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On July 01 2013 21:12 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 21:02 sabas123 wrote:On July 01 2013 20:55 DertoQq wrote:On July 01 2013 20:19 papaz wrote:As far as we know yes everything is just matter. However experiencing of the "I" is not. And here is why. If "you" (conciousness or whatever is the best term for this) is only matter than by any thought experiemt you should be able to be created. However any such thought experiemt will lead you to the duplicate problem. If there was an all powerful machine that could assemble a perfect copy of you in a current state it would still be a copy of you. Your "self" would not suddenly see the world from two different perspectives. So any attempt of "teleporting" whether your matter is teleported or you are recreated is still just copies of you. So despite "you" only consisting of matter there is no way of re creating you. It would be "someone else". Hence the "I" can not only be explained by matter. That being said I'm not suggesting anything supernatural or soul or anything alike. I'm simply stating that a materialistic view isn't enough to explain the "I" but there has to be some "interaction", "continuity of the mind" to explain how one feels the "I". This of course leads to the obvious and sad conclusion that ones your are dead you are really gone, as in even if there was an almighty that assembled your atoms back, the person waking up wouldn't be you  If you make a copy of yourself, you're just creating a new human with exactly the same brain as you. After this point, he is himself and you are yourself. You can't "copy yourself" simply because "you" don't exist. Let's take your example but use the cloning device on a pen. If you make an exact copy of a pen, you would get 2 pens. Are those 2 pens the same pens ? no, because there is 2 pens now ! Does this mean there is something more than matter to a pen ? no. But yes, I get your point, I actually tried to explain the same thing to someone a few years back. It's something weird to think about. but if your "self" was just made up by a series of responses of if A happens i will do B it wouldn't be a problem right since that would be all be patterned in your brain anyway. but i geuss just the biggest factor we need to know to anwser anything related to conscioussness is what it is and what it is formed by. It wouldn't be a problem and it isn't a problem. If I would clone you and then kill you, the "you" who is alive wouldn't even know about it and it wouldn't affect your life in the slightness. Nobody in the world would see any difference. There is no problems here.
Nobody in the world... except the person you killed. Which is the whole point.
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dude, he is dead ! he doesn't know ANYTHING now ! :D
Seriously, I don't see how this matters, I was just saying the though process of the clone would be strictly identical to the "real" one. Obviously if you keep both of them alive and tell him he is a clone, then stuff will change because they will adapt to the situation, but that's a all different subject.
On July 01 2013 21:07 Cynry wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 20:55 DertoQq wrote:On July 01 2013 20:19 papaz wrote:As far as we know yes everything is just matter. However experiencing of the "I" is not. And here is why. If "you" (conciousness or whatever is the best term for this) is only matter than by any thought experiemt you should be able to be created. However any such thought experiemt will lead you to the duplicate problem. If there was an all powerful machine that could assemble a perfect copy of you in a current state it would still be a copy of you. Your "self" would not suddenly see the world from two different perspectives. So any attempt of "teleporting" whether your matter is teleported or you are recreated is still just copies of you. So despite "you" only consisting of matter there is no way of re creating you. It would be "someone else". Hence the "I" can not only be explained by matter. That being said I'm not suggesting anything supernatural or soul or anything alike. I'm simply stating that a materialistic view isn't enough to explain the "I" but there has to be some "interaction", "continuity of the mind" to explain how one feels the "I". This of course leads to the obvious and sad conclusion that ones your are dead you are really gone, as in even if there was an almighty that assembled your atoms back, the person waking up wouldn't be you If you make a copy of yourself, you're just creating a new human with exactly the same brain as you. After this point, he is himself and you are yourself. You can't "copy yourself" simply because "you" don't exist. Let's take your example but use the cloning device on a pen. If you make an exact copy of a pen, you would get 2 pens. Are those 2 pens the same pens ? no, because there is 2 pens now ! Does this mean there is something more than matter to a pen ? no. But yes, I get your point, I actually tried to explain the same thing to someone a few years back. It's something weird to think about. Mh I like that. What about this. Your body is what allows conciousness to exist. But "you" is only the perspective this body has been through, modeling your brain along the way to fit in that perspective. Perspective is what makes us unique, because there can't be 2 objects having the exact same perspective.
that's a nice way to put it yes.
