The Atlantic offers a brief, interesting article on apeirophobia, the fear of eternity. Writer Bobby Azarian explains that he's had this fear since he was four years old.
... every time I thought I had a grip on eternity, it slipped further away. The largest number of years I could imagine failed to make a dent in infinity. My primitive brain filled with an existential angst. The idea of living forever was even more unsettling than the idea of no longer existing after death.
He still feels the same way, although "rather than trying to comprehend eternity, now I just avoid the thought altogether."
The condition is not listed in formal psychiatric manuals and apparently has not been the subject of any research studies, but for those who suffer from it, it can be extremely intense. An anonymous online commenter is quoted:
Now I’m in my 30s, and the thought of eternity still freaks me out. It usually hits at night when I’m trying to sleep. I’ve learned to push it out of my mind, but sometimes I can’t, and when that happens I start pacing the room and thinking that I might have to go to the emergency room or else I might kill myself.
Cognitive scientist Martin Wiener thinks the phobia may arise from the brain's own limitations. Azarian summarizes his view:
Maybe human brains, as finite instruments with limited cognitive and computational capacities, are flat-out not hardwired to have a conception of something completely absent from sensory experience. Evolution has done just fine without organisms that contemplate infinity, after all. Doing so wouldn’t have likely offered any survival advantages to pre-modern humans.
Wiener also suggests that fear of eternity is simply a variation on fear of death. Whether death is seen as eternal existence or nonexistence, it remains the unknown. And people do fear the unknown.
The article got me thinking. First, I wonder if some if the anxiety and anger exhibited by militant Skeptics regarding life after death is, in certain cases, grounded in a fear of eternity. I'm not saying that all skeptics, or even all uppercase (dogmatic) Skeptics, have this fear, but perhaps some do.
We often hear Skeptics say, "Naturally we'd all love to believe in eternal life, but there's simply no evidence for it." But maybe some of them would not love to believe it. Maybe the idea actually fills them with dread, which could explain why they do their best to dismiss the evidence out of hand.
Second, I don't doubt that Wiener is correct in saying that the human brain (whether it is the originator or only the mediator of consciousness) is too limited to grasp eternity. It's a Flatland thing. Mr. A. Square, while living in his two-dimensional world, simply cannot conceive of a third physical dimension. After being lifted into Spaceland (the three-dimensional world), he experiences a disorienting change of perspective and is able to perceive the vertical dimension, though he is not able to explain it in words to his Flatland friends.
People who have undergone NDEs, OBEs, certain kinds of psychedelic trips, vision quests, and other transcendent experiences often lose their fear of death and, apparently, any fear of eternity. Perhaps the best treatment for apeirophobia would be the medically supervised induction of "cosmic consciousness." (We are told that patients are currently treated by "medication and cognitive behavioral therapy," with mixed results.)
Third, I think the idea of eternity is improperly understood by many people, and this misunderstanding may be partly responsible for apeirophobia. Look again at Azarian's account of his first experience of the phobia at age four: "The largest number of years I could imagine failed to make a dent in infinity.... The idea of living forever was even more unsettling than the idea of no longer existing after death."
The mistake lies in thinking of eternity as a succession of years, rather than as a timeless now. The word "eternal" literally means "outside of time." The idea is not that time goes on forever, but that there is no time, or at least no time as human beings understand it.
If we look at mediumistic accounts, we find that the newly deceased report themselves existing in an earthlike world where time passes, lessons are learned, and new experiences are enjoyed. But this so-called Summerland environment is not the be-all and end-all of afterlife realms. It is more like a way station, a place to rest and recuperate after the rigors of incarnation. We are consistently told that higher realms await, and that these realms are progressively less earthlike.
The highest realm, our ultimate destination, is indescribable, but apparently it has none of the properties we associate with earthly life, including physical space and sequential time. It is the eternal now. In this state we are not marking off years like a convict in a cell. We are not seeking to "make a dent in infinity." Boredom, repetition, and other issues associated with lengthy time periods are irrelevant to a state of existence in which time does not exist.
Here is a story I've told elsewhere on this blog. A few years ago I was wondering how anyone could exist "forever" and not go crazy with boredom. That night I had a vivid dream in which I was a bodiless awareness in a humming void. I was suffused with feelings of peace and contentment; perhaps "bliss" would be the better word. All around me was a golden orange field of pure light.* I had the sense that this state of existence would continue indefinitely.
When I woke up, I felt that the dream had answered my question. That's how you can exist "forever" without becoming bored with it all. In that unchanging state, there is no past, no future, no time, no measurement, no desire, no frustration. There is only total unquestioning acceptance. Everything simply is.
If we think of eternity as merely a timeless moment, maybe it seems a little more friendly and a little less unknown.
- - -
*P.S. The few times in my life that I've had anything remotely similar to an experience of cosmic consciousness, I've seen (subjectively) a bright orange field of light. I have no idea why. I don't even like the color orange!
Interesting subject and post, Michael!
Here's how I see it. I think that fear is always based on past experience. We don't truly fear death. How could we? We can only fear that which we know.
Likewise, we don't fear an eternal life after death. We fear an eternity of that with which we're already familiar: ennui.
Now you might argue that we do indeed fear the unknown. But the truth is, we fear it because we suspect that it will duplicate experiences we've already had, or are currently having. Uncomfortable ones.
(By fear, I'm speaking of phobias that are neurotic. Do animals fear death? Their behavior seems to show that they do, but all we know for sure is that they act strenuously to avoid pain and death. I doubt that whatever fear they feel invades their sense of well-being and distorts their lives, as is often the case with humans.)
So non-believers fear death, but only because they assume the "experience" will be painful—as illogical as this seems. But where fear is concerned, logic hardly matters.
And others fear life after death—and for exactly the same reason. Why? Because they have little familiarity with, or faith in, a state of being that is worth hanging on to. Until, that is, they have an experience like:
"I was suffused with feelings of peace and contentment; perhaps "bliss" would be the better word. All around me was a golden orange field of pure light. I had the sense that this state of existence would continue indefinitely."
