190 replies to this topic

[Omnido]

That argument is not even admissable, since the sheer numbers of neurons they would be "duplicating" would be in excess of too much information. Transience would be lost with that respect, because the duplicate was too much, too fast.

While I applaud your cleverness in use of semantical argument, the logistics might be sound, but the statistics and variables are not.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Originally posted by Omnido
Now, if we examine that bike, measure all its parts and dimensions, and then build an exact duplicate of that bike while discarding the previous, is it still the same bike?
This question doesn't take a Ph.D to answer, for logically, mathematically, and objectively, it clearly IS NOT. It may be a perfect copy, but the original bike was destroyed, plain and simple.

Suppose a child's bicycle is replaced with a perfect copy without the child's knowledge. The copy is so perect that it includes every scratch, dent, rust spot and discolouration to great detail. The original bicycle is destroyed. Will the child ever know the difference? On the other hand, suppose the original bicycle is not copied but is repainted to look different, has a new bell, and horn installed, and all scratches and dents, and rust spots are repaired. How hard would it be to convince the child that the bicycle is a replacement and not the original?

Now, suppose a person is in a deep and dreamless sleep in the night. During this time, a perfect copy of the person is made and the original is destroyed. The perfect copy is placed in the bed, still in a deep and dreamless sleep. When the copy wakes up in the morning, how would the conscious experience of the copy differ from what the conscious experience of the original would have been?

Edited by Clifford Greenblatt, 04 November 2003 - 11:50 AM.

[Omnido]

Subjectively it does not. Objectively it does.
The knowledge thereof is what defines the "importance".
To some it is irrelavent.
To others it is crucial.

To each, their own. But the argument is STILL LOGICALLY VALID
The copy is still a copy, and NOT the original.

The purpose of this demonstration is to bring awareness to those who would enter the ideas with ignorance, or falsely defined distinctions.
I advocate the choice, and the awareness of the correct distinctions.

[Mechanus]

OmniDo

I think you may be expecting too much out of spatiotemporal continuity. Quantum-mechanically speaking, particles have no definite position; or alternatively, particles do not exist except as patterns in quantum fields (Note to all: this is no excuse for New-Ageism; "fields" and "energy" in physics are just as nicely well-behaved nonmystical concepts as "particles" and "matter"). You sometimes hear people talking about quantum field theory claim that everything gets destroyed and recreated many times per second. I don't know whether that's true, or whether it makes sense, but do you really want the authenticity of your brain to depend on obscure fundamental physics?

On rereading of your posts, it seems you don't believe this, and you believe that it's instead a more pragmatic, and slightly subjective concept -- one that has to do with what sort of processes seem meaningful to you. If the sameness of a brain from one moment to the next is not quite a question of objective fact, why not re-evaluate your notions of identity so that things like uploading, or teleporting one nanometer to the north, no longer preclude a continuation of identity and meaningful life?

I know that you know that uploads (or the Brain of Theseus Kevin mentions, etc) can be indistinguishable from the real thing by both the outside world and the upload himself; isn't that already a pretty strong intuitive argument that personal identity, as you conceive of it, is a bizarre thing? If I recall correctly, some medieval philosophers believed that in addition to all of its properties that make a thing belong to certain classes of things, everything has a "haecceity", a primitive "thisness", that makes the thing itself and not something else. I think this is wrong; I think reality can always be described as "there is something of such and such a kind there", without ever referring to things being identical with other things at other times, or possessing thisnesses. Uploaders have nothing to lose except their haecceity, and that's not so bad.

Even if there is a coherent, objective way to speak of spatiotemporal continuity of persons, why should the sort of identity derived from that concept be any more important than other sorts of identity that I can define? For example, I could say: there is old-Omnido, the Omnido-like person that lived until January 1, 2001, and there is new-Omnido, the Omnido-like person that lived after January 1, 2001. Now, old-Omnido is spatiotemporally continuous with new-Omnido, but I don't care: old-Omnido is millenniologically not continuous with new-Omnido. He made a sudden "jump" from being pre-millennial to being post-millennial, just as an Omnido who is uploaded makes a sudden "jump" from being instantiated in a biological human to being instantiated in a computer, and an Omnido who is teleported makes a sudden "jump" from being located on Earth to being located in some sort of transporter room. (By the way, I just discovered my watch has a teleport function that I have been unwittingly using all this time; unfortunately, its range is a mere zero meters.)

