Consciousness Thought Experiment

[Graeme M]

Interesting. I guess there must be some philosophical treatments of this somewhere but my limited knowledge of the matter offers no insights.

 

So you are suggesting that the 'thingness' quality of a thing depends on whether it is organic or inorganic?

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

The spike through the frontal lobe.

 

My vote, would be its the same consciousness that we previously assigned to that particular brain/body/heart prior the spike, but now it has less capability than it did before.

 

The pre-spike brilliant guy is no longer available. But the same guy is still available, he just can't perform functions that require a fully functioning frontal lobe. Like an amputee can not play basketball like he used to prior the leg getting taken off.

 

Identity is an interesting side issue here. I feel a lot different now that I don't have a job. Like something is not right, I am not pulling my weight, I have lost my identity, I can not identify with the company that I identified with for 26 years. But does that mean a person's consciousness dies when they get divorced, or lose a mate, or a child or a parent.?

 

Is "feeling of self", or self esteem part of this question?

 

Does it matter, as far as Bob being a unique, living, conscious being, whether one cell, or a billion in his brain stop working correctly?

 

I might not be the man I used to be, at 30, slower, not as sharp, a little lame, a little forgetful, a little emotional. But as far as being TAR, I never stopped, and no other entity ever took up the role.

 

Regards, TAR

[MigL]

This is directed at Spyman...

 

Your assertion is that when cells in your body die, and are the replaced by new cells ( ie you age ), there is a 'natural' ( whatever that means ) continuity of your existence. As opposed to the 'artificial' continuity experienced by the transported clone.

 

So what if you had a miniature transporter that killed off just one cell at a time and reinserted it into your body at the same location as the one that was killed ? Would that still be a natural continuity ? I don't see a difference from the natural cell replacement process.

 

Now what if you had many such micro-transporters, and over the period of one week, a month, a year, you replaced all the cell in your body with 'transported' ones ? You have, in effect, cloned/transported all of you, but piecemeal, so that each cloning/transporting is equivalent to the 'natural' ( again, what does that even mean ) process. Are you still 'you', or is this different ?

 

And what is your reasoning ?

[Delta1212]

But as far as being TAR, I never stopped, and no other entity ever took up the role.

 

How would you know? Let's assume your position is correct and the transporter duplicate is not really you. If someone created a duplicated of you and replaced you in your sleep, the duplicate would wake up presuming he was the original and come on here and say he had always been TAR and no other entity had replaced him.

 

If, during the course of the last 30 years, the first TAR that existed disappeared and was eventually replaced by a new entity with its own consciousness but all of the memories of the old TAR, the new entity would presumably assume that it was the original and that it was the same entity that had always existed as TAR's mind, even though the real original was long gone.

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

I can't explain exactly why, but I think somehow here we are saying the duplicate would seem like TAR to others, so this would mean he would feel like TAR to TAR. To me, TAR has the most to say about this. It is exactly why some here have declined to be the subject of the transporter experiment. We don't care if the rest of the world thinks we are alive and carrying on exactly in the manner we did before, if in actuality we have been atomized.

 

The objective structure and function of TAR is the only thing the duplicate has. What ever I am, has not been transferred to the other room. The experiment has provided no mechanism for the composite, body/brain/heart group of TAR, to relocate in the other room. All the material for the duplicate came out of "toner" bottles, ectoplasma cyan, carbon chain yellow. No part of the actual TAR transferred to the other room. To the objective world, there is no difference. The technology is perfect. The copy is flawless. To the rest of the world, TAR is still alive. To me, however, I have been atomized. I have no part, any longer, in the discussion. You can not claim my consciousness has been transferred to the other room. The experiment specifically claims every thing about me has be REPRODUCED. Not moved, but copied.

 

Consider identical twins. They can fool even their own parents from time to time, as to who is who. But I would be willing to bet, they can not fool each other. Each always knows who is the me and who is the twin.

 

So you say someone has replaced me, in my sleep. My question is, what did they do with me, when they made the switch? The duplicate might carry on with my life, and might fool everyone on the board, but I would be locked in the sound proof room in the cellar, screaming at the top of my lungs to be let back in my life.