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | February 12, 2017 at 04:50 PM
"People who have undergone NDEs, OBEs, certain kinds of psychedelic trips, vision quests, and other transcendent experiences often lose their fear of death and, apparently, any fear of eternity"
It works for me. Not that I ever feared eternity. It's more that it puts you in touch with the "deeper" aspects of yourself that are - at least seemingly - eternal.
"A few years ago I was wondering how anyone could exist "forever" and not go crazy with boredom. That night I had a vivid dream in which I was a bodiless awareness in a humming void. I was suffused with feelings of peace and contentment; perhaps "bliss" would be the better word. All around me was a golden orange field of pure light.* I had the sense that this state of existence would continue indefinitely. "
I had an experience a couple years ago that was similar, except my perceptions were over-taken by sound that morphed in music. Just going and going, ever more soulful and beautiful and just when I thought it could get any more intensely beautiful and the little bit of me (my normal ego) that was left was reduced to something repeating "WOW!" over and over, it go turn up the "volume". This went on for a few hours earth time, but was truly an experience of eternity; an energy filled, ecstatic, infinity that I became a part of and was a part of me.
But that loss of ego was a little frightening at first. Once I surrendered, bliss.
IMO, the key to being ok with all of this is to get past the intellectualizing.
I am surprised that Azarian would even be thinking about eternity,let alone conceptualizing it to the point of fear at such a young age.
Posted by: Eric Newhill | February 12, 2017 at 06:47 PM
"We often hear Skeptics say, "Naturally we'd all love to believe in eternal life, but there's simply no evidence for it." But maybe some of them would not love to believe it. Maybe the idea actually fills them with dread, which could explain why they do their best to dismiss the evidence out of hand."
Suffering is the feeling of being trapped with no escape.
Posted by: Julie Baxter | February 12, 2017 at 07:19 PM
But why dig into someone's motivations? That is done by both skeptics and proponents, and it is irrelevant to the matter unless it overshadows our judgment about the evidence.
I do not understand the fear of eternity. I am afraid that there is no personal afterlife, but I think that does not prevent me from rationally judging the evidence and conclude that it is most likely that there is a personal afterlife.
And then there is the question of afterlife ≠ eternity, because it is conceivable an afterlife that is not eternal, although according to NDEs and mediumship, afterlife seems to be eternal and involves endless adventures, which excludes eternal boredom.
Posted by: Juan | February 13, 2017 at 03:57 AM
Walk Right In
Unpinned, unhinged,
The door swings wide
On the keyless side
Posted by: Roger Knights | February 13, 2017 at 11:40 AM
"And then there is the question of afterlife ≠ eternity, because it is conceivable an afterlife that is not eternal, although according to NDEs and mediumship, afterlife seems to be eternal and involves endless adventures, which excludes eternal boredom." - Juan
Boredom is the very least of my worries. I can honestly say that I am never bored . . . . . not even for one moment. If all else fails, I can live inside my head. :)
Posted by: Julie Baxter | February 13, 2017 at 01:58 PM
As I think I've said before, there's no reason we should feel boredom after death the same way we do now even if eternity was an endless progression of years; boredom evolved as a prompt to intelligence and investigating new ways to stay alive, and wouldn't need to stick around when there's no more reason to do that.
Potentially relevant reference; in Pratchett's "Eric", the souls of the damned don't mind being in Hell because they no longer have nervous systems and so can stop feeling pain, so instead the demons start torturing them with boring things; Sisyphus can't roll the rock up the hill anymore until the demon finishes reading out a very long instruction manual to him.
Posted by: chel | February 13, 2017 at 02:57 PM
"But why dig into someone's motivations? That is done by both skeptics and proponents, and it is irrelevant to the matter unless it overshadows our judgment about the evidence."
Sounds like you've answered your own question, Juan. :)
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | February 13, 2017 at 04:19 PM
I had a similar experience when I was about five or six years old. I wasn't afraid of it all, but I was a little obsessed with the fact that the universe (space) is infinite. I used to think about it how it goes on and on forever, which in some ways seems impossible, and on the other hand, how could it not go on forever?
I still think about it every now and then, and I still can't really wrap my mind around it. I don't think the human mind is made for it.
Posted by: Kathleen | February 13, 2017 at 06:35 PM
Most cosmologists today believe the universe is not infinite. If the Big Bang Theory is correct, there's a finite amount of matter in existence, which has been expanding outward ever since the Big Bang.
The current thinking is that the universe is finite but unbounded, as explained here:
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/247864/signification-of-finite-but-unbounded-universe/247894
Posted by: Michael Prescott | February 13, 2017 at 11:05 PM
Michael said:
"Most cosmologists today believe the universe is not infinite."
But let's put this in perspective. I bet not a single one of those guys in the finite camp would take something like the NDE seriously. These are hardcore materialists.
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | February 14, 2017 at 12:54 PM
I believe there is both a rational and irrational component to our fear of death.
If someone is having a great life, the fear of it coming to an end someday is perfectly rational. If on the other hand one is having a crap life, the fear of death is irrational. This must surely be the case, as non-existence is certainly an improvement on an existence full of pain and suffering (we may not be able to imagine non-existence, but we can certainly imagine non-suffering).
There have been periods in my life when the thought of not existing seems like pure bliss. Nonetheless I still feared death, albeit to a lesser degree than at times in my life when I was enjoying life. This suggests the truth of the above statement. The residual fear of death at times in my life when I was having an awful time could be reasonably identified as being the aforementioned irrational component of fear.
So what is it exactly about death that we fear, even when the alternative is pain and suffering? It seems intrinsically contradictory to fear something we cannot imagine, but whilst we cannot imagine the experience of non-existence we can certainly imagine the state of affairs of not existing. Perhaps what we fear is a particular state of affairs (a world where we don’t exist) rather than the experience of not existing.
