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Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by the lack of continuity of consciousness in some sci-fi immortality conceptions. A lot of them seem to treat external continuity as being the same as internal - Richard Morgan's Kovacs books are probably the worst offender, where everyone has a very cavalier attitude to swapping bodies or dying. The Golden Age's noumenal recorders also come to mind. Personally I wouldn't keep a backup.
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Mar 25, 2012 15:11
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If continuity of consciousness is the key factor in remaining me, then sleep becomes a troubling proposition.
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Mar 25, 2012 15:39
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MikeJF posted:If continuity of consciousness is the key factor in remaining me, then sleep becomes a troubling proposition.
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Mar 25, 2012 15:42
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Pope Guilty posted:My whole point in all of this is that having a backup is completely irrelevant to the dead person; it doesn't let you wake up again after being killed. You don't benefit in the least from it, unless you get off on the idea of there being a duplicate of you walking around after you die. But of course, you only get that benefit until you die, whereupon there's no you to benefit from anymore. I wouldn't say it's completely irrelevant, think of the case where a father sacrifices his life for his son to live. Is the fact that the son is still alive completely irrelevant to the father as he's dying? Would it be more or less so if it wasn't his son that's still alive but an exact duplicate with all of his memories, desires, and morals? (I'm thinking Walter Jon Williams underrated Voice in the Whirlwind here.)
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Mar 25, 2012 17:44
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Pope Guilty posted:My whole point in all of this is that having a backup is completely irrelevant to the dead person; it doesn't let you wake up again after being killed. You don't benefit in the least from it, unless you get off on the idea of there being a duplicate of you walking around after you die. But of course, you only get that benefit until you die, whereupon there's no you to benefit from anymore. The backup is indeed irrelevant to the dead person, but it's relevant to the person who made the backup. Person A goes in for a backup, producing Forks B and C. Fork B is hit by a car and killed on the way out of the clinic and dies, thinking 'wow, gently caress, that backup sure isn't going to do me, Person A, any good'. Fork C says 'wow, that sucks. Lucky I, Person A, am still alive!' When you make the backup, you're forking yourself in twain, each of which is genuinely you and each of which has a shot at living. But after the backup scan is complete, it's every fork for itself. A useful physical thought experiment is this: your body is divided in half (including the brain), and each missing half is then reconstructed by nanomachines. Which one is now you, and contains your 'real' consciousness? It's impossible to say. But it's also clear that the death of one of the two half-clones won't lead to its survival in the other. In the context of the Culture, making a backup of your mind-state before a risky mission will guarantee your survival, but it won't prevent your death. We're so used to thinking of these two as a zero-sum binary that it's hard to think around it. There's an interesting gray area in terms of recent backups, though: if I have a backup from a minute ago, and then I die and the backup is downloaded into a new body, is that different from a minute's memory loss? Can we see that as equivalent to just rolling back a minute? Neurosis posted:Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by the lack of continuity of consciousness in some sci-fi immortality conceptions. A lot of them seem to treat external continuity as being the same as internal - Richard Morgan's Kovacs books are probably the worst offender, where everyone has a very cavalier attitude to swapping bodies or dying. The Golden Age's noumenal recorders also come to mind. Personally I wouldn't keep a backup. The stacks in the Kovacs books actually provide continuity rather than permitting forks. Out-of-body backups are forks, however. TouretteDog posted:So in your replace-N-atoms machine, from an 'externalist' perspective, you're absolutely right ("a difference that makes no difference is no difference"); from an 'internalist' perspective, I'm less convinced (and I think you've very cleverly slipped a false dichotomy in there; just because we have a very clear intuition on one extreme (N=1, 2, or 3) leading into a very large and poorly defined gray area (N>3 and < 100% of total), it doesn't mean that the limit is therefore proven). If you replaced every atom in my brain simultaneously, I think there's a very good chance that the internal monologue that I think of as 'me' might end -- a fade to black in my own Cartesian theater, just to abuse a phrase -- and be replaced by an indistinguishable copy. I don't know enough about the neurological basis of subjective experience to really be certain. That's interesting. I don't think I share your intuition, and I can't find a way to think myself into it. Atoms have very defined, known properties: number of protons and neutrons, charge, et cetera. We can quite confidently say that two atoms of the same type with the same charge are interchangeable. Why would a 'total atom swap' change anything about the brain, or have any relevance to consciousness? It seems that if you recognize that the mind is simply the product of material processes in the brain, you must accept that the total atom swap has no effect on consciousness. Very good post, though, thank you for making it. You're better at elucidating these ideas than I am. e: I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm confident that if there's a 'stuff' to consciousness, a minimum necessary level of structure, it's encoded in the arrangement of neurons, not the arrangement of atoms. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Mar 25, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 18:23
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TouretteDog posted:Does this mean that you should or should not fear death if you're backed up? I suspect it comes down to how much you subjectively value internalist vs externalist notions of identity. If you die, the 'you' that is represented by a continuous stream of consciousness doesn't get to have any more fun, but at least your family won't have to miss you. I think it's a feeling of familiarity with the technology that would make the idea easier for people. If I knew, and had always known, that I could wake up the next day after a sudden death, then I'd probably treat it as the equivalent of getting really wasted at a party and waking up without any memory of the previous evening. I can't say I'd be that carefree if the tech was plopped into my lap today, though.
