On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 7:05 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 5/12/2013 9:00 AM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > If your mom ate something different while pregnant with you, such that you > developed with different atoms, does that mean someone else would have been > born in your place and you wouldn't be conscious? Or if one unexpressed > gene was different, would it be someone other than you looking through those > eyes? What if one gene were different, but it was of little consequence, or > what if multiple genes were different, etc. How much of the circumstances > would have to change for you to never have been born? If you admit that > different matter or different genes would not make it such that you were > never born, then are you not all your siblings as well? > > > That doesn't follow. The most common theory of why you are you is that the > structure of your brain and body encode computations that are peculiar to > you. You are determined by the structure that effects these computations. > This is independent of the particular atoms and molecules and even a lot of > the structure. As Bruno puts it, it depends on the level of substitution. > Just because there is a level, e.g. atoms, that makes no difference, it > doesn't follow that there is not a difference at another level.
It's hard to have this discussion with a single word for "you". 1p-you and 3p-you might make it easier. The 3p-you is characterised by a number of physical processes that we more or less understand. For example, if I fall and lose a bit of skin from my knee that won't change much, but there is possible a relatively small set of neurons that can be changed to alter my personality. But the idea that the 1p-you is determined at a substitution level seems silly to me (unless we can find some fundamental process by which the 1p arises). Otherwise, I find it easier to believe that there is only one 1p conscious entity that gets instantiated on everyone (and possible everything), at all times, in all possible universes. Telmo. > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
