From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Wed Dec 12 2001 - 16:51:22 MST
Dickey, Michael F wrote,
> Sincerely, I hate to bring this subject up again, but it has been running
> through my mind.
This is an extremely important question. It is crucial to our long-term
survival beyond our current lifespans. If we cannot answer this question
satisfactorily, we will never develop a solution that is acceptable to most
people.
> It seems a good number of the people on this list support
> the assertion that a copy is 'you'. I have been taking the stance (along
> with a minority it appears) that a copy is not you, but it is a copy.
There are many people on both sides of the argument. You are not alone in
your viewpoint. There seems to be no obvious answer. The decision of what
you consider "you" seems to be different with different people. Some call
anything that is functionally like themselves another "me". Other people
feel attached to their current seat of consciousness and will not consider
an identical copy the same "me" if they still feel themselves trapped in the
original body rather than the copy. These concepts become murkier if the
original is killed and replaced.
> consider everyone I have interacted with and read posts from on this forum
> very intelligent, and the lack of interest in this subject or
> responding to
> my arguments suggest, to me at least, that perhaps my stance is wrong. If
> so many well learned people do not consider the question
> important enough to
> reply to, then perhaps they know something that I do not.
No, I personally believe you are right. Many people on this list also agree
with you. However, we have gone through this discussion many times. Many
of the older participants don't know what more can be said that hasn't been
said before. That is why my brother and I are trying to do a lot of
independent work offline to figure out how to discuss the question
differently. So far, our ideas have lead to a classification scheme of
different levels of copies. Then we hope to be able to discuss the topic
with more precise terms. We can't discuss "you" or "me", because different
people disagree on these terms. We can't discuss the "original" and the
"copy", because some people dispute that they are separate. If we could
find objective terminology to reference different instances of a person, we
might be able to talk more clearly. I still personally believe that the
decision will boil down to a personal choice. Some people will say they
will be happy with a certain level of copy replacing themselves, while
others will require a much higher standard before they consider such a
replacement to be acceptable.
> "I, for one, cannot see the slightest value in "continuity of
> consciousness", whatever that is. How is being destroyed and restored
> from a backup any different from the perfectly ordinary
> experience of taking
> a whack on the head a waking up a few minutes later?"
>
> "Its *you* as of the time of the backup if the backup and restoration
> methods are completely loss less. Any other perspective is to argue
> "consciousness" has some basis in non-physical phenomena."
This is an interesting paradox of this discussion. Both sides fail to see
the other viewpoint, and both sides think the other viewpoint requires some
basis in non-physical phenomena. If an atom-per-atom copy is still not the
same "you", it seems to opponents that you think that something has not been
copied that does not consist of atoms. If the connection of "you" that you
feel to your current self suddenly jumps to another location because it
happens to have a similar configuration of atoms, opponents of that theory
think there is a soul jumping from body to body. Either explanation fails
to satisfy its opponents.
> I feel I have to delve into philosophy of science a little bit here.
> Getting copied in a destructive manner is different from getting
> whacked on
> the head and waking up a few minutes later in a few key areas 1) getting
> whacked on the head does not destroy you 2) and the mechanism that houses
> your consciousness never changes. There is no reason to suspect
> that I am a
> different person (i.e. a copy) after getting whacked on the head because
> there is no evidence suggesting that is the case.
I agree, but many do not. The argument that you can't prove it hasn't
happened seems to be weak to me. We can't prove that aliens aren't living
among us either, but it's not a conclusive argument. The argument that
destroying the original makes the copy become the original seems weak to me
also. If the original is allowed to survive, most copy schemes fail as the
original obviously objects that the copy is not "me". Destroying the
original or preventing the original from objecting does not remove the
objection, but seems to be a parliamentary trick to prevent the objection
from ever being voiced. However, those who voice the objection in advance
still feel that they have a standing complaint even after they are dead.
> Living through a session of complete neural cessation also does
> not involve
> the changing of the physical mechanism housing the consciousness. It is
> pretty obvious that going to sleep and waking up or experiencing a short
> period of being clinically dead and then revived is a far cry from
> physically incinerating a body and every atom and molecule and then
> constructing an identical copy of it, as one scenario involves destruction
> of some kind, and the other does not. How the view that these
> two scenarios
> are indistinguishable can be held by a rational scientifically
> minded person
> I don't know.
