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Welcome To Life

tomscott.com

131–140 of 188 posts

Re: Welcome To Life

#131
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You not only misstate my assumptions, but seem to miss my point entirely. Here is my point: the original human will not experience continuity, therefore it's instinct for self-preservation will not be satisfied. The best it can hope for is to take comfort in knowing that a copy will survive. Personally, this does not comfort me. I don't doubt the possibility of a very high fidelity copy and supporting simulation, for…

Which one is the original? Both have the same memories; I think they both have a good claim to that identity.

The claim to the identity is not the issue, the issue is that the person who got copied will die and experience that death.

The existence of a copy does not make the original person to resucitate or otherwise keep perceiving and thinking.

To express it in a bad analogy: you can have a bit by bit backup copy of a harddrive, but when a power surge burns the CPU and the disk, you have to throw both away. You can buy a new CPU and place the backup, but the hardware is different, there is a shutdown moment, and when you power back, the continuity is lost, it's a different entity what gets booted up.

To preserve the consciousness of a person, between the "hardware change" I see no other option to the existence of something like a central repository of consciousness outside both the body and the computer hosting the simulation that gets automatically attached to a particular set of memories/perceptions/experiences (and whatever else defines a consciousness), so when you die, it stores your consciousness and when the simulation is booted up, the continuity is triggered. I find that far fetched.

Re: Welcome To Life

#132
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granted that consciousness is not fully understood, can we not agree that it is entirely manifest in the brain? I mean, you don't believe that human consciousness somehow survives the body after brain death, do you? Even if the cloned memories could be streamed from your brain into a running simulation, allowing a memory of crossing the threshold from the physical world to the digital one to be created in the simulat…

I believe that human consciousness is entirely manifest in the brain (and, of course, it's effected by other nerves elsewhere in the body). But moreover, I believe that brain is performing "normal computation," by which I mean Turing complete computation. Because of that, there is no real reason why the same computation responsible for human consciousness couldn't run equivalently on other Turing complete hardware.

I could imagine how a suficiently advanced machine could simulate one or more consciousnesses.

What I can't imagine is how you, the person sitting in front of the computer will somehow wake up in the computer. I can only see copies waking up. Even if you are dead. For the people who love you, having a copy would be great, but you will still be dead.

Re: Welcome To Life

#134
post #116
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may as well internalize that Warren Buffett's experiences are equally mine, or a strain of bacteria. If we're not defining "self" through any real continuity and instead just making it an arbitrary label, there's no reason everybody can't be me. It becomes a bit meaningless.

Sleep and anesthesia break continuity, as has be reported elsewhere in this thread, so self is not about moment to moment continuity. The reason your copy is equally you vs. Warren Buffet is that your copy shared every molecule in your body and every thought in your head for your entire life up until the moment of splitting off.

Let's imagine you run the simulation when you are still alive. Are both copies you? Wouldn't each copy believe it's a full consciousness and not half a consciousness?

Assume you do a regular (or even automatic and continuous) sync between the copies. Which copy would you prefer survived, if one of them were to die?

Re: Welcome To Life

#135
post #115
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course both are. But still, you're only ever going to be conscious from the perspective contained within the original you. The copy may be mathematically identical, but it does not make sense that there would be any kind of a magical transition of consciousness from one to the other. The other "you" would have its own consciousness entirely separate from yours. I.e., if you copy yourself and kill the original…

Words fail me. Imagine I have a magical device with which I can "stop time", or more precisely, stop movement of all particles except mine. In the beginning I am at our right. I stop time, move leisurely to your left and resume time. What you see is me teleporting from your right to your left. You don't feel "trapped in a body who can't move", because your neurons are also magically frozen. Your consciousness feel co…

I will read what you suggest, but perhaps you can illustrate how would the sensation of identity will transfer from the physical body to the digital body? Because your example does not explain it.

Re: Welcome To Life

#136
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure. Your body changes all the time. Your mind is always running on different hardware than it was just a few moments before. The changes are just small at each step. >I'm sorry, but I still do not think that the patient will experience being uploaded into a computer. If the copy/delete process was (perceptually, hence effectively) instantaneous, what is the difference? Lets say your biological body was goin…

> Whats the problem with that? How is it any different than what happens to your body on a day-to-day basis, now, anyway? Or how is it different that going into sleep and waking up?

Going to sleep does not cause the brain to actually power off. It's still running, your consciousness is just different. You still wake up from loud noises and light, and external stimuli can still influence your dreams.

Re: Welcome To Life

#137

Human mind keeps only few key details about "copyrighted works" we observed. These are not enough details stored in order to violate copyright.

That's why some people can recite whole poems and other people can play songs from memory while singing them too. That's why you know just when to pause when you're singing to a song on the radio and the singer stops, and you know when the pitch changes, and what that particular beat is in the background that you follow.

There's more than enough details to be considered a violation of copyright.

Re: Welcome To Life

#138
post #95
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that human metamorphosis is extremely interesting, but this line I really don't get: > Consciousness is mortally bound to the physical body, and will die along with it regardless of how many mental copies are made. I don't understand how you can put out a statement like that, like it's taken for granted or something. It's far from granted, and I've never heard of something remotely approaching a proof for thi…

I do know that if you made a bunch of copies of me right now, I wouldn't expect to walk around seeing a superimposed image of my original self in Chicago, a copy walking around in New York, etc. I'd be totally disconnected from my copies, and that is reasonable proof to me that I should not expect to ever have a continuity of experience through a backup copy after my own death.

Are you making the unlikely assumption that you would actually be the original? More likely you'd black out during the brain scan and wake up as one of the copies. You have no good reason to simply assume that you are going to be the original process right after making that fork() call. How might your thoughts about this process change if you woke up as a copy?

Re: Welcome To Life

#139
post #135
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words fail me. Imagine I have a magical device with which I can "stop time", or more precisely, stop movement of all particles except mine. In the beginning I am at our right. I stop time, move leisurely to your left and resume time. What you see is me teleporting from your right to your left. You don't feel "trapped in a body who can't move", because your neurons are also magically frozen. Your consciousness feel co…

I will read what you suggest, but perhaps you can illustrate how would the sensation of identity will transfer from the physical body to the digital body? Because your example does not explain it.

What is this "sensation of identity" and what makes you think that it is something that can't be duplicated, and instead has to be transferred?

Re: Welcome To Life

#140
post #56
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "copy" becomes the "real" you because it has extended life. Both you and the "copy" consider yourselves to be the "real one" (or maybe you accept the coexistence), but you are going to die and the copies will live forever. You think: "That copy isn't me, ericb!" * dies * Copy thinks: "Great! I, ericb, just got a new lease on life!"

That is great for the copy, but not helpful for me. Death of my consciousness can't inflict a new identity on the copy. The copy is a copy--he's awesome, just like me, but not me because I am dead.

What if you wake up as the copy? Are you going to be depressed that you're not you?
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