|
Like, if someone died in their sleep, but no one knew, and then aliens (or god or whatever) replaced that person with a copy and gave them all the memories leading up to the night they died, there would be no way for anyone, including the "copy" to know or care about the difference.
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 06:23 |
|
|
Man, this game is sticking with me. I'm actually considering playing it again from scratch despite my backlog.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:11
|
|
|
KamikazePotato posted:Man, this game is sticking with me. I'm actually considering playing it again from scratch despite my backlog. I am constantly discovering new things about this game as i try to collect all the weapons so I highly reccomend a replay
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:15
|
|
|
Snak posted:Like, if someone died in their sleep, but no one knew, and then aliens (or god or whatever) replaced that person with a copy and gave them all the memories leading up to the night they died, there would be no way for anyone, including the "copy" to know or care about the difference. If you did know though not grieving the original would be hosed up. It would be weird yes when a totally equivalent person is around but still
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:16
|
|
|
Snak posted:Like, if someone died in their sleep, but no one knew, and then aliens (or god or whatever) replaced that person with a copy and gave them all the memories leading up to the night they died, there would be no way for anyone, including the "copy" to know or care about the difference. You don't even need to be god. Put someone to sleep before sticking him into the magical exact-copy-machine, take em both out and put them next to each other, wake them up and tell Person A "Hello, you're the exact copy of this guy" and point to person B. Congratulations, you've just functionally changed reality! At least for people who believe in the whole original/copy thing. For good measure, blow up the machine and wipe your memories/kill yourself. Truth ceases to exist when it can't be observed in some way.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:18
|
|
|
Nina posted:If you did know though not grieving the original would be hosed up. It would be weird yes when a totally equivalent person is around but still Would it be? Nothing was lost. What if someone just flatlines for a short time and then comes back to life? Do you grieve them then? edit: Has this been posted in this thread yet? Existential Comics: The Machine Snak fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Apr 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:20
|
|
|
Cool short combo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NqPcoepWTI Worth it worth the very end bit of nothing else.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:30
|
|
|
Nina posted:If you did know though not grieving the original would be hosed up. It would be weird yes when a totally equivalent person is around but still If someone is in a coma for a sufficient period of time for all of their cells to have died/replaced themselves, do you hold a burial for the person who went into a coma because the person who woke up didn't have the same cells?
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:34
|
|
|
While cool, I don't agree with most of the interpretations put forth there. Your body may flush out atoms slowly over a period of time, but as long as your brain isn't severely damaged during that time you can easily continue the stream of consciousness. The brain is where consciousness lies. There is something to the idea of "am I the same person I was 10 years ago?" but that's over a long period of time and a different discussion entirely. It has no relevance in a discussion about an instantaneous obliteration. Your consciousness doesn't die either when you sleep. For one thing, you're dreaming and still active in that way. And second, the atoms are still there and will regain activity when morning rises. You don't die simply because of a momentary change in perception. I also ascribe to the 'we are bags of meat' philosophy so I've been convinced that teleporters kill you for years. To me, when your brain atoms are obliterated in an instant, you are dead. Period. The comic even points out an unreconcilable argument against teleporters - what if, instead of copying you instantly, the teleporter took it's time and created your copy 5 seconds before you were obliterated? It makes it super obvious that the teleported you is a clone and the original you is dead. Unless you believe in the spirit/soul, I don't know how you can believe that teleporters don't kill you, and even then it would be weird because wouldn't you have two souls in both bodies in the 5 seconds before the original died? The only way you could 'prove' that teleporters didn't kill you is if the recreated body 5 seconds before the original was obliterated, and the recreated copy was brain dead until the original died, upon which it suddenly 'woke up'. That would near-prove the existence of a soul that is continuous among your bodies, but it's seriously what I doubt what would happen.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:45
|
|
|
KamikazePotato posted:I also ascribe to the 'we are bags of meat' philosophy so I've been convinced that teleporters kill you for years. To me, when your brain atoms are obliterated in an instant, you are dead. The idea that there can be only one of you and that you are wholly defined by your mind/thoughts/memories seem irreconcilable to me.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:51
|
|
|
Snak posted:Would it be? Ursine Catastrophe posted:If someone is in a coma for a sufficient period of time for all of their cells to have died/replaced themselves, do you hold a burial for the person who went into a coma because the person who woke up didn't have the same cells? Oh Taro just discussion sparked by your game is enough to make me feel existential despair (although for the latter neurons don't regenerate so it'd still be the same brain)
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 19:58
|
|
|
Nina posted:Oh Taro just discussion sparked by your game is enough to make me feel existential despair (although for the latter neurons don't regenerate so it'd still be the same brain) Probably fair. Dammit, Jim, I'm a computer scientist, not a biologist! I think part of the issue is people get super hung up on the "but it wouldn't be my perception that continues" aspect of it, and despite saying "well your perception is just a sack of wet electrified jelly", it's hard for your set of perceptions to tie itself into the kind of knot required to actually acknowledge that about itself-- that as soon as it stops perceiving things, it won't jump to some "other perspective" outside of itself to continue watching what's going on, you're just done. (If I die and find out otherwise, I'll necro the thread and let you know I was wrong all along  )As far as I'm concerned, if someone copied me in the night, dropped the new me into bed, carried the old me away and killed it, then it would suck for the set of perceptions that died, but it also wouldn't matter to that set of perceptions after the point of death. There would be a problem from a moral/criminal standpoint, but it would be the same problem that would be there if someone was dragged out of bed and killed without a copy being left, because the problem should be "you caused a set of self-aware perceptions to cease", not "you created an extra set of perceptions and then ended one so there's no crime".
