The only evidence I have that I am the same entity as yesterday is memory.
Everyone is assuming something or other in a debate like this. Not everyone realises or admits it, however.
. . . well, yeah.
Yes, and the only evidence I have that there is a universe is my memories.
The nature of doubt is something quite unrelated to what we’re talking about here, however.
However, there are a common set of assumptions that everyone here agrees with, and then there are additional assumptions that some are making.
You monster, you killed Data!..not because you replaced his parts, but because you powered him down! He spawned a new personal identity when he rebooted.
Data experiment:
Assumption: Like Kirk, Data and Re-built Data have/will have a consciousness that includes self-awareness.
We want to determine if Data will survive into re-built Data in a subjective way. The only way to do that is to ask one, or both of them before and/or after the fact, since there is no way to measure any difference objectively. So, you ask original Data if he will survive subjectively into re-built Data and he should logically answer, “I’m not certain, my re-build is in the future, I’ll only be able to tell when I get there.”
After the re-build takes place, you ask re-built Data if he believes the original Data survived into him and he should answer, “I’m not certain, original Data existed physically only in the past. I feel like I was him, I remember being in him before being re-built, but logically, I know that I’m probably basing that feeling only on my memories. I have no way to tell if I was subjectively him in the past, or if I only feel like I was him in the past because I’m referencing my current memory bank of past events of his life.
There are only two possible definitive answers to the question: “did original Data survive into re-built Data.” Yes, or No.
But, you will get the same answers from both Datas either way: Original Data says, “I’m not certain”; re-built Data say’s “I feel like I did, but I’m not certain.” Even if they both answered “yes”, are they telling the truth, or the deluded truth?
Barring death and resurrection, I believe the only way to get a reliable answer to the survivability question is to use a time machine. Put original Kirk or Data in the machine, zip them into the future and back and ask them if they survived the transition. If they did, they will have seen the future and felt continued back and forth. You can put replicated Kirk and re-built Data in the machine, have them go back in time then back and ask them the same question, but it won’t be as reliable since they already had the past in their memories (as opposed to the originals who didn’t have the future in their memories).
I believe Data’s PI can survive being re-built only if his brain parts are replaced one at a time and he isn’t re-booted. This would be the same, IMO, as a human having their CNS neurons replaced one at a time while still alive. As mentioned before, I believe a persistent arrangement of CNS neurons in a human allows for a persistent PI from birth to death, primarily because structure and process were never interrupted enough to cause physical or subjective death. Taking it a step further, replacing live neurons (or microchips) one at a time, should not interrupt the temporal process of consciousness either, so that too could be survivable.
To simplify:
Case 1: Normal person (or AI machine) aging: I’m confident PI survives through time in both cases. We perceive smooth continuation of consciousness through time and there is a physical basis to allow that to be true—persistent material substrate over time (neurons/microchips). So, what we feel is the way it is—sweet and simple.
**
Case 2: Person or AI machine undergoing intermittent neuron or microchip replacement while remaining alive or booted:** I’m a little less confident PI is survivable in this case, but it’s certainly possible, because the process of consciousness can theoretically continue unabated through time.
Case 3: Replicates or Non-Slurry Type Transporters: I don’t believe a PI can survive transitioning into two or more minds, because doing so creates the paradox of being in more than one place at the same time (subjectively). So surviving replication or transporter travel whereby both departure and arrival people may survive cannot be physically possible.
Therefore:
Case 4: Slurry Type Transporter (same particles used to make departure and arrival person: I believe PI cannot survive this, primarily because Case 3 is not possible. Yes, Case 4 does not violate the “can’t be in 2 places at the same time” rule per say, BUT, there is no significant physical difference between Case 3 and 4. So if Case 3 is not allowed, Case 4 can’t be allowed either. There is, however, a significant physical difference between “Case 3 and 4” vs “Case 1 and 2”: Case 1 and 2 have persistence of structure over time which may not mandate, but at least allows for persistence of consciousness; case 3 and 4 don’t.
