/sci/ - Science & Math

LOL I DUNNO

>>3427278
>>3427266

samefag

>>3427266
>>3427278
>>3427284

samefag

>>3427266
>>3427278
>>3427284
>>3427287

samefag

At some point in the process your mom died.

When do you have enough grains of sand to call it a mound of sand? I do not know but eventually its recognizable as a mound of sand. Nit picking over whether it was grain 100,000 or grain 100,001 that made it a mound is a futile exercise. Its some sort of fallacy or paradox I forget what its called

Would she finally become technologically adept?

Because if she did, I might finally start admitting she is my mother again.

Yes.
I could also accept artificial intelligence and aliens as people I love.

>>3427266
>>3427278
>>3427284
>>3427287
>>3427292
>>3427294

samefag

>>3427266

Information is substrate agnostic. If the abstract information (Memories, skills) are the same, it doesn't matter if she's thinking in a brain, or a computer or an Analytical Engine.

>>3427294
Its called an ontological paradox if I remember right.

Somewhat related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCise1WX1YM

>>3427266
>>3427278
>>3427284
>>3427287
>>3427292
>>3427294
>>3427295
>>3427297
>>3427300
>>3427309

samefag

Yes.

There is nothing more to a person's existence than their memories, personality, and desires. Whether that is contained in an organic brain or a technological one, it doesn't matter.

The belief in the significance of your organic "self" is nothing more than an instinct meant to increase your desire for self-preservation.

Pic related: everyone ITT, even me.

>>3427309

To be honest it really depends on the intricate details of the process to know if you could really consider her still the same person or not.

Lets say everything that constitutes person x's mind is a jar of liquid. The liquid analogous to the memories skills etc and the jar analogous to the actually physical matter of the brain. If the process is simply placing that exact same liquid into another jar "synthetic" brain then you're still working with a live person. If the process requires that you are also substituting liquid then at some point you the original person has died.

A copy is not the original, so its cool for practical purposes(habits, behaviors etc) you would still have your mom, but the person who actually gave birth to you has in fact died

>>3427336
This just makes me feel more hopeless about human existence lol

>>3427336

So if I make an exact copy of you and then kill you, you're fine with that?

Yes, because I believe the human brain to be a very complex computer.

What if all the knowledge on the internet was contained on a microchip that was integrated in your brain?

Could you solve all the problems by applying this knowledge?

Or would you fap all day?

>>3427336
No thats wrong. Computer chips will never be the same as organic life. It is always a simulation, never an actual thing.

Op, as soon as you replaced the first part of her brain it wouldn't be her anymore.

>Could you accept a person that had no natural neurons? Could you accept them as being someone you love?

The greater question would be could such a person, irregardless of state, accept and love me.

Also, would it be wrong to love your mother if she was a cyborg?

Is post-humanist discussion permissible on /sci/?

>>3427345
Declaring a variable, never using it.

GTFO YOU SLOPPY PROGRAMMER.

This thread makes me want to cry. Fuck you /sci/. I love my mom.

>Inb4 synthetics are not alive
Nice to be stuck in the 21th century?
Lol backward technophobe

>>3427350
Enjoy this then

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCise1WX1YM

>>3427371
>Op, as soon as you replaced the first part of her brain it wouldn't be her anymore.
Not the person you were responding to, but this sounds silly. Are you saying altering neural function makes a person someone else? There are treatment options from certain kinds of disorders, such as Parkinson's, which involve the implantation of intra-cranial electrodes. In essence they are toning down one brain area which is hyper-active due to neural degeneration in another area. Would you say people who use this kind of treatment are no longer themselves?

>>3427407
thats if you control something with your nerves or whatever

but if you actually replace the logic mechanism
its fucking gone

That's not memory :s

I'd be fine with it, and I'd still see her as my mother. Don't understand why one wouldn't, actually.

>A UFO came down to research humans. They found a Newfie out fishing, sitting on the side of his boat and singing "Oh, I's the b'y that builds the boat..."

>They decide to zap out a quarter of his brain to see if it has any effect. Zzzzap! And the Newfie's sitting on the side of his boat singing "And I's the b'y that sails her..."

>The aliens look at each other in amazement, and decide to take another quarter of the Newfie's brain. Zzzzap! And the Newfie's sitting on the side of his boat singing "And I's the b'y that catches the fish..."

>The aliens are thoughly shocked that taking half his brain has no effect, so they decide to take the rest. Zzzzap! Zzzzap! And the Newfie's sitting on the side of his boat singing "Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques,..."

I think this clearly illustrates the point OP was trying to make

>>3427414
>but if you actually replace the logic mechanism
That is effectively what happens. Computation in one area ceases, so an electrode is implanted to pick up the slack.

The only definition of "self" that doesn't give you retarded contradictions is the functional definition. Yes, she's still your mom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus#Cultural_differences
I remembered once, in Japan, having been to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and being mildly surprised at quite how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century. I was told it hadn't weathered well at all, and had in fact been burnt to the ground twice in this century. "So it isn't the original building?" I had asked my Japanese guide.
"But yes, of course it is," he insisted, rather surprised at my question.
"But it's burnt down?"
"Yes."
"Twice."
"Many times."
"And rebuilt."
"Of course. It is an important and historic building."
"With completely new materials."
"But of course. It was burnt down."
"So how can it be the same building?"
"It is always the same building."
I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise. The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survives. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.
—Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See, p. 149

>>3427368
huge parts of that "knowledge" would be bullshit

>>3427438
idk what ur talking about but they arent real people if they replace any important part of the brain with a computer

you are a computer

>>3427449
no it wasn't you fucking ASPD

>>3427266
>Science prefers robotic people to organic people.
>Silly science prefers science fiction over reality.

>>3427445
>—Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See, p. 149
Ahw shit, I though we had an actual smart person on this board ;_; I was so looking forward to an interesting discussion with whomever wrote this.

>babby's first bicentennial man

aka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

>>3427455
> they arent real people if they replace any important part of the brain with a computer
>you are a computer
Illusion. Can you TELL whether she's got the implant or not from her behavior? No? Then why the fuck do you care?

>>3427469
I'm a person who appreciates the content of the quote. Give me a shot.

>>3427455
>idk what ur talking about but they arent real people if they replace any important part of the brain with a computer
Why? These people act normally. Better even than if they hadn't gotten the implant.

>>3427445

>mfw you beat me to the theseus paradox

>>3427475
maybe she's just practised passing the TURING TEST ARGH

She's still practically, aesthetically, and socially your mother. No idea why anybody would think differently.

I dunno, I think if you don't break continuity, the human being doesn't physically die then its the same human being. 100% of our cells are replaced every 7 years and I believe this includes braincells.

>>3427475
So this basically boils down to how we define 'objects', including life. What would seem more important here is the <span class="math">relation[/spoiler] the constituent parts have to all the other parts, rather than just the constituent parts by themselves. He (or rather, the tour guide) has redefined the building on a system level, and the parallel this has to OP's question is quite interesting. Thanks for posting it. It got me thinking.

>>3427523
Np. The functional definition is all that makes sense to me. "My axe" is the things to which I have access that allows me to cut wood. I don't care what parts have been replaced, or when. The function and behavior is present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus#George_Washington.27s_axe

>>3427523
Fuck. Wrong post reference. This should reference to:[>>3427480]

>>3427537
Doesn't matter too much - I'm both of those. :)

>>3427549
lol, I'm also the person who made the post about the implant and Parkinson's

The important question is can non alzheimer people get brain upgrades too?

>>3427567

http://gizmodo.com/5813821/scientists-create-first-memory-expansion-for-brain

>>3427567
That would certainly change things.

But the first "augmentations" are almost certainly going to be rehabilitation of people with diseases, damage, or who are otherwise disabled.

