Consciousness Thought Experiment

[StringJunky]

Thread,

 

Fun, but not done.

 

That which consciousness is, is still not agreed upon, completely.

 

It just occurred to me, that the "pattern" that was scanned of the original, and sent to the 3d printer, was, at some point, neither in the original or the clone, but in the apparatus in between.

 

If a person was just information, then this person would exist as the original, as the information in between, and as the clone. A simple wiring adjustment and this information could be sent to 1000 3d printers. Assuming that our technology was precise enough and complete enough that all 1000 would work, I would say that NONE of them are me. My consciousness has no way to travel through the wires and the air, to each of the clones.

 

The situation we are speculating upon is already provided for us, (as someone, I forget who, already suggested) if we think about what a child is.

 

Regards, TAR

Then you believe you are some distinct life-force of an ethereal nature, somehow inextricably entwined in the molecular structure that makes up you. That's ok, as a personal belief, but you'll have a very difficult time supporting it in proper physical, biochemical or biological terms. Philosophy is not exempt from scientific scrutiny, where it is applicable.

Edited June 2, 2015 by StringJunky

[Delta1212]

 

OK, I have to capitulate. I think I dimly get what you are driving at, but to me you are arguing for an external seat of consciousness. By suggesting that packaging me up and implementing me elsewhere confers me with an ongoing continuous experience, you are saying that my consciousness has an independent property to my brain.

 

The sticking point for me is the idea that "I" will have an ongoing experience in the scenarios described.

I have demonstrated that this isn't so by considering the case where we retain both original and duplicate and neither has access to the other's internal experience. This remains so regardless of the time at which one or the other dies.

 

What you seem to be doing is mistaking each instance of me as the same thing. A duplicate may in its own experience believe it is me, but it is a separate being. It is physically another human being, no different to any other. It is simply a quirk of circumstance that it is identical to me.

 

Take pzkpfw's most recent example above. If I go to bed and wake up next morning, my physical being retains its physical continuity (regardless of what you think is happening at the atomic level). And that brain gives rise to my mind. If you copy me in the night and then kill me, I am dead. The replica, the new instance of me, does indeed wake up and get on with life. But that is not me. It is a copy that thinks it is me. I will not go to bed and wake up in my new body.

 

So I have to leave it there. Thanks for a fun discussion!

I think most of us are actually arguing sort of the opposite of an external seat of consciousness. At least I, and I think most of the rest debating you about this are in the same general area as me, are arguing that the continuity of consciousness you are trying to establish is an illusion.

 

No, if you're standing on Earth, right now, is not going to be aware of the you that steps out of the transporter on Mars five minutes from now. But equally, the you on Earth right now is not going to be aware of the you that stays on Earth and I still here five minutes from now.

 

"Right now" you is gone and has been replaced by a version of you that has all of your memories and personality + five minutes more experience. Depending on what happens in those five minutes, there can be very little difference between five-minutes-from-now you and the you that exists right now, or there may be a very significant difference indeed.

 

But it will not be the same version of you, and the you that existed five minutes ago is not, and never will be, aware of the things that you are right now not that a new version of you will be aware of five minutes from now.

 

So in that respect, there is very little difference between being replaced by a single version of you and being replaced by two versions of you. Both are as much "you" as you are the you from a few minutes ago. Your mind doesn't jump into the new body. The new mind that arises on Earth, and the new mind that arises on Mars are both equally successors of all the yous that came before.

 

But none of those versions of you exist any longer except as memories in both of the present versions of yourself.

[Spyman]

...the continuity of consciousness you are trying to establish is an illusion.

The thread is moving to fast for me and I am sorry that I don't have time to make a proper argument or reply to all questions asked of me right now. However I am not convinced that the continuity of consciousness is an illusion.

 

If particles and objects have physical continuity through spacetime then a consciousness as a result of the structure of the brain and the signals processing therein should also have a continuity.

Edited June 2, 2015 by Spyman

[Delta1212]

The thread is moving to fast for me and I am sorry that I don't have time to make a proper argument or reply to all questions asked of me right now. However I am not convinced that the continuity of consciousness is an illusion.

 

If particles and objects have physical continuity through spacetime then a consciousness as a result of the structure of the brain and the signals processing therein should also have a continuity.

Why? Consciousness is a process. Does a flame have continuity? The flames continue to dance in the same place, and arise from the same fuel source, but the atoms that are reacting are different, they are emitting different photons. A flame is being continuously created anew in the same place.