But why would we fear that particular state of affairs? After all, the world was that way before we were born.
Perhaps a more informative question to ask is: Is the fear of death fundamentally biological, or can we expect all sentient beings to possess a similar fear? Suppose we were to build sentient robots one day. Would they fear death in the same way that we do, irrespective of the underlying technology and structural design? In other words: Is fear of death a guaranteed property of all conceivable forms of sentience, or at least sentient beings experiencing mortality? Perhaps any entity which possesses sentience will fear its own potential non-existence due to some ‘law of sentience’ we currently do not understand.
Does god fear death, or at least the hypothetical thought of it?
Posted by: Mark Green | February 14, 2017 at 01:40 PM
But it is more relevant to inquire into the evidence of the afterlife than on the motivations of the people on this subject.
Posted by: Juan | February 14, 2017 at 05:35 PM
It has never occurred to me to doubt that the fear of death is anything more than a biological drive. Clearly, animals fear death because, like us, they strive to avoid it whenever it threatens. The only difference, I suppose, is that they don't trouble themselves by thinking about it in the abstract.
But it's a good question to ask whether non-biological intelligence would simply look at the prospect of death from a philosophical point of view. My guess is that they would.
Posted by: Julie Baxter | February 15, 2017 at 03:01 AM
"If someone is having a great life, the fear of it coming to an end someday is perfectly rational. If on the other hand one is having a crap life, the fear of death is irrational. This must surely be the case, as non-existence is certainly an improvement on an existence full of pain and suffering (we may not be able to imagine non-existence, but we can certainly imagine non-suffering)."
I disagree. For me a hellish afterlife is preferable to definitive destruction, because it will always be possible to get out of that hell, but not with definitive destruction.
"But why would we fear that particular state of affairs?"
Because once you're conscious, you want to remain that. Even so, I argue that it is more relevant to inquire about evidence of afterlife than to treat this topic.
Posted by: Juan | February 15, 2017 at 06:40 AM
I was deliberately factoring out the possibility of an afterlife, since the subject we are discussing is the fear of death. I have admittedly taken a slightly different angle to the original post, and have looked at it from the point of view of death resulting in a genuine non-existence. I am by no means asserting this is actually the case, but have used this hypothetically for the sake of examining fear of death from that particular angle. I have done this simply because to many people, rightly or wrongly, that is exactly what death means. So consequently that is how I wish to approach the issue of why we fear death so much. Yes I agree that being trapped in a hellish environment is (marginally) worse than being stuck here on Earth as a human who is undergoing extreme trauma, but I am hypothetically presupposing in my comments that death simply means non-existence.
The basic premise in the previous post was: Non-existence is not a bad thing in an absolute sense, but only relative to a certain quality (or lack thereof) of existence. Given that in general we tend to fear death (non-existence) even in situations when the alternative is perpetual suffering, this indicates an irrational component to our fear. The implicit assumption in the previous posts which I read before posting my reply was that we cannot fear what we can’t imagine (debatable), but I suggested in response that we could nonetheless fear a state of affairs; something we can easily imagine. I don’t take this ‘state of affairs’ explanation very seriously, but was simply trying to think of all logical possibilities.
I think you could well be correct in saying that once conscious we wish to remain so. But is this some kind of automatic consequence of being sentient (which I think is what you are suggesting) or could it be more accurately regarded as some kind of fundamental ‘law of sentience’. It is much more natural and automatic to believe the former rather than the latter. Nonetheless that is by no means certain.
Posted by: Mark Green | February 15, 2017 at 03:06 PM
As I said elsewhere, one would think a suicidal insomniac would at least get to not fear oblivion, and yet here and several of my acquaintances are. I don't know what that proves about suffering except that it's sometimes unpleasantly ironic.
Posted by: chel | February 15, 2017 at 08:31 PM
If there is nothing beyond death then, surely, the actuality of it is of no concern to anyone.
When we have a general anaesthetic we are completely oblivious to the world. If we never awoke from that oblivion we would know nothing of our condition.
So the only fear, as far as I can see, is the innate fear of death; the fear that has (presumably) evolved to keep us going till our last natural breath.
The only thing that concerns me is the thought of leaving behind people and animals that might need me. And my worst fear is that, should there be consciousness beyond death, I might have to be aware of the suffering of my loved ones and feel utterly unable to help them.
Posted by: Julie Baxter | February 16, 2017 at 01:36 PM
Michael said: "Whether death is seen as eternal existence or nonexistence, it remains the unknown. And people do fear the unknown." Of these two unknowns, nonexistence seems the less fear worthy, as there is no "you" to experience anxiety, depression, etc. Presumably, suicides anticipate nonexistence as an eternal relief from the pain that drives them to take their lives. And, believers in the finality of death claim that death is simply a return to the state of nonexistence that preceded our conception and birth.
Nonexistence is likened to the timeless state of dreamless sleep. Socrates, in his meditation on death, noted that his best nights were those free of dreams. If death be such, he thought, it is a sleep to be welcomed. Raymond Moody observed, however, that dreamless sleep is enjoyed precisely because we awaken from it.
The peace of dreamless sleep is familiar, it is something we regularly experience and, personally, the thought of dozing off and never awakening is rather comforting. Yes, no more joys and pleasures, but no troubles and worries either. Non-existence is 100 percent care free. So, we can comprehend what it might be to sink into a dreamless sleep from which we never awaken.
Michael gives a sound remedy for those suffering from Apeirophobia, that eternity is not an infinite stretch of time. Eternity exists outside of time. This, is eternity, the ever present now. Why worry what my life will be like a million years from now, for that now to come is the same eternal present in which these words are being typed by me and read by you.
Posted by: David Chilstrom | February 16, 2017 at 09:37 PM
"We often hear Skeptics say, "Naturally we'd all love to believe in eternal life, but there's simply no evidence for it." But maybe some of them would not love to believe it. Maybe the idea actually fills them with dread, which could explain why they do their best to dismiss the evidence out of hand."