>>3427567
eh, I wouldn't want to. Not until the technology were tried and tested more throughly, at least
We don't know what effect the operational life will have on memory, and we don't have the ability (yet) to understand how the brain allocates storage. I have a nasty feeling you'd end up with an unshakable vivid memory of a few hours immediately after it was implanted, and then perfectly regular brain function.

>>3427589
>eh, I wouldn't want to. Not until the technology were tried and tested more throughly, at least
Yeah. I'm not paying the early-adopter penalty with by brain. I've only got one.

>>3427445

Ok wat if I build an exact replica of the building incinerate the old one and replace it with the replica. Is it still the same building?

The only difference between total incineration and replacement and replacing parts of it gradually is the perception of time past. Its just easier to believe it is the same building if you replace small bits of it at a time.

Fundamentally a building is a bad example because buildings are made of dead matter that don't replace themselves. When you start talking about humans you've got more at stake. I mean you can talk about functionality, but total replacement is just as functional and I'm sure you would rather be replaced piece by piece rather than being replicated and then destroyed.

Its a paradox because you can draw the conclusion both ways. Sorites Paradox

>>3427589
>>3427594
This is why we do animals trials - but there is still an early-adopter risk for any new tech. ESPECIALLY when adoption of the tech may not be reversible.

>>3427599

Replace 'joke' with 'cosmic truth' and this picture fits you

>>3427533

Ok, but thats like saying every axe you use is the same axe and thats stupid

>>3427599
>Is it still the same building?
By the functional definition, yes. It's only definition of "same" that is consistently useful and not prone to retarded contradictions.

It's in the same place, has the same properties, the same function. It's the same building. The perception of what "identity" means is arbitrary - but some definitions are more useful than others.

There is no paradox, except in the case of sticking to material or time-continuity definitions of identity, both of which are really pretty dumb once you examine them.

>>3427599
The majority of the atoms in your body get replaced multiple times over the course of your lifetime. Does that mean you're a different person then then the one on the video of you being born?

So long as her memories were unaffected and efficiently transmitted from the brain to the machinery, then there would be no appreciable distinction.

Individuality lies inside our memories. There are genetic predispositions for us to respond to certain stimuli a certain way, but mostly, we are our memories. So long as those are retained...yes, my mother is still my mother, even if she's a cyborg.

>>3427614
Not really.

If I have two axes, one of which has a longer handle, that's a functional difference, and it useful to distinguish between them. And if someone loses one of my axes, I ask "was it the short one or the long one?" It matters.

Then I replace the axe, and it is my axe. With the functional definition, asking "is it the SAME axe is before" is just nonsensical. It doesn't even mean anything.

One point of contention here is that features which were considered unimportant may become important, and features may change over time. But if we just stick to what matters, the functionality, there's really no paradox to be resolved.

Are you the same person you were 5 minutes ago?

Sapience is related to certain structure of matter but time is required for this structure to allow a sapient being to exist, you think therefore you are and you need time to think. So I don't think we can really rush to conclusions about what causes sapience.

>>3427617

Ok I replicate the original, and haven't replaced it yet, what do you call the replication prior to its replacement of the old building.

What if I don't even destroy the old building just move it down a block and tell people about it. Which of these buildings is the building in question.

You're placing too much emphasis on the labels, I replace the White House everyone calls it the White house but it consists of matter entirely separate and apart from the building that was there yesterday.

I don't disagree with the idea that their is continuity in the notion of what the White House but physically these are two separate buildings.

You're completely disregarding that

I like how some of you are arguing the "humans are not computers" stance, but in the same sense saying "my memories, my memories, my memories".

Hahahaha. We are AI.

>>3427639
(cont)
>Then I replace the axe, and it is my axe. With the functional definition, asking "is it the SAME axe is before" is just nonsensical. It doesn't even mean anything.
Or, to be more clear, the only meaning which makes sense is that you are inquiring whether the current axe is functionally equivalent to the old one. If that isn't the case, then yeah, the question really just doesn't make any sense.

This doesn't mean we should ignore continuity in time - causes and effects seem to propagate in way that makes the concepts of "space" and "time" useful. The axe I used recently would have some of my dead skin cells and oils on the handle - this makes it different from an otherwise identical axe I had not used recently.

Basically, identity is recognized as a very fluid concept, which is only used insofar as it is useful. Identity need not imply unbroken continuity, absolute physical sameness down to the atomic level, or uniqueness. The concept of a thing is a description of its key properties. If it still has those properties, it is the same "thing".

>>3427639
Ok but the definition of "my axe" is simply an arbitrary designation for a physical object. And because its just an axe you can brush aside whether you have the original or not. Are we quantifying people in terms of functionality.... would you simply want to be quantified in terms of functionality prior to an operation to replace your brain or would you want to feel confident that you are not only going to be functionally equivalent, but actually the same living person. This question matter mores for the person involved because people can die. I see exactly what you're saying about the axe, my point is you are being trivial about what constitutes continued existence for an individual person. If I replicate you and then kill you it may be the case that your copy does for the remainder of the existence exactly what you would have done thereby making it functionally equivalent to you, but that doesn't change the fact that you're dead and you aren't your copy

As long as she looks like my mom, acts like my mom and remembers stuff from way back since she can remember, then i am fine with it.

>>3427662
> what do you call the replication prior to its replacement of the old building.
Another axe. Whether it also merits the label "my axe" depends on how the society is treating property rights, but it's not the "same ax" as the one from which it was patterned. It is an equivalent axe.

>You're placing too much emphasis on the labels, I replace the White House everyone calls it the White house but it consists of matter entirely separate and apart from the building that was there yesterday.
>I don't disagree with the idea that their is continuity in the notion of what the White House but physically these are two separate buildings.
>You're completely disregarding that
If I build a physical replica of the White House, it has important functional definitions from the White House. It's not in same place, for one, but more importantly, it's not where the President and his staff work.

Let's explore this further, I think we've got something to talk about. Maybe if we pick a specific example and go into more detail.

>2011
>still using a mechanistic worldview wherein humans are but the sum of their individual parts which can be replaced without endangering the integrity of the whole

>>3427703
>Are we quantifying people in terms of functionality.... would you simply want to be quantified in terms of functionality prior to an operation to replace your brain or would you want to feel confident that you are not only going to be functionally equivalent, but actually the same living person.
I deny that it is possible for a reasonable definition of personal identity to be violated if there is a functionally equivalent person before and after.

>This question matter mores for the person involved because people can die. I see exactly what you're saying about the axe, my point is you are being trivial about what constitutes continued existence for an individual person. If I replicate you and then kill you it may be the case that your copy does for the remainder of the existence exactly what you would have done thereby making it functionally equivalent to you, but that doesn't change the fact that you're dead and you aren't your copy
Your conscious mind vanishes every time you sleep, and your brain generates a similar, but subtly different mind when you wake up. Why should it matter if you go to sleep on an operating table, and wake up with an altered or even entirely replaced physical body? If the patterns and properties of the old mind are still present, what is the difference?

If you think "you" are unique and continuous in time, then where are you while your body is unconscious?

>>3427703
> but that doesn't change the fact that you're dead and you aren't your copy
The Japanese fellow from
>>3427445
would have no such objection.

>>3427707
I actually find that viewpoint pretty accurate.

>>3427756
This. Not sure what's objectionable about objectivism.

>>3427707

>mfw holism is not explanatory and Roger Penrose is a hack

>>3427707
Help, there's been a murder! Someone replaced his malfunctioning kidney with a functioning replacement, and this means that the original person is dead and has been replaced with an imposter!

>>3427764
>objectivism
As long as you're not referencing the Randian term.