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Yeah but the moment you killed him doesn't exist for the clone.
So even though it would be the same for everyone else, at the level we are talking about those 2 bodies would have had a different perspective, be it only for a fraction of second.
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On July 01 2013 19:59 marconi wrote:
I think some people here need to experience psychedelics. Otherwise we all gonna turn into "biological computers".
The fact that psychedelics do work tells you that the mind is physical.
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I think the main philosophical point here is that the perspective can't be recreated. You could take a pen, divide it into atoms and then recreate it elsewhere. It would be the exact same pen, because it is physically the exact same pen. It was destroyed in one place and recreated in another, nothing was lost.
However, if we did the same thing with a human, would conciousness be transfered or not? We can all agree that it wouldn't, because if it would, we would get two perspectives if we clone ourselves (because honestly, using the same atoms or other atoms can't possibly make a difference).
Which means that if you destroy and recreate a pen, nothing is lost, the physics are identical so it's the same pen. With a human though, something immaterial is lost... the individuals perspective, the soul so to speak. However, the recreated clone obviously wouldn't realize this, neither would anyone else.
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On July 01 2013 21:36 Tobberoth wrote:
I think the main philosophical point here is that the perspective can't be recreated. You could take a pen, divide it into atoms and then recreate it elsewhere. It would be the exact same pen, because it is physically the exact same pen. It was destroyed in one place and recreated in another, nothing was lost.
However, if we did the same thing with a human, would conciousness be transfered or not? We can all agree that it wouldn't, because if it would, we would get two perspectives if we clone ourselves (because honestly, using the same atoms or other atoms can't possibly make a difference).
Which means that if you destroy and recreate a pen, nothing is lost, the physics are identical so it's the same pen. With a human though, something immaterial is lost... the individuals perspective, the soul so to speak. However, the recreated clone obviously wouldn't realize this, neither would anyone else.
Except context, location and arrangement matters. If you duplicate the pen and rearrange its atoms, it's a broken pen. If you rearrange organs, you die.
Same with your so-called perspective. Our bodies are constantly changing internally and contextually. The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day.
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Travis knows it.
All you can observe are correlates of your experiences. The mechanism through which physical processes turn into the thing we call consciousness is unknown.
It's known that the amount of intelligence and capabilities you lose is directly correlated to the loss of brain mass, that's how neurons can explain the quantity of your experiences.
But what remains unexplainable is the quality of your experiences. You have different areas in your brain for different functions, and while they might be different to a certain extent, it's (afaik) not known which part of them causes them to trigger a different quality of experience for each type of area.
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The perspective I think is wired in the brain. The issue is keeping continuity so the brain believes it is still the same object.
That would be broken with cloning.
And about our atoms, well, I believe we get a "new" body every 7 years or so ? It happens gradually of course. Continuity must be preserved.
@DoubleReed "multiple perspectives for one person" please explain that, seems illogical to me.
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The answer is yes.
The same as to the question: Is the computer all metals, plasics and electronics?
There is no higher purpose, no god, no soul... nothing. Just physics on all levels.
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On July 01 2013 21:36 Tobberoth wrote:
I think the main philosophical point here is that the perspective can't be recreated. You could take a pen, divide it into atoms and then recreate it elsewhere. It would be the exact same pen, because it is physically the exact same pen. It was destroyed in one place and recreated in another, nothing was lost.
However, if we did the same thing with a human, would conciousness be transfered or not? We can all agree that it wouldn't, because if it would, we would get two perspectives if we clone ourselves (because honestly, using the same atoms or other atoms can't possibly make a difference).
Which means that if you destroy and recreate a pen, nothing is lost, the physics are identical so it's the same pen. With a human though, something immaterial is lost... the individuals perspective, the soul so to speak. However, the recreated clone obviously wouldn't realize this, neither would anyone else.
