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Old 07-09-2002, 07:11 AM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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Consciousness, self; what makes me ME?

I know we've discussed this at least several times before on the board, but I was pondering the nature of consciousness again the other day(or was it me at all? - read on).

There is this sense of 'me' that I instinctively feel would not be carried over if you created an exact copy of me (with some fictional teleportation device that doesn't destroy the original); this is easy to imagine - zap! and there's another person here in the room, he completely believes they are me, but I am still here, I don't experience what he does, so I am still me, the other is just a new individual under the entirely convincing illusion that he is me.

What is the difference? I don't know and it seems that there would be no observable difference, yet you'd never convince me to step into a transporter (if such a thing existed) that worked on the principle of killing me and making an exact duplicate. (think of it this way: you step into the booth, you are scanned, there is an interval and a message pops up on the screen "duplication successful, preparing to destroy original" - that's not me moving through space, that's me dying and an impostor (albeit an innocent one) being put in my place.

So what is it that makes me me? - when I awake each morning, I am still me, but I wouldn't know if I wasn't; perhaps what actually awakes each morning is a new being suffering from the totally convincing illusion that he is me.

There's probably nothing particularly new here, but I can't see a way to resolve it without starting to involve something like a soul... (not that I think this is a particularly strong argument for the existence of supernatural stuff...).

What makes me me and how can I tell that I am the same being that I was yesterday or ten years ago?
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  #2  
Old 07-09-2002, 08:29 AM
erislover erislover is offline
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For reference purposes: Does consciousness/identity need to be continuous? Might be worth a read, though poor xenophon and Spiritus Mundi exchanged a few words.

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I don't know and it seems that there would be no observable difference, yet you'd never convince me to step into a transporter that worked on the principle of killing me and making an exact duplicate.
I agree completely... the worst thing is, what stepped out of the transporter would seem just like your friend so much that you couldn't tell there was any difference (well, barring the whole "soul" thing, I s'pose).
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So what is it that makes me me?
Let us say it is some sort of relationship between otherwise uninteresting parts. I am not sure identity is so clear in general. Consider that, for instance, electrons are (so theory dictates now) indistinguishable; there is no sense in which two electrons are different or distinguishable. Can we say, then, that we mean this electron can't be distinguished from that one? I don't think so, except for snapshots of time like bubble chamber paths (and even still, we might still be compelled to believe that the electron (this one) which traced the path was really going through all sorts of virtual particle interactions the whole time). Thisness isn't a time-independent quality, and I'm not sure it is necessarily transitive over time (which Spiritus detailed in the thread linked above and I've come to agree with).
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...perhaps what actually awakes each morning is a new being suffering from the totally convincing illusion that he is me.
Perhaps so; after all, our best theory tells us that particles are fundamentally indistinguishable, and you are constantly exchanging particles with the wall or chair (for example). Even barring that, your body constantly replaces your material components anyway (cells regenerate, old salts are replaced with new ones, et cetera), so at least every, say, seven years or so you are a brand new person. Except... you don't feel very new, do you?

Also, that quote ("perhaps...illusion he is me") is (I think) what motivated Spiritus to remark that the identity notion isn't transitive over time. Given that mepast=mepresent we can't automatically say that mepresent=mepast. Anyway, food for thought. I'm not sure I was ever satisfied by the last discussion.

Also, check here for what I hope to be a discussion about why it is so hard to discuss these things (and other similar things). Still on page one of GD, now, but there aren't many interested participants.
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Old 07-09-2002, 09:26 AM
TheSnack TheSnack is offline
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Mangetout:

It is not the answer you are seeking, I suppose, if I tell you that I believe we all are, in the end, just the sum of our biological parts. All that "makes you you" is in the workings of your body, especially your brain.

Why do you need a soul? As you awake each morning, your senses register the impressions of your surroundings; your brain registers that all parts you took to bed with you yesterday are still with you today; you recall emotions and events of the past, dreams from the night. You experience continuity because your brain was working all the time; so why should you be anyone but yourself?