 

Yoseph,

 

"1. You live out your life as the one you landed with and when you die your consciousness "jumps" back in time to the moment you split and you then get to experience the life as the other copy."

 

The use of the words, "landed" and "jumps", seems to presuppose a separate entity, that can move from body to body. If my take here, is correct, you can not go anywhere without your body/brain/heart group, going along.

 

Regards, TAR

In science, I believe things like atoms are considered interchangeable and indistinquishable from each other.

 

I do not think that works with people. In the case of people, the atom knows who it is, and keeps track of itself. It makes a difference to the atom that it was that particular Hydrogen atom that was in that particular water molecule, that once was in the snot of Hitler, and at another point, had gone over Niagra Falls.

Edited June 6, 2015 by tar

[Spyman]

This is directed at Spyman...

Very good questions, (+1), however I will not likely be able to give you a satisfying answer, because you ultimately seem to be asking for the limits of how much or how fast you can change a person before he will cease to exist, and I don't have a good answer for that.

 

Your assertion is that when cells in your body die, and are the replaced by new cells ( ie you age ), there is a 'natural' ( whatever that means ) continuity of your existence. As opposed to the 'artificial' continuity experienced by the transported clone.

My assertion is that there is continuity of one life and existence and another life or existence can not claim that specific continuity.

 

My words 'natural' and 'artificial' was an attempt to discern between this continuity, 'natural' was ment as anything physical that can happen and cause a remaining mark on the object, like the crack in my pen example or the scar in Tar's example. And the opposite, 'artificial', was ment for the case when identical marks are imprinted on the object without that physical cause acting on the object.

 

So what if you had a miniature transporter that killed off just one cell at a time and reinserted it into your body at the same location as the one that was killed ? Would that still be a natural continuity ? I don't see a difference from the natural cell replacement process.

 

Now what if you had many such micro-transporters, and over the period of one week, a month, a year, you replaced all the cell in your body with 'transported' ones ? You have, in effect, cloned/transported all of you, but piecemeal, so that each cloning/transporting is equivalent to the 'natural' ( again, what does that even mean ) process. Are you still 'you', or is this different ?

 

And what is your reasoning ?

If you replace pieces of me, inside of me here where I am, then I don't consider it to be neither cloning nor transportation. We already do replace human body parts surgically and I don't consider a person with, for instance, a new heart to be a new person, even though the heart comes from someone else. But if the brain was surgically replaced I would no longer consider it to be the same person.

 

If pieces of me would be replaced at the same pace and similar to the biological aging procedure then I don't see a difference. But if you replace all of me instantly then I think you have created a new body and self. Somewhere in between there is a fuzzy grey area where I would be very unsure whether you have only changed the old self or created a new one.

 

At the very extreme I can accept that if the replacing pieces are similar and there was great care to not interrupt the consciousness, then maybe it would be possible to replace the body 'around' the self.

[tar]

Spyman,

 

So, I like that. The "marking of an object" does not make it a different object. Just the same object, with a new marking. When we cloned Spyman earlier, we took a different lump of material and gave it all of Spyman's markings. This did not make the thing Spyman, just a lump of stuff, with all of Spyman's markings. Convincing to all others, that the markings are identical to Spyman's markings, but there is no natural continuity that would carry the actual Spyman, to the clone.

 

When the original Spyman looked at the moon, his brain was "marked" with an analog representation of the moon, in a particular orientation to the analog mark of the horizon that was marked in Spyman's brain on the same day/night.

 

A person has the whole history of his/her life marked on the body/brain/heart group and "thinks" about, and integrates all the marks, to where the person has a consistent, fitting model of the world, with his/her body/brain/heart group, positioned in the world, here and now.

 

 

Sleeping, a person dreams and plays with images and symbols and arranges them any way that suits. Once awake though, you reclaim your position in space and time and learn what time it is and what day it is, and who's house you are in, and whether you fell asleep on the couch, or in the bed, or on the chair. You put together a consistent model, that fits with all the facts that were the case, and all the facts your senses are informing you about. You decide whether you have to get up and shower, or whether you can go back to sleep.