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Mar 25, 2012 18:40
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General Battuta posted:Why would a 'total atom swap' change anything about the brain, or have any relevance to consciousness? Extend the 'total atom swap' into space: would you still say that you have continuity of subjective experience if the swap happens instantly but puts all the swapped atoms three feet to the left of where you started? (Clearly the 'copy' you would have that continuity, I'm specifically interested in the subjective experience of the 'original' set of atoms.) Is it possible to distinguish this from simply creating a duplicate three feet to the left and simultaneously killing the original? It seems to me like you either have to a) make the (reasonable) argument that a zero distance in time and space is a unique case, with completely discontinuous effects from any nonzero distance, b) agree that a 'total atom swap' could end a chain of subjective experience, or c) challenge the premise of the question and argue that the notion of continuity in internal subjective experience is itself illusory. In any event, I agree that it's fairly clear that the newly created person, from the point of view of everyone else including the new copy, really is you; the knotty question is what happens with respect to your subjective experience as the original. After all, the point of most of these immortality schemes is to avoid the subjective (non-)experience of death.
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Mar 25, 2012 20:13
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TouretteDog posted:Extend the 'total atom swap' into space: would you still say that you have continuity of subjective experience if the swap happens instantly but puts all the swapped atoms three feet to the left of where you started? (Clearly the 'copy' you would have that continuity, I'm specifically interested in the subjective experience of the 'original' set of atoms.) When you say that subjective consciousness is tied to specific atoms, doesn't that imply a sort of élan vital belonging to those atoms? I mean if a copy of your consciousness was truly indistinguishable, wouldn't it also be indistinguishable to yourself? TouretteDog posted:c) challenge the premise of the question and argue that the notion of continuity in internal subjective experience is itself illusory.
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Mar 25, 2012 21:05
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Llamadeus posted:When you say that subjective consciousness is tied to specific atoms, doesn't that imply a sort of élan vital belonging to those atoms? I mean if a copy of your consciousness was truly indistinguishable, wouldn't it also be indistinguishable to yourself? I don't think so; I'm trying to draw a distinction between the content of the subjective experience of the original and the content of the subjective experience of the copy, and perhaps it's only clear in my head. If we make an instant copy of you three feet to the left of where you are, then both of you have identical memories up to the point of copying, and your copy's experience of being 'you' is as valid as yours. I think we both agree on that. But am I wrong in thinking it's totally obvious that there are now two distinct sets of subjective internal experiences where an instant ago there was just one? And that if we wait five seconds and then kill one of them, we now have one set of subjective internal experience that no longer exists, and one that continues? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you and General Battuta seem to be suggesting that if we don't wait five seconds but instead destroy the original before (or even at the same instant as) we create the copy, then in some sense the subjective experience of the original somehow now doesn't end, or it does end but that the distinction between the two sets is now somehow rendered absolutely, even ontologically irrelevant to everyone -- including the original that we just killed -- simply due to fact that we never had the two existing simultaneously. The latter leading me to think that people somehow don't consider their subjective experience particularly relevant to the topic of their identity. Which strikes me as odd. I've always gotten the impression (not to argue from authority, but rather at least attempting to tie it back to Banks) that Banks had sort of the same take on it. A substantial number of non-main-characters that get re-vented have many of their personal relationships fall apart shortly thereafter, I'd always taken it as him hinting that the copy wasn't quite the same as the real thing, that losing the shared experiences and thus changing the relationships really was changing the identity.
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Mar 25, 2012 22:43
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TouretteDog posted:But am I wrong in thinking it's totally obvious that there are now two distinct sets of subjective internal experiences where an instant ago there was just one? And that if we wait five seconds and then kill one of them, we now have one set of subjective internal experience that no longer exists, and one that continues? TouretteDog posted:Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you and General Battuta seem to be suggesting that if we don't wait five seconds but instead destroy the original before (or even at the same instant as) we create the copy, then in some sense the subjective experience of the original somehow now doesn't end, or it does end but that the distinction between the two sets is now somehow rendered absolutely, even ontologically irrelevant to everyone -- including the original that we just killed -- simply due to fact that we never had the two existing simultaneously. The latter leading me to think that people somehow don't consider their subjective experience particularly relevant to the topic of their identity. Which strikes me as odd. To take this to a logical extreme, if a brain was destroyed and rebuilt a thousand times a second (either accurate down to the electron or even just functionally accurate, like a China brain), then I don't think this would constitute a thousand distinct consciousnesses. Its self-awareness would have no way of knowing about this physical discontinuity. But to return to the copy/fork scenario, my intuition tells me that I have no way of knowing that I'll remain as the original. But when the original is instantly destroyed I know that my subjective experience will continue as the copy, since experiencing non-experience is impossible by definition and what's happened is that the task of maintaining my consciousness has passed from my original brain to this replica brain. TouretteDog posted:I've always gotten the impression (not to argue from authority, but rather at least attempting to tie it back to Banks) that Banks had sort of the same take on it. A substantial number of non-main-characters that get re-vented have many of their personal relationships fall apart shortly thereafter, I'd always taken it as him hinting that the copy wasn't quite the same as the real thing, that losing the shared experiences and thus changing the relationships really was changing the identity. There are quite a few sci-fi authors who make use of this trope though (and have their own takes on it): In Greg Egan's Permutation City the protagonist's consciousness (already uploaded to a machine) manages to survive being deleted despite there no existing copy -- he surmises that his consciousness just continues in a possible alternate universe where his history/memory is consistent up to the point of deletion. And IIRC in one of Ken MacLeod's novels some people go to the trouble of purposefully destroying the originals to make sure their consciousnesses transition to digital form.