You wouldn't know if that what awoke in the morning wasn't you, because of course, if what awoke in the morning wasn't you, there would be no "you" any longer.

The example of the teleporter is interesting, but I think the same thing applies -- you, "Star Trek" teleported, would still be you, with continual remembrance of events. You, teleported by making a copy a and destroying the original, would die -- for your experiences would witness the "scan", the end of the scan, the creation of the copy, and your own demise, experiences your copy would lack. Possibly even, none of the versions of you after the scan would be you.

Is that a particularly relevant answer? I don't know; I'll try a bit more philosophy later, if you wish.
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Old 07-09-2002, 09:30 AM
xenophon41 xenophon41 is offline
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Might be worth a read, though poor xenophon and Spiritus Mundi exchanged a few words.
Heh heh! Thanks for the glowing endorsement.

But, you're right; that's a good thread, yet unsatisfying in that one's intuitive sense of the material continuity of identity was never adequately refuted (IMO).
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Old 07-09-2002, 09:45 AM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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I don't want people to think I started this as some sort of logical 'proof of the soul'; as it happens, I do believe that there is such a thing as a soul, but I wouldn't dream of presenting this (or anything else, for that matter) as proof or argument for their existence.

The point is that it would be me in every observable way, but if we didn't destroy the original 'me', there's no reason to suppose that my consciousness would be instantaneously transferred to the copy, so there's a very real sense in which I would die.

Another take on this is a SF story Learning to be me (by Greg Egan IIRC) - people are implanted with a small electronic device that records their brain functions and learns to mimic them; at a certain age (and when the device is able to mimic the brain's output in every measurable way), the individual goes into hospital and has their brain removed, control being switched over to the device. There is no way for an outside observer to distinguish the difference.

I suppose this is related to the Turing test, but I'm not satisfied that something can be considered to really be me just because somebody else can't tell the difference (even if that somebody else happens to be the copy.
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Old 07-09-2002, 09:52 AM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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Just realised that I'm not making sense; this is what I meant to type:

Quote:
The point is that it would be me in every observable way, but if we didn't destroy the original 'me' ,'I' would still be here (there's no reason to suppose that my consciousness would be instantaneously transferred to the copy), so there's a very real sense in which I would die if the original me was destroyed as part of the process.
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Old 07-09-2002, 10:13 AM
erislover erislover is offline
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Xen! Of course, the "poor" modifier expressing pity was meant to apply to both of you... no fun when to of my favorite dopers get into it!

...
I think the notion of static identity is a false picture of events. We aren't the same from instant to instant, not in position, time, or composition (heck, we breathe, excrete oils, etc, at the very least), so the claim of "me"ness is possibly chimerical.

Identity has to have a notion of relationship to it, for if we gathered all the materials of your body and piled them up next to you we wouldn't have two "you"s, would we? And since we may exchange components at will (whether I eat an apple or a pear I will still be me) the exact compounds present seem at most irrelevant, and at least a wrong track of thought (the components may be necessary for the relationship, for instance).

I had wanted the relationship to be a sort of constructed set of universals (note: pages two and three are unfortunately lost to the Winter of Missed Content, but the OP should detail it clearly) but there was some resistence to that idea. I liked the constructed set, anyway, so that the specific elements were in no way what determined identity of the set, though it couldn't arbitrarily contain anything (I mean, I am not able to be composed of silicon in place of carbon, for example).

I'm not certain that being conscious of one's identity has much to do with identity per se. I mean, this pencil has identity and it is not conscious (please!). But it has a thisness. Its thisness does seem to be comprised at least parially of material composition.

So, now, Mangetout... is the "what is identity" question or the "who am I" question you want answered? Of course the second begs the first...
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Old 07-09-2002, 10:50 AM
erislover erislover is offline
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Sorry, I posted that without preview so I didn't see you had already resolved the question to: "Who am I?"