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:34
|
|
|
So uh How about those cute girls with swords from space!
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:41
|
|
|
sinoalice is getting a small cross over with automata featuring beauvoir
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:44
|
|
|
This discussion is reminding me about the debates on whether Star Trek transporters kill you or not and the hilariously "bad*" ways the shows handle it. Second Chances (S6E24) for example. *By bad I don't mean it's entertainment value but the rather the inconsistencies on how it works within the show's techno babel.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:46
|
|
|
Snak posted:Right, so if you believe that consciousness lies in the brain, that the configuration of electrical signals and neural pathways defines you, how would any identical configuration be different from you? It's not different from you. Not in that exact moment it is recreated, at least. It's still not you. When you create a copy of something, the original still exists.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:50
|
|
|
Star Trek transporters gave us Tuvix, so they got that going for them at least.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:51
|
|
|
HenryEx posted:Star Trek transporters gave us Tuvix, so they got that going for them at least. But they also gave us Neelix again, so... swings. Roundabouts.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:52
|
|
|
Snak posted:Right, so if you believe that consciousness lies in the brain, that the configuration of electrical signals and neural pathways defines you, how would any identical configuration be different from you? I mean, consider the case that the 'original' isn't destroyed/killed/whatever. Snak Prime goes into the cloning machine. Snak Alpha and Snak-1 come out. You don't know which was the original. You could certainly say that both versions of this person are real, that they are the same 'person'- but after the point of the split, they do not share memories, or their senses. They occupy different physical space, and are discrete objects and so are different 'beings', or people or streams of consciousness. So you'd have Snak Alpha and Snak-1, each as 'real' as the Snak Prime who went into the cloning machine. Two. But if Snak Alpha died, whether a second or a month or a year later, now there's only one. That Snak-1 continues to exist could be a comfort to Snak Alpha, but in the same way that knowing children/loved ones/etc. will continue one's legacy is a comfort, but does not actually mean that that particular instance of Snak has not ceased. Basically to me, the thing with all the cloning/transporters/acts of god/whatever is they all say "we could have two of this thing/person, but we got rid of one", which uh, like ursine said, doesn't mean that someone didn't die, even if they were replaced.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:53
|
|
|
Ursine Catastrophe posted:Probably fair. Dammit, Jim, I'm a computer scientist, not a biologist! I agree. I lot of people have trouble conceptualize that, from the copies perspective, they don't feel like a copy. Their continuity of consciousness is as genuine as a non-copies. They feel 100% like you would if you got teleported. From their perspective, they did. They don't think they died. So the ethics of teleportation where a copy is destroyed. That I can see. That is, to me, a separate argument from "but THE ORIGINAL" or "it kills YOU". I think in most settings that have this type of teleportation, there is an understanding that people want to be teleported and DON'T want to be duplicated. That is, before you get in the teleporter, you are giving your permission to destroy your existing body and put your mind in a new one. Now, the idea that a consciousness is being terminated. So, this requires defining some semantics. If you have the ability to copy consciousness between vessels, you can just have copies of people's consciousness sitting on a disk (or some kind of storage). So I guess it kind of matters if the implementation of this is that they can be stored dormant, like a neural snapshot, or must be stored active, like in a simulated brain. In the case that minds must be stored simulated, that's a whole nother can of worms because every copy is a disembodied person. it's really beyond the scope of this particular point. In the case of a neural snapshot, this save state has no consciousness of its own, it's just a configuration. So having backups and copies of people isn't duplicating them until those configurations are instantiated. So, if you had a procedure that took a neural snapshot, and was also destructive, such that no neural activity continued after the instant of the snapshot, are you killing someone when you use it? If you then load that neural snapshot into an identical body, it's like you moved a file from one folder to another. So, in real life, if you have a paper file and paper folders, when you move a file between two folders, nothing is destroyed, and it's considered the same file. On a computer, the