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Mar 25, 2012 23:36
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Pope Guilty posted:What? That's inane. A perfect duplicate of me is not me. It's another being in another body with identical chemical makeup and physical state. If it's identical to you how is it not you? If, in no way any outside observer can differentiate between the before and after versions then how can it not be you? What's the difference? After all something must be different for something to be different. A == A. It's tautological. Unless, of course, it's the soul that makes you you and not just the chemical compounds, which, as I said is a question that Banks has never broached that I know of. e: Since people seem to like thought experiments, let's do one. You go to the theater to see a magic act. On stage the magician has a large box big enough for a human to stand in comfortably, like they use for making pretty women disappear. He asks for a volunteer and, being a good sport you go up on stage. He asks you to step inside the box and 5 seconds later step out. You step into the box, the door closes and you can see and hear nothing, you count slowly to five and step out onto the stage. The magician then tells you, in a low voice that only you can hear, that while you were in the box every cell in your body was disassembled and instantly reassembled. You feel no different, you have all the same memories and to your perspective there was no loss in continuity. To the point of view of the audience you stepped into the box and then 5 seconds later stepped out, exactly identical. The magician then tells you that there is a 50/50 chance he is lying. Are you you? Why or why not? Murgos fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 23:39
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TouretteDog posted:If we make an instant copy of you three feet to the left of where you are, then both of you have identical memories up to the point of copying, and your copy's experience of being 'you' is as valid as yours. I think we both agree on that. With regards to the 'total atom swap, plus three feet displacement' experiment, I'm with Llamadeus. I don't think you would notice anything whatsoever internally, except for the fact that you're now standing three feet away. quote:Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but you and General Battuta seem to be suggesting that if we don't wait five seconds but instead destroy the original before (or even at the same instant as) we create the copy, then in some sense the subjective experience of the original somehow now doesn't end, or it does end but that the distinction between the two sets is now somehow rendered absolutely, even ontologically irrelevant to everyone -- including the original that we just killed -- simply due to fact that we never had the two existing simultaneously. The latter leading me to think that people somehow don't consider their subjective experience particularly relevant to the topic of their identity. Which strikes me as odd. I'm going to try to turn the logic of this situation on its head. I agree with you that, intuitively, it seems quite odd to say the following: "If the transporter beam disintegrates me and does nothing else, I am dead. If the transporter beam disintegrates me and then rebuilds me three feet to the left, I am alive and nothing has changed. If the transporter beam scans me but doesn't disintegrate me, rebuilds a copy of me three feet to the left (leaving me behind), and then three seconds later I am shotgunned in the face, I am dead." In other words, we're trying to tackle the problem of why we don't feel like the transporter beam kills us if it disintegrates us and then rebuilds a perfect copy, but we do feel murdered if the beam leaves the original behind - and there's no reason it shouldn't! So the crux of the matter, as I see it - and correct me if I'm wrong - is: why is instant disintegration somehow intuitively less fatal than disintegration after a five second lapse? And I think it's this: the instant teleportation scenario is what happens to us every instant. Our mindstate in any given moment destroys the previous mindstate. We are, in a sense, constantly undergoing the instant-teleportation variant. But we never share our head with ourselves from five seconds ago, and then watch that self be wiped away. I think the problem isn't that the teleporter murders you and builds a copy; it's that it forces you to confront that you're constantly murdering yourself and building a copy. The mind never forks; no previous mindstate ever causally disconnects from the current mindstate and develops on its own. quote:A substantial number of non-main-characters that get re-vented have many of their personal relationships fall apart shortly thereafter, I'd always taken it as him hinting that the copy wasn't quite the same as the real thing, that losing the shared experiences and thus changing the relationships really was changing the identity. That's a very interesting reading. Hadn't considered it. Murgos posted:Magician thought experiment That's very cool. Here's a variant: you go up on stage and the magician claims he's going to duplicate you. He blindfolds you, spins you around, and pronounces his duplication spell. When he takes the blindfold off, you're looking at a copy of yourself. How do you know, looking back, if you're the copy or the original? Some people insist vehemently that they must always be the original, because there's no physical way for them to be teleported into a new body. But after the fact, the only way for them to check the consistency of this statement is to examine their memories...which were also duplicated. It gets even fuzzier if the magician claims he can cleave you in half and then reconstruct the missing half. Who's who? Man this poo poo is fun.
