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With the mind being a part of the body and the body being a part of this world, when the body disintegrates so does the mind, therefore it, like the body in which it resides, is not eternal in any sense other that one of the first law of thermodynamics.

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If you know about electromagnetism you don't reasonably assume the mind is a separated or distinct entity which is apart from the body.

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Essentially, when the body goes the mind goes along with it, so the mind is therefore not eternal in a fabricated and constructed way, but if you really want to you can fulfill your fantasies and call the energy that makes up your body eternal in the sense that it can be transformed from one form to another, and it will not be destroyed.

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Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry
Rather than assimilating the folk psychological notions wholly without modification, however, Turin, Chomsky, and other modern theorists of cognitive science expanded, modified, and formalized these notions, applied them to new domains, and tested them with new kinds of evidence. These extensions have notoriously violated the intuitions of folk psychology itself. Indeed, it is precisely this fact that makes the extensions and applications intersting. Claiming that we compute when we add a column of numbers or follow rules when we play Monopoly is uninformative at best. Claiming that we compute when we percieve or follow rules when we talk has, in contrast, been very scientifically productive. Analogical uses like this have a way, if they are successful, of becoming literalized over time. We came to say, literally, that light was a kind of wave (through twentieht-century science presented some complications here). We now say that, literally, electrons have orbits. At some point --- perhaphs now --- we may also want to say, literally, that the visual system computes.

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The alternative and more plausible explanation, the one favored in developmental psychology, is that children have quite similar underlying psychological structures to our own, and that a theory of their semantics, consciousness, and belief would be similar to a theory of adult semantics, consciousness, and belief. However, their conception of that psychological structure, their knowledge about it, their folk psychology, is quite different from our own. The most likely explanation of this difference is quite straightforwards: Children know less about the mind than adults do, and they learn more as they grow older. And, quite naturally, as they learn more about the mind, their conceptions about the mind, and so their intuitions, change.

But then, of course, the eschatological possibility described by Churchland and Stich becomes not only possible but likely. If our intuitions about the mind were mistaken in the past, and the error of these intuitions was revealed as our knowledge about the mind grew, then surely our intuitions about the mind now, as imperfect adults, can be mistaken in ways that will be revealed as our knowledge about the mind grows. This may already be hapenning, as twentieth-century adult intuition changes to accommodate newly popular concepts, like that of the unconscious. The four-year-old Phil looking back on his earlier self would, we hope, be struck by the folly of his earlier errors. Perhaps also he would be preserved from making similar errors in the future.

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If hallucination is a kind of uncontrolled perception then perception right here and now as it is is a kind of hallucination but a controlled hallucination in which the brains predictions are being rained in by sensory information from the world. - Anil Seth

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Rahz said: What seems wrong would be to suggest I in my totality, or even in a mental/spiritual aspect will continue to exist after the body dies.

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Rahz said: This primarily applies to my unique sense of existing as a particular set of values in a particular spacetime frame, also called ego.

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Rahz said: No bundled qualia of "me" existing after the body drops. That is to say, the various qualities are eternal just like the energy that makes my body but there's no evidence which leads me to believe these qualities are pre/post-bundled within the unmanifested.

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sudly said:

I suggested intuitive knowledge was in the processings and processes of DNA, not atoms.

Eternal knowledge in atoms? I don't see how. I suppose I would think that knowledge in the sense of nature can be rediscovered.

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My shits come about intuitively to my knowledge

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intuition: a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.

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sudly said:

And the energy that makes your body will be eternal? I think it's quite the gamble to think the form of that energy that was your "me" will remain as anything recognisable or identifiable. Like that star dust of elements that makes up my body isn't a star anymore.

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Rahz said: In this sense the ego "me" is already dieing, has died and will die again, just as perhaps the body begins to deteriorate before it expires. Not a perfect analogy but the similarities may be worth noting. The shine wears off as time wears on.

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You are a work in progress. The organization of brain cells that make up who you are is constantly in flux. Forget the notion that the brain is static, rigid, and fixed. Instead, brain cells are continually remolded and reorganized by our thoughts and experiences. Neuroligically, we are repeatedly changed by the endless stimuli in the world. Instead of imagining nerve cells as solid, inflexing, tiny sticks that are assembled together to make up your brain's gray matter, I invite you to see them as dancing patterns of delicate electric fibers in an animated web, connecting and disconnecting all the time. This is much closer to the truth of who you are. - Joe Dispenza

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Rahz said: This process I think properly describes the karmic cycle of death and rebirth; moments of lucidity (ego death) after which I am reborn, doomed to die again but still not the same. There is now a history and that is different. Perhaps there will be a final rebirth that occurs without the potential for a final death, one not dependent on a timely expiration of the body to prevent further deaths. It is a logical conclusion, perhaps an inevitability given enough time. At any rate, this whole process of karmic living and dying takes place within a timeframe beginning with the birth of a body and ending with the death of a body. And though I may not reach nirvana in the sense of this "great work" I also give credence to the idea that I'm already there, just as I always have been. A sense of knowing in those lucid moments, perhaps brought on by an untimely death of "me", or perhaps because the wind blew. It is the same as it ever was. It is only the illusion that it is otherwise that creates the cycle of karma. Based on all this it's logical to suggest that for most individuals the "me" doesn't even make it through an entire lifetime, nevermind jumping from one body to another as a non-corporeal bundle of qualia.

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I don't think personality traits are eternal

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Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole.

The marshmallow experiments eventually led Mischel and his colleagues to develop a framework to explain our ability to delay gratification. He proposed what he calls a “hot-and-cool” system to explain why willpower succeeds or fails. The cool system is cognitive in nature. It’s essentially a thinking system, incorporating knowledge about sensations, feelings, actions and goals — reminding yourself, for instance, why you shouldn’t eat the marshmallow. While the cool system is reflective, the hot system is impulsive and emotional. The hot system is responsible for quick, reflexive responses to certain triggers  — such as popping the marshmallow into your mouth without thinking of the long-term implications. If this framework were a cartoon, the cool system would be the angel on your shoulder, and the hot system the devil.

http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower.aspx

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Rahz said: The problem is not whether we will die but the emotional reaction to our imagined perceptions of mortality, something that probably isn't typical of organisms like grass and bees. Big brains, unintended consequences. Fear helps keep us alive but the shadows we cast on ourselves often prevents more light than cloudy weather.

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sonamdrukpa said:

The burden of proof lies on whoever postulates more entities, a la Occam's Razor.

Was this a hard philosophic journal, or more like a law philosophy journal?  I thought they did a remarkably poor job of giving an actual argument as to why they think the burden of proof lies on everyone.

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This reality to me is conditional rather than limitless, and in a spectrum, not infinitum. So a vast spectrum, but a spectrum nonetheless.

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