FWIW I agree with both camps. First, there is no way I could tell you apart from a you-clone, and so to me you would both be you and I couldn't distinguish (which one gets the new social security number?). But I would also agree that a destructive transporter would kill the real you.
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Old 07-09-2002, 12:26 PM
Drastic Drastic is offline
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I'm seeing an analogy in my headspace right now. Allow me to strain it!

Take the Earth and moon. Somewhere else (wherever tidal interference with the original will be a non-issue), place an exact copy of Earth of moon--same material, same distribution of mass, same orbital momentum and moon orbit and ocean tides and whatnot. It's an exact copy.

Is the gravity and center-of-mass of the copy the same as the original, or different?

Well, it's both. Gravity's a property that emerges from (or is associated with; I'd say "is instantiated in/as" but that wouldn't be strain the analogy, it'd saw the poor thing in half) the pattern and relationship o a set of mass. Two similar sets are going to have associated gravities that are very similar. Dissimilar sets, not so much--the fields are made of the same "stuff" (geometry of space, gravitons, planck-length loops of "string" vibrating in 10+ dimensions, whatever) but have different qualities.

I'd argue that consciousness is likewise made of the same "stuff" (or is produced via the same physical processes for the materialist view), but differs by a more complicated set of factors. The more similar those sets of factors are, the more similar those particular reference frames of consciousness are. Identity is a loose term for the strained-metaphorical "center of gravity" of that set of factors. I'm the "same" person this morning after I woke up compared to who I was when going to sleep the night before because, all told, my particular set of factors isn't particularly different. Grogginess compared to sleepiness, shifting with a shower and coffee and getting some work done, but that's more like shifting weather patterns in the atmosphere--the gravity's still the same.

I'll go put some ice on this analogy now.
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Old 07-09-2002, 07:12 PM
Scylla Scylla is offline
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Ahhhhh, the old ghost in the machine debate.

Short answer... It ain't there. That feeling that you are you is just hardwired into the template of your genes that gives you the illusion of self and mind.

There's good evolutionary reason for it in a thinking being.

Without it, you'd rationallly realize that your nothing more than a defecating meatbag going through the motions, you'd realize it was all a bunch of shit, and just sit around doing nothing. You need that feeling of self hardwired into you, so that you can feel selfish and do things to make yourself feel good. You do it well enough against other preprogrammed selfish meat robots and you succeed in passing on your genes thus refining the genetic program another step. Not that does any good, it's just a genetically programmed lie.

Try not to think about.

You don't understand?

That's ok. You really can't.

You're meat brain isn't big enough to handle the concepts necessary to truly understand the role of the self.

I'll give you an analogy (albeit an unoriginal one (points to who figures from whence I paraphrase)

Dogs only have the ability to communicate and understand about 40 or so concepts in limited combinations. Imagine that the best dog minds got together and decided to hold a symposium to better understand "the dog." They all get together and begin discussing it within the limits of the programmed concepts of their canine brains.

"Woof"

"Woof, woof Woooof!"

"RRRRRR"

"Wooof!"

They're just not going to get very frar with it. No matter how hard they try the limits of their dogness prevent them from understanding themselves. Not that it's their fault.



woof.
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Old 07-09-2002, 09:47 PM
AHunter3 AHunter3 is offline
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Go read what I said on the niggling little thingie about prayer thread.
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Old 07-10-2002, 02:31 AM
taklon taklon is offline
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On a similiar note, on cloning an individual would they have the same 'soul'. I don't like the idea of cloning but it would be interesting to know if it would be the case.
Thinking further on that, if they cloned Einstein would the clone be as smart? (Is this one of those hijack things that people mention?)
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Old 07-11-2002, 10:46 AM
Fear Itself Fear Itself is offline
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Without it, you'd rationallly realize that your nothing more than a defecating meatbag going through the motions, you'd realize it was all a bunch of shit, and just sit around doing nothing.
The Defacating Meatbags, now there's a band name!!
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Old 07-11-2002, 04:31 PM
mandielise mandielise is offline
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What makes you you? Well YOU are the guy who posted this thread!
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Old 07-12-2002, 02:39 AM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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Yes, but the copy would also be totally convinced the had done that.
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Old 07-12-2002, 12:40 PM
perspective perspective is offline
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Re: Consciousness, self; what makes me ME?