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Mar 26, 2012 01:00
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Murgos posted:If it's identical to you how is it not you? If, in no way any outside observer can differentiate between the before and after versions then how can it not be you? What's the difference? After all something must be different for something to be different. Are two identical pencils the same pencil? If you could reproduce a toothpick perfectly down to the subatomic level, would you insist that there was only one toothpick? quote:A == A. It's tautological. Just because two things are identical does not mean that there are not two things! Why is this so hard to understand! quote:Unless, of course, it's the soul that makes you you and not just the chemical compounds, which, as I said is a question that Banks has never broached that I know of. I'll come right out and say that you literally have to believe in souls to believe that two identical beings are a single being. I'm completely baffled that people seem to be suggesting the existence of a continuity of consciousness (which is seriously the only thing that could ever matter, unless you're so profoundly screwed up that you're completely casual about being murdered) between different brains with no physical continuity between them. I guess if you want to invoke souls you could assert that there's some sort of transfer or magical sympathy or something, but otherwise you've got to explain how the consciousness jumps from one piece of meat to another while sticking only to physics, which is... difficult.
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Mar 26, 2012 01:36
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How fine can you split the hair? What about lededje, whose neural lace transmits her consciousness as a backup as she dies so that the copy that reawakens parsecs away actually remembers being murdered? Did the original still fully die? Edit: VVV 
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Mar 26, 2012 01:46
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Pope Guilty posted:I'm completely baffled that people seem to be suggesting the existence of a continuity of consciousness (which is seriously the only thing that could ever matter, unless you're so profoundly screwed up that you're completely casual about being murdered) between different brains with no physical continuity between them. I guess if you want to invoke souls you could assert that there's some sort of transfer or magical sympathy or something, but otherwise you've got to explain how the consciousness jumps from one piece of meat to another while sticking only to physics, which is... difficult. How do the two brains share no physical continuity? In the case of a Star Trek transporter, for example, there is clear physical continuity. The state of the atoms in the brain is recorded and then imposed on new atoms. A causal connection exists. I feel as if you're arguing against a point nobody is making: that if you get your mind state backed up, then walk outside and die after your scan concludes, the-you-who-dies wakes up in a new body. Nobody has argued this, and I find it hard to believe you could read the discussion and think that somebody has. What has been stated is that if you walk into a Culture clinic and get your mind state backed up, you will fork into two individuals who immediately begin to diverge, one of whom may die while the other lives. If you push this mindstate backup closer and closer to the moment of death - perhaps even to the moment of death, as andrew smash mentioned - you move deeper and deeper into a gray area that asks us to evaluate the difference between brief retrograde amnesia and death. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 01:46
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General Battuta posted:In other words, we're trying to tackle the problem of why we don't feel like the transporter beam kills us if it disintegrates us and then rebuilds a perfect copy, but we do feel murdered if the beam leaves the original behind - and there's no reason it shouldn't! I'd rather say that you don't feel like the beam is killing you if you're disintegrated and recreated simultaneously  Whether it's instant or five-second delay disintegration, they both seem to very clearly result in the death of the original and consequent loss of continuity to me.In other words, if I'm the copy, I feel like I've teleported (and, to any practical test, that's exactly what I've done); if I'm the original, I feel (very briefly) like I'm someone being disintegrated by a teleporter, and then I feel nothing at all. My narrative subjective experience ends. If you destroy a body, the chain of awareness -- being a result of the chemistry of that body -- must end with it, regardless of whether you make a perfect copy of it in some other place or time. As the 'original', backing up really kind of does nothing for me (other than possibly making sure my loved ones don't lose me). But I think you've done a good job of identifying the crux of the difficulty with your position and my understanding of it, and you've found a coherent way though it, though your solution seems a touch bleak to me. It's a little appalling to consider the idea of spinning an endless stream of selves into oblivion every with waking moment, but that's not the same as finding a logical flaw in the argument. If it makes sense to you that a continuous chain of subjective experience doesn't really exist and is an illusion created from memory, then I think everything else you've argued also makes sense from that perspective.
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Mar 26, 2012 01:58
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TouretteDog posted:I'd rather say that you don't feel like the beam is killing you if you're disintegrated and recreated simultaneously Why, though? What if the teleporter takes only half of your body, and then rebuilds the other half for each half? Has your continuity been disrupted? Are you now half-dead? (I know you're not fond of this argument-by-fractions, but I think it's a compelling question.) What if instead of being teleported you were simply placed in stasis for a few moments? Wouldn't that be an equivalent lapse in the chemistry of the body that you describe as producing the narrative subjective experience? I'm not responding to the rest of your post not because I think it's not worth responding to but because I think this above point is the one that drives our differences.
