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Just before death you are granted one truthful, understandable answer to one question. What would you want to know? (mander.xyz)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Obviously a hypothetical scenario. There is no way to pass on the knowledge to anyone else. Time freezes for you only, and once you have your answer you are out of this world.

The question can allow you to see into the past, present and future and gain comprehension of any topic/issue. But it's only one question.

Edit: the point isn't "how to cheat death". You can't. Your body is frozen and there is nothing you can do with this knowledge other than knowing it, and die. So if you would rather be frozen in a limbo just thinking of numbers for eternity, be my guest.

Such a variety of replies, it's been really interesting to read them!

What would you want to know? Personally I'd want to see a timelapse or milestone glimpses of humanity's future until the end of Earth's existence (if we survive that long)

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[–] kromem 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What if I don't want the surgery and want to live out the rest of my days in comfort?

Aye, that is a key issue as there's no informed consent to being born.

But how much of that is the fault of a creator of a universe and how much one's parents? FWIW, one of the traditions that thought similar to what we are discussing was fairly against having kids.

It could be managed if we are exact copies of people who lived, as if the originals consented to it then we may well be in a kind of Severance situation where you exist in a world of suffering because you (in a sense) consented to it.

Though it is arguably more interesting if rather than exact copies we are an archetypical copy of humanity. Individual and unique in our own existence here and now, but an accurate aggregate resemblance of humanity circa 2023.

There, informed consent very much is a challenge as there's many who would want our metaphorical surgery and others who would not and they can't express an opinion until they exist in the first place.

If there is no knowable and proovable absolute truth.

But a knowable and probable absolute truth collapses the possible options.

If someone really hates the idea of continuing to exist in any way after death and feels like the existence of a god or not being an original would rob their life of meaning - should they be denied their ability to reject these ideas so that another is able to embrace them?

Vice versa, if we have the capacity to define things as different results for different observers, should we deny others the ability to have their own beliefs about the unknown by making a single option probable?

The relative measurement at small scales in our own universe only works when the thing being measured is unobserved until each individual observer making a measurement is separated from the others. If they are together, the measurement is singular for all involved.

Again - I will agree it causes a challenge with informed consent. But no belief system I'm aware of that has endorsed a similar model has also endorsed an omnipotent creator, and as long as there are logical limits in place the loss of absolute or prior informed consent in exchange for access to relatively ideal continued existence seems like it would be more than fair for most given commonly held beliefs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

We are going into a what if terirory here and I don't think there is any good argument to be had there.

So I'm gonna end on this:

A copy is not an original. I am me, nothing more nothing less. There is no consent I can give prior to my existence. Going further into the analogy is pointless, life is not a surgery.

But no belief system I'm aware of that has endorsed a similar model has also endorsed an omnipotent creator,

~~Umm, Christianity? Just to name at least one major religion.~~

I misread that so ignore it.

[–] kromem 1 points 10 months ago

Cannonical Christianity claims this is a copy of an original world with universal salvation and an individualized afterlife?

Ironically there is a heretical Christian sect that thought all those things, but it died out in antiquity. But those concepts are pretty much the opposite of the mainstream Christian theology.