Funny you should mention that. I have been declared legally dead three
times. This does not affect my belief that I am me and a copy is not. I
also have an identical twin brother, who many might think is close enough to
be "me". However, he and I as well as our spouses would object to this
claim! I may feel closer to these questions than most people, but somehow
there is an internal self-identity of location that tells me I am here and
everybody else is "out there". Unless this location somehow moves into a
new body, I will always view my potential replacement from the outside and
claim that I am still in here, and the replacement is still "out there".
> To elaborate a little further, there is a principle in science referred to
> as Occam's Razor,
Yes. I find it disturbing that some of the copy scenarios seem overly
complicated or rely on nonscientific arguments. I believe there is a
semantic problem where we are not expressing ourselves well enough, or that
proper words don't exist for what we want.
> The 'you are always changing' argument, example from responses to
> my post...
Some changes are positive, some changes are negative, and some changes are
fatal. Extrapolating that some changes can be made without destroying
identity, and therefore other changes can be made without destroying
identity, is a logical fallacy. It does not prove anything.
> Harvey, in response to my comments later says when summing up the
> arguments
>
> "The argument finally boils down, in my opinion, to semantics. Given the
> definition of identity that claims the two copies are separate,
> we can prove
> that the two copies are separate. Given the definition of identity that
> claims all copies are the same individual, we can prove that all
> copies are
> the same individual."
>
> Anders says
>
> "The problem is that we end up in semantics while really trying to say
> something relevant about selfhood."
>
> This sounds like circular reasoning to me, that is, assuming the
> conclusion
> as a premise.
I believe that both sides of the argument have used circular reasoning to
prove their points. I don't think anyone has articulated their belief
system well enough without already having a preconceived notion of "me". If
you don't know what "me" is, you can't prove or disprove it. If you already
know what "me" is, then your proof will agree with your definition, but will
fail to satisfy someone else with a different definition. I think most
arguments to date have been interpreted by their proponents as proofs, and
interpreted by their opponents as disproofs. Each reads the argument with
their own definitions, and therefore reach their own conclusions. When
pointing out the flaw, a dispute over terminology of "me" results. The
arguments over the proofs lead back to the original argument.
If we look at the simplest explanation that the evidence
> points to, it is reasonable to assume (and scientific) that you do not die
> and get copied while you sleep, and that you are the same person
> after being
> whacked on the head. I do not see it as a semantics argument, as
> we are not
> arguing about the definition of what it means to be me. We are making an
> observational claim that if you were to copy my neural pattern
> and recreate
> it with a new set of atoms and molecules, that 'person' which is both a
> neural pattern and a group of molecules exists independently from
> me, and I
> am not aware of its thoughts and hopes and dreams, and it is not aware of
> mine.
This is all objective. I think you are correct that everyone will agree on
what the objective results would be. Now, some would choose to label the
copy "me", while others will choose to label the copy "not-me". Although we
agree on all attributes and functionality of this copy, we disagree on its
labeling as "me" or not. It is the "me-label" that is semantic. We don't
know what to call this copy, but we all can describe it and predict what it
will be like. This is the semantic problem to which I refer.
> I mentioned before, if a copy is made with a passive scanning
> system and we
> are both revived, do we perceive the same thing?
A reasonable argument which I agree proves your point. However, some will
argue that they are both "you" and that "you" are now fragmented in two
bodies with two simultaneous perceptions. I think this is silly, and
changes the definitions of our basic words. Given your definition of self,
the copy is not you. Given someone else's different definition of self, the
copy is you. The two definitions do not describe the same thing.
Therefore, the argument is whether an apple is "the fruit" or an orange is
"the fruit". The labels are used by different people to refer to different
criteria.
Other people will try to rig up complicated symmetrical rooms or virtual
reality such that your copy cannot perceive anything different from you. I
think this is a trick to prevent us from measuring reality, rather than
proving the nature of reality itself. But it is very difficult to argue
these questions.
> In conclusion, I am really trying to understand what I am missing in this
> argument, if so many people are so sure the point is irrelevant, what am I
> not realizing?
This is the central element that keeps most of us intrigued with this
question. Why can the other side not see such obvious and basic concepts?
Why can't each side explain what they mean in simple terms that are accepted
by the opposing side? Why are there so many intelligent people on both
sides of the issue, when the issue seems so obvious to everybody?
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant, Newstaff Inc. <www.Newstaff.com> Board of Directors, Extropy Institute <www.Extropy.org> Cofounder, Pro-Act <www.ProgressAction.org>
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