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Mar 26, 2012 02:04
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Pope Guilty posted:I'm completely baffled that people seem to be suggesting the existence of a continuity of consciousness (which is seriously the only thing that could ever matter, unless you're so profoundly screwed up that you're completely casual about being murdered) between different brains with no physical continuity between them. I guess if you want to invoke souls you could assert that there's some sort of transfer or magical sympathy or something, but otherwise you've got to explain how the consciousness jumps from one piece of meat to another while sticking only to physics, which is... difficult. If the consciousness is more like information than just atoms then it needs no physical continuity to persist. These thought experiments aren't actually intended to model reality, they just posit extreme hypothetical (and often impossible) examples to ask you to examine your assumptions. The contuinity between duplicated brains is that whatever builds the second brain has to physically map the original brain. You'd say that a wave has motion and continuity, even though it's not made up of any one set of atoms but its energy is transferred from atom to atom.
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Mar 26, 2012 02:29
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I think the problem is that Pope Guilty thinks we're arguing that if you scan your mind state, then go out (without any implants or live link in your head) and get shot, you're going to magically appear in a new body when your mind state is downloaded and 're-sleeved'. Or, alternatively, that if you're William Riker and you die you're going to suddenly appear in the body of Thomas Riker. And I agree, that would be magical and acausal, because there's no causal connection between Fork A (who's dead now) and Fork B for information to propagate along. If that's not what Pope Guilty thinks then I don't even know. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 02:33
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General Battuta posted:How do the two brains share no physical continuity? In the case of a Star Trek transporter, for example, there is clear physical continuity. The state of the atoms in the brain is recorded and then imposed on new atoms. A causal connection exists. There is no physical continuity because you're tearing the original brain apart and replicating it. Tearing the brain apart kills the person. From my standpoint it's completely irrelevant what happens after that. Nothing matters whatsoever, because you're dead. Everything else is a bizarre dodge around that. Llamadeus posted:Ironically, from our point of view it's your model that seems "magical" as it implies that there's some way for the consciousness to "stick" to a specific set of atoms. Your brain and body create your consciousness. It is intrinsically the product of the meat that gives rise to it. Any other position requires magic. quote:If the consciousness is more like information than just atoms then it needs no physical continuity to persist. These thought experiments aren't actually intended to model reality, they just posit extreme hypothetical (and often impossible) examples to ask you to examine your assumptions. The contuinity between duplicated brains is that whatever builds the second brain has to physically map the original brain. I would argue that using "continuity" in this sense is silly. There is a clear discontinuity between the original brain/body and the copy. quote:You'd say that a wave has motion and continuity, even though it's not made up of any one set of atoms but its energy is transferred from atom to atom. I would not claim that two waves with the same properties are the same wave.
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Mar 26, 2012 02:49
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Pope Guilty posted:There is no physical continuity because you're tearing the original brain apart and replicating it. Tearing the brain apart kills the person. From my standpoint it's completely irrelevant what happens after that. Nothing matters whatsoever, because you're dead. Everything else is a bizarre dodge around that. Why does tearing the brain apart kill the person? This may sound like a really stupid  question, but I think it's the heart of the matter (no pun intended). Surely the reason tearing the brain apart kills the person is because it leads to an irreversible loss of information, isn't it? It snaps the causal connections between state n-1 and state n; the brain can't render the next frame in the mindstate because it's no longer there.Your brain is routinely, if very slowly, torn apart and rebuilt, yet you aren't dead. Why is that? I apologize for playing Socrates, but surely the ship of Theseus problem has a clear and relevant answer here. Additionally: what do you think about the stasis thought experiment? Does freezing the body in stasis irretrievably kill the original brain and mind? What do you think about the bifurcation thought experiment? If the brain is split in half, and each half reconstructed into a full brain from stored information by nanomachines or a transporter, have you been irretrievably killed, or irretrievably halved? What if we just replace every other neuron? quote:Your brain and body create your consciousness. It is intrinsically the product of the meat that gives rise to it. Any other position requires magic. Surely you recognize that what you call the 'brain and body' is just a structure, that the matter which makes up that structure is in constant flux and all that's preserved is the information content it encodes? There are no special atoms containing special quanta of you that we could somehow place in a particle accelerator and say 'oh, wow, these came from Pope Guilty'. They're atoms like any other. Again: ship of Theseus. General Battuta fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 02:57
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General Battuta posted:Why does tearing the brain apart kill the person? This may sound like a really stupid Tearing the brain apart destroys the structure which creates the mind. quote:Your brain is routinely, if very slowly, torn apart and rebuilt, yet you aren't dead. Why is that? I apologize for playing Socrates, but surely the ship of Theseus problem has a clear and relevant answer here. Because "the ship of Theseus" is not a real thing but is a construct of human minds, similar to how you can have Pork and Beans without any actual pork. What one person calls "the ship of Theseus", another person calls "lots of individual boards which have been nailed together". A man might see the ship when it is new, and see it again after every piece has been replaced, and not recognize it. Yet our minds are our minds. quote:Additionally: what do you think about the stasis thought experiment? Does freezing the body in stasis irretrievably kill the original brain and mind? I dunno. quote:What do you think about the bifurcation thought experiment? If the brain is split in half, and each half reconstructed into a full brain from stored information by nanomachines or a transporter, have you been irretrievably killed, or irretrievably halved? What if we just replace every other neuron? I think you died when your brain was cut in half, and then two duplicates were constructed. quote:Surely you recognize that what you call the 'brain and body' is just a structure, that the matter which makes up that structure is in constant flux and all that's preserved is the information content it encodes? There are no special atoms containing special quanta of you that we could somehow place in a particle accelerator and say 'oh, wow, these came from Pope Guilty'. They're atoms like any other. Again: ship of Theseus. Again, this is arguing against a point I've never made.
