On 10/5/2015 3:05 PM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 6/10/2015 12:29 am, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 5 October 2015 at 22:10, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au
<mailto:bhkell...@optusnet.com.au>> wrote:
On 5/10/2015 7:46 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 5 October 2015 at 14:09, Bruce Kellett
<bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
On 5/10/2015 1:53 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 5 Oct 2015, at 12:11 PM, Bruce Kellett
<bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
So psychological continuation is very dependent on the
exact details of the case, and if copying of consciousness
ever becomes possible, then, by and large, it will simply
be regarded as another way of creating new people -- it
will not be a recipe for immortality in any except a very
impoverished sense.
The example I was thinking of was destructive copying. This
is equivalent to being knocked out and carried to another
place. It doesn't matter how far or if there is a time
delay, since you don't experience this. It also doesn't
matter if there is a causal connection, as there would be
in teleportation or being knocked out and carried, or if
the copying occurs randomly. There is no way for you to
know from introspection how you have come to wake up in a
new place.
You might not then be able to tell by introspection whether
you had been destructively copied to a new location or
simply carried there while unconscious.
That is exactly the point I have been trying to make. Further,
you can't tell from introspection if you have been copied
through exhaustive enumeration of all possible brain states
10^100 metres away or simply carried to the next room while
unconscious.
I disagree. You certainly can tell that you have not been created
by chance 10^100 metres away because that would involve the
transfer of information over that distance, and that is not
feasible in the time spans we are considering.
We have gone over this before: no transfer of information is needed
if the copy is made by trying every possible configuration of atoms.
Transfer of information is needed to verify that there is a copy and
an original, but this makes no difference to the experience of the copy.
I think there is more involved than this. It is not a matter of
experience. If a purported copy of you arises at some remote time or
place by random chance, then there is no connection with your physical
existence or consciousness. A clearer situation arises if you argue
that there are an infinite number copies of you in the infinite type I
multiverse. Each of these 'copies' is a complete conscious person with
his/er own personal history. If you, here, die suddenly, then in so
far as the copies are identical, they will also die. And if they are
only approximately equivalent (so that they don't die), then they are
not going to take too kindly to your turning up suddenly and trying to
usurp their brain, body and consciousness!
These duplication scenarios make sense only if the remote person is
connected with you by transfer of information -- such as by send your
complete brain/body scan to the remote location and then re-assembling
the copy there. That might resurrect you, or make a viable copy, but
no chance configuration, or already existing remote person, is able to
fulfill the scenario you wish to paint.
That is why one needs independent external evidence to be
sure about what is going on.
To be sure what is going on, yes, independent external evidence
is needed. But it is not needed in order to be conscious.
But it is needed in order to be sure of what person you are. Self
deception is the most common form of deception, and only a fool
would rely solely on introspection for any important question.
Information about any other copies is interesting but it has no
bearing on your sense of continuity of consciousness.
If personal copying is essentially unavailable in your
experience, then you might believe that you had simply been
carried somewhere while unconscious. If personal duplication
were commonplace in your experience, you would require more
evidence to tell what might have happened. In either case,
introspection is a poor guide to the nature of reality.
But introspection is an excellent guide to your thoughts and feelings.
But I am more than my thoughts and feelings. They are a poor
guide to my identity. they change far too rapidly and chaotically
to be a reliable guide to anything.
Your identity is only your thoughts and feelings. Your brain, body
and the environment are only relevant because they affect your
thoughts and feelings. If you were uploaded to a simulation that
preserved your thoughts and feelings you would not notice that
anything unusual has happened, even though the substrate in which
your mind resides has changed radically.
This, of course, is the heart of our disagreement. Your identity is a
lot more than your thoughts and feelings because those thoughts and
feelings only have meaning in a context. And it is your physical body
and immediate surrounds that provide that context. You might be right
about uploading if the uploading is into an environment that is not
too dissimilar from the current context of your body. However, if your
sensory inputs change to any marked extent, you will certainly be
aware that something has happened. If the changes are too drastic and
inexplicable, you will quite probably go mad.
I agree that the hardware of your brain, per se, is not important. But
only if one form of hardware simulates the other, essentially exactly.
And if the wider environment is largely reproduced. Consciousness
supervenes on the physical brain, and replacing the hardware does not
alter this fact -- your consciousness still supervenes on the physical
substrate. It is not independent of it as you wish to maintain.
It's not clear to me who is arguing for what. Stathis may think that
consciousness is independent of it's physical substrate, but I don't see
that he's arguing that here. He's arguing that there can be more that
one instance of "the same" consciousness. But it's not clear what is
meant by "the same". Does one think of one's own consciousness as being
the same as it was a second ago? an hour? a year? twenty years? I
think there must be degrees of "sameness". Similarly, the degree will
depend on the environmental context and interaction. If you became
completely immobilized I think it would change your consciousness.
Stephen Hawking is quite different than he was 50yrs ago. If you had a
chip implanted that allowed you perceive the whole EM spectrum,
including polarization, it might well change your consciousness. Drugs
and accidents change people's personality and so, by inference, their
consciousness. So does just plain learning.
Is the question really about "Can we achieve immortality by copying to
different substrates?" As Bruce points out we would only preserve our
"self" exactly up to the last copy event, since we would have diverged
from there. It's like making a backup on your computer, it doesn't mean
that nothing's lost when it crashes.
Brent
Brent
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