Is John human?

[warpus]

If I get duplicated both of my duplicates will be "me" because they'll carry forward my mental properties. However neither duplicate will describe each other as "me" because they have experiences the other does not, but both duplicates can aptly describe Perf before the duplication as "me".

In other words I become two "me"s each of which does not have a "me"-ness relationship with each other.

Either way though, from your point of view (from the original you's point of view), if your brain stops operating, you die, no matter how many clones of you happen to be running around claiming to be you as well.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Either way though, from your point of view (from the original you's point of view), if your brain stops operating, you die, no matter how many clones of you happen to be running around claiming to be you as well.

Do we have evidence to back this assumption? How can you prove it? Perception of reality in this case is not trivial to measure.

 

[Perfection]

From the point of view of me prior to the duplication, I see no reason why I should favor any future brains that carry forward my mental properties as being preferentially me. If they have the pattern they're just as entitled. To say otherwise is to engage in a fantasy that there is something magical in addition to matter instantiating my mental properties that makes me me.

 

[Wrymouth3]

My transhuman name will be wry3001.

 

[Perfection]

Why not Wry0?

 

[gay_Aleks]

My transhuman name will be wry3001.

There'll be no 3s in the robot future.

 

[warpus]

Do we have evidence to back this assumption? How can you prove it?

The assumption that once your brain dies, you die?

Well, there have been those who have came back to life after brain death, I admit. Here I was talking about quite deliberate and ultimate brain death though - for example let's say death by laser to brain.. or something similarly fatal.

From the point of view of me prior to the duplication, I see no reason why I should favor any future brains that carry forward my mental properties as being preferentially me. If they have the pattern they're just as entitled. To say otherwise is to engage in a fantasy that there is something magical in addition to matter instantiating my mental properties that makes me me.

That's not what I've been arguing for at all, though.

I'm just saying that the original dies, that's all. If there's any clones, they may pick up the torch and continue living your identity - but you would be dead - the original you, stuck in that original brain, which is now no mo.

 

[Perfection]

That's not what I've been arguing for at all, though.

I'm just saying that the original dies, that's all. If there's any clones, they may pick up the torch and continue living your identity - but you would be dead - the original you, stuck in that original brain, which is now no mo.

The problem here is in the idea of "original you", it makes the implication that there's an equivalence between the singular me now before duplication and the me that happens to reside in the original brain after the duplication. Those are different in the same way me now is different from me five minutes from now. What I'd also claim is the future duplicated me is different from the singular now me in the same way.

In other words from the standpoint of me prior to duplication, I would be equally concerned about the welfare of the original as the duplicate.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

From the point of view of me prior to the duplication, I see no reason why I should favor any future brains that carry forward my mental properties as being preferentially me. If they have the pattern they're just as entitled. To say otherwise is to engage in a fantasy that there is something magical in addition to matter instantiating my mental properties that makes me me.

It doesn't have to be magical. It doesn't even have to be something supernatural. It just has to be something we don't know about presently, or in the hypothetical scenario.

The assumption that once your brain dies, you die?

More along the lines of perceived consciousness and reality, something like a Star Trek beaming problem. Do they die every time they're beamed? Arguably, and there's no way to tell either how their perception transfers. But if you go by frames of reference, it's also worth asking if it matters? Functionally, they're still alive and they act as a continuous state even if they're technically different entities in theory.

Is it impossible that the consciousness/awareness transfers via some not-yet understood property? Maybe, but only maybe. In order to make this duplication possible, we'd have to understand things we don't at present, and that might force this discussion to seem silly if there's some kind of definitive evidence one way or the other.

 

[Perfection]

It doesn't have to be magical. It doesn't even have to be something supernatural. It just has to be something we don't know about presently, or in the hypothetical scenario.

Such as? As I see it our perception of a singular indivisible self Is the problem. It's a useful fiction that makes life easier but it isn't a logical necessity. We need to learn to get over ourselves.

