I Gotta Split. Paradox?

Great Debates
81

Actually, I think there is a paradox (or at least an interesting question) lurking in the copying of Chip. Chip I would obviously remember the copying process feeling weird. But would Chip II? For that to happen, Chip I’s thoughts about the copying process must themselves be copied, leading to an infinite regress. I suspect that for both Chips to remember the process feeling weird upon its completion would require some arbitrarily small experiencial difference, although that might be trivial in a Zeno’s paradox kind of way.

I’ll, err, think about it.

82

Sorry.

83

And that last sorry was to Tibbycat, for calling him her.

84

No, at the exact moment the particles can be said to exist, they are in motion. There is no duration in time they are at rest. You are restating Zeno’s Arrow Paradox, and the arrow does move.

85

If we fully understood what consciousness was, then this thread is moot. I stated my position (s) and asked the questions that I did so that we may attempt to use logic and try to glean a little more understanding as to the true nature of consciousness. So, I think that it is fair to say that neither of us knows all that there is to know about consciousness. However, we do know *some *things about consciousness and we do know *some *things about the physical laws of our universe. I’ve based my positions on my interpretation of what I do know and I’m using an admittedly “biologically” impossible thought experiment to work out some of the kinks. Am I basing my positions on pure fantasy? No, at least I am trying not to. I am basing my positions on science, at least to the extent of not violating any physical laws. So, that said, I can give you my educated guess to the question, “Tell me what exactly is halted in the process of consciousness when you sleep or are anesthetized?” My guess is: nothing. It is simply a process that is in a different state. I’m only asking for an educated guess to the same question from you, too. Since, the correct answer is not known, I can’t deduct points for a wrong answer. I simply want your opinion. And, it would be nice to know what you base your opinion on. It could be science, pseudo-science, religion, crystal power or whatever. I may not agree with your positions and what you base them on, but I’ll respect the fact that you have chosen to share them with me (us).

Unconsciousness is defined as the lack of consciousness? Well, who defined it that way, God? We have already established that we don’t fully understand what consciousness is. Did you mean to add the caveat: except for the person who defined unconsciousness as “the lack of consciousness”? He knows something that no one else does? Again, it is a problem with semantics. No more valid than understanding the phrase “I took a dump” to mean I took poo out of the toilet. (yes, I know, not the best analogy. I use it simply to stress that you should not get hung up on the symbolic nature of words. Look deeper).

No, not to my ears. At least no more than riding on a beam of light sounded to Einstein (yes, I know, I’m overusing that analogy. I’m going to retire it). I can say that to the best of my knowledge I have violated no physical law and therefore my position is grounded on science. Maybe, I wouldn’t think your answer was metaphysical-sounding either, but I won’t be able to tell until you tell me what you base your answers on.

Because if the process is my consciousness, I have no vested interest in the duplicated version of that process.
Mr. Tibbs

86

BTW: It may be of interest if I share with you how I arrived at my position. It has been more helpful for me to use science as an exclusionary device rather than a supporting device in taking my position (A and B. One is true; one is false. Scientific methodology will not tell me which one is true, but it tells me conclusively that B is false, therefore, by default, A is true).
A: There cannot be a consciousness continuum from one entity into two unlinked entities.
B: There can be a consciousness continuum from one entity into two unlinked entities.
I believe that B is false because it breaks at least one physical law of nature, therefore A must be true.
You may not agree with my method, my conclusion or my logic. Debating those things would be productive. Likewise, stating your position, methodology and logic would also be productive. But simply saying things without telling us what you base those things on does not allow for debate and is not very productive.
Mr. Tibbs

87

But my point (and I’m going to stop fruitlessly repeating myself after this post) is that *your consciousness is interrupted and recovered again quite frequently; so far, all you’ve managed to do is to argue that there’s something special about your consciousness that requires it to be implemented on the same hardware continuously and that by attempting to implement it on an exact duplicate of the hardware means that something will have been lost along the way. I am stating that there is no reason to suspect that there even is such a something to be lost by such a course of action.

