{"id":12525,"date":"2009-07-22T18:04:15","date_gmt":"2009-07-22T18:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/07\/22\/consciousness-and-the-conservation-of-energy\/"},"modified":"2009-07-22T18:04:15","modified_gmt":"2009-07-22T18:04:15","slug":"consciousness-and-the-conservation-of-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/07\/22\/consciousness-and-the-conservation-of-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Consciousness and the Conservation of Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This just over the transom:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 I've been reading your blog recently and find it to be very good. [. . .] Since you question mortalism, a doctrine I've had some doubts about myself, I thought you might find a use for some ideas of mine on the matter.<\/p>\n

Posting on <\/font>machineslikeus.com<\/font><\/a>,  I encountered someone who argued that belief in a 'future state' (Hume's term, not his) was irrational. His illustration was telling:<\/p>\n

'We never ask, "Where did the 60 Miles Per Hour go after the car hit the cement pylon?"'
This got my attention because I have suspected for a while that belief in a future state may be like belief in potential energy; no-one can SEE potential energy, but various rational concerns suggest that it completes what we see. Just as we have confidence that potential energy always 'completes' the evident kinetic energy in a closed system, we should also believe that our consciousness, being truly real, cannot be annihilated. Each time I hear mortalism stated, the arguments used seem to agree with my analysis; mortalists often claim that they expect to be annihilated or to 'cease to exist'. Hume himself, I think, is credited with expecting 'annihilation' at death. Doesn't basic physics suggest that this is impossible, however? No-one speaks of this happening to energy, so why should it happen to consciousness?<\/p>\n

Here is the relevant part of my response from the site:<\/p>\n

'We never ask, "Where did the 60 Miles Per Hour go after the car hit the cement pylon?"'<\/p>\n

That's not a very good example. We do, in fact, ask where the '60 Miles Per Hour' went, in the sense of asking questions about the transfer of kinetic energy. As most people know, when a car slows down its kintetic energy is transferred into heat, sound, energy in other bodies and so on. Asking 'where the speed went', or, more accurately, where the energy went, is a legitimate question.<\/p>\n

If anything, your example highlights something important by a mistake that erodes your case. When people wonder 'where did the consciousness go?' they are implicitly appealing to the Principle of Conservation in much the same way that a scientist appeals to it when they wonder about energy being transferred. There's nothing immediately stupid about that.<\/p>\n

Given this, I think that we face a stark choice about consciousness as follows:<\/p>\n

1 Consciousness is real and the Principle of Conservation is universal. Therefore, consciousness is permanent and is always conserved in some form, though not necessarily a visible or obvious form. Just because we cannot see consciousness after death doesn't mean it no longer exists; our trust in the Principle of Conservation should override this.<\/p>\n

2 Consciousness is real but the Principle of Conservation is not universal. It only applies to certain things. (Which things, and why?) Therefore, consciousness is not necessarily conserved.<\/p>\n

3 Consciousness is not real. It never existed in the first place.<\/p>\n

Since my thoughts on the topic are still developing, I'd be interested in your input. <\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

I agree that it makes perfectly good physical sense to ask where the energy goes when a car smashes into a cement pylon.  And it is certainly true that <\/font><\/span>Conservation of Energy<\/font><\/span><\/a> is one of the fundamental principles of classical mechanics.  It can be said to be universal in that it holds throughout nature as nature is conceived in classical (Newtonian) physics.  And it is also undeniable that consciousness is real.  The proof of the reality of consciousness is available to each person via introspection.  But that "consciousness is permanent" does not follow from these premises.  To have a valid argument you need the further premise that consciousness is a form of energy.  But I see no reason to accept thi<\/span>s further premise.  It is either false or not sufficently clear to be assigned a truth-value.  Energy is a concept of physics.  Roughly, it is the capacity to do work.  Work is a function of force and distance.  Force is a function of mass and acceleration, and so on.  These concepts have no application to consciousness.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

More importantly, the question of whether or not the death of the body spells the annihilation of the conscious person concerns the survival or non-survival of an individual being, <\/em>not the survival or non-survival of a quantity of energy — even if we assume that consciousness is a form of energy. The question is whether I<\/em> survive bodily death, not whether a quantum of energy survives in some form or other.  If I throw an egg at a wall, the kinetic energy at impact is not lost, but this fact does not do the egg any good.  That individual egg ceases to exist.  So even if consciousness is a form of energy and is not lost when my body dies, that doesn't do me<\/em> any good.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

I hope this helps.  The ComBox is open on this post in case you want to respond.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This just over the transom:  I've been reading your blog recently and find it to be very good. [. . .] Since you question mortalism, a doctrine I've had some doubts about myself, I thought you might find a use for some ideas of mine on the matter. Posting on machineslikeus.com,  I encountered someone who … Continue reading “Consciousness and the Conservation of Energy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}