The Universe Seems No More Meaningful to me if We Survive Death

Why is there meaning simply because the experience continues after physical death?

When some religious fundamentalists talked about eternal life to my neighbor, he answered to them: "I don't want to be a plumber forever". I have seen that this is a common idea among the materialists: eternal life = you continue doing your boring job and other mundane things forever. Contrary to that ignorant view of the afterlife, evidence suggests that the possible evolution of conciousness is endless.

If there is no life after death, then ultimately everything is meaningless.

But in your example, they are not the same. Sorry. The only way for them to be the same, would be to make them the same.

 stephenw The two information objects - (1) the information detected about a physical object and the (2) sim are the same.

Two, separately located Object Oriented Programs, can be functionally the same.  My wording was poor, as usual, so I understand your response of: "they would be the same".  But OOP programs (information objects) don't refer to external circumstances.  Two programs can be isomorphic in output, yet not be the same instance.  The two objects (sim of asteroid and actual data from an asteroid) would be of the same class.

 A blueprint for a house design is like a class description. All the houses built from that blueprint are objects of that class. A given house is an instance.

https://medium.com/from-the-scratch/oop-...e3c18e281b

When some religious fundamentalists talked about eternal life to my neighbor, he answered to them: "I don't want to be a plumber forever". I have seen that this is a common idea among the materialists: eternal life = you continue doing your boring job and other mundane things forever. Contrary to that ignorant view of the afterlife, evidence suggests that the possible evolution of conciousness is endless.

If there is no life after death, then ultimately everything is meaningless.

I'm making a different point than your neighbor. I'm saying that if it's infinite, than it's meaningless even if it keeps evolving, simply because of the idea of infinity. If it's infinite, I can't grasp how you would have any way to compare anything to anything else. Every single experience would become completely irrelevant as there would be an infinite number of other experiences with which to compare...in fact an infinite number of experiences that were infinitely more meaningful, thus nothing would have any real meaning in any way that I can grasp. Every experience would also be infinitely less meaningful than an infinite number of other experiences...

I'm making a different point than your neighbor. I'm saying that if it's infinite, than it's meaningless even if it keeps evolving, simply because of the idea of infinity. If it's infinite, I can't grasp how you would have any way to compare anything to anything else. Every single experience would become completely irrelevant as there would be an infinite number of other experiences with which to compare...in fact an infinite number of experiences that were infinitely more meaningful, thus nothing would have any real meaning in any way that I can grasp. Every experience would also be infinitely less meaningful than an infinite number of other experiences...

I think you're talking about the hedonistic treadmill problem.

I'm making a different point than your neighbor. I'm saying that if it's infinite, than it's meaningless even if it keeps evolving, simply because of the idea of infinity. If it's infinite, I can't grasp how you would have any way to compare anything to anything else. Every single experience would become completely irrelevant as there would be an infinite number of other experiences with which to compare...in fact an infinite number of experiences that were infinitely more meaningful, thus nothing would have any real meaning in any way that I can grasp. Every experience would also be infinitely less meaningful than an infinite number of other experiences...

I can't grasp how infiniteness would reduce the meaning of life or any single experience.

Non-existence after a finite life, on the other hand, would render life and all experiences meaningless.

I can't grasp how infiniteness would reduce the meaning of life or any single experience.

Every experience would be infinitely less meaningful than an infinite number of other experiences.

Every experience would be infinitely less meaningful than an infinite number of other experiences.

I get your drift here but might I suggest that, as we are probably incapable of comprehending infinity/eternity then we can't assign mathematical values to such events and experiences? How, for example, do we define more or less meaningful? By number or by comparison, one with another?

My own feeling is that we don't understand the true nature of time and space (or whether they are indeed convenient inventions of the human psyche) so that eternity and infinity become meaningless projections. I imagine bubbles containing interconnected events and the conscious experience of those events being somehow local. Thus we have something like negative entropy in a closed system (or systems) where meaning can and does evolve.

How, for example, do we define more or less meaningful? 

Yes, I hear you, but many people seem to have no problem saying that a finite life spent on earth only is "meaningless". That was actually the impetus for me starting the thread, as I'd read over and over and over again that a finite life is "meaningless" (both here and on skeptiko), and it dawned on me that an infinite existence seems to be fairly meaningless, as well. I was really just trying to shine a light on the absurdity of claiming something is meaningful vs. meaningless, and reserving some kind of special treatment for your preferred post-death outcome.

So this life is more meaningful because it is followed by something we don’t understand, and can’t possibly comprehend.

How does that help?

We need nbtruthman to rate this idea for fruitfulness.