process of moving a file between two folders (assume different hds/partitions) requires making a copy and then deleting the original. This is not considered destructive, as the "new" file is the same as the old file, simply in a new location. I think the real problem arises when consciousness persists for the original after the copying process. In an extreme hypothetical scenario, a you choose to be teleported. You sign the papers saying that you understand that you will be killed and an identical you will be the new you and it will be legally you etc. You get in the booth, and there is some sort of delay, and after the copy is complete, you change your mind. You say "I don't want to be teleported anymore, I would like to get out of this booth please." And the you from destination booth gets on the phone and says "what's the hold up, they won't let me out of the booth because they're saying that you're not abiding by the agreement you signed". So now you have two people, who are were the same person up until getting in the booth, but now are unique individuals, who both have a right to life. You're either stuck with a system that forces compliance with the original documents and just executes the original, or you have some legislation that goes the other way, where if the original changes their mind, the execute the copy. So I feel like the only ethical system is to have the transfer happen while both consciousnesses are unconscious. Locked for editing, if you will. If the consciousness of the original does not continue past the point of copying, there is no divergence, and there is only one instance of the being. But of course, this is an implementation, so malfunctions could still happen, in which any of the above dilemmas could occur. edit: Oh god, a lot of posts happened while I was typing that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 20:59
|
|
|
Snak posted:edit: Oh god, a lot of posts happened while I was typing that. to be fair you can skip my post because you actually did address it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 21:08
|
|
|
Mazerunner posted:to be fair you can skip my post because you actually did address it. I read it, and it was good  We're on the same page with that one. my tl;dr: is that normally, one of me goes to sleep at night, and one of me wakes up. Any duplication process that mirrors that is something that I won't have a problem with and I also think is pretty ethically sound. When two of me are awake at the same time, something has gone wrong and now there are more questions.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 21:12
|
|
|
During the YorHa Betrayers quest I noticed a button prompt (B) would appear when I got close to them. Can you actually activate dialog during the fight?
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 21:42
|
|
|
No thats for bashing them hard. I just finished route A, missed a bunch/didn't finish some of the bigger sidequest chains. Got ending G by accident at the start of route B. Brother. Brother.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 21:47
|
|
|
Snak posted:I think the real problem arises when consciousness persists for the original after the copying process. In an extreme hypothetical scenario, a you choose to be teleported. You sign the papers saying that you understand that you will be killed and an identical you will be the new you and it will be legally you etc. You get in the booth, and there is some sort of delay, and after the copy is complete, you change your mind. You say "I don't want to be teleported anymore, I would like to get out of this booth please." And the you from destination booth gets on the phone and says "what's the hold up, they won't let me out of the booth because they're saying that you're not abiding by the agreement you signed". So now you have two people, who are were the same person up until getting in the booth, but now are unique individuals, who both have a right to life. You're either stuck with a system that forces compliance with the original documents and just executes the original, or you have some legislation that goes the other way, where if the original changes their mind, the execute the copy. Yeah, my main point overall is that those issues are societal, not as a result of there being "a person" and "a not-original, fake copy of that person"-- specifically the issues inherent in having a fully-formed self aware new person spring out of the ether and requiring the resources of an adult human from the word go, which is not something our society in it's current state generally handles too well (WELFARE STATE BOOTSTRAPS  ). Does the person who got copied have to pay "child" support until they can get themselves onto their feet? Do the court systems now have to split the assets of the person between "themselves" in the event of a contentious self-divorce? Can neither one open a new credit card until all the details are worked out, lest one of them steals their own identity? While it would absolutely be murder for one of you to kill the other, would it be fair to everyone who knows you for you to go to prison for the murder of yourself? And so on, and so forth.poo poo's going to get interesting when we get to the point that we can copy brains.  