The Zombie Poll

[drkitten]

Come on man, everyone knows that ice cream is a life-changing experience. That's why I eat some every evening from May through September.

Or if not a life-changing experience, certainly a trouser-size changing one.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So far, so trouser-preserving.

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

Come on man, everyone knows that ice cream is a life-changing experience. That's why I eat some every evening from May through September.

~~ Paul

Why stop then? Just start having it on pie.

 

[Darat]

Going back to the OP...

What about we think of another thought experiment.

We start with a person and a molecule at a time over the course of a year we replace each and every molecule that makes up that person with a different but identical molecule.

Would the people who originally said a zombie would result from the brain replacement also say at the end of the year the person would be a zombie? If not why not?

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Why stop then? Just start having it on pie.

I stop when our local ice cream stand closes. All other ice cream is garbage compared to Kimball's.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Would the people who originally said a zombie would result from the brain replacement also say at the end of the year the person would be a zombie? If not why not?

Because organic molecules have the mojo.

~~ Paul

 

[Darat]

Because organic molecules have the mojo.

~~ Paul

OK - extend the thought experiment, each replacement molecules is made from atoms transmuted from hydrogen in a particle accelerator.

 

[Almo]

I've taken the post as its word: "Replace neurons with machines that perfectly replicate a neuron's function."

So I voted Smooth. Perhaps neurons aren't fully understood right now, but if the machines replacing them do thier job, we shouldn't notice.

However, I still feel like I wouldn't set foot in a teleporter (of the rip/recreate variety). The thing on the other end wouldn't be me. It could be a perfect replica of me, but I have ceased to exist.

 

[Apathia]

OK - extend the thought experiment, each replacement molecules is made from atoms transmuted from hydrogen in a particle accelerator.

That's fine. I hate paying twice as much for organic.

This is a cleaner substitution process. Doen't get into speculative fiction of the Sci-fi sort with androids rushing around.
I still vote for the "smooth as silk" equivilant. Something that's supposed to be there is nevertheless there in spite of the substitution game.
If I went with Zombie, then something there, that is supposed to be there was only in the original molecules and got taken out with them. So would I have to go sifting through quarks to find the right stuff? And then if all the subatomic particles are replaced by equals? Well what then for my Zombie option?

 

[Apathia]

I've taken the post as its word: "Replace neurons with machines that perfectly replicate a neuron's function."

So I voted Smooth. Perhaps neurons aren't fully understood right now, but if the machines replacing them do thier job, we shouldn't notice.

However, I still feel like I wouldn't set foot in a teleporter (of the rip/recreate variety). The thing on the other end wouldn't be me. It could be a perfect replica of me, but I have ceased to exist.

I started a story containing that thought in it, I've yet to finish.
Space travel is done by transmission because there is no such thing as warp drive and accellerating a ship to even half the speed of light is too energy consumptive. In the story a Catholic missionary is given a Papal Indulgence so he can take the teachings to another planet via a method that is suicidal.

 

[chriswl]

On the original question, the only two possible answers are A) and B) as C) contradicts the description of the experiment which says that the mechanical brain is a perfect functional copy of the biological brain. But does B) really make any sense?

B) The Zombie Variation: As the silicon is progressively implanted into your dwindling brain, you find that the area of your conscious experience is shrinking, but that this shows no effect on your external behavior. You find, to your total amazement, that you are indeed losing control of your external behavior [You have become blind, but] you hear your voice saying in a way that is completely out of your control, `I see a red object in front of me.' We imagine that your conscious experience slowly shrinks to nothing, while your externally observable behavior remains the same".

The above example tries to describe what it would be like to be a partial zombie, but it can only do this by assuming that the moment the zombification process starts you lose all control of your bodily movements and speech. Otherwise you could make your unease known and thus would be exhibiting different behaviour than the original purely biological brain. Its an odd assumption to make, that your apparent free will vanishes all in one go right at the start of the replacement process. Would this happen after the replacement of the first neuron?

In any case, what's being described isn't partial-zombieness. You are supposedly aware of the loss of subjective experience but how is this awarenesses taking place? The thought "my God, I'm becoming a zombie!" could not be correlated with any brain activity because the brain activity of partial zombies is identical with that of non-zombies. What is being described here is disembodied mental activity as the mind continues to exist but drifts apart from any relation to its brain. This is probably one thing that almost everyone here agrees cannot happen - minds require brains.

In actual fact, just as I cannot know whether I was a zombie yesterday (zombies create perfectly good physical memories in their brains), I would not be able to know whether I was less of a zombie earlier in the brain replacement process. I would slide unwittingly into a zombie state until eventually there was no me there at all.

This assumes there can be such a thing as partial zombieness but can there? If so then, just as we supposedly cannot be sure that other people are not zombies (we can't observe their subjective experiences) we also can't be sure that other people are not partial zombies. However, unlike full zombiehood, partial zombiehood also may apply to us. Perhaps what I have always regarded as full consciousness actually has things missing, that I am more zombie-like than some other people who have a more complete set of qualia than me or whose experience of qualia is somehow more real.

