Why You Weren't Born, And Why Time Travel Doesn't Exist.

[Kaizen]

This is mostly a theoretical one, but probably has applications within meditation, consciousness work and our idea of the self. I'm 100% certain that I'm wrong about SOMETHING here, so any corrections are appreciated.

 

When people first encounter the Doomsday Argument, it's basically the most world-altering thing they've ever heard of. It goes like this: why were we born RIGHT when technology started developing? The answer usually being: because there won't be a future to be born into, because technology will cause the world to collapse. Except... that's total bullshit, because that would imply a weak form of time travel exists.

 

It wouldn't be a form of time travel that could change the future, though, because regardless of whether the apocalypse is coming, the "You" would always be there, experiencing this supposed "time travel". Even so, it's applicable from your point of view, and it would make logical sense for the experiencer to assume that this Doomsday is coming. Except, no.

 

Ultimately, with regard to consciousness, it is just as likely for you to be born in America as it is to be born Elvis Presley. It's non-accumulative. The entire concept of "likelihood of being born as ___" doesn't make sense and stems from our need to explain everything based on 4-dimensional Platonic spacetime mechanics. This flaw makes it hard for us to understand things outside of said 4-dimensional spacetime, like quantum mechanics, the lack of a need for an outside creator or source for the Big Bang (conservation of matter/energy only applies in our 4D understanding), the self being nothingness itself, countable infinity vs. non-countable infinity, the idea that infinity*2 = infinity, etc.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of our belief systems are based on this idea that "group A is bigger than group B, so it's more likely to be born into group A". In truth, you weren't born as either. You were born as all of them at all times, or alternatively, none of them.

 

The implications this has for ethics is unknown. Does it mean that making one person happy is the same as making a group of people happy? Probably not, since itseems like subjective well-being is accumulative (two dopamines > one dopamine), in contrast with consciousness itself which is not. I could be mistaken about all this, and I may be thinking about it in the wrong way. But it would seem that the notion that there is a coming Doomsday makes no sense, and it's nothing worth worrying about.

 

(Also, side note: I'm not a believer, but there's an atheist argument that goes like this: "it's impossible that an eternal afterlife exists, since it's infinitely more likely to be experiencing IT at any given time than THIS infinitesimally-short life". But the whole concept of consciousness being non-accumulative puts this argument out the window.)

[Guest]

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[Leo Gura]

There's a lot of shit we just flat out don't know. Enlightenment is not about knowing everything. It's about seeing the beauty of the unknown.