 

The clone, would have a little problem. The memories, would not fit the new facts coming in. All indications would be he was clone of Spyman, in the next room. He would have no reason to believe he was Spyman. Just a clone, with Spyman's memories (marks).

 

Regard, TAR

Edited June 8, 2015 by tar

[Graeme M]

At the risk of starting this one all over again, I just wanted to note that I now distance myself from my earlier position. I see that I had indeed been arguing, despite my belief otherwise, for a dualist position. I had at heart a distinct notion that Graeme M is a particular entity with an existence that is at once discrete and continuous. Upon reading more and thinking on this, I now agree with the view that there is no me, simply a state of neural processing of sensory and internal state information at any point in time.

 

A perfect replica of me would indeed be me - consciousness wise -as would any number of such replicas. Disregarding what quantum state matters might indicate (simply because I do not know enough about such matters) and assuming at the macro level that the transporter does create a faithful replica of me, I would now happily use it.

[tar]

Graeme M,

 

And where is the natural continuity? How do "you" get from your current body/brain/heart group, into the body/brain/heart group of your clone?

 

Regards, TAR

[Graeme M]

TAR, I have always felt the mind/soul/consciousness simply arises from brain function. I am no dualist. I just hadn't really understood what that meant. I now see consciousness as purely a dynamic neural process.

 

Thus, there IS no continuity in a linear sense, there simply is a current state. That state has access to working and long term memory and so there is a sense of continuity, but not in a literal singular entity sense. So there is no "you" to get anywhere. That was my mistake, I thought there was a specific "me" keyed to my current physical implementation. But I now do not think there is.

 

"I" am simply a brain state, or more exactly I suppose a configuration of neural circuitry that changes moment by moment. In a way, "I" arise anew at each moment. In a more literal sense, there is no "me". Thus if we replicate my exact neural arrangement at any moment on another platform, the consciousness so derived will feel exactly like me.

[tar]

Graeme M,

 

Well, a few comments. One, how does a "state" have access to something? If the state is the new you, then the state is the you, and being a unique state, in a particular place and time, is a condition of existence. If you are conscious of that condition, if you occupy that particular place and time, if you are the new neural state that exists at that particular place and time, then "you" and the "state" are one in the same.

 

I am not sure which aspect, or what aspect of duality you have changed your mind about, but let's use that as a clone test. If your clone was made prior your changing your mind, what does your clone feel about duality, now? Does it have "your" thoughts, or does it have thoughts of its own? If it has certain brain states, they are identical to yours only for a moment, once the new state is arrived at, in the next moment, its brain state, and your brain state are no longer identical. You have your state, it has its state. You are you, it is it.

 

Or so it seems to me.

 

Regards, TAR

[Graeme M]

Well, I don't pretend to have suddenly gained the ultimate insight to existence, i was simply noting that on reflection I now agree with several earlier posters with whom I was arguing. So, in saying what I have, I am just saying I have a particular opinion. I may still be quite wrong to hold that opinion.

 

That said, after reading several recent books in the meantime, my general idea of how consciousness works is that the brain constructs a model of internal processing and it is this model that we consider to be consciousness. To put it perhaps too simply, consciousness is just what it feels like to have an internal abstraction of the state of the brain's neural network at any point in time. In effect, there isn't a "you" in the traditional sense of you, rather "you" and your subjective experience are simply the constructed model of perceptual object and attentive processing.

 

So in answer to your question, yes, the clone will in that first moment be exactly me, or rather, its neural arrangement will be identical. Thereafter it goes its own way. But that is simply what happens now. At each moment, our internal neural arrangement is what it is in response to sensory input and internal processing. Thus if we created 100 clones, Each would be quite certain it is me and as far as it is concerned, life has just gone on. The point is that it doesn't matter what unfolds into the future, each is simply a Graeme M. Which is just a current state of neural arrangements. That's it.