Now, I agree that it is a silly example; the spatio-temporal kind of identity is at least much more pragmatically useful than the millenniological kind of identity. But there are many different kinds of identity, and I don't think you have shown spatiotemporally continuous identity is special, or more relevant to our hopes of survival.

If you have, could you point me to where; or could you quickly summarize your (logically valid, factual, etc) argument?

(I especially don't completely understand by what you mean by "transience"; you seem to argue teleportation would violate that transience because the whole brain would be transported at once, instead of incrementally; but doesn't this assume that a brain at place x at time t + 1 is different from a brain at place y at time t, while a brain at place y at time t + 1 is not different from a brain at place y at time t -- which is exactly what the spatiotemporalist needs to prove?)

(Now I'm slightly confused again. Sorry for the muddledness, I may clear this post up later.)

(Losing my haecceity one Planck time at a time,)

(M.)

(Oh, by the way, I claimed earlier that the fact that things don't just collapse was due to identity of particles at the quantum level and so on (bosons, fermions, blahblah); this is not true except in a few cases like neutron stars. Usually it's because of bland old electromagnetic stuff.)

[tbeal]

in response to Bj kliens views a couple of posts ago: the idea that there is no 'me' is not a logical one since that is the only thing that you can possibly sure exists since the entire world that you expirience is simply an instanous part of you had it's orgins from an out side source. ( even though you can never be sure of this) Yes this is the 'I think therefore I am ' theory as you expirience yourself every moment of every day in thoughts feelings and expieirences, but like a computer you can be connecceted to other 'processors' and act copperatively but you are still seperate entities. This brings me onto another point I have to make about conscoiuness are computers concouis to most people this would seem like an obvoius no but like the human brain they calculate and are organised, the only diffrence is, is that we understand that we are conscoius but surely there is a paradox here if we say that this itself is what makes us conscoius. ( emotions don't count cause most people beleive they are an evolutionary addition to concscoiusness not part of it.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Originally posted by Omnido
To each, their own. But the argument is STILL LOGICALLY VALID
The copy is still a copy, and NOT the original.

Here is an interesting variation on the original vs copy argument. Suppose a Rembrandt painting is destroyed in a fire. An artist paints a copy a million years later. By a one in a ten to the million power chance and unknown to the artist, the frame, canvas, and all paint happen to be composed from the original atoms that composed the original painting. When the painting is completed, every one of the original atoms from the entire painting happen to end up in the exact same place within the painting that they were when Rembrandt painted the original. All the atoms in the original painting had a continuous history which took them far apart in violent but continuous way and brought them back together a million years later exactly the way they were in a continuous way. Is this or is this not the original painting?

Edited by Mind, 08 November 2003 - 02:57 PM.

[Lazarus Long]

As a point of reference since you are discussing arcane possibilities of "almost" irrational probabilities I think I should add a genetic reincarnation conundrum to the mix of metaphors of me that we are playing with here.

You see as the size of the general population increases into the billions and a few sub-populations actually are inbreeding for socioeconomic reasons there is also the highly remote possibility that individual genotypes could be repeated either simultaneously or at different periods of history.

Hence reborn instances of past genotypes and multiple copies of the same genotype simultaneously alive. Thought they would no more be the same "person" than twins are now.

I am putting this into discussion because even though it is fanciful, it is perhaps even more plausible than that monkey typing Shakespeare by accident or Rembrandt getting copied stroke per stroke and pigment by pigment.

At the very least it is on topic though I hope it demonstrates how close to arguing about dancing angels we are getting.

As for my "Many Me" theory there is another caveat: "How would you distinguish it from the reality we experience now?

"Me" is self aware identification, if there were two (or more) of "me" running around then each has an equal perspective and relationship to an original but so long as they experience a moment of discontinuity from which their experience diverges then they each become unique and hold equal right to continue such discontinuous existence regardless of a shared common origin.

But if they don't have such a point of discontinuity and possess a merged sense of perspective on experience then they are simply a complex form of sensory assimilation contributing exponentially more information to a SINGLE self aware identity, the me that sees through both their sets of eyes simulataneously.

Now what if I were to layer awareness so that my various instances of self expression were aware of themselves but not aware of each other? Or of sharing their experience with a larger perspective of self?

How would you distinguish this from the theist perspective of experience we all share now?

And is this not how a Super-Conscious being would integrate consciousness with multiple beings simultaneously?

Is this not one possibility among many for how a Singularity will assimilate all consciousness?

