If all the processes that create my identity, and all of the defining attributes of that identity have been preserved, then how can the emergent property that is "me" not still be around?
Because the mere existance of those things does not guarantee you will be those things. If we are both sentinent beings, we still cannot explain exactly why I exist as me, and why you exist as you.
Yes we can. Your consciousness emerges from your brain--a wholly tangible thing.
Say you step into a machine. On the floor of the machine are two circles, and you choose to step on one. This machine copies you instantaneously and puts the copy right next to you, on the other circle. But then, let's say the memory of which circle you chose to step on is erased from both "you"s.
How do you determine which one is you? Or better yet, does it really matter which one is "the original" you?
It would matter to me. I don't want to be a copy. I want to have a timeline that doesn't begin with "emerges from a copy machine".
Sure, but at least for me, if it meant the difference between not existing at all and having a moderate existential crisis over the validity of my existence, I'd take the crisis every time.
Instead of going on vacations, would you rather just have memories of going on vacations? Would you rather just look at pictures of places rather than going to them?
The two are different, though. Not the same- if implanted memories are indistinguishable from real ones, then for all purposes having the memory of a vacation is just like having actually been on vacation. The only problem would be the knowledge that the memories were fake and the lack of souvenirs.
Tell me, if someone gets hit with severe amnesia and forgets all their memories with no hope of getting them back, are they the same person to you?
No, but again that's not the same situation. The basic idea here is that there is nothing intrinsic to the human body or mind that can't be duplicated. External factors- like chronology, or spatial location, aren't actually intrinsic to your identity. Let's say you went on vacation and then a year later you were abducted by aliens in the night (without knowing about it). They destroy your body but have made a perfect copy that has all your memories and everything, and put it back in your bed.
The next morning, you'd never think something was wrong.But technically your body never physically went on vacation. But you'd never notice. It'd be even possible to make the argument the aliens didn't kill you in the first place.
Essentially, the position we're taking is that a difference that is impossible to detect is not a difference at all.
The next morning, you'd never think something was wrong.But technically your body never physically went on vacation. But you'd never notice. It'd be even possible to make the argument the aliens didn't kill you in the first place.
Uh, you. That guy. The second person. Not the first or third.
I think he's looking for another opportunity to insist that an indistinguishable copy of something is not that thing, without explaining why.
According to the way he looks at it, the copy in the analogy is no longer "you," even if the copying process isn't externally observed, there isn't a measurable difference between the copy and the original, and the copy itself is not aware that the copying has taken place.
Uh, you. That guy. The second person. Not the first or third.
I think he's looking for another opportunity to insist that an indistinguishable copy of something is not that thing, without explaining why.
According to the way he looks at it, the copy in the analogy is no longer "you," even if the copying process isn't externally observed, there isn't a measurable difference between the copy and the original, and the copy itself is not aware that the copying has taken place.
The next morning, the copy would never think something was wrong.But technically the copy's body never physically went on vacation. But the copy would never notice. It'd be even possible to make the argument the aliens didn't kill the copy in the first place.
The copy is not "you". You were turned into dead scraps of flesh as the aliens made a perfect copy of you to replace you back on earth.
Why not? That's the only question I really want to see you answer. There's nothing inherent in the copy that makes it something other than the original.
I always like posing this question to people who have a strong concept of soul.
Crossfire, how do you feel about split-brain syndrome? If you don't know, that's when the connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain are cut. Each hemisphere can survive independently and maintains control over its respective bodily functions, but can't send or recieve information from the other half.
Is the original "soul" dead? Are there two souls inside that person now?
An exact copy of you- down to every last atom, quark, and whatever-is-smaller- is just that. An exact copy of you.
For about a fraction of a nanosecond. From the moment of creation, seperate forces act upon each person that drive them apart in similarity.
I'm not disagreeing with this, but what I'm going to basically add is that you can't create a perfect copy of yourself and expect to continue living on directly within that perfect copy that you have made for yourself.
Why not? That's the only question I really want to see you answer. There's nothing inherent in the copy that makes it something other than the original.
Well, it's arguable that by simply being positioned somewhere else, you have a differing characteristic (location) that differentiates the two copies.
Why not? That's the only question I really want to see you answer. There's nothing inherent in the copy that makes it something other than the original.
Well, it's arguable that by simply being positioned somewhere else, you have a differing characteristic (location) that differentiates the two copies.
