polymathwannabe comments on What do rationalists think about the afterlife? - Less Wrong

-16 Post author: adamzerner 13 May 2014 09:46PM

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Comment author: polymathwannabe 14 May 2014 12:52:22AM -1 points [-]

Consciousness could exist on some small quantum [...] level...

Absolutely not. Consciousness is not that basic, and it definitely doesn't belong in the fundamental structure of reality. You're making a huge leap that ignores several levels of organization (in order: atomic, chemical, biological, computational). Consciousness depends on the pattern of neurons communicating inside our heads; examining a single neuron nucleus in the microscope (or taking one of its carbon atoms into a collider) will miss consciousness entirely because you've set the magnifying glass too close to get the pattern.

Comment author: adamzerner 14 May 2014 12:57:27AM *  2 points [-]

I'm familiar with the current scientific literature on the neural correlates of consciousness (I was a neuroscience major and did my senior thesis on it). But these are correlates. We indeed don't know of any correlates on a level smaller than the neuronal level, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 14 May 2014 01:01:10AM 0 points [-]

Elsewhere on this thread you also said,

we don't have the data that shows that the 3 possibilities I mentioned in the post don't occur.

Are you seriously going to posit a belief in the afterlife just because neurology can't prove a negative?

Comment author: adamzerner 14 May 2014 01:04:00AM *  0 points [-]

Are you seriously going to posit a belief in the afterlife just because neurology can't prove a negative?

No, I'm just saying that it's possible, not that I believe in it.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 14 May 2014 01:09:02AM -1 points [-]

Not with quantum consciousness. That's not even in "possible" territory.