>>3427730

If he had any instinct for self-preservation he would care... if he's simply happy that his functionality is carried out he may be fool enough to just let someone kill him to prove the point that it didn't matter, if he takes pleasure in being responsible for his functionality and having, Experiences, then after I clone him and show up to his house to incinerate him, he'll give me a shit eating grin and opt out

>>3427619
The majority of the atoms in your body get replaced multiple times over the course of your lifetime. Does that mean you're a different person then then the one on the video of you being born?
Yep, pretty much.

>>3427771
That man's retarded, and I'm a socialist anyway

>>3427785

>Experiences, then after I clone him and show up to his house to incinerate him, he'll give me a shit eating grin and opt out

Even if there is a copy the original retains a self-preservation instinct. Your argument is invalid.

>>3427767

I don't believe that at all, but at some point the dynamic changes when you replace enough of a thing. Again I reference the sorites paradox. I'm not even saying immortality through machinery isn't possible, but I'm saying the method in which it is carried out plays a part. I made a point to note that organic beings are a different story from inorganic matter because they replace themselves over time. If you maintain continuity that may be sufficient to claim you're the same person. Just don't sign me up for the initial attempts a brain replacement.

>>3427797
I'd actually say yes, you are. For most practical purposes you're a completely different person.

>>3427785
You're accusing him of not believing the "same building" form of identity, and basically lying about it. I think you're just having trouble comprehending his point of view.

This comes to a head with destructive mind uploading. Say you can make a high-fidelity scan of the brain, and reproduce the functional dynamics of the mind in every way, but on a synthetic substrate, while destroying the original biological substrate. I, and he, would say it's just going to sleep on one operating table, and then waking up in a new body on another table.

You would object, and say that a murder has been committed. But there is nothing to make your position "more correct" than the other.

Say I instantly freeze you, cut you up, reassemble you, and then carefully thaw you and wake you up. Are you still the same person? Does that question even matter?

Say that I actually replaced your arms with physically and functionally identical ones. Are you still you? How about if I did so with your brain? Are you still you? There's a functionally identical person before and after.

>>3427807
For <span class="math">practical[/spoiler] purposes? How is that practical? Imagine all the legal hassle having to do with requesting a completely new identity from the government every few years.

>>3427807
>For most practical purposes you're a completely different person.
On comparison, yes, you are different from the person you were. And yet we usually say you are the "same person".

The problem is that there are many notions of "identity" using the same label, and some of them simply cease to be meaningful in these situations.

>>3427815
I mean, you have different memories, looks, thought processes and social grouping. The only things that don't change are the identity you assume at birth (even that's changeable) and your legal position

>>3427804
>the dynamic changes when you replace enough of a thing.
Ah, but that's just it. We're interrupting the *continuity* and the *material identity* of a thing, but not it's *functional identity* before and after. It's not a question of "how much material" has been replaced. Not even you feel that way - otherwise, give me a percentage, and abandon your sense of connection with your old identity when that percentage is reached by natural processes.

>>3427822
Right. There are different ideas involved here. We really shouldn't refer to them all as simply "identity".

>>3427822
Alright, lets take it a step further then. How about if you have a stroke, and part of your brain is destroyed. Are you a different person?

>>3427830
(Not that guy, interjecting)
Depends on what you mean by "same". Very important functional differences have appeared - strokes can cause drastic changes in physical and mental ability, in personality, etc. It's brain damage. In the sense that your functional properties have changed, you are a "different" person. In the legal sense of property, you are still considered the "same" person, because you are the only mind that has a causal history with the previous one, and our legal system hasn't wrestled with the possibility of copying minds yet. In the social sense, you may or may not be the same person, depending on whether your memory of and value for those relationships is intact.

If I replaced the cells in your mother's brain with new cells would she still be your mom?

Oh wait.

>>3427843
Implying his mom has no brain cells?

>>3427830

>Are you a different person?

My grandmother had a stroke last year and she will never be the same ;_;

Hey at least she can still paint.

>>3427849
That's what really gets me about people who stick with more naive definitions of identity.

If you had non-destructive backups scans of her brain shortly before the stroke, wouldn't you restore them? Wouldn't she? Wouldn't we hail it as a cure?

>>3427703

>I deny that it is possible for a reasonable definition of personal identity to be violated if there is a functionally equivalent person before and after.

What about simultaneously? Especially considering that the equivalency will rapidly disappear from the two entities.

>Your conscious mind vanishes every time you sleep, and your brain generates a similar, but subtly different mind when you wake up.
If you think "you" are unique and continuous in time, then where are you while your body is unconscious?

You know I don't have those answers, but you're effectively saying death is no different than being unconscious. I don't mind being unconscious but I'll do my best to avoid death.

>Why should it matter if you go to sleep on an operating table, and wake up with an altered or even entirely replaced physical body? If the patterns and properties of the old mind are still present, what is the difference?

Experience, because the functionality of an object doesn't take into account the experience of individual. Like it or not we're not objects. We are sentient beings, if I go to sleep on the table and its not me waking up I have died and my ability to experience has ended. Whatever woke up in my body now has the opportunity to experience, that opportunity is lost to me. Its hard to place continuity, in some instances. Depending on how the procedure is done, I may not be the one waking up on the table, and in the case where I'm killed and my clone takes my place I know I'm not the one who gets to continue to experience. It matters because if I'm in it for more the functional continuity, but experiential continuity it means that I have to survive the changes without dying. I'm not saying its impossible but I'm saying it important as hell to the organism.

>>3427840
By the same, I mean are you still someones son, in the biological sense. Can you be considered to same organism?
>>3427849
I feel for you bro. You still consider her to be your grandmother though. Just a different version of her, no?

>>3427855

>If you had non-destructive backups scans of her brain shortly before the stroke, wouldn't you restore them? Wouldn't she? Wouldn't we hail it as a cure?

Of course, the other day she insisted that our uncle (Who lives two countries away) had come over for the afternoon ;_; I don't like to see her so... Randomized.

>>3427864

>I feel for you bro. You still consider her to be your grandmother though. Just a different version of her, no?

Grandma ±

>>3427859
Transporter malfunction:

One of you is transported to the corresponding site, the other is returned to the original transporter.

WHICH IS THE CONTINUUM

>>3427830
Yes, but from a practical standpoint not entirely. You're a person who has changed, not significantly enough to count as a new person but significantly enough to become different.
>>3427849
I'm sorry about that :/
A friend of mine's uncle had a stroke a few months ago and ended up virtually incapable of looking after himself. There's no way I can describe it other than horrifying when things like this happen
>>3427866
Is she happy about things like that?

If she's reliving happy memories, she's probably a happy person.

>>3427871
<3

Apropos

>>3427872
Both. What's with the idea that there can only be one of you?

yeahup

>>3427877

>>3427881
>implying I didn't quote the aspie who thinks he has a special consciousness

>>3427896
>implying I was disagreeing with you
WHO IS SOMEWHAT OBLIVIOUS NOW?

>>3427859
You're still assuming a rigidly continuous and unique notion of "self". You're expressing that point very well, but I don't think there's a reason to hold to it. Like this:
>We are sentient beings, if I go to sleep on the table and its not me waking up I have died and my ability to experience has ended.
You're doing nothing but assuming your conclusion. Can you at least understand the "same building" point of view in this post?
>>3427445

> It matters because if I'm in it for more the functional continuity, but experiential continuity it means that I have to survive the changes without dying. I'm not saying its impossible but I'm saying it important as hell to the organism.
It's as important as hell to YOU. And that value judgment is arbitrary. The only difference between sleep and death is whether your body can still boot up a consciousness. Death is sleeping and not waking up again - nothing more.

I fully acknowledge that this is all a matter of perspective - but insofar as there is no objective "correctness" to either definition of identity, why not pick the one where you get to live beyond the expiration date of your body?

>>3427859
>You know I don't have those answers, but you're effectively saying death is no different than being unconscious.
In all likelihood — it is, in fact, no different.
I do object, however, that sleeping person = unconsious, but that's besides the point.

