Re: Altered states of consciousness

From: Quentin Anciaux <allcolor.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 11:30:25 +0200

2009/3/31 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>

> Hello Quentin,
>
> Le 30-mars-09, à 20:03, Quentin Anciaux a écrit :
>
>
>
>
> 2009/3/30 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>
>
> On 30 Mar 2009, at 17:03, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>
> Hi,
>
>
> 2009/3/30 Bruno Marchal <marchal.domain.name.hidden>
>
>
> Hi Kelly, and others,
>
>
> Well, thanks for your report. Did you smoke the extract? It usually
>
> last for 04 minutes. It is amazing it did last so long with you, I know
>
> only one case of an experience lasting 20 minutes. I am happy you found
>
> your experience interesting. You can consult and discuss your
>
> experience, and those of others here:
>
> http://www.entheogen.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=135
>
>
> Now the real question is, does that experience helped in providing, for
>
> example, an answer to my last remark to Quentin?
>
>
> I quote the question again. It is important concerning
>
> comp-immortality, and eventually how to derive physics from computer
>
> science.
>
> I do think such a question is difficult, and show the weakness in
>
> identifying the self with personal memories, and this justifies the
>
> necessity of the AUDA move, I think.
>
>
> Of course, if you enjoy dream-state-like, you can enjoy Salvia without
>
> troubling yourself with hard metaphysical questions. Yet I would be
>
> interesting if Quentin or Stathis, or anyone, could acknowledge a
>
> conceptual difficulty here.
>
>
> <<Hmmm...
>
> I ask you, and others, this question. What is the probability "now",
>
> that you will find yourself in Washington and Moscow the 24 december
>
> 2009, when you are annihilated in Brussels, now, (17 March 2009) and
>
> reconstituted in both Moscow and Washington the 18 March 2009, say)?
>
> The problem is that the reconstitution machine did dysfunction in
>
> Washington, so that, from the 18 March 2009 up to the 20 Augustus 2009
>
> you (the you in Washington) suffered a "total amnesia". And then,
>
> "you" recovered slowly and progressively from that through adequate
>
> medication up to a total recall, the 23 December (and none of yous did
>
> move from W or M).
>
>
> Well I think all of this depends on the fact that your memories "come
> back". If it doesn't then I will not be in washington, cqfd.
>
> What if half of your memory come back?
>
> Well, it would be a half me continuation... :-)
>
>
>
> Hmm... ":-)" indeed.
>
>
>
>
> And in the setup explained here... Plain me continuation would be the one
> in Moscow... and Half me would be in washington.
>
>
>
> I am not sure this makes sense.
>
>
>
> If me now could meet both of me plain and half ... I would certainly
> identify current me to be plain me.
>
>
>
> You can care about him more, but you cannot identify yourself with, in the
> usual first person way. It is some another person, from your 1-point of
> view.
>

Well, I'm / will be every continuation that have as past event current me.
So of course, in your setup I'll be the one that lost his memory... but I'll
also be the one that didn't (while none of them will be the other, but
current I (so me now) is a past I of both). And for what I care, it's the
only thing that's needed.



>
>
>
> While I would care for half me, I care less of him than plain me.
>
>
>
> Exactly.
>
>
>
>
> But if no memories at all are left I wouldn't identify him as myself like I
> don't identify you (nor any future you) as myself.
>
>
>
> You could be astonished. I know you don't like the idea.
>

Well the day I'm you I'm no more me so it is a question of definition of
what I/you/we are, what is a person, what is an individual, what is
identity.


>
>
>
>
>
>
> What you're talking about salvia (loosing your personnal identity during
> the experience) is only correct because you have memories of it (salvia
> experience) on your current self which knows he is Bruno. If you had no
> memories of it then it makes no sense to say you did loose your "identity".
>
>
> Yes, but retrospectively, I can assert that I remain conscious, despite the
> loss of identity. So, why should we not take such "computational
> ontinuations" into account, in the immortality question, and in the hunt of
> 1-white rabbits? This is certainly not clear for me.
>
>
>
> We should take in account those continuation where the memory loss is
> temporary...
>
>
>
> This can make sense. We already know that the "probabilities" can
> "retro-propagate". I remain a bit skeptical, because I feel like I am the
> owner of memories, not like I am those memories.
> The easiest self-duplication experiences show that we are not our bodies.
> Thought experiment with amnesia, which I have banned form my theses and
> publications, shows that we neither our memories. I can understand that some
> would conclude we are nothing, but I think we keep remaining the "universal
> person", the one described by the third hypostases. That entity can be
> conscious, even if out of time and space, indeed AUDA shows that it is the
> builder of time and space. I thought enough time has to be created in order
> for consciousness to operate, and it is here that salivia divinorum seems to
> force me to revise that opinion. (I am amazed, and I am sure of nothing,
> here. I push to the limit). This would answer a question raised a long time
> ago on the list: how many person are they. Answer: possibly one.
>

Well no, there are more than one and it must be so on my definition of what
constitute a person (and it includes self memories/experiences). If you
dismiss that as fundamental in a person then yes... but it doesn't shed any
light on what we are.


