Continuation fo Consciousness: A Metaphysical Debate of a Schwartzenegger Flick

Great Debates
21

from any moment to the next, it is possible that consciousness is discontinuous. sleep, anaesthetics, etc., these things are not needed.

all that is needed is a memory of continuity.

so at any given time, all you are is you at that time, and you have memories of previous moments in time. memories are fallible. it’s possible that none of your memories ever happened at all. it’s possible that you are a clone of someone else who existed.

so is it possible that you are both the clone, and the person who existed previously?

consider whether you are (now) the same person you were at any point in the past. if you view yourself as a point in this geometric mish-mash, then you are not. from what we can observe, it is possible that we are a point in said mish-mash, so i think the answer is that it is possible that you are both the clone and the original.

on identical twins, many people believe twins have an uncanny ability to communicate, or think the same thoughts. is it possible that twins, being clones, often think the same thoughts because they had such similar starting points, or has experience changed them so much that it’s all just bollocks?

one interesting experiment with this cloner would be to make two copies at the same time and see where it goes. you could try as much as possible to put them in perfectly similar environments, and see how they are affected by subtle experiences, such as air content and flow, etc. if you put them in exact replicas of a bedroom to wake up in, for example, it would be interesting to see how the very slight differences are magnified in their actions, and how closely they would behave in exactly the same way upon awakening. it would also be interesting to see them meet.

22

Ramanujan, if you have not already read “Permutation City” by Greg Egan then I think you should.

That book begins with one of the characters creating a computer simulation of himself, and then performing experiments on the simulation’s simulated conciousness. For example, instead of running the simulation in real time he just computes the new state of the simulation every four seconds, complete with the simulated memories of the four seconds that were omitted. The simulation, of course, experiences a continuous stream of conciousness even though it’s only being run intermittently.

The book as a whole is very much a giant thought experiment on how sentient computer programs with the ability to modify or duplicate their own code would experience conciousness.

23

In agreement with both Ramanujan and Vorlon, the nature of consciousness quite possibly is that we are “different people” from one moment or day to the next.

However, this thread is specifically concerned with the notion of transfer of viewpoint. With the identical twins, the question is not “whether they are the same person” but what each twin experiences.

A further thought experiment: We have one twin. The other twin’s brain is made gradually more similar to that of the first twin.

QUESTION 1: Does the first twin notice (ie. experience anything strange happening)? I would say not, since I do not believe in ESP.

The twins brains are then made “one switch” away from being identical. Both twins are anaesthetised. The switch is thrown. The second twin wakes up somewhere else, thinking that “transfer” has occurred. (There is no way for us to tell a priori whether or not it has).

QUESTION 2: Has any “transfer” taken place?

As soon as the first twin wakes it is clear that no such transfer of viewpoint has occurred.
Of course it is possible to find a “viewpoint which thinks it has transferred”, but no such thing has happened. The second is merely a copy: they are two separate people. Again, if one posits that the tiniest difference is enough to break the “coherence” of the system or whatever then I would assume that you were talking about ESP or some variant thereof. (Not impossible but surely not the Ockhamly simplest of ideas?)
Finally, having agreed that, in a way, every morning I wake up as someone else.

QUESTION 3: Every morning, how come I don’t literally wake up as someone else, somewhere else in the world, with a different name?

Does this not strongly suggest that we are our meat, and that any attempt to “save” our brainstate is merely creating a new person? As far as everyone else is concerned, I am still alive. However, I will not wake again: my brainwashed doppelganger has no effect on my dead kilogram of wrinkled offal, surely? We are not talking about *what anyone else could tell, we are talking about the personal experience of the “consciousness devices” are we not?

24

I second the recommendation; the book is more than a work of fiction, it is a careful and compelling thought-experiment into the nature of consciousness.

25

Because, as your previous statements conclude, the ‘I’ that existed yesterday no longer exists, in fact the statement ‘I wake up as someone else’ is self-contradictory - if you are someone else, then the ‘I’ is gone and vice versa.
What happens is that ‘a’ person wakes up and remembers having been you; the other person who wakes up somewhere else in the world with a different name has no way to access the memory of having been you.