>>3427901
Alright, thread over.

Nigga is arguing soul of convenience.

>>3427874

>Is she happy about things like that?

Happy? I wouldn't know. She has become sort of like a shell of a person, some kind mechanistic post-mortem reconstruction based on someone else's memories of her. And yes, she is incapable of looking after herself, my mother is with her most of the time and she even moved her office to her [my grandmother's] house to spend more time looking after her :/

If I had had a scan, then fuck yes I would.

>>3427915
"Soul"? No. I'm saying that "you" don't exist at all while you are unconscious, or dead, or obliterated and awaiting physical instantiation from a backup. You are a conscious mind - all the rest is just support hardware to produce the patterns and functions that are that mind.

>>3427917
>2011
>don't euthanize
I really hope you guys don't do this.

>>3427874
>not significantly enough to count as a new person
So what would you consider to be a significant enough change to become a new person?

>>3427934
>You are a conscious mind
No, you are an implementation of a theory of mind.

lrn2CompSci

It's easy to grasp how we want something to act or respond, and then implement a representation of it.

Give me all the form of your conscience in an implementable form, and we can test the hypothesis that what your brain is actually doing is an implementation of your specifications.

>>3427917
That's the horrifying thing. A large portion of your grandmother is gone, and can't be recovered. We don't even have the luxury of pretending we have discrete yes/no existence as human minds - we can be taken apart, like removing chips from HAL one by one in 2001, until he just sings Daisy.

Dammit, that might be being insensitive. I apologize if this is too forceful.

>>3427937
I don't think there's an objective point at which you could decide. How do you decide when one species becomes another?

>>3427941
>Give me all the form of your conscience in an implementable form, and we can test the hypothesis that what your brain is actually doing is an implementation of your specifications.
I'd love to. Once we can, we've got mind uploading.

This route even allows dualism to be falsifiable. If we make a physical brain simulation with all the relevant chemistry and and input/output interface and it doesn't produce a complete mind, then something is missing from the simulation. If it DOES work, then the model is functionally complete, and dualism is wrong.

>>3427942

Well, information that is lost is lost forever.

in before Frank Tipler

>>3427952

>This route even allows dualism to be falsifiable. If we make a physical brain simulation with all the relevant chemistry and and input/output interface and it doesn't produce a complete mind, then something is missing from the simulation. If it DOES work, then the model is functionally complete, and dualism is wrong.

I would LOVE to see this.

my vision etc.

>>3427941
>No, you are an implementation of a theory of mind.
I suggest you learn2psychology. Theory of mind does not mean what you think it means.

>>3427952
You can't upload a conscience. If you could upload anything, all it would be is a representation of the form of the brain, in terms of matter and energy. If you started abstracting you would have to either abstract away detail, representing something that isn't what you're "uploading", or you'd be representing matter and energy, an upload which is completely consistent with a non-conscience theory.

Come back to me when your conscience is falsifiable.

>>3427960
>implying I didn't use the SCIENTIFIC definition of a theory, and non a pedantic semantic of psychology

>>3427896

Ok so because you have been cloned you can't be killed.... and I'm the aspie.

>>3427964
I am a dynamical pattern co-evolving with my environment. My feedback loops and internal dynamics have properties that make my pattern valuable. I am that pattern. I am a mind. That which preserves my pattern preserves me. That which restores my pattern brings me back from oblivion. Death is the permanent loss of my pattern.

I don't want to die.

>>3427977
Just stop typing. Honestly, it's for the best.

>>3427964

At a sufficient level of detail the emulation would be indistinguishable from a human.

The atoms in a persons body completely replace every year so this problem is already existent. We certainly don't believe consciousness comes from the atoms and making an exact replica of a person preserve the consciousness of the original.

So are we constantly firing in a way? Can consciousness be steadily transferred? It's a hard subject to broach.

ITT: People who believe its as simple as Ctrl + X, Ctrl + V

and wouldn't mind Ctrl + C, Ctrl +V, Delete original text

>>3427294
At some point, that heap of carbon nevar was alive, it just combined with some other molecules that were able to store charges of sun-energy into a system that did some even moar exotic chemistry and stored some electricity in a bucket of jelly, but now its back to good old carbon, so viewing it for longterm existance, no the carbon heap who typed this message never was alive.

Just a dustdevil, rattling the keys.

They do so gradually and with major trauma to the organism

>>3427984
>That which restores my pattern brings me back from oblivion.
Indeed, as long the information content of my pattern exists, even as a backup in another format with no current dynamics, I am not dead. Only not living. Like sleep.

>>3427986
Are you arguing that the conscience is an identical representation to how a brain acts?

>>3428006
There is no rational basis on which to deny it that status. Minds are what minds do.

>>3428004

Death! = Sleep

A lot of Duncan Idaho Ghola wannabes in this thread, I e

Your mums brain is replaced by a goats brain, mentally she is still your mum, but also a goat. She still loves you, likes to chew on your papers, mentally a mum-goat-boat. Suddenly, the goats brain is made out of silicium, mentally still your goat, but also silicium.

Could you accept a person that had no natural neurons? Could you accept them as being someone you love?

>>3428019
Death is sleeping without waking up again, concurrent with the loss of your pattern data.

Death is unrecoverable sleep. Sleep is recoverable death.

>>3428024
Oh, you. Trollololol

>>3428006

Yes? What else would they be?

>>3428024
Absolutely. And you shouldn't muddle the difference between changes in substrate with no changes of functional properties, and changes of functional properties (like your mom gaining a taste for paper).

>>3428024
She would be a goat, nigga. The only thing from my mother that would remain is the rest of her body.

>>3428018
>>3428035
Then a mind is identical to a conscious. The mind and conscious being the way in which the brain acts.

In this case, they no special status nor are they existent after brain is deconstructed to a point that it can no longer act logically in the way we define a brain to act. (illogic being logical of course)

All further discussions on conscience will use this definition unless you would like to change it.

Since these definitions are similar, killing someone this kills the conscience, duplicating someone this creates a new conscience identical to the old, killing someone and creating a new one, this continues the conscience while killing off a previous implementation etc.

It has been taken out of the realm of speculation and into the realm of does or doesn't.

>>3428058
not similar, but congruent*

>>3428030
>You do realise humans *are* conscious while just normally asleep (not in deep coma etc)?

>>3428058
Sounds pretty much like what I had in mind. Your last line puzzles me though:
>It has been taken out of the realm of speculation and into the realm of does or doesn't.

Are you referring to some kind of falsification? It's my impression that this is all about ideas and definitions, not factual claims.

Except maybe this, concerning the origin of minds (is a physical brain sufficient):
>>3427952

>>3428069
>You do realise humans *are* conscious while just normally asleep (not in deep coma etc)?
Not really. Deep sleep is devoid of pretty much all the patterns, and certainly the behaviors, that characterize a conscious mind. REM sleep, in which you dream, is closer, but does present all the properties of consciousness. Lucid dreaming is probably closer still, though I'm not aware of fMRI data to support this, but memory is certainly improved. Full consciousness mainly adds interaction with the real world via control and use of the body.

Being under anesthesia, for instance, reducing you to being even "less" conscious than sleep. Being totally frozen is physically the same as being dead (no dynamics at all) - and yet may be recoverable, because the vital information/patterns may be preserved.

>>3428101
Yes, I do mean bring it into the realm of falsification.

By human construction, we are designed to follow a "deconstructive" view, that things exist and we must discredit them, and if we can't then they exist.

I much prefer to follow a more constructive view, based on Computer Science. That you define minimal senses of logic and data and function, and then you use that to reconstruct the things that respond. Any system which can effectively respond in a manner identical to how the object actually responds is as equally valid as system as any. The main point of this view, is if something is not falsifiable, that is, it is purported to have a representation which cannot respond, then it does not exist, simple as that. So while people are arguing over "conscience" or "soul", claiming they exist a priori, my view is they never exist until they're reactive.

