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Why isn't it possible to compare? Where is this assertion coming from?
Changing location and context is a change. It is a difference between two objects regardless of self-awareness. Location and context are "immaterial."
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On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original.
The all concept you're missing is that you can't "copy" something in the sense you're trying to. That's what I was trying to say with my pens example. When you do an identical copy of a pen, you get 2 pens. Are those 2 pens the same pen ? NO. There is two pen, like everything else in the universe, they are unique. (one difference for example is that they are not at the same place, because it's physically impossible). Yes, you can't make a perfect copy of a pen.
The same apply to your brain. If I copy it, there is 2 brains. After this point, they both have their own existence, they are not the same. If the original brain kills himself, then he is dead, it doesn't matter if there is a clone or what this clone is gonna do.
Why do you need to bring a mystical soul into this ? Is there something that doesn't make sense in the concept of a purely material brain ? This sound very logical to me.
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On July 01 2013 22:16 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 20:29 Tuczniak wrote:I wish there were some kind of soul independent on brain, but I don't think there is one  Just electric impulses and chemistry... It makes me sad. Why? And I direct it to all people who said this.
Because there is no hope in materialism.
People want to hope.
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Anyone who's reading and talking about the copying thing should see The Prestige btw. Awesome movie.
On July 02 2013 01:10 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:16 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 20:29 Tuczniak wrote:I wish there were some kind of soul independent on brain, but I don't think there is one Just electric impulses and chemistry... It makes me sad. Why? And I direct it to all people who said this. Because there is no hope in materialism. People want to hope.
There's plenty of hope in materialism. There's more hope actually. It means we can learn about EVERYTHING and not just half the world. Dualism implies that learning how things work is hopeless.
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On July 02 2013 01:10 sc2superfan101 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2013 22:16 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 20:29 Tuczniak wrote:I wish there were some kind of soul independent on brain, but I don't think there is one Just electric impulses and chemistry... It makes me sad. Why? And I direct it to all people who said this. Because there is no hope in materialism. People want to hope.
That is false. Many materialists have hope(s). Unless you mean specifically hope for life after death. But that is not prevented by materialism, although most people think it is.
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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 
This would be true except for the fact that "you" doesn't exist. It's just an illusion. Since the brain is constantly changing, "you" are created and destroyed each new moment.
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On July 02 2013 01:10 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original. The all concept you're missing is that you can't "copy" something in the sense you're trying to. That's what I was trying to say with my pens example. When you do an identical copy of a pen, you get 2 pens. Are those 2 pens the same pen ? NO. There is two pen, like everything else in the universe, they are unique. (one difference for example is that they are not at the same place, because it's physically impossible). Yes, you can't make a perfect copy of a pen. The same apply to your brain. If I copy it, there is 2 brains. After this point, they both have their own existence, they are not the same. If the original brain kills himself, then he is dead, it doesn't matter if there is a clone or what this clone is gonna do. Why do you need to bring a mystical soul into this ? Is there something that doesn't make sense in the concept of a purely material brain ? This sound very logical to me.
Yes, but if you copy a pen, you get an identical pen. It's 100% identical. It's in a different spot, to be sure, but you could just vaporize the original pen and put the new pen there, and it would be as if you didn't do anything at all to the pen. The same isn't true for a human, because the original would experience it. This experience is what makes the difference I'm talking about, it's key to the whole concept for me. A living self-aware being is completely different to anything else we know in this very situation, even though it's just material in both senses. From an outside perspective, there's no difference between the pen copying and the human copying, I agree with that. From the perspective of the human, there's a huge difference, and this difference makes up what I'm talking about. It's far more important than the materials which make up the brain.
