On 14 April 2015 at 17:48, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote: > > > 2015-04-14 9:40 GMT+02:00 Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com <javascript:;>>: >> >> On 14 April 2015 at 17:05, Quentin Anciaux <allco...@gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote: >> >> >> I don't see any difference between a metaphysical theory saying >> >> consciousness is not duplicable and one saying bananas are not >> >> duplicable: it is still coherent and non-contradictory to imagine >> >> either entity being duplicated. >> > >> > >> > No it is not, you even use a logical fallacy to justify this position... >> > using "miracles"... a miracle imply *anything* is possible (even logical >> > contradictory thing such as.... a *miracle*). >> >> No, a miracle cannot be logically contradictory. God cannot make a >> married bachelor. > > > Yes it can.. that's the whole point of what is a miracle and God. God is not > bound to logic, what you can't conceive is your prejudice... and using > miracles to justify your thinking is a logical fallacy... you can with that > same argument *justify anything*. > >> >> >> > So I disagree with you on tha point, a theory could assert consciousness >> > is >> > not duplicable (in practice and in theory, like you can't go faster than >> > light) without being self contradictory (and you can use as much >> > miracles as >> > you want to say it is still possible logically, it's still a logical >> > fallacy >> > to do that). >> >> You seem to be talking about physical possibility, whereas for the >> purpose of showing that there is a conceptual problem with the idea of >> personal identity only logical possibility is needed. > > > As I said, it is you who're not seeing you're making a metaphysical > commitment on the idea, and your idea is sumarrized by "consciousness is > duplicable"... you start with an *if* then you make it like it was never > there in the first place to conclude what you want, it's begging the > question... Yes ***IF*** consciousness is duplicable, it is duplicable... > you've not shown that *IT IS*.
OK, I did say at one point "if consciousness is duplicable". That does not necessarily imply anything about its truth; for example, I could say "if all bachelors are unmarried men" and then go on to assert that it is in fact the case because it's analytically true. There is a substantive issue to discuss if we are asking whether it is physically possible to duplicate consciousness, because it depends on the particular theory of consciousness, whether physicalist or dualist or whatever, as well as certain other facts about the world, such as whether the physics in the brain is Turing emulable. But whether consciousness is LOGICALLY duplicable is a separate question, which has a bearing on the problem of physical identity. I think it is obvious that consciousness is logically duplicable, because try as I might I cannot find any contradiction in the idea, nor have you demonstrated any. I don't know why we're arguing so much about this, because as far as I'm aware the possibility of duplicating consciousness isn't something even hard core religious types worry too much about. They would claim that a soul cannot be duplicated by physical means, not that it can't be duplicated at all. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
