You are not matter!

gue_barium

gue_barium wrote:

Does the refrigerator light/mass go off when you close the refrigerator door?

Q: You should stick to tennis and marijuana.
A: Noted.

RolandTD20Kdrummer

gue_barium wrote:

Q: You should stick to tennis and marijuana.
A: Noted.

You crack me up man. I think the light bulb unscrews itself hops down and messes around with the lettuce then flips me the bird.

could just be my meds though.

chadwick

RolandTD20Kdrummer wrote:

You crack me up man. I think the light bulb unscrews itself hops down and messes around with the lettuce then flips me the bird.

could just be my meds though.

That is damn funny dude.

Abookamongstthemany

Oooh good thread Ahnimus! This one I ponder about often. Did you ever get the chance to watch Waking Life? Here's a part from the movie talking about the aging paradox and cells regenerating every 7 years. I couldn't find the scene on youtube or anywhere else so this is all I've got.

http://strivinglife.net/wordpress/2006/05/25/94/waking-life-chapter-7-the-aging-paradox/


[7 The Aging Paradox]

(Two women are having lunch - English professor Lisa Moore and author Carole Dawson)

Time just dissolves into quick-moving particles that are swirling away. Either I’m moving fast or time is. Never both simultaneously.

It’s such a strange paradox. I mean, while, technically, I’m closer to the end of my life than I’ve ever been, I actually feel more than ever that I have all the time in the world. When I was younger, there was a desperation, a desire for certainty, like there was an end to the path, and I had to get there.

I know what you mean, because I can remember thinking, "Oh, someday, like in my mid-thirties maybe, everything’s going to just somehow gel and settle, just end." It was like there was this plateau, and it was waiting for me, and I was climbing up it, and when I got to the top, all growth and change would stop. Even exhilaration. But that hasn’t happened like that, thank goodness. I think that what we don’t take into account when we’re young is our endless curiosity. That’s what’s so great about being human.

Yeah, yeah. Well do you know that thing Benedict Anderson says about identity?




No.

Well, he’s talking about like, say, a baby picture. So you pick up this picture, this two-dimensional image, and you say, "That’s me." Well, to connect this baby in this weird little image with yourself living and breathing in the present, you have to make up a story like, "This was me when I was a year old, and then later I had long hair, and then we moved to Riverdale, and now here I am." So it takes a story that’s actually a fiction to make you and the baby in the picture identical to create your identity.

And the funny thing is, our cells are completely regenerating every seven years. We’ve already become completely different people several times over, and yet we always remain quintessentially ourselves.

Hmm.

gue_barium

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

Oooh good thread Ahnimus! This one I ponder about often. Did you ever get the chance to watch Waking Life? Here's a part from the movie talking about the aging paradox and cells regenerating every 7 years. I couldn't find the scene on youtube or anywhere else so this is all I've got.

http://strivinglife.net/wordpress/2006/05/25/94/waking-life-chapter-7-the-aging-paradox/


[7 The Aging Paradox]

(Two women are having lunch - English professor Lisa Moore and author Carole Dawson)

Time just dissolves into quick-moving particles that are swirling away. Either I’m moving fast or time is. Never both simultaneously.

It’s such a strange paradox. I mean, while, technically, I’m closer to the end of my life than I’ve ever been, I actually feel more than ever that I have all the time in the world. When I was younger, there was a desperation, a desire for certainty, like there was an end to the path, and I had to get there.

I know what you mean, because I can remember thinking, "Oh, someday, like in my mid-thirties maybe, everything’s going to just somehow gel and settle, just end." It was like there was this plateau, and it was waiting for me, and I was climbing up it, and when I got to the top, all growth and change would stop. Even exhilaration. But that hasn’t happened like that, thank goodness. I think that what we don’t take into account when we’re young is our endless curiosity. That’s what’s so great about being human.

Yeah, yeah. Well do you know that thing Benedict Anderson says about identity?




No.

Well, he’s talking about like, say, a baby picture. So you pick up this picture, this two-dimensional image, and you say, "That’s me." Well, to connect this baby in this weird little image with yourself living and breathing in the present, you have to make up a story like, "This was me when I was a year old, and then later I had long hair, and then we moved to Riverdale, and now here I am." So it takes a story that’s actually a fiction to make you and the baby in the picture identical to create your identity.

And the funny thing is, our cells are completely regenerating every seven years. We’ve already become completely different people several times over, and yet we always remain quintessentially ourselves.

Hmm.

And this is why, even though politically atheistic, I have no problem with "believers" of all kinds. It is embracing Art, it is embracing a story.
All of us do it...we all wait for signs...

Byrnzie

Jeanie wrote:

That's really interesting Ahnimus. A really interesting thought.

I'm just wondering if not a single atom was there how is it possible to remember? Has the memory been passed from atom to atom?

Read 'The holographic universe' by Michael Talbot for the answer.

catefrances

gue_barium wrote:

No, you have one life. Don't get it confused with your dying and reborn cell-energy structure.

i know i have only one life. what im debating is the constituting and reconstituting of matter that becomes me. i don't agree with dawkins on this and i don't agree that because my cells have regenerated a total of 6 times(in my case) during my lifetime that every 7 years i have become a completely different person. my shell may have grown and adapted, but i see becoming a 'completely different person' as essentially a continuous thing that has nothing to do with cell regeneration or the reconstitution of matter.

