8 replies to this topic

[MentalParadox]

I had a epiphany today, and wrote a paper about it. Unfortunately, it was in Dutch; so I will have to attempt to roughly describe what it was all about.
It's about "consciousness". My thoughts are rather chaotic (most complex epiphanies are), I'm sorry for that.

As a biological entity, we are constantly changing. Cells die, and are replaced. In ten years, much of what I am now will be gone, replaced by new cells.
I state that consciousness is an illusion that is generated by the brain. I am not a scientist and couldn't tell you how, but that's not relevant to the
issue anyway. Why an illusion? Well, a specific collection of cells in my brain are responsible for my consciousness at THIS specific point in time.
That's why I believe consciouness has no real continuïty, it only APPEARS to be that was because cells die and are replaced very slowly. Did you notice
that you are no longer the person you were ten years ago? Of course not. You didn't lose consciousness, it appeared to be constant and unchanging.

So our consciousness only appears to be "the same" and constant if the cells responsible for consciousness are replaced slowly. When you clone a person
(or just a person's brain), you create an identical brain consctructed according to the same blueprint as the original, right? Wrong. The blue print is
the same, but the bricks used are not. And that IS significant. It's like replacing all cells in one go instead of one by one. Which is what happens when
you die and your brain is cloned. This new consciousness you created will act the same, claim to be the same and will for all intents and purposes BE
the same - from his/her perspective. YOU, however, remain dead. Your consciousness ended suddenly, and was only copied - not reactivated.
This also works when you clone a person that still lives. I think we can all agree that you wouldn't share consciousness with your clone.

What i'm tring to say is that "mind-uploading" or the creating of a replica of the brain is NOT a valid way to extend your consciousness' lifespan
(which is, to me, what my life is). When you die, it's over. "You" are dead. Every cell that makes you think you are you - dead. That's why we should
NOT use mind copying on cryogenically frozen patients - you would not save their consciousness - just copy it. The only way is to resuscitate the vast
majority of cells responsible for that patient's consciousness - something that appears impossible.

The following was some more brainstorming I did, and has no real value to the discussion at hand. I just added it for fun.

How would rapid cellular regeneration affect consciousness? Would we lose a sense of "self" because the part of the brain that generates it is renewed too
quickly?

When you think about time travel (yeah, really ) it sort of makes sense. If you traveled to the past, you'd probably meet your past self. This is exactly
how YOU were ten years back. You don't share consciousness with this guy either now, do you (speculation, of course)? If consciousness had been "sacred", and "constant"
like the concept of the "soul" in religion and other myths, you would be merged with your past self. After all, two identical things can't exist in the same place (pauli exclusion
principle). I could ramble on about time and time manipulation all day, but I'll leave it at this.

Mods, I didn't know where to put this; so feel free to move it where it is most appropriate. Thank you.

Edited by Timotheos Aionon, 24 July 2011 - 04:58 PM.

[Brafarality]

I had a epiphany today, and wrote a paper about it. Unfortunately, it was in Dutch; so I will have to attempt to roughly describe what it was all about.
It's about "consciousness". My thoughts are rather chaotic (most complex epiphanies are), I'm sorry for that.

As a biological entity, we are constantly changing. Cells die, and are replaced. In ten years, much of what I am now will be gone, replaced by new cells.
I state that consciousness is an illusion that is generated by the brain. I am not a scientist and couldn't tell you how, but that's not relevant to the
issue anyway. Why an illusion? Well, a specific collection of cells in my brain are responsible for my consciousness at THIS specific point in time.
That's why I believe consciouness has no real continuïty, it only APPEARS to be that was because cells die and are replaced very slowly. Did you notice
that you are no longer the person you were ten years ago? Of course not. You didn't lose consciousness, it appeared to be constant and unchanging.

So our consciousness only appears to be "the same" and constant if the cells responsible for consciousness are replaced slowly. When you clone a person
(or just a person's brain), you create an identical brain consctructed according to the same blueprint as the original, right? Wrong. The blue print is
the same, but the bricks used are not. And that IS significant. It's like replacing all cells in one go instead of one by one. Which is what happens when
you die and your brain is cloned. This new consciousness you created will act the same, claim to be the same and will for all intents and purposes BE
the same - from his/her perspective. YOU, however, remain dead. Your consciousness ended suddenly, and was only copied - not reactivated.
This also works when you clone a person that still lives. I think we can all agree that you wouldn't share consciousness with your clone.

