Artificial Intelligence and Life Beyond Death

[TragicMonkey]

And how, in practice, would it make a difference?
Would any of the versions have a sense that they are older?

Why would "having a sense" of anything make a difference? Objects are themselves even if they're inanimate and incapable of any degree of sense at all. Why would a object capable of sense have different physical laws apply?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Why would "having a sense" of anything make a difference? Objects are themselves even if they're inanimate and incapable of any degree of sense at all. Why would a object capable of sense have different physical laws apply?

so no discernible difference unless you are God?

 

[TragicMonkey]

so no discernible difference unless you are God?

I can't get why you're hung up on "discerning". A thing is a thing is a thing whether anyone thinks about it or not. This lump of physical matter is not another lump of physical matter even if they're arranged the same way and you can't see the difference.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I can't get why you're hung up on "discerning". A thing is a thing is a thing whether anyone thinks about it or not. This lump of physical matter is not another lump of physical matter even if they're arranged the same way and you can't see the difference.

I get that, I really do.
But for the thought experiment, it is entirely irrelevant.

What, if for the purpose of copying you, you have to tear the body apart, so that each molecule can be perfectly replicated, like the separated strands of DNA.
The re-constituted bodies would both be exactly half original, half copy.
How do you then tell original from clone?

 

[TragicMonkey]

I get that, I really do.
But for the thought experiment, it is entirely irrelevant.

What, if for the purpose of copying you, you have to tear the body apart, so that each molecule can be perfectly replicated, like two strands of DNA.
The re-constituted bodies would both be exactly half original, half copy.
How do you then tell original from clone?

In that scenario neither is the original. He died when he was torn apart. Humans cannot survive such an event. The two Frankenstein monsters you've created from the corpse are new things. Which probably will go on to destroy their creator. As to which pieces of the monsters are originally from the victim, the answer is simply the pieces taken from the victim. Once again, a thing that looks like another thing is not magically that other thing backwards in time.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

In that scenario neither is the original. He died when he was torn apart. Humans cannot survive such an event. The two Frankenstein monsters you've created from the corpse are new things. Which probably will go on to destroy their creator. As to which pieces of the monsters are originally from the victim, the answer is simply the pieces taken from the victim. Once again, a thing that looks like another thing is not magically that other thing backwards in time.

copying a brain might cause the same damage, requiring two brains to be build from the data gathered, whilst leaving the rest of the body intact.

You see, it matters a whole lot on how the copy is made, and how it is treated afterwards.

 

[TragicMonkey]

copying a brain might cause the same damage, requiring two brains to be build from the data gathered, whilst leaving the rest of the body intact.

You see, it matters a whole lot on how the copy is made, and how it is treated afterwards.

It may matter to the people involved on a personal, social, and legal level but that will not change reality. A lump of matter does not become a different lump of matter just because

You can't detect the difference
You think about it in a certain way
You call it by a particular name
You treat it in the same way

Your thoughts, however magnificent they are, do not enact changes to physical matter obeying the laws of physics. The universe isn't plunged into darkness because you close your eyes, unconscious people don't blink out of existence, and even if you think DiGiornos frozen pizza is indistinguishable from delivery that will not summon a delivery person out of the aether and place them on your doormat expecting a tip.

 

[dann]

Your statement that it has nothing to do with science is a bald assertion.

Where do you see science in this thread? I've looked and not found any trace of it.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

TM, there are QM effects which reverse cause and effect - and copying a human would probably require diving into the smallest scales of time and space.
So even in your case, telling what caused what might not be as straightforward as you think.
But more importantly, in my opinion, is not the relevant original/copy question: any social or legal significance we put on original over copy would be purely by convention: there is no distinction that would in and of itself be relevant on the inter-human scale.

 

[TragicMonkey]

TM, there are QM effects which reverse cause and effect - and copying a human would probably require diving into the smallest scales of time and space.
So even in your case, telling what caused what might not be as straightforward as you think.
But more importantly, in my opinion, is not the relevant original/copy question: any social or legal significance we put on original over copy would be purely by convention: there is no distinction that would in and of itself be relevant on the inter-human scale.

You can't handwave away absurd magical thinking as being quantum mechanics. Using a sophisticated tool to Ship of Theseus a corpse doesn't make two Frankensteins into the single dead person. You wouldn't claim it if it were done by the fistful of flesh, doing it on the cellular level with Star Trek tech doesn't change the nature of the act.