I do not think that is a relevant reason why skeptics reject evidence. The main reason is lack of *hard* evidence, which is repeatable at will, in controlled lab environments. This is why we must continue to investigate the evidence rather than discuss these motivations.
"Boredom, repetition, and other issues associated with lengthy time periods are irrelevant to a state of existence in which time does not exist."
Some time has to exist. No time implies no consciousness in my opinion. And boredom has no place if there are infinite things to do.
Posted by: Juan | February 17, 2017 at 02:54 AM
Mark
“I think you could well be correct in saying that once conscious we wish to remain so. But is this some kind of automatic consequence of being sentient (which I think is what you are suggesting) or could it be more accurately regarded as some kind of fundamental ‘law of sentience’.”
Not sure I completely follow what you are saying here. Are you able to elaborate?
Posted by: Carl Heston | February 17, 2017 at 08:55 AM
in meditation the eternal now is also a state of being that is spoken of.
Rather than an endless eternity, the eternal now is the blissful present moment, constantly being renewed, as if every 'moment' is brand new.
In such a state, 'boredom' cannot be comprehended.
These states are not easy to fathom in ordinary consciousness, which is why people panic about eternity - they are projecting ordinary experience onto states in which ordinary experience does not apply.
Posted by: Douglas | February 17, 2017 at 09:17 AM
Carl, yes certainly I can.
I guess the best way to explain the point I am trying to make is as follows: Scientific theories are generally underpinned by a set of postulates (particularly within the field of theoretical physics). These are statements which are assumed to be true either because they are self-evidently correct or simply because they cannot be further justified within the theoretical framework which they form the basis of. Think of Newton’s three laws of mechanics for instance. These laws are taken as self-evident truths, and not derived from more basic prinicples within Newtonian physics. The logical consequences of these three laws however give rise to the full range of theorems which form Newtonian mechanics. A similar principle applies to pure mathematics. Euclidean geometry is derived from five axioms that are taken as true and do not (and indeed cannot) be derived from more fundamental axioms or principles.
Someone posted above “Because once you're conscious, you want to remain that”, which I think neatly encapsulates the common intuitive way of understanding the fear of death. The basic idea being conveyed here is that a conscious entity would naturally want to remain so, and would not need (or necessarily be able) to justify this from a more fundamental standpoint. To illustrate this point, suppose in the future someone builds a conscious robot, and then tells it they are going to pull the plug. Would the robot get stressed about this, even if it were a mere slave robot condemned to an endless existence of performing mundane household chores, with no quality of life? Further, suppose this robot has inbuilt intelligence to such a degree of sophistication that, unlike humans, it is able to have a complete insight into all its behaviour patterns and motivations. If the robot was then asked why it feared death (assuming of course that it did fear death) would it justify this fear using a type of syllogistic reasoning reminiscent of deriving theorems from axioms or postulates, or alternatively would it simply state words to the effect of; “Well of course I don’t want to die. I am conscious and naturally wish to remain so.” This latter response would suggest that fear of dying is an immediate natural consequence of being conscious, and could not be meaningfully analysed in terms of more fundamental principles.
It is not immediately obvious which one of these possibilities is the correct one. On this current thread both viewpoints have been implied to be the correct one.
Posted by: Mark Green | February 17, 2017 at 02:30 PM
Douglas said:
"in meditation the eternal now is also a state of being that is spoken of.
Rather than an endless eternity, the eternal now is the blissful present moment, constantly being renewed, as if every 'moment' is brand new.
In such a state, 'boredom' cannot be comprehended."
Exactly.
"These states are not easy to fathom in ordinary consciousness, which is why people panic about eternity - they are projecting ordinary experience onto states in which ordinary experience does not apply."
I agree. This is what I meant when I said that we don't fear death, and we don't fear the unknown—we fear being trapped within a misery we've already experienced, or are now experiencing. We fear that which we know all too well!
Posted by: Bruce Siegel | February 17, 2017 at 06:18 PM
Juan wrote, "The main reason is lack of *hard* evidence, which is repeatable at will, in controlled lab environments. This is why we must continue to investigate the evidence rather than discuss these motivations."
What experiments would you suggest that would provide "hard," repeatable, laboratory-based evidence for life after death?
Posted by: Michael Prescott | February 17, 2017 at 10:19 PM
"What experiments would you suggest that would provide "hard," repeatable, laboratory-based evidence for life after death?"
NDEs under controlled lab environments to ensure that data obtained are not results of known senses, inference or luck, repeatable mediumship at will, devices to communicate with deceased human beings regularly.
Posted by: Juan | February 18, 2017 at 02:56 AM
"In that unchanging state, there is no past, no future, no time, no measurement, no desire, no frustration. There is only total unquestioning acceptance. Everything simply is. "
What's the difference between that and plain old, vanilla death? If you're in that changeless state you can't be thinking, perceiving or accepting, all of which imply change.
Posted by: Jake | February 18, 2017 at 01:46 PM
"NDEs under controlled lab environments to ensure that data obtained are not results of known senses, inference or luck, repeatable mediumship at will, devices to communicate with deceased human beings regularly."
I don't see how NDEs could be tested that way, since by definition the test subject would have to be brought to the brink of death.
Mediumship has been extensively tested under controlled conditions, going back to the 19th century, and more recently by Gary Schwartz, Julie Beischel, and the team of Patricia Robertson and Archie Roy, among others. More tests are always welcome, but if 150 years of experiments haven't changed the Skeptics' minds, I doubt anything will.
As for devices that enable after-death communication, the only examples I can think of are the so-called Spiricom device, which worked erratically at best, and various EVP/ITC cases, most of which unfortunately seem to be explainable by "data mining," random noise interpreted as words, or fraud. There may be legitimate cases, but they seem to be very rare and often ambiguous. Still, I agree that this is an area where more work should be done. As far as I know, however, there's no serious work being done on technology-mediated ADCs at present, so there's nothing for this blog to report on.