 

And anyone who has undergone a general anaesthetic has probably experienced this. The brain depends on wide scale connectivity to function and give rise to consciousness. When that connectivity ceases, so does consciousness. And if there is no consciousness, then in effect we cease to exist for that time. There is no abstracted model. On awakening from anaesthetic, the brain reboots and re-establishes the network connectivity and consciousness re-emerges. That is exactly how it feels to die and be reborn. Absent the reawakening part and that is death.

[tar]

Graeme M,

 

Well I am not so sure waking up from anesthesia is the same as dying and being reborn.

 

There seems to be a consideration in your thinking, that I have ruled out of mine. That of a ghost in the machine.

 

In my thinking, the person IS the machine, and without the arrangement would not be the person. That is, when you are under anesthesia you still possess the arrangement that "wakes up" and continues functioning, with the same arrangement of brain cells and blood cells, muscles and organs and such. If you had an empty stomach when you were put under, you would have a empty stomach when you regained consciousness (unless someone else put something in your stomach while you were out.) There is not "another" you that can be transferred to some location sans your body/brain/heart group.

 

In your thinking, there is this entity which is you, which is not contingent on your body/brain/heart group being functioning and alive. It can reappear in 100 clones. My question to you, is how does "it" get from you to the other vessels?

 

Regards, TAR

[Graeme M]

TAR I don't think we are disagreeing. It's a matter of perspective. I am not saying that there is a you, or an entity, or a ghost in the machine. I am saying there is no you as an entity that exists independently. What we experience as a self is something of an illusion - it's just a neural arrangement. In a way, it's like say a software program. It has no actual self, but a copy of that program can run on any hardware that supports it.

 

So the physical body that is you now, is your body. Destroy it and its gone. Create a copy and you've got a copy. The copy's brain will create a conscious state. Because it has access to your memories etc it will be the same subjective experience as you currently have. Strictly speaking it's not "you" because there IS no you. Qualitatively the subjective experience is the same.

[tar]

Graeme M,

 

The memories are the same, according to the thread premise, but we may have to discuss what a memory is to decide if qualitatively the subjective experience is the same.

 

For instance we could be standing next to each other, looking at the moon, close our eyes and subjectively have the same memory of the moon. Your memory however would be a little different than mine, since we were standing a few feet from each other, you could see a few feet more of the moon's edge on the right than I could, and your memory would reflect that. Also I don't have 20/20 vision anymore, and you do, so your memory of the moon might be a little sharper than mine. Plus there was an overhanging tree, an outside leaf of which was in front of the moon for me, and that was not the case for you. Our memories of the same thing are then not subjectively the same. Plus we have the whole qualia discussion, where how I perceive and remember may be different from how you do it. I might not be able to subjectively know what it is like for you to remember the moon.

 

So the premise of the thread is that the memories are identical, and the equipment, every cell and synapse is identical and the subjective experience of the clone would be absolutely no different than the subjective experience of the original...except there are now two TARs, one, the original and one the copy and that makes two conscious entities, who can not read each other's mind...well maybe a little, but each, going forward, can "go their own way" and have their own thoughts. If you would then cut off the hand of the original, only the original would feel the pain. The person feeling the pain is you. You are not concurrently "in" the body of the clone, not feeling the pain. The new experiences and the memories of the clone have nothing whatsoever to do with you.

 

Do they?

 

Regards. TAR

[Delta1212]

TAR, I have always felt the mind/soul/consciousness simply arises from brain function. I am no dualist. I just hadn't really understood what that meant. I now see consciousness as purely a dynamic neural process.

 

Thus, there IS no continuity in a linear sense, there simply is a current state. That state has access to working and long term memory and so there is a sense of continuity, but not in a literal singular entity sense. So there is no "you" to get anywhere. That was my mistake, I thought there was a specific "me" keyed to my current physical implementation. But I now do not think there is.

 

"I" am simply a brain state, or more exactly I suppose a configuration of neural circuitry that changes moment by moment. In a way, "I" arise anew at each moment. In a more literal sense, there is no "me". Thus if we replicate my exact neural arrangement at any moment on another platform, the consciousness so derived will feel exactly like me.