Of course, that also means that your identity changes whenever you move in space. Or in time.
Edit: Say you're abducted by aliens, who make a clone of you and send both you and the clone back down. The clone isn't you, because you weren't created in a tube or whatever. You also aren't you, because the original you had never been abducted by aliens, while the new you has been.
Why not? That's the only question I really want to see you answer. There's nothing inherent in the copy that makes it something other than the original.
Well, it's arguable that by simply being positioned somewhere else, you have a differing characteristic (location) that differentiates the two copies.
I don't think that's a particularly useful distinction, since displacement in space won't, in principle, alter the object itself. It's true that something can be affected by secondary effects of whatever process is used to move it, though.
In any case, I was still using Phobos' "aliens" hypothetical, where the copy is returned exactly as it was when it was removed, and the original is destroyed. I'm also assuming, for the sake of argument, that the aliens don't count as external observers of the process, since I think they were intended purely as a rhetorical device.
Why not? That's the only question I really want to see you answer. There's nothing inherent in the copy that makes it something other than the original.
This is pretty abstract but if you picture yourselves as a 4 dimensional object, you could clearly see that the original would stop at one distinct point while the copy would begin at another. The fact that these two objects are seperate and never intersect (realizing that in order to intersect they would have to be in the same exact physical space at the same exact time) is enough for me to see that they are not the same.
A 4 dimensional object here is basically assumed to be the sum of the path that a 3 dimensional object makes as it moves through time.
I argue that position is a useful distinction, though. More than just present position, the past locations of each atom used to make the "clone" versus the "original" are different.
Why not? That's the only question I really want to see you answer. There's nothing inherent in the copy that makes it something other than the original.
This is pretty abstract but if you picture yourselves as a 4 dimensional object, you could clearly see that the original would stop at one distinct point while the copy would begin at another. The fact that these two objects are seperate and never intersect (realizing that in order to intersect they would have to be in the same exact physical space at the same exact time) is enough for me to see that they are not the same.
A 4 dimensional object here is basically assumed to be the sum of the path that a 3 dimensional object makes as it moves through time.
Interesting. I'm not convinced that the position of an object in 4D space is a property inherent to the object. If you could be moved instantaneously in space or time, that would have the same effect from this perspective as the copying process we hypothesised before (In that the object would no longer be contiguous in 4D space). It necessarily follows from this position that anything moved instantaneously would become a different object to that which it was before.
Something seems wrong with that to me, but I can't quite put my finger on what.
I don't think it's a different object, so much as the same object with different characteristics. It's made up of the same quarks.
Here's food for thought: what if those aliens only used material from your original body in making your clone? They abduct you, vaporize you, and then reconstitute those particles into your "copy." Is that the same person?
Here's food for thought: what if those aliens only used material from your original body in making your clone? They abduct you, vaporize you, and then reconstitute those particles into your "copy." Is that the same person?
If there is really no such thing as death, then possibly.
Death is a funny word that's been defined in a lot of different ways, all equally valid. Let's not touch it.
4 dimensionally, a human object would begin as a traced cloud of disjoint atoms, which slowly weaves together into a long tight coil representing a human's life, and then at the end bursts out to a traced cloud of atoms again (as the body decays).
If a human burst into a cloud of atoms in the middle of their life, but then weaved back into a tight coil, then from what I can see they still are the same object. But are they "the same"? Obviously this of course is completely different from ending a human and making a copy with new atoms.
What I would argue, is that we are missing something here.
I always like posing this question to people who have a strong concept of soul.
Crossfire, how do you feel about split-brain syndrome? If you don't know, that's when the connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain are cut. Each hemisphere can survive independently and maintains control over its respective bodily functions, but can't send or recieve information from the other half.
Is the original "soul" dead? Are there two souls inside that person now?
Depends on one's concept of a soul. My brain controls my body, my soul does not. For all I know, my soul has no effect in my life. But I believe it might have something to do with your personality and what you believe in. Of course, I have no idea.
I always like posing this question to people who have a strong concept of soul.
Crossfire, how do you feel about split-brain syndrome? If you don't know, that's when the connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain are cut. Each hemisphere can survive independently and maintains control over its respective bodily functions, but can't send or recieve information from the other half.
Is the original "soul" dead? Are there two souls inside that person now?
Depends on one's concept of a soul. My brain controls my body, my soul does not. For all I know, my soul has no effect in my life. But I believe it might have something to do with your personality and what you believe in. Of course, I have no idea.
