[coldblues]

I believe consciousness is on a spectrum of self-awareness. It just exists, perhaps even without evolutionary need. Even if you act mainly on instinct or even purely you could still very well be conscious.

You will continue to exist as long as conscious life is able to propagate. For me, it makes sense that a state of nonexistence can't exist. Your consciousness is not unique, it's only a physical phenomena, thus it can be replicated, and it doesn't even have to be exact, after all, you are the ship of Theseus. When you make a clone and kill the original, the clone is the original, exactly. Like waking up from a dream, to suddenly being teleported somewhere. When you go to sleep, why don't you wake up as a rabbit? Who says you don't? Consciousness so far can only be examined from the outside but this does not deny our subjective conscious experience. I believe that when you die you will just move on, not as the same person, but as another conscious being. Eternal life. Essentially immortal, but you lose everything, and you're unaware of it. Even if 5 million years have to pass, you will just wake suddenly wake up.

I also believe consciousness is not quantifiable, but shared, and you just have a narrow perspective at a time. When you die I'd say you don't even have to wake up as a newborn, you could just spontaneously be another person, as long as there's no other path of continuity.

[lxgr]

> When you make a clone and kill the original, the clone is the original, exactly.

But what if the original lives on? What if you ship-of-theseus-like swap half of the clone's and the original's brain?

> Your consciousness is not unique, it's only a physical phenomena,

We have zero evidence for that – but then again, there's also zero evidence for people other than yourself being conscious in the first place, although there are compelling arguments.

[phantompeace]

> I also believe consciousness is not quantifiable, but shared, and you just have a narrow perspective at a time.

I agree, but I would go 1 step further and say: we are all human, yet experience life as individual beings rather than the sum of the species. Similarly, we are all alive and conscious, as the trees in the forest, as the bugs that dwell within, and as the bacteria that dwell within the bugs. It’s all happening right now, but we experience a small, linear slice because we are separated by our brains.

Due to the sense of self that arises from having a brain, we consider ourselves just an instantiation of a member of our species, but i firmly believe that the same life-force (the soul?) is living as all beings, simultaneously. Most probably across the universe.

That’s why when we hurt other people/animals and the environment that which they make up, we end up only hurting ourselves. Buddhists have the concept of Karma. Islam has the concept of a Judgement day where animals, plants and even the ground you stepped on, would speak against you if you transgressed against them during your life. I don’t think these are simply stories made up to keep us in line whilst we’re on this planet - I believe that there may be something more to all of this.

On a side note: I wonder if there exists a world where the predominant life forms are literally connected? Not by DNA history, but by something physical whereby they can share the same brain/experience whilst in different bodies. A literal hive mind. I wonder if that would be more conducive to cooperation on a global scale vs the way life evolved on Earth through competition?

[coldblues]

Interesting take, but I have a purely physicalist viewpoint. I don't think the religious aspect has anything to do with it, and can be simply explained by them literally believing things have souls and are conscious.

I believe there is a case of conjoined twins where they are sharing the same brain part, having two brains, being able to feel each other's stimuli and emotions, although I've only heard of it.

[mensetmanusman]

The universe is conscious if humans are conscious.

[fredski42]

This view resembles the Buddhist viewpoints somewhat.