>
>
> not the one where I become you. The contrary is like the believer in
> reincarnation, if you don't remember your past live then it is the same as
> you didn't have any pas live and on a personal and selfish view, totally
> useless to the current live. What's the point to survive/reincarnate if
> there is nothing left of you..
>
>
>
> Loosing memories does not mean that nothing is left of you. Especially if
> you keep consciousness.
>

The you that keep consciousness is no more me, so for all practical purpose
it is really the same thing as saying I'm dead and a new person is there.



> You can forget your past identity, and still keep anything for having a
> personal identity. In particular the self-referential motor. In the salvia
> experience, I belong to those who does not want really to come back.
> Sometimes memories ... well, I don't need them all. It is useful locally,
> when you are young, but it can be heavy too, especially when you are older.
> It is important for history learning, and for not repeating errors, but it
> is like a ladder, at some point it can be better to forget, and jump to
> something else.
> Also, we forget all the time, many things. Do I die because I forget some
> dreams this night?
>
>
Well it depends the amount of what you forget and what you forget...
obviously forgetting what you had for dinner yesterday, dream you had last
night does not constitute a death condition... but forgetting your life,
your name, your friends, your previous feelings, your knowing is like death.

There must be some point in forgetting after which you 'now' is re


>
>
>
> I don't call that surviving... I don't care if my body doesn't biologically
> survive... I care that *I* (my mind/memories/experiences) survive.
>
>
>
> The problem is not what about we care, but how to compute the first person
> indeterminacy in extreme situation. According to you, the comp immortality
> or the quantum immortality makes sense only for those continuations which
> keep all or most the memories. I think, currently and without any certainty,
> that the notion of relative "normal worlds" or relative "normal
> continuations will be prevalent, possibly against our wishes.
> To take a not so funny example, suppose someone get Alzheimer, and that at
> some time t, he forget most of his life events. Would you say that from his
> own point of view, he does not feel sick and keep its memory thanks to the
> continuations where rare (in Everett sense) lucky quantum events prevent his
> disease to develop?
>

No, but I would say that there exists (if QI is true) some place where a
"normal" continuation of him exists (at each point in the disease till total
oblivion), and that's enough.

And if you want to know my next expectation in the following case:

1- next moment with full memories
2- next moment with half memories
3- next moment with no memories
4- dead

I would expect from 1st pov to only end up in 1 or 2. 03 and 4 are impossible
from 1st pov. (this is an example, the next possible moments should form a
continuum).

Regards,
Quentin


>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> As for conscious dream... I don't think you *do* know you're conscious
> while dreaming, but you do know it after the dreaming experience.
>
>
> John Mikes seems to think so too, but here I certainly disagree. Lucid
> dreamer, who are verifiably in the paradoxical state of dream (through EEG)
> , can communicate with the observer in the lab, through eyes moves or
> through extremity of fingers (which are not paralysed).
>
>
> Well do they ? Does the dreamer remember interacting with the observer (the
> real one) ? I know that outside sound/temperature/... act on the dream, just
> because while dreaming we are never truly and completly disconnected from
> the outside... But it says nothing about the consciousness of the dreamer.
> The dreamer remember after being awake he was somehow conscious, but was he
> really ? I do remember conscious dream (or so I called) still do not really
> believe I was in the sense I was now.
>
>
> They have made all the usual experience (singing, computing, walking,
> running in the dream) and they have discover it generate the same activity
> in the dream than in the waking life. The experience of Laberge and Dement
> have definitely convinced me that the hypothesis that we are unconscious
> during dream is badly founded.
>
> Consciousness should not be confused with awakeness.
>
> Could you give me some links about those experiences ?
>
>
>
>
> I have the photocopies of the original papers, and some selected papers
> book. You will find the references in the chapter 3.1 of "Conscience et
> Mécanisme" (which is the chapter on "dreams, brains and reality").
>
> You could also google on "laberge dement lucid", let us see:
>
> http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html
>
> This relates some of the experiences I was mentioning.
>
> Best,
>
> Bruno
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/>
>
> >
>


-- 
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
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Received on Wed Apr 01 2009 - 11:30:25 PDT

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