On 5/13/2013 5:41 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Sun, May 12, 2013 at 7:05 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> 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
I said it was the most common theory. Not that it was right. Computationalism is the
theory that there is no substitution level which doesn't instantiate you1 so long as the
computation is the same.
(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.
Even assuming computationalism there can be different computations and hence different
1p. As I understand Bruno's theory, consciousness is not an entity, it's described by a
relation between threads of computation.
Brent
Telmo.
Brent
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