88

Of course there can’t be if they are unlinked, but then they couldn’t very well be described as duplicates, because duplication is a link.

89

Which one is the twin?

90

The biological computational mechanisms whereby sensory input is processed and fed into memory: no new memories are formed (memory formation being a physical process, just as it is in the hard drive of your PC). Thus, when two biological computers having the same memories wake up, neither notices a discontinuity in its consciousness since its memories continue up until the point at which the circuitry shut down.

The convention in English grammar is that prefixing a word with “un” denotes the opposite. “Happy unbirthday” - the Mad Hatter.

Then you ought to kill yourself now before the copied version of you completely subsumes your consciousness in 2008 (or whenever).

Which law of nature? How does copying memory states violate physics, given that I just did it myself by Copy-Paste-ing the text in the Quote box? Every copying procedure involves some physical link or continuity, from cellular regeneration to buffered states of Random Access Memory.

91

Each twin would find the new counterpart socially inconvenient.

92

On the contrary, I’m the one stating that my consciousness continues in my body over time, but not into a duplication of me. You seem to feel otherwise. Therefore, you can kill yourself and live in your duplicate. I’ll kill my duplicate.

93

Why not? I say your consciousness becomes both of those, just as mine could be both the 2008 version and the other duplications in 2002 and 2011.

94

Ok. Good. Now I understand your position more clearly.
It just happens to be BONKERS.
No, just kidding. That’s your opinion and that’s what I am soliciting. Now that I understand your position, I would like to debate it. But it will have to wait until after I get lunch and spend some time with the kiddies.
Cheers.

95

OK. For when you come back, a useful summary of my position is that we are our memories. The duplication which occurs over the course of a year or more could conceivably occur overnight, or in the instant duplicator. If my last memory before sleep was you marking by thumb with ink, and then while I slept you put me in a duplicator, yielding an exact copy of me and my memories but without the ink, and then you killed the sleeping SentientMeat with the ink-stained thumb and put the sleeping duplicate back in bed, what would happen?

I would wake up, wondering who had cleaned the ink off my thumb in the night.

Agreed?

96

I hope I have just convinced you that you must now either kill yourself now, because you are the duplicate of your past self, or accept that since your past self is dead (the replaced atoms simply dissipated into the environment rather than forming another replica) you might as well continue to live as that replica, even knowing that over the next years you will slowly die and be replaced once again.

97

Ok, I’m back. Sentient and Mange, are you guys back from listening to your Yanni tapes and rubbing your crystals?
I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist. :smack:
Really, I’m just kidding (unless you really are New Agers, then carry on).

I’m writing this post to mainly address anyone who believes *any *of the following statements: Consciousness somehow transcends matter. Continuity of anything can exist without a physical link. One body can have a physical effect on another body at a distance. Consciousness can be shared in separate bodies. One consciousness can be split into two with no loss of continuity. Etc.

Please indulge me in the following scenario. Sentientmeat, you mentioned duplication in your last post, so I will use that instead of mitosis in the following experiment. It’s a little easier to follow that way. I will integrate mitosis back into the argument in my next post if needed.

