Doesn’t it follow that each of us should expect to keep living in this state of constant degradation and suffering for a very, very long time, perhaps forever?
No. One can’t have it both ways. If your consciousness can persist in some infinitesimal state, then one of the things it will have lost on its way to that state is the ability to feel suffering, or boredom, or a sensation of passing time or anything of the like. The ability to feel suffering isn’t any more intrinsically a part of us than the ability to see colors or hear sounds.
Besides (though this a rather more far-fetched argument), at the infinitesimal state what is there to meaningfully distinguish your “degraded” dying consciousness from an as-yet-non-upgraded consciousness being born? Instead of Quantum Hell, consider the possibility of Quantum Reincarnation. ;-)
One can’t have it both ways. If your consciousness can persist in some infinitesimal state, then one of the things it will have lost on its way to that state is the ability to feel suffering, or boredom, or a sensation of passing time or anything of the like.
Being in a infinitesimal measure world is not the same as having infintessimal, zombie like, consciousness. It would be very convenient if it were, but you can’t pick assumptions to get to the conclusions you want.
No. One can’t have it both ways. If your consciousness can persist in some infinitesimal state, then one of the things it will have lost on its way to that state is the ability to feel suffering, or boredom, or a sensation of passing time or anything of the like. The ability to feel suffering isn’t any more intrinsically a part of us than the ability to see colors or hear sounds.
Besides (though this a rather more far-fetched argument), at the infinitesimal state what is there to meaningfully distinguish your “degraded” dying consciousness from an as-yet-non-upgraded consciousness being born? Instead of Quantum Hell, consider the possibility of Quantum Reincarnation. ;-)
Good points!
Being in a infinitesimal measure world is not the same as having infintessimal, zombie like, consciousness. It would be very convenient if it were, but you can’t pick assumptions to get to the conclusions you want.