And for the last time the "inter-human scale" doesn't matter. Clump of molecules A is not clump of molecules B whether you know it or not. There is no thought you can think that will make them the same clump of molecules.

 

[Thor 2]

Some seem to be hung up on the identicalness angle, and I would point out that nothing is perfectly identical. You, as an individual are not identical to the individual child you once were, and in fact not precisely identical to the you of yesterday.

Given the above the absurdity of wanting to survive death comes into focus. Would you like to survive as you are today, or as the naive and exuberant youth you once were perhaps? I think the later but then that is not me now surviving is it?

If the "I am" that is you now, were to be uploaded into another receptacle, there would be a dramatic change in your self identity, to accomodate the new environment you find yourself in. From then on the persona that is you, would develop continuously, into something you would not recognise as yourself in time.

 

[Roboramma]

I've used this sequence of hypothetical events in previous discussions of the philosophical teletransporter. At what point are you not still you afterward?

Nice question and well put together list of options. My view is that it's somewhere between steps 1 and 3, the reason that I'm not entirely clear is that I don't know enough about the physiology of sleep/loss of consciousness due to trauma. The brain certainly doesn't shut down completely during sleep and while there are periods during sleep which I don't recall, that doesn't necessarily mean that conscious experience stopped entirely during those periods.

But anyway, possibly 1, but certainly by 3:

1. You go to sleep and wake back up.

2. You are knocked unconscious by a concussion, then fully recover.

3. You're exposed to a toxin that completely suppresses all your nerve impulses for two hours. You survive due to being on a heart-lung machine at the time, and you recover.

The fellow who wakes up after scenario 3 isn't me. The fellow who woke up this morning may not be the same fellow who went to sleep last night.

I also think that while there's something connecting us, the person who went by my name 10 years ago also wasn't me. I've changed too much. Sure, I remember his life and a lot of what I know I know because he learned it, but that's a different individual.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

You can't handwave away absurd magical thinking as being quantum mechanics. Using a sophisticated tool to Ship of Theseus a corpse doesn't make two Frankensteins into the single dead person. You wouldn't claim it if it were done by the fistful of flesh, doing it on the cellular level with Star Trek tech doesn't change the nature of the act.

And for the last time the "inter-human scale" doesn't matter. Clump of molecules A is not clump of molecules B whether you know it or not. There is no thought you can think that will make them the same clump of molecules.

it's not relevant or interesting to the question:
"who is me?"

Both versions will think they are me, regardless of whether one is more original than the other.
So can we stop this, please?

 

[TragicMonkey]

it's not relevant or interesting to the question:
"who is me?"

Both versions will think they are me, regardless of whether one is more original than the other.
So can we stop this, please?

It's pivotal to the question of "who is me" for those who don't believe you can simultaneously be multiple people in separate bodies, or that multiple people in separate bodies can be the same individual. And yet again what people think doesn't control physical reality: even if a billion people all firmly believe they are the same individual it does not make it true.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Ok, what if you have an original and a copy, seemingly identical in responses to the same stimuli.
If you destroy the original, does the copy become the new true "you" ?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Ok, what if you have an original and a copy, seemingly identical in responses to the same stimuli.
If you destroy the original, does the copy become the new true "you" ?

No. Why would it? Two separate objects in space and time.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Just one more question: do the copies think they are you?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Just one more question: do the copies think they are you?

Irrelevant. What something thinks of itself does not change reality. The mental patient who believe he is Napoleon is not Napoleon.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I believe I have established that I don't consider the question of reality interesting in this case.
The question of mind-upload is about individuality.
Would a copy consider itself to be the original if it had no information about it being a replica?

 

[TragicMonkey]

I believe I have established that I don't consider the question of reality interesting in this case.

Oh, if you want to imagine magical science fiction worlds unlike our own, you should have said.

The question of mind-upload is about individuality.
Would a copy consider itself to be the original if it had no information about it being a replica?

The copy in this magical science fiction world might think itself to be the original, but it would be mistaken in that. It would probably be destroyed by the gods for its hubris when it reached the afterlife, which is just as well because it was created by the Guild of Evil Wizards.