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Mar 26, 2012 03:17
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Pope Guilty posted:Tearing the brain apart destroys the structure which creates the mind. Fair enough, but if the brain then gets its poo poo back together and no information is lost, isn't the mind then also recreated? Put differently: if the structure creates the mind, and the structure is repaired, why wouldn't the mind be repaired too? I guess I'm just not following this idea that if the brain stops existing for a little while then it's lights out forever, and even if the brain is later put back together it's not really you, it's just a copy. My intuition is that the particular structure of neurons in the mind is all that gives rise to consciousness, and if you have that structure recorded, you have the consciousness recorded. quote:I think you died when your brain was cut in half, and then two duplicates were constructed. Why did I die? What was lost when my brain was cut in half? How do you know some arbitrarily powerful alien hasn't committed this act upon half of your brain? General Battuta fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 03:26
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General Battuta posted:Fair enough, but if the brain then gets its poo poo back together and no information is lost, isn't the mind then also recreated? Put differently: if the structure creates the mind, and the structure is repaired, why wouldn't the mind be repaired to? I'm perfectly willing to say that yeah, you've re-created the consciousness, but I'm less willing to suggest that the same person opens their eyes after. I'm honestly not sure. General Battuta posted:Why did I die? What was lost when my brain was cut in half? How do you know some arbitrarily powerful alien hasn't committed this act upon half of your brain? You understand that this is up there with "well, what if we all came into existence a moment ago with false memories of our lives?" in terms of pointless hypotheticals, right?
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Mar 26, 2012 03:27
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double post, sorry.
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Mar 26, 2012 03:29
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All aboard for the continuing adventures of the GSV Oh My God, They're Still Arguing About Mindstates. Ceebees fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Mar 26, 2012 |
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Mar 26, 2012 03:29
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Pope Guilty posted:I'm perfectly willing to say that yeah, you've re-created the consciousness, but I'm less willing to suggest that the same person opens their eyes after. I'm honestly not sure. Seems fair. I'll admit I have a lot of intuitive trouble with these thought experiments I spout so readily. It's very, very hard to get past the simple intuition that if I'm disintegrated, that's all she wrote; my brain doesn't care that some outside force has recorded it and will later rebuild it. I'm intellectually confident in my intellectual conclusions, but I'd still be pretty nervous getting into a teleporter. Ceebees posted:All abord for the continuing adventures of the GSV Oh My God, They're Still Arguing About Mindstates. ROU Your Wife Will gently caress Your Backup
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Mar 26, 2012 03:30
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GSV Just Let the Minds Handle It, Okay?
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Mar 26, 2012 03:43
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Pope Guilty posted:Are two identical pencils the same pencil? If you could reproduce a toothpick perfectly down to the subatomic level, would you insist that there was only one toothpick? But you can tell the difference between two toothpicks or two pencils. They are not identical they are just similar. Given even a half way decent microscope you can easily tell the difference between two pencils, there will be differences in machining and even cellular structure, differences in the graphite compounds used to make the lead, etc... You seem to be confused about what constitutes identical. I'm talking about identical down to the sequences and quantities of amino acids in your cells. Identical down to the concentrations of neural networks and the amounts and distributions of synaptic fluids in the sheaths and nerve endings. Identical even to the point where all the cells in your body are in the exact same state of decay of their life cycle as they were previous to the event. The main problem with your hypothesis that there is only one true set of material that makes up the original you is that it's not even true for you right this moment. You are not the same atoms you were 10 years ago, you are not the same cells you were a year ago. Your body continuously kills old cells and creates new ones. TLDR; Your definition of what constitutes two different entities isn't internally consistent and is completely unusable as a basis for comparison to 'truth'.