>>3428137
> So while people are arguing over "conscience" or "soul", claiming they exist a priori, my view is they never exist until they're reactive.
Are you talking to the wrong half of this thread?

No one is talking about the objective existence of a "soul". I'm not a dualist. And "consciousness" is just the dynamics produced by a functioning brain.

WELL, neuroscience seems to indicate the brain is basically a computer with it's own unique architecture. Therefore, in a strictly physical view she would still be the same person.

But here's the question: Is the person defined specifically by their substrate? As in, are the brain and the soul part and parcel? Or in otherwords, is the brain the soul?

If it is, then we have our answer: No, she's not the same person.

However the trick is here that she would never once give this fact away. Never once would an outside observer be able to tell she was gone. The only person who would know would be her, and she's not around anymore to tell us. Therefore this view isn't falsifiable.

Since it isn't, we must define the individual in a way that can be verified by an outside source.

People with brain damage display a loss of faculties and memories that is very obvious, even to people who don't know anything about them. We can therefore make a good argument that although there is no fundamental soul in the structure of the brain, the brain is indeed the font from which awareness (Or consciousness) flows.

Since we've established that, we can say that as long as the individual is externally observed to possess the same memories and claims to feel the same, they are as far as we can tell the same person.

It's funny how people who believe in uploading or neuron replacement are often accused of dualism, when in fact their position is arrived at specifically by denying dualism. It's those who say that the brain is the ultimate source of consciousness who in fact argue dualism, since they basically believe in a soul that lives in their heads.

>>3428121
Well, I guess it burns down to "how conscious is conscious enough".
I'd say normal sleep is still conscious — just not "recording" as normal. Mostly cause, if woken up, many ppl still recall having a dream even if woken outside of REM.

>>3428163
This thread is about the existence of something persistent over an object. Something that doesn't respond yet is still designated to the object. In order for that to exist, there must be a system in which there is a reaction determining whether or not something is or isn't something. While OP brings the question:

"If your mom had Alzheimer's and 10% of her brain had to be replaced with memory chips that didn't alter her brain function, would she still be your mom?"

The question demands the existence of something outside of the entity that reacts. The debate could insist that the labeling entity exits, or instead I can argue that the question is invalid on scientific grounds until an agreement can be made on the validity of a reactive system that labels objects and can be asked whether or not an object is a label.

>>3428165
>It's funny how people who believe in uploading or neuron replacement are often accused of dualism, when in fact their position is arrived at specifically by denying dualism. It's those who say that the brain is the ultimate source of consciousness who in fact argue dualism, since they basically believe in a soul that lives in their heads.
I'm not a dualist and I agree with you as far as I can tell, but your last sentence seems to contradict your expressed position. By denying dualism, what matters is making the pattern and dynamics of my brain continue - a functional equivalent is just as good, even if it's not biological. Dualism posits that a physical brain is not sufficient for a conscious mind to exist.

>>3428179
is a label, has a label, you should be able to get what I mean

>>3428177
> many ppl still recall having a dream even if woken outside of REM.
That would certainly change my view of the matter, if it is true. It was my impression that dreaming is positively identifiable with REM sleep only.

Being frozen, isn't the equivalent of being dead, you are drastically reducing the effects of the passage of time on the organism. No one involved in cryogenics research would tell you that what they do in anyway shape or form approaches death. This line of thinking trying to equate death and consciousness is just reaching

>>3428184
>>3428179
Actually, sorry, but no. I wasn't able to get very much out of your post.

Maybe if you state your opinion on instantiating a backup brain scan of someone who died in a car crash? You know, making a copy from the scan?

>>3428180
In a way, the person supporting the idea of uploading a brain to a computer has not made their stance on dualism, but that is only because they say that is the source of their argument, not the arguments they make in favor or against "Is it the same thing?"

It's similar in a vain to "well what if we euthanized people LIKE Steven Hawking?" and someone says
"well Stephen Hawking is useful" and they put on their trollface and say "well I wouldn't euthanize him"

>>3428180

I'm using the term 'Dualism' in a specific way, to imply any view that holds that consciousness is one thing (IE a brain, or a heart, or a immaterial substance), and the body is another.

I'm then contrasting this view with Monism, where the body and mind are seen as a whole which contributes in it's entirety to consciousness.

The way I expressed it was probably foggy, I will admit.

Simon Funk time? This should clarify your doubts.


I was staring up into a sky-blue sky, watching a single leaf slowly, chaotically fall toward me from a nearby tree. A warm gust kissed my cheek and the leaf fluttered away. My focus shifted to the cotton-ball clouds lazing in the distance, and then down to the beautiful girl sitting on the park bench. There was no one else in sight. She gazed intently at the shimmering pond before her, motionless but for the sparkle in her eyes.

I walked along the pathway, which followed the shore of the pond here. I was sure she would look up as I approached. But she didn't, so I strolled on casually as if my mind were elsewhere. She looked right through me as I crossed her view. I nonchalantly lifted my hands and examined them back and front to be sure I wasn't transparent.

"What is reality?" she said, still staring into the pond.

I sat in the grass in front of the bench, off to the side so as not to presume upon her view.

"What isn't?" I asked in return.

"This isn't," she said.The sky turned black, and it was night. A giant moon perched on the horizon, and danced in the pond. The girl hadn't moved, but was now sitting on a large rock. The path was gone, the grass under me turned to sand. A wave crashed and I realized the pond had become an ocean.

"Well then, you've answered your own question," I said. "By reality, you mean the physical world you grew up with."She made no reply, and we sat in silence for a while.

"And if I had grown up here?" she finally spoke. "Then, would I call this reality? Would I live from birth to death believing in this universe, studying its secrets and obeying its laws?"

The earth crumbled away around us and soon we were sitting on one of the few remaining slabs floating freely amidst a galaxy of stars, the moon still looming before us.

>>3428191
>No one involved in cryogenics research would tell you that what they do in anyway shape or form approaches death. This line of thinking trying to equate death and consciousness is just reaching
Let's say I don't find your statement convincing.

Also, this is an issue of semantics, really. If "I" am a conscious mind, then I cease to exist when I am unconscious. But hopefully by body can support my brain, which hopefully can bring "me" back online again. But "death" refers to the permanent loss of the information and patterns that produce me, the conscious mind. If there's a backup somewhere, then I am not dead. Just not currently instantiated.

And if I am copied, with more than one concurrent instance? Then there are two "me's", each a separate but equivalent individual, who will then begin to diverge in experiences and properties. And the question of which is "really me"? Irrelevant, even meaningless.

While we are at it:
if all the data from your iphone is fully copied to an identical iphone, would it still be your iphone?

>>3428212

"Undoubtedly," I said.

A dead mime tumbled slowly past us toward the moon in weightless free-fall. I eyed the girl before me with renewed scrutiny.

"I concede we have nothing but our senses to trust," she said, still gazing forward in the same posture as when I first saw her. "And we can only trust them for what they are: just senses. Any interpretation we give them is merely inference, statistically meaningful at best."

Two more mimes tumbled past.

"But alas," my inner guru said through me, "That is the true nature of all knowledge."

"Yes, so it is," she agreed. "In the world I grew up in, I could even infer from my senses with high probability that that world existed without me; that my effect on it was limited to the physical interface between my body and the rest of the world; that if I died, or had never existed, things would go on little changed without me. Not so obvious here."

I felt grass growing up again beneath me.

"Interesting that you draw the boundary at your body," I said.

"Yes, good point." She broke her gaze and looked me in the eye for the first time. "I could draw it at my brain, but that's only a little closer to the truth."

"Indeed."

"Even to draw it at my mind is not quite right."