Mazerunner posted:So you'd have Snak Alpha and Snak-1, each as 'real' as the Snak Prime who went into the cloning machine. Two. But if Snak Alpha died, whether a second or a month or a year later, now there's only one. That Snak-1 continues to exist could be a comfort to Snak Alpha, but in the same way that knowing children/loved ones/etc. will continue one's legacy is a comfort, but does not actually mean that that particular instance of Snak has not ceased. That's the key point in all of this, imo-- if you're close enough to the splitting point then Snak-1 is still "you", even if Snak Alpha dies-- and if Snak Alpha dies, there's no comfort for Snak Alpha because they don't exist as something to feel comfort anymore. It's just Snak-1 who is, as far as they're concerned, Snak Prime. Now, if you wait long enough for Snak-1's perceptions to have diverged significantly from Snak Alpha's, you've got a different problem. If you pulled Snak-1 into a side room, said "So uh, the thing is you're not "you" anymore, here's a new name, a therapist, and a restraining order saying you're not allowed to go within 100 yards of Snak Alpha's SO/kids/place of work", and then Snak Alpha dies after Snak-1 has already come to terms with "not being Snak anymore" then yes, Snak Prime is for all intents and purposes "dead"-- but in the same way that it would be if Snak Prime had the same life-ejection happen without any clones involved. You could argue that the same "divergence" could happen just by doing the copy, having Snak Alpha eat a bowl of ice cream and Snak-1 eat a bowl of cereal, but ultimately it's up to the person themselves to decide what level of divergence they're willing to accept before they're unwilling to "go back" to their previous life. (Maybe that bowl of ice cream was really good and it made Snak Alpha decide that it's for the best and he wants to wander the world, unfettered by his previous life, or something.) Most of the "copy problems" can effectively be swapped with, say, a twin analogy (if parents suddenly say to some 18-year-old identical twins "actually we only wanted one kid, so we'll flip a coin and disown one of you") and the answer to "what would you do to deal with that situation" would be pretty similar, and it would always come down to a societal/morality question.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 21:47
|
|
|
Akuma posted:This is nice but I don't see how it addresses the thing you quoted at all, which says "a copy is just as good but the original is dead and no longer experiences anything so it's not great for the original." You've not covered that at all. You're telling me there is a difference between the copy and original because of the difference in subjective experience. I am saying the flow of subjective experience is an illusion, and the loss of something that is illusory is immaterial. Let's say you go the scientific approach, and we're willing to accept consciousness as existing in dreamless sleep. Many people have come back from vegetative or minimally conscious states with arousal but no awareness, no "director" in the frontal lobe at all. People have also returned to normal function after brain injuries that deeply disrupted and fragmented any sense of self. In no case was the patient declared a new person, got a new driver's license, lost all their frequent flier miles, had to turn in their free smoothy card even thought they were just one punch away from a free smoothy. If you want to take the mystical approach, yes, there are multiple religions that insist upon the existence of the soul or mind as a stream of consciousness. All of them also claim that it magically packs up shop and heads somewhere new when your brain dies, and is therefore impossible to capture. So where science says nothing material is lost in such a copy, religion says it could never be created due to the immutable nature of the human soul. If you want to approach it philosophically, and we're willing to accept such a copy can be produced, then yeah, I don't want to touch that. It's a very thorny issue and I apologize if I claimed to have some kind of answer there. The mind-body question is a cage match where no one wins, you just hope to avoid major injury. I think Nier takes the position that there IS something special and irrecoverable that is lost, and that's what makes the connection between black boxes and machine cores such a kick in the gut.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 22:00
|
|
|
I've always really liked this video, a short cartoon on the subject of teleportation via copying. It goes over a lot of the thoughts surrounding the topic. John Weldon's "To Be": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc HellCopter fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Apr 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 22:15
|
|
|
