On 8/4/2016 2:51 AM, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 4/08/2016 6:00 pm, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 4/08/2016 5:52 pm, Russell Standish wrote:
On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 04:27:21PM +1000, Bruce Kellett wrote:
On 3/08/2016 12:01 pm, Russell Standish wrote:
However, we are being asked to consider two conscious states where
the
conscious state differs by at least one bit - the W/M bit.
Clearly, by the YD
assumption, both states are survivor states from the original
conscious state, but are not the same consciousness because of the
single bit difference.
By that reasoning, no consciousness survives through time.
Not at all! Both conscious states survive through time by assumption
(YD).
Methinks you are unnecessarily assuming transitivity again.
No, I was just referring to the continuation of a single
consciousness through time. We get different input data all the time
but we do not differentiate according to that data.
I could perhaps expand on that response. On duplication, two identical
consciousnesses are created, and by the identity of indiscernibles,
they form just a single consciousness. Then data is input. It seems to
me that there is no reason why this should lead the initial
consciousness to differentiate, or split into two. In normal life we
get inputs from many sources simultaneously -- we see complex scenes,
smell the air, feel impacts on our body, and hear many sounds from the
environment. None of this leads our consciousness to disintegrate.
Indeed, our evolutionary experience has made us adept at coping with
these multifarious inputs and sorting through them very efficiently to
concentrate on what is most important, while keeping other inputs at
an appropriate level in our minds.
I have previously mentioned our ability to multitask in complex ways:
while I am driving my car, I am aware of the car, the road, other
traffic and so on; while, at the same time, I can be talking to my
wife; thinking about what to cook for dinner; and reflecting on
philosophical issues that are important to me. And this is by no means
an exhaustive list of our ability to multitask -- to run many separate
conscious modules within the one unified consciousness.
Given that this experience is common to us all, it is not in the least
bit difficult to think that the adding of yet another stream of inputs
via a separate body will not change the basic structure of our
consciousness -- we will just take this additional data and process in
the way we already process multiple data inputs and streams of
consciousness. This would seem, indeed, to be the default
understanding of the consequences of person duplication. One would
have to add some further constraints in order for it to be clear that
the separate bodies would necessarily have differentiated conscious
streams. No such additional constraints are currently in evidence.
Not empirically proven constraints, but current physics strongly
suggests that the duplicates would almost immediately, in the
decoherence time for a brain, differentiate; i.e. the consciousness is
not separate from the physics. It's only "not in evidence" if your
trying to derive the physics from the consciousness.
Brent
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 https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
