# Is acknowledgement of a spirit reasonable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 13, 2008, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529 "2008-11-13T14:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/41 "2008-11-13T20:24:36Z")
The problem in your reasoning seems to be that you assume that people who _don’t_ get copied stay the same person. They don’t. People are more or less the result of their history. Bodies change and so to personalities. In your scenario, right after the transporter has done it’s thing, both people will be so much alike that you probably won’t be able to tell the difference (except that their in two different places). Now wait a couple of decades and telling them apart will probably be trivial. By the way: I always thought that souls were immutable. Your thought experiment seems to contradict that view. Though I must admit I’ve never seen a widely recognized definition of “soul” that makes any sense - suspiciously enough, neither have I seen one for “God”. This is not a good starting point when you want to convince people either exists. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/42 "2008-11-13T20:27:27Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I don’t think bumper-sticker slogans make for a good argument. Any claim requires exactly as much evidence as is necessary. Some big claims require very little and some small claims require a lot. Einstein’s paper on energy and mass equivalence is very short, as is Godel’s paper on undecidable propositions. And Gettier stunned the world with his very brief paper knocking down two thousand years of acceptance that knowledge is justified true belief. > > Meanwhile, Russell and Whitehead, in _Principia Mathematica_, used 362 pages to prove that 1+1=2. You’re confusing quantity with quality. You don’t necessarily need a huge quantity of evidence to prove the existence of god, regardless of how much you have it just has to be very very good. > [@](#): > > Does that mean you are prepared to accept popularity as evidence? If so, I can offer you links contrasting the number of faithful with the number of nonbelievers. (I eagerly await hearing how it’s different in one case versus another.) :rolleyes: Way to leap on a point and totally ‘misinterpret’ it for your purposes. You’re talking about sharing a common experience, not popularity. Everyone has had dreams, knows about them, etc. No one can verify (yet) the specifics of a dream, but then, no one has yet had reason to. Since we know that dreams can contain just about anything, nothing that is claimed is suspected. But we know they’re just dreams, and any claim that they’re messages from aliens or revelations from a deity are immediately suspect, as we have no evidence for that. The content (generally) doesn’t matter, it’s the source of the vision that’s suspect. If you claim you saw an image when you were asleep the logical conclusion is ‘dream’, and any other interpretation is going to require evidence. > [@](#): > > But I have evidence, the evidence of my experience — same as the evidence I have for what I dreamed. Now, you might not care about my experience, and you might think my experience does not amount to a hill of beans. But I think differently. And because the experience is yours and solely yours, you are welcome to. I require no evidence that you had the experience, as it doesn’t affect me in any way. When it does affect me, then it’s different. Say you have a dream in which you find out that I am a criminal, something horrible. If you say ‘I had a dream, here’s what was in it’, then we’re done. It doesn’t affect me. But if you were to go around telling people that I really was a criminal based solely on the dream, then it does affect me. I, and other people, would require evidence for your claim, given it’s source. You’ve cross from ‘I had a dream’ to ‘I had a vision that was real’. No one doubts that you had a dream, it’s the things your attribute to that dream that changes the scope. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/43 "2008-11-13T20:55:14Z")
“Them old dreams are only in your head” - Bob Dylan. 🙂 I have a question for **nd\_n8**. Is the spirit or soul you are postulating immutable, or does it change somehow with experience? Ignoring transporters, is the soul you die with identical with the one you’re born with? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/44 "2008-11-13T21:26:30Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > The problem with the soul argument is that the soul isn’t well defined, and at the moment I can’t tell if I’m seeing the soul or not. In the OP’s example, even assuming there was a soul to begin with, there could be two souls at the end, or one, or none. He doesn’t give any way of deciding, or of detecting the soul. I’d guess that both individuals would handily pass a Turing test, so that won’t help. I feel like you left a sentence incomplete, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth so I’ll ask you: did you mean to say, “He doesn’t give any _ **empirical** _ way of deciding, or of detecting the soul.”? If so, than I’d agree with you and add that he shouldn’t give such a way since if the soul is immaterial then it cannot be observed empirically. I think that fact tends to disappoint those who seek a scientific evaluation of everything, but science was never intended to evaluate analytical claims and is unsuitable for it. > [@RJKUgly](#): > > These things are hardly hard evidence, in fact they’re thin as hell. But I think they could be said to constitute _some_ evidence, and if done rigorously for large enough groups may lead to some fairly good statistical evidence about what kinds of things people dream about. As I said, you have similarly thin evidence for religous experience. Experiments done with the brain’s temporal lobes indicate that there may be some relation between activity in those areas and spiritual expression. The question is why you would accept thin evidence in one case, but not in the other. > [@hotflungwok](#): > > You’re confusing quantity with quality. You don’t necessarily need a huge quantity of evidence to prove the existence of god, regardless of how much you have it just has to be very very good. All that is required to prove the existence of God, given the possibility of His existence, is a handful of logical inferences. > [@](#): > > But we know they’re just dreams, and any claim that they’re messages from aliens or revelations from a deity are immediately suspect, as we have no evidence for that. Nor any such claim. At least, not from me. > [@](#): > > When it does affect me, then it’s different. Say you have a dream in which you find out that I am a criminal, something horrible. If you say ‘I had a dream, here’s what was in it’, then we’re done. It doesn’t affect me. But if you were to go around telling people that I really was a criminal based solely on the dream, then it does affect me. I, and other people, would require evidence for your claim, given it’s source. You’ve cross from ‘I had a dream’ to ‘I had a vision that was real’. No one doubts that you had a dream, it’s the things your attribute to that dream that changes the scope. On that, we can agree. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/45 "2008-11-13T21:28:45Z")
I would also add, at this point, a reminder that the OP’s question (at least in the title) is whether acknowledgment of a spirit is reasonable, not whether it is proven. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/46 "2008-11-13T21:33:03Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > All that is required to prove the existence of God, given the possibility of His existence, is a handful of logical inferences. Oh? You wouldn’t happen to have these lying around would you? Only I know a few people who might be somewhat interested in them. > [@](#): > > Nor any such claim. At least, not from me. Yes, I know. This is what you said: > [@](#): > > you have no scientific evidence that I dreamed about our old house. I agree with you, we don’t have it. Nor do we need it. There are no scientific questions that hinge on that knowledge. > [@](#): > > I would also add, at this point, a reminder that the OP’s question (at least in the title) is whether acknowledgment of a spirit is reasonable, not whether it is proven. And without a reason to even think it exists, acknowledgment of a spirit is not reasonable. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/47 "2008-11-13T21:48:04Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I would also add, at this point, a reminder that the OP’s question (at least in the title) is whether acknowledgment of a spirit is reasonable, not whether it is proven. And I’ll add a reminder that the OP hasn’t defined what he means by spirit, which is a really under-defined concept in any case. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/48 "2008-11-13T22:03:57Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > I agree with you, we don’t have it. Nor do we need it. There are no scientific questions that hinge on that knowledge. I think your assertion would sound hollow and arbitrary to the many scientists who study dreams. > [@](#): > > And without a reason to even think it exists, acknowledgment of a spirit is not reasonable. Your conclusion seems to be in your premise. > [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > And I’ll add a reminder that the OP hasn’t defined what he means by spirit, which is a really under-defined concept in any case. I thought he defined it as that which is metaphysical, i.e., immaterial. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/49 "2008-11-13T22:16:24Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I thought he defined it as that which is metaphysical, i.e., immaterial. That’s a very skimpy definition: does my spirit include, for example, what my friends think of me? Does it include anything at all? In other words: what’s the immaterial part of me, if there is one? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/50 "2008-11-13T22:52:53Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > That’s a very skimpy definition: does my spirit include, for example, what my friends think of me? Does it include anything at all? In other words: what’s the immaterial part of me, if there is one? I don’t mean to be coy or cryptic, but I’d put the question the opposite way — are you part of the immaterial? I think the idea of a metaphysical entity implies certain things, which can be deduced simply as the opposites of their physical aspects. Because the universe is temporal, for example, I think can say that the spirit is atemporal. Because the universe implies existence as a predicate for essence, the spirit implies essense as a predicate for existence. And because the universe implies a contingency on such things as physical law, the spirit implies a necessity from which the actual and the possible may be derived. And so, the spirit is eternal, essential, and necessary. That’s at least a place where we can begin. In addition, the spirit would be noncorporeal since physical beings are corporeal. The spirit would be moral since the universe is amoral (not immoral, but amoral, i.e., neutral with respect to morality.) And so we can ask whether there is any part of you that is those things while at the same time being something that is not physical. If there is, then it means that you are a dual creature — at once physical and spritual. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/51 "2008-11-13T22:57:07Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > And I’ll add a reminder that the OP hasn’t defined what he means by spirit, which is a really under-defined concept in any case. I was going to say the same thing. We could just as easily ask: Is it reasonable to believe in a uygwufygwfyuryu? As for the same-ness questions in the OP: 1. Copying the relative position and motion of particles says absolutely nothing about anything. This may sound harsh but it’s not meant to. It just simply doesn’t mean anything. 2. “Same”-ness is a human term with varying definitions. This really needs to be very explicitly defined prior to determining if something is the same. Once the definition is agreed upon then you mechanically apply it to the objects of interest. However, all you have done is determine if the objects map to your definition of “same”-ness, that’s all. Because it is your very own definition, the answer only tells you something about the objects releative to your very own definition. There is no concept of “same”-ness that is a fundemental law of the universe. On self-awareness: 1. Who says we are unique in the animal kingdom? I think the most reasonable assumption is that self-awareness is a by product of our brain structure and that there is a continuum of what we call “self-awareness” in the animal kingdom. The brain is just a machine. 