On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 11:45 PM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 2/10/2015 2:22 pm, Jason Resch wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 2:28 AM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I understand what you mean by "psychological continuity". I simply >> maintain that such a concept makes no sense between conscious beings >> outside each others light cones. >> > > 1. Do you think you could in theory be taken apart atom by atom, and put > back together to "survive" this ordeal? > 2. Do you think it is important that all atoms be put back into their > exact places, or could two hydrogen atoms, from different parts of your > body and brain be swapped without making a difference? > 3. Do you think you could be reconstituted after being taken apart atom by > atom, using mostly new atoms? > 4. Do you think you could be reconstituted after being taken apart atom by > atom, using an entirely new set of atoms? > 5. Do you think the distance between your deconstruction and > reconstruction is of any relevance to whether or not you survive? > 6. Do you think time between your deconstruction and reconstruction is of > any relevance to whether or not you survive? > 7. Do you think there is some non physical element of you, beyond your > organization of atoms, which must travel to (and be limited by the speed of > light) the location of your reconstruction in order for you to survive the > reconstruction? > > If you answer *yes* to questions 1-4, and *no* to questions 5-7, then > bringing up light cones is irrelevent. The existence of identical instances > of you 10^10^28 meters away enable the survival of your consciousness. > > "Your" consciousness? Your series of questions above all involve a > physical transfer of information, in which case light cones are relevant, > because there can be no physical transfer of information from you now to a > point outside your future light cone. If there is a purported copy of you > outside your past and future light cones, then there is no way that it can > be verified that it is actually a copy. So the question is purely > hypothetical, without operational content. > A transfer of information is not required for atoms to be arranged in identical form as you. E.g. there might be some machine that instantiates all permutations of matter. This machine could recreate you without having received any information from where you last existed. The question is, what is different about a copy of you created by this machine vs. one in which the machine was told which permutation to start with? Could you provide your answers to questions 1 - 7? > > > If you answered yes to question 7, in what sense is the reconstituted, > atom-for-atom identical version of you not alive, or not you, whereas one > created by beaming a signal to guide the arrangement of the atoms in a > certain way from the location of your destruction, *is* you or *does > result* in you? > > > >> If there can be no physical interaction, then there is no continuity, >> psychological or otherwise. >> > > In the computationalist doctrine, you are your patterns and information. > If those patterns and information continue and survive elsewhere, you > survive. The history of how the atoms got to be in the pattern of > information they are now in is of no relevance to how the atoms behave and > interact. > > > So much the worse for the computationalist doctrine! It becomes a matter > of unverifiable faith, so of no relevance to any serious scientist. > Could you level that same attack against any theory of consciousness? > What is even worse, if "The history of how the atoms got to be in the > pattern of information they are now in is of no relevance to how the atoms > behave and interact", then you have abandoned any possibility of connecting > your theory with the physics of the observed universe. > Atoms are, as far as anyone can tell, memoryless. Any non-magical theory of mind will assert that atoms placed in an identical arrangement will behave identically, and so an exact duplicate will behave exactly the same whether it is created by a teleporter, by chance, or by iteration. Do you not agree with this? I don't understand your second comment, about abandoning any possibility of connecting computationalism to physics. Could you explain? Jason > > Bruce > > Duplication of a person, even an entirely emulated AI, requires a physical >> transfer of information. Information is physical, and its transfer is >> subject to physical laws. You can't circumvent this by inventing some >> magical concept of "psychological continuity". >> >> Bruce >> > > -- > 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. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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]. 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