I have followed the thread since the beginning and was under the impression that the overall consensus was on your side, oh men of great science. Some posts do itch, arguments go in circle, but overall it doesn't seem that unreasonnable, does it ?
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".
No that's just it.
You DON'T copy the "I" from a SUBJECTIVE point of view which is what I was trying to get at.
Objectively no one will tell the difference between me and a perfect replicate. Not even the clone itself. But when I die/deassebled "I" am gone.
the other one lives on but that's not me and in a case where this obviouly boils down to "will I survive my death" the answer is clearly "no" which is the point I was trying to make.
There is "no comfort" for the subjective in knowing that someone else from an objective point of view is indistinguishable from the subjective self.
Although I have no problem with the concept of not existing since that isn't some kind of "state" that I will be aware of. But the discussion on what conciousness and the feeling of I is and that there is something in our bodies that can't be copied (the self identity) is fascinating because it shows that within material there can be something that clearly can't not be explained by matter only.
When you copy someone, it doesn't matter which of them you kill, from the survivor's perspective you always killed the copy ^^
Sorry if that's been mentioned already but it's kind of cool.
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Annyway,it is impossible to make an exact copy of annything because for it to be an exact copy it has to be in exactly the same place (so it experiences exactly the same outward forces and changes due to these forces) and according to pauli it is impossible for 2 particles to be in exactly the same place. Think there must be something in quantum mechanics as well that prevents exact copys, how can you make an exact copy of something wich is uncertain?
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Annyway,it is impossible to make an exact copy of annything because for it to be an exact copy it has to be in exactly the same place (so it experiences exactly the same outward forces and changes due to these forces) and according to pauli it is impossible for 2 particles to be in exactly the same place. Think there must be something in quantum mechanics as well that prevents exact copys, how can you make an exact copy of something wich is uncertain?
I was think something along the lines of quantum entanglement but this discussion has gone silly anyway.
On July 02 2013 01:10 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] 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.
Saying that it all means nothing is of course nonsense, as it means something to me. I might be materialistic and deterministic "machine", but that does not negate my autonomy.
By definition, it does...
I also have free will unless I am being forced, that is because I am autonomous.
You just said you have free-will because you have free-will.
I do not search for "hope". I have my hopes. I hope that I will not die before I am old. That is not some mystical hope, that is just biological emotion.
Precisely. Biological emotion that you have absolutely no control over and are entirely incapable of changing. Most people would not call the instinctual urge to run away from a hopeless situation "hope". The hope you have is not something that is meaningful in any true sense of the word.
Basically what you are saying is that emotions are more valid form of knowledge than reason ? That all those instincts that lead us to do stupid shit should be listened to, because they are the sign of spiritual being.
I'm saying that the fact that your position is not only biologically untenable, but also carries with it the necessity of "deluding yourself" to be happy is a good indication that the position itself is invalid.
Now please explain how religion is not just another delusion ? Also, one may not control the nature of emotions (anger is anger etc), but a lot can be achieved about what trigger said emotions.
Religion could be delusion... sure. So what? There is no evidence to say that it is and some evidence to say that it isn't (though let's not get into that discussion).
The whole point of determinism is that nothing whatsoever can be "achieved" about triggers or anything at all. What will occur will occur regardless of any non-existent "action" being taken by "actors" that aren't there. Efforts to avoid/embrace a specific turn of events are themselves predetermined, as is their eventual (and inevitable) efficacy.
The face a coin will land on is determined at the moment you flip it, I think anyone can agree on that. Does it make it useless to flip a coin when you want to decide something ? Does it make it less random ? no. It doesn't change anything at all.
This can be applied with your entire life or the universe, but it still doesn't change anything. "Determinism" is a kind of information that have no concrete effect.
Of course it makes it less random, it isn't random at all. Just because you are incapable to predict if the coin will land heads or tails doesn't mean it's random. If it's determined how the coin will land when you flip it (because of the initial state of the coin, the hand, the force used, the current atmosphere etc), it's not random, there's a pattern to it. You can pretend that it is random, and use the illusion of randomness to make decisions for you, but it's still not random.