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On July 02 2013 01:04 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 00:51 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original. So what's the problem? There's two people with the exact same identity now with two different perspectives diverging at the time of the split. There's nothing lost (other than location and context). I don't see anything problematic from the materialist perspective. I agree, if you simply do the copy, nothing is lost since the original is alive and has his self-awareness, and the copy has his self-awareness. I understand why you don't see a problem, because there isn't one. The problem is that you kill an individual if you do a destructive teleport, which you already agreed with. I haven't said anything else. I see where you're coming from. It's all physical, just like teleporting a pen is practically the same as teleporting a human, because even the stuff I'm talking about as immaterial is technically copied. However, what I'm putting emphasis on here is the self-awareness, and the meaning it has to the individual. This self-awareness isn't a part of a pen, so it's not possible to compare it. I find it to be philosophically incompatible so to speak. I guess one could say that the self-awareness can be copied, but not transferred, and from my point of view, two different (but identical at the start) self-awarenesses aren't the same, by the very fact that they aren't the same. Two pens in different places can IMO be the same pen if they are identical, but two identical people with two non-connected (even though identical) self-awarenesses are not, because from the perspective of one of the copied persons, there is something intrinsically completely different about them: The fact that they are themselves and not the other person. Something which isn't capable of self-awareness can never have, or at least experience, that difference.
I've been reading your little back and forth with DoubleReed and I want to ask you this:
Imagine if every night that you go to sleep, you are copied and the original is discarded. You are completely unaware of this and it's happened every night since birth.
What does it matter?
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On July 02 2013 01:17 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:10 DertoQq wrote:On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original. The all concept you're missing is that you can't "copy" something in the sense you're trying to. That's what I was trying to say with my pens example. When you do an identical copy of a pen, you get 2 pens. Are those 2 pens the same pen ? NO. There is two pen, like everything else in the universe, they are unique. (one difference for example is that they are not at the same place, because it's physically impossible). Yes, you can't make a perfect copy of a pen. The same apply to your brain. If I copy it, there is 2 brains. After this point, they both have their own existence, they are not the same. If the original brain kills himself, then he is dead, it doesn't matter if there is a clone or what this clone is gonna do. Why do you need to bring a mystical soul into this ? Is there something that doesn't make sense in the concept of a purely material brain ? This sound very logical to me. Yes, but if you copy a pen, you get an identical pen. It's 100% identical. It's in a different spot, to be sure, but you could just vaporize the original pen and put the new pen there, and it would be as if you didn't do anything at all to the pen. The same isn't true for a human, because the original would experience it. This experience is what makes the difference I'm talking about, it's key to the whole concept for me. A living self-aware being is completely different to anything else we know in this very situation, even though it's just material in both senses. From an outside perspective, there's no difference between the pen copying and the human copying, I agree with that. From the perspective of the human, there's a huge difference, and this difference makes up what I'm talking about. It's far more important than the materials which make up the brain.
Edit: Never mind, it's just a nonsensical argument.
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On July 02 2013 01:14 DoubleReed wrote:Anyone who's reading and talking about the copying thing should see The Prestige btw. Awesome movie. Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:10 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 20:29 Tuczniak wrote:I wish there were some kind of soul independent on brain, but I don't think there is one Just electric impulses and chemistry... It makes me sad. Why? And I direct it to all people who said this. Because there is no hope in materialism. People want to hope. There's plenty of hope in materialism. There's more hope actually. It means we can learn about EVERYTHING and not just half the world. Dualism implies that learning how things work is hopeless.
Is this necessarily true ? I think a lot of dualists would say that that you can learn about the world of ideals by pure reason.
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On July 02 2013 01:19 Reason wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:04 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:51 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original. So what's the problem? There's two people with the exact same identity now with two different perspectives diverging at the time of the split. There's nothing lost (other than location and context). I don't see anything problematic from the materialist perspective. I agree, if you simply do the copy, nothing is lost since the original is alive and has his self-awareness, and the copy has his self-awareness. I understand why you don't see a problem, because there isn't one. The problem is that you kill an individual if you do a destructive teleport, which you already agreed with. I haven't said anything else. I see where you're coming from. It's all physical, just like teleporting a pen is practically the same as teleporting a human, because even the stuff I'm talking about as immaterial is technically copied. However, what I'm putting emphasis on here is the self-awareness, and the meaning it has to the individual. This self-awareness isn't a part of a pen, so it's not possible to compare it. I find it to be philosophically incompatible so to speak. I guess one could say that the self-awareness can be copied, but not transferred, and from my point of view, two different (but identical at the start) self-awarenesses aren't the same, by the very fact that they aren't the same. Two pens in different places can IMO be the same pen if they are identical, but two identical people with two non-connected (even though identical) self-awarenesses are not, because from the perspective of one of the copied persons, there is something intrinsically completely different about them: The fact that they are themselves and not the other person. Something which isn't capable of self-awareness can never have, or at least experience, that difference. I've been reading your little back and forth with DoubleReed and I want to ask you this: Imagine if every night that you go to sleep, you are copied and the original is discarded. You are completely unaware of this and it's happened every night since birth. What does it matter?
