|
IronClaymore posted:Well yes, for humans there is no real difference between the hardware substrate and the "software" of the mind. We're not some program existing on a generic motherboard with the same processor and with the same RAM, our experiences alter the hardware of our brain and our thoughts and feelings require certain physical connections between neurons to exist. Yes, I believe you could make a person on a non-organic substrate. It might even be possible to "transfer" a person onto a non-organic substrate without killing them, but without knowing how such a process would work it's impossible to know either way.
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 22:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 08:39 |
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:Yes, I believe you could make a person on a non-organic substrate. It might even be possible to "transfer" a person onto a non-organic substrate without killing them, but without knowing how such a process would work it's impossible to know either way. Emulating each neuron on a molecular level would be unfeasible. But understanding how each neuron interacts with each connecting neuron could mean a far simpler emulation. You're still talking about a ridiculous number of billions of cells and each cell has connections to a bunch of others, and real living human consciousness involves the continuous breaking and reforging of connections between neurons. But maybe it's possible. I heard that computing power is still increasing almost exponentially. Maybe it could model what we consider to be a human consciousness one day. Probably in some stupidly laggy excessive system that ends up being a hundred times slower than a real human brain, at least to start with. What then?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 22:36
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:It seems very clear to me that people are not simply thoughts and memories. They also have a body. And the most important part of that body is their brain, which not only stores but processes, enacts and embodies those thoughts and memories. It would be theoretically possible to store someone's thoughts and memories on a computer drive as completely inert raw data, but I don't think anyone would confuse that data with a person. Neither would I. I wouldn't confuse the paralyzed brain lodged inside a corpse skull in a frozen cryogenic lab as a person, even if it has all the thoughts and memories embedded inside it. Consciousness and self-hood is a dynamic process.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 22:44
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:Neither would I. I wouldn't confuse the paralyzed brain lodged inside a corpse skull in a frozen cryogenic lab as a person, even if it has all the thoughts and memories embedded inside it. Consciousness and self-hood is a dynamic process. I absolutely agree, and if you permanently end that process it's called killing someone.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 22:47
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:Potential people do not have the same value as actual people, which is the reason that we (presumably) don't believe there's a moral duty to have as many children as possible and don't feel bad about the destruction of embryos in science and medicine. When you press the button on the teleporter you are killing someone, which is a moral ill, and while that ill is mitigated by the fact it creates another person it does not erase it. It is impermissible to kill anyone regardless of how many people it creates. I think you're being way more dogmatic than the subject allows. Killing is hardly impermissible, for example; it is permitted on a grand scale, and very few people object to all instances of it (e.g. 'self defence'). Many people do not consider suicide morally wrong, and those who do - as I do, in most circumstances - tend to say that this is because of the effects, on others, of one's not being around - effects which will not happen in the teleporter case. The value of potential people (like that of actual people) varies, and some may be thought greater than that of an actual person. (For example someone with a terminal illness might well consider sacrificing their remaining months for the sake of an embryo.) In most cases, of course, the future of an embryo or potential child is far too uncertain to sacrifice an actual person for. But when the person that will be created is just the same as me, and there is practical certainty that they will be created, I do not see why this life is more valuable than that life.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 23:09
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:I absolutely agree, and if you permanently end that process it's called killing someone. Exactly. And as soon as the brain is unfrozen we would both agree the dynamic process is functioning again, and that the process was not permanently ended. But for me if you put that frozen brain through a machine that in an instance replaced every atom with a new atom, and later unfroze the person I'd say the same dynamic processes has begun again. I assume that you would say that putting the brain through that machine would count as a permanent ending to that individual and that awakening a brain that went through the process would be the creation of a new dynamic process.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 23:11
|
|
|
I think this question about something that's likely impossible (at least as presented here) is less interesting than the stark disagreements it seems to produce. I'd love to know if people's opinions on this were strongly correlated with any other thing. For instance, this seems really obviously true to me: JerryLee posted:It really seems to come down to whether or not you hold your "self" or your perceived, subjectively continuous existence to be simply an emergent phenomenon of the particular sorts of computation going on in your brain, in which case there's no reason to believe it wouldn't continue emerging, with subjective seamlessness as far as "you're" concerned, if the computation ceased in one location and started up again light-years away. but there must be about as many people having exactly the opposite reaction. What's up with that? (And, on topic, what do some of the "it kills you" people say to JerryLee's implication that you're thinking magically?)