 

It's like the adage about not being able to cross the same river twice. It looks about the same. It behaves about the same. But the water that flows through it isn't the same water.

 

The mental state that makes up "you" right now is not the same mental state that will make up "you" five minutes from now. It will be similar, but not identical. If you stretch it out to a long enough time, most of the matter won't be the same either, as your body cycles through raw materials. It will be slotted into roughly the same pattern, but it won't be the same atoms.

 

So what is it about you that has an independent continuous existence for the duration of your life if not the pattern (which can be copied)?

[tar]

"Then you believe you are some distinct life-force of an ethereal nature, somehow inextricably entwined in the molecular structure that makes up you."

 

StringJunky,

 

I believe I am a distinct unique life-force, somehow inextricably entwined in the molecular structure that makes up me, but there is nothing ethereal about it. I do not believe in the "ghost in the machine" I believe in the intricate complexity and fitting nature of the complex molecular structure that makes me up. This is not magic, it is however wonderful, amazing, complex and beautiful and meaningful, stuff.

 

My thinking on this has evolved since I have been reading Critique of Pure Reason, and I base a lot of my thinking on the two base intuitions, that of space and that of time, that we all know exactly what we are talking about when we talk about them, but cannot break them down into any other components. We can use those two ideas to say all sorts of things about all sorts of things, but nobody can tell someone else what the passage of time is like, everybody already knows. Nobody can describe what space is, but everybody already knows.

 

This idea, combined with the fact that our images of the world all have to be happening in our brains, with sight for instance happening when rays of light get turned upside down and backward, are focused on the back of our eyes and signals are sent to the brain through the optic nerve, and we combine the signals from the one eye with the signals from the other eye to decide we are looking at, are conscious of, a tree, out there, not in our brains, tells me that the world itself is part of consciousness. That is why, in this thread, I have used the phrase a couple of times "what we are conscious of".

 

I have a particular model of the world built in my brain, but it is consistent with the world. I have a memory of being in a school building in Newark in 1957, but there really was a school building in Newark in 1957. The building is still there, not a school anymore, but the building would enter your consciousness, should you take a look at it.

 

My point is that the whole world, those portions of it that I have seen, and the stars that I have seen are all in my model of the world, tucked away in the various synapses and chemical and electrical signals and neurons in my brain. You can hypothetically reproduce all these memories, and the order in which they occurred, and put all these memories in a machine in the next room, that looks exactly like me, feels exactly like me, walks exactly like me, and quacks exactly like me, but I, have not left the body in the first room, and if you pulverize that body (the one in the first room), you would be guilty of murder.

 

Regards, TAR

 

And you would have murdered TAR. I don't know who that imposter in the other room is.

 

Regards, TAR

If I made a doll that looked like you and stuck a needle in its eye, would you feel the pain?

Hey, my stomach hurts, who did that!

Edited June 3, 2015 by tar

[StringJunky]

...

If I made a doll that looked like you and stuck a needle in its eye, would you feel the pain?

Hey, my stomach hurts, who did that!

No, of course not. The doll is Me + Time since copied.

[tar]

StringJunky,

 

Sorry, I didn't get #81.

 

Perhaps this topic is too complicated for me to have used sarcasm. People might think I am saying something that I am trying to say the opposite of.

 

Voodoo dolls are on the magic side of things. I was trying to indicate, that there is something real and continuous about a person, that does not just follow his/her form and is more than the information of which that individual is composed. A person is a particular collection of information. As someone said, an "instance" of that particular collection of information.

We are all something like the information that existed in Lucy + Time. But that does not make any of us Lucy. She is dead. That instance of the information, the pattern, the form the structure, died a long time ago, and all we have is her information, not her. We have it two ways. Really in our genes. And really, when we hold her cells in our hand and extract and study her pattern. But the information does not make a consciousness until it makes a living, functioning, particular instance of a human. That instance of a human is at one place and one place only, at one instant and one instant only. That human is unique BECAUSE there is no other entity occupying that particular place at that particular moment.

 

If that person should move, he/she remains unique. There is still no other at the new location. If the clock should tick, the person remains unique, because there is no other in that place at the new instant.

