It’s not meant to be consoling… the Versed/propofol type of amnestic sedatives don’t actually make you unconscious. They just stop the DVR, so to speak.
Like I mentioned upthread, when I had surgery, I was sitting up, talking to a nurse when they gave it to me. I apparently continued to talk for another 15 minutes. I also picked up my roommate after an endoscopy where he was given Versed- we had a very pleasant lunch and conversation for about an hour, and we went back home, where he took a nap and doesn’t remember a thing. He was definitely conscious, aware and had access to his long-term memories.
The question as I see it, is: At what point would you stop being you? At the point that you don’t remember or the point when you actually go unconscious?
Your faith based philosophy has no factual evidence to support it. I’ll be happy to create a church for your new belief so you can make contributions and get a tax deduction, if you would like…or maybe you should have you new self get back to me tomorrow afternoon.
I hope you are right, and that my reasoning is deeply flawed and incorrect, and that I am just too low IQ to see it. I think my argument holds weight, though.
Not a moment is passing without me thinking about it. Worst of all, I have no one with me to talk to. My family is hundreds of miles away. I’m just in a room panicking by myself. I’ve been watching gruesome war movies in order to feel some sort of companionship with the dead. The posters in this thread and some other random people on Skype (who wouldn’t really understand my fears) are the only people I have been talking to for two weeks.
I have the fear of death in me. I believe if my current stream of consciousness makes it through this, I will be a changed person. I may end up being far more courageous.
But you’ve admitted that if your hypothesis is true, you have no way to distinguish between the two streams of consciousness. There’s no way to tell them apart in the unlikely event that some bizarre sort of reboot happens. So you’ll never know the answer to your question, correct?
Actually, only I will know if I made it through. My replicated self would be 100% convinced, but only “I” can truly know, and I would never be able to 100% communicate my certainty because my replicate would be equally certain. It will only be my current stream of consciousness that will know if I made it through, no-one else, not even my potential replicate.
I am still not clear on how the spontaneous replication of your consciousness occurs. You believe your current consciousness dies during anesthesia. So where does your replicated consciousness come from? It can’t come from your brain or body; they are dead. It can’t come from outside your brain or body; that implies some kind of metaphysics. So where does it come from?
So the anesthesia causes the old consciousness to die, but doesn’t cause the source of the new consciousness to die? What is the difference between the old consciousness, and the source in the brain for the new consciousness?
You know, the biggest problem might be that this is not a great frame of mind to be in when preparing for an operation. I strongly suggest you tell the anaesthetist that you are really nervous and get them to pre-medicate you appropriately.
Last minute panic and flailing around when they are trying to put you under could result in injury or even cancellation of the surgery. Don’t make that happen.
How will you know? You don’t think the old you will be looking down from heaven, do you? If you DO die, it will happen when you’re unable to experience it. The old you will never know.