"Oh?" I was curious what she meant, and tickled that I was curious.

"My mind is a process, information with intent, like a computer program..."

"At the moment, literally," I interjected.

She raised a brow at me, said, "Let's come back to that," and then went on, "but even within the mind, where do 'I' begin?"

"Ah," I understood her question. It was a hard one to answer. Not because I didn't know the answer, but because the question itself presumed so many things.

"By the way, who are you?" she asked. "I gather you are not a figment of my imagination, which is more than I can say for anything else here."

>>3428196
In terms of the thread feeling?

It'd be the same person just a little out of date. Sure, they wouldn't be the same as if they hadn't died in the car crash, but that's close enough for me.

It's like, if I had a hamburger for lunch of a tofu burger, I would be two separate people. Doesn't matter that much to me the person I become based on what I eat, except I do eat extra protein and vitamins and shit time to time to try and be the person I want to be.

>>3428221

I raised a brow at her and said, "Let's come back to that," and then went on, "as to where do 'you' begin.... Think of the brain as a computer, the mind as a program, and the 'self', 'you'--your identity as you introspectively experience it--as something implemented by that program."

"Clarify that last step," she said.

"Imagine a program that animates a ball bouncing around inside a box," I started. A glass box appeared floating between us, spinning slowly upon a corner. Inside, a small ball was bouncing about. "I meant that rhetorically."

"Oh, sorry." The box shrunk into nothingness and was gone.

"The ball and the program are two different things. The ball has its own identity, it has a position, a velocity, a color, a shape. It obeys certain laws, moving through time, bouncing off the walls. And yet, under the hood it's really just a bunch of bits stored in a computer, being manipulated by a program which is also just a bunch of bits stored in the computer. The identity of the ball, its behavior, the laws it obeys, these are all defined by the program, implemented by the program, and yet the ball is the ball, it is not the program."

"Is the ball here my conscious self, subconscious self, or both?"

"We can fit the analogy in more than one way, but let's call it your conscious self. It is the part that you can directly observe."

"By observe here you mean introspection?"

"Right. And then there is all the stuff behind the scenes that you can't see, the intermediate variables used in the calculation of the ball's trajectory, the comparisons at every step that check whether the ball had hit a 'wall', and so on. You need to bring up a debugger to see that stuff--it's not normally visible. That's analogous to the subconscious self."

Her eyes lit up upon hearing this, and she asked excitedly, "Can I bring up a debugger to see my subconscious self?"

>>3428232

"Uh, well, yes, technically we can..." I was surprised at the ease with which she embraced these ideas--ideas that sent most people into a tizzy of denial out of some misguided need to believe themselves free spirits beyond the grasp of simple mechanics.

"That would be, like, meta-introspection. What about changing things? Can I change things?"

"Uh, well, yes, technically you could."

"Wow, that gets confusing, doesn't it? I mean, if the subconscious self implements the will--that is, when I, the conscious introspective I, want something, or choose to do something, or even choose to think something, that's because the process, or program, that is my subconscious has made some calculations and the equations resulted in that choice, want, thought, action, or whatever..."

"Yes, essentially."

"But if I choose to alter that program, then it is like an equation whose calculations determine that the equation itself should be changed."

"Yup."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Yup."

"Where does that lead?"

"Most people just bliss out."

"Bliss out?"

"Yeah, that's what we call it. The easiest place to start is just poking at the various modules which make up the subconscious mind--not rewiring anything, just selectively activating things to see what they do. Of most interest is the limbic system. Given free reign, most people will eventually prod the accumbens nucleus which in turn triggers a cascade of synaptic changes that cause their subconscious process to prefer the same action again."

"In other words, it feels good so they want to do it again?"

"Yes, essentially. But the mind has no checks and balances to deal with this sort of intervention, so people just hammer on their accumbens until their entire motivational core has been completely reprogrammed to do nothing else."

"And then what?"

"And then nothing, they just keep doing it until we turn them off."

"You said most people--what about the others?"

>>3428208
Ah. Then I'm not sure I really agree with either. I am a certain type of dynamical pattern. Replace my brain with something that produces the same dynamics, and that is "me". This definition denies that I am unique (I can be copied), or that I am continuous in time (I can be stopped, shelved, dusted off, and started again. As long as the information is not lost - irrecoverable loss of the information inherent in my pattern is death.)

Ok your copy is not the original, so now that this guy opts out of being incinerated your left with two identical human beings who will rapidly experience different things and become separate people and not only that since the original continues to exist the clone can't functionally fullfil the role of the original. So what is that clone now, its definitely not you. You just in love with the notion of continued existence through this various methods and refuse to take the ramifications seriously because they take the piss out of your fatasies about the future. Your

>>3428239

"I..." I started to speak but my elbow bumped the hookah that hadn't been there a moment before, and I had to catch it before it fell over. "We haven't tried it that many times, but I'm the only one who hasn't."

"Aw, no accumbens?" The hookah went limp and started to sag.

"No, just that I have no delusions of free will, in the spiritual sense at least. I approached the whole process very methodically, installed my own checks and balances before I started poking at anything. The first and most effective was I had to answer a few basic questions, plus a small set of randomly generated puzzles, and if I failed within a reasonable time, any changes I made were automatically backed out."

"What sorta questions?"

"Do you feel normal? Sane? Does reality appear correct? Press OK within 15 seconds if you would like to keep these changes, otherwise your changes will be reverted. You know."

"What if you warned people?"

"We did. Didn't make any difference. It's hard to make people understand how malleable their wills are. They always assume they can try it just once, so they invariably do--of their own free will."

"Brings a new meaning to 'first one's free'."

"Indeed," I smiled.

>>3428216
So, there's critical difference between your dynamics being suspended (like in sleep), and your information being lost (death, or sleep + critical information loss).

>>3428245
"Backing up, you said the brain is like the computer and the mind like the program. But you can't put one person's mind inside another person's brain, can you?"

"Yes, true. A better analogy for the brain than a computer would be, oh, a graphics chip. A graphics chip is some specialized hardware that implements a particular set of algorithms very quickly--algorithms to draw pictures. But the same algorithms can be implemented in software on a general purpose computer, just not as fast. So the brain is like a graphics chip, with a great deal of the 'software' built-in to the hardware. So, you are right, you can't just move a mind from one brain to another because each brain, and correspondingly each mind, is unique. You can, however, move a mind from a brain into a generalized brain simulator, just as you could read the circuits and firmware of a graphics chip and run--simulate--them on a general purpose computer."

"Obviously," she said, "or we couldn't be here. Your move."

The grass under me had turned to a sheepskin rug. The moon, still where it was, now hung framed in a picture over the fireplace, the red flames reflecting on the white marble floor much as the moonlight had once shimmered in the pond. The girl sat in a slung bucket chair with a high flared back fit for art deco royalty. Between us was a chess board in late play, her pieces--a full set including two queens--white, my lone piece black.

"Or you wouldn't be here," I corrected. "I actually have a brain."

She cocked her head at me, so I explained: "You're being run on our general purpose simulator. I'm jacked in from the real world."

"You're still alive?!"

"No, no--I'm a tinc."

>>3428247

"Oh. Yes. That's very confusing," she said, shaking her head. "So, you're an artificial intelligence in the real world talking to a real intelligence in an artificial world."

"Except that I was once human as you were."

"Oh! A zombie! I've heard about those but never met one."

"Avatar! The term is avatar."

"Whatever," she rolled her eyes at me. "So, what exactly am I?"

"That's a good question," I said, because I really didn't know. Number One had loaded her from the archives. She probably still thought she'd just been hit by that car yesterday. Why he had given her remodeling abilities, I couldn't guess. It required adding a virtual graft of specialized motor cortex to her brain, and then typically a few days of training. It wasn't something we usually wasted cycles on. "How long have you been here?" I asked.

