# I've suddenly become mortally petrified of undergoing general anaesthetic (personal identity Q) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 6, 2014, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650 "2014-02-06T10:43:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ThisUsernameIsForbidden](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisUsernameIsForbidden)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/201 "2014-04-10T14:21:07Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > I was just thinking today that another fundamental difference between sleep and anesthesia is that **with sleep you do not lose the concept of time. After you wake up, you have some idea of how much time has lapsed. Whereas with anesthesia, from what I’ve heard of people, they have literally no concept of time. It’s as though no time had passed from when they were passed out to when they woke up.** That to me is a worrying distinction to be made. I find this with sleep too. Not sure why you don’t. Even if I have trouble sleeping, the lack of visual stimulation makes it seem that time is moving slowly, but when time to get up comes around, I’m thinking not much time has passed. The same as with work–the day is going by faster when busy working. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/202 "2014-04-10T14:27:57Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > It’s not. I have logically deduced this. No, you haven’t. You have used a twisted version of logic to convince yourself of this, but it’s not logical. ---
**Author:** ![LifeSucks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8c91f0/32.png) [@LifeSucks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeSucks)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/203 "2014-04-10T14:32:13Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > No, you haven’t. You have used a twisted version of logic to convince yourself of this, but it’s not logical. Other men of reason have at least accepted the plausibility of my argument. I don’t think my claim is that irrational at all. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/204 "2014-04-10T14:43:54Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > Other men of reason have at least accepted the plausibility of my argument. Keep in mind those “men of reason” have all _experienced anesthesia_. Coincidence? Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![LifeSucks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8c91f0/32.png) [@LifeSucks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeSucks)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/205 "2014-04-10T14:45:36Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Keep in mind those “men of reason” have all _experienced anesthesia_. Coincidence? Maybe. I underwent it when I was a child. I recall the events. It’s no consolation. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/206 "2014-04-10T15:25:19Z")
The illusion is the same either way. The only difference is the way you have chosen to frame it. You’re basically choosing to be worried about it now. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/207 "2014-04-10T15:35:05Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > It’s not. I have logically deduced this. I would love, **LOVE** more than anything to not believe this, but I do. I have logically deduced that God exists as well. But my belief is founded purely in faith, and not in any tangible evidence that I can use to convince non-believers. Your belief is not grounded in facts. It is something that you have chosen to believe, nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![LifeSucks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8c91f0/32.png) [@LifeSucks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeSucks)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/208 "2014-04-10T16:33:22Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I have logically deduced that God exists as well. But my belief is founded purely in faith, and not in any tangible evidence that I can use to convince non-believers. > > Your belief is not grounded in facts. It is something that you have chosen to believe, nothing more. Wrong. Religion is accepted, not logically deduced. It’s a false comparison to make and I think you know it. It’s pretty simple logic. 1. Clone me, two of me exist. 2. There are two of “me” because we have two separate tracks of consciousness, despite being qualitatively identical. 3. Separate tracks of consciousness mean two different people. 4. General anesthesia emulates this same disruption of conscious continuity. 5. You are a different person after anesthesia in the same way you are different from a clone of you. It’s food for thought. There’s no dogma behind it. I don’t want to believe it. Also, even if there’s only a 1% chance what I’m saying is true, I still believe such fear is only natural. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/209 "2014-04-10T16:36:07Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > 1. General anesthesia emulates this same disruption of conscious continuity. This is an article of faith to you, no different from religion. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/210 "2014-04-10T16:41:31Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > 1. General anesthesia emulates this same disruption of conscious continuity. There is zero logic or rational deduction in this step. In fact you have been given good reasons to reject it and no good reasons to accept it. The fact that you keep asserting it without any support makes your analysis worthless. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/211 "2014-04-10T17:53:43Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > I was just thinking today that another fundamental difference between sleep and anesthesia is that with sleep you do not lose the concept of time. . . . Anesthesia prevents short term memory being consolodated into long term memory in a way that sleep doesn’t, for most people. This can be deliberate, as there are some drugs that can be added to the cocktail specifically to cause this. For one knee surgury, the anesthesiologist strongly recommended sedation plus memory blocker rather than full general anesthesia. He wasn’t thinking about my consciousness, but about general being harder on the body. If they had only been cutting and slicing, I might have gone along. But there was going to be a good bit of sawing. The idea of even vaguely listening to someone sawing on one of my bones creeped me out, even if I wouldn’t remember it. So the ‘spliced’ feeling that time is missing isn’t necessarily a sign that a person lost their consciousness, or was even completely unconsious or asleep. It’s a sign that memory consolidation was disrupted. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Even if it is, our conclusion from this thought experiment should be that _consciousness already obviously isn’t what it seems to be._ > > You’re already dying at every moment and being replaced by a copy. If you believe in quantum time, the entire universe blinks out of existance and reforms in a new configuration every 5.39×10-44 seconds. > [@Omar\_Little](#): > > . . . **LifeSucks** believes this phenomena of her _self_ being replaced if she were to undergo anesthesia, even though there is no evidence to support it. It’s a bit unique in that I don’t think there is shared experience for this belief among other people…so she’s a bit of a pioneer. I haven’t heard of the anesthesia-related part before, but if we’re talking about a continuously changing self, there have been SF stories that dealt with the idea. I remember one short story in OMNI that referred to suddenly being slammed with the awareness that everyone is a series of changing selves as being “pearl-necklaced” because the awareness (which would happen to counsellors during machine-aided connections to their patient’s memories) always came with a visual of all of your past selves curled up in clear, round shells that were connected in a line trailing into the past. ## It was , within the story, a known hazard of the work and an unsettling and disturbing occurrance. A counsellor either had to learn to keep the feeling and images at bay or they had to find a new line of work. If you’re really dreading the surgery, your doctor or surgeon may be willing to prescribe a mild seditive for the days leading up to it. Especially if you’ve been losing sleep. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/212 "2014-04-10T18:06:07Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > 1. General anesthesia emulates this same disruption of conscious continuity. > > 2. You are a different person after anesthesia in the same way you are different from a clone of you. > > It’s food for thought. There’s no dogma behind it. I don’t want to believe it. Not really food for thought but a fantasy that is not grounded in logic or fact. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/213 "2014-04-10T20:02:58Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > If you believe in quantum time, the entire universe blinks out of existance and reforms in a new configuration every 5.39×10-44 seconds. Even if it doesn’t - I think we falsely believe the past is something that still somehow exists ‘out there’ and we are tangibly linked to our past self as if by a piece of string. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2014, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/214 "2014-04-10T21:31:10Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > I was just thinking today that another fundamental difference between sleep and anesthesia is that with sleep you do not lose the concept of time. After you wake up, you have some idea of how much time has lapsed. Whereas with anesthesia, from what I’ve heard of people, they have literally no concept of time. It’s as though no time had passed from when they were passed out to when they woke up. That to me is a worrying distinction to be made. I had a concussion once, where I lost all conception of time. When I came out of it, I thought I was waking up in the morning. It took a while for me to get that it was actually late evening, and I was out on a hiking trail. If General Anaesthesia is no worse than that, you will probably be fine. I’d be far more concerned about the more conventional aspects of surgical recovery: treatment of the incision and sutures, what kinds of exercise to avoid, etc. The effects on the “self” are debatable, but the actual physical effects are very real. ---
**Author:** ![LifeSucks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8c91f0/32.png) [@LifeSucks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeSucks)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/215 "2014-04-11T06:55:55Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > This is an article of faith to you, no different from religion. I disagree. Either way, I’m getting this surgery so I should probably just not think about it. Being able to predict my death does not come with any merit. I’d rather go out without any before-hand knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/216 "2014-04-11T07:30:54Z")
I’ll be really interested to hear your\* opinions afterwards. \*Well, the opinions of your soul-less p-zombie clone, at least. ---
**Author:** ![LifeSucks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8c91f0/32.png) [@LifeSucks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeSucks)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/217 "2014-04-11T08:07:25Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I’ll be really interested to hear your\* opinions afterwards. > \*Well, the opinions of your soul-less p-zombie clone, at least. He’ll be fully convinced he’s the same person. Don’t let him maintain that delusion. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/218 "2014-04-11T10:13:09Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > He’ll be fully convinced he’s the same person. Don’t let him maintain that delusion. Why? What possible benefit is there to convincing him that he’s not you? But anyway, you’ve already admitted that you have no particular reason to think that continuity of consciousness the rest of the time is anything but an illusion, so in keeping with your request, I remind you that the you that made that request is already dead, and you have replaced him. The you that started reading this post is also dead, and you have replaced him. A million yous have died and been replaced since you began reading this sentence, and a million million will die before you finish. No thought you have is your own; each was conceived by a dead man and an infinite chain of departed souls sprang into existence and died in the time it took for any one of those thoughts to form. Blink your eyes: one man closes his eyes, another opens them, and a universe of men lived and died in the darkness, and you are none of them. ---
**Author:** ![LifeSucks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8c91f0/32.png) [@LifeSucks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeSucks)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/219 "2014-04-11T10:16:14Z")
> [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > Why? What possible benefit is there to convincing him that he’s not you? > > But anyway, you’ve already admitted that you have no particular reason to think that continuity of consciousness the rest of the time is anything but an illusion, so in keeping with your request, I remind you that the you that made that request is already dead, and you have replaced him. The you that started reading this post is also dead, and you have > replaced him. A million yous have died and been replaced since you began reading this sentence, and a million million will die before you finish. No thought you have is your own; each was conceived by a dead man and an infinite chain of departed souls sprang into existence and died in the time it took for any one of those thoughts to form. Blink your eyes: one man closes his eyes, another opens them, and a universe of men lived and died in the darkness, and you are none of them. I know, but I much prefer continuity for reasons I find difficult to explain. Being cut off completely is a lot more disturbing. I have the fear of death in me, no lie. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2014, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650/220 "2014-04-11T12:22:22Z")
> [@LifeSucks](#): > > He’ll be fully convinced he’s the same person. Don’t let him maintain that delusion. Is he not entitled to the pursuit of happiness? It’s not his fault you consented to the surgery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ive-suddenly-become-mortally-petrified-of-undergoing-general-anaesthetic-personal-identity-q/680650.md?page=12)