This subject never ever gets tiresome, repetitive or boring:
I think you are giving a group of ever-shifting brain cells a lot of credit for being able to create you. The cells change, the connections, change, etc. The emergence explanation never does it for me: Yes, water is an emergent property of H2O molecules, but it is still a measurable thing of the physical universe, with location, mass,etc. Of course, the same cannot be said of consciousness. It's a lot for organic molecules, by virtue of their organization and other characteristics, to give rise to something that still requires a leap of faith to accept: More of a leap of "faith" required to accept the monist, physicalist explanation of consciousness than to make the reasonable assumption that it is so unlike physical phenomena that it must be different. It is a great leap of faith for me to accept that a shifting arrangement of nerve cells creates the illusion of a single 'me' that thinks it has continuity and that is different from any other thing, as far as we know, in the universe. It is interesting that organic molecules give rise to life, which is also different from anything else in the universe, as far as we know, but is still in the universe, with a location and measurable dimensions.

Edited by Brafarality, 24 July 2011 - 05:26 PM.

[MentalParadox]

No faith required. "You" is the illusion. All that's real is the matter of which you exist.
It's quite easy to test. The brain can be examined. Your so called "soul" cannot.
If you believe there's more to the human identity than your brain - prove it. The burden
of evidence is always on the one making the claims.

The reason why my post meets such harsh resistance from the immortalist community is because immortalists are biased.
They have a good reason for wanting me to be wrong. If I'm right, half of their ways to survive will be gone.
So, you got bias and zero evidence. oops.

Edited by Timotheos Aionon, 24 July 2011 - 05:43 PM.

[mikeinnaples]

As a biological entity, we are constantly changing. Cells die, and are replaced. In ten years, much of what I am now will be gone, replaced by new cells.
I state that consciousness is an illusion that is generated by the brain. I am not a scientist and couldn't tell you how, but that's not relevant to the
issue anyway. Why an illusion? Well, a specific collection of cells in my brain are responsible for my consciousness at THIS specific point in time.
That's why I believe consciouness has no real continuïty, it only APPEARS to be that was because cells die and are replaced very slowly. Did you notice
that you are no longer the person you were ten years ago? Of course not. You didn't lose consciousness, it appeared to be constant and unchanging.

The blue print is the same, but the bricks used are not.

Comments on this below.

The blue print is the same, but the bricks used are not.

This is brilliant.



Anyways, I quote those two sections for a reason. I agree with you that when you clone someone or if you were to 'upload' a mind that you are creating a copy and the person that was ceases to exist and a new entity is created. Even if they look, act, and think like you AND have the same memories ....they are just a copy.

Cells don't replace themselves at the same time, it is a proccess that occurs slowly over time. With that in mind, I also want you to consider how brains can rewire themselves to regain function after traumatic injury. Take that into consideration and see if you can go where I have with it internally. What if we were to replace biological cells one by one, slowly over time just as a human body would replace its own cells? Could we then maintain the illusion of continuity while still achieving immortality via removing our consciousness from our mortal bodies slowly over time?

On a side note.... old episodes of Star Trek just became very morbid to me. Everytime Kirk and Spock use the transporter they die :p

[CorbensLife]

I am not sure I agree on this one. What you are saying is that we only exist because we over time change very very little. In fact so little that we ourselves do not feel the change, thus we live in a illusion that we are existing.

I think this is a bit "too" philosophical and you are dealing too much of what you are now compared to what you were and what you will become.

For the sake of argument, imagine that you copied yourself perfectly, cell by cell, and that copy was only 1 minute younger. That copy of you would not be you, since we can assume that the copy would experience different experiences. But that copy would still have all the thoughts, actions, memories and claim to be the original self (if you up to that moment claimed to be original).

If you die, and your copy lives on, it is true that you would seize to exist, but the copy which is having the exact same thoughts and memories and desires and whatever else makes YOU, would still prevail.

Now you are probably going to say that YOU are dead and the copy is just a copy. But you have to realize that you are no more than a walking, talking biological matter.

Immortality is not necessary preservation of the same being in the same body, but the same thoughts, memories, desires and everything else that makes a person unique. Your uniqueness lies in what you have accumulated so far in your brain.

As for cryogenics, that should be something you value a lot, since cryogenics preserve the last known state to your self counciesness, therefore a resurrection would merely be a continuation of YOU since your last memory.

[MentalParadox]

I am not sure I agree on this one. What you are saying is that we only exist because we over time change very very little. In fact so little that we ourselves do not feel the change, thus we live in a illusion that we are existing.

I think this is a bit "too" philosophical and you are dealing too much of what you are now compared to what you were and what you will become.