2. Self-awareness says nothing about “same”-ness unless self-awareness is included in the agreed upon definition of “same”-ness.. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/52 "2008-11-13T23:14:25Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I don’t mean to be coy or cryptic, but I’d put the question the opposite way — are you part of the immaterial? I think the idea of a metaphysical entity implies certain things, which can be deduced simply as the opposites of their physical aspects. Because the universe is temporal, for example, I think can say that the spirit is atemporal. Because the universe implies existence as a predicate for essence, the spirit implies essense as a predicate for existence. And because the universe implies a contingency on such things as physical law, the spirit implies a necessity from which the actual and the possible may be derived. And so, the spirit is eternal, essential, and necessary. That’s at least a place where we can begin. In addition, the spirit would be noncorporeal since physical beings are corporeal. The spirit would be moral since the universe is amoral (not immoral, but amoral, i.e., neutral with respect to morality.) So by this reasoning, because the universe exists we can deduce that spirit doesn’t. QED. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/53 "2008-11-13T23:21:54Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I don’t mean to be coy or cryptic, but I’d put the question the opposite way — are you part of the immaterial? I think I can prove at least part of me isn’t 🙂 > [@](#): > > I think the idea of a metaphysical entity implies certain things, which can be deduced simply as the opposites of their physical aspects. Because the universe is temporal, for example, I think can say that the spirit is atemporal. Because the universe implies existence as a predicate for essence, the spirit implies essense as a predicate for existence. And because the universe implies a contingency on such things as physical law, the spirit implies a necessity from which the actual and the possible may be derived. I think you use “absence of” in place of “opposite of” in some places, and in other places I really don’t understand what you mean at all. > [@](#): > > And so, the spirit is eternal, essential, and necessary. Even given your premises, I’m not convinced, but then, I might have missed something. > [@](#): > > That’s at least a place where we can begin. In addition, the spirit would be noncorporeal since physical beings are corporeal. The spirit would be moral since the universe is amoral (not immoral, but amoral, i.e., neutral with respect to morality.) But by the same token, the spirit could be immoral, then, right? > [@](#): > > And so we can ask whether there is any part of you that is those things while at the same time being something that is not physical. If there is, then it means that you are a dual creature — at once physical and spritual. I don’t think any part of me is atemporal or immutable, and while I think I have some morals, I don’t think those morals are the effect of any non-physical processes. And process is the correct word here - to get back to the OP: living beings are processes, not static entities. They are changing and reproducing all the time, and while we may point our finger at some coherent bunch of matter and actions and follow it around, the fact remains that we’re not looking at an object like a stone - we’re looking at a river, flowing down a bedding, changing its environment and itself. But neither the river, nor the stone, nor any living being has a spirit in any sense that I know of. ---
**Author:** ![JimOfAllTrades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@JimOfAllTrades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimOfAllTrades)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/54 "2008-11-13T23:29:58Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > As I said, you have similarly thin evidence for religous experience. Experiments done with the brain’s temporal lobes indicate that there may be some relation between activity in those areas and spiritual expression. The question is why you would accept thin evidence in one case, but not in the other. I’m not sure I know what you mean by “spiritual expression”, and who is accepting evidence of one and not the other? But no matter what it is, doesn’t this evidence, thin though it may be, point to it as something in the brain, and not originating in some outside force, like a god? We see electrical and chemical reactions in the brain during dreams, does this mean that spiritual expression is similar to dreams? I don’t think many people deny that some people have spiritual experiences (I don’t anyway). I think the question is: Are they associated with anything outside ourselves, or just something internal like a dream? (and one of my brothers would now ask me, how do you know the dreams are not something external? 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/55 "2008-11-13T23:47:27Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > \And because the universe implies a contingency on such things as physical law, the spirit implies a necessity from which the actual and the possible may be derived. And so, the spirit is eternal, essential, and necessary. That’s at least a place where we can begin. In addition, the spirit would be noncorporeal since physical beings are corporeal. The spirit would be moral since the universe is amoral (not immoral, but amoral, i.e., neutral with respect to morality.) \. Thinking about the more essential parts of spirit I’m inclined to say that Spirit is amoral as well. Why would spirit be a moral entity or state in the universe? I like to think of our transpersonal understandign of this as unity consciousness instead of non-duality because it implies ones state of being is directly related to one environment, which I believe to be true. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2008, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/56 "2008-11-13T23:47:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Brain scans wouldn’t be enough. You’d have to have mapped out the contents of Lib’s memory, and thus know that a stimulus at a certain neuron would produce an image of his house. I think a lot of sf on this subject assumes that there is some sort of hologram being constructed in your brain - I think it is a lot more complicated than that. That depends on if you were trying to get at his memory, or watch the dream as it happened. The evidence last I heard is that the imagination uses the same brain tissue as the mind does to perceive and control the body; if you imagine using a screwdriver most of the same neurons fire as if you were really using one; if you imagine a tree much the same patterns of neurons fire as if you were looking at one. When you see or imagine something, apparently the result in the brain is an only-slightly-distorted matching pattern on the surface of the primary visual cortex - not a hologram, but then we see in two dimensions. If you had a good enough brain scanner you could probably watch what he’s dreaming just by scanning the outer layer of the primary visual cortex. In fact, this is what I was thinking of with the comment about brain scanning. If you wanted to get at his memory, that would be harder; you’d have to understand how the brain’s memory indexing works in general, and then figure out how his personal version is arranged. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/57 "2008-11-14T00:13:53Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I think your assertion would sound hollow and arbitrary to the many scientists who study dreams. And I think you have an exaggerated opinion of yourself, if you think that scientists are interested in whether or not you dreamed of a house last night. > [@](#): > > Your conclusion seems to be in your premise. I could use different vocabulary so it doesn’t seem that way, but my point still stands. Nicely avoided. You deftly avoided my request for your proof of god as well. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/58 "2008-11-14T00:15:52Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I feel like you left a sentence incomplete, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth so I’ll ask you: did you mean to say, “He doesn’t give any _ **empirical** _ way of deciding, or of detecting the soul.”? If so, than I’d agree with you and add that he shouldn’t give such a way since if the soul is immaterial then it cannot be observed empirically. I think that fact tends to disappoint those who seek a scientific evaluation of everything, but science was never intended to evaluate analytical claims and is unsuitable for it. I’ll take anyway of detecting a soul except for him randomly pointing at someone saying that he sees one. For instance, if he says that entities with souls can make moral judgments, we’d at least be able to test both these individuals in that sense. He claims that spirit exists, fine, and claims that it doesn’t exist in the duplicate - but I don’t see his justification for saying that, except that it makes him feel uncomfortable. I’m not asking for a lot here, and certainly not a soul detecting machine. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/59 "2008-11-14T00:26:06Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That depends on if you were trying to get at his memory, or watch the dream as it happened. The evidence last I heard is that the imagination uses the same brain tissue as the mind does to perceive and control the body; if you imagine using a screwdriver most of the same neurons fire as if you were really using one; if you imagine a tree much the same patterns of neurons fire as if you were looking at one. When you see or imagine something, apparently the result in the brain is an only-slightly-distorted matching pattern on the surface of the primary visual cortex - not a hologram, but then we see in two dimensions. If you had a good enough brain scanner you could probably watch what he’s dreaming just by scanning the outer layer of the primary visual cortex. In fact, this is what I was thinking of with the comment about brain scanning. > > If you wanted to get at his memory, that would be harder; you’d have to understand how the brain’s memory indexing works in general, and then figure out how his personal version is arranged. I remember reading about that - but do dreams fire those neurons, or memory ones, or both? No matter - you still need to have mapped the things that fire first. [QUOTE=Liberal] I think your assertion would sound hollow and arbitrary to the many scientists who study dreams. [/QUOTE] Scientists are going to look at the physiology of dreaming, which is measurable, and your reports of what you dreamed. If they were being precise, they’d say that you reported dreaming of your house, not that you actually did. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2008, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529/60 "2008-11-14T04:32:10Z")
Back to the OP, I think we’d benefit from defining what we mean by “the same person.” In one sense, you are not the same person you were five minutes ago, since you have had experiences that have slightly changed you. In another sense, the five-minute ago you and the present you would both agree that you are nd\_n8, and you have the basic set of memories and personality. With the physical duplicator, as soon as the second brain starts functioning, there are now two brains with consciousness, or self-awareness. Both of these creatures would have the same set of memories and personality, and they’d both think they were nd\_n8. Are they the same person? Well, they’re obviously two different individuals now, but both perceive that they’re nd\_n8. After five minutes, they’re different in that they’ve had different experiences, like the present you is different from the five minute ago you. But don’t confuse this inadequacy of our language to describe it, with what’s really going on. Once you have two brains working, there are separate individuals in existence, both of whom perceive that they’re nd\_n8. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-acknowledgement-of-a-spirit-reasonable/472529.md?page=4)