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Originally posted by Lazarus Long
...since you are discussing arcane possibilities of "almost" irrational probabilities

I am afraid the improbable event in my illustration has become a distraction from its true purpose. Here is a more practical illustration. Suppose a puzzle has ten pieces. At a particular moment, when all the pieces are assembled correctly, we define this as the original puzzle. The puzzle is then disassembled and the pieces are lost. A year later, a massive house cleaning is done, all the pieces are found, and they are correctly assembled. Is this the original puzzle? The pieces are again lost and a year later all but one piece is found. Nine pieces are correctly assembled but the tenth piece is missing. Is this the original puzzle? If the missing piece is replaced with a piece from the same model of puzzle, is the puzzle completed this way the original puzzle? We could continue on replacing each piece one at a time, taking the puzzle completely apart and scattering the pieces each time. At what point is the puzzle no longer the original puzzle? Enough of this for now.

I think Omnido's idea is that an original has a continuous history that gives it a unique identity. For example, no one can distinguish one hydrogen atom from another except by tracking the history of a particular hydrogen atom. There are some circumstances under which such tracking can be done. In a very long molecule, a particular hydrogen atom could be identified by its position in the molecule. Tracking a particular hydrogen atom in a bottle full of hydrogen gas is beyond present technology because one hydrogen atom becomes quickly confused with the enormous number of identical hydrogen atoms being continually shuffled in the bottle. However, our inability to track the history of every atom does not change the fact that every atom has a unique history.

Here is an interesting idea. The highly successful standard model makes much more of a proton than a point of charge with a certain mass. For example, each proton is found to contain three quarks. High energy collisions temporarily disturb the position of the quarks within the proton but can never dislodge a quark from the proton. One proton will differ from another not only by the history of the proton's position but also by the history of the positions of the quarks within it. Still, the positions of quarks within a proton is not a permanent thing so protons remain indistinguishable from each other. But physicists know that there is more to the structure of a proton than is found in the standard model. They think that there are several more dimensions curled up beneath the Planck scale. What kind of structure could be there is total speculation because no accelerator could ever produce a high enough energy collision to examine any structure at such a tiny scale. So let us speculate that there is a permanent structure to each proton which is hidden in the curled up dimensions. Suppose no two protons have the same hidden structure and the hidden structure of each proton that makes it different from any other proton is a permanent property of each proton. Then, there would be something more to the protons's identity beyond historical tracking. It may be impossible for us to read it, but it would be a true, permanent, and unique identity for each proton and it would be independent of the history of the proton.

The proton identity idea could be used for an analogy with personal identity. I do not see anything in the physical identity of a person that I could call permanent. Each person may have a unique physical structure for the moment, but the physical structure is continually changing. The only means of permanent personal identity I can see is through a property that transcends matter. This identity is obvious to the person possessing it but, like a structure curled up beneath the Planck scale, it is invisible to all others.

[kevin]

I have come to a complete agreement with Cliffords idea of identity as it is the only one that makes sense and fits with the growing realization that the universe is much more reliant on information to describe it's physics and is probably more important than the physical laws themselves.

Information comes BEFORE physics as physics requires information to describe itself. Thus information comes before space, time or energy.

My 'identity' is an evolving pattern/information processor. Change is its reason for being. Spatial-temporal-material considerations are secondary to the existence of this pattern which describes me. I'm not sure what will happen to the dynamical law that underlies the instructions in my DNA when my body dies, but one thing is fairly certain, "I" am NOT my DNA. It is much more likely that "I" am a result of the expression of the instructions/information that are WITHIN the DNA, the 'pattern' described by those instructions...

I believe the 'dynamical law' describing my pattern is like a vector based image file. Vector based images contain mathematical instructions to create the shapes which make up the image rather than the pixels of the image itself. Because they contain the instructions for forming the mathematical shapes, it is easy to display the images at any size whereas the quality of pixel/raster based image files rely on the number of pixels stored in the image (the resolution). A very complicated image can thus be stored in a vector based image file by describing it with an equation(s) which can be either interpeted by a printer or by a monitor with the quality being dependent on the device being used to interpet and display the file, rather than the quality of the information in the file itself. The image will print equally well as it is displayed.

I believe a similar principle is operating within our DNA My intuition tells me that what we feel is our consciousness and individual identity, may be simply representations of PORTIONS of an evolving fractal equation that is being expressed using the medium of the universe and its' physical laws which are located appropriately and tuned for their expression...or perhaps because of their expression. Could the creation of our universe be as a result of an evolving mathematical equation?