It doesn't have to have a concrete effect, it's a philosophical concept. Either everything was decided more or less at the moment of big bang, or it wasn't. Either it's predetermined what I will do tommorrow at 3PM, or it isn't. We can't prove it and it's going to happen regardless, so it doesn't have any concrete effect. Then again, most philosophical questions do not.
Random is a weird concept that doesn't mean much. I was using it in the sense of pseudo-randomness.
Anyway, I was responding to people saying stuff like "Determinism make your life meaningless etc..". I was simply noting that it doesn't matter if you think flipping a coin is determined or not, it is still useful to flip a coin and it shouldn't affect your life whatsoever (ie: you're not losing any "meaning" of your life).
The meaning of life is a philosophical question, whether you have a meaningful life or not is subjective and has no concrete effect. Yet it affects people a lot.
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Not to the survivor. You walk into a copy machine, you walk out, the other you is killed. You're the original right? Well, you can't possibly know that since you have the exact same memories. Someone who watched the event will know which is which if there was a time difference etc, but the survivor has no sense of that.
So what? I find the emergence of complexity from a set of basic physical laws way more interesting than the ridiculous idea that there must be something otherworldly to the mind.
On July 02 2013 19:16 Maenander wrote: So what? I find the emergence of complexity from a set of basic physical laws way more interesting than the ridiculous idea that there must be something otherworldly to the mind.
Yeah me too. Emergent properties of dynamical systems are the way to have your cake and eat it.
On July 02 2013 01:15 mcc wrote: [quote] 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.
Saying that it all means nothing is of course nonsense, as it means something to me. I might be materialistic and deterministic "machine", but that does not negate my autonomy.
By definition, it does...
I also have free will unless I am being forced, that is because I am autonomous.
You just said you have free-will because you have free-will.
I do not search for "hope". I have my hopes. I hope that I will not die before I am old. That is not some mystical hope, that is just biological emotion.
Precisely. Biological emotion that you have absolutely no control over and are entirely incapable of changing. Most people would not call the instinctual urge to run away from a hopeless situation "hope". The hope you have is not something that is meaningful in any true sense of the word.
Basically what you are saying is that emotions are more valid form of knowledge than reason ? That all those instincts that lead us to do stupid shit should be listened to, because they are the sign of spiritual being.
I'm saying that the fact that your position is not only biologically untenable, but also carries with it the necessity of "deluding yourself" to be happy is a good indication that the position itself is invalid.
Now please explain how religion is not just another delusion ? Also, one may not control the nature of emotions (anger is anger etc), but a lot can be achieved about what trigger said emotions.
Religion could be delusion... sure. So what? There is no evidence to say that it is and some evidence to say that it isn't (though let's not get into that discussion).
The whole point of determinism is that nothing whatsoever can be "achieved" about triggers or anything at all. What will occur will occur regardless of any non-existent "action" being taken by "actors" that aren't there. Efforts to avoid/embrace a specific turn of events are themselves predetermined, as is their eventual (and inevitable) efficacy.
The face a coin will land on is determined at the moment you flip it, I think anyone can agree on that. Does it make it useless to flip a coin when you want to decide something ? Does it make it less random ? no. It doesn't change anything at all.
This can be applied with your entire life or the universe, but it still doesn't change anything. "Determinism" is a kind of information that have no concrete effect.
Of course it makes it less random, it isn't random at all. Just because you are incapable to predict if the coin will land heads or tails doesn't mean it's random. If it's determined how the coin will land when you flip it (because of the initial state of the coin, the hand, the force used, the current atmosphere etc), it's not random, there's a pattern to it. You can pretend that it is random, and use the illusion of randomness to make decisions for you, but it's still not random.
It doesn't have to have a concrete effect, it's a philosophical concept. Either everything was decided more or less at the moment of big bang, or it wasn't. Either it's predetermined what I will do tommorrow at 3PM, or it isn't. We can't prove it and it's going to happen regardless, so it doesn't have any concrete effect. Then again, most philosophical questions do not.