Ok here's the realization I've come up with.
No, even if the aliens used all your original atoms to build you back up you would not be the same person. Same as if they used different atoms. Now here's why I believe this:
You can disassemble a human as much as you want and still have them being the same human as long as you don't disassemble the mind in the process. This means, that you could remove all the limbs and organs from a person, but as long as you keep the brain working they are still that same person. Makes sense, a person does not become someone else if you remove their leg. And a person does not really become "someone" else if their cells are gradually dying off and replaced completely over time.
However, the minute you disassemble a person too far and deactivate their mind, you have lost that "original" person. Now some people may equate this to losing consciousness, but I argue that consciousness is not what is important here. It must be something completely else.
This is also why it's not recommended you just download your mind into a computer and expect that to be you. It might not be. You should gradually transfer your mind over a period of time into the machine, if you even do it at all.
I always like posing this question to people who have a strong concept of soul.
Crossfire, how do you feel about split-brain syndrome? If you don't know, that's when the connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain are cut. Each hemisphere can survive independently and maintains control over its respective bodily functions, but can't send or recieve information from the other half.
Is the original "soul" dead? Are there two souls inside that person now?
Depends on one's concept of a soul. My brain controls my body, my soul does not. For all I know, my soul has no effect in my life. But I believe it might have something to do with your personality and what you believe in. Of course, I have no idea.
Ok here's the realization I've come up with.
No, even if the aliens used all your original atoms to build you back up you would not be the same person. Same as if they used different atoms. Now here's why I believe this:
You can disassemble a human as much as you want and still have them being the same human as long as you don't disassemble the mind in the process. This means, that you could remove all the limbs and organs from a person, but as long as you keep the brain working they are still that same person. Makes sense, a person does not become someone else if you remove their leg. And a person does not really become "someone" else if their cells are gradually dying off and replaced completely over time.
However, the minute you disassemble a person too far and deactivate their mind, you have lost that "original" person. Now some people may equate this to losing consciousness, but I argue that consciousness is not what is important here. It must be something completely else.
This is also why it's not recommended you just download your mind into a computer and expect that to be you. It might not be. You should gradually transfer your mind over a period of time into the machine, if you even do it at all.
But what is that "something else"? You aren't actually making an argument here, you're just making a claim that isn't really even a claim.
If all the processes that create my identity, and all of the defining attributes of that identity have been preserved, then how can the emergent property that is "me" not still be around?
Because the mere existance of those things does not guarantee you will be those things. If we are both sentinent beings, we still cannot explain exactly why I exist as me, and why you exist as you.
You're assuming that I could exist as you, and that you could exist as me. But what if there's nothing over and above my physical self, what I could possibly switch with you in order to reverse roles? For your argument to make sense, there would have to be something.
Why is the mind what determines if a person is still the same person instead of something like the spleen or liver?
Apparently we do not percieve the world through spleens and livers. And the mind is also not an "organ".
It is controlled by an organ. There is no reason to believe in the soul other than because you feel the desire for it to exist. Replace spleen and liver with circulatory system and respiratory system then.
Why is the mind what determines if a person is still the same person instead of something like the spleen or liver?
Apparently we do not percieve the world through spleens and livers. And the mind is also not an "organ".
It is controlled by an organ.
The mind isn't controlled by shit. The mind is a product of an organ.
That is like saying that the graphics produced by a computer aren't controlled by the computer. By changing the organ, you can change the output. For all intents and purposes, the brain controls the mind just like a computer controls the graphics.
Why is the mind what determines if a person is still the same person instead of something like the spleen or liver?
Apparently we do not percieve the world through spleens and livers. And the mind is also not an "organ".
It is controlled by an organ.
The mind isn't controlled by shit. The mind is a product of an organ.
That is like saying that the graphics produced by a computer aren't controlled by the computer. By changing the organ, you can change the output. For all intents and purposes, the brain controls the mind just like a computer controls the graphics.
Why is the mind what determines if a person is still the same person instead of something like the spleen or liver?
Apparently we do not percieve the world through spleens and livers. And the mind is also not an "organ".
It is controlled by an organ.
The mind isn't controlled by shit. The mind is a product of an organ.
That is like saying that the graphics produced by a computer aren't controlled by the computer. By changing the organ, you can change the output. For all intents and purposes, the brain controls the mind just like a computer controls the graphics.
