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polymathwannabe comments on What do rationalists think about the afterlife? - Less Wrong Discussion
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That's not what I mean by "remaining". Consciousness could exist on some small quantum or string level, or other small level we haven't even discovered yet. It's possible that this level is undisturbed when we die, and that we continue to be conscious. And it's possible that as we continue to be conscious, we can't communicate it to living people.
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.
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.
Elsewhere on this thread you also said,
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.
Not with quantum consciousness. That's not even in "possible" territory.