Quote:
Originally posted by Mangetout
There is this sense of 'me' that I instinctively feel would not be carried over if you created an exact copy of me (with some fictional teleportation device that doesn't destroy the original); this is easy to imagine - zap! and there's another person here in the room, he completely believes they are me, but I am still here, I don't experience what he does, so I am still me, the other is just a new individual under the entirely convincing illusion that he is me.
I would say that he simply has the same memories as if he had lived your life. He is still experiencing as valid a sense of self as anyone else. He is as much himself as you are yourself.
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So what is it that makes me me? - when I awake each morning, I am still me, but I wouldn't know if I wasn't; perhaps what actually awakes each morning is a new being suffering from the totally convincing illusion that he is me.
If you can't tell, is the question answerable? What makes you yourself is that you experience a sense of self, nothing more.
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What makes me me and how can I tell that I am the same being that I was yesterday or ten years ago?
Well, let's hope we're not the same.

Of course, I've argued against the existence of the self (at least it's not what we think it is). I believe in minds which have a very important concept called self that is incredibly important for survival reasons yet remains essentially a concept. My exact copy would be suffering no more of an illusion than I would in many ways.

Scylla seems to be echoing Schopenhauer in at least his proclivity to bathos. I'd say that there is much for consciousness to do beyond self. If one puts on the proper glasses, one could see every action as the result of self interest, but I think that wouldn't be complete because humans live so closely together. Our sense of self is malleable and dependant on socialization. Much of our "programming" isn't hard wired by genes but happens afterward.
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Old 07-12-2002, 01:26 PM
erislover erislover is offline
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If you can't tell, is the question answerable? What makes you yourself is that you experience a sense of self, nothing more.
But possibly less... and this response sort of dodges the question. "What are scientists?" "People who do science." Ahhhh...

What makes you yourself is a sense of self... yes, but why do I have that, what is it, how do I recognize it, and so on.
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My exact copy would be suffering no more of an illusion than I would in many ways.
Except that each would lay claim to the perspective which lies in both of their memory. Can they both claim identity with respect to a shared memory? What does that say of identity?
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Old 07-12-2002, 03:19 PM
perspective perspective is offline
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Originally posted by erislover
But possibly less... and this response sort of dodges the question. "What are scientists?" "People who do science." Ahhhh...

