You yourself seem to have internalized the idea that it is the end of the experience. The things you describe as possible are all different experiences to this one.
People aren’t required to be rational for GP’s point to be correct. I don’t even think it is necessary that they hold a particular view on death. Plenty of Christians don’t fear death because they believe in heaven. Plenty of those who believe in nothingness fear the end of their experience.
Nothingness has evidence. Memory and consciousness both appear tied to the body. Suggesting that’s equivalent to anything else because technically anything is possible is at best a god of the gaps argument.
The rational take here is that we don’t know, we may never know, but that the evidence is suggestive of the same sort of nothingness we “experience” when unconscious or before we were born.
Regardless, all that is required for the GP’s point to be true is that people do not universally fear death.
> You yourself seem to have internalized the idea that it is the end of the experience.
The previous commenter didn't say the end of "the experience." They said the end of "experience" (no the). If you want to be pedantic about the semantics, that's a pretty big thing to add, don't you think? One is the end of all sensation and the end of a particular set of sensations.
And no, it doesn't require that people not universally fear death, it requires that people who see death as the end of all experience don't fear death, which appears to be tautologically false since they adopt an irrational and negative belief about what the post-death state is.
> Nothingness has evidence. Memory and consciousness both appear tied to the body. Suggesting that’s equivalent to anything else because technically anything is possible is at best a god of the gaps argument.
The wordplay is interesting here - I didn't mention memory, only consciousness. Memory does appear to be an embodied phenomenon in your brain. Regarding consciousness, I'm not filling the gaps with a god, I'm suggesting that denying the existence of the gaps is as bad as filling it with a god.
> which appears to be tautologically false since they adopt an irrational and negative belief about what the post-death state is.
"Probably nothing" is not an irrational belief. You don't need 100% certainty to want to avoid that.
> The wordplay is interesting here - I didn't mention memory, only consciousness. Memory does appear to be an embodied phenomenon in your brain.
If I don't have my memories, then the old me is effectively gone forever. Wanting to avoid such a drastic and disruptive change has nothing to do with "fear of the unknown".
> "Probably nothing" is not an irrational belief. You don't need 100% certainty to want to avoid that.
The words "probably nothing" imply that on something more than belief, you can assign a probability to nothingness. Can you provide an objective measure of probability as to whether nothingness is what awaits you after death? When you say "probably nothing," the belief in "probably nothing" is an emotionally nice but similarly irrational hedge on "nothing," because nobody can assign a probability to an unknown unknown like "what happens after you die."
> If I don't have my memories, then the old me is effectively gone forever. Wanting to avoid such a drastic and disruptive change has nothing to do with "fear of the unknown".
Wanting to avoid that change is almost definitionally due to a fear of the unknown. You are afraid that the new state you will be in will be worse for lack of those memories. Many people who lose their memories are happier for it, and it is in fact a common trauma response to block out old, bad memories.
> The words "probably nothing" imply that on something more than belief, you can assign a probability to nothingness.
Maybe not "probability", but likelihood. That's the way Ockham's razor cuts: In the total absence of evidence for any continuation, there is no sensible reason to assume the existence of it.
> Wanting to avoid that change is almost definitionally due to a fear of the unknown. You are afraid that the new state you will be in will be worse for lack of those memories.
No, you only need to know that that won't be you who is in whatever state that whoever-it-is will be in. Our memories is who we are. No need to feel fear on behalf of whoever that will be that you're talking about.
> Can you provide an objective measure of probability as to whether nothingness is what awaits you after death?
Yes, with some effort, I can start at a default 50:50 and incorporate all the evidence we have access to. The resulting number will be pretty high and as objective as a person can reasonably be asked to be.
> nobody can assign a probability to an unknown unknown
Giving up like that is not a way to make rational decisions.
Also when you have a very precise scenario and question, doesn't that make it a known unknown?
> Wanting to avoid that change is almost definitionally due to a fear of the unknown. You are afraid that the new state you will be in will be worse for lack of those memories.
Wrong. Even with a guaranteed blissful existence, I'm still busy using my consciousness on my current life and don't want it to end.
> it is in fact a common trauma response to block out old, bad memories.
Yeah a few of them, that's not remotely the same as a clean slate.
People aren’t required to be rational for GP’s point to be correct. I don’t even think it is necessary that they hold a particular view on death. Plenty of Christians don’t fear death because they believe in heaven. Plenty of those who believe in nothingness fear the end of their experience.
Nothingness has evidence. Memory and consciousness both appear tied to the body. Suggesting that’s equivalent to anything else because technically anything is possible is at best a god of the gaps argument.
The rational take here is that we don’t know, we may never know, but that the evidence is suggestive of the same sort of nothingness we “experience” when unconscious or before we were born.
Regardless, all that is required for the GP’s point to be true is that people do not universally fear death.