If you stop thinking of consciousness as a "thing" that goes here or there or is duplicated or destroyed and just regard it as a process, these conundrums disappear.
Brent Jason Resch wrote: > I've thought of an interesting modification to the original UDA > argument which would suggest that one's consciousness is at both > locations simultaneously. > > Since the UDA accepts digital mechanism as its first premise, then it > is possible to instantiate a consciousness within a computer. > Therefore instead of a physical teleportation from Brussels to > Washington and Moscow instead we will have a digital transfer. This > will allow the experimenter to have complete control over the input > each mind receives and guarantee identical content of experience. > > A volunteer in Brussels has her brain frozen and scanned at the > necessary substitution level and the results are loaded into a > computer with the appropriate simulation software that can accurately > model her brain's functions, therefore from her perspective, her > consciousness continues onward from the time her brain was frozen. > > To implement the teleportation, the simulation in the computer in > Brussels is paused, and a snapshot of the current state is sent over > the Internet to two computers, one in Washington and the other in > Moscow, each of these computers has the same simulation software and > upon receipt, resume the simulation of the brain where it left off in > Brussels. > > The question is: if the sensory input is pre-fabricated and identical > in both computers, are there two minds, or simply two implementations > of the same mind? If you believe there are two minds, consider the > following additional steps. > > Since it was established that the experimenter can "teleport" minds by > pausing a simulation, sending their content over the network, and > resuming it elsewhere, then what happens if the experimenter wants to > teleport the Washington mind to Moscow, and the Moscow mind to > Washington? Assume that both computers were preset to run the > simulation for X number of CPU instructions before pausing the > simulation and transferring the state, such that the states are > exactly the same when each is sent. Further assume that the harddrive > space on the computers is limited, so as they receive the brain state, > they overwrite their original save. > > During this procedure, the computers in Washington and Moscow each > receive the other's brain state, however, it is exactly the same as > the one they already had. Therefore the overwriting is a no-op. > After the transfer is complete, each computer resumes the simulation. > Now is Moscow's mind on the Washington computer? If so how did a > no-op (overwriting the file with the same bits) accomplish the > teleportation, if not, what makes the teleportation fail? > > What happens in the case where the Washington and Moscow computer > shutdown for some period of time (5 minutes for example) and then ONLY > the Moscow computer is turned back on. Did a "virtual" teleportation > occur between Washington and Moscow to allow the consciousness that > was in Washington to continue? If not, then would a physical transfer > of the data from Washington to Moscow have saved its consciousness, > and if so, what happened to the Moscow consciousness? > > The above thought experiments led me to conclude that both computers > implement the same mind and are the same mind, despite > having different explanations. Turning off one of the computers in > either Washington or Moscow, therefore, does not end the > consciousness. Per the conclusions put forth in the UDA, the > volunteer in Brussels would say she has a 1/2 chance of ending up in > the Washington computer and 1/2 chance of ending up in the Moscow > computer. Therefore, if you told her "15 minutes after the > teleportation the computer in Washington will be shut off forever" she > should expect a 1/2 chance of dying. This seems to be a > contradiction, as there is a "virtual" teleportation from Washington > to Moscow which saves the consciousness in Washington from oblivion. > So her chances of death are 0, not 1/2, which is only explainable if > we assume that her mind is subjectively in both places after the first > teleport from Brussels, and so long as a simulation of her mind exists > somewhere she will never die. > > Jason > > > On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 12:36 PM, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > > > On 30 Oct 2008, at 23:58, Brent Meeker wrote: > > > > > Kory Heath wrote: > >> > >> On Oct 30, 2008, at 10:06 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > >>> But ok, perhaps I have make some progress lately, and I will > answer > >>> that the probability remains invariant for that too. The > probability > >>> remains equal to 1/2 in the imperfect duplication (assuming 1/2 is > >>> the perfect one). > >>> But of course you have to accept that if a simple teleportation is > >>> done imperfectly (without duplication), but without killing > you, the > >>> probability of surviving is one (despite you get blind, deaf, > >>> amnesic and paralytic, for example). > >> > >> This is the position I was arguing against in my earlier post. > Let's > >> stick with simple teleportation, without duplication. If the > data is > >> scrambled so much that the thing that ends up on the other side is > >> just a puddle of goo, then my probability of surviving the > >> teleportation is 0%. It's functionally equivalent to just > killing me > >> at the first teleporter and not sending any data over. (Do you > >> agree?) > >> If the probability of me surviving when an imperfect copy is > made is > >> still 100%, then there's some point of "imperfection" at which my > >> chances of surviving suddenly shift from 100% to 0%. This > change will > >> be marked by (say) the difference of a single molecule (or bit of > >> data, or whatever). I don't see how that can be correct. > >> > >> -- Kory > > > > But there are many ways for what comes out of the teleporter to > > *not* be you. > > Most of them are "puddles of goo", but some of them are copies of > > Bruno or > > imperfect copies of me or people who never existed before. > > > > Suppose it's a copy of you as you were last year - is it 100% you. > > It's not > > 100% the you that went into the machine - but if you're the same > > person you were > > last year it's 100% you. Of course the point is that you're not the > > same "you" > > from moment to moment in the sense of strict identity of information > > down to the > > molecular level, or even the neuron level. > > > Yes. And if a teleporter transforms me into a copy of me as I was last > year, I will say that although I have 100% survive, I suffer from an > amnesia bearing on one year of experience, and indeed I will have to > relearn what "I" have done and update myself accordingly. > > I can complain about the doctor or about the teleportation company of > course, like someone who did survive a train accident, with injuries, > perhaps amnesia, can complain about the railroad society (if he > remembers the name). > > > --Bruno Marchal > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > <http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/%7Emarchal/> > > > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