What makes you yourself is a sense of self... yes, but why do I have that, what is it, how do I recognize it, and so on.
Unlike a vocational question (scientists) sense of self is not externally verifiable. My answer to the questions are that self is a biologically based conception further modified by socialization. This is what one experiences when one experiences self. Uniqueness is not necessary for selfhood only the experience of it. Just because someone else has the same memory does not negate one's own experience.
Immediately after the duplication there are 2 different people creating new memories in different places. They both have brains that were physically shaped by the original's own mental experiences. They share the same mental habits, attitudes,and emotions. But they will slowly drift apart as they each live their own life.
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Except that each would lay claim to the perspective which lies in both of their memory. Can they both claim identity with respect to a shared memory? What does that say of identity?
The 2nd one has memories that were implanted, not directly experienced, but in such a way that the 2nd one cannot tell the difference. Thus it's identity (experience) is just as valid. If the 2nd remembered the transporter and how it came to existence it could see itself as a copy intellectually, yet not be able to discern the difference experientially.
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Old 07-12-2002, 04:07 PM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by perspective
The 2nd one has memories that were implanted, not directly experienced, but in such a way that the 2nd one cannot tell the difference. Thus it's identity (experience) is just as valid. If the 2nd remembered the transporter and how it came to existence it could see itself as a copy intellectually, yet not be able to discern the difference experientially.
But much of the physical 'me' has been replaced since I was three years old, so in a sense, my memories from that time are not exactly directly experienced either.
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Old 07-12-2002, 04:29 PM
erislover erislover is offline
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Good call, Mangetout.
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Unlike a vocational question (scientists) sense of self is not externally verifiable.
So I can't know I am talking to perspective when I talk to perspective? Or I can't know that you have a sense of self? Or, um...? (sorry, not trying to be all Socratic and questioning everything, but I'm not clear on precisely how this works)
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Old 07-12-2002, 04:36 PM
perspective perspective is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by Mangetout
But much of the physical 'me' has been replaced since I was three years old, so in a sense, my memories from that time are not exactly directly experienced either.
There are certain patterns to the interconnections between neurons that remain from your experiences though.
I have a scar on my chin from an accident that happened when I was four. The cells that make up the scar tissue have changed yet I still have a scar. A duplicate of me would have a scar too, but not from the same causes.
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Old 07-12-2002, 04:59 PM
perspective perspective is offline
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Originally posted by erislover
.So I can't know I am talking to perspective when I talk to perspective? Or I can't know that you have a sense of self? Or, um...? (sorry, not trying to be all Socratic and questioning everything, but I'm not clear on precisely how this works)
Positing a self that is similar to your own to explain my actions is a very insightful conclusion. But this does not change the fact that you cannot experience my sense of self.
Is there anything more subjective than the very experience of subjectiveness?

I don't think a perfect copy negates any sense of self. Uniqueness is unrelated to my experience. If there were an entire universe seperate from my own, yet completely identical including another me, who cares? It has no direct relation to my experiences.

If one was the result of a copying process and the original were still around, it would become an important psychological dillemma for the copy, but not the original. It would have to come to grips with arising from a perfect illusion perpetuated by its very biological being.Yet, whatever the causes it arose from, it would still have a "me" just like the original.

A far more interesting example to me is what happens if our consciousness can be transferred through means outside of our body. What if we could use artificial memory devices, or experience some sort of technological "mind meld". I think those sort of things would directly affect our experiences as selves.
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Old 07-12-2002, 05:02 PM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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True, but the cause of the scar is something that has disappeared down the plughole of time; all that you now have is the scar and the memory; objectively, the copy would have the same and yet it wouldn't be you (your sense of self would be duplicated, not transferred)

The fact that the interconnections between my neurons were established by natural means and those of the copy were exactly duplicated by mechanical ones can't be that important a difference can it?
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Old 07-12-2002, 05:05 PM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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Originally posted by perspective
A far more interesting example to me is what happens if our consciousness can be transferred through means outside of our body. What if we could use artificial memory devices, or experience some sort of technological "mind meld". I think those sort of things would directly affect our experiences as selves.
I would have to question again whether this would be a true transfer or just a copy and destroy original process.
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Old 07-12-2002, 05:06 PM
erislover erislover is offline
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If one was the result of a copying process and the original were still around, it would become an important psychological dillemma for the copy, but not the original. It would have to come to grips with arising from a perfect illusion perpetuated by its very biological being.
Of course, this presumes the copy wouldn't say the same tihng about you. Which I'm not so sure it wouldn't.
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But this does not change the fact that you cannot experience my sense of self.
I'm not trying to. I'm trying to find out what makes you so sure the copy isn't you after saying such things.
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Old 07-13-2002, 05:13 AM
perspective perspective is offline
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Originally posted by Mangetout
The fact that the interconnections between my neurons were established by natural means and those of the copy were exactly duplicated by mechanical ones can't be that important a difference can it?
The important difference is that the two beings now inhabit different places in space and will lead seperate lives. If you wanted to put a blindfold on the experiment and leave no way for the original or the duplicate to know their origin, then they might both make an equal claim to the past life. But just because no one could discern the difference doesn't mean that there is none.
One popped out of a replicator, one did not. One remained where it was, one arrived in a new place. There was one self, now there are two.