OK, let me just see if I’ve got all this, using Tibby or Not Tibby as an example:
Basically, the question is if we duplicate Tibby or Not Tibby, would the new Tibby or Not Tibby be Tibby or Not Tibby or not Tibby or Not Tibby?
Sorry.
Tibby, or not Tibby, that is the question.
For those who won’t step into a teleporter, in which of the following cases does the the person cease to exist, replaced by a new but indistinguishable one?
-
loses consciousness (say, brain flat-lines on EEG) and is revived
-
dematerialized and rematerialized using the same atoms
-
dematerialized and rematerialized using different atoms
Personally, I don’t think there’s any difference between these three. However, there is a difference in the last one:
- duplicated
After duplication, there are two persons. Where I disagree with Mijin and Tibby is that I don’t think it makes any difference which copy is terminated and which continues.
Of course, if I see the zapper being pointed at me, I’d say “WAIT! DON’T!” And then, of course, I’d be vaporized, and nobody would care. There would still be a “me” in the world. Would it be “my me” – the same one who cried “WAIT! DON’T!” ?
The remaining me wouldn’t care. That would still be the same me as before the duplication. Er, it would be one of the me’s. That would be good enough for my purposes. Of course, I won’t try to talk anyone else into using the teleporter.
The amoeba analogy is a good one. Thanks, Mangetout.
Your argument does seem to require something akin to an immaterial soul - something that would be different even if all the material components and attributes are the same. I will post more on this later (posting from mobile)
I agree with your analysis, but not with your decision.
I don’t give a toss whether the universe still has a Mijin.
Well…I guess it’s some consolation that friends and relatives won’t grieve my loss. But I certainly can’t appreciate the logic of voluntary annihilation on the basis that no-one else will know the difference.
But you didn’t answer the question. IMHO, teleporting is no different than losing consciousness. The only problem is the duplication part. If we avoid duplication, does that avoid your problem with teleportation? My guess is you’d say “No way Jose!” But I’m convinced that it’s no different than going to sleep every night.
BTW, while I disagree with your position, I admit that both you and Tibby have some good thought-provoking arguments. I realize I’m making the argument that’s harder to come to terms with.
FTW. You’ve been waiting for this subject ever since you signed up.
Well, he needn’t reboot. He did a suspend-to-disk. Does that change anything?
Based on your post, I bet your answer would be “no”: continuity is what’s necessary.
First, while there may be brain processes, and even sometimes awareness while sleeping, there is definitely an occasional loss of consciousness. The I that’s Me isn’t there, from my viewpoint (and my viewpoint is really all that matters here).
Of course, maybe I just lost memory of that consciousness. It’s true I can’t tell between the two. However, that tends to argue my point, rather than refute it.
Second, you’re assuming that continuity is crucial. I’m assuming it’s not. I don’t think there’s any way we can decide between these, objectively or subjectively. (Which is why I believe it’s not: if there’s no way to tell, what does it mean to say that there is?)
The remainder of your post talks about an experiment where we ask Data to say whether he’s the same Data, but I reject the possibility of any such experiment yielding useful information. Barring life after death, the only difference between Data1 and Data2 is the subjective experience that Data1 loses, and which is not possible to access.
If I’m Data, I say it’s perfectly OK to switch me off for maintenance, provided I’ve done a good suspend-to-disk.
You wouldn’t know the difference either, whether you are right or whether you are wrong. Everything that is you would continue, and we could continue to have this debate.
Well, for one thing, I wouldn’t step into a transporter until the technology has been established for a good long while. I wouldn’t have gotten into an airplane in 1910!
After reading these threads, I would also like to see Congress write laws that guarantee the legal right of individuality for transportees. I don’t want someone to come up to me, declare me legally dead, and take away all my rights!
I don’t understand your phrase, “So, the observer is, functionally, totally irrelevant?” What observer are you speaking of? I have invoked the role of observers consistently in my argument: people who are personally very familiar with the transportee, who know him intimately, and who can assess him to determine how closely he resembles himself before transportation. I have relied very heavily on the argument that they can’t tell the difference.