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 23:13
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:But for me if you put that frozen brain through a machine that in an instance replaced every atom with a new atom, and later unfroze the person I'd say the same dynamic processes has begun again. "a new atom" isn't a thing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 23:15
|
|
|
Is teleporting the natives away the new trendy way to genocide populations?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 23:23
|
|
|
Dzhay posted:"a new atom" isn't a thing. I'm aware of that, I was actually going to put scare quotes around new atoms, but realized I don't have the basic physics background to argue why that is the case. I could have used the term "other atoms" but I know that is also problematic. But yeah it can all boild down to an accusation of magical thinking. crowoutofcontext fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Apr 16, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2016 23:39
|
|
|
Control Volume posted:Is teleporting the natives away the new trendy way to genocide populations? Indian in the Cupboard is a much more tragic movie when you realize that Little Bear never returns to his people.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 01:03
|
|
|
Oh dear clone posted:I think you're being way more dogmatic than the subject allows. Killing is hardly impermissible, for example; it is permitted on a grand scale, and very few people object to all instances of it (e.g. 'self defence'). Many people do not consider suicide morally wrong, and those who do - as I do, in most circumstances - tend to say that this is because of the effects, on others, of one's not being around - effects which will not happen in the teleporter case. Yes, most people have scenarios where they believe killing is morally permissible, but the critical point is that in these scenarios is that there's a justification that makes an otherwise impermissible act permissible. For example in cases of self-defense someone might say that killing is permissible because the aggressors puts themselves in a situation where they are responsible for their own death, or that attempting to kill someone deprives one of the right to life, or what have you. "The value of potential people" does not provide a sufficient justification for killing, because potential people have no value at all for reasons I've already stated. As for your example, I have no idea what that would entail. How does one "sacrificing their remaining months for the sake of an embryo"? More to the point, the issue here seems to me to not have anything to do with the value of life at all. Someone with a terminal illness almost certainly would not say "my life has little or no value, so I will sacrifice it", but rather "I am going to die anyway, and I would like my death to accomplish something". So what has changed in this scenario is not that the value of the terminally ill person's life has decreased, but rather that they will die no matter what they do and want their death to create some mitigating value rather than being purely tragic. This example gives no reason to believe that the value of human life varies. In fact it doesn't. The moral value of all human lives is equal, and the value of all potential lives is zero.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 14:54
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:Exactly. And as soon as the brain is unfrozen we would both agree the dynamic process is functioning again, and that the process was not permanently ended. I'm not actually sure I agree with the first proposition. That is my intuition, but I don't think we understand subjectivity well enough to say that it can be stopped and restarted in that way. More importantly, none of the scenarios you're proposing are analogous to the teleporter scenario which (when properly formulated) entails the complete destruction of the brain and thus the impossibility of restarting the processes of subjectivity it once produced.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 14:57
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:The value of potential people" does not provide a sufficient justification for killing, because potential people have no value at all for reasons I've already stated. I was disagreeing with this, in case it wasn't clear enough. Actually I don't think you've stated any reasons for saying all potential people have 'no value at all'. You claimed that valuing potential people equally with actual people leads to bizarre conclusions, but in the examples you cite it only does if you make some other odd assumptions along the way - for example, that all potential people have the same value as each other. And this is a thing few if any parents-to-be have ever thought. We do quite routinely assign value to potential people, a value that may be greater or less in different circumstances. For example, consider the case of a terminally ill pregnant woman who rejects treatment that would prolong her life because it would kill her foetus. Or a person who knowingly accepted a suicidal mission in order to stop a city being sterilized by some industrial accident; I think they would be honoured as a hero, not condemned for throwing their lives away for nothing. . Thug Lessons posted:the issue here seems to me to not have anything to do with the value of life at all. Someone with a terminal illness almost certainly would not say "my life has little or no value, so I will sacrifice it", but rather "I am going to die anyway, and I would like my death to accomplish something". So what has changed in this scenario is not that the value of the terminally ill person's life has decreased, but rather that they will die no matter what they do and want their death to create some mitigating value rather than being purely tragic. This example gives no reason to believe that the value of human life varies. In fact it doesn't. The moral value of all human lives is equal, and the value of all potential lives is zero. When it comes to deciding who to push out of a balloon, or who gets the life-saving treatment that's in short supply, most of us definitely prefer to save some lives rather than others - that is, we think some lives are more valuable than others. The case of self-defence is another example; the aggressor's life is typically seen to be worth less than the defender's.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 15:57
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:That is my intuition, but I don't think we understand subjectivity well enough to say that it can be stopped and restarted in that way. What's there to understand?