With this admittedly farfetched supposition, it seems to me that spatial-temporal-material considerations are totally irrelevant and what matters most is the persistence of the dynamical law or those terms of the fractal equation which are responsible for my 'being'. As long as 'this consciousness' exists, the pattern exists and the terms, at least as they have evolved, also exist.

Who cares if the term(s) of my portion of the equation get tweaked by uploading, the reason for their very EXISTENCE is to get tweaked. Similarly, if a copy of that portion of the equation that describes me is added as a seperate term to the overall equation, its nature too, is to evolve, but as my pattern has already moved on at that point neither of our patterns are 'me' anymore so the question as to 'who' is the original, is immaterial. It is more like a fork in the road rather than a break.

I have a feeling that there will come a time when consciousness will be described in mathematical terms and the algorithms resulting will produce something quite familiar.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

Here is some further musing on the hydrogen atom analogy to personal identity. The tiny scale of additional dimensions within the internal particles of a proton may prohibit us from ever finding any permanent structure that is different from one proton to the next. However, whatever structure is hidden in those curled up dimensions is essential to the outward behaviour of the proton. The structure hidden within the curled up dimensions of those internal particles determine the chemical properties of elements made from protons and neutrons. However, if there are any differences in the hidden structure from one proton to the next, those differences are not visible in the chemical properties of the elements. Although we will never have any means to view the hidden structure within the curled up dimensions, very clever scientists may eventually develop the mathematics to deduce a great deal about the hidden structure from the outward behaviour of the particles. However, they would deduce general things about the structure and would never be able to identify anything about one proton that makes it permanently different from another because any such differences are curled up within dimensions of an unobservable scale. The permanent and unique fine structure would be essential to chemical properties, but differences from one to the other would have no observable effect on those properties. Here is the analogy with personal identity. If consciousness is totally physical, then a reasonable physical copy of the person's mind is all that is needed to capture the essence of the person. Very clever scientists could deduce what is truly essential to conscious experience so that there would be no need to duplicate unessential details. This task would be radically easier than deducing the nature of internal structure within curled up dimensions because nothing would need to be done on an unobservable scale. However, if consciousness involves not only physical details but also something that transcends matter, then no technology would be capable of capturing the true essence of the person. The outward behaviour of the person could be fully duplicated, but there would be an essential difference in the conscious experience of the person that no one else can observe. This would be analogous to substituting one proton for another in an atom. The chemical properties of the atom would not change and no scientist would be able to discern the difference, but the new proton would have a permanent structure hidden with the curled up dimensions of its internal particles that would make it permanently different from the original proton.

[tbeal]

good analogy

[adering]

A few point to drag us all back onto the cold bedrock of reality.

1. There is no way to exactly copy a human body. I'll even throw in, gratis, that the position AND the momentum of each particle can be known EXACTLY. You end up with a Very Large (or Wicked Big if you prefer), but finite, body of information. There is no way you can get ALL of that information in one instant. Therefore, you can never record an entire body EXACTLY. And even if you do, between the ding of the computer letting you know the information is recorded and the pressing of the Xerox machine to whip up 30 copies of yourself, the original you has already changed. You don't have a You Duplicator, you've got a very primitive and pointless form of time machine: you can pull up your prior self, over and over. And each time quantum level differences will begin differentiating your twin, triplet, octuplet, etc. from you.

2. So all the philosophical arguments, although good mind stretchers, are pointless: they are not reality any more than Doctor Who and the Tardis are reality. I'd like to think that there is a time-traveling Police Call Box out there, but, well, reality intrudes.

3. The argument for replacement leaving your wu/soul/mojo intact is pretty simple: are you the same person, temperament and personality and tastes that you were five years ago? Not to get too racy here, but, if you're sexually active, do you do the EXACT same things you did five years ago? If you don't, does that mean you aren't you? Did the Knot Masters of Leathero XI replace you in the middle of the night? Perhaps the Missionaries of the Position III galaxy probed you one night. Of course not. Each of us disappears every night we sleep. I still feel like me in the morning. I have the same drives, burdens, etc. Have I been replaced? No. The brain is always active, even while unconscious.

4. This only leaves the question of whether you are you if at some point your brain is inactivated through disease, death, whatever. I'm still thinking on that, with my active brain. For now, I'll argue that yes, a restarted brain is still "you."

5. Sorry for the long post. It's a tad slow here today.

[Omnido]

Alot of good points. And Clifford, you put it near-perfectly with respect to your atomic model. I think it is the "Temporal connection" that is my main issue, the divergence from an original pattern to a duplicated pattern, with no direct integrational connection between the two. Only their similarities.