In my arguments, both these kinds of objective observational tests and the personal subjective experiences of the transportee – his feelings, reported to us, that he feels exactly the same as before – are the key “evidence” (obviously hypothetical and putative) for the sameness of personhood.
The biggest assumptions are in the hypothetical situation, which both sides have agreed to. But, yes, beyond that, we also all make underlying assumptions, often wholly unconscious. To me (and, from this thread, to you) it seems plain that the guy who was transported is not “dead” but quite alive. To others, it seems plain otherwise. It would be interesting to try to zero in on the underlying psychological differences in how we all view the thought-experiment.
For instance, are those of us who were raised on Star Trek more accepting of the premise, because we “saw it happen” so many times? Are people who saw “The Fly” likely to be less accepting, because they saw something so horrible?
It can’t be a matter of risk-takers vs. risk-avoiders…because I’m one of the biggest damn cowards in human history, and won’t go through a transporter until a couple of million other people have, and they all continue to lead perfectly normal lives!
I prefer to consider teleportation from first principles; Star trek got it wrong in many ways (although they were far from consistent, of course).
Actually, I think it would help if you (Tibby) could just say whether the ‘PI’ entity you’re describing is immaterial/metaphysical (before I go to the trouble of saying why I think your argument implies/requires it).
Hah! Good point!
The now-deceased obliterated original’s point of view. And the fact that it’s now gone. (Leaving no evidence, so …)
Don’t get me wrong: I smile and hop into the (tested, trustworthy, legal-issues-resolved) teleporter. But I have to admit I see the other side’s point, even though I disagree. It’s an issue I had to struggle with for years before abandoning what I now think of as a prejudice based on an illusion of continuity.
The way I look at it, it’s the subjectivity created by an intelligent process. It’s an emergent property. It definitely exists, but only from its own point of view. I probably wouldn’t believe in them, except that I have one, and to me, red looks reeeeeeally red.
Tibby seems to go a bit further than I do, to attach a bit more longevity to this subjectivity. Or something. But, she’s talking about what we all seem to have: a point of view.
Yes, but the crux of the issue is whether that point of view has any kind of existence not fully explained by the material of the human it is attached to. Is there anything about the PI that isn’t a result of the physical brain of the person?
Our brains are finite blobs of matter - the number of permutations in which that matter can be arranged and be behaving at any one moment must therefore be finite (although huge), but Tibby’s argument appears to be saying that if you dismantle the thing, then put it back together exactly the same (to the extent that it continues to do the same things it would have done if left alone), something is somehow different.
Except it’s not the matter of the machine that’s different - therefore, it has to be something immaterial.
That’s the leap I’m talking about. It seems prima facie obvious that there’s less likely for there to be consequences for “me” from a nap on the couch than from having my brain obliterated, even if the two things are similar in certain respects.
Say that someone breaks into my house while I’m away, diddles with my computer, cuts and pastes the exact state of my hard drive, processor, etc. into identical hardware (down to how much dust is on the connectors), then installs the new hardware in my laptop, atomizes the old hardware, and leaves. I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, so the new hard drive would be functionally the same, but it wouldn’t be *actually *the same.
I shouldn’t really care since, as said, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, and I’m pretty sure the hard drive doesn’t have a distinct experience of “self” that ends when I wipe it. That’s sort of what I mean about the observer. If “I” am simply the collection of my memories, etc., then nothing is lost in the transporter, just as nothing is lost in transferring my software from one hard drive to another. OTOH, if there’s a “Me” in here, experiencing my experiences, then smashing my brain is likely to have consequences for him (me).
**Mangetout **gets it, although I don’t think this Me has to be anything immaterial. Unique identity/self-experience could depend on the more-or-less persistent operation of a distinct, particular central nervous system. And it seems rather presumptuous to equate the gradual replacement of atoms constituting said system, or a temporary cessation of function (such as in a near-death experience), with the wholesale obliteration of the system followed by the construction of a duplicate.