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 16:00
|
|
|
Oh dear clone posted:I was disagreeing with this, in case it wasn't clear enough. Actually I don't think you've stated any reasons for saying all potential people have 'no value at all'. You claimed that valuing potential people equally with actual people leads to bizarre conclusions, but in the examples you cite it only does if you make some other odd assumptions along the way - for example, that all potential people have the same value as each other. And this is a thing few if any parents-to-be have ever thought. We do quite routinely assign value to potential people, a value that may be greater or less in different circumstances. For example, consider the case of a terminally ill pregnant woman who rejects treatment that would prolong her life because it would kill her foetus. Or a person who knowingly accepted a suicidal mission in order to stop a city being sterilized by some industrial accident; I think they would be honoured as a hero, not condemned for throwing their lives away for nothing. You misunderstand the example of the pregnant, terminally ill woman. What's going on here is not assigning value to potential people. The reason the pregnant woman forgoes treatment is the same reason that people oppose abortion, namely that she considers the fetus an actual person, not a potential one, and in fact one whom she has a deep personal connection to. It is extremely unlikely a terminally ill person would forgo treatment if someone proposed to them that, were they to do so, that someone would have a child with another person. The example of someone who sacrifices their life to save others is of course neither here nor there. It's a utilitarian calculus that one death is better than many deaths. "This death will prevent the death of others" is certainly an acceptable justification for killing. What we are lacking, so far, is any reason from you that explains why the value of a single potential life is sufficient reason to kill someone. As for whether I've stated reasons for why potential people have no value: I have, quite clearly. If you object to the arguments I've made on the grounds that lives have unequal value, then state your metric for judging the value of lives and we'll see if it works out. quote:When it comes to deciding who to push out of a balloon, or who gets the life-saving treatment that's in short supply, most of us definitely prefer to save some lives rather than others - that is, we think some lives are more valuable than others. The case of self-defence is another example; the aggressor's life is typically seen to be worth less than the defender's. I don't think that follows at all. I can think of many justifications for self-defense that do not entail claiming the life of the aggressor has less value than that of the defender, two of which I have already stated. You seem to assume that to decide whether a dies requires us to conclude a negative valuation of their life, but I see no reason why that would be true nor have you stated any.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 16:21
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:More importantly, none of the scenarios you're proposing are analogous to the teleporter scenario which (when properly formulated) entails the complete destruction of the brain and thus the impossibility of restarting the processes of subjectivity it once produced. How is my last scenario not analoguos to the teleporter scenario? You put a brain through a machine that in an instant replaces the frozen brain, particle by particle, and assembles a "new" brain just as happens in the teleporter. This is exactly the process which you would describe as entailing the complete destruction of the brain and thus the impossibility of restarting the processes of subjectivity it had erstwhile produced. Or does it matter that the space it is reproduced in is different from the space it was disassembled in? Thug Lessons posted:I'm not actually sure I agree with the first proposition. That is my intuition, but I don't think we understand subjectivity well enough to say that it can be stopped and restarted in that way. Couldn't you say the same thing about propositions about other situations in which it can be said the dynamic process temporarily stops and restart again? Would you say it is more your intuition that tells you that after recovering from being knocked unconscious (or recovering from NDE's or operations where the electrical activity of your brain flat-lines, or awakening from deep sleep or coming out of meditation) you are the same person before those events?
