Death, Physics and Wishful Thinking

[Klaralven]

Our quirky minds thwart psychologists’ efforts to find durable theories. But terror-management theory has held up quite well since three psychologists proposed it more than 30 years ago. It holds that fear of death underpins many of our actions and convictions. We cling to our beliefs more tightly when reminded of our mortality, especially if those beliefs connect us to something transcending our puny mortal selves.

Terror-management theory can account for puzzling political trends, such as our attraction to outlandish conspiracies and authoritarian leaders. Last year I invoked the theory to explain why Donald Trump’s popularity surged at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently I have begun to wonder whether terror-management theory can explain trends in physics, too.

Physicists pride themselves on their rationality, yet they are as prone to existential dread as the rest of us, if not more so. Their investigations force them to confront infinity and eternity in their day jobs, not just in the dead of night. Moreover, physicists’ equations describe particles pushed and pulled by impersonal forces. There is no place for love, friendship, beauty, justice—the things that make life worth living. From this chilly perspective, the entirety of human existence, let alone an individual life, can seem terrifyingly ephemeral and pointless.

Steven Weinberg, arguably the greatest physicist of the last half-century, urged us to accept the soul-crushing implications of physics, and he rejected attempts to turn it into a substitute for religion. In Dreams of a Final Theory, Weinberg said science cannot replace “the consolations that have been offered by religion in facing death.” Weinberg, who died in July, was unusually resistant to wishful thinking (except for his thinking about a final theory). Other physicists, I suspect, cling to certain hypotheses precisely because they make mortality more bearable. Below are examples.

We Were Meant to Be Here

There is a whole class of conjectures that, like religion, give us a privileged position in the cosmic scheme of things. Call them we-were-meant-to-be-here theories. They imply that we are not an accidental, incidental part of nature; our existence is somehow necessary. Without us, the universe might not exist. One example is the anthropic principle, which dates back to the 1960s. The anthropic principle suggests that the laws of nature must take the form that we observe because otherwise we would not be here to observe them.

The anthropic principle is a tautology masquerading as a truth, but it has proved remarkably resilient. Stephen Hawking took it seriously, as did Weinberg. A major reason for the endurance of the anthropic principle is the proliferation of multiverse theories, which hold that our universe is just one of many. If you buy multiverses (to which I will return below), the anthropic principle can help explain why we find ourselves in this particular universe with these particular laws.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/death-physics-and-wishful-thinking/

[Xoan]

1. There's an explanation for everything ...

even if it is only wishful thinking.

[Klaralven]

2. Not necessarily - see Godel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems

[sanatanadharma]

3. It is all empty meaningless dribble without investigating the "knower"of these matters

Smart people, scientists, philosophers and others are very good at understanding the manifest world.
They, however, have never explained 'consciousness', without which nothing can be explained.

If I am wrong, then I expect a proof that doesn't require existent consciousness to observe, to gather data, engineer experiments. etc in order to know the results.

Claiming it is all brain activity is circular reasoning.
The brain gives rise to emotions, feeling, sensations, world-awareness of which consciousness is the witness.
The activities of the brain are objects of consciousness. Consciousness is the "knower" of the brain and its changing desires, emotions, experiences and knowledge.
Consciousness does not need, can exist with out awareness of the world as in deep sleep or coma.
No world can be known to exist except that it is known to consciousness.

We all understand that death ends a body-mind-sensory-story line with a name.
We all understand that consciousness left.
The body immediately before and after death is unchanged except for the animation of a conscious actor within.

That consciousness ends at death is a non-verifiable belief. The "knower" ceases and can't experience possible veracity.
That consciousness continues beyond death is a un-verified belief; however the "knower" then exists to verify this continuity.

Awake, dreaming, in deep sleep; past childhood, present adulthood, hopeful future elder; the continued presence of one constant consciousness is there and that consciousness never knows its absence.

BTW, I am a hermit who may be wrong or may be right, but I have no need to defend myself or educate others who know differently.

[Klaralven]

6. Actually consciousness is discontinuous. It doesn't exist while you are asleep.

When you go to sleep consciousness ends. When you wake up, your brain re-initiates a new instance of consciousness.

The only reason that it appears continuous is because the new instance of consciousness has access to your memories. However, during the night, your brain has consolidated memories, so even what the new instance "remembers" is different than the memories that the old instance had in the evening before.

Especially if you had a lot to drink.

[sanatanadharma]

7. To me that sounds like I must be reborn daily

(However, others self awareness may vary.)

When we sleep awareness may cease, but not consciousness.
To lack consciousness is to be dead. Unconsciousness is not lack of consciousness; it is lack of responsiveness.

Dreams are built from one's knowledge, desires and memories. We know we (not the neighbor) had the many and incongruous dream experiences during our sleep. This requires the existence of continued consciousness observing the comings and goings of dreams.

Awake, consciousness is aware of the manifest world, our shared world.
In sleep consciousness is aware of dreams, one's personal world.
In deep sleep consciousness is aware only of its singular (own) nature.

Thus upon waking we say, "I slept well" (knowing without doubt that we never left nor returned).
We know we were not absent, even without memory of the hours that have past.
We all have vast holes in our memories but no one says' "I do not remember therefore I was non-existent."

One can be fully confused in amnesia, waking up without any memories of one's life or identity.
But that does not negate one's existent-consciousness which remains aware of the confusion or lack of memories.
We do not keep one in a coma alive waiting for consciousness to return. We keep them alive waiting for awareness and responsiveness to return.

Memories come and go. I never know my consciousness to be absent.
The conscious "knower" exists with memories or without them. Memories do not birth consciousness, rather it is the reverse.

Awareness comes and goes; awareness wakes up; consciousness is constant, and thus can be aware of change.

[Klaralven]

8. While you are asleep, you are aware, but not conscious

You are aware of your partner's shifting in the bed, causing you to adjust. You are aware that you are getting cold, leading you to awaken and get a blanket, interrupting the absence of consciousness for a short time. You are aware that your bladder is filling, and that you need a trip to the bathroom.

In other words, there is a low level processing of sensory information going on while you are unconscious.

Consciousness is like a bank's real time systems, accumulating and processing ATM transactions, interacting with teller stations in branches, and supporting web banking and mobile banking transactions. Dreaming is like the overnight batch processing where the day's transactions are batch processed on the mainframes in order to updated the transaction logs and account balances for each account. The realtime systems gain access to the updated data the next morning.

Being asleep or being "knocked out" is indistinguishable from being dead, except that since the electrochemical systems of the brain are still in working order, consciousness can be rebooted again.

[Girard442]

4. I think the anthropic principle gets a bit of a bad rap.

We are here because we can be. If we couldn't, we wouldn't.

Imagine a reality where people fill the swimming pools in the backyard with molten lead. In their universe, do they marvel that lead melts at exactly the right temperature for swimming? Could it be some sort of plan?

[Silent3]

5. The anthropic principle doesn't mean "We Were Meant to Be Here"

That's a very odd take on the idea, that the author doesn't justify at all.