That's a very scary concept, and indeed something I have thought about a lot. Does it matter? Not to anyone but the person dying, and the person dying would never know. It still gave me hypnophobia when I was younger, I had a very hard time going to sleep because I imagined that when I lost consciousness, I wouldn't wake up and a perfect copy of me would.
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The young monk who has been staring at you this whole time says :
"There is no pen."
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On July 02 2013 01:15 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:10 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 20:29 Tuczniak wrote:I wish there were some kind of soul independent on brain, but I don't think there is one Just electric impulses and chemistry... It makes me sad. Why? And I direct it to all people who said this. Because there is no hope in materialism. People want to hope. That is false. Many materialists have hope(s). Unless you mean specifically hope for life after death. But that is not prevented by materialism, although most people think it is.
No I mean that hope itself is just another biological urge, completely uncontrollable in any real sense. Your "hopes" are as meaningful as the dog's urge to procreate or the pigeon's urge to eat. You can say that you have hopes but "you" (in the sense that it is used) don't exist. You are just a bundle of inevitable sensations that at some point will cease to exist and have had no more effect upon the world than any other physical occurrence, probably much less than most. Your insignificance is entirely complete down to the fact that there is no you at all. It's a trick of the light, only there is no trick because a trick requires an illusion, an illusion requires a viewer, and we have no true viewer. We have machines that react to stimuli. Self-improvement is not a choice, nor is it anything more than a nonsensical string of words. Is it better for the machine to do A than it is to do B? Who says? The machine itself? It was biologically designed to say so. There is no objectively better, and no objectively worse. The murderer has committed no outrageous act by slaying the fellow machine, he has just performed a biologically inevitable action that resulted in other biologically inevitable actions. Nothing can be done to change the inevitable, and the machines simply experience the inevitable occurring, if it could even be called experience as the machines themselves do not exist except as a series of outputs. The love you hold is not love and you do not hold it. It is a biological inevitability wrapped within a biological inevitability. Entirely without meaning or purpose.
Personally, I find the utter rejection of these truths to be the ultimate evidence against the philosophical position that implies them. The fact that the materialist searches (in vain, according to his/her own beliefs) for "hope" is proof enough for me that at the deepest level, they do not wish for it to be true. The contradiction between what they claim is the logical view of reality and the emotional response to that view is quite telling. Ultimately, the materialist borrows hope from the spiritualist because the materialist has a spiritual being that yearns for recognition.
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"If our brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn´t."
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On July 02 2013 01:25 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:14 DoubleReed wrote:Anyone who's reading and talking about the copying thing should see The Prestige btw. Awesome movie. On July 02 2013 01:10 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 01 2013 22:16 mcc wrote:On July 01 2013 20:29 Tuczniak wrote:I wish there were some kind of soul independent on brain, but I don't think there is one Just electric impulses and chemistry... It makes me sad. Why? And I direct it to all people who said this. Because there is no hope in materialism. People want to hope. There's plenty of hope in materialism. There's more hope actually. It means we can learn about EVERYTHING and not just half the world. Dualism implies that learning how things work is hopeless. Is this necessarily true ? I think a lot of dualists would say that that you can learn about the world of ideals by pure reason.
I don't even know what that means.
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United States15275 Posts
On July 01 2013 10:11 electronic voyeur wrote:
Life is complex, we all get that. Let's focus a bit more, human beings, of all human life forms, is arguably the most complex one, having the only faculty of consciousness capable of complex language, ideas, architecture, composing orchestral pieces, feeling depressed, feel depressed about feeling depressed, writing novels, haikus, building a computer, cloning animals, brain studying itself, appreciating the sunset, and more.
This begs the question, and even impoverishes imagination if you really think hard about it, are all these things, art, architecture, the internet, religion, sociological theory, space rocket, Einstein's thought experiments, emotions, dance, self-reflection merely products of chemical and electrical impulses in the human brain?