Random is a weird concept that doesn't mean much. I was using it in the sense of pseudo-randomness.
Anyway, I was responding to people saying stuff like "Determinism make your life meaningless etc..". I was simply noting that it doesn't matter if you think flipping a coin is determined or not, it is still useful to flip a coin and it shouldn't affect your life whatsoever (ie: you're not losing any "meaning" of your life).
The meaning of life is a philosophical question, whether you have a meaningful life or not is subjective and has no concrete effect. Yet it affects people a lot.
My point is : You can believe in determinism and still find a meaning of life.
On July 02 2013 01:32 sc2superfan101 wrote: [quote] 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.
Saying that it all means nothing is of course nonsense, as it means something to me. I might be materialistic and deterministic "machine", but that does not negate my autonomy.
By definition, it does...
I also have free will unless I am being forced, that is because I am autonomous.
You just said you have free-will because you have free-will.
I do not search for "hope". I have my hopes. I hope that I will not die before I am old. That is not some mystical hope, that is just biological emotion.
Precisely. Biological emotion that you have absolutely no control over and are entirely incapable of changing. Most people would not call the instinctual urge to run away from a hopeless situation "hope". The hope you have is not something that is meaningful in any true sense of the word.
Basically what you are saying is that emotions are more valid form of knowledge than reason ? That all those instincts that lead us to do stupid shit should be listened to, because they are the sign of spiritual being.
I'm saying that the fact that your position is not only biologically untenable, but also carries with it the necessity of "deluding yourself" to be happy is a good indication that the position itself is invalid.
Now please explain how religion is not just another delusion ? Also, one may not control the nature of emotions (anger is anger etc), but a lot can be achieved about what trigger said emotions.
Religion could be delusion... sure. So what? There is no evidence to say that it is and some evidence to say that it isn't (though let's not get into that discussion).
The whole point of determinism is that nothing whatsoever can be "achieved" about triggers or anything at all. What will occur will occur regardless of any non-existent "action" being taken by "actors" that aren't there. Efforts to avoid/embrace a specific turn of events are themselves predetermined, as is their eventual (and inevitable) efficacy.
The face a coin will land on is determined at the moment you flip it, I think anyone can agree on that. Does it make it useless to flip a coin when you want to decide something ? Does it make it less random ? no. It doesn't change anything at all.
This can be applied with your entire life or the universe, but it still doesn't change anything. "Determinism" is a kind of information that have no concrete effect.
Of course it makes it less random, it isn't random at all. Just because you are incapable to predict if the coin will land heads or tails doesn't mean it's random. If it's determined how the coin will land when you flip it (because of the initial state of the coin, the hand, the force used, the current atmosphere etc), it's not random, there's a pattern to it. You can pretend that it is random, and use the illusion of randomness to make decisions for you, but it's still not random.
It doesn't have to have a concrete effect, it's a philosophical concept. Either everything was decided more or less at the moment of big bang, or it wasn't. Either it's predetermined what I will do tommorrow at 3PM, or it isn't. We can't prove it and it's going to happen regardless, so it doesn't have any concrete effect. Then again, most philosophical questions do not.
Random is a weird concept that doesn't mean much. I was using it in the sense of pseudo-randomness.
Anyway, I was responding to people saying stuff like "Determinism make your life meaningless etc..". I was simply noting that it doesn't matter if you think flipping a coin is determined or not, it is still useful to flip a coin and it shouldn't affect your life whatsoever (ie: you're not losing any "meaning" of your life).
The meaning of life is a philosophical question, whether you have a meaningful life or not is subjective and has no concrete effect. Yet it affects people a lot.
My point is : You can believe in determinism and still find a meaning of life.
Sure, or you can not. You can be a person who just finds it all meaningless if everything is predetermined. Saying "Flipping a coin is just as random" to a person who is of the philosophy that free will is important is just meaningless.
Personally, I agree with you. I'm a determinist and I don't think of it as a problem, but a lot of people disagree.
