So, suppose you should wake up tomorrow morning and you have complete amnesia. I mean, COMPLETE amnesia--you have forgotten EVERYTHING. You are like a newborn infant and must relearn everything from scratch--how to walk, talk, learn your name, use the toilet, everything.
When do your memories start to accumulate?
To make answering that easier, let us assume that you were born at time T0. At time T1, you got amnesia. Now between T0 and T1 you lived a decently full life of, say, 30 years or 50 years, but let's make this interval long enough for you have reached well into your adulthood. During that time, you went to school, graduated, learned to drive, went to college, joined the service, got out and got married and had 3 kids. Suddenly, T1 arrives and you wake up with no memories of anything that happened in your life whatsoever--a total blank slate.
When do your memories start to accumulate? At T1 or later. Everything between T0 and T1 is lost. Your memories can only accumulate at T1 or later.
Were you ever conscious between T0 and T1? Well, if you meet the criteria I listed in my previous post--
I. I experience.
II. I know I experience because I remember my experiences.
III. I can also remember remembering my experiences.
IV. I can remember some experiences as many times as I wish--an infinite number of times theoretically.
V. How many experiences must I remember to be conscious? All of them.
--then you were conscious. But there is a problem now:
You lost your memories and can no longer recall them as many times as you wish or at all. They no longer meet the criteria of consciousness. Then could have you been conscious? No. And yet, you were conscious during that time. CONTRADICTION.
Will you get complete amnesia at some time in the future? No. How do you know? Because you are conscious right now and consciousness is continuous. If your T1 moment was to occur, say, 5 years from now--2018--your memories would not start to accumulate until then. All the memories/experiences that occurred before would be wiped out. Life began for you, as far as you know, in 2018. It would just BE 2018 for you. Since it is earlier than 2018 and you are conscious, you know you will not get complete amnesia in 2018 (or any other future date) or you simply wouldn't be conscious right now.
Now--if death extinguishes consciousness as many people assume, then death is a complete amnesia. So, now we can say that you WILL die at some time T1 in the future. Your entire life experiences and memories from T0 to T1 are wiped out. When do your memories start to accumulate? At T1 or later. But what about that whole life you lived from T0 to T1? It's gone. And yet you WERE conscious during that time (i.e. you met the criteria of consciousness). CONTRADICTION.
Conclusion: Death cannot extinguish consciousness. If it does, then you cannot be conscious now.
Once you are conscious, you are always and forever conscious. Consciousness, then, is eternal.
This is a big piece of philosophical meat to swallow but it is essential that you you understand it so I'll leave off here to give you time to digest it. Any questions--ask.
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