 

[warpus]

The problem here is in the idea of "original you", it makes the implication that there's an equivalence between the singular me now before duplication and the me that happens to reside in the original brain after the duplication. Those are different in the same way me now is different from me five minutes from now. What I'd also claim is the future duplicated me is different from the singular now me in the same way.

In other words from the standpoint of me prior to duplication, I would be equally concerned about the welfare of the original as the duplicate.

That's fine if you're concerned for them. All I'm saying is that your point of view is going to be limited to the inside of that original head and body. Once that head and body are eliminated your point of view is no more - it's gone - you cease to receive external stimuli.

 

[Narz]

Either way though, from your point of view (from the original you's point of view), if your brain stops operating, you die, no matter how many clones of you happen to be running around claiming to be you as well.

Right, I dunno why this is so hard for people to understand. Sure, from everyone else's perspective it might make no difference but that doesn't help the one who's died.

 

[Narz]

Such as? As I see it our perception of a singular indivisible self Is the problem. It's a useful fiction that makes life easier but it isn't a logical necessity. We need to learn to get over ourselves.

The magical thinking is that consciousness will magically jump from 1 brain to another just because they share identical or nearly identical properties

 

[Perfection]

Once duplicated, there will be two mes with two points of view. Each duplicate's point of view is no less mine. The problem is in your intuition that one must be the real me the other an imposter. That intuition is faulty, there's no such thing as a singular real me.

Consider the following scenario:
What if before awakening from the duplication procedure my duplicate and I are cut in half laterally, and the left half of the original is stitched to the right half of the duplicate and vice versa?

Which is the "real me"?

 

[Narz]

I don't think that operation would work.

My point is, You can't see thru two people's eyes at once (tho realisticly it's more feasible than insta-cloning) so 1 would still be you. If they f-ed up @ killed the original you, you'd be gone even if no one else could tell the difference.

 

[warpus]

Once duplicated, there will be two mes with two points of view. Each duplicate's point of view is no less mine.

It's not a question of who is real, it's a question which head you're inside.

You're in the original head, seeing things from that point of view. And once that head is chopped off, you cease to be.

 

[Perfection]

The magical thinking is that consciousness will magically jump from 1 brain to another just because they share identical or nearly identical properties

I never claimed such a thing.

Think of it this way:

Why do you say you're the same you as you were a year ago? Because you remember being you and the patterns in your brain is a time evolved version of the patterns in your brain a year ago. That's what makes you say you are the same you as you were a year ago.

Let's say i get duplicated tommorow, one of my duplicates gets sent to a nasty prison, one wins the powerball. A year from now my duplicates will be very different from each other. They will not be able to claim the other one as me. However both will be able to claim me prior to the duplication as me because of the memory/time evolved pattern. From my current perspective they're both me. From the perspective of the future multimillionaire me the prisoner me is not me. The problem lies in the assumption that there's a singular "real" me. That's an illusion.

 

[Narz]

I'm not talking about anything abstract simple your perception.

To put it another way, say I could get a chip in my head to make me think, feel & experience life exactly like you. You 'soul' (for lack of a better word) wouldn't automatically get sucked into my experience from 1,000 miles away. I might get a taste of you but I wouldn't become you.

 

[warpus]

This is how I look at the situation.

Say I'm lying in bed and reading a book. Say that somebody at that moment makes an exact replica of me, and that this replica starts walking around and thinking that it's me at that exact moment.

It won't change anything from my point of view - I won't even know about this clone. I'll just be lying in bed, reading my book, oblivious to the clone's sudden existence.

Say now that somebody comes into my room at the exact moment when my clone is created, and murders me.

I die. - I don't suddenly wake up in the body of the clone. The clone is just a clone. It's got its own problems, its own life, and its own consciousness. It might think that it's me, and in many ways it is, but from my point of view - life is over. Heck, I didn't even know that the clone exists.

 

[Narz]

Right.