Consciousness Thought Experiment

[Strange]

I don't see where I ever suggested "the ghost in the machine". I have always tried to argue the opposite. The identity, that is TAR cannot move to the clone, exactly because it is NOT separate from the material that is currently the original TAR.

 

This is completely irrational. You are saying that consciousness is an emergent property of the material but if an exact copy of the material is made then it ceases to emerge from it.

 

If you can move TAR by reconstructing the pattern in a different lump of material, that is not TAR, that would indicate that TAR was a separate entity than the material.

 

Quite the reverse: it would demonstrate that it was an emergent property of that material.

 

You can not magically move TAR into another vessel. I am the vessel I am currently "inhabiting".

 

So, again, you claim you are separate from the vessel.

[tar]

Since the days of mass production of an item, there is a notion that form and function makes the thing and is the important part of the thing. The pattern, the form, the recipe is the thing, and imposing that, on the right material, will give the material, that identity. I am not sure that works with consciousness. I cannot be interchanged with another human, and have my wife not notice the difference. I cannot be made on an assembly line.

 

Of course, that is the question being asked in the thread. Can I be made on the assembly line. I say not. I am not JUST a pattern. I am not just a recipe of chemicals. I am not just organs and neurons in a unique pattern, that can be copied and which will then be me. It will be like me, but it will be the clone, with its own consciousness, that is not magically connected to mine.

Strange,

 

I do not argue that A consciousness would not emerge in the exact clone. I argue it would not be me. I would still be conscious in the original body/brain/heart group, and this new one, though identical in every way (but position) would have its own consciousness that has about zero to do with my consciousness. My consciousness is over here. That consciousness is over there, to me.

 

Regards, TAR

so sure, A consciousness emerges from the collection of stuff, but it belongs to clone of TAR, not to TAR

[Strange]

I am not JUST a pattern. I am not just a recipe of chemicals. I am not just organs and neurons in a unique pattern, that can be copied and which will then be me.

My consciousness is over here. That consciousness is over there, to me.

 

So you are saying that your consciousness is not purely a product of the material that makes you up. There is some extra "magic" that separates you from the clone.

[tar]

I am absolutely NOT separate from my body/brain/heart group. I am my body/brain/heart group.

Strange,

 

Not magic. The simple fact that I am here and the clone is there.

 

Regards, TAR

Although, there is some amazing thing that is involved in being alive. Some "spark of life" the requires all the pieces and parts are functioning and in the right complex arrangement to each other.

 

I would not call it magic, as it is real and apparent in every living thing, but it is a "something" that requires mechanisms to achieve. It is a victory over the universe's tendency toward increased entropy, and the holding on to a pattern, and passing it on to you children, is quite an accomplishment, though a tiny, fleeting one, in a universe immense in size and duration. But the victory, the consciousness, the awareness of time and place, belongs to the entity aware of their existence. TAR has achieved this victory. The clone has achieved this victory. But there are now two victorious entities, each with their own identity and each with a different history, and different parents to whom they might be beholding.

[Strange]

I am absolutely NOT separate from my body/brain/heart group.

 

You are contradicting yourself:

I am not JUST a pattern. I am not just a recipe of chemicals. I am not just organs and neurons in a unique pattern, that can be copied and which will then be me.

 

Either you are just your material self (and can therefore be copied) or you are not (and therefore require some extra thing/soul/stuff/magic/spark in addition to the matter).

So are you saying that the clone would know it wasn't the real you? And that, therefore, all its memories etc. were not real?

[tar]

Well wait. It is a real copy of me. Its memories are real, but yes, it would know it was a copy and not the original me.

 

It has the memory of being hooked up on the scanner in preparation to be cloned.

 

In terms of theory of mind, it knows there is another mind just like its own, in another body/brain/heart group. It is aware of the existence of the original TAR as a different consciousness.

Therefore, the clone would not think it was TAR, it would think it was clone of TAR.

[Strange]

It has the memory of being hooked up on the scanner in preparation to be cloned.

 

So do you.

 

 

Therefore, the clone would not think it was TAR, it would think it was clone of TAR.

 

Or maybe it would think it was the original and you were the clone...

[tar]

couldn't it tell by the new room it was in, surrounded by the plasma generating equipment, and not the scanning equipment, that it was the clone?

maybe we need to put the original to sleep before the procedure, and not revive the clone until we have moved him into the bed where the original was put to sleep...then I have a problem telling you where I am, if you have in addition placed the original me in a bed in the plasma suite

 

then the original me would think he was the clone, and the clone would think he was the original me

 

I still think I would be the one that thought I was the clone. Continuity wise.

[DrP]

You 2 are kinda going in circles here - I see both sides... Logically I have to agree with Strange as we have no proof of 'ourselves' being anything more than the physical make up of all our parts.. But saying that I don't think I would like the idea of being disintegrated to wake up somewhere else... my clone would have my memories, but I would be dead - lol... The clone may well BE me in every way - but there is no way of actually telling if it would be me or not - I reckon I'd be dead and my clone would be a 'like' of me.

[StringJunky]

... reckon I'd be dead and my clone would be a 'like' of me.

It doesn't matter... if nobody saw you being killed, the clone would carry your info and be still be you.