26

I appreciate that, Mange, but as I said: This is not a conversation about “what everyone else can tell the difference between” since there is clearly no difference - one person went to sleep, woke up somewhere else, behaves the same as yesterday and has the same memories. For everyone else, including the copy, “transfer” has occured.

The only person to whom none of the above applies is the original. This would be demonstrated by bringing the original back to life/wakefulness.

I am still a little unsure of who believes what in this melting pot. Is there anyone here who believes that some kind of “split personality” would develop, ESP-style, if the brains of the two twins became identical?

27

I think we may be fundamentally in agreement, just talking at cross-purposes; I believe that from a completely clinical viewpoint no transfer has in fact taken place, what has taken place is transcription, which is not the same thing.

A copy of a CD may behave in every way similar to the original, but the pits and lands which represent the data are not the same pits and lands as existed on the original (which need not be destroyed in the process), in fact the *‘what’*ness of the physical matrix in which the data is embedded is largely irrelevant, what is important is what the data does.

So you have a copy of the individual that really thinks it *is the original, just like I really think I am me when I wake up and just like the original really thinks he is really still himself.

If consciousness is just a function of the meat, then there is nothing to actually transfer except function itself.

28

Agreed, however the CD analogy is perhaps a little loose since we are effectively talking of the personal, conscious experience of the “pits+land” itself.

I guess its the biggest question of all: Short of cryonic freezing of my actual meat, can I ever wake up after death?

I would say no. The continuity is not just required with the memories (as “bringing back the first twin” shows) - it is also required with the physical substance itself (thus explaining the night-morning illusion and the notional “gradual synapse mechanisation” process).

29

Sentient Meat

I’m having a hard time imagining what it would feel like for the 2nd twin. His mind gradually changing to become almost exactly equal to the 1st.
Anyway. Lets see,… There would exist an experience/thread/life, that of the first twin, which would feel nothing unusual.
AND there would exist an experience/thread/life, that of the second twin, which would feel some scary ass trippy transformation. No ESP necessary to explain anything here, unless you consider that the second twins strange experience could be interpreted by himself as some form of ESP phenomenom.

Has transfer taken place? Well, … there’s two threads of experience (I like to think of them as threads). Transfer makes sense if you believe there’s some element that “lives” within a thread that makes it, err, itself. One thread absolutely feels like it has experienced a star-trek teleport. The other does not.
If there are minor differences in the brain at the end of the transformation process, well, that simply degrades the seamless transfer illusion for the second twin. Like maybe including some amnesia and a headache.

What makes you think you DON’T wake up as someone else ! Maybe Mangetout is right. the “I wake up as **someone else **” seems contradictory.
Maybe tha paradox arises because we tend to assign a “soul” to what is basically a thread of information configurations. Two identical “threads of information configurations” (whew!)… are COMPLETELY indistiguishable. So, for all practical purposes, we should consider them the same “soul”.

If we further this concept, we can hipothesize, that there exists a (maybe finite) set of possible life/thread experiences. The universe wouldn’t waste “resources” making a distinction of repeated ones. It wouldn’t assign two souls if one suffices.
Wow, the thread boggles, doesn’t it ?

30

I don’t think any continuity is required unless we are to invoke some kind of soul-like entity that exists independently of the meat (I’m quite happy to do this myself), otherwise it is just a process that is happening somewhere and could logically be happening somewhere else or in more than one place at the same moment (although with no interconnection).

31

Chaos, yes- the second twin would have a hard time of it, gradually losing his own memories and behavioural instincts and gaining those of his brother. My intention was merely to demonstrate that no “soul transfer” would take place, only the creation of a copy that thought it had (and thus convinced everyone else of such).

Given that consciousness is to at least some extent an illusion (“I am what my meat does”) I don’t really understand your third point.

