I’m telling you, that’s what the whole thing is. I’ve had both anesthesia the old-school way where they give it to you and have you count backwards, and I’ve had Versed administered 15 minutes before I even went into the OR. And I’ve been around a close friend & housemate under the influence of Versed(or maybe propofol) after he got his esophagus scoped and I picked him up from the Dr.'s office.
He was totally awake, lucid and we had quite a nice lunch and interesting conversation, but he remembered none of it- later that evening we discussed it, and he remembered getting the sedative, and waking up from a nap at home. No recollection of lunch, conversation, etc…
There wasn’t any discontinuity of consciousness in his case, but his experience was pretty much 100% like mine, with the exception of not actually having anesthesia. But from our perspectives, the experience was the same
All this talk about clones is confusing the issue. A clone isn’t you because it doesn’t have your memories, personality or experiences. What you’re talking about is a transporter duplicate. In the unlikely case that such things are even possible, the transporter duplicates would both be you. What they wouldn’t be is each other. Each one would be an individual person, but (assuming there was no way to identify an “original”) they would each have as much claim to being the person who was born when you were, grew up in your family, and who you are now, as you currently do. And there won’t be any you, past or present, who experienced or experiences dying or being replaced, just like there isn’t right now, and just as there won’t be when you undergo surgery. If you were to be duplicated, you’d simply be replaced, just like you are now every instant, only instead of being replaced with a single you, you’d be replaced by two yous.
You need to seek psychiatric help. At this point, I think you’re only going to make things worse for yourself – and I don’t think it will help you to talk about it, if no one can convince you otherwise.
I’m bookmarking this for quotation next time we do that whole transporter duplicate debate. That’s the exact problem - people can’t seem to separate the notion of two things being the same, but not being each other, and also not being just one freaky meta-thing.
Exactly; the modification of the transporter to a duplicator is a debate tactic that is supposed to enhance the philosophic force of whichever side is making its point at the moment. It’s supposed to clarify our thinking about the meanings of “originality” and “sameness” and so on.
It doesn’t work, of course: both sides have an underlying concept of the meaning of those words which is not rebutted by such a modification. Those who believe the transporter is a murder machine are not mollified by a duplicating machine…and nor are those who believe the transporter is a transportation machine.
It makes the debate longer, but doesn’t work to the real advantage of either side.
How can a fully-functioning you come suddenly into existence and not be meaningfully you? That’s a weird and absurd idea - that this person is suddenly going to come into existence to replace you (that has gone… somewhere)
The universe does not commonly generate people instantaneously and spontaneously.
It is a very common effect of modern anti-depressants for people to have a feeling, a rather strong sensation, that their new way of thinking “isn’t real.”
“These thoughts aren’t really my thoughts.” (Speaking from personal experience.)
This is, of course, almost exactly the opposite of the OPs point: it is possible for medications to give us a strong illusion of “not being ourselves any more,” but it is also something we are fully and completely aware of.
It is also possible for something like that to happen, and the subject not be aware of it, but all his friends and relatives notice the difference. (“Gee, Bob, you never used to kick puppies, but now you’ve done it four times in the last week.” “What can you possibly mean, Charles? Nothing has changed at all.”)
But if the subject and all who are familiar with him see no change…where is the change?
Yes it does. Birth for example. You didn’t exist before that.
I’m not on any sort of medication.
The change would not be visible to anyone but that’s not the point. I don’t care about other people; I care about me (this current stream of consciousness).
I was explaining one way that changes in personality actually can happen.
In that case, you’re the only possible observer for the effect. Before the surgery, you might write down, in detail, lengthy notes about how you feel. Go into detail about emotional values. But also write down all your ideas about artistic values, what foods you like, what TV shows you like, etc. After surgery, go back and read these, and see if anything has changed. Every two or three years, read them again.
I predict you will find changes in your beliefs, tastes, and values, as time goes by.
I also predict the same for everyone else reading this.
My birth (and more importantly, the development of the thing I call ‘me’) was neither spontaneous, nor instantaneous.
People don’t suddenly come into existence fully-formed - therefore, the person that wakes up after surgery (assuming no brain damage occurs, etc) can only be you - at least in whatever sense you are already you.