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 18:03
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:How is my last scenario not analoguos to the teleporter scenario? You put a brain through a machine that in an instant replaces the frozen brain, particle by particle, and assembles a "new" brain just as happens in the teleporter. This is exactly the process which you would describe as entailing the complete destruction of the brain and thus the impossibility of restarting the processes of subjectivity it had erstwhile produced. Or does it matter that the space it is reproduced in is different from the space it was disassembled in? Ah, I was confused about the "in an instant" part because of how it was written. Yes I would consider that the same as destroying the brain and thus subjectivity would end. It might appear that it had not ended because it happens so quickly but I don't see any difference between destroying a brain and re-creating it years later and recreating it instantly. quote:Couldn't you say the same thing about propositions about other situations in which it can be said the dynamic process temporarily stops and restart again? Would you say it is more your intuition that tells you that after recovering from being knocked unconscious (or recovering from NDE's or operations where the electrical activity of your brain flat-lines, or awakening from deep sleep or coming out of meditation) you are the same person before those events? In the cases of deep sleep or meditation, certainly not. Neither of these causes the brain to cease functioning. In the case of certain types of unconsciousness, possibly. It may be that when the cerebral cortex stops functioning then subjectivity permanently ends, and when it is restarted a new subjectivity begins, albeit one with access to the same "hardware" as the previous one. I don't consider this a particularly likely possibility, but we're so ignorant of how the brain functions that I'm not sure we can rule it out.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 18:27
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:The reason the pregnant woman forgoes treatment is the same reason that people oppose abortion, namely that she considers the fetus an actual person, not a potential one, and in fact one whom she has a deep personal connection to. It is extremely unlikely a terminally ill person would forgo treatment if someone proposed to them that, were they to do so, that someone would have a child with another person. I chose the case of a foetus precisely because you used our general unconcern about embryos as part of your argument for potential people having no value. Your claim that such a woman would believe her foetus had already achieved personhood is entirely unfounded - do you think all pro-choice women are sterile or something? And the fact that we value some potential people - such as the ones with whom we have, or expect to have, a personal connection - more than others is exactly my point! quote:The example of someone who sacrifices their life to save others is of course neither here nor there. It's a utilitarian calculus that one death is better than many deaths. The example was about sterility, no deaths were involved. And since any number times zero is zero, nothing of value would have been lost - if you were right about the value of potential people. quote:What we are lacking, so far, is any reason from you that explains why the value of a single potential life is sufficient reason to kill someone. I have given reasons, and I will give them again: the life that will be created is just as good as the life that will be killed, but has the advantage of being in a more desirable location. None of the moral objections I have to suicide without a teleporter apply to the teleport situation. Would you allow me to teleport if the superior location of my clone allowed it to save an actual life? How about if it saved two? quote:If you object to the arguments I've made on the grounds that lives have unequal value, then state your metric for judging the value of lives and we'll see if it works out. I have argued that people - pretty much all people - value some people more than others. I have not argued that either they or I have some simple and easily typed metric for doing it. I would guess most people think Mandela > Hitler. I would say, all other things being equal (which they never are), that I value socialists more than conservatives. What relevance has that to anything? quote:You seem to assume that to decide whether a dies requires us to conclude a negative valuation of their life I assume that choosing to save A's life rather than B's means you think the value of A's remaining life is greater than the value of B's remaining life (no negatives need be involved). Choosing A over B seems to me in general to imply valuing A more than B, and indeed be an excellent test of what you really value more. But if you have some different notion of value, let's hear it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 19:21
|
|
|