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Not to the survivor. You walk into a copy machine, you walk out, the other you is killed. You're the original right? Well, you can't possibly know that since you have the exact same memories. Someone who watched the event will know which is which if there was a time difference etc, but the survivor has no sense of that.
It doesnt work like this.
If the machine copies you, you will still have the same consciousness, you will still be the same but the machine will make a copy of you so there are now 2 identical people. If it's you who gets to die, you, your own consciousness really die and your copy survive.
It doesnt change much for other people because they will have the exact copy of you but you will still die which is a pity btw.
Where to start hmm.. The mind body problem is an unsolved issue for philosphers and scientists alike. You can believe reality is deterministic and that choices are irrelevant. If you think about the chemical nature of the universe and yourself you can say that everything happens because of physical laws and constants, that cause everything that has happened and will happen based on these laws. Then you have no free will and everything is up to fate.
I ascribe to the notion that the mind body problem can't be solved by classical physics and there is more to it. I like to think that free will exists and consciousness will someday be explained through quantum physics. Maybe through some sort of quantum measurement, that on the most basic level you observe multiple possible avenues of decision and decide to observe or pick one.
Think about computers, normal computer logic is 1 or 0, thats it. When you come down to it, a lot of randomness happens there are bugs errors glitches but its determined by a hard 1 or 0. Quantum computers are a bit different. Bits are 1 or 0 vs Qubit being 1 or 0 or existing in superposition awaiting to be defined by observation.
More to the point, is there something more to the mind? Why not? For all we know there is a soul but it's bad science to assume. Without evidence you really can't say, and proving this won't happen anytime soon either.
On July 02 2013 20:01 FoxShine wrote: Think about computers, normal computer logic is 1 or 0, thats it. When you come down to it, a lot of randomness happens there are bugs errors glitches but its determined by a hard 1 or 0. Quantum computers are a bit different. Bits are 1 or 0 vs Qubit being 1 or 0 or existing in superposition awaiting to be defined by observation.
Just to clear that up, there is no randomness in computers. bugs are simply errors made by humans.
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Not to the survivor. You walk into a copy machine, you walk out, the other you is killed. You're the original right? Well, you can't possibly know that since you have the exact same memories. Someone who watched the event will know which is which if there was a time difference etc, but the survivor has no sense of that.
It doesnt work like this.
If the machine copies you, you will still have the same consciousness, you will still be the same but the machine will make a copy of you so there are now 2 identical people. If it's you who gets to die, you, your own consciousness really die and your copy survive.
It doesnt change much for other people because they will have the exact copy of you but you will still die which is a pity btw.
This is what I have said all topic. It has nothing to do with the post you quoted. Every copy will be identical to the original, and thus believe they are the original. Yes, if you are the original and are killed, you die and cease to exist. That doesn't stop the copy from thinking it's the original.
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Not to the survivor. You walk into a copy machine, you walk out, the other you is killed. You're the original right? Well, you can't possibly know that since you have the exact same memories. Someone who watched the event will know which is which if there was a time difference etc, but the survivor has no sense of that.
It doesnt work like this.
If the machine copies you, you will still have the same consciousness, you will still be the same but the machine will make a copy of you so there are now 2 identical people. If it's you who gets to die, you, your own consciousness really die and your copy survive.
It doesnt change much for other people because they will have the exact copy of you but you will still die which is a pity btw.
This is what I have said all topic. It has nothing to do with the post you quoted. Every copy will be identical to the original, and thus believe they are the original. Yes, if you are the original and are killed, you die and cease to exist. That doesn't stop the copy from thinking it's the original.
why would the copy have the notion of 'original'?. does original = self?
On July 02 2013 20:01 FoxShine wrote: Think about computers, normal computer logic is 1 or 0, thats it. When you come down to it, a lot of randomness happens there are bugs errors glitches but its determined by a hard 1 or 0. Quantum computers are a bit different. Bits are 1 or 0 vs Qubit being 1 or 0 or existing in superposition awaiting to be defined by observation.
Just to clear that up, there is no randomness in computers. bugs are simply errors made by humans.