I’m going to duplicate you. You are sitting in your room somewhere in the UK and I am laying on the beach here in sunny Florida. I have a machine that will arrange the exact same number and types of elemental particles that you have in your body into exactly the same arrangement and orientation. Quarks, bosons, leptons…you name it, they’re all there. (for those viewers not familiar with physics all the necessary forces, energy etc. come along for the ride. Matter, energy, it don’t matter (nice pun?). Yes, I know, there is no machine that can do this, but I’m working on it and I should have a prototype ready in a few months. Ok, I now have somebody that looks just like Sentientmeat on the beach towel next to mine. Let’s call him “you2”. The original version of Sentientmeat that sits in cold and clammy England, I will call “you”. Does you2 have a consciousness? I believe that he does. My duplicator has given the duplicate everything needed for consciousness, so why not?
Ok, I give “you2” a mai tai and he begins to feel drunk, does “you” feel drunk too? For fun, I throw a hermit crab onto you2’s crotch, he yelps when it pinches him, does you feel the pain? I get tired of you2’s company so I strangle him, does you die? Conversely, if you trips and bangs you’s head, does you2 feel anything? Is there any link whatsoever between you and you2? If there is, how is it expressed? If you are in different bodies and you share no perception, exactly what is linked?
If I kill you2 it will have no effect on you. If you is killed, it will have no effect on you2. If you believe otherwise then you must believe that a link exists. If you believe that a link exists, please explain the nature of this link.
You guys have talked about the discontinuity of consciousness, the fact that consciousness goes away and comes back, that the nature of consciousness is a process, that I am a different person tomorrow than I am today, etc. But what does it all have in common (except for being red herrings)? It is intimately tied to the matter from which it resides. Has it ever shown itself to be otherwise (except in the National Enquirer)? It does not matter that the cells regenerate, change form and sometimes die. There is continuity at the sub molecular level. It is a chain that is never broken from the day you are conceived until the day that you die. It is a chain that does *not *extend to your duplicate. You say that your consciousness comes and goes. Where does it go? To the supermarket? Out for a little spin? Maybe so, but, what is the common denominator? Barring pathology, injury or death, it always comes back to the same body, and barring accounts of near death experiences, it never really regains awareness extra-corporeally (if you know how to do that, let me know. I’d like to float into the ladies dressing room for a bit). My consciousness has never been gone for more than a few hours at a time for as long as I can remember. My wife’s and my consciousnesses have never gotten mixed up and awoken in each others bodies (well, there was that one time…but I digress). And I don’t anticipate that yours or my consciousnesses will ever jump into our duplicate’s skulls. So, call it what you will, a process, a system, voodoo whatever, it is intimately tied to the matter from which it sprang. If that is true, then matter and consciousness are in harmony and linked. Your duplicate is made of similar but different matter, therefore it has a similar but different consciousness. If you have no link with your duplicate, you have no vested interest in him. Given the choice, I will always choose my life over my duplicates, as I am sure that my duplicate will always choose his life over mine. We are two separate people; we just look the same, think the same and share the same memories. From my point of view (and remember, I have always stressed that point of view), my duplicate is an imposter. Interestingly, the opposite is not true. Close, but no cigar.
If you think that the original and the duplicate-having no physical link-,do not have different points of view/are somehow connected/have some sort of effect on each other, then you must bring pseudo-science into play…or…well, I shouldn’t mention this (it gives you an “out” if this is the path you choose to go down), and I won’t elaborate, since it is counterproductive to my argument…but, if you are unfamiliar with action-at-a-distance and you are interested, research Bell’s Theorem…But, don’t try to use it against me.

Anyway, you may argue that duplication is different than my mitosis scenario (although you have inferred otherwise) and while a link exists in one it does not in the other. Like I said, I will integrate mitosis into the argument in another post, if you want (although, I’d really rather not…too much typing). But, just to refresh your memories: I make no real distinction between duplication and mitosis with regard to my argument. A physical link never existed between the original and the duplicate as I have just postulated, meaning separate consciousnesses/original and copy are different people. The physical chain will be broken during the act of mitosis, meaning separate consciousnesses/original and splones are different people. Different processes; same outcome.

Please, let me know if and at what point your position differs from what I have said above. If I still misunderstand your position, tell me at what point so I can address it. If you disagree with my logic, call me on it. Call me anything you like, just don’t call me late for dinner.
Mr.Tibbs

98

I think you’re hoping too much there Sentient. I hope I’m not mischaracterising TibbyCat’s position, but it appears to be based upon the idea that the process of consciousness is something that happens to the person - the person him or herself being something that has its own thread of existence (as yet undefined), and therefore merely continuing that process somewhere else without the presence of that (undefined) thread that is the person just means you lost the person somewhere along the way.

