The Afterlife

[AmrlKJaneway]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-576126...afterlife/

If this proves to be true, how may it effect OA? Would people be less inclined to live forever in this world? Would there be less baselines than predicted? Or less ascension? Or would mankind still try and make the most of this life before passing on?

[Drashner1]

From what I can tell in an admittedly brief reading of the article and trying to make sense of this guys website his theory seems to pretty much consist of fancy wording (biocentrist), life affirming pseudo New Age phrasing, and the ever popular invoking of quantum mechanics to make it sound credible while also being cool and mysterious. While he may be very good in his field, I'm not seeing anything here to indicate any observational or experimental evidence for whatever it is he's proposing (whatever that is exactly).

Interestingly enough, I came to these conclusions before finding the wikipedia article on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biocentric_universe

and it seems I'm not the only one.

This guy seems to be fiddling around in the realm of philosophy, not science.

In other words there doesn't seem to be any way to prove this to be true or false or much of anything else.

As far as how this would impact the setting: In a universe as large as OA, there are a huge number of beliefs. Some people probably believe something like this, most likely in dozens of forms and variations. For example we have an EG on Bioism:

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/460d9a5a42235

But that would mean no more to the setting than all the beings who believe any of the many other religions or philosophies or whatever that also inhabit the setting. Because this doesn't appear to be science, merely philosophy or religion dressed up with scientific language.

My 2c worth,

Todd

[AmrlKJaneway]

I assumed as much, but had trouble understanding exactly what he was saying. I really couldn't tell if he "proved" anything or not. Thanks!

[Rynn]

This is very similar to the same bullshit that Deepak Chopra and his ilk (who are amongst the few supporters for biocentrism) have been spinning for years. It's just new age religion jumping on scientific terms in an attempt to justify their unfalsifiable and unfounded "philosophy".

Here's a proper take down of biocentrism if you're interested: http://nirmukta.com/2009/12/14/biocentri...-universe/

[SteelEnsouled]

As someone who does believe in an afterlife, I read that article and I can't say I see a coherent line of reasoning there. Even theologically it does not look well reasoned, and it also looks to me like he's stretching science beyond its capabilities.

[stevebowers]

Plenty of sophonts believe in an afterlife in OA, both biont and aioid. Some of them believe in the sort of conventional religious afterlife that is common in the Abrahamic religions, others believe in reincarnation and nirvana, yet others are Omegists and believe in a physical eschaton.
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/483b1d57a9f34
We take a position of metaphysical neutrality in OA; any, all, or none of these ideas might be true, and none of the modosophonts know for sure - the archailects may or may not know themselves, but they aren't telling.

[Worldtree]

in posthuman visions of the future, uploading also seems like a techno-utopian vision of the afterlife, so in a sense, "dying" and "going to digital "heaven" is possible in the setting (why digital substrates will let uploads actually "live forever", as kurzweil fans say, I don't know).
(this is distinct from any metaphysical sense of the afterlife)

in addition, engenerators
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4a3d78dc77e6f
allow reincarnation, in a sense, so death and selfhood don't have quite the same meaning in some OA societies as we do. In some OA societies, there can be both a technologically possible "afterlife" through uploading and engenerated re-incarnation, as well as the unconfirmed afterlife beliefs we've always had.
Orion's arm has a pretty optimistic stance on this technology, of course.

[Rynn]

death and selfhood don't have quite the same meaning in some OA societies as we do.

Indeed. For most OA societies throughout their history death will be something pretty much voluntary. The technology to record an individual's genome, phenotype and connectome would be very mature. Most sophonts could have a memory box implant to keep an up-to-date connectome map and regularly transmit a copy to several external back-up sites. In the Sephirotics these back-ups could be archai run and span the godweb. In addition medical, policing and safety technology would be so advanced that harm is very unlikely and very treatable if it does occur.

Even the biggest disasters in OA resulting in the destruction of entire solar systems (like in the case of the amalgamation) are likely to have negligible casualties as sophonts suspected/confirmed to be dead could be reinstated digitally or physically.