I agree with the sentiment. but It's not entirely true. There can be electrical fluctuations, faulty components, or software issues that cause data corruption or errors. You can probably pinpoint the source for any bug, but the bottom line is shit happens and not always just by a crappy user
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Not to the survivor. You walk into a copy machine, you walk out, the other you is killed. You're the original right? Well, you can't possibly know that since you have the exact same memories. Someone who watched the event will know which is which if there was a time difference etc, but the survivor has no sense of that.
It doesnt work like this.
If the machine copies you, you will still have the same consciousness, you will still be the same but the machine will make a copy of you so there are now 2 identical people. If it's you who gets to die, you, your own consciousness really die and your copy survive.
It doesnt change much for other people because they will have the exact copy of you but you will still die which is a pity btw.
This is what I have said all topic. It has nothing to do with the post you quoted. Every copy will be identical to the original, and thus believe they are the original. Yes, if you are the original and are killed, you die and cease to exist. That doesn't stop the copy from thinking it's the original.
why would the copy have the notion of 'original'?. does original = self?
A person walks into a copying machine. Two people come out. Both people remember being the one entering the copying machine, and they can't tell if they are the one who entered the machine, or the copy.
that can only be possible if they where made at exactly the same time, else the one who is made first is clearly the original and the one who is made later is obviously the copy?
Not to the survivor. You walk into a copy machine, you walk out, the other you is killed. You're the original right? Well, you can't possibly know that since you have the exact same memories. Someone who watched the event will know which is which if there was a time difference etc, but the survivor has no sense of that.
It doesnt work like this.
If the machine copies you, you will still have the same consciousness, you will still be the same but the machine will make a copy of you so there are now 2 identical people. If it's you who gets to die, you, your own consciousness really die and your copy survive.
It doesnt change much for other people because they will have the exact copy of you but you will still die which is a pity btw.
This is what I have said all topic. It has nothing to do with the post you quoted. Every copy will be identical to the original, and thus believe they are the original. Yes, if you are the original and are killed, you die and cease to exist. That doesn't stop the copy from thinking it's the original.
why would the copy have the notion of 'original'?. does original = self?
A person walks into a copying machine. Two people come out. Both people remember being the one entering the copying machine. If one is immediately killed, the other one will have no way of knowing if he was the copy, or the one who actually entered the machine.
Simple as that.
it wouldn't matter in that case, for any of them, since the person walking into a copying machine could also be a copy.
There is some thories about the brain functioning like a quantum computer. Very interesting! + Show Spoiler +
Stapp's work on 'Quantum Theories of the Mind'
Stapp does not accept the MWI, but prefers the Copenhagen Interpretation for reasons - essentially matter of philosophical preference - given in Stapp (April, 1996) and (July 21, 1998). This does not affect the useful analysis he puts forward concerning the quantum effects inside synapses.
Stapp shows that quantum effects are indeed important in the way the brain operates. In fact, they must have a dramatic effect on the function if the brain - perhaps allowing it to function as a 'quantum computer' and take advantage of search algorithms, perhaps similar to that proposed by Grover (1997)
Stapp's (April, 1996) evidence that quantum effects must be present in the brain is as follows:
a) A calcium ion entering a bouton through a microchannel of diameter x must, by Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, have a momentum spread of hbar/x, and hence a velocity spread of (hbar/x)/m, and hence a spatial spread in time t, if the particle were freely moving, of t(hbar/x)/m. Taking t to be 200 microseconds, the typical time for the ion to diffuse from the microchannel opening to a triggering site for the release of a vesicle of neurotransmitter, and taking x to be one nanometer, and including a factor of 10-5 for diffusion slowing, one finds the diameter of the wave function to be about 40 times 10-8 centimeters, which is comparable to the size of the calcium ion itself.
In other words, it is quite feasible that in some universes a neurotransmitter will activate its target, whereas in others it will not, simply due to the 'Heisenberg uncertainty principle'.
This is important when trying to understand how the brain can act as a 'quantum computer', and very interesting when we take these ideas in conjunction with Tegmark's experiment.
EPT