32

Sentient, let me propose an extension to your “twins” thought experiment:

Suppose that, initially, you are twin #1.
Both you and your brother, #2, are placed in two different dark rooms, lying down on a table, with wires connected to your heads.
With the flip of a switch, a computer uses the information in brain #1 to bring brain #2 to exactly the same state as #1.
When finished. A loudspeaker in both rooms announces: “Transfer complete”
At that moment, there is no way you can possibly tell who you are. Right ? In spite of having the memory of living a continuous experience, there is no logical way for either of the twins to know who or where they are. This will only be resolved when they stand up, walk to the door and open it.
I find this momentary loss of identity quite baffling especially considering that nothing was actually done to twin #1. Even though not one of his braincells was altered, if he is a logical being, he will have momentarily “lost” his identity.

What do you think ?

Does this not suggest that “meat” is not equal to “soul” ?

33

Then you have a problem: there is no physical continuity.

Therefore, you don’t exist. Have a nice day.

34

The only “loss of identity” which has occurred is in the second room, where twin 2’s life is being erased. Both wake up knowing who they are: they both “know” they are twin 1. The fact that twin 1 cannot prove that he is the original solely with reference to his own memories and behaviour does not engender an “identity crisis” in any but the most trivial way, in the same way that I might not convince a strategically placed observer that I am not my own image in a mirror.

Deny the twins knowledge of each other, move one halfway round the world and do the operation then. Is there any effect on twin 1 at all? Surely not. The “loss of identity” you speak of is merely momentary panic that you cannot prove you are who you say and think you are, like losing your passport on holiday.

35

Over a period of years, this is true. From one moment or day to the next, this is demonstrably false. Were the entire “brain pattern” to be recreated in a moment (as we are debating) the lack of continuity would, I contend, create a new person. “I” would be the original piece of offal waiting for revival.

Vorlon, what do you suggest is demonstrated by the thought experiment whereby a copy is made while the original still exists?

36

Fair enough. The paradox seems to fade if there is no knowldege of the “duplication”

I’ll hold my ground on this one though.
It is not simply that you cannot prove who you are. You actually CAN’T KNOW who you are.
When you open that door, you may wish to discover to be #1. But during the lapse of time until you reach the door, if you are smart and rational, you must be open to the posibility (50% ?), that you will turn out to be #2.
Don’t you agree?

37

Chaos: That would seem to be focusing on a rather less important aspect of the experiment but yes, agreed.

38

Sentient
You had posed the quesion in a previous post:
does transfer occurr?

It seems to me that this…err… machine… would be the only way to do a “transfer”, and at the same time be aware of it having happened.
Each time you agree to the process, you must acknowledge and accept, for all practical purposes, a 50-50 chance of “becoming” your twin.
I’m still thinking…

39

The twins experiment is interesting, but what’s got me pondering since yesterday is the issue of non-continuance of consciousness within a single physical being that the twins experiment implies. Again, examples abound:

  • Dreamless sleep
  • Anasthesia or other pharmacological effects
  • Coma
  • Temporary death

I’m not a neurosurgeon, but let us suppose that in some or all of these cases, the brain totally loses all consciousness and awareness. Can it not therefore be said that upon awakening, a new consciousness now exists within the same vessel - that falling into a coma is fundamentally the same as killing the original soul, with a new “soul” beginning its life when the brain is restarted?

In other words, what is the difference between me before and after suffering a coma, and “me” before and after dying and being transferred to a new clone/brain a la “The Sixth Day”? The only practical difference is that in Case A, the same physical vessel was used before and after consciousness, while in Case B, a new vessel was used.

BUT - in Case A, I posit that thought and consciousness has stopped in extreme cases like comas and freezing to death and such. If so, how can one’s “consciousness” be said to exist at that time, if in fact it’s simply a product of your physical structure? And if it doesn’t exist, doesn’t that mean the resumed consciousness could logically be said to be a completely NEW one?

You’re a new person every time you wake up. The spiritual implications are staggering, are they not? Maybe what we PERCEIVE as a lifetime of consciousness is in fact an illusion, and is in fact a long string of separate souls, connected by a physical memory storage device.

40

What’s a ‘soul’, then?