From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Fri Dec 14 2001 - 11:12:18 MST
From: hal@finney.org [mailto:hal@finney.org]
John Clark writes, quoting Michael F:
> > I can be reasonable sure that when I go to sleep at night I don't
die for a
> > few reasons 1) Hooking me up to any kind of machine that measures
brain
> > activity would never measure any absolute cessation in activity
>
> Not in normal sleep but it would under deep anesthesia. When you go to the
> hospital to have your tonsils removed are you the same man when you walk
out?
"One of the problems with Michael's position is that it is possible that
normal sleep doesn't kill you, because as he said the brain activity
continues, but that deep anesthesia does (supposing that in fact brain
waves stop during that time)."
"His position on identity states that there is a fact of the matter about
whether any particular instance of consciousness is a continuation of an
earlier one which successfully retains the same identity. Certain kinds
of discontinuities, in this view, break the chain and so the identity
is not the same. Other kinds, like sleep or blows to the head, do not
break the chain."
I am in deep suspect of the claim that anesthesia completely ceases neural
functioning. But if it does, I still would not consider that a death of
'me' subjectively, as the two components for a subjective sentient are still
in place, that atoms that make up the pattern and the pattern itself. As
outlined in this argument...
-------------------
Assertion: Sentience and subjective continuity is reliant on both the
pattern of atoms and the atoms themselves.
1 - Sentience and perceptual continuity is reliant on the pattern of atoms.
If someone took that atoms that made up your mind, and mushed them up, it
would not pass the Turing test let alone pass as a reasonable representation
of you in conversation. Same atoms, different pattern. Therefore the
pattern of atoms is important.
2 - Sentience and perceptual continuity is reliant on the atoms themselves
that make up the pattern.
- non-Destructive copying example -
I lay on a table, a passive scanner determines the precise location of every
atom in my body, its type, and what neighboring atoms it is bonded to, and
proceeds to construct a atomic level duplicate of me. We are both awakened
and escorted to separate rooms, the 'copy' is asked if he is able to see
what the 'original' (me) sees, the 'copy' reports that he can not.
Therefore the copy is not me, as he does not experience, subjectively, what
I experience.
- non-destructive scanning with delayed destruction -
I lay on a table, a passive scanner determines the precise location of every
atom in my body, its type, and what neighboring atoms it is bonded to, and
proceeds to construct a atomic level duplicate of me. We are both awakened
and escorted