On 5/08/2016 1:28 am, Brent Meeker wrote:
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.
Of course, that is what I was trying to get people to see: the
additional constraint that is necessary for differentiation is
essentially a mind-brain identity thesis. And my suspicion is that the
mind-brain identity thesis plays havoc with the rest of Bruno's argument.
Bruce
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