Consciousness, self; what makes me ME?

Great Debates
1

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?

2

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.

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).

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).

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 me[sub]past[/sub]=me[sub]present[/sub] we can’t automatically say that me[sub]present[/sub]=me[sub]past[/sub]. 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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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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Heh heh! Thanks for the glowing endorsement. :wink:

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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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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Just realised that I’m not making sense; this is what I meant to type:

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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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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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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.

10

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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Go read what I said on the niggling little thingie about prayer thread.

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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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The Defacating Meatbags, now there’s a band name!!

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What makes you you? Well YOU are the guy who posted this thread!

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Yes, but the copy would also be totally convinced the had done that.

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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.

If you can’t tell, is the question answerable? What makes you yourself is that you experience a sense of self, nothing more.

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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But possibly less… and this response sort of dodges the question. “What are scientists?” “People who do science.” Ahhhh… :wink:

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.

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?

18

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.

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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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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Good call, Mangetout.

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)