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?).

"There are souls" is not an explanation of how they work.

But of course that is an explanation, in the same sense that Maxwell's equations explain the behavior of electric and magnetic fields. "We have this here thing, and is generates this here other thing, which is an observation we describe with this here equation".

The difference is that the explanation by souls contains no equations, no mechanisms, nothing but the word. Consciousness extends before life and after death because "we have immortal souls". It's like saying that things fall "because of gravity". That someone speaks a foreign language well "by being fluent". That a person learns to ride a bicycle by "getting the knack of it". (The first of those three examples is Feynman's; the other two are things I have actually heard someone say.)

No different (disregarding the complexity penalty) from saying "souls generate experience" and if all you miss is the math-speak, then insert some greek letter for "soul" and another one for "consciousness".

That would be cargo-cult mathematics: imitating superficial details of the external form (Greek letters) while failing to understand what mathematics is. (cough Procrastination Equation cough)

Still, I feel the 'it's an emergent property' to be much more flawed.

Indeed, "emergence" is no more of an explanation. However, I don't think that

A computationally unlimited model-builder could do away with the whole 'emergent' concept in the first place,

Describing things in terms of "tables", "chairs", "mountains", "rivers" and so on is a great deal shorter than describing them in terms of quarks (and how do we know that quarks and the bottom level?). A model-builder so computationally unlimited as to make any finite computation in epsilon time is too magical to make a useful thought experiment. Such an entity would not be making models at all.

There is only the base level, everything else is a computational hack used by model-builders.

How does this claim cash out in terms of experience? If someone tried to take it seriously, why wouldn't they go on to think, "'I' is just a computational hack used by model-builders. I don't exist! You don't exist! We're just patterns of neural fitings. No, there are no neurons, there's just atoms! No, atoms don't exist either, just quarks! But how do I know they're the base level? No, I don't exist! There is no 'I' to know things! There are no things, no knowing of things! These words don't exist! They're just meaningless vibrations and neural firings! No, there are no vibrations and no neurons! It's all quarks! Quarkquarkquark..." and spending the rest of their days in a padded cell?

It's like saying that things fall "because of gravity".

But that's precisely what we say. Things fall "because this equation describes how they fall" (math just allows for a more precise description than natural languages). All we do is find good (first priority: accurate, second priority: short) descriptions, which is just "this does that". Fundamentally, a law of gravity and a law of "souls do consciousness" are the same thing, except the first is actually useful and can be "cashed out" better. Consider... (read more)

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What do rationalists think about the afterlife?

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