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Mar 26, 2012 12:48
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Murgos posted:But you can tell the difference between two toothpicks or two pencils. They are not identical they are just similar. Given even a half way decent microscope you can easily tell the difference between two pencils, there will be differences in machining and even cellular structure, differences in the graphite compounds used to make the lead, etc... You seem to be confused about what constitutes identical. I'm talking about identical down to the sequences and quantities of amino acids in your cells. Identical down to the concentrations of neural networks and the amounts and distributions of synaptic fluids in the sheaths and nerve endings. Identical even to the point where all the cells in your body are in the exact same state of decay of their life cycle as they were previous to the event. And when I referred to identical pencils and toothpicks, did you think I did not mean identical in the sense that you are using identical? It is what I have meant every time I've used the word in this discussion. quote:The main problem with your hypothesis that there is only one true set of material that makes up the original you is that it's not even true for you right this moment. You are not the same atoms you were 10 years ago, you are not the same cells you were a year ago. Your body continuously kills old cells and creates new ones. Okay, I'm actually starting to get angry because I have repeatedly stated that this wasn't what I meant, and explained that I referred specifically to the matter making up a person's meat at any given moment, and either you're just not reading what I'm writing, you're not understanding it because I've suffered some kind of nervous breakdown and I'm actually typing in Etruscan without knowing it, or you're just ignoring it. quote:TLDR; Your definition of what constitutes two different entities isn't internally consistent and is completely unusable as a basis for comparison to 'truth'. Perhaps you would like to engage my arguments, and not the arguments you wanted me to make.
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Mar 26, 2012 12:59
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GOU Nice Primate CollectionGeneral Battuta posted:Why, though? What if the teleporter takes only half of your body, and then rebuilds the other half for each half? Has your continuity been disrupted? Are you now half-dead? (I know you're not fond of this argument-by-fractions, but I think it's a compelling question.) It's a fair question, and frankly I don't know. Part of it is this notion of "instantaneous replacement with something identical"; the more I think about this the more I'm beginning to think that if we take the words 'identical' and 'instantaneous' absolutely literally, then the word 'replacement' is a poor one. I have a totally unsupported feeling that there's something special about 'zero' with respect to this continuity. So the best I can offer is my gut feeling: If you teleport half of me somewhere else, then that other half is basically freshly created and hence represents the start of a new series of experiences. What happens to the half that isn't touched by the teleporter is much less settled to me; the continuity of consciousness might survive it, but it might not. I don't think we know enough about the neurological basis for subjective experience to be sure. My wife suggests that I'm basically making an argument from math: that to be part of a continuous stream of consciousness, our experiences have to be at least potentially continuous in time and space. Which I think is both really funny, and a very good shorthand. As far as stasis, if it's Niven-style stasis where time literally doesn't pass inside, I think that's survivable; cold-sleep (and coma, and brain death, and so on, maybe all the way up to a concussion or possibly even an alcohol induced blackout) probably represents a subjective experience of death, but again that's my intuition, not really a reasoned argument.
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Mar 26, 2012 13:26
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TouretteDog posted:
This! The defining experience of my life was when I woke up from anesthesia after surgery and felt my consciousness blink into existence. "So, this is what death feels like" was my first immediate thought. This experience somehow convinced me that "I" didn't exist during the time I was unconscious and made me question whether the elusive "I" existed at all, but that is a matter for another thread. Therefore, my exact, atom-by-atom and brainwave-by-brainwave copy is "me" no more or less than I am "me" typing this right now. Banksian backing-up ensures the avoidance of death as a permanent state of non-existence. Still doesn't eliminate the rather unpleasant experience of dying but I would say that a copy from back-up is the same person as the original.
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Mar 26, 2012 15:39
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Pope Guilty posted:And when I referred to identical pencils and toothpicks, did you think I did not mean identical in the sense that you are using identical? It is what I have meant every time I've used the word in this discussion. No, you're not because you are saying that two pencils are identical and since you can tell two pencils apart then therefore you can tell two identical things apart. I am saying that you can tell two pencils apart because they are not identical, they are merely similar. If something is identical you can not discern one from the other, this is what identical means. Your definition of identical is not correct so please stop trying to use it. Next, if you're willing to accept that your meat from a year ago is not the same meat as you are now, then what makes you you? Is it continuity of consciousnesses? Or is it something more than that? Continuity of consciousness being the qualifier is, I think, a trivial example. If that's all it takes to make you you then N number of identical clones with a prefect replication of your memories and mental state could also all claim, with equal validity to be you. So, to distinguish you from merely an identical clone that thinks it is you then their must be something that is outside the 'meat' or even the mental makeup of your personality. What is it? I'm positing that whatever that is it must be what we think of as the soul, or part of a consciousness that goes on to the afterlife, if there is one. And as I have said before, Banks does not delve into that question when discussing back-ups or sending personality states across time & space or entering VR worlds or what-have-you.
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Mar 26, 2012 18:03
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Murgos posted:No, you're not because you are saying that two pencils are identical and since you can tell two pencils apart then therefore you can tell two identical things apart. If it possible to have nondistinguishable persons I am very curious as to how it's possible to have nondistinguishable pencils. Presumably I haven't missed that everybody is assuming that the duplicate humans occupy the same physical space, because that would be stupid and crazy.