Yes.
On July 01 2013 10:11 electronic voyeur wrote:To be more exact - is the mind, in all its complexity, physical, the is, the chemical and electric networks in the brain? What about morality, love, ideas, empathy, compassion, imagination? Are these mere byproducts of physiological processes that are in a way similar to the chemical and electrical impulses experienced by other animals?
What are your thoughts? Is the mind all physical?
Yes and no. You are confusing abstraction with thought processes.
Yes. Look up the concept of emergence.
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It doesn't make difference if it is or if it isn't.
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On July 02 2013 01:17 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:10 DertoQq wrote:On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original. The all concept you're missing is that you can't "copy" something in the sense you're trying to. That's what I was trying to say with my pens example. When you do an identical copy of a pen, you get 2 pens. Are those 2 pens the same pen ? NO. There is two pen, like everything else in the universe, they are unique. (one difference for example is that they are not at the same place, because it's physically impossible). Yes, you can't make a perfect copy of a pen. The same apply to your brain. If I copy it, there is 2 brains. After this point, they both have their own existence, they are not the same. If the original brain kills himself, then he is dead, it doesn't matter if there is a clone or what this clone is gonna do. Why do you need to bring a mystical soul into this ? Is there something that doesn't make sense in the concept of a purely material brain ? This sound very logical to me. Yes, but if you copy a pen, you get an identical pen. It's 100% identical. It's in a different spot, to be sure, but you could just vaporize the original pen and put the new pen there, and it would be as if you didn't do anything at all to the pen. The same isn't true for a human, because the original would experience it. This experience is what makes the difference I'm talking about, it's key to the whole concept for me. A living self-aware being is completely different to anything else we know in this very situation, even though it's just material in both senses. From an outside perspective, there's no difference between the pen copying and the human copying, I agree with that. From the perspective of the human, there's a huge difference, and this difference makes up what I'm talking about. It's far more important than the materials which make up the brain.
Of course from the perspective of the human there is a difference, YOU DIED (you as in the original, not your identity). It doesn't matter how fast you make the copy / replacement and everything. You still did (a) a copy (b) a kill.
My question is, what is the problem with that ? it is perfectly logical. You don't have to bring a soul into that.
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On July 02 2013 01:27 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:19 Reason wrote:On July 02 2013 01:04 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:51 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original. So what's the problem? There's two people with the exact same identity now with two different perspectives diverging at the time of the split. There's nothing lost (other than location and context). I don't see anything problematic from the materialist perspective. I agree, if you simply do the copy, nothing is lost since the original is alive and has his self-awareness, and the copy has his self-awareness. I understand why you don't see a problem, because there isn't one. The problem is that you kill an individual if you do a destructive teleport, which you already agreed with. I haven't said anything else. I see where you're coming from. It's all physical, just like teleporting a pen is practically the same as teleporting a human, because even the stuff I'm talking about as immaterial is technically copied. However, what I'm putting emphasis on here is the self-awareness, and the meaning it has to the individual. This self-awareness isn't a part of a pen, so it's not possible to compare it. I find it to be philosophically incompatible so to speak. I guess one could say that the self-awareness can be copied, but not transferred, and from my point of view, two different (but identical at the start) self-awarenesses aren't the same, by the very fact that they aren't the same. Two pens in different places can IMO be the same pen if they are identical, but two identical people with two non-connected (even though identical) self-awarenesses are not, because from the perspective of one of the copied persons, there is something intrinsically completely different about them: The fact that they are themselves and not the other person. Something which isn't capable of self-awareness can never have, or at least experience, that difference. I've been reading your little back and forth with DoubleReed and I want to ask you this: Imagine if every night that you go to sleep, you are copied and the original is discarded. You are completely unaware of this and it's happened every night since birth. What does it matter? That's a very scary concept, and indeed something I have thought about a lot. Does it matter? Not to anyone but the person dying, and the person dying would never know. It still gave me hypnophobia when I was younger, I had a very hard time going to sleep because I imagined that when I lost consciousness, I wouldn't wake up and a perfect copy of me would.
Okay, it's not my intention to freak you out lol but I would be grateful if you would explore this question in the context of your discussion rather than leaving me with a slightly upsetting anecdote.
