Saturday, November 7, 2009

Readin' Comics

Interesting xkcd comic today, reflecting on what happens after we're disassembled into our component parts and tossed into the bin.



From xkcd, under Creative Commons license


I don't at all remember which of his books it was, but I recall Isaac Asimov made an argument similar to this, using the idea of building an intricate castle out of wooden blocks and knocking it down, and explicitly discussing how this compares to human consciousness and death.

All the bits are still there (blocks, neurons), but the castle (or the person's consciousness) no longer exists. It existed as a combination of specific materials organized in a specific form. The castle was real, unique, magnificent perhaps depending on much effort you put into it, but once it's in pieces, it's gone.

It can linger as a memory, in pictures maybe, in legends of block construction to be passed down to future generations of builders, but there's no afterlife of wooden block castles where it still exists.

And if that's true of human consciousness, then indeed, we've got no real reason* not to check that 'organ donor' box. Someone else may as well get some use out of those component parts I no longer need. (This is not to say that I think believing in consciousness that persists after death means someone wouldn't check that box--this is certainly not true.)


*Well, some of us may have poisonous organs and wish to spare others from their terrible curse. That's a pretty good reason.

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