So what controls the brain, stimuli?
Chemical stimuli, yes. Your "mind" is ions rushing along action potentials in your brain.
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
If we are both sentinent beings, we still cannot explain exactly why I exist as me, and why you exist as you.
You're assuming that I could exist as you, and that you could exist as me. But what if there's nothing over and above my physical self, what I could possibly switch with you in order to reverse roles? For your argument to make sense, there would have to be something.
Hint, hint: it's a soul.
Crossfire: you are talking about the mind and the brain as separate things. That's a position you would need to justify. There is no question of whether the brain controls the mind and vice versa if the brain simply is the mind.
Why is the mind what determines if a person is still the same person instead of something like the spleen or liver?
Apparently we do not percieve the world through spleens and livers. And the mind is also not an "organ".
It is controlled by an organ.
The mind isn't controlled by shit. The mind is a product of an organ.
That is like saying that the graphics produced by a computer aren't controlled by the computer. By changing the organ, you can change the output. For all intents and purposes, the brain controls the mind just like a computer controls the graphics.
So what controls the brain, stimuli?
Chemical stimuli, yes. Your "mind" is ions rushing along action potentials in your brain.
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. (edit: that is if you see them. The part of the brain that associates seeing with emotion and hearing with emotion are different pathways.) hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
But the brain-mind relationship, does it only occur in one direction? (The Brain controls the mind)
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
But the brain-mind relationship, does it only occur in one direction? (The Brain controls the mind)
Pretty much. You can remember feeling an emotion all you want but if you fry the part that controls feelings you can't just wish it back into existence. You will forever live without feelings.
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?
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Sure, but at least for me, if it meant the difference between not existing at all and having a moderate existential crisis over the validity of my existence, I'd take the crisis every time.
The two are different, though. Not the same- if implanted memories are indistinguishable from real ones, then for all purposes having the memory of a vacation is just like having actually been on vacation. The only problem would be the knowledge that the memories were fake and the lack of souvenirs.
No, but again that's not the same situation. The basic idea here is that there is nothing intrinsic to the human body or mind that can't be duplicated. External factors- like chronology, or spatial location, aren't actually intrinsic to your identity. Let's say you went on vacation and then a year later you were abducted by aliens in the night (without knowing about it). They destroy your body but have made a perfect copy that has all your memories and everything, and put it back in your bed.
The next morning, you'd never think something was wrong.But technically your body never physically went on vacation. But you'd never notice. It'd be even possible to make the argument the aliens didn't kill you in the first place.
Essentially, the position we're taking is that a difference that is impossible to detect is not a difference at all.
Define "you".
I think he's looking for another opportunity to insist that an indistinguishable copy of something is not that thing, without explaining why.
According to the way he looks at it, the copy in the analogy is no longer "you," even if the copying process isn't externally observed, there isn't a measurable difference between the copy and the original, and the copy itself is not aware that the copying has taken place.
The correct language is
The copy is not "you". You were turned into dead scraps of flesh as the aliens made a perfect copy of you to replace you back on earth.
Of course the aliens never killed the copy.
An exact copy of you- down to every last atom, quark, and whatever-is-smaller- is just that. An exact copy of you.
For about a fraction of a nanosecond. From the moment of creation, seperate forces act upon each person that drive them apart in similarity.
Why not? That's the only question I really want to see you answer. There's nothing inherent in the copy that makes it something other than the original.
Crossfire, how do you feel about split-brain syndrome? If you don't know, that's when the connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain are cut. Each hemisphere can survive independently and maintains control over its respective bodily functions, but can't send or recieve information from the other half.
Is the original "soul" dead? Are there two souls inside that person now?
I'm not disagreeing with this, but what I'm going to basically add is that you can't create a perfect copy of yourself and expect to continue living on directly within that perfect copy that you have made for yourself.
Well, it's arguable that by simply being positioned somewhere else, you have a differing characteristic (location) that differentiates the two copies.
Of course, that also means that your identity changes whenever you move in space. Or in time.
Edit: Say you're abducted by aliens, who make a clone of you and send both you and the clone back down. The clone isn't you, because you weren't created in a tube or whatever. You also aren't you, because the original you had never been abducted by aliens, while the new you has been.
I don't think that's a particularly useful distinction, since displacement in space won't, in principle, alter the object itself. It's true that something can be affected by secondary effects of whatever process is used to move it, though.