Araganzar posted:I think Nier takes the position that there IS something special and irrecoverable that is lost, and that's what makes the connection between black boxes and machine cores such a kick in the gut. ...wait wait, can you expand on that a little bit? I'm wondering if that's where my fundamental disconnect from a lot of Nier's attempted gut-punches comes from, but I'm having trouble putting it into words.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:11
|
|
|
Ghost of Starman posted:...wait wait, can you expand on that a little bit? I'm wondering if that's where my fundamental disconnect from a lot of Nier's attempted gut-punches comes from, but I'm having trouble putting it into words. Black boxes (big spoiler) are made out of machine parts. Androids are literally made out of destroyed machines. edit: Unless you already knew that and were asking what the connection was, in which case whoops
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:12
|
|
|
Araganzar posted:You're telling me there is a difference between the copy and original because of the difference in subjective experience. I am saying the flow of subjective experience is an illusion, and the loss of something that is illusory is immaterial. You, Araganzar, are cloned. Araganzar, the non-clone, is then killed. Araganzar the non-clone is now dead. Just because Araganzar the clone exists doesn't mean that the consciousness of Araganzar the non-clone is experiencing anything anymore. It's not. You are dead. Araganzar the clone is alive. From the point of view of Araganzar the non-clone, who is now dead, that would be less than ideal. Because they're no longer experiencing anything, no matter how much the brain filled in the gaps while they were alive. Araganzar the clone gives no fucks. You're talking about something else completely. The thing you quoted, and what I said, aren't talking about the value or validity of anything, only that what was once alive is now dead, and a copy is still alive - and from their point of view has been alive the whole time. Akuma fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Apr 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:12
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:edit: Unless you already knew that and were asking what the connection was, in which case whoops Yeah, I'm having trouble making the connection. That particular plot-twist landed with a dull thud for me, and I'm still trying to figure out if the game lost me because of some disconnect with its philosophical underpinnings, or for more prosaic reasons of plot/character failings.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:22
|
|
|
Akuma posted:No I'm not telling you that at all. If consciousness is a simply a sequence neural configurations, then there isn't a difference. If someone's mind defines their identity, if the sequence of configurations that is the thoughts and memories that they have had is what defines them as a person, than a duplicate of that is literally the same consciousness and not a different one. Only when they diverge, are they different people. So if the original is destroyed at the moment of duplication, there is literally no difference between them. And no only is there no difference between them, the "duplicate" is the same person as the original. So it is wrong to say that "the original is now dead". Because it is clearly alive. Mentally. I was assuming we were talking about minds as the seats of identity. This is the argument that always happens. You don't realize it, but you are arguing that there is an intangible that makes the original different. When in reality, it is like vacuum welding: There is no delineation.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:35
|
|
|
Snak posted:This is the argument that always happens. You don't realize it, but you are arguing that there is an intangible that makes the original different. When in reality, it is like vacuum welding: There is no delineation. The tangible part is that, speaking literally, it is a new iteration of the person. Functionally, yeah there is no difference, but I'd argue that the part that separates the new person from the old one is that the new one is... new. 
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:39
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:The tangible part is that, speaking literally, it is a new iteration of the person. Functionally, yeah there is no difference, but I'd argue that the part that separates the new person from the old one is that the new one is... new. So again, if we're not assuming mind/body dualism, then this is valid. But if we are, then what makes it any more new than the next neural configuration that the person would have? Okay, let's back off of duplicates for a second. Let's say you are getting old, and they develop a procedure to transfer you consciousness into a robot body. And let's say that it's a completely life transfer stream and nothing is even being copied. That it sucks your conscious brainwaves out of your brain and into a computer. No part of you is ever deleted, but your original brain is a shriveled empty vessel, as is your original body, and now you are a human mind in a robot body. Did you die?