Your hydrogen model fits the bill on a purely scientific scale though, quite nicely.

[7000]

I have a concept that settle the whole idea.Tios alpha and omega concept.It talks about the origin of self which make up yourself when it experience something.This is a just discorver concept not yet known to people even to many theologoians.However, the concept talks about physical and non physical immortality.

[7000]

Tios alpha and omega concept...contact conerstone@yahoo.com

[7000]

Tios alpha and omega concept is The initiator of ideas alpha and omega concept.This is a concept that can really unites the whole world together.It is a concept that could make computer to experience something,reads mind or speak.When this happen,there will be a universal password that will lead to a universal computer.As a result of this,the brain will be successfully be downloaded unto a machine and be uploaded at any time.When this happen, man will achieve physical immortality.And you can still keep the memory of yourself.This is possible through beleif which is dynamic when you experience something,and through power of word,create knowledge and recreate knowledge,the beginning and the end,power create,create power.There is a simple mathematical illustration of this.

Edited by 7000, 18 May 2004 - 10:19 PM.

[7000]

If i want to influence the whole world,it is not the influence that is really matter to me,but its influence to the whole world.If i really want to influence the whole world,it is that influence that is really matter to me and not its influence to the whole world.

Edited by 7000, 12 November 2004 - 02:17 PM.

[7000]

For millions of years Tios alpha and omega concept lies waiting and it is hidden to men.Though many people have an idea of it but they never know what it means.This is the hidden word.The hidden word is the hidden,and the hidden is what is hidden to men.But now,it is not hidden for those who have the beleif in it.The beleif is dynamic and this is the energy to start the journey that has a direction to a certain place.

Edited by 7000, 12 November 2004 - 02:16 PM.

[macdog]

This is of course a pretty big question. Maybe the ultimate question. And I'm going to throw a new wrinkle into the mix.

I have a nuerological condition called Tourette's Syndrome, you may be familiar with it. It's cause is unknown but occurs in approximately 1 in 1000 people regardless of ethnicity. The condition is characterized by grimaces, twicthes of the faces, musko-skeletol movements, and outbursts of speech. One aspect of the outbursts of speech is something called coprolallia, which is the sudden involuntary speaking of swear words or something considered innappropriate. Touretter's are also known to be risk takers, have intensive dream states, high intelligence and good memory. The last two aspects may be related to a possible excess of acetyl-choline in the brain, and it has been found in some cadavers that Touretters have unorthodox connectivity in the brain.

For the following statement I refer not only to my own experience but the writings of Dr. Oliver Sacks.

Touretters frequently feel that they are not alone in their mind, that there is the presence of "another" within the framework of concious experience. This is distinguished from schizoid disorders as the schizophrenic has the sense of other as being in the outside world. Many Touretters will actually name or envision the form of the other, negotiate with it, soothe it, get angry at it and later in life when the symptoms begin to decline around age 45 (along with a decrease in acetyl-choline) lose the feeling of the sense of other but also admit to feeling that the two individuals have merged into what is in effect(and felt to be) a new third individual. The diffuculty/success of this merge will often define whether the person emerges as a well adjusted person or in some cases, profoundly self-destructive or even sociopathic.

Try that one on for size.

[okami]

I believe macdog should check the libraries for a copy of Julian Jaynes' "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." A basic thesis of the book is that the "other" of the self, to use his terms, was the god-voice coming from the "other side" of the bicameral mind, as opposed to the individual's "self-identity". These voices may have been the original god-voices to which he attrbuted early civilzations, and culminating racially with Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", with subsequent effects for historical events.

Macdog's description of Tourette's reminds me, in this context, of the constant arguing of Graeco-Roman deities during the war; it also hearkens to mind memories of people undergoing possession: by a god (such as in vaudau/voodoo), or in the case of incubi & succubi (a worldwide phenomenon, not merely Christian). In this context Gregory Bateson's "Steps Towards An Ecology of Mind" or Joseph Campbell's "Myths to Live By" may be pertinent.

The idea of combining the divided "minds" into a third, unifed self also seem somewhat analogous to the reintegration of what has been called the MPD or multiple personality disorder. I have had to deal with one or two of these in the past at work.

In re: adering's comments on copying the human body (let alone anything else), of course the newly-formed body is not going to be the same as the original. Each body will occupy different loci in spacetime; the very fact that the perceiver views from a different frame of reference will be enough to guarantee divergence. There will also be some degradation in the generation of the body, as a consequence of entropic principles.