Kann

I never thought of it that way but it is a little strange.
What about non replicative cells? Such as neurons for example : no replication of the cell = no replication of the DNA. The DNA strands are the same than the ones you had when you were born?
And atoms never get lost, so technically the atoms that left me could very well be the same that are making your physical you right now.

(the post below me : considering the quote is from a book called "the god delusion" I would say no to that)

even flow?

Ahnimus wrote:

I've made this point before with the analogy of patterns or songs.

Here is Steve Grand:

"[Think] of an experience from your childhood. Something you
remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
because it is important."
(The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins; Page 363)

Sweet, it really is a weird thing, isn't it?

If this is to be true. Shouldn't all scars heal back to normal?

Does this mean you are starting to lean towards god now?

OutOfBreath

Ahnimus wrote:

I've made this point before with the analogy of patterns or songs.

Here is Steve Grand:

"[Think] of an experience from your childhood. Something you
remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even
smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were
there at the time, weren't you? How else would you
remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren't there.
Not a single atom that is in your body today was there
when that event took place . . . Matter flows from place
to place and momentarily comes together to be you.
Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of
which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand
up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does,
because it is important."
(The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins; Page 363)

Sweet, it really is a weird thing, isn't it?

Yes. And it starts making the concept of soul interesting again too. Since something makes us be what we are, and it ain't matter, well.... Couldn't that be called soul, nevermind particular christian beliefs about it?

But interesting to ponder.

Peace
Dan

Ahnimus

OutOfBreath wrote:

Yes. And it starts making the concept of soul interesting again too. Since something makes us be what we are, and it ain't matter, well.... Couldn't that be called soul, nevermind particular christian beliefs about it?

But interesting to ponder.

Peace
Dan

It's more likely the arrangement of matter. A wave for example, does not contain the same water molecules as it cascades, yet it maintains the appearence of a single object in our minds.

If memory is stored in something like a Hopfield Network, then it doesn't matter if the cells die and new cells take their place, so long as the pattern is retained.

Ahnimus

Byrnzie wrote:

Read 'The holographic universe' by Michael Talbot for the answer.

Science fiction.

Ahnimus

Kann wrote:

I never thought of it that way but it is a little strange.
What about non replicative cells? Such as neurons for example : no replication of the cell = no replication of the DNA. The DNA strands are the same than the ones you had when you were born?
And atoms never get lost, so technically the atoms that left me could very well be the same that are making your physical you right now.

(the post below me : considering the quote is from a book called "the god delusion" I would say no to that)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_neurogenesis

pickupyourwill

...

Ahnimus

pickupyourwill wrote:

Hey, mabybe this scientific logic will actually hold up in court some day? I could just see it now--a trial 10--20 yrs after the crime, where the murderer gets off of charges because he "technically" wasn't there in body--or mind.

btw, ahnimus, I hope you have no hard feelings towards me because of the anus thing:)--it really was out of line. sorry. Besides, it was a few weeks ago and I "technically" was not the same person then, was I?

No hard feelings, I hold no anusmosity about it. Err.. I mean animosity.

pickupyourwill

good

peace & love

Kann

Ahnimus wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adult_neurogenesis

Yes, so? It doesn't change much, adult neurogenesis is a limited event, limited in the number of neurons and limited where it takes places. I'm still unsure if the DNA of some of your neurons isn't still the same (atomically) than at birth.
It doesn't change anything to what you said anyway since the rest of the neuron itself has been renewed multiple times.

Ahnimus

Kann wrote:

Yes, so? It doesn't change much, adult neurogenesis is a limited event, limited in the number of neurons and limited where it takes places. I'm still unsure if the DNA of some of your neurons isn't still the same (atomically) than at birth.
It doesn't change anything to what you said anyway since the rest of the neuron itself has been renewed multiple times.

Right, well, Scubascott my better answer your question. My limited understanding is that DNA repeats during Trinucleide cycles or something, but it's different proteins or whatever, the code is the same, unless something happens during the polymerization. If something happens, you get cancer or whatever, brain tumors happen, and I think that's how, but I'm not so knowledgable about biology in general.

I know fundamentally the arrangement of the matter, whether it's a table, a dog or a human, is what makes those 'things', otherwise they are just atoms.

godpt3

If I'm not matter, then I must be anti-matter.

Kann

Ahnimus wrote:

Right, well, Scubascott my better answer your question. My limited understanding is that DNA repeats during Trinucleide cycles or something, but it's different proteins or whatever, the code is the same, unless something happens during the polymerization. If something happens, you get cancer or whatever, brain tumors happen, and I think that's how, but I'm not so knowledgable about biology in general.

I know fundamentally the arrangement of the matter, whether it's a table, a dog or a human, is what makes those 'things', otherwise they are just atoms.

I get that, I was just wondering if it was the same atoms in dna if the cell never replicates. I'm not sure about it so I'll stop here!
I remember reading in 'a little something about everything' that we all share some 200 millions of shakespear's atoms (and other famous people I guess) since they are rarely (if never) renewed. We just keep on exchanging our matter, by never staying the same. And for all I know, you'll be a part of my grand children.