From: Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Mon Jun 04 2001 - 06:37:26 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> Agreed. I don't see anybody asking whether the copies are identical. I
> don't think this is the question that is meant by the phrase "is it the same
> me?" I think you are answering the wrong question.
Maybe, but even if not asked explicitly, it needed to be answered.
Maybe the thread was not entirely sterile, after all. I don't recall my
exact position as of few years ago, but I think there's a minor shift.
Also, the wordline salami salad thing needs to be investigated.
> A better phrasing of the question "is it the same me?" would be as follows:
> Will the brain that feels pain from one body start feeling pain from the
> other body? Will the brain that controls one body start controlling the
> other body? Will one brain be able to perceive sensory input from both
> bodies and control both bodies at the same time? Or, will both bodies be
> controlled by separate brains that cannot directly perceive or control each
> other?
If you've got a single CNS mirroring input to two instances of
identical flesh puppets in same environment (or good renderings
thereof), or two synched brains (trajectores coupled with a
restoring harmonic potential) you've got one person. In other
cases, you've got two (n) persons.
> Without neural connections between the two brains, I don't see how the two
> sensory input stream or the two command/control streams will be delivered to
> the same brain. It seems obvious that they are delivered to separate
Right, it's impossible.
> hardware platforms, each running separate instances of software which
> generate consciousness. These two hardware/software platforms are identical
> but are not connected to each other. They can go about their separate ways
> without being intertwined any more than unrelated humans would be.
Yup. As soon as they stop being synched, they're becoming two, not one.
You can fuse them, but it's not trivial. The longer you wait after the
fork, the less trivial it gets.
> Ignoring the point about how similar these copies are, what are the answers
> to the above questions?
Did I answer them?
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