The argument over which is the original has important practical implications for those involved but does not diminish in any experiential way their internal sense of self. I might wonder if I was the original if the facts were hidden, but there are many things in life I don't know. I might become insecure and worried, but my experience of self is still essentially the same.
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I would have to question again whether this would be a true transfer or just a copy and destroy original process.
Neither, either or both depending on how it's done. Imagine a process whereby your senses are expanded, so that you brain recieves and sends nerve impulses outside of your body. Your body is not destroyed but modified. These impulses might appear as sensations, memories, communications etc...

How would your sense of self change if you had an extra eye somewhere outside of your body? We have already achieved this to some degree with film/television/"VR" and I think the results in our behavior are obvious. Our minds enter a trance-like state and our bodies become relatively still as we instinctively suspend disbelief and experience the media as if it were an extension of our senses. Of course we still have the option to turn the tv off or look away, but what if we didn't? Furthermore,what if that "third eye" belonged to the person you were having a conversation with?

What if you heard other peoples thoughts as they thought them and they yours? Thought would no longer be a solitary process and your thinking would be seriously altered. Your sense of self might never be the same.

Seeing one's doppleganger would be a mind altering experience where one's intellectual ideas about self would be challenged and you might even develop a neurosis concerned with your originality, yet you would still experientially have the same sort of awareness.
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Old 07-13-2002, 11:31 AM
Sam Stone Sam Stone is offline
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Posted this in the wrong forum at first...

Okay, here's an interesting thought experiment:

It's the future, and they have developed a way to make artificial neurons that can be plugged into the brain in place of real ones. But these neurons are little computing devices, and can be replicated and report their state, etc.

So we sit you in a chair, remove the top of your skull, and start replacing neurons. You're awake through this entire process. Bit by bit, your brain is cut away and replaced by an exact functioning replica. When they are done, your original brain is in the trash, and you have a computer in your head. You never lost consciousness.

Are 'you' still 'you'? Do you still have a soul? How could you tell?

Now, we send a command to your brain to send back its state, so that we can make an identical copy. We store this so that you have a backup of 'you' in case something should happen. One day, you're walking down the street, and a bus squashes you flat. So they make a clone of you, and plop your backup brain in it. Let's say it had been a week since your last backup. Are 'you' STILL 'you'? Isn't this exactly the same as suffering blunt trauma to the head which destroys short-term memory? Wouldn't you just lose a week?

But wait! Someone has been archiving backups of 'you'. So they crank out another one from a week before that, and place it in another clone. NOW which one is 'you'? Wouldn't both of you have the same claim to being the 'real' person?

Would a backup copy essentially be a 'do-over'? Would people make a backup of themselves before doing something dangerous, so that if it went wrong and they were killed, they could be restored to the same state?

Here's yet another one - During the initial process of replacing your brain, they make TWO of them, both outside your body. You've been twinned, but you wouldn't know it. Both copies never lost consciousness, or so they think. Which one is the real 'you'?

To me, all of these thought experiments lead to one conclusion: There is no soul. 'You' are merely the expression of the complex calculations of the brain. If they made two of you, both of you would think you're the real one, and both of you would be alive and self-aware.
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Old 07-13-2002, 11:41 AM
pldennison pldennison is offline
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On a similiar note, on cloning an individual would they have the same 'soul'. I don't like the idea of cloning but it would be interesting to know if it would be the case.
Nah, of course not. A clone is nothing more than an identical twin that happens to be conceived later rather than contemporaneously. Despite all the other interesting observations about identical twins, they do not share a single conciousness, or "soul," or what have you.

Quote:
Thinking further on that, if they cloned Einstein would the clone be as smart?
It would have the same potential intelligence as the original, I would think, but might not develop the same interests or talents. Individual life experience counts for a lot.