Actually when I think about it, there are two ways to interpret "instantly replacing every atom in the brain", and whether it's analogous to teleportation depends on which you mean. Scenario A means roughly, "In one instant, all of the atoms in the brain are removed and new atoms move in to replace them in a single simultaneous action". Scenario B is, "One instant, all atoms in the brain are in place. In the next instant, all of those atoms are removed creating empty. In the next instant, new atoms move into the empty space replace them." In scenario A, I actually expect subjectivity would continue. I don't think that the function of subjectivity requires the same atoms, just that the brain continue functioning without interruption. However I don't believe this scenario is analogous to teleportation properly stated, because in teleportation the body is explicitly destroyed and a new body is created. In this scenario you skip the step of destroying the body, and all that has changed is the history of the atoms in your brain. In scenario B, we have an analog for teleportation, but subjectivity would not survive because the brain was destroyed, if only for an instant. It's something of an interesting example actually, but I'm also skeptical about scenario A. I'm not sure it actually makes logical sense. I have no idea what it would actually mean to remove and replace atoms in a single instant without creating an empty space first, and we come to the erroneous conclusion that it's possible to instantly replace all the atoms in the brain while allowing subjectivity to survive because we use a premise that doesn't actually make sense.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 19:48
|
|
|
Oh dear clone posted:I have given reasons, and I will give them again: the life that will be created is just as good as the life that will be killed, but has the advantage of being in a more desirable location. None of the moral objections I have to suicide without a teleporter apply to the teleport situation. What you've failed to do though is address my argument. I've said "if we value potential life equally to actual life, we come to bizarre conclusions". You've stated scenarios where you believe people value potential life, but even if I accepted those it would be neither here nor there because they're not relevant to the scenario in question. You haven't given any explanation for how the potential life of the clone created in teleportation has value in ways that all other potential lives do not. It seems to me as though you're succumbing to exactly the error you initially rejected, namely egoism. Just because the clone would have your personality and your memories and doesn't somehow automatically mean it has more value than, say, a child you did not have because you failed to breed early enough. It doesn't mean it has more value than a child born as a result of rape. Unless you can come up with some sort of coherent metric that explains why your clone has some special value that abrogates the moral imperative against killing, then your notion of the value of potential people still results in all the bizarre conclusions that I stated initially. And in fact I don't believe you'll ever find such a metric, because it's a nonsense notion. quote:I have argued that people - pretty much all people - value some people more than others. I have not argued that either they or I have some simple and easily typed metric for doing it. I would guess most people think Mandela > Hitler. I would say, all other things being equal (which they never are), that I value socialists more than conservatives. What relevance has that to anything? You're confusing judging people with valuing people's lives. Some people judge others based on their personality, some on their accomplishments, some on their ethnic Aryan heritage. None of this has anything to do with the value of their lives, and there is no conflict between judging people while saying their lives have equal value. I don't have to like Charles Mason to say his life has value and there's a moral imperative not to kill him, and in fact that's exactly what I would say despite the fact I think he's horrible. It's also certainly not true that sparing one person to save another means that you value that person's life more, and the obvious counterexample would be Sophie's Choice. Thug Lessons fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Apr 17, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 20:22
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:Actually when I think about it, there are two ways to interpret "instantly replacing every atom in the brain", and whether it's analogous to teleportation depends on which you mean. Scenario A means roughly, "In one instant, all of the atoms in the brain are removed and new atoms move in to replace them in a single simultaneous action". Scenario B is, "One instant, all atoms in the brain are in place. In the next instant, all of those atoms are removed creating empty. In the next instant, new atoms move into the empty space replace them." Assuming the second scenario (somehow) preserves the relative positions/momenta/spin states/whatever of all the particles involved, how can it be any different to the first? This is what the guy who accused you of talking about magical essences meant, I think.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 20:44
|
|
|
Dzhay posted:Assuming the second scenario (somehow) preserves the relative positions/momenta/spin states/whatever of all the particles involved, how can it be any different to the first? This is what the guy who accused you of talking about magical essences meant, I think. Because in the first scenario the brain was not destroyed, it merely had all of its atoms replaced, whereas in the second scenario the brain was destroyed and re-created. "Replacing atoms" is not synonymous with destruction.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 20:46
|
|
|
The frozen person scenario is somehow even less plausible than destructive teleportation. Like do you realize how loving difficult it is to freeze light for even a split second? How are you going to freeze a person and replace their parts atomically without actually killing them anyway?