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:45
|
|
|
Nina posted:Oh Taro just discussion sparked by your game is enough to make me feel existential despair (although for the latter neurons don't regenerate so it'd still be the same brain) Just FYI because it sounds like you have an actual interest: Depending on exactly what you mean this is somewhere between an obsolete idea, not quite true, and completely irrelevant. Like a lot of stuff we have thought we knew about the brain at some point, it was mostly an issue of not looking for stuff in a way that would let us find it. Adult neurogenesis happens all the time in at least some areas (and probably at lower rates in most or all). It is true that without intervention you are not going to see much repair happen post-trauma but in most cases that is more about glial scars forming a physical impediment than us being unable to produce new cells. More pertinent to the conversation, though, a cell not being replaced post-death does not mean that all of the component atoms forming that cell are fixed in place forever. Some (most? this is a little outside my area) structural proteins have crazy rapid turnover. Araganzar posted:You're telling me there is a difference between the copy and original because of the difference in subjective experience. I am saying the flow of subjective experience is an illusion, and the loss of something that is illusory is immaterial. I see this kind of sentiment pretty often in pop science writing and I still am not sure what the gently caress it's supposed to mean so if you have thought extensively on the matter I would really super appreciate some elaboration. I spend most of my time on vision so I'm gonna start there to try and get us on the same page, feel free to yell at me if you don't like a first-pass definition. An illusion, in my world, is a phenomenon in which we have a more-or-less stable/reproducible mismatch between measurable information in the external environment and our perception of that element of the environment, but our perception is still clearly caused (setting aside obvious issues with regard to system-internal prior information) by information in the environment. Helmoltz square of stripes type stuff, right? You can measure the lines to verify that your horizontal set and your vertical set have the same thickness, but they're not going to look identical. So how does this relate to phenomenal experience? The best I can come up with is that, in normal daily life, people do not tend to notice gaps in their sensory coverage of the environment. You could certainly claim that if saccadic suppression did not occur, our visual perception would more closely match the pattern of luminance changes on the retina from moment to moment. Would that make our subjective experience less illusory, in your book? I can see saying yes, but it seems like that sort of misses the point of perception and I do not see how it would make the loss of that experience more material. I'm not even sure this is the right line of thinking, though, since your previous post goes more broadly into sense of self stuff that seems to me entirely unrelated to anything I would classify as illusory. I mean yeah it's true that nobody can point to a spot in the brain and say "that's you", but that's because 1. nobody has a great idea what we'd even be looking for, 2. that's not really how brains are functionally organized for the most part, 3. there are some really confused ideas about appropriate scale of analysis buried in that idea, and 4. our vast powers to peer into the fabric of the universe completely loving suck when we're not allowed to break anything on the way in because it's part of a living human. Skulls are a bitch. Sorry if that's ramble-y but I'm trying to get a handle on your position and it looks like a toothy amoeba.
|
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:45
|
|
|
Snak posted:If consciousness is a simply a sequence neural configurations, then there isn't a difference. If someone's mind defines their identity, if the sequence of configurations that is the thoughts and memories that they have had is what defines them as a person, than a duplicate of that is literally the same consciousness and not a different one. Only when they diverge, are they different people. So if the original is destroyed at the moment of duplication, there is literally no difference between them. And no only is there no difference between them, the "duplicate" is the same person as the original. So it is wrong to say that "the original is now dead". Because it is clearly alive. Mentally. I was assuming we were talking about minds as the seats of identity. I'm not positing a soul or anything here. If you have one brain experiencing the universe through various inputs and then pull a switch which takes a snapshot of that brain and instantly dumps it into a second brain on the right AND ALSO simultaneously shoot a bullet into that left brain the instant after that snapshot is taken, the brain on the left is no longer experiencing the universe through various inputs. Just because the brain on the right IS that doesn't mean the one on the left isn't. If the bullet was never fired at the brain on the left and they BOTH could have experienced the universe through various inputs then by definition something has died. It's the reason Star Trek comes up with technobabble specifically to address this issue, and it's the reason I don't give a poo poo about digitising my brain. The digi-brain may well just be me but the physical brain is still going to stop accepting and processing inputs. I don't want to live forever; I don't want to die. The negative connotations of "copy" don't exist for what I'm saying. They're both valid "people," but if one is dead then it's dead. It's like the movie The Prestige, he's alive and dying at the same time. The living one doesn't give a poo poo but someone still drowns. Edit: like, take it away from total death. Oh sorry body on the left, I hacked your legs off. It's cool though because body on the right still has legs. Who can say who the copy is, though?!?! Akuma fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Apr 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 20, 2017 23:57
|
|
|