Without re-reading the whole thread to remind myself what exactly I posted, I believe this was what I was trying to argue.

[StringJunky]

TAR I don't think we are disagreeing. It's a matter of perspective. I am not saying that there is a you, or an entity, or a ghost in the machine. I am saying there is no you as an entity that exists independently. What we experience as a self is something of an illusion - it's just a neural arrangement. In a way, it's like say a software program. It has no actual self, but a copy of that program can run on any hardware that supports it.

 

So the physical body that is you now, is your body. Destroy it and its gone. Create a copy and you've got a copy. The copy's brain will create a conscious state. Because it has access to your memories etc it will be the same subjective experience as you currently have. Strictly speaking it's not "you" because there IS no you. Qualitatively the subjective experience is the same.

You got there in the end.

Without re-reading the whole thread to remind myself what exactly I posted, I believe this was what I was trying to argue.

You did but it just took him a while to bite through it.

Edited September 17, 2015 by StringJunky

[Graeme M]

Indeed yes. It still does my head in a bit trying to quite fathom what that notion means but hey! I'll keep thinking on it.

 

 

So the premise of the thread is that the memories are identical, and the equipment, every cell and synapse is identical and the subjective experience of the clone would be absolutely no different than the subjective experience of the original...except there are now two TARs, one, the original and one the copy and that makes two conscious entities, who can not read each other's mind...well maybe a little, but each, going forward, can "go their own way" and have their own thoughts. If you would then cut off the hand of the original, only the original would feel the pain. The person feeling the pain is you. You are not concurrently "in" the body of the clone, not feeling the pain. The new experiences and the memories of the clone have nothing whatsoever to do with you.

 

Do they?

 

Regards. TAR

 

TAR, I think the point I am making is that there is no privileged you. So to speak of you when you talk of the original and copy is erroneous. They remain two separate physical beings it is true and hence as you say neither has access to the other's thoughts or feelings. But each is "you". Or more exactly each is an abstracted model of the brain's processes. You arise at each moment as an entirely new construct. There is no transfer of any ethereal substance any more than there is a transfer of any elbowness between the two, yet each has an identically looking, functioning elbow. So too with the brain.

 

Going back to the OP's question: "We do the exact same thing again but we don't atomise the original "you". There are now two copies of you with the exact same experience up until this moment in time. Which one of them do you experience the world through? Who's experiencing the world through the one that isn't you?"

 

The answer is neither and both. There's no privileged you. Each experiences the world as a separate being with no access to the other's experience, but each is absolutely TAR or Graeme M or whomever was copied.

[tar]

Graeme M,

 

Perhaps I am thinking it is quite substantial to be a you, and such a you is not transferable to "other" arrangements. Even identical arrangements.

 

Consider how closely identical one human is to another. Same organs, same brain structure, same chemicals doing the same stuff in so many ways. And people in the same country or the same school or business or family have even many of the same memories as the person sitting next to them. A very similar neural state, as opposed to say the state of a beaver and the state of a fruit fly, or a rock, or an asteroid. Yet I have definitely been me and no one else, for the last 61 years. Everywhere I've gone, there I've been. There is a definite privileged me that would not be transferred to the clone. The clone would be TAR to others. The clone would even be TAR to himself. But "I" would not be seeing things through his eyes. I would be seeing things through mine.

 

There is not a way to get "me" into another vessel, unless you count children. It would be nice to think there was a way to be immortal, to put your consciousness into a thousand copies of yourself. But, look around. There are 8 billion copies of you living right now. Only one of them is subjectively you. There is no mistake in identifying oneself. There is a privileged you. At least while you are alive.

 

Regards, TAR

[Graeme M]

TAR, consider this. Do you agree that if I could create a perfect copy of you, then that clone would be in the moment of creation exactly the same as you? That to it, it is TAR, and to you, you are TAR? Disregard here matters of physical unlikelihood, this is a thought experiment only. In practice I am suspicious some kind of quantum effects would make this impossible, but here we are simply considering what it means to have your subjective experience.