 

I was looking at the scar on my knee, earlier, thinking about what makes a person continuously themselves. I am 61. That scar had plenty of time to shed cells, to grow new cells, to have carbon molecules replaced by other carbon molecules. That scar might not have a single piece of matter in common with the matter around when a third grader's knee hit the ground in a game of tag and was rent open by a piece of glass, but you will have no problem guessing who that third grader was. And everywhere I have gone since, there I was, with my knee with the scar on it. There is definitely a continuation. It is not a "new" me, every instant. It is the same me, with the scar, still alive, the next time the clock ticks.

 

And I do not care if the clone has my scar, and my memories. He is not me. He is at best another instance of me. But he is not THIS instance.

 

 

 

Regards, TAR

He is somebody else. Clone of TAR. Not TAR. He has his own, unique, consciousness. He is at one place at one time, and it is a different place than here where TAR is.

For much of my career I was a Fax machine specialist. But a funny story is, the first time I sent a fax, I was sending a sheet of paper over to the building where they handled parts, and I put the sheet in the top, dialed the number and hit the button. The paper fed into the machine, and came out the bottom. I said "huh, it didn't go".

For anyone not familiar with Fax machines, the sheet is not supposed to go anywhere. A facsimile of the information on the sheet will be rendered at a Fax at the other end of the line.

on a DIFFERENT sheet

That third grader, actually fell down under a big chestnut tree outside that private school in Newark. My clone, would not have to have put those two thoughts together. Some of our memories, are reconstructed. We fill in the blanks, complete the pattern. Consciousness is a mixture of arrangement of neurons, and the pattern of signals passing between them. Both information and circuit carrying the information. I know a fellow who had brain surgery. Did not know who he was and where he was at different points since. But he now has put it all back together and knows exactly who he is and where he is, most times. Amazing for me to think someone was messing around in his head, sucking fluid out, knocking stuff about, and nothing was disturbed. Well things were disturbed, but he has put most of it back together. Filled in the blanks. Reestablished a lot of the important connections. But even when he was non-responsive, I knew my dad was in there, somewhere.

 

What that means exactly, I think is what this thread is about.

Edited June 3, 2015 by tar

[Spyman]

Sorry for the very large post and if I happen to repeat myself, I am trying to catch up and need to backtrack to important points.

 

You are, however, making an assumption that "you" already experience continuity of existence in a form other than that which would be experienced by G2.

No, I don't make that assumption, I think the copy will experience equal continuity of existence as the original.

 

You-at-10-years-old is just as dead as G1. Your link to 10-year-old-you exists pretty much entirely in the patterns that have been preserved as memories, personality, physical characteristics, etc., all of which are also present in G2. G1 isn't made up of the same matter as G-at-10. G1 simply preserves some elements of the pattern of G-at-10. The difference, of course, is that there is a clear moment where G2 replaces G1, while the erasure of G-at-10 and emergence of G1 seems more gradual, but the end result is ultimately the same.

 

There is a different you that retains the memories of the old you, but is demonstrably not the same you.

We develop and change when we age but the changes are not randomly replacements that just happens, the aging is a natural process.

 

If a take a pen and break it in two halves then you can claim that the pen is broken or that it has changed, but you can't claim that it suddenly is another pen, it's still that pen even though it's no longer identical to how it was before.

 

Likewise the 10-years old Spyman is not dead, he no longer exists as a 10-year old boy but he still exists as me. Granted I have aged much and gained a lot of experience and memories since then but I am still Spyman.

 

 

Again, we're assuming as part of the premise that Spyman 1 post-transport is "more" a continuation of Spyman 1 pre-transport than Spyman 2 is.

 

Instead, it may be the case that we have Spyman 1 step into the transporter, and Spyman 1a who steps out on Earth while Spyman 1b steps out on Mars.

 

Spyman 1a is certainly not Spyman 1b, but neither is he Spyman 1 any more or less than Spyman 1b is.

This is a different assumption and this time I say yes, I do think that the aged original is a "more" continuation than the new copy. Because Spyman 1 has physically changed into Spyman 1a by natural processes while Spyman 1b was artificially created from new material.

 

The mind of Spyman 1a is natural and physical continuation from Spyman 1 with a track history, but the mind of Spyman 1b was 'jump started' from Spyman 1's current data. Spyman 1b don't have this track history, he has the same data but the causes for them are only virtual, the natural and physical processes that shaped Spyman 1a did never happen to Spyman 1b, he only inherited the end result of them.