You and I, on the other hand are (I think) saying that the process of consciousness is the person - it’s what the person is entirely composed of, and therefore, wherever and however the process is performed, there the person is made to be. Also if you perform the process in more than one place at once, you’ve just got more than one (but all still entirely genuine) instance of the person.

I don’t think we’re any closer to agreement with TibbyCat than we have ever been. He needs to describe what this invisible thread of being actually is if it is more than the mere performance of the process of that consciousness. There are no such unexplained entities in yours an my arguments, because they are simply not required.

99

I have no problem in saying that the process of consciousness is the person, that’s true. And yes, if you perform the “process” multiple times in multiple places in exactly the same fashion, you will get multiple instances of the person. Genuine? Debatable, dependant upon semantics. (Remember: no links, multiple points of view)

You ask me to describe this “invisible thread of being”. I’ll try, sort of. I will have to describe it, as I understand it, symbolically as an analogy.
My position: consciousness and matter are intimately linked. You can’t have consciousness without matter (you can, of course, have matter without consciousness). It is easy to conceptualize matter. Most of us probably still think of it in terms of the archaic standard model of atoms: discreet balls of electrons revolving around nuclei composed of balls of neutrons and positrons. Kinda like a mini solar system. If you are close to my age you may remember that the standard model was still in use in school, but known to be flawed. In reality, we know that matter does not look or behave anything like the standard model. Ask me to describe the true reality of matter and I will decline. Particle physics may mildly interest me, but it is nowhere near my area of expertise. The standard model of atoms is wrong, but it is easy to conceptualize and it works just fine in most cases, including this one. It is symbolic for something much more complicated. I may not fully understand the true nature of matter, but I know that it exists, and I know that it must obey certain laws. That being said, I’m going to go even simpler and use ball bearings to symbolize atoms in my scenario.

Consciousness is much more difficult for us to conceptualize. It’s hard for us to contemplate what it really “looks” or behaves like. Is it a thing? Is it a process? I think that it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking: on the one hand, I have matter. It is easy to contemplate and understand. On the other hand, I have consciousness. It is ephemeral, fluid, hard to contemplate and understand. How can these seemingly incompatible things be intimately tied together? It helps to realize that the real nature of matter is just as ephemeral, fluid, hard to contemplate and understand as consciousness. It’s just that we use a simple model to symbolize matter, and we don’t use one for consciousness…until now, that is: I’m going to use a slab of foam rubber in motion as my symbol of consciousness. It’s the “motion” that you can think of as being the “process” of consciousness.

Take the slab of foam rubber and place it on top of 100 ball bearings in a casserole dish (your skull). Now start the foam rubber in motion atop the ball bearings (you are born the moment the foam begins to shake). Keep shaking the dish so as to keep the foam in motion. If the foam ever stops moving, even for an instant, you die. Oops, one of the ball bearings popped out of the dish. No problem, the foam continues to shake. Look there, another ball bearing dropped into the dish. Pop out/drop in. This continues on and on. After an hour you realize that every ball bearing has been replaced…well almost, a few popped out and weren’t replaced. No original atom remains, but the motion of consciousness continued unabated.
Ok, lets peel that foam rubber off of the ball bearings and place it atop those other ball bearings in that other dish. Those other ball bearings and that other casserole dish look exactly like the original one. Oops, the moment I peeled the foam rubber off, it stopped shaking and died before I had a chance to relocate it.
Ah, but look over there! Another slab, bearings and dish arrangement exactly like mine. And, the rubber is shaking in exactly the same way. He must be me! I guess that it’s all right for me to stop shaking now, I’ll just continue as that other me. Help!…I’m fading.
I maintain that matter/energy and consciousness are forever linked. They are one in the same. Matter/energy and space is all that there is. How can consciousness be anything else.

100

So this Zeno character already figured this out? And he did it two and one-half THOUSAND years ago???

I’d say I have some catching up to do.