You're not losing anything, because there is nothing more to be copied in the first place. You are your brain. If you copy yourself and then kill yourself, "you" are dead. It's as simple as that.
The thing is "you", "I", "them"... are purely abstract concept that your brain created to define his perspective.
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On July 01 2013 21:45 DoubleReed wrote:
The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but this sentence shows that your definition of "perspective" in this matter and mine are completely different. What I'm talking about is your individuality and your ability to experience things around you. While it evolves over time, you can definitely not have multiple of them.
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On July 01 2013 21:58 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 21:36 Tobberoth wrote:
I think the main philosophical point here is that the perspective can't be recreated. You could take a pen, divide it into atoms and then recreate it elsewhere. It would be the exact same pen, because it is physically the exact same pen. It was destroyed in one place and recreated in another, nothing was lost.
However, if we did the same thing with a human, would conciousness be transfered or not? We can all agree that it wouldn't, because if it would, we would get two perspectives if we clone ourselves (because honestly, using the same atoms or other atoms can't possibly make a difference).
Which means that if you destroy and recreate a pen, nothing is lost, the physics are identical so it's the same pen. With a human though, something immaterial is lost... the individuals perspective, the soul so to speak. However, the recreated clone obviously wouldn't realize this, neither would anyone else. You're not losing anything, because there is nothing more to be copied in the first place. You are your brain. If you copy yourself and then kill yourself, "you" are dead. It's as simple as that. The thing is "you", "I", "them"... are purely abstract concept that your brain created to define his perspective.
Indeed, there is nothing more to copy... because your soul, your perspective, your conciousness, whatevery you want to call it, is immaterial, it's something born out of the stuff you copied, but not brought with the copy. That very thing is lost.
You can call it an abstract concept, but that's not going to make me ever walk into a teleporter, because I realize my life would be lost even if no one would ever notice.
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On July 01 2013 20:19 papaz wrote:As far as we know yes everything is just matter. However experiencing of the "I" is not. And here is why. If "you" (conciousness or whatever is the best term for this) is only matter than by any thought experiemt you should be able to be created. However any such thought experiemt will lead you to the duplicate problem. If there was an all powerful machine that could assemble a perfect copy of you in a current state it would still be a copy of you. Your "self" would not suddenly see the world from two different perspectives. So any attempt of "teleporting" whether your matter is teleported or you are recreated is still just copies of you. So despite "you" only consisting of matter there is no way of re creating you. It would be "someone else". Hence the "I" can not only be explained by matter. That being said I'm not suggesting anything supernatural or soul or anything alike. I'm simply stating that a materialistic view isn't enough to explain the "I" but there has to be some "interaction", "continuity of the mind" to explain how one feels the "I". This of course leads to the obvious and sad conclusion that ones your are dead you are really gone, as in even if there was an almighty that assembled your atoms back, the person waking up wouldn't be you
I don't understand your problem.
Why would you see the world from two perspectives? By copying you create a new "I", both "I"s will have their own perspectives, although the way they perceive "I" will be the same in the instant of the creation, not counting the obviously different physical location. If you don't tell the copy that it is a copy, it will not know and as such be no different from you.
If nobody told you and there was no way of telling by observation (e.g. the part of the machine in which you stood in is the 'input') you wouldn't know if you are the copy or not.
Of course they are not completely identical and thus share the same mind because one is a copy. A copy is by necessity not identical because two things cannot be the same thing (see law of identity).
I think your problem stems from confusing logical identity (a thing is only identical to itself) with the colloquial use of identity (a copy is identical to the original)
"I" is just the concept of self perception, not some mystical thing. It is like any other thought just a function of the underlying bio-electrical state and if you copy that state, you copy the "I".
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it's not about believes it's about seeing the/an evolutionary path.
at the moment i'd say that the balance is way in favor if chemistry/electricity 95/5 (so mostly deterministic) but as we evolve, the mind will end up controlling those, else it'll go extinct.
a reaction is pre-determined, an action is thought of. a reaction has no free will, an action does.