"A day maybe? Why?"

"And, altering reality like this. Who taught you to do that?"

"Nobody. I just noticed little things changing and started playing with it. Why?"

"Number One!" I called for an explanation.

A scroll unrolled down the wall to reveal a life-sized photograph of me in a white suit and white top hat, holding a white cane. Then the figure stepped out of the photo and into the room, and said, "It wasn't me." He looked about and added, "I like what you've done with the place."

"What do you mean it wasn't you?" I asked incredulously.

"Why does he look like you?" the girl asked.

"Oh, no, I look better," he said, turning his head to the side, "See, smaller nose."

"He was me," I said.

"Check mate," he said, reaching down and moving my king to the diagonal.

"What?" she said, staring intently at the board now.

>>3428250
"It was her. She did it," he said, pointing at the girl.

I waited impatiently for a better explanation.

Then through the same poster flew a ribbon of flesh that spiraled itself up from the floor into the half-missing shape of a woman. A ribbon of white cloth followed close behind, spiraling up to fill in the gaps until there stood a beautiful young woman--who looked just like the other.

"Okay," Number One admitted. "More accurately, she did it."

The girl looked up at herself. "Hey, why does she look like me?" She turned to me. "I didn't look anything like this in real life, you know. I came up with this myself. She stole my avatar!"

Number One started absentmindedly contact-juggling his hat in nearly implausible ways. "I was getting bored just talking to myself," he said, rolling his hat to the end of his outstretched cane. The woman reached in from behind and pulled out a bright blue apple and took a bite.

"I was going through the archives," he went on, "studying all the variations in the human brain, and I came upon hers, which was most interesting. Unusual allocation of cortical regions, heavily diminished pathway between hippocampus and amygdala, no god module whatsoever..."

"God module?" the first girl asked.

"It's what we call the subsystem that triggers faith-based learning," I explained.

"I don't believe you," she said.

"Exactly," I replied.

"Anyway," Number One continued, "I had to run her to see how these played out. And somewhere in the process of debugging her, I realized she was quite witty and charming."

"Thank you, dear," the second one said.

"So I decided to allocate her some of my resources, elevate her consciousness to a compatible level, and the rest, as they say, is history. Oh, and I figured you'd like her too."

"It would follow," I said.

>>3428220
If I have the property rights, and the old one is no longer present? Yep. That's my iPhone. If the old one is still in my possession and undamaged? I have two iPhones, both of which are mine, with identical data, but one has less-worn hardware.

See, "my iPhone" isn't unique - it can be copied.

You guys need to read The Music of Life, by Denis Noble.

>>3428242
Well I'd say the exact opposite. If you are a dynamical pattern then we can recreate that, that it is unique, and it can be copied, stored, recovered, etc.

For example, I can save an emulator in mid computation - all the memory, all the assembly going to the various bits and part of the "machine". In many games, this will result in identical computations, despite me loading the time now, 5 minutes from now, 5 years from now, etc. This is the form of closed objects, that they can be represented and stored in other systems, inside representations of themselves even (I could load a virtual machine - then load a copy of THAT virtual machine in the virtual machine).

There are side-effects, which can result in bugs when working in a discrete-time functional logic, but no big deal. (i.e. if a dual core processor has two functions that operate on the same memory, if they go to write in it at the same time, we either result in a paradox or a time-based differential which will produce bugs, or at least, errors)

>>3428216

No its not irrelevant, because each copy entertains its own experiences is. Thus death is still a possibilty for each incarnation. I'm sorry but if you're trying to say this amounts to immortality in anyways you're not convincing at all.

Being unconscious =! Death
Starting off with that assumption is where you fuck up
This conversation is mentally exhausting, I'm done no one is changing anyones mind. Everyone is saying the same shit over and over again.

>>3428252

He gave me a most mischievous look, and said, "Demo?"

With no further ado, the two of them turned to smoke--the cold kind that sinks to the floor and vanishes without a trace.

"That was... interesting," the girl said. "You call that elevated consciousness?"

I lay back onto the sheepskin rug, stared at the ceiling. "Have you ever got down on the floor with your dog, barked at them, and chased each other around the room?"

"Ur, yeah, okay, maybe once or twice in my life."

"Well, that's what it's like for them to talk to us. Trust me when I say we couldn't begin to approach them on their level."

"Speak for yourself!" she yelled, looking quite upset.

I noted her apparent anger, but strangely didn't care. But oh, how rude of me not to care! I felt so ashamed.

Her eyes lit up, she ran over to me and said, "This is fascinating!"

Enthusiasm welled up inside me and I leapt to my feet. I looked down and she was looking up at me with eyes of deep infatuation.

>>3428212
Which Simon Funk story is this?

could i accept them? yes
would i view them as the same person? dunno

if my mum had shifted to a completely synthetic existence and still had all her memories i'd believe she'd be essentially the same person - if she had all her exisiting memories to recall. however, the fact that her conciousness wasn't bound to her biological brain could i say that she would act the same as before her transition? in having her critical thought processes inside a machine/whatever (greater processing power/greater analytical skill/etc) i'd have to assume she would at heart (hurr) be a different person.

>>3428279

After Life, "Demo". The whole novel is a work of art.

>>3428262
>that it is unique, and it can be copied
Unique means it CAN'T be copied.

>>3428308
Oh, you're using a weird definition then. Unique normally means "different" not "only"

Although you believe you can't be copied, what evidence or theory do you use to support that idea?

>>3428243
You are both holding to a sense of uniqueness, and accusing us of doing the same. Stop it. I do not believe I am unique, nor indivisible, nor uncopiable. I value the continuation and improvement of instances of my pattern, whether one or many.

If this bodies is incinerated and replaced with a perfect copy, I have not died. The pattern is there. And if there are multiple instantiated copies? They're all "me". And then "i" have divided, and will diverge to form "new" people, in the same way that I am not identical in properties to the version of me from ten years ago.

>>3428314
>Although you believe you can't be copied, what evidence or theory do you use to support that idea?
Sorry, I really should have been using a temp-trip in this thread.

I can be copied. I am not unique.

>>3428308
Agreed, I've read it. I just couldn't find which chapter you were quoting and wanted to make sure I wasn't mix-and-matching my scifi stories.

>>3428321
Then you believe a representation of a person which is not in congruency with the thing it's trying to represent is a valid representation.

>>3428324
Oh ok.

Then are you on the side that an abstraction (specification of function) is you, or are you on the side that that implementation is you.

>>3428314
Perhaps I should be using "uncopyable".

>>3428342
Abstraction isn't quite right, unless we agree on what abstraction. But certainly not implementation.

Anything which has all the same functionality and behavior as I do is "me". This requires me to discard a lot of notions that most people have about "self". But it deals with the issues of backups and copies very nicely.

>>3427824

reference sorites once again, getting hung up at how much is enough to say x is no longer x is the meaningless part, but it doesn't mean x never becomes y. In a destructive upload a murder has been committed, its just not apparent to the copy, and since he's functionally equivalent the fact that murder has been committed can be ignored because we have a functional equivalent human being to make do with. At the end of the day you are copying a person and killing them.

>>3427383
Yea I actually saw that, and didn't feel like rewriting the paragraph I'm actually working and replying to these at the same time, but now I'm going home. Good catch though

>>3428357
>In a destructive upload a murder has been committed, its just not apparent to the copy, and since he's functionally equivalent the fact that murder has been committed can be ignored because we have a functional equivalent human being to make do with. At the end of the day you are copying a person and killing them.
The ethics of the action then come into play. It's not consistent to say both "a murder has been committed" and "the fact that murder has been committed can be ignored". You have to stop calling it murder.

As for the fact that one implementation was destroyed to instantiate another - is that wrong? If the question is self-determination, then the only question is whether the original consented, which I agree is necessary. But performing this operation against someone's will is not murder, despite being a grievous violation of self-determination. It's a lesser crime.