This is one reason cloning will never live up to the sensationalist claims laid by the media or general populace. Although one could in theory produce a perfect clone of Albert Einstein (the usual canard used), it would not be the Albert Einstein who transformed the world's conceptions in the past century. In order to do so the exact environment would need to be duplicated: location, duration, motive, cause, frustration, achievement, loss, etc., until the entire universe must be duplicated to produce the desired result.

The best that cloning can afford, it seems to me, is for the duplication of organs and body parts, save for the spinal cord and brain. If consciousness really is restricted to these areas, the spinal cord and brain cannot be cloned in toto without producing a new individual. That neural system, if allowed to become self-aware, would be harmed/murdered by the insertion of the original body's memories.

If the regeneration of neural cells can be accomplished, though, it is possible that an individual may be kept alive indefinitely, limited only to individual desire or external forces: boredom, suicide, accident, murder, war, etc.

[macdog]

I just wanted to clarify something as brought up by okami, Touretter's do not hear voices, except of course for their own voice during an involuntary vocalization. Although there is definitely the sense that the voicebox is being suddenly and explosively borrrowed. The sense of "other" in nuerological pathologies is complex to say the least. The shizophrenic has zero capacity to distinguish between the outside world and the life of the mind, to an extent it is the robbing of the sense that something is "other" that creates the torture. The world is filled with the most complex monstrous creations whose entire purpose is to torture the sufferer. Many epileptics describe the sense of other as an attacking entity trying to kill them, something from outside with its own life that casually involves them every once in a while, kind of like being followed by your own personal mugger. The incredible stimulation of the brain also leads to entheogenic states, where the epileptic feels that they are God, and have a capacity to see the divine in everything. As you might imagine this experience of duality can result in people feeling they are at the center of war between good and evil, even absent any other delusional pathology.

But back to Tourette's, which is what I really know something about. First, I can not stress enough that Touretters do not hear voices, and it is dissimilair from MPD in that MPD seems to involve a sudden and radical reorganization of the usage pattern of the brain. The Touretter's other does not get the chance to have its day in the sun so to speak, which is where a good bit of the conflict comes in. Remarkably, most Touretters do not consider their condition a disease, even in some extreme cases. It is not an attack from the outside, but rather like having a bit of a room mate. The Touretter's other is not a complete personality, and in a sense trapped by the overall primacy of the overt personality, which upsets it and motivates it to try and assert itself in clumsy bizarre fashions. It just wants to have a life, just like anybody, and there is even the sense from it that it somewhat admires and loves the prime personality. The prime personality in contrast is not unsympathetic to the other, and feels bad for it because of its incomplete state. It is the responsibility of the prime to initiate and attempt communication, to resoundingly frustrating silence for the most part. Some of the risk taking attributes ascribed to Touretters could even be explained as the other trying to prove its worth as a courageous entity. Dr. Oliver Saks describes one Touretter who frequently would turn his car on and off in the midst of driving, but never at moments when to do so would be exceedingly dangerous. It is really the make-up of the prime that ultimately determines whether after the merge the new third is a well adjusted or self-destructive personality.

Speaking for myself, I've now entered the merge phase. As in many cases, the other became incredibly assertive starting around the age of 27, by 32 I started really negotitiating with it, and by 45 the merge should be complete. Personally, I think the merge is going very well, as do my doctors. In fact, I like the person I am becoming much more than the person I was. I have a greater capacity to endure pain (not that I'm into it), have higher confidence levels, lack certain anxieties that once plagued me, take much better care of myself, and am absent the bitterness about my condition that once made life very hard. There is also an extent to which this new third is reflecting backwards to me in its final form by some physical changes that I am undergoing. I have several tattoos and plan to get more as they seem beautiful to me, and I am far more concerned with building physical strength and have put on (while not profound) considerably more muscle mass than I was capable of as a rail thin youngster. Given the possibilities of transhuman enhancement in the future (see my post Catastropic Injury Protection under Biotech) I rather fully expect that by the time the merge is complete I will have profoundly different physical features. My big desires are for ceramically implanted teeth (real teeth are such a hassle, and the histroy of gum disease in my family, despite all precautions makes this quite practical for me) which will be redesigned for a greater omnivorous capacity. My eyes, the right one being particulalrly deficient, I would like replaced with more dark adapted eyes with an iris formation more feline and a reflective coating in the back for dark adaptation. This is not even to mention the potential for cybernetic interfacing. As a final note regarding the mechanics of the merge, during my twenties I had a strong urge to have people call me not just Sean, but Sean Thomas, which many people did. Now I have an equally strong, if not stronger urge, to be known as Mac, which is part of the honorific prefix of my Scottish last name. These psychological compulsions are not without pretension I will admit, but if you consider that something in my nuerological substrate is actually occuring to motivate these changes, and make me feel that I am neither he nor it anymore (not Sean, not Sean Thomas, not the Touretter other) then it seems a perfectly logical and even therapuetic convention for me to adopt.

