What do rationalists think about the afterlife?

Adam Zerner

I've read a fair amount on Less Wrong and can't recall much said about the plausibility of some sort of afterlife. What do you guys think about it? Is there some sort of consensus?

Here's my take:

Rationality is all about using the past to make predictions about the future.
"What happens to our consciousness when we die?" (may not be worded precisely, but hopefully you know what I mean).
We have some data on what preconditions seem to produce consciousness (ie. neuronal firing). However, this is just data on the preconditions that seem to produce consciousness that can/do communicate/demonstrate its consciousness to us.
Can we say that a different set of preconditions doesn't produce consciousness? I personally don't see reason to believe this. I see 3 possibilities that we don't have reason to reject, because we have no data on them. I'm still confused and not too confident in this belief though.
Possibility 1) Maybe the 'other' conscious beings don't want to communicate their consciousness to us.
Possibility 2) Maybe the 'other' conscious beings can't communicate their consciousness to us ever.
Possibility 3) Maybe the 'other' conscious beings can't communicate their consciousness to us given our level of technology.
And finally, since we have no data, what can we say about the likelihood of our consciousness returning/remaining after we die? I would say the chances are 50/50. For something you have no data on, any outcome is equally likely (This feels like something that must have been talked about before. So side-question: is this logic sound?).

Edit: People in the comments have just taken it as a given that consciousness resides solely in the brain without explaining why they think this. My point in this post is that I don't see why we have reason to reject the 3 possibilities above. If you reject the idea that consciousness could reside outside of the brain, please explain why.

I've read a fair amount on Less Wrong and can't recall much said about the plausibility of some sort of afterlife. What do you guys think about it? Is there some sort of consensus?

Here's my take:

Rationality is all about using the past to make predictions about the future.
"What happens to our consciousness when we die?" (may not be worded precisely, but hopefully you know what I mean).
We have some data on what preconditions seem to produce consciousness (ie. neuronal firing). However, this is just data on the preconditions that seem to produce consciousness that can/do communicate/demonstrate its consciousness to us.
Can we say that a different set of preconditions doesn't produce consciousness? I personally don't see reason to believe this. I see 3 possibilities that we don't have reason to reject, because we have no data on them. I'm still confused and not too confident in this belief though.
Possibility 1) Maybe the 'other' conscious beings don't want to communicate their consciousness to us.
Possibility 2) Maybe the 'other' conscious beings can't communicate their consciousness to us ever.
Possibility 3) Maybe the 'other' conscious beings can't communicate their consciousness to us given our level of technology.
And finally, since we have no data, what can we say about the likelihood of our consciousness returning/remaining after we die? I would say the chances are 50/50. For something you have no data on, any outcome is equally likely (This feels like something that must have been talked about before. So side-question: is this logic sound?).

I agree with everything you said, except for the Devils Advocate part.

We have as much reason to reject them as we have to reject the existence of a slice of chocolate cake in the asteroid belt.

It's not an argument against against my claim. It's just saying "don't play Devils Advocate for fun, only do it to help you find truth". I'm definitely not playing Devils Advocate for fun, I'm trying to arrive at the truth.

I'm not confident in my belief that "we don't know whether or not we'll remain conscious after we die". I'm more confident in it than the alternative, so it's the belief I'll go with for now, but I'm exploring whether or not it's true, which is why I posted here.

Anyway, consider the possibility that we remain conscious after we die, but can't communicate this consciousness to the living (if it helps to be more concrete, let's say that consciousness resides on some super small physical level that is uninterrupted when we die). We have no data on whether or not this possibility is true. We aren't aware of any preconditions that lead to it, and we aren't aware of any preconditions that don't lead to it (the correlation between the brain and consciousness is a correlation between the brain and consciousness that can be communicated). I know it seems crazy (and my inner voice sort of tells me that it's crazy), but I think that this means that my model of the world should give it a 50/50 shot at happening.

I've thought about it a lot, and I think the reason it feels weird to say that is because we're so used to dealing with things for which we do have information about. I think the instinctive thing to do is to query our minds for data that could support or reject this possibility, and our mind returns data on a similar possibility: consciousness that we can communicate. Another thing: I think it's tempting to reverse stupidity. To say "people who believe in the afterlife are clearly wrong; there isn't any afterlife". I'm still confused so I apologize for this paragraph being jumbled. I'm basically just saying that these are things to maybe be weary of.

I'd really like to get your thoughts on this after considering my argument again and giving it an honest chance (that we have no data on what does or doesn't lead to the state of "being conscious after you die but being incapable of communicating it to living people"). I definitely wouldn't be surprised if I made a mistake in my reasoning and I would really love to know what it is if I'm making one.

Sorry, I wasn't intending to make a reference to Devil's advocacy with that link, but to the question of whether it is reasonable to claim that there could be a slice of chocolate cake in the asteroid belt. It is true that we can't observe the asteroid belt well enough to tell directly, but the world has patterns, and what we know of those patterns, tested by the observations that we have made, rules out the chocolate cake hypothesis. We don't, indeed can't, say, "how can we know?" and give it 50% probability.

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What do rationalists think about the afterlife?

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