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Mar 26, 2012 18:30
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If you drill down far enough, you just have particles with certain properties like spin and momentum. Any hydrogen atom is as good as the next one, so if you can map the right properties onto it, it's like having two of the original. Scale that up far enough and you'll get a perfect duplicator. perfect!~~~~
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Mar 26, 2012 19:06
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The Dark One posted:If you drill down far enough, you just have particles with certain properties like spin and momentum. Any hydrogen atom is as good as the next one, so if you can map the right properties onto it, it's like having two of the original. Scale that up far enough and you'll get a perfect duplicator. perfect!~~~~ Heisenberg's uncertainty principle means it is absolutely impossible to exactly measure the state of each particle, though.
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Mar 27, 2012 07:06
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One point that's been brought up but not directly dealt with, I think, is the definition of "continuity of consciousness." That term implies that conscious is a unitary thing - a property that grows out of a specific set of material and is a continuous experience. An alternate way to think about it is that consciousness is inherently focused on the current moment ("all consciousness is consciousness of something," etc.), and the experience of continuity has more to do with our history and experiences: if we have memories that allow for a continuous track up to the here-and-now, then we feel like we have continuity of consciousness. That distinction is important because it lets us get away from whether the backup is the "real" person or not - basically, like people have been suggesting, this distinction allows us to argue that there's no such thing as a specific and distinct consciousness that has or doesn't have continuity. I'm not "Notahippie" - I'm "Notahippie as defined by his memories up to 17:33:45 MDT on 3/29/12." In a couple of seconds I'll have a slightly different set of memories, and be a slightly different person than the me of 17:33:45. I may have the experience of a continuity of consciousness, but that's a property of my interpretation of the continuity I can see in my memories, not an inherent property of the specific matter that I have here with me - if I were frozen, or revented, or whatever, I'd have the same internal experience of a continuity of consciousness. So basically, an alternate way to look at it is that the discussion over whether the "real" you is revented or not is a rabbit-hole, because there's none of us who are the same from moment-to-moment. Most likely in Banks' world anyone who is dying is going to have an experience where "their" consciousness is being extinguished, anyone who is revented is going to have an experience where "their" consciousness is continuing, and neither of them can really claim to be the same person as who was backed up in the beginning.
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Mar 30, 2012 00:37
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Pope Guilty posted:I'm completely baffled that people seem to be suggesting the existence of a continuity of consciousness (which is seriously the only thing that could ever matter, unless you're so profoundly screwed up that you're completely casual about being murdered) between different brains with no physical continuity between them. I guess if you want to invoke souls you could assert that there's some sort of transfer or magical sympathy or something, but otherwise you've got to explain how the consciousness jumps from one piece of meat to another while sticking only to physics, which is... difficult. The problem is you're treating "consciousness" as if it were somehow a separate thing that sticks to physical matter. That's why people keep accusing you of invoking a soul, because the assumption you have to make for that to make sense is exactly the same as assuming a soul. Your mind is not a distinct object. It's a pattern, an arrangement, built entirely out of interchangeable parts. If you consider yourself the same person now as you were when you were made out of different atoms, but reject the concept of a soul, then identity is exactly the same as how you describe the ship of Theseus: just someone's idea of a ship (or in this case, someone's idea of a self.) You don't have the same atoms, they aren't in the same configuration, and there is no external receptacle for "self-ness" to reside in. If on the other hand you don't consider yourself the same person as you were when you were made of different atoms, then you're constantly becoming a new person every instant of every day anyways, and teleportation or duplication wouldn't be any more destructive to your identity than a few moments' worth of new experiences would -- in fact, in most of the proposed cases, they would be less so, since they usually involve a perfect duplicate instead of a slightly altered one.
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Mar 30, 2012 14:06
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I always believed it to be a point of view thing, two people, Being a & Being z, are travelling in identical craft to similar points, the craft containing Being a is unfortunate enough to zig when they should have zagged, but craft z is close enough to accept their mind states during the event, this happens during a conversation between Being z & Being a, craft z is quick on the ball, and has already equipped a suitable body for Being a+, who is able to complete their sentence. from the point of view of Being a-; its all over and the rotund ovulatory sentient has nothing left to sing. Being a+ wonders why they are in craft z. Being z wonders why they are in craft z, but begins to reply to the sentence posed by Being a -+. its a matter of perspective, to the outside observer, nothing much is different, to Being a, who knows? maybe they will hold a funeral for Being a-?
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Apr 2, 2012 06:46
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| # ? May 13, 2024 01:00 |
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I love the premise of the Culture saga but I just don't like Consider Phlebias, I just couldn't get past the first 120 or so pages. The characters so far introduced were bland and the narrative, uninteresting. If I skip it, where should I start the series?
Diogines fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Apr 3, 2012 |
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Apr 3, 2012 00:54
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