Kevin 26 January 2010 01:18:37AM -2 points [-]

It just sounds blatantly self-contradictory

:D We're talking about religious metaphors; are you surprised? I think the heaven metaphor is also self-contradictory because I don't think the idea that Christian heaven = absolute, total, eternal, maximum pleasure is accepted by most theologians.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html Jill Bolte Taylor talks about one thing that I think would go into a real physical equivalent of Buddhist Nirvana, an ability to dissolve the barrier your mind creates between the atoms that make up your body and the atoms that make up everything else around you.

Comment author: denisbider 26 January 2010 02:38:37PM 0 points [-]

Your mind creates that barrier? I thought that was a property of the particles themselves.

Comment author: Cyan 26 January 2010 02:51:01PM 2 points [-]

I believe the idea is that there is no such barrier in the territory, only in the map. (I express no opinion on the value of this idea.)

Comment author: Kevin 27 January 2010 12:58:18PM *  0 points [-]

Experiencing reality without a consciousness barrier is a seriously bad medical condition in humans, but having no conceptual barrier between the self and the rest of reality is something a transhuman mind might be able to handle without going insane.

Comment author: Blueberry 27 January 2010 04:02:12PM 0 points [-]

What would it be like to experience reality without a consciousness barrier? That sounds intriguing but I'm not sure exactly what it means. Is it the same as being unconscious? And it's an actual medical condition? Please tell me more!

Comment author: Kevin 28 January 2010 12:41:12AM 0 points [-]

I was referring to Jill Bolte's description of her stroke during her Ted talk linked by me earlier in this thread.

Comment author: Kevin 27 January 2010 12:58:57PM 0 points [-]

Sure, there is an obvious physical barrier, but your mind chooses whether or not to recognize that barrier as meaningful.