Thoughts on Generic Subjective Continuity?

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"I" did not exist before "I" was born.

"I" suddenly became this conscious being.

When "I" die, "I" will not exist.

The traditional physicalist perspective is that after death, there is no subjective consciousness.
Or to put it plainly, "After this life, we will experience no more."

However, I question this. After all, once "I" die, doesn't that put "me" in the same position as "I" was prior to birth, i.e. nonexistence?

Nonexistence --> birth/death --> Nonexistence

Could the cycle repeat like the following:

Nonexistence -- birth/death --> Nonexistence --> birth......?

Could "we" look forward to a random continuation of consciousness as different beings (I quite dread this possibility ....)

After all, what preceded "my" birth was nonexistence. Nonexistence will follow my death. Why wouldn't the cycle repeat (on a subjective level that is...)?

This is not an argument for reincarnation with souls or karma. It presupposes a naturalist universe. Just that on a subjective level, perhaps "we" repeat the birth/death cycle endlessly, as different beings, with no connection or link between existences.

Google:
General Subjective Continuity
Existential Passage

There are some philosophers that originated the above concepts, and both seem intriguing. I actually dread this possibility and fear it is very real, although I'm an agnostic and have no idea what, if anything, follows death.

Your thoughts?

That's actually what I think is likely.

Yah, it makes sense to me, that we may just be on a long and eternal line of rebirths. Another thing to consider is that if our perception ceases to be when we go into a period of non-existence, then it wouldn't matter the probability of being reborn. If it takes trillions of years for factors to line up again for your "self", whatever that is exactly, to become a conscious entity again, death might be like falling asleep and waking up a trillion years in the future as a child, since you would have had no perception of the gap. All that would matter is that there's a possibility of being born at all, which we being here now is direct proof of. If any set of factors is possible, it can certainly be repeated, despite whatever its level of probability may be.

That might be all there is for the universe to perceive itself, this phenomenon were in right now, and its probably a lot more common than we assume.

I think it's kind of weird that was born in the greatest empire in history, at the time the most number of people will ever probably be born, and as a member of a group that is supposedly the most privileged (white male).

Lego is very pricey. Wish I'd held onto mine.

But this? No. I don't think so - it seems a very particular idea, based on a lot of ifs. Before I was born, I didn't exist, not least because I was created from the reproductive cells of two separate bodies. Further, my consciousness is heavily informed and coloured by (and dependent upon) my physical embodiment. Which is my main problem with that 'let's upload our consciousnesses!' fantasy.

Furtherer, I certainly hope it's not so.

The OP was well written and interesting to read but i feel this is just the age old question of whether or not we have a soul. It sounds to me like the OP does not want to have a soul. But I think deep down most people do.

I often wonder if we live the same life over and over. We could die and then wake up as our five year old self and think what a weird dream I just had. We have no idea whether this has already happened, or how many times it has happened.