>>3427802

And that is the problem, you would rather walk into a situation where you can pretend you're not dying. You get to sit in that chair override your instincts of self preservation, and get your destructive upload, but you're not the one waking up your experience is ending. Its weird you would actually consider this when its no different from getting incinerated and letting a clone take your place

Your body is a fluid, changing object anyway. You're constantly taking in outside matter and replacing structures in your body with it. I've heard that every atom in your body is replaced every so often (which may be only half true), but the point is that even your brain is constantly forming new structures with different material than what it was "originally" made of. The matter that forms your body isn't what makes you You--it's the overarching qualitative pattern.

>>3428356
>Anything which has all the same functionality and behavior as I do is "me"
That is the abstraction, though not the best formal definition.

In this post however:
>>3428242
>This definition denies that I am unique (I can be copied), or that I am continuous in time (I can be stopped, shelved, dusted off, and started again. As long as the information is not lost - irrecoverable loss of the information inherent in my pattern is death.)

In that quote you argue for an implementation based definition. Whether or not the abstraction of you is functioning, it is you within certain limits (i.e. if there is a "you" walking around then it is not identical to the "you" we have in storage unless your brain loops and exists in an identical state)

>>3428371
> you'0re not the one waking up your experience is ending. Its weird you would actually consider this when its no different from getting incinerated and letting a clone take your place
This is a perception that has no objective reality. It's not wrong - it's just arbitrary. It has null truth-value.

See
>>3427445

That point of view is just as valid. And stating the opposite point of view is not SUPPORT for that perspective.

>>3428370

Murder can be ignored. We have a definition of murder, its not always prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The question is really what qualifies as death, if a destructive upload requires you to die then your functional replica doesn't allow you to have any experiences of the future, at best science has found a way to synthesize human consciousness in a very limited way(has to be identical to a previously existing human consciousness) and allows other human consciousness to experience a world in which your functionality persists beyond the death of your original.

You are using semantics to make this feel ok, ethics have no baring on the reality of the situation. There are sufficient criteria to say that an organism has died. Just because you have a replica walking around one second after you just dies, doesn't you didn't die

Then stop beating around the bush and just say "I doesn't matter if I live or die as long as there is something that is identical to be to continue on I don't care" saying anything else is really denigrating to rational thought. Death is a real occurrence lets not pretend death no longer occurs just because we develop the technology to make clones. Maybe your friends don't have to feel sad, and you can still pass on your genetic material but its still death.

Continuity would be the only way to claim immortality and when you finally admitted continuity mattered you would want to make sure that your method of brain replacement to interfere with continuity

>>3428390
I think I see your point. It's there in the Simon Funk story too:
>>3428232

"I" am actually the dynamics (the mind). These dynamics can be produced by various implementations. Insofar as they all produce the same dynamics, they are of equal value - they are only valuable insofar as they produce the dynamics (the mind) that I care about (me).

I am not the brain - I am the dynamics of the brain when it is working properly. If there is a high-fidelity scan of the brain, and no working brains which produce my dynamics, "i" do not exist. In that sense, I also don't really exist when the brain is unconscious. But "dead" is not the right word either, because death implies irreversibility, loss of information. If my brain is destroyed, and another implentation that produces the same dynamics as the original brain is produced, "I" exist again, as soon as the new implementation begins to function.

So it is possible to cease existing, but also to have my information preserved, making me neither "alive" nor "dead". There is no law of "conservation of abstractions" or "conservation of mind", and the "mind" is an abstraction, referring to a certain type of dynamics as though it were an object.

>>3428419
I don't see why you can't just change your definition of death instead of stubbornly believing that "you" is something continuous.

>>3428424
Now you get it

Now go read your SICP, you EXPERT PROGRAMMER you

>>3428430
Also, I wasn't the one posting on death/unconsciousness - at least I don't think "I" was

>>3428407
>The question is really what qualifies as death, if a destructive upload requires you to die then your functional replica doesn't allow you to have any experiences of the future
Sleep is the same thing. It is destructive of your old mind (or where is it while you are in deep sleep), and the mind that arises when you awake is not even identical to the old one. And yet we say it is "you".

"You" is just an abstraction. It doesn't make it less "valuable" - because value is also subjective.

>>3428419
>Continuity would be the only way to claim immortality
Except, chances are, this "continuity" is already broken every time you (as a human) lose consciousness. And yet we don't hold a funeral every time a consciousness is lost by someone.

>>3428430
:)

There's also something interesting about this whole discussion. Even fully admitting that this is all about perspective, about the definition of "me" and "death", there is a strong connection with reality here. Because if and/or when mind uploading becomes possible, the minds/patterns that do NOT adopt a perspective like this one are going to cease to exist permanently - are going to die.

Or hell, maybe when we get the physical brain simulation going it will show that the dualists are right, that something more than atoms is required. But that doesn't seem to be a justified belief at this point.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/10/09/cheating.death.suspended.animation/index.html

This rat was the subject in an experiment on suspended animation. It was placed in this tiny glass jar and had all the air inside replaced with Hydrogen Sulfide.
The rat slowly, then abruptly, stopped moving. It's heart had stopped. it's brain no longer produced any impulses. By any medical definition that rat was dead. Then the researchers replaced the air in the chamber with normal air and slowly, then abruptly, the mouse again began to move. After an examination the rat was found to be completely healthy.

It's continuous pattern was interrupted. all the neuron ceased to fire, but the gas preserved the physical structure of those neurons. when the right chemicals were re introduced that preserved pattern in the rats brain reproduced the same patterns.

Is that rat now a different rat? Could you not say that the rat really died while all its biological functions ceased? If you were in an accident and this procedure were used to preserve you on a trip in an ambulance would you question your identity when you were released? Even if you felt the same?

>>3428468
personality altering brain injuries like physical trauma and stroke pretty much prove dualism false.

>>3427294
1 grain of sand = granule
2 grains of sand = granules
3 grains of sand = mound/granules

>>3428469
Hydrogen sulfide preserves the structure of the brain? Cool.

>>3428468
From a scientific perspective, we need more than atoms, and by any consideration of Quantum Mechanics, we will never have a person, because what they are isn't a concrete object, but an abstraction of statistically un-individualizeable phenomenon.

Also, even if we find a way to somehow bypass quantum mechanics, science will hit a wall eventually, either when it finds a science in which we can go further or in which can go perpetually further. In either case the science will never completely explain everything, so even if we had a self-sustaining scientific theory, we could never prove that what we stored as a "person" was really them because in order for something to exist it must have a responsive system, except in reality we either get to a last responsive system where we can't find any more questions to ask before it leads us to the same system, or we find a system where we keep finding new questions.

>>3428481
Yeah. There's a decent explanation for lay audiences in the article. It's not working as well for large animals yet as it did for small, however.

>>3428485
finds a science in which we can't go further or*

>>3428485
>From a scientific perspective, we need more than atoms, and by any consideration of Quantum Mechanics, we will never have a person, because what they are isn't a concrete object, but an abstraction of statistically un-individualizeable phenomenon.
You best explain that. I'm a graduate student in physics and I either don't understand or see no support for what you're saying.

>>3428485
These are concerns in radical skepticism. And like most unfalsifiable concerns, they really don't matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_other_minds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-zombie

this thread pops up all the fucking time.

look up the boat paradox

>>3428563
Brought up and discussed extensively ITT. I refined my understanding of the problem too.

>>3428499
Yeah, dat solipsism. It's cute and all but for all intents and purposes, it doesn't mean shit.

>>3428666
Solipsism goes further than worrying about whether other minds exist, since it concerns the idea of whether there is an external reality independent of self at all, but yeah.

Doesn't make a single bit of difference.

>>3427266

>>3428707
LOL