Posted by: Michael Prescott | February 18, 2017 at 01:56 PM
Another thought. Perhaps in general a conscious entity will not so much fear death as simply prefer to carry on existing? Perhaps it is only biological organisms (at least carbon-based ones) that translate this preference into a fear. So accordingly, the hypothetical robot in my previous post might say “No, I do not fear death, but would prefer to remain conscious indefinitely if at all possible.”
Posted by: Mark Green | February 18, 2017 at 03:17 PM
"I don't see how NDEs could be tested that way, since by definition the test subject would have to be brought to the brink of death."
Experiments as in Flatliners movie although they would be morally questionable.
"Mediumship has been extensively tested under controlled conditions, going back to the 19th century, and more recently by Gary Schwartz, Julie Beischel, and the team of Patricia Robertson and Archie Roy, among others."
But these experiments did not show mediums that fall into trance and present the form of being of a deceased, they did not pretend to prove postmortem communications but to study the functioning of mediumship.
Then there is the idea that there is no theoretical foundation for the afterlife; scientists do not usually accept a phenomenon unless they have a theoretical framework to relate it to a scientific discipline.
About the comment of Jake, I agree. Consciousness always implies time.
Posted by: Juan | February 19, 2017 at 03:43 AM
Mark. I think I understand what you are saying about deriving theorems from axioms but it is not at all clear to me how this could be applied to fear of death. How would that work?
Posted by: Carl heston | February 19, 2017 at 10:48 AM
Mark Green, some very good and interesting thinking, thanks!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | February 19, 2017 at 11:41 AM
Michael wrote,
||I don't see how NDEs could be tested that way, since by definition the test subject would have to be brought to the brink of death. ||
B-b-but, didn't you see, back in 1990:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099582/?ref_=nv_sr_2
And you know it's a viable concept, cuz they're remaking it!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039338/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
:)
Posted by: Matt Rouge | February 19, 2017 at 11:43 AM
Another thought to throw into the discussion...
Let's suppose for a moment that materialism is correct and after death we cease utterly to exist.
Non-existence involves no mental processes. Thus, I think people tend to imagine that non-existence imposes a kind of eternal burden upon the mind. 10 years from now I'll have to "handle" non-existence, 100 years I'll have to "death with" it, 1,000,000 years from now I'll have to "put up" with it...
The only mental processes we ever experience are those when we are alive. So, wouldn't it be the case, even granting the assumptions of materialism, that we would find ourselves back at the beginning of our lives once we die?
Or, to put it another way, since it's from conception to death that we exist in a particular part of space-time, don't we eternally exist "there"?
This line of thought, however, brings up the question of the nature of time. Does the past truly cease to exist? Or does it continue to exist, albeit in the past? If we confirm the latter, then the question arises as to how the present has the "power" to exist. Time is not a process per se; there is, for example, no gear that we could stop from turning in order to stop time. Yet, per Einstein, we also know that time can be influenced by acceleration, gravity, etc. (e.g., time stopping at the event horizon of a black hole). The idea of the past ceasing to exist, utterly, does not seem Einsteinian and therefore not "scientific," though I don't know what scientists think they know on this issue.
Let me put it another way: if the past does not exist, what makes the present exist? If one says, "Because it's actually now," then I would say, "OK, what makes the now *now*, inasmuch as there is no *process* behind time?"
So let us suppose that materialism is true and the past continues to exist in some sense within spacetime. So do we wake up after death as a baby and do the same things all over again? Well, no, it's not *again.* The thing about consciousness is that we are constantly pushed forward by time and we keep the past in the form of memory. The paradox is that we are always existing "atop" this mountain of memory to which we do not feel we have complete and clear access. Even if there is a "me" who "continues" to exist in 1981, I cannot access him fully. Meanwhile, "he" is blind to the future in which I exist.
In any case, I think theistic and New Age thought take care of this whole problem rather neatly by positing that not only does the past exist but it also remains accessible. And psi does indeed seem to confirm this, and I think introspection about the nature of memory does too.
Further, speculation along the lines of the above leads in the direction of intuitive acceptance of life after death. To me, materialism in some sense posits that we are already dead and lacking in existence, thus making it unclear why we experience consciousness in the first place. Positing the eternal existence and accessibility of information and the indestructibility of consciousness seems to solve a lot of fairly mind-bending problems.
The above is more than a little sloppy, but I hope it will make intuitive sense to someone!
Posted by: Matt Rouge | February 19, 2017 at 12:40 PM
I should say, "To me, materialism in some sense *implies*."
Materialists would probably deny such an inconvenient implication, however.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | February 19, 2017 at 12:43 PM
Carl writes “Mark. I think I understand what you are saying about deriving theorems from axioms but it is not at all clear to me how this could be applied to fear of death. How would that work?”
To start with it is easy to see how syllogistic reasoning can be applied to a purely physical explanation for fearing death. Richard Dawkins provides an example of applying purely physical principles to such fears, arguing in a typically syllogistic fashion how genes will essentially dictate our entire range of motivations and emotions for the sole purpose of genes being propagated throughout successive generations.
I am simply suggesting the possibility of a more fundamental explanation which transcends particular biologies, and perhaps even physical systems altogether. There could well be a huge variety of different sentient life forms scattered around the universe. If we were to encounter the entire spectrum of life across the universe would we find it universally true that all sentient beings intelligent enough to comprehend their own mortality would either fear or be adverse to the idea of becoming non-existent? This of course would not in itself preclude a purely physical explanation, but certainly would suggest an explanation which does not appeal to specific biologies.
Now suppose there are life forms in the universe which are not coupled in any way to a physical substrate. Would we continue to find a fear (even if only hypothetical) of non-existence permeating this non-physical realm. Suppose that even in this non-physical realm, death was a reality. Would these mortal non-physical entities be concerned about their impending demise? If true, then the likely answer to the question of why death is feared would transcend even a physical explanation, and would most likely be inextricably linked to consciousness itself (what else could it be linked to?)