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 20:56
|
|
|
Kit Walker posted:The frozen person scenario is somehow even less plausible than destructive teleportation. Like do you realize how loving difficult it is to freeze light for even a split second? How are you going to freeze a person and replace their parts atomically without actually killing them anyway? A lot of these philosophical thought experiments center around stuff that is explicitly impossible on a physical level. They're not meant to solve practical problems but to provide insight into philosophical dilemmas, so all that really matters is whether they make sense logically.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 21:03
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:What you've failed to do though is address my argument. I've said "if we value potential life equally to actual life, we come to bizarre conclusions". You've stated scenarios where you believe people value potential life, but even if I accepted those it would be neither here nor there because they're not relevant to the scenario in question. Those scenarios disproved your claims that potential lives have no value. I have never argued that we should value each and every potential life as much as any actual life, so the bizarre conclusions you mentioned simply do not follow. (If you think they do, please say more about how.) In the teleporter scenario, the clone's life has the same value as mine, minus a small amount representing the risk of the procedure, and plus some amount representing the advantage of the clone's location. Apart from those adjustments the clone's life has the same value as mine because it is the same as mine, in every respect that matters to me. quote:You haven't given any explanation for how the potential life of the clone created in teleportation has value in ways that all other potential lives do not. It seems to me as though you're succumbing to exactly the error you initially rejected, namely egoism. Just because the clone would have your personality and your memories and doesn't somehow automatically mean it has more value than, say, a child you did not have because you failed to breed early enough. It doesn't mean it has more value than a child born as a result of rape. But the teleporter doesn't destroy a child born as a result of rape and produce a clone of me. It doesn't destroy a child I've never had and produce a clone of me. It destroys me, and produces a clone of me. That clone only has to be as good as I am for nothing bad to have been done. And look! The clone is exactly the same as I am! As for giving an 'explanation for how a clone created in teleportation has value that all other potential lives do not' - no, I won't, because it is not true. I am quite happy with lots of other potential lives having greater value than my clone's. If I could bring them about instead, I should. quote:Unless you can come up with some sort of coherent metric that explains why your clone has some special value that abrogates The issue is at most suicide, and it is suicide without any of the usual harmful effects of suicide on others. There is no moral imperative against it. People who willingly lose their lives in order to bring about a better state of affairs are not treated with disapproval. In fact utilitarian ethics might easily make teleportation a moral duty, if by teleporting I would improve the world at all. quote:It's also certainly not true that sparing one person to save another means that you value that person's life more, and the obvious counterexample would be Sophie's Choice. I agree it is not always true: one may value things exactly equally, and then if forced to choose between them, have to toss a coin or use some other arbitrary decision procedure. But most of the time - particularly when deciding who should get life-saving medication - people do not leave it up to coin tosses, because they think there are actually good reasons for valuing one remaining life more than another. (I insist on the 'remaining', because this has nothing to do with assessing a person's life as a whole.) Survival chances and life expectancy are very important aspects of that valuation, but they are not the whole.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 21:31
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:Because in the first scenario the brain was not destroyed, it merely had all of its atoms replaced, whereas in the second scenario the brain was destroyed and re-created. "Replacing atoms" is not synonymous with destruction. Ok, you've re-stated the problem. In what way do you believe the brain that results from the first scenario is different to that from the second?
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 21:49
|
|
|
Oh dear clone posted:Those scenarios disproved your claims that potential lives have no value. I have never argued that we should value each and every potential life as much as any actual life, so the bizarre conclusions you mentioned simply do not follow. (If you think they do, please say more about how.) In the teleporter scenario, the clone's life has the same value as mine, minus a small amount representing the risk of the procedure, and plus some amount representing the advantage of the clone's location. Apart from those adjustments the clone's life has the same value as mine because it is the same as mine, in every respect that matters to me. No, this does not work. You cannot simply say "oh well not EVERY potential life is equally valuable, some are more valuable than others" and not explain why your clone's potential life is more valuable than say, the potential life of the children you've chosen not to have. If you're female you probably could have had at least a dozen children by now. If you're male you could have had hundreds, possibly thousands. Why is your potential clone's life valuable whereas those potential lives are not, or have a value so low that you have no imperative to realize them? "My life is of equal value to my clone's life" is irrelevant here, you need an actual system for the value of potential lives. quote:I agree it is not always true: one may value things exactly equally, and then if forced to choose between them, have to toss a coin or use some other arbitrary decision procedure. But most of the time - particularly when deciding who should get life-saving medication - people do not leave it up to coin tosses, because they think there are actually good reasons for valuing one remaining life more than another. (I insist on the 'remaining', because this has nothing to do with assessing a person's life as a whole.) Survival chances and life expectancy are very important aspects of that valuation, but they are not the whole. I think it's actually the opposite. Most of the time life-or-death decisions are made it has nothing to do with personal judgments.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 21:50
|
|
|
Dzhay posted:Ok, you've re-stated the problem. In what way do you believe the brain that results from the first scenario is different to that from the second? The brain in the second scenario did not exist until an instant ago, and neither did the subjectivity that it creates.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 21:55
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:The brain in the second scenario did not exist until an instant ago, and neither did the subjectivity that it creates. I'll grant you that, to the extent it means anything, but how is it different now? (Also: can you be clearer about what a "subjectivity" is? Are they numbered? How does one tell when they're different to one another, if they're separated in time?)