In any case, I was still using Phobos' "aliens" hypothetical, where the copy is returned exactly as it was when it was removed, and the original is destroyed. I'm also assuming, for the sake of argument, that the aliens don't count as external observers of the process, since I think they were intended purely as a rhetorical device.
This is pretty abstract but if you picture yourselves as a 4 dimensional object, you could clearly see that the original would stop at one distinct point while the copy would begin at another. The fact that these two objects are seperate and never intersect (realizing that in order to intersect they would have to be in the same exact physical space at the same exact time) is enough for me to see that they are not the same.
A 4 dimensional object here is basically assumed to be the sum of the path that a 3 dimensional object makes as it moves through time.
That's pretty much what I'm saying too. History is also a function of position.
Interesting. I'm not convinced that the position of an object in 4D space is a property inherent to the object. If you could be moved instantaneously in space or time, that would have the same effect from this perspective as the copying process we hypothesised before (In that the object would no longer be contiguous in 4D space). It necessarily follows from this position that anything moved instantaneously would become a different object to that which it was before.
Something seems wrong with that to me, but I can't quite put my finger on what.
Here's food for thought: what if those aliens only used material from your original body in making your clone? They abduct you, vaporize you, and then reconstitute those particles into your "copy." Is that the same person?
It's probably impossible to move instantaneously. Everything that moves must pass through infinitely small points of time, leaving a trail.
If there is really no such thing as death, then possibly.
4 dimensionally, a human object would begin as a traced cloud of disjoint atoms, which slowly weaves together into a long tight coil representing a human's life, and then at the end bursts out to a traced cloud of atoms again (as the body decays).
If a human burst into a cloud of atoms in the middle of their life, but then weaved back into a tight coil, then from what I can see they still are the same object. But are they "the same"? Obviously this of course is completely different from ending a human and making a copy with new atoms.
What I would argue, is that we are missing something here.
Depends on one's concept of a soul. My brain controls my body, my soul does not. For all I know, my soul has no effect in my life. But I believe it might have something to do with your personality and what you believe in. Of course, I have no idea.
Ok here's the realization I've come up with.
No, even if the aliens used all your original atoms to build you back up you would not be the same person. Same as if they used different atoms. Now here's why I believe this:
You can disassemble a human as much as you want and still have them being the same human as long as you don't disassemble the mind in the process. This means, that you could remove all the limbs and organs from a person, but as long as you keep the brain working they are still that same person. Makes sense, a person does not become someone else if you remove their leg. And a person does not really become "someone" else if their cells are gradually dying off and replaced completely over time.
However, the minute you disassemble a person too far and deactivate their mind, you have lost that "original" person. Now some people may equate this to losing consciousness, but I argue that consciousness is not what is important here. It must be something completely else.
This is also why it's not recommended you just download your mind into a computer and expect that to be you. It might not be. You should gradually transfer your mind over a period of time into the machine, if you even do it at all.
But what is that "something else"? You aren't actually making an argument here, you're just making a claim that isn't really even a claim.
Apparently we do not percieve the world through spleens and livers. And the mind is also not an "organ".
You're assuming that I could exist as you, and that you could exist as me. But what if there's nothing over and above my physical self, what I could possibly switch with you in order to reverse roles? For your argument to make sense, there would have to be something.
Hint, hint: it's a soul.
It is controlled by an organ. There is no reason to believe in the soul other than because you feel the desire for it to exist. Replace spleen and liver with circulatory system and respiratory system then.
The mind isn't controlled by shit. The mind is a product of an organ.
That is like saying that the graphics produced by a computer aren't controlled by the computer. By changing the organ, you can change the output. For all intents and purposes, the brain controls the mind just like a computer controls the graphics.
So what controls the brain, stimuli?
Chemical stimuli, yes. Your "mind" is ions rushing along action potentials in your brain.
Crossfire: you are talking about the mind and the brain as separate things. That's a position you would need to justify. There is no question of whether the brain controls the mind and vice versa if the brain simply is the mind.
So there is no free will either
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. (edit: that is if you see them. The part of the brain that associates seeing with emotion and hearing with emotion are different pathways.) hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
But the brain-mind relationship, does it only occur in one direction? (The Brain controls the mind)
no more or less than you would have with a soul.
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
Pretty much. You can remember feeling an emotion all you want but if you fry the part that controls feelings you can't just wish it back into existence. You will forever live without feelings.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?