Now suppose this is the case. We might at this stage stop to pause and wonder if the question – why do conscious entities fear death - even has any meaning. Could it be that consciousness automatically carries with it a fear of a discontinuation of consciousness? This is what I mean by an axiom – fear of death cannot be meaningfully analysed by appealing to more fundamental factors. It is what it is. End of.
If this is not the case then surely the answer must be contingent on more fundamental principles. What these principles could be I have no idea. I am not even sure that using words such as ‘axioms’ and ‘syllogisms’ is strictly correct when applied to purely mental phenomenon, but it is as close as I can get to explaining what I mean.
This kind of discourse will probably make very little sense to a philosophical materialist who will see the mental as an epiphenomenon on the physical. In order for this kind of reasoning to appear coherent one would probably have to take the idea of an independent mental realm seriously.
I hope that answers your question Carl
Posted by: Mark Green | February 19, 2017 at 04:36 PM
Juan wrote: For me a hellish afterlife is preferable to definitive destruction, because it will always be possible to get out of that hell, but not with definitive destruction.
I totally agree. One of the things that I've always said about the Christian faith I was raised in and now doubt the dogma of. If there is a hell then I have absolute faith that the Holy Spirit/ Christ/ Ground of all being loves me too much to leave me there forever. But, oblivion is forever. That is one reason that materialist so much remind me of fundlmentalist religious people. They thump their great god "science" not as a method to learn but as holy writ or an all knowing entity much as religious people pound scripture. As for eternal existence. Yes, I can get my head around it. Because I already feel I exist and eternity isn't a passage of time. It is being. As a good friend of mine once said before he passed. "I like Being." So do I and I know that he still does.
Posted by: Steve Snead | February 22, 2017 at 04:37 PM
Matt Rouge makes some excellent observations or food for thought. Matt some of the stuff you posted reminds me somewhat of a British author named Anthony Peake who seems to have some of the same thoughts about starting over or continually living out our lives. I personally do think we are eternal. I'm always kind of struck when I hear (as I heard yesterday from a talking head on T.V.) say "I wasn't alive then" when talking about the past. Does that mean you believe in life after death or something from nothing? I'm very skeptical of the thought that my developing brain is the absolute cause of my whole being. I once said that I thought it odd that we know the brain takes in information (for instance we are told of joy or sorrow or we watch a sporting event to see who wins.) Yet, we are told at the same time the brain isn't a receiver but the root cause of everything. Seems a little inconsistent to me. But, a materialist quickly pointed out that was just "qualia" which honestly? Explained nothing concerning the brain as receiver possibility. :-)
Posted by: Steve Snead | February 22, 2017 at 04:49 PM
Thanks, Steve! Yeah, I think the value-add of materialists to the debate at this stage is zero to negative.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | February 23, 2017 at 05:21 PM
Matt wrote: “Or, to put it another way, since it's from conception to death that we exist in a particular part of space-time, don't we eternally exist "there"?”
This is a very interesting line of thought, something I have considered myself. I studied special relativity at university, along with quantum mechanics. It is a certainty (and not an interpretational issue) that space and time are identical in many respects. First and foremost time does not flow, our consciousness flow through time – a big difference. Time sits there in its entirety, in the same way that space does. This seems to suggest that in a sense we are immortal, like Matt stated, but to be honest I don't really know quite how to interpret this in relation to the idea that we never die, as there is definitely a sense that our consciousness flows from the beginning to the end of a life.
“This line of thought, however, brings up the question of the nature of time. Does the past truly cease to exist?”
No it does not.
“Or does it continue to exist, albeit in the past?"
It continues to exist, but it is only limited human perception that would regard it as existing in the past.
“If we confirm the latter, then the question arises as to how the present has the "power" to exist. Time is not a process per se; there is, for example, no gear that we could stop from turning in order to stop time. Yet, per Einstein, we also know that time can be influenced by acceleration, gravity, etc. (e.g., time stopping at the event horizon of a black hole).
That is just one of the reasons we know that time sits there like space does. The warping effects of gravity on space-time confirm the truth of this, along with other lines of evidence.
“The idea of the past ceasing to exist, utterly, does not seem Einsteinian and therefore not "scientific," though I don't know what scientists think they know on this issue.”
Scientists in general probably have a very poor grasp of this. Pretty much all theoretical physicists however will understand this aspect of relativity. As far as I know it is not something which is seriously disputed within physics.
“Let me put it another way: if the past does not exist, what makes the present exist? If one says, "Because it's actually now," then I would say, "OK, what makes the now *now*, inasmuch as there is no *process* behind time?" "
Good point
Posted by: Mark Green | February 25, 2017 at 08:56 AM
"Positing the eternal existence and accessibility of information and the indestructibility of consciousness seems to solve a lot of fairly mind-bending problems."
Too complicated. The simplest is to resort to NDEs, apparitions, mediumship and children who remember their previous lives.
Posted by: Juan | February 26, 2017 at 09:47 AM
" Time is not a process per se; there is, for example, no gear that we could stop from turning in order to stop time."
That's what you think, but we do not know. For example: "Quantum Break" game postulates that the time depends on the creation of some subatomic particles; If they are not created, time stops. It is fiction, but some recent developments point out that time is not fundamental but derived.
Posted by: Juan | February 26, 2017 at 09:52 AM
People have fears about almost everything, some more rational than others. Two sisters I went tramping with - one feared buttons, the other streams, my daughters friend feared escalators.
Having a fear of death is fairly rational, especially if you think life ends. I often think religion was invented to help assuage those feelings.
As a child I often woke with a feeling of severe dread that one day there would be no me, mainly that my consciousness or personality was no more. Phobias are insidious though, you can't apply reason, and that are all consuming. That's a phobia I guess. Lyn x.