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 22:24
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:Why is your potential clone's life valuable whereas those potential lives are not, or have a value so low that you have no imperative to realize them? "My life is of equal value to my clone's life" is irrelevant here, you need an actual system for the value of potential lives. I have no imperative to go through the teleporter, unless it would definitely improve the world; I have no imperative to have children, unless it would definitely improve the world; and I have no imperative not to go through the teleporter, or have children, unless either one would definitely harm the world. The clone, of course, is a much more known quantity, making the likely effects of teleporting much easier to guess. I want my clone to exist to do things I want to be done, to look after people I love, and to continue to be there for those who love me. (I think I covered this ground early on in the thread.) The potential children I could have had have no value for any of this: they are entirely unknown, nobody loves them, and I have no idea what they'd do. But I really don't need a system. I do not value my loved ones by a system. Perhaps I value things for a hodgepodge of confused and unrecognized reasons; I think that is probably the usual human condition. If there is no universal rule that potential lives are less valuable than actual ones, the 'you cannot value your clone's life as much as your current body's one because it is only potential' argument has gone.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 22:24
|
|
|
Oh dear clone posted:I have no imperative to go through the teleporter, unless it would definitely improve the world; I have no imperative to have children, unless it would definitely improve the world; and I have no imperative not to go through the teleporter, or have children, unless either one would definitely harm the world. If I was inclined to value lives differently the way you do, I'd expect the value of their lives would be roughly equal to yours. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but I suspect like you they would all have average lives. You do not have a moral imperative to go through the teleporter because, as you say, it is a wash and simply exchanges one life for another of equal value. But in having children you could create dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of lives with roughly equal value to yours, all without sacrificing a single life. Therefore, you have a moral imperative to have as many children as possible.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 22:35
|
|
|
Dzhay posted:I'll grant you that, to the extent it means anything, but how is it different now? They're different now because they possess different histories. You might wish to say, "Well that's not important, all that matters is physical symmetry", but you'd be wrong. If we both own physically identical red Ford Falcons, that does not entitle me to take yours. That would be theft. I would define subjectivity as something like "the ongoing processes through which the brain creates experience". I'm not sure what the following two questions mean.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 22:45
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:If I was inclined to value lives differently the way you do, I'd expect the value of their lives would be roughly equal to yours. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but I suspect like you they would all have average lives. You do not have a moral imperative to go through the teleporter because, as you say, it is a wash and simply exchanges one life for another of equal value. But in having children you could create dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of lives with roughly equal value to yours, all without sacrificing a single life. Therefore, you have a moral imperative to have as many children as possible. No, I don't, because there is no reason to think this would improve the world. Who says I must see the value of extra human lives as positive in all circumstances? One can have too much of a good thing. The principal value of my continuing to exist in clone form is to those who care about me. No one cares about the children I have not had; their non-existence causes no pain. The other value of my continuing to exist in clone form is to do things I believe I should do. My potential children might not; they might just as easily be conservatives and do things they ought not to do. I have no reason to wish them to be.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 23:25
|
|
|
Kit Walker posted:The frozen person scenario is somehow even less plausible than destructive teleportation. Like do you realize how loving difficult it is to freeze light for even a split second? How are you going to freeze a person and replace their parts atomically without actually killing them anyway? Oh come on, this thread is not about deciding if the science is utterly impossible, insanely implausible or perhaps do-able by our post-post-post-post human descendants in ten trilleniums Thug Lessons posted:
Alright, so you would argue there exists a dynamic subjective self based on the continued existence of certain physical structures of the brain, while I am arguing that the continued dynamic subjective self is only an incredibly idiosyncratic feeling that can only occur when and where those physical structures exists. I still feel your explanation has the onus of proof as your asking me to consider that physical structures of my brain are inseparable from my identity, while I am saying only their ultimate result is inseparable from my identity. side-note: If you conceded, or became convinced that the possibility you entertained about the cerebral cortex restarting causing a new subjectivity were true, and subsequently suffered a hypothetical brain disease which required a monthly procedure where your brain was shut down and restarted, would you feel you only live a one month lifespan? Would it change the way you feel about permanent death? Its the closest scenario I can think of that matches, somewhat, the pro-teleporter sense of self. crowoutofcontext fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Apr 17, 2016 |
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 23:25
|
|
|
Oh dear clone posted:No, I don't, because there is no reason to think this would improve the world. Who says I must see the value of extra human lives as positive in all circumstances? One can have too much of a good thing. No one cares about your clone either, its non-existence causes no pain, because potential people have no value. If your clone existed it would have people who cared about it, and if your potential children existed they would almost certainly have people who cared about them as well. Of course you cannot control whether your children are conservatives or not, but I would hope the value of life boils down to something a little more important than petty political concerns.
|
|
#
?
Apr 17, 2016 23:44
|
|
|
crowoutofcontext posted:Alright, so you would argue there exists a dynamic subjective self based on the continued existence of certain physical structures of the brain, while I am arguing that the continued dynamic subjective self is only an incredibly idiosyncratic feeling that can only occur when and where those physical structures exists. I don't understand what your definition means. Anyway neither of us has any more or less onus than the other to prove our points, but I'm not really talking about identity anyway. If you want to identify a hypothetical clone of me as me then go ahead. But what I would definitely argue is that you cannot use these identifications to do an end-run around moral laws. You cannot steal my car because it is identical to yours, you cannot press a button on a teleporter and kill me because it creates an identical clone. quote:side-note: If you conceded, or became convinced that the possibility you entertained about the cerebral cortex restarting causing a new subjectivity were true, and subsequently suffered a hypothetical brain disease which required a monthly procedure where your brain was shut down and restarted, would you feel you only live a one month lifespan? Would it change the way you feel about permanent death? Its the closest scenario I can think of that matches, somewhat, the pro-teleporter sense of self. I would say that my subjectivity has a one-month lifespan while my body does not, and I don't expect it would change my views all that much. It would be a tragic scenario, like the guy in Memento but obviously for different reasons.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2016 00:00
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:I would define subjectivity as something like "the ongoing processes through which the brain creates experience". I'm not sure what the following two questions mean. I meant that you were acting as if there were something that distinguishes two "identical" instances of subjectivity (or, equivalently, makes them the same in some sense at different times); I was somewhat facetiously referring to this as a number, like a serial number, though the difference is that serial numbers can be read. As far I can tell, your identifiers are near-perfectly non-interacting.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2016 00:25
|
|
|
Thug Lessons posted:No one cares about your clone either Of course not, since my clone does not now exist. The point I was making is that the coming into existence of my clone after the death of this body would prevent grief at my death, which the coming into existence of my non-existent children would not. It is thus (among other reasons) false to suppose that if I want the former I should want all the latter. But if you are going to return to the 'potential people have no value' line, I'd ask you to address my arguments about people valuing their fertility and embryos.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2016 00:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 08:39 |
|
|
Dzhay posted:I meant that you were acting as if there were something that distinguishes two "identical" instances of subjectivity (or, equivalently, makes them the same in some sense at different times); I was somewhat facetiously referring to this as a number, like a serial number, though the difference is that serial numbers can be read. As far I can tell, your identifiers are near-perfectly non-interacting. No, it's simply that to identify them you have to look at them over time. I don't see any reason that physical identifiers must be present at all times, especially in a hypothetical scenario where we're presuming that things are identical down to the molecular level.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2016 00:45
|
|