Hi,
Matthew Wight:
It doesn't matter if this effect manifests from a biological body or not.
Yes, it very much does matter if consciousness ("this effect") manifests from a biological body. If you cannot rule this out completely, then you must, at least partially, admit the possibility that you may only be that biological body, and that the ambiguously defined awareness you have anthropomorphized / identified with might just be a very tricky delusion.
Matthew Wight:
Maybe in the future with human brain simulations like IBM's blue brain project consciousness and awareness will manifest inside a digital computer.
Or right now a human brain can realize itself apperceptively, thereby perceiving the magical perfection of this universe.
Matthew Wight:
Over the course of a lifetime every atom in a person will be replaced, so our physical bodies themselves which give rise to our consciousness and awareness have more in common with a moving body of water like a waterfall or running stream than they do in a solid rock.
You are comparing apples and oranges, likely because you've gotten lost in your overly imaginative conceptions. The arrangement of molecules which make up a human body are in such a way that they are of a vastly different composition than that of a stream (or some other deposit) of H20. Are you trying to make a point about physical impermanence having some sort of effect on the body and / or consciousness / awareness?
Matthew Wight:
To be honest Trent none of us can say for absolute certain that we are actually living in a real world, none of us actually knows what is really occurring, for all we know this could be a simulation. All we can really say with absolute certainty is that we are experiencing something.
Oh, well... I am glad you are being honest, but you should probably not use "we" when referring to your own personal ambivalence. I am most certainly living in (experiencing) this actual universe, and it is a grand place indeed. It is baffling that you cannot notice (or somehow write-off) the staggering continuity and consistency of sense experience, irregardless of whatever you may be experiencing. It is obvious-- by the very fact that you even posted a message here-- that you are seeing and thinking...are these new occurrences for you? If not, how long have you been seeing and thinking?
I wonder, are you familiar with Gorgias / his writings?
Matthew Wight:
Either way is fine with me, I just don't want to wake up again with no prior memories as a new organism in a new environment.
That is not going to happen, no matter what you do in this world...so now you have a choice to make: live the rest of your life with the obvious resentment you have already compiled throughout the years, or let it all go and enjoy the rest of your years because you care about yourself and others. What say you...do you dare to care? Do you dare search for the meaning of life in a desk? In a rock? In a blade of grass? Do you dare recognize this world's perfection?
Matthew Wight:
I would say that a human is dead before their conception. From a state of death, I know at least once I came into existence, then to a state of death again I will return. Everyone I have ever met if I am not mistaken will follow this pattern. It seems pretty standard. Having come from a state of death once at least that I am aware of I can't say with absolute certainty that death is a finality, at least not for consciousness and awareness itself.
Hold on now...you said above that "our physical bodies themselves (...) give rise to our consciousness and awareness" and now you are saying that you were dead or "alive" before you were alive? How does something end or begin before it first exists? This makes absolutely no sense... and so if it seems pretty standard, that must be because you are projecting your worldview all over everyone else you meet in the world. Is it possible that you are warping the meaning of the word "death?"
Anyhow...there's always a bright side: you can discover factual answers about life if pull yourself up from the philosophizing arm-chair you currently seem to be couched in and then begin to search, experimentally, for them. But you certainly don't have to... it's your life after all.
Trent