Posted by: Lynn | February 26, 2017 at 09:54 PM
Juan wrote,
||Too complicated. The simplest is to resort to NDEs, apparitions, mediumship and children who remember their previous lives.||
That's like saying particle physics is too complicated. As a species, we are trying to understand whatever we can. I was not talking about a proof of the Afterlife but a philosophical understanding of phenomena.
||That's what you think, but we do not know. For example: "Quantum Break" game postulates that the time depends on the creation of some subatomic particles; If they are not created, time stops. It is fiction, but some recent developments point out that time is not fundamental but derived.||
I am not saying that time does not have a cause; of course it does. I am saying that time itself is not a process that "makes things happen" or a process that we can control. It is not a process at all but rather a fundamental aspect of physical reality. To put it another way, it is not 2017 because something is *making* it "really now" *now*; rather, 2017 exists in relation to other years that are no more or less real or *now* than our own. E.g., 1885 is "now" in 1885.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | February 27, 2017 at 12:49 AM
Great points, Mark Green!
I think this discussion highlights the importance of philosophy in understanding these matters. Science does not automatically offer a way of putting basic facts into a big picture.
Posted by: Matt Rouge | February 27, 2017 at 12:50 AM
There is usually a reason for a phobia. The woman that had a fear of buttons, I asked why, and she said that when she was younger some children chased after her and were throwing buttons at her face, and she was scared of swallowing one.
Streams, I didn't ask, but the guy taking us for a hike laughed and said she was going to have trouble, as we were crossing some that day.
I remember my eldest daughter when young had a fear of death, and I know that came from Sunday school (she told me). And I feel that fire and brimstone teachings of religion, have a lot to do with that. Lyn x.
Posted by: Lynn | February 28, 2017 at 01:32 AM
Juan,
Time is not a process in the sense that it flows from the past to the future. What we call ‘past’ and ‘future’ coexist with the ever changing moment we call now (although what is really changing is the point our consciousness is focussed on within time). This is fully consistent with the accounts of people who have transcendental experiences, where they claim that time doesn’t exist. It is important to bear in mind that the ‘object’ (for lack of a better word) we call space-time does not in any sense resemble what we perceive as either space or time. These are just perceptions we have whilst in human bodies (our perception of flowing time having to do with the temporal lobe in the brain probably). It has only been labelled ‘space-time’ because somehow this ‘object’ is connected with our perceptions of space and time. And that’s all. But whatever it is, it is not in itself those perceptions - it is something entirely different. So from higher levels of consciousness (such as during a transcendental experiences for instance) time and space would be seen not to exist.
In saying this I display no prejudice for or against any particular interpretation of time. I am merely influenced by my understanding of special relativity. I am not over-stating my position either, as the physical facts would have to be different to what they really are if time really did flow.
It is almost certain that I would never have believed people who have had NDEs etc. and who claim that time and space do not exist, had it not been for my knowledge of special relativity. That is the sole reason I buy into this claim - it has been forced upon me by knowledge of the physical facts of the universe vis-à-vis special relativity. And I have to stress, like I did previously, that this conclusion is not a matter of personal interpretation.
Posted by: Mark Green | February 28, 2017 at 02:03 PM
"That's like saying particle physics is too complicated. As a species, we are trying to understand whatever we can. I was not talking about a proof of the Afterlife but a philosophical understanding of phenomena."
But it is that your speculations complicate things instead of clarifying them and are not comparable to the particle physics, which has predictive power.
"What we call ‘past’ and ‘future’ coexist with the ever changing moment we call now (although what is really changing is the point our consciousness is focussed on within time)."
That is only a interpretation of the theory of relativity, but not the only one.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-bebecome/
Posted by: Juan | March 01, 2017 at 07:33 AM
Juan,
Just consider for a moment what you could reasonably say constitutes your reality. Your reality you might claim, would include everything happening right now in your immediate vicinity which you can directly observe, everything happening just beyond your field of vision, such as people walking around next door for instance, everything happening in your local neighborhood, in your town or city, or in fact on the entire planet. I think you would also claim that everything occurring in our solar system and galaxy, and in fact the entire universe would comprise your current reality (in the relevant sense). In short your reality is comprised of the entire set of 'now events' within the entire universe. If I am understanding you correctly you are claiming (or at least claiming the possibility) that the moment we call 'now' is the only reality, or at the very least has some kind of privileged position over the moments that have already transpired, or will transpire in the future. Now I will show you categorically why this position is completely untenable, given the facts of relativity. You will be unable to find a genuine flaw in my reasoning below. In fact I am so confident of this, that if you do in fact manage to find a flaw to the effect that my conclusion does not follow from the premise, I will happily post a cheque to you to the amount of £10,000.
Consider an alien who lives on some planet a few billion light years from Earth. As he walks around (since we are considering a planet located a vast distance away from Earth we only need to consider moderate speeds as time dilation effectively becomes amplified over vast distances) his set of 'now events' will shift relative to yours. As he walks in one direction the set of events this alien considers as part of his reality might coincide with events which you would consider as happening in your past. Alternatively he might walk in the opposite direction, and his corresponding set of now events are now occurring in your future. Now, here is the critical bit! - According to relativity, his set of now events has equal status to yours. So if this alien reasoned as you currently do, he would claim his set of now events has a privileged position over all other moments in time, or even suggest his now events are all that exist. But you can't both be right! Do you see the problem?
The whole point of relativity is that there are an infinite number of reference frames which can carve through spacetime in an infinite variety of ways. And each person in their own personal reference frame has equal right to consider his slice of spacetime (what I have been calling now events) as unique. To put this another way, there is no unique slice of spacetime. Each set of now events has equal status to any other set of now events. And this, I think you will agree, is totally incompatible with the idea that times flows, and that the only moment in time which really exists is now.
A couple of points to consider before you try to find a way around this argument:
When I claim that there is no unique slice of spacetime, this is not a matter of speculation. Anyone who claims otherwise simply does not understand the theory of relativity. There is absolutely no dispute going on between physicists that there is any alternative interpretation. In fact, the entire theory of relativity is based on this one simple premise.