For the sake of argument, imagine that you copied yourself perfectly, cell by cell, and that copy was only 1 minute younger. That copy of you would not be you, since we can assume that the copy would experience different experiences. But that copy would still have all the thoughts, actions, memories and claim to be the original self (if you up to that moment claimed to be original).

If you die, and your copy lives on, it is true that you would seize to exist, but the copy which is having the exact same thoughts and memories and desires and whatever else makes YOU, would still prevail.

Now you are probably going to say that YOU are dead and the copy is just a copy. But you have to realize that you are no more than a walking, talking biological matter.

Immortality is not necessary preservation of the same being in the same body, but the same thoughts, memories, desires and everything else that makes a person unique. Your uniqueness lies in what you have accumulated so far in your brain.

As for cryogenics, that should be something you value a lot, since cryogenics preserve the last known state to your self counciesness, therefore a resurrection would merely be a continuation of YOU since your last memory.

You're saying you're still deathist. If you are ok with YOUR consciousness being terminated (but a copy existing instead) because all that matters is what others think, then you are still deathist. I want my present consciousness to survive, thank you. There's nothing "philosophical" about what I said. You can't deny the existence of your present consciousness. You wouldn't be reading this if you didn't have it. It's generated by a specific set of cells. Cells gone, bye bye consciousness. A copy would merely be similar, NOT the one you are experiencing right now. This is quite evident because a copy you make now has a different (yet identical in cellular makeup) consciousness. It's undeniable. No faith required.

Edited by Timotheos Aionon, 26 July 2011 - 10:36 PM.

[Brafarality]

No faith required. "You" is the illusion. All that's real is the matter of which you exist.
It's quite easy to test. The brain can be examined. Your so called "soul" cannot.
If you believe there's more to the human identity than your brain - prove it. The burden
of evidence is always on the one making the claims.

The reason why my post meets such harsh resistance from the immortalist community is because immortalists are biased.
They have a good reason for wanting me to be wrong. If I'm right, half of their ways to survive will be gone.
So, you got bias and zero evidence. oops.

You are a true empiricist!
Descartes reached the opposite conclusion: that all we really know is that we exist, that we are self aware, that we think.
Many philosophies espouse a similar ideology, that the exact opposite of what you are saying is true:
That matter is the illusion, that its existence cannot be proven, that only consciousness can be absolutely verified beyond all, because you think therefore you are! Almost irrefutable, but has yet to lead to much development or increase of our understanding of the universe. It is more of an axiom than a lead into progress.

But, anyway, your particular viewpoint and theory is well stated and compelling. Will contemplate more on this.
Cheers!

[InquilineKea]

Yeah - that's the massive concern that I have with mind-uploading. But on the other hand - couldn't you first put an artificial implant on yourself (incrementally), and then "feel" if any of the "consciousness" begins to transfer?

The main problem is that you can't even trust the experiences of other people - because they have the illusion of mental continuity when in reality, they don't have it.

Surprisingly enough though - you wouldn't really "feel" the difference with anyone else who got their mind uploaded. =P

I've also wondered how consciousness "continues" with split-brained patients. Here's an email that I tried to send to Christof Koch (no reply though):

Are Jill Borte Taylor's experiences (as recounted in her TED talk) similar to those of the right-brain of split brain patients? And are they scientifically accurate?

As in, does the right brain of split brain patients also feel feelings like "being one with the world" and "without having any physical boundaries" and being "completely in the present"?

I know that your The Quest for Consciousness book does say that it is practically possible to practically sever the two halves of the brain into two independent consciousnesses if you sever both the corpus calloseum and the anterior commissure.

I also have another question regarding brain-splitting: If you split the two halves of the brain, will it appear as if it might produce two separate "consciousnesses?" As in, one that might be "created" out of nowhere, sort of like the consciousness that comes when a baby finally becomes conscious? (there's some more discussion of this at http://www.reddit.co...ent_which_side/, although it is sort of confusing).

Certainly, Jill Borte Taylor was left-hemisphere dominant (as her language lobes were in her left-hemisphere), but it appeared as if her consciousness transferred to her "right brain". But could it also be the case that her left hemisphere could have descended into what could be described as a "coma", until it recovered? Could it even be possible that when one half dies, it could descend into what appears as an "eternal nothingness"? (Or in other words, if one of my brain halves died but one of them survived, could I be sure that I won't descend into an "eternal nothingness"?)

[neue regel]

To anwear Timotheos' initial query, this "continuity of consciousness is technically called "Stream Of Consciousness". It has to do with the Qualia that rise up from the Neural Networks.