Lastly, there can be little question that in another age I would have been the subject of excorcisms or being burned at the stake.

[niggler]

The 'me' is created by one's thinking, and there's no 'me' outside of that. If all thought vanishes, there's no 'me'.

Thought is based on memory. It's impossible to think beyond what one already knows, so all thought is the past, therefore the 'me' is the past; there's no 'me' in the absolute present. Being made up of past memories, the 'me' is a limited, circumscribed entity. It is not a reality itself, but the thought that creates it is.

One only finds a 'wholeness of being' in the absence of the 'me', but that does not imply the absence of thought. Thought is necessary to do things (like writing this) but it can function without introducing the 'me'.

The 'me' is really the source of our problems because it is the divisive, isolating factor. All psychological problems can be traced back to the 'me'. Love is only possible in the absence of the 'me', and love is the solution to our troubles.

The 'me' is only memories - not memory, without which life would be impossible, but memories, the accretions of yesterday. There's no need to carry these from day to day. Shedding them clears the mind of the past, so it becomes sensitive. This sensitivity is intelligence, and it's intelligence, when it's operating, that lives sanely in an insane world.

This is not a 'philosophy'. It is factual, and applicable to actual living.

[tessler]

I believe the answer is yes, yes and yes. If I would be able to preserve my mind (blueprint) (not necessary by preserving my brain) it would be possible to store, transmit at light speed (interstellar travel) and download anywhere into any suitable host. In my opinion cloning is overrated, it is not really important, what the new host looks like though it might help. Downloading my grandfather's mind into the clone of my grandmother, he will still wake up as my grandfather, at least at the time of the wakening.

[chubtoad]

If by "me" you are referring to some entity noting its own existence the answer to all 3 questions is yes. This is the only version of "me" I see any evidence for.

[jaydfox]

3)If I copy my brain, only one neuron at a time, replacing each neuron with that copy, over a long period of time, will I still be me at the end? When will have the transition occured
...
3) Yes, given your brain had enough time to adjust to the transition. Perhaps if you were conscious throughout this procedure.

You know, growing up I always liked the idea of uploading, and it just seemed natural.

At some point I actually began to take a look at the duplication problem and I became a lot more philosophical about the implications of uploading. For about the last 5 to 10 years, uploading has not sat well with me, and I had all but turned my back on the possibility of using it myself.

However, I like this slow transition that is presented. It still leads to a state where one's consciousness is in a substrate that, in theory, could be more readily duplicated and/or transferred in instantaneous manners, so that even if the initial transfer were a process rather than an event, it still leaves in question whether the new version of you is a continuity of your original "self".

However, the newer questions it raises are considerably less problematic to me than the ones presented by conventional instantaneous uploading (whether via destructive scanning or post-scan destruction).

One thing I am left to wonder about, though. I like the gradual transferance, because of its implicit fidelity and continuity. However, I am left to wonder if it isn't simply a version of putting the frog in a pot of cold water and slowly turning up the heat. Just because the frog doesn't notice the impending danger, that doesn't make it any less dead by the time the water is boiling (and well before, for that matter).

Just a thought. I'm still conflicted, but I take this gradual approach as being a huge improvement over any notions of direct transfer to a new substrate.

[jaydfox]

I specifically meant the individual swapping of neurons by artificial neurons (of some sort), while remaining conscious. So that we change parts one by one without altering the whole. Ideally brain activity and consciousness would continue throughout this procedure, so in a way it would be difficult to state that such person was no longer "himself" or "herself".

I understand, but here's my dilemma.

I accept the view that continuity is paramount, and that an atomically and perhaps even quantumly identical duplicate is less "me" than an artificial (e.g. electronic) "me" which is slowly created in situ by incremental neuron replacement.