I think once we start moving in this direction the whole notion of consciousness starts to get ridiculous. Does anyone want to defend the plausibility of partial zombies? Without them we have two answers to the original question:

1) Consciousness is unaffected by the replacement of biological neurons by artificial ones.

2) A wholly artificial brain is not conscious. So, at some point in the transition from biological to artificial a threshold is crossed and the brain instantly looses all its conscious awareness. This seems implausible to me.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

OK - extend the thought experiment, each replacement molecules is made from atoms transmuted from hydrogen in a particle accelerator.

Then they gain the mojo.

That's fine. I hate paying twice as much for organic.

Okay, now that's damn funny!


~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This assumes there can be such a thing as partial zombieness but can there? If so then, just as we supposedly cannot be sure that other people are not zombies (we can't observe their subjective experiences) we also can't be sure that other people are not partial zombies. However, unlike full zombiehood, partial zombiehood also may apply to us. Perhaps what I have always regarded as full consciousness actually has things missing, that I am more zombie-like than some other people who have a more complete set of qualia than me or whose experience of qualia is somehow more real.

Right, we're all partial zombies, because we have nonconscious brain functions. Some people are more zombified than others (e.g., those with blindsight).

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Why are we assuming that only consciousness might be lost? Perhaps we'd all lose our sense of balance or rhythm, too.

~~ Paul

 

[Mercutio]

I lost my sense of fashion long ago. I am working on losing my sense of humour. (I am, bit by bit, replacing it with a sense of humor.)

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

And replacing that redness color quale with a redness colour quale.

~~ Paul

 

[hammegk]

We start with a person and a molecule at a time over the course of a year we replace each and every molecule that makes up that person with a different but identical molecule.

Would the people who originally said a zombie would result from the brain replacement also say at the end of the year the person would be a zombie? If not why not?

That would yield a person, and the same person. Whether molecular level is detailed enough is a yet unanswered question, but assuming the answer is "it is" replacing a molecule that is part of a living structure with a duplicate of that molecule should have no effect.

I don't agree that such technology will ever exist.


As to the OP, I voted zombie because the option I suspect is correct -- brain death, followed shortly thereafter by body death -- was not an option.

 

[Foster Zygote]

I lost my sense of fashion long ago. I am working on losing my sense of humour. (I am, bit by bit, replacing it with a sense of humor.)

I'm pretty sure the difference between humour and humor is in the number of fart jokes.

Steven

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Don't we slowly replace all the material in our brains with new material all the time, in the form of nutrients going in and waste going back out? I seem as much "me" as I was 10 years ago. I would think that taking out single neurons (and it's amazing how a single one being knocked offline doesn't really have an effect on us) and replacing them would be the same thing. As such, if they are functionally the same, what would be the issue? And yes, if for some odd reason my conciousness was slowly being weeded away (or replaced by a new slowly emerging one), well if I suddenly couldn't see red any more but still reacted to it, I'd be AWARE of it and I could say something about it since our conciousness seems to tie into the way we react to the world anyway. How could I be aware of it without acting on it? That would require a sudden creation of some "higher awareness" looking at my "normal awareness" and wondiring why I'm totally calm about it, I guess. Sounds a little silly though.

I submit we increase the speed of such replacement. Let's do it all in a month. I still see no issue with that. Why should such an arbitrary increase in speed matter? Okay, in a minute? Still don't see the issue. In a second? If it's still gradual, what's the problem? Okay, now all at once in a single instant. Well, if it's an instananeous replacement, could it even be noticed? Probably not. Well, okay now instead of all at once in an instance, all at once after removing all the neurons and waiting an hour to put all the replacements in and turn them on. Would I just be unconcious for an hour and wake up just fine, or would I have died when they turned me off and cut all activity to zero and then that new persona, so very much like myself, be a totally seperate conciousness all the same? Now THERE'S the mystery I can't seem to come to grips with.

If we assume that yes, I'll be the same as I ever was, that's fine. It works out great in terms of why should any amount of time being introduced between one moment of a certain conciousness's operation totally destroy it if it's later turned on again? But, it leaves open the possibility of, instead of ONE total replication of my grey matter being created and replacing my mind, 10 total recreations of it are turned on in their own cloned bodies of me. There is no reasonable way to say either "I am all of them" since each and every one is a seperate instance and is not exchanging data with any of the others and each only sees themselves as aware or "I am one of them" since any single one I might pick to be "me" would be totally arbitrary. Neither answer works. On the other hand, if I say "my own awareness ceases and a new entity is created" it may solve THAT problem but I'm left with another arbitrary situation, WHEN does it cease? Is it waiting an hour to turn it back on that does it? A minute? A second? Is it the mere instantaneous replacement that does the trick? Is it the replacement of a bit at a time quickly, the replacement more slowly? Am I being destroyed and reinvented as a new conciousness every single "frame" of existance?

As far as I've been thinking of it, it seems a paradox.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't agree that such technology will ever exist.

I am not a biologist, but I thought that this happened as a matter of course. The processes of cellular metabolism and repair replace individual molecules constantly, and cellular reproduction certainly requires additional molecules.

Whether or not "such a technology" will ever exist, such a process already does.