Irony.or.Death posted:I see this kind of sentiment pretty often in pop science writing and I still am not sure what the gently caress it's supposed to mean so if you have thought extensively on the matter I would really super appreciate some elaboration. Not that poster and I don't know what pop science writing you're talking about, but my impression of it is that "flow of subjective experience" would be saying: If you have a brain that is experiencing things and copy it into a new and completely physically identical brain, the 'new brain' has the illusion that it was the one experiencing the things even though all it 'technically' has are copied memories of the experience. However, when you get down to it, "just memories" is all the original brain has as well, and the idea that the original is "more real" because the cells in it were physically present for the experiences is the the reassuring lie we tell ourselves to soothe the part of us that demands originality/uniqueness in ourselves.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 00:11
|
|
|
Irony.or.Death posted:
I am not a scientist. I have thought about this a lot, because I've been having this dumb "transporters kill you" argument for about a decade. And I'm a huge cyberpunk nerd, so I've spent a lot of time talking about humanity and artificial intelligence and "artificial humanity". I bolded 2 sections in the portion of your post that I quoted. The first is about illusions. The type of illusion we are talking about is not a strictly visual one is a conceptual illusion, not a strictly visual one. I'm not saying you don't know that, I'm just saying it to clear, because I want to try to use what you have said about visual illusions and visual perception to create an example. A conceptual illusion is a type of fallacy, based on drawing incorrect conclusions from available stimuli. I hope this an accurate, if primitive, example of a visual illusion: From far away, this looks like a line ............................ even though it is actually a series of discrete dots. (If this is wrong, I'm sorry  )The second section that I bolded is about how visual processing essentially hides blindspots from us. The blind spot on the retina created by the optic nerve, etc. The human memory does the same thing. In fact, the idea that we are some kind of continuous consciousness is an illusion, just like the row of dots. There are many gaps in our experience, some of which we are aware of, and many we are not. This is relevant when people make the argument that suspending human consiousness during the copying process somehow damages the authenticity of it. I personally don't see how it could be more damaging that getting blackout drunk, which I have done many times. Akuma posted:You're arguing semantics and missing my point? How can something that is still alive have died? If the original "dies" without living for one single firing of a neuron after duplication, than that being has continued unbroken. Now, once two exist at the same time, once they diverge, then they are two people. I've never argued against that. Also, your insistence on caring about a brain receiving inputs suggest that you aren't accept the premise of mind/body dualism either. edit: Also, your leg thing, not relevant to the premise of mind/body dualism. edit again: So I guess what I would consider the point of relevance is, while I certainly believe that arresting the original brain in a completely frozen synaptic state would be true transference without duplication or killing anything, what's the wiggle room between that and being asleep? What constitutes divergence. And that's basically a question I can't answer without knowing a lot more about how the unconscious mind works. Snak fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Apr 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 00:14
|
|
|
Snak posted:Also, your insistence on caring about a brain receiving inputs suggest that you aren't accept the premise of mind/body dualism either. Edit: like, in discussing fiction where the conceit of a soul exists it's fine but whatevs. Akuma fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Apr 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 00:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 06:23 |
|
|
Irony.or.Death posted:An illusion, in my world, is a phenomenon in which we have a more-or-less stable/reproducible mismatch between measurable information in the external environment and our perception of that element of the environment, but our perception is still clearly caused (setting aside obvious issues with regard to system-internal prior information) by information in the environment. Helmoltz square of stripes type stuff, right? You can measure the lines to verify that your horizontal set and your vertical set have the same thickness, but they're not going to look identical. Yeah, the thing that stands out to me here is when you're calling something illusory you're doubting your perception based on what is effectively just other input. The Helmotz and Oppel–Kundt illusions are great examples of this, I think the latter is a better example because it shows how our perception changes based on the number of items in the environment:  No matter how often you measure them, your brain still tells you the segments with the tick marks are longer. Knowing they are equal doesn't help. By the same token, knowing you have lost something illusory doesn't always help if you've become invested in it. quote:So how does this relate to phenomenal experience? The best I can come up with is that, in normal daily life, people do not tend to notice gaps in their sensory coverage of the environment. You could certainly claim that if saccadic suppression did not occur, our visual perception would more closely match the pattern of luminance changes on the retina from moment to moment. Yeah, if we didn't suppress vision it would really confuse our brain. I will be honest, I was not that advanced and was thinking specifically of the selective attention test in a more general sense. It's surprising how little of what we perceive of the world around us actually comes from our senses, and how much we miss. We fill in the blanks with what we know exists or with similar things we remember. By the same token, our internal construct of individuals is largely filled in with generalizations. quote:Would that make our subjective experience less illusory, in your book? I can see saying yes, but it seems like that sort of misses the point of perception and I do not see how it would make the loss of that experience more material. I'm not even sure this is the right line of thinking, though, since your previous post goes more broadly into sense of self stuff that seems to me entirely unrelated to anything I would classify as illusory. Yeah, it started getting less and less relevant to the mind-body problem so I kind of shifted gears. I'm not sure about more or less illusory; I can say that what it tells me is that at lest a good chunk of it is illusory and we should remain mindful of that when we make decisions. I don't hold this against our brains, being a brain is very hard and they're going to use whatever shortcuts and cheats they can to get the job done.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2017 00:26
|
|