 

Let's go back to the example with the pen, if the broken pen is glued together again and then duplicated in the 'transporter'. Since it is indistinguishable from the original the duplicated pen will also have an identical glued crack even though no one did ever break it. It's obvious that the copy have a different time line and a fake history.

 

Also to take into consideration is that the group of particles that constitutes Spyman 1 has worldlines through spacetime and they (mostly) continue to stay together and constitue Spyman 1a. None of Spyman 1b's particles have worldlines going through Spyman 1.

 

My conclusion is that Spyman 1a has a closer relation to Spyman 1 than what Spyman 1b have.

 

 

What this means then is that, as Eise said earlier, you think you are special and you have a soul.

When people speak about "souls" they bring in religion and supernatural spirits or ghosts existing outside of physical laws and I consider consciousness to be a physical process taking place well within the laws of nature.

 

You yourself agreed that the two Spymans would be two distinct individuals, that makes them both special even when identical.

 

The minds in those two Spymans would also be two distinct consciousnesses, special although they would be exactly identical.

 

 

Why? Consciousness is a process. Does a flame have continuity? The flames continue to dance in the same place, and arise from the same fuel source, but the atoms that are reacting are different, they are emitting different photons. A flame is being continuously created anew in the same place.

 

It's like the adage about not being able to cross the same river twice. It looks about the same. It behaves about the same. But the water that flows through it isn't the same water.

Well, I agree that consciousness is a process and for me that means both changes and continuity.

(But I like this post and will upvote it even though I seem to disagree with you.)

 

A fire continues until it is extinguished, even though the flames are consuming new fuel and emitting different photons.

 

Likewise a river continues to exists even though its path may change and the water flowing through it is constantly replaced.

 

The mental state that makes up "you" right now is not the same mental state that will make up "you" five minutes from now. It will be similar, but not identical. If you stretch it out to a long enough time, most of the matter won't be the same either, as your body cycles through raw materials. It will be slotted into roughly the same pattern, but it won't be the same atoms.

Yes, the mental state is changing but the changes are not random, the procedure of how the changes happens is also a part of the consciousness, when a computer program is processing new data the program itself is the same and have continuity.

 

The body is an organism and even if it like the river replaces building blocks and go through changes, the organism itself has a continuity. Without changes and continuity I wouldn't consider an organism to be alive.

 

How we changes and what we change into is also an part of who we are, a part of how we define ourselves and our mind.

 

So what is it about you that has an independent continuous existence for the duration of your life if not the pattern (which can be copied)?

This sentence is very confusing in the context, I don't know if it's a language problem or you are trying to make a trick question. It mostly seems to be in conflict with what you are otherwise arguing and surprisingly well in agreement with my stand.

 

Do you consider the "pattern" to have independent continuous existence for the duration of your life?

 

Obviously I consider my mind and body to continuously exist for the duration of my life.

 

 

I was looking at the scar on my knee, earlier, thinking about what makes a person continuously themselves. I am 61. That scar had plenty of time to shed cells, to grow new cells, to have carbon molecules replaced by other carbon molecules. That scar might not have a single piece of matter in common with the matter around when a third grader's knee hit the ground in a game of tag and was rent open by a piece of glass, but you will have no problem guessing who that third grader was. And everywhere I have gone since, there I was, with my knee with the scar on it. There is definitely a continuation. It is not a "new" me, every instant. It is the same me, with the scar, still alive, the next time the clock ticks.

 

And I do not care if the clone has my scar, and my memories. He is not me. He is at best another instance of me. But he is not THIS instance.

This section illustrates my thoughts very well, +1.

[StringJunky]

I don't feel I can add any more to this interesting conversation, only reassert what I've already said. I don't want to keep repeating myself, but in different words, so I'll just watch from hereon.

[Graeme M]

Still going eh? And yes, that's why I've stopped, I think I am just repeating myself. But heck, what's a forum if we don't argue the point?

I kind of get where Delta and StringJunky are coming from but tha seems to me to be a confusion between physical implementation and the description of that. The information SJ talks of is a description - a specification if you will. That description can be run on any hardware but to my mind whatever implementation is run, it has a unique identity that lasts as long as that implementation runs.

I also wonder at the notion that a replica is essentially me. The process that is me is composed of many sub-processes that each have a continuous linearity - processing input, memories, experience and so on in a constant shifting neural network that I suspect does not have any complete unity at any one point. "I" am smeared over time.