On July 02 2013 01:35 Nedereden wrote:
"If our brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn´t."
That's more than likely going to become a fallacy in the not too distant future so I'd be hesitant to post that in bold on the internet as if you're saying something profound.
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On July 02 2013 01:36 DertoQq wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2013 01:17 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 01:10 DertoQq wrote:On July 02 2013 00:43 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:37 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:33 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:29 DoubleReed wrote:On July 02 2013 00:26 Tobberoth wrote:On July 02 2013 00:24 DoubleReed wrote:
Tobberoth, why didn't you respond to me saying that everything is more than the sum of its parts? That life and consciousness are non-unique in this regard? Because I already wrote several times that the whole point is that something is self-aware and can thus mourn itself being lost. A pen, a stone, or any other object you come up with are simply 100% impossible to compare, they lack the very thing I'm talking about. The computer doesn't give a shit if I light it on fire, but you would probably give a shit if I shot you with a gun. I might not care if I've been beaten unconscious but not dead. Living things are not always self-awareness. I fail to see how self-awareness is relevant actually. It's relevant because it can't be copied, like I wrote literally two posts ago. I'm self-aware. If I'm copied and die, I'm dead. The copy is identical to me in every way, but my individual perspective, my self-awareness is gone. Therefor, something is lost when I'm killed and copied, even though no one might ever notice or know. Something which isn't self-aware can never be compared because since no one else would notice and it can't notice or think about it itself, nothing is lost. I can kill a tree and copy it. The tree doesn't care, no one else knows. It's alive, but not self-aware, so there's no issue. Why isn't the self-awareness copied as well? Because there's a disconnect? So? You'd be here. Then you'd die and another you with your exact identity would be there. There might be disconnect, but people have disconnects all the time. Blinking? It sounds like you're just asserting that there is something magical that cannot be copied, and I don't know why. Exactly, because there's a very big difference between this disconnect and normal disconnects. When you blink, you're still you. When you sleep, you're still you. When you die and get copied, you're still you? Then what about if you get copied and AREN'T killed? There's obviously not a disconnect then you becoming two people at the same time, so there can't be a disconnect between the two forms at all. The self-awareness isn't copied, because the self-awareness is still with the original, whether you kill that original or not logically shouldn't have any impact. I should say though, that I definitely think the copy would have a disconnect like the one you're talking about, because if it was copied perfectly, it obviously has the exact same memories etc as the original.. so the copy would never realize anything was lost, only the dead original. The all concept you're missing is that you can't "copy" something in the sense you're trying to. That's what I was trying to say with my pens example. When you do an identical copy of a pen, you get 2 pens. Are those 2 pens the same pen ? NO. There is two pen, like everything else in the universe, they are unique. (one difference for example is that they are not at the same place, because it's physically impossible). Yes, you can't make a perfect copy of a pen. The same apply to your brain. If I copy it, there is 2 brains. After this point, they both have their own existence, they are not the same. If the original brain kills himself, then he is dead, it doesn't matter if there is a clone or what this clone is gonna do. Why do you need to bring a mystical soul into this ? Is there something that doesn't make sense in the concept of a purely material brain ? This sound very logical to me. Yes, but if you copy a pen, you get an identical pen. It's 100% identical. It's in a different spot, to be sure, but you could just vaporize the original pen and put the new pen there, and it would be as if you didn't do anything at all to the pen. The same isn't true for a human, because the original would experience it. This experience is what makes the difference I'm talking about, it's key to the whole concept for me. A living self-aware being is completely different to anything else we know in this very situation, even though it's just material in both senses. From an outside perspective, there's no difference between the pen copying and the human copying, I agree with that. From the perspective of the human, there's a huge difference, and this difference makes up what I'm talking about. It's far more important than the materials which make up the brain. Of course from the perspective of the human there is a difference, YOU DIED (you as in the original, not your identity). It doesn't matter how fast you make the copy / replacement and everything. You still did (a) a copy (b) a kill. My question is, what is the problem with that ? it is perfectly logical. You don't have to bring a soul into that.
What? How is it perfectly logical to point to a hypothetical, human copying scenario as proof of anything other than the construction of a hypothetical? Are we supposed to say, "this can't be" or something?
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EPT