However, at the same time, I have a problem with the whole idea of artificial, for a very specific reason: duplication. A computer program in memory in a computer is represented by specific collective electron states in transistors, but in principle, the computer can be stopped, the information copied, and then the program can be restarted in another computer with NO MECHANISM whatsoever for the program to know that the copying took place. What's more, such a pause/copy/unpause process is TRIVIAL.

Now in humans, it might be possible to instaneously copy the exact atomic structure of a human being without said person being aware of such a copy being made, and the copy could be held in memory and perhaps even run in a matter simulator on a very powerful computer, and perhaps even reconstituted in matter with no measurable disruption in atomic/electrical/quantum activity (measurable by the person or by physical phenomena). But it is not "trivial" by any stretch of the imagination.

I keep looking for a suitable analogy, because I'll be honest, I'm speaking as much from my gut feelings as from any rational argument I've tried to form. And I know that gut feelings, while being a good heuristic guide, are definitely not the final decision making engine we should be relying on.

One analogy is privacy or safety. For example, even if you put a thick oak or steel door on your house, bars on all the windows, and big fancy locks, there's no guarantee that your privacy and safety are secure. However, leaving your door unlocked, or worse, wide open, is just inviting trouble.

Here, privacy is the assurety of "me". It's fairly safe with the doors locked, i.e. in this fleshy abode. But put it in an artificial substrate, and it's like leaving the door unlocked. Leave it in a "synchronous" or nearly sychronous substrate where you could literally stop it in process while not stopping it in time, and you've just about left the door wide open. Worse yet, simulate it entirely in software/digital memory, and now you've left the goods on the front lawn.

It's not that "me" hasn't arguably been preserved, it's that I'm now questioning whether I have protection against the Duplicates problem, which is still my biggest concern.

If the substrate is asynchronous and relatively impervious to an undetectable pause or copying, then I'll feel more secure in knowing that "me" will be maintained.

In other words, ensuring "me" means not only avoiding the actual occurance of a duplicate, it's avoiding the likelihood or possibility. I don't know how better to explain it, because I admit that even if a duplicate were possible, you could still reasonably ensure the original remains the original. I'll see if I can put into words a better description, and perhaps offer a more refined solution to the uploading problem.

[jaydfox]

I think part of the problem is that as much as I try to view this from a "materialist" perspective, I am admittedly prejudiced by my gut feeling that there is something immaterial (spiritual? Maybe, but that word has other implications which I don't want to bring into this discussion yet...) about "me". By identifying the nature of the substrate, I am hoping to point at something material and thus avoid the immaterial proposition. However, after further reflection, I see that this is just my prejudice that some aspect of "me" is immaterial, spiritual or not.

In a materialistic sense, if the transfer to artificial substrate were made as you suggested, one neuron at a time, then my only concern would be the fidelity with which the new substrate preserves the character of living neurons. In other words, I suppose my concern isn't so much that it wouldn't be "me", but that "me" would have changed in some way other than just the accumulation of new memories and the modification of my value system, etc. It would be that the method of processing itself changed, e.g. from an asychronous to a synchronous system, etc. But this is a technical issue, one easily solved, even if it means I'll have to wait for second or third generation upload technologies.

So in effect, what remains, I think, is my non-materialist objections. And those cannot by settled by philsophy and debate and reason: they truly are a personal decision each and every one of us must make. If someday science can tap into this non-material essence, then we might be able to settle the "me" question, but until then, each of us takes a stand that can be as logically consistent as someone else's.

I should point out that, without any good reason other than my gut feelings again, I'm all for brain-computer interfacing, even very advanced levels of it (I want the neural nanonics of Peter F. Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction novels), as well as cryonics, as long as repair is done in situ (i.e. not a copy, or a destructive reconstruction).

My feelings on cryonics are: I'm not giving up my life for the new person's life, I'm dead either way, so I'll risk that the new person might not be "me". Because there's always a chance it will be me... But the best and only way I see to ensure that it is, is if the repairs are done in situ.

It's funny, because Ray Kurzweil uses the analogy that even if Cryonics were only 0.01% effective in bringing someone back, it would be worth it. Well, in my opinion, there's at least a 10% chance that cryonics performed today would allow someone to be revived in the next 100 years. If so, then there would only need to be a 0.1% chance that the person revived really is "me" to justify the expense of setting up cryonics for myself. I'm currently leaning towards a very low probability that such a person will be "me", but it's not anywhere near as low as 0.1% (after all, cosmos, you yourself are a big proponent of uncertainty; who am I to say with certainty that it will not be "me"?), so in my book, it's worth it.