The replication process merely creates an initial condition - initialisation of the replica's instance if you like. Once running, the replica's manifestation follows its own path as will any other replica. And the original. The implementation's actual internal state over time is uniquely keyed to the physical arrangement which changes over time, like TAR's scar example.

That the physical implements the instance seems clear when you consider that the replication process can only ever set the initial state. You would struggle to build a replication process that could adequately render a complete functioning me at every moment - how often would you rearrange the components? Every second? Half second? Nano-second? What algorithm would have suffiecient complexity to capture all input, possible neural connections and outputs and create that in every moment? The computational complexity would be enormous.

I've struggled to see the argument presented. I think I see what you mean but I disagree. I think any consciousness is uniquely embedded in the localised arrangement that is the person concerned.

The transporter may create a replica who is my duplicate, but it is not the cognising "me" I am so attached to.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Graeme M

[StringJunky]

 

...I think any consciousness is uniquely embedded in the localised arrangement that is the person concerned.

That is the point of the divergence in opinion. All I've got offer from here is to belittle you, insult you for your ignorance and lack of vision!

 

It's one I shall no doubt ponder a while and try to learn to elucidate better, as well as critique what I think know.

Edited June 3, 2015 by StringJunky

[Graeme M]

Yeah, I couldn't resist. I know we diverge though I think generally we agree on the basics. At least we agree that mind is not some separate metaphysical construct.

 

But I still can't get my head around what I *think* you are saying!

[StringJunky]

Yeah, I couldn't resist. I know we diverge though I think generally we agree on the basics. At least we agree that mind is not some separate metaphysical construct.

 

But I still can't get my head around what I *think* you are saying!

Yes, we both agree it's not metaphysical. Like i said, I need to think a bit more time to explain myself better.

Edited June 3, 2015 by StringJunky

[tar]

Thread,

 

Well yes, I guess I am left with nothing but repeat thoughts...but maybe my clone can think of something new.

 

Ah yes, one loose end. I know the rules are, that clone is identical in every way, and limitations of technology are not to be entertained, but how about limitations of reality. One objection I still hold is that clone is not identical to original, because he/she is in the other room. If there were a glass between them they would see each other. Immediately they are not the same. Original is conscious of clone in the other room and clone is conscious of original in the other room. If they were to arm wrestle, one would win and one would loose. The clone is "just" born and some of the things original is conscious of, are not present in the room. Maybe the attendants are different, maybe the sun was shining through the window in the original's room and the original was facing south whereas the clone is printed facing North, and there is no window in his room but the one through the wall between. The clone would immediately adjust to this new location and his/her orientation to his surroundings, and this consciousness, this stuff that he/she was conscious of, would be different than that which original was conscious of. His/her consciousness can not be identical in every way, not because of technology, but because of the reality of the situation.

 

Regards, TAR

clone has a different starting point, to be conscious of, then did original

[Delta1212]

Once there are two of you, I think we all agree that they diverge and do not remain identical from that point forward.

 

Let's flip it around just for fun. Let's say we have a worm hole. You step through it and find yourself physically transported to Mars. A weird consequence of this particular wormhole, however, is that it leaves a copy of you behind. So now the "original" you is in a new location and the copy is in the location occupied by the original.

 

Does the copy now have a greater claim to being the real you because it's location lines up better with that of the original at the moment of copying?

[tar]

plus, if original was explained the process, and clone had all of original's memories, then clone would know exactly that he was a clone, and original was alive, and sitting in the next room

[StringJunky]

Let the two argue between themselves about who is the original. The original would have to have information that the clone doesn't know about the past.

Edited June 3, 2015 by StringJunky

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

Well wait, I was saying that reality would keep the copy from being exactly like the original, not lack of technology. I can't entertain your experiment, because I don't know what happens when you step into a wormhole. I already think that time travel is not realistic and the wormhole thing makes no sense to me, I don't know what the wormhole is in.