A good book along these lines (avoid the movie at all costs) is Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil, in which an escaped Dr. Mengele not only has cloned Hitler many times over, but is trying to control the external circimstances of each cloned boy's life in an attempt to actually recreate "Hitler."

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(Is this one of those hijack things that people mention?)
Yep, and welcome to the boards!
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Old 07-13-2002, 12:00 PM
pldennison pldennison is offline
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On a similiar note, on cloning an individual would they have the same 'soul'. I don't like the idea of cloning but it would be interesting to know if it would be the case.
Nah, of course not. A clone is nothing more than an identical twin that happens to be conceived later rather than contemporaneously. Despite all the other interesting observations about identical twins, they do not share a single conciousness, or "soul," or what have you.

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Thinking further on that, if they cloned Einstein would the clone be as smart?
It would have the same potential intelligence as the original, I would think, but might not develop the same interests or talents. Individual life experience counts for a lot.

A good book along these lines (avoid the movie at all costs) is Ira Levin's The Boys From Brazil, in which an escaped Dr. Mengele not only has cloned Hitler many times over, but is trying to control the external circimstances of each cloned boy's life in an attempt to actually recreate "Hitler."

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(Is this one of those hijack things that people mention?)
Yep, and welcome to the boards!
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  #30  
Old 07-13-2002, 11:58 PM
DSeid DSeid is offline
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My two cents on these matters have been heard before so I'm mainly gonna just cut and paste from "The self: an urban legend" thread in May. My small contribution then focused on the distinctions between different meanings of the concept of "self" and the role of a "self" evolutionarily. These conversations seem to center around "self" as a "conscious" entity, defining its current pattern state as "self" with constant updates. I've added bolding.

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How about Science April 22, 2002? The abstract -
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Self-Representation in Nervous Systems Patricia S. Churchland* The brain's earliest self-representational capacities arose as evolution found neural network solutions for coordinating and regulating inner-body signals, thereby improving behavioral strategies. Additional flexibility in organizing coherent behavioral options emerges from neural models that represent some of the brain's inner states as states of its body, while representing other signals as perceptions of the external world. Brains manipulate inner models to predict the distinct consequences in the external world of distinct behavioral options. The self thus turns out to be identifiable not with a nonphysical soul, but rather with a set of representational capacities of the physical brain
Some snippets -
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Descartes proposed that the self is not identical with one's body, or indeed, with any physical thing. Instead, he famously concluded that the essential self--the self one means when one thinks, "I exist"--is a nonphysical, conscious thing. At this stage of scientific development, the Cartesian approach is unsatisfactory for three reasons: (i) psychological functions generally, including conscious thoughts such as "I exist," are activities of the physical brain (1, 2); (ii) aspects of self-regulation (e.g., inhibiting sexual inclinations), and self-cognition (e.g., knowing where I stand in my clan's dominance hierarchy), may be nonconscious (3); and (iii) as the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) realized, there is in any case no introspective experience of the "self" as a distinct thing apart from the body (4). Introspection, Hume concluded, reveals only a continuously changing flux of visual perceptions, sounds, smells, emotions, memories, thoughts, feelings of fatigue, and so forth. ... This remarkably diverse range of uses of the self-concept motivates recasting problems about "the self" in terms of self-representational capacities of the brain. Doing so deflates the temptation to think of the self as a singular entity and encourages the idea that self-representing involves a plurality of functions, each having a range of shades, levels, and degrees. Further, it broadens the inquiry beyond humans to other species, suggesting that varying levels of coherencing operate in all nervous systems of any significant complexity. The reformulation also sets the stage for designing experiments to determine more precisely the types of self-representations nervous systems have, how they are connected to one another, and the nature of their neural substrates (6). ... Self-representations may be widely distributed across brain structures, coordinated only on an "as-needed" basis, and arranged in a loose and loopy hierarchy. ... The most fundamental of the self-representational capacities probably arose as evolution stumbled on solutions for coordinating inner-body signals to generate survival-appropriate inner regulation. ... An appealing hypothesis defended by Damasio (12) is that the self/nonself distinction, though originally designed to support coherencing, is ultimately responsible for consciousness. According to this view, a brain whose wiring enables it to distinguish between inner-world representations and outer-world representations and to build a meta-representational model of the relation between outer and inner entities is a brain enjoying some degree of consciousness. … On this hypothesis, the degrees or levels of conscious awareness are upgraded in tandem with the self-representational upgrades.
Interesting point of view, neh?