 

In the moment of creation then, you and T2 are absolutely convinced you are both TAR. What makes your idea that you are you, any more valid than T2's? Imagine if you will technology that enables us to regenerate T2 at every moment of time into the future. Regardless of what he does, every moment of regeneration for T2 comes with all of the subjective experience you have had till then. Or vice versa.

 

Which of you is real TAR?

Edited September 18, 2015 by Graeme M

[tar]

Graeme M,

 

I think both would know the difference. Like earlier in the thread, where the clone came to consciousness in the next room, he would have known about the experiment, and he would know he was the clone, and he would know he was in a different room than he was a moment before, and that the body he was in was all a facimile of his original body. His memories include the setup and his first experience includes the awareness that he is a clone and the "real", or original Tar is in the next room. It is like, if I were to get my knee replaced, I would know it was not original equipment.

 

Regardless of the fact that the clone TAR feels exactly like original TAR, his position in the universe is unique, no one else is occupying my clone's body, but the consciousness that is aware of being in that place and time. He could be happy or sad, and original TAR would not know, unless he asked, or saw his mood.

 

I am thinking that the reality of being "exactly the same" is not the crucial component here, and even given the impossible, and suggesting that EVERYTHING is the same, there would still be the fact that original is in the same room he started in and clone came to consciousness in the next room. There alone is a huge difference. As huge a difference as the two individuals that are Siamese twins. One exists in a universe that includes the other. They are not the same person.

 

Regards, TAR

 

Regards, TAR

 

Even if the Siamese twins shared the same body and heart there would be two different body/brain/heart groups in the room. One is still aware of the other, as another consciousness. The theory of mind, still applies. The other is another consciousness, not a singular entity. And each is separately privileged as a life, regardless of their shared "state".

Edited September 18, 2015 by tar

[Delta1212]

Tar, let's say you have an experiment that involves cutting you in half lengthwise from top to bottom, and then perfectly cloning the other half and attaching it to each half of you.

 

Who is the original? Both? Neither? Is Tar dead, or are you still there?

Edited September 18, 2015 by Delta1212

[tar]

Delta1212,

 

An interesting question. But we would have to take it very carefully step by step to see what the situation is, at each cut and juncture. The left and right brain for instance have different functions, yet rely on their relationship and connections for functionality. When you first cut me in half, I would not function as me, to begin with. You will have actually killed me, as surely as cutting off Marie's head killed her.

 

And let's say the heart is on the left side of the body. One clone would have two hearts, and the other none. One me would die from no blood circulation, and the other would die because the routing and functionality of the veins and arteries were all screwed up. Same fouled up situation would happen in the brain area, as one half is not constructed to operate with a mirror image of its self. Like cutting your face in half in Photoshop and flipping both halfs, to make two full faces, neither looks like you.

 

So bottom line, I think your experiment would start with my death, so which regrown half would be me, would be a mute question. As soon as you split me apart, I would cease to function as me.

 

Regards, TAR

It is quite amazing how the brain grows in a fetus. How the fibers and dendrites know which way to grow, and what connections to make, is very amazing indeed. There are billions of the little guys doing "their thing", all based on chemicals and proteins replicating and following some complicated chain of events somehow encoded in the DNA and the RNA of the various stem cells that base the process. I am thinking that such a process as growing a brain, and having a brain continue to function in such a way as to have the senses sense the outside world and subsequently build an analog model of it, within the structures and signals in the brain, is not a process that can be simply interrupted. Their are way too many complicated interactions, happening at various levels and scales, and too many interacting systems in a body/brain/heart group, to cut one in half down the middle and expect to know, or even guess at which half would "house" you, to be realistic. I think you need the whole complex to be you. And that includes your history, your environment, and the history of your environment. You can't magically take yourself out of reality and put yourself back in, in another configuration. There has to be continuity. Continuity of all matter and energy and positional relationships involved. Otherwise you are just pretending.

Edited September 18, 2015 by tar

[Delta1212]

So is your contention, then, that a Hemispherectomy, a surgical procedure used to treat epilepsy in some extreme cases, is, in actuality, murder?

Edited September 18, 2015 by Delta1212

[tar]

no, I would think of it like an amputation