 

You seem to be introducing another aspect here. Or at least bringing up in my mind an aspect that I don't think has been discussed yet in reference to the OP and that is our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. And to clarify the meanings behind the perspectives elucidated herein, one would have to specify when they are an observer, and when they are putting themselves in the shoes of another observer, and when they are putting themselves in the shoes of an imaginary observer that has no realistic constraints. That is, as soon as you step out of the wormhole, at the other end of the Milky Way, you have separated yourself from Earth by a hundred thousand lightyears. Anything that happens there, won't matter here for 100,000 years. At which point what happened there will be what happened 100,000 years ago. How long lived is our observer, and where is he/she standing? Define the observer of the experiment's unique here and now, and no jumping back and forth between hypothetical observers that have unrealistic powers of observation.(without announcing the change in perspective)

 

Regards, TAR

 

Regards, TAR

Edited June 3, 2015 by tar

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

 

I just reread your switch around, and understand now that you were challenging the here portion of my here and now criteria. I would have to say you have a point. The consciousness would go with the instance that was transported to Mars. So my here and now is not a litmus test. However I would have to ask if I remained intact, while going through the wormhole? That is, was I always present, during the trip?

 

Regards TAR

[Graeme M]

At this point I'd like to hear what Yoseph thinks about all this!!

[Delta1212]

Delta1212,

 

 

I just reread your switch around, and understand now that you were challenging the here portion of my here and now criteria. I would have to say you have a point. The consciousness would go with the instance that was transported to Mars. So my here and now is not a litmus test. However I would have to ask if I remained intact, while going through the wormhole? That is, was I always present, during the trip?

 

Regards TAR

For the sake of argument, sure. You don't break up and reassemble at the other end of the wormhole. It just sends you through in one piece.

[tar]

Yoseph?

 

What do you think? Are we getting anywhere, toward answering your OP?

 

Delta1212,

 

So if all the processes and activity and mechanisms and physical patterns remain intact, during the trip, then I believe the consciousness would stay with the traveler and never leave him/her for the copy. There would be no mechanism to transfer the consciousness to the copy, but there would be all the reasons to stay alive in the original. If for instance wormholes changed one important thing about what causes consciousness in the first place, then the original might not be conscious of his/her body, getting to the other end. A body, with the consciousness removed. Say for instance structures that create dopamine (my pet subject at the moment) are turned to structures that make pee pee, during the trip through the wormhole, then whatever thoughts and actions, activities and non-activities related to consciousness, that require dopamine to be involved to happen at all, would not happen, which would mean consciousness would not occur at the other end. We killed me, by sending me through the wormhole. My body is intact, but it does not work anymore. Any process that required dopamine is now non-operative.

 

It is like my objection to rivers of honey. What would be the use, without a tongue to taste the sweet.

 

Regards, TAR

If the body/brain/heart group, is non-operative, YOU is dead. You can't sit on a satin bench, without a butt.

Wow, I just had a thought, related to the butt comment. What if what we are conscious of, IS our body/brain/heart group and its position in space and time?

 

That would 'spain everything. The answer is, YOU are nothing without you.

Nothing but a memory.

[Delta1212]

Ok, I have a semi-tangential but ultimately related question:

 

If someone experiences significant brain trauma of the type that fundamentally changed their personality (up to and including, say, having a railroad spike driven through your frontal lobe) is that person still "themselves" or has their consciousness died and been replaced by a different one?

[Graeme M]

Delta can I clarify something about your position? I think (without having any special knowledge or insight into the matter - I don't know for example the current state of understanding about mind/body) that the mind arises in the brain. Consciousness is a property of mind. I think then that consciousness is as much an element of my physical being as is my arm or tongue.

 

A duplicate of me is an exact replica. Are you saying that if a physical copy is indistinguishable from me, it might as well be considered me? Or that the physical me at any moment is not the same physical me as say yesterday?

 

Do you apply this notion only to organic forms, or to inanimate objects like say a teapot?

[Delta1212]

Delta can I clarify something about your position? I think (without having any special knowledge or insight into the matter - I don't know for example the current state of understanding about mind/body) that the mind arises in the brain. Consciousness is a property of mind. I think then that consciousness is as much an element of my physical being as is my arm or tongue.

 

A duplicate of me is an exact replica. Are you saying that if a physical copy is indistinguishable from me, it might as well be considered me? Or that the physical me at any moment is not the same physical me as say yesterday?

 

Do you apply this notion only to organic forms, or to inanimate objects like say a teapot?

 

One key point that distinguishes living things from a teapot is that they are constantly changing and cycling through material.

 

Let's say you have a LEGO palace. Each day you swap out a single brick. Sometimes you put a new brick back in exactly the same place. Sometimes you put the new brick in a slightly different position. After ten years of doing this, there are only a handful of bricks out of a few thousand remaining from the original LEGO palace and it looks only vaguely similar to the original design.

 

Is the palace that you have at the end of ten years the same palace that you started with?