<... later in the thread ....>

Varela echos some of the same themes: biological self manifests in minds as metaphysical self -
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I'm interested in the nervous system, cognitive science, and immunology, because they concern the processes that can answer the question of what biological identity is. How can you have some kind of identity that simultaneously allows you to know something, allows cells to configure their own relevant world, the immune system to generate the identity of our body in its own way, and the brain to be the basis for a mind, a cognitive identity? All these mechanisms share a common theme. And self in the cognitive system is a function of that looping constantly reupdating infinite regress
...
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this funny, screwy logic where the snake bites its own tail and you can't discern a beginning. Forget the idea of a black box with inputs and outputs. Think in terms of loops. .... In several contemporary complex systems, the inputs and outputs are completely dependent on interactions within the system, and their richness comes from their internal connectedness. Give up the boxes, and work with the entire loopiness of the thing.
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  #31  
Old 07-14-2002, 12:17 AM
DSeid DSeid is offline
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This is the link to that thread, in case any one is curious.
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  #32  
Old 07-15-2002, 06:26 AM
Go alien Go alien is offline
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The question of “what is me?” has been addressed many times in science fiction, especially with reference to copying. Orson Scott Card, in one of his series (the name of which escapes me), describes a civilisation based on brain recording & suspended animation. A person can have their brain recorded, the body is stored or any number of years, and when woken up, the recording is put back in the brain. Card didn’t really probe the question of personal identity (the stories were about the dystopian effect of the system), but I wondered.

The individual was conscious for a period after recording, so he/she was experiencing existence. When they went under, that small segment of experience was lost. To me, the recording was just that. The post-recording person was mentally scrubbed, and a foreign recording was put on a blank slate when woken up. The recording was a copy and the original destroyed.

Another story, I think by Fred Pohl. Interstellar travel was achieved by sub-light speed space ships. However, a faster than light teleporting system worked, so once the ship (with teleporter) arrived, people could go to the destination. But it wasn’t just a teleporter, it was a copier. The original remained behind and the copy continued its new life at the new location. The story discussed the problems for the hero, repeatedly copied, meeting a copy of his wife (who was a copy from before she met him and had married someone else), and the mental torture of sending copies of himself on suicide missions.

IMHO, there is only one me. The stream of consciousness I perceive is the original & genuine, anything else is a fake. Oh, and by the way, when I die, the universe ends. You are all figments of my (possibly deranged) imagination.
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  #33  
Old 07-15-2002, 06:33 AM
Mangetout Mangetout is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by Sam Stone
To me, all of these thought experiments lead to one conclusion: There is no soul. 'You' are merely the expression of the complex calculations of the brain. If they made two of you, both of you would think you're the real one, and both of you would be alive and self-aware.
That isn't necessarily the only possible conclusion; others might be that the thought experiment will actually remain impossible to implement in reality, because of the (Hypothetical) existence of a soul (although this is falsifiable) or that there is such a thing as a soul, but it is an emergent function, like everything else.
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  #34  
Old 07-15-2002, 08:17 AM
erislover erislover is offline
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I dunno, Magetout... sounds like a new spin on the old Theseus' Ship problem. And a soul, like a ship's crew, could be present the whole time.
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  #35  
Old 07-15-2002, 08:31 AM
Scylla Scylla is offline
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Here's a great article on what neuroscience mayb e saying about all this:

"Sorry, Your Soul Just Died"

http://www.brainmachines.com/body_wolf.html
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