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Pretty sure if we find a way to trick the brain into believing he was teleported, then it would work and you wouldn't lose your life.
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On July 01 2013 22:02 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 21:58 DertoQq wrote:On July 01 2013 21:36 Tobberoth wrote:
I think the main philosophical point here is that the perspective can't be recreated. You could take a pen, divide it into atoms and then recreate it elsewhere. It would be the exact same pen, because it is physically the exact same pen. It was destroyed in one place and recreated in another, nothing was lost.
However, if we did the same thing with a human, would conciousness be transfered or not? We can all agree that it wouldn't, because if it would, we would get two perspectives if we clone ourselves (because honestly, using the same atoms or other atoms can't possibly make a difference).
Which means that if you destroy and recreate a pen, nothing is lost, the physics are identical so it's the same pen. With a human though, something immaterial is lost... the individuals perspective, the soul so to speak. However, the recreated clone obviously wouldn't realize this, neither would anyone else. You're not losing anything, because there is nothing more to be copied in the first place. You are your brain. If you copy yourself and then kill yourself, "you" are dead. It's as simple as that. The thing is "you", "I", "them"... are purely abstract concept that your brain created to define his perspective. Indeed, there is nothing more to copy... because your soul, your perspective, your conciousness, whatevery you want to call it, is immaterial, it's something born out of the stuff you copied, but not brought with the copy. That very thing is lost. You can call it an abstract concept, but that's not going to make me ever walk into a teleporter, because I realize my life would be lost even if no one would ever notice.
If the teleporter = copy yourself then kill yourself, then yes, like I said, you would be dead =) But you don't need to have "soul" or immaterial stuff to explain that. It is very logical.
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On July 01 2013 21:59 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 21:45 DoubleReed wrote:
The same person has multiple "perspectives" several times a day. I'm not saying you are wrong, but this sentence shows that your definition of "perspective" in this matter and mine are completely different. What I'm talking about is your individuality and your ability to experience things around you. While it evolves over time, you can definitely not have multiple of them.
If your perspective is a changing, malleable thing then who's to say that the clones don't have the same perspective? It's the difference between shaping two identical pieces of clay into different shapes.
Are they different pieces of clay before you shape? After you shape them?
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I don't get the hoopla regarding this topic -- maybe someone cares to explain.
I don't mind the idea that chemical/electricity reactions/impulses are what make my brain work and are the cause of my feelings/thoughts. I don't get why that would/should bother people. I don't get why it should make me feel that my feelings are any less genuine. I don't get why I suddenly don't have free will because we have some understanding of how the human brain works. I don't get why this knowledge should affect beliefs regarding religion and/or someone's views on matters like having a soul.
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Isn't the mind an emergent property the brain?
So the answer would be yes/no*
* Depending upon how we class emergent and complex dynamical systems in regards to the physical world.
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United States2093 Posts
On July 01 2013 21:58 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 21:36 Tobberoth wrote:
I think the main philosophical point here is that the perspective can't be recreated. You could take a pen, divide it into atoms and then recreate it elsewhere. It would be the exact same pen, because it is physically the exact same pen. It was destroyed in one place and recreated in another, nothing was lost.
However, if we did the same thing with a human, would conciousness be transfered or not? We can all agree that it wouldn't, because if it would, we would get two perspectives if we clone ourselves (because honestly, using the same atoms or other atoms can't possibly make a difference).
Which means that if you destroy and recreate a pen, nothing is lost, the physics are identical so it's the same pen. With a human though, something immaterial is lost... the individuals perspective, the soul so to speak. However, the recreated clone obviously wouldn't realize this, neither would anyone else. You're not losing anything, because there is nothing more to be copied in the first place. You are your brain. If you copy yourself and then kill yourself, "you" are dead. It's as simple as that. The thing is "you", "I", "them"... are purely abstract concept that your brain created to define his perspective.
Then this leads to the question - what is the chemical and electrical process that governs such identity? Can it be copied, saved, and moved somewhere else?
We already know it can be destroyed if you damage the brain.
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EPT