You might feel a bit wary about considering events happening vast distances away as comprising your reality. However if you were to decide upon some cut-off point beyond which you were unprepared to accept events happening beyond that boundary as part of your reality, what would you base your choice of distance on? I am certain you would not claim that events happening beyond your immediate field of vision are not part of your reality, as you would be very unlikely to answer the phone and say “How can you be talking to me right now, you are not part of my reality.” Suppose then that you were to decide any distance over a million miles from Earth was not part of your reality. The pertinent question would be: what peculiar feature does this distance have which decides that events beyond it are suddenly not part of your reality? And if you were to decide in response to this dilemma to choose an even vaster distance, what would you base that choice on. And so on, ad-infinitum. All possible choices of distance would be entirely arbitrary. The basic point is – what would you base any choice of distance on in order to counter the claim that your choice is entirely arbitrary and without real meaning?
Even if there was actually some legitimate cut-off point, there would still be a problem. People moving around on Earth at appreciable speeds (relative to each other) are also slicing up spacetime differently. In fact if someone were to move fast enough, they might even disagree with you on the actual sequence of events, or which events were occurring simultaneously. According to relativity the very notion of simultaneousness is subjective, and depends on ones reference frame, as does the notion of one event occurring prior to another event. To put another way – there is no objective truth to the claim that event A occurred before event B, or event A happened at the same time to event B, or event A occurred after event B. And just to reiterate, this is not a particular interpretation of relativity, it IS relativity. It is the very essence of the theory, not some incidental side point!
So the upshot of all this is that time cannot be a process in the manner in which you suggest.
General relativity (as opposed to special relativity) provides even more evidence of this fact. The warping of spacetime could not possibly occur in the manner it does if the only moment that existed is now (which is completely subjective anyway for the reasons stated above). Unfortunately I cannot prove this point without using quite a bit of tensor calculus.
Although what I have just provided is a very simple (albeit powerful) argument, as with quantum mechanics, the best way to differentiate between which arguments (interpretations) are compatible with the physical facts is to actually learn from scratch the basic mathematical formulation and empirical results of the theory. I have done this simply because it was part of the syllabus of my pure mathematics degree at university. Consequently the above argument is not the fundamental reason why I claim that time does not flow, I provided this explanation merely as a convenient way to illustrate the incompatibility of the notion of time flow and relativity.
When I claimed in my previous post that it was not a matter of interpretation, there was a sense in which this statement was true, and a sense in which it was not. The reality of anthropogenic climate change is a matter of interpretation in a sense, given that about 3% of scientists do not agree with AGW. The reality of evolution is also a matter of interpretation, given that a small number of scientists are creationists. In fact pretty much everything is a matter of interpretation in this weaker sense, as it nearly always possible to find some lunatic fringe group who will argue an untenable position on pretty much any issue (and just to be clear there is absolutely nothing wrong in itself with having a minority opinion, but the reason behind holding this opinion in the first place must be logically sound and based on empirical evidence).
Another very good example of 'interpretations' in this weaker sense is interpretations of quantum mechanics. There are of course many genuine interpretational issues in QM (which are interpretational in the stronger sense) but there are one of two issues regarding QM that are definitively not a matter of genuine interpretation, and it is to do with the relationship between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics. There are still a very small group of physicists to this day who genuinely believe that the time will come when physics will effectively go full circle, and end up back to Newtonian mechanics (to all intents and purposes). The implicit misconception behind this is that the consensus opinion of QM is based on nothing more than the fact that the results of QM are so crazy and different to our everyday experience, that it simply seems intuitively unreasonable to suppose that the universe is fundamentally Newtonian, almost as if physicists are saying to themselves “WOW, quantum mechanics is just so wacky we can't possibly ever go back to the notion of a Newtonian universe now.” This is a massive misconception. The reason why we know IN PRINCIPLE this can never be the case is that the underlying logic of classical mechanics and quantum mechanics are fundamentally different. Very basically, physical states in Newtonian physics are mathematically defined as elements in a set, and follow the rules of Boolean algebra derived from set theory, whereas physical states in quantum mechanics are mathematically defined as abstract vectors in an abstract vector space (a Hilbert space to be precise) and follow the rules of vector spaces. The underlying logic of these mathematical constructs are fundamentally different, and give rise to very different results, hence the reason why QM and CM are just so different. This means QM and CM are strictly incompatible - in principle. Yet despite this very solid fact, people will still argue the above case anyway (although it must be stressed they are now in the extreme minority, and with very good reason). I mention this because it is an almost exact parallel to the case just discussed regarding special relativity. Believing in the possibility of time flow is doing the exact same thing in a different context – it is an attempt to cling on to what feels right to us, and what jives with our natural intuitions about how the universe ought to behave. But if the history of science has taught us anything at all, it is that nature does not respect our intuitions. The fact is quantum mechanics and relativity are not in our bones, we don't feel it. But unfortunately they are still true nonetheless.
The paper you provided a link to in your post was written by philosophers, not physicists! The major portion of this paper deals with logical possibilities that could be true if we were in complete ignorance of the physical facts. The last part of the paper is a (frankly potty) attempt to revive these ideas in the face of special relativity. I have seen similar papers written by philosophers which attempt to argue that the universe is Newtonian rather than quantum mechanical. Unfortunately I do not have time to dissect this paper and point out all the logical flaws and physical facts which have been implicitly ignored in them. But even if I did spend some time doing this, I am not really sure it would have much of an effect on your opinion on this matter.
Posted by: Mark Green | March 02, 2017 at 02:54 PM
"The basic point is – what would you base any choice of distance on in order to counter the claim that your choice is entirely arbitrary and without real meaning?"
It brings the theory of relativity itself: the speed of light in the vacuum. If something is out of the reach of the speed of light, it does not make sense to ask whether it is defined or not. The idea of the block universe remains an interpretation, not something that necessarily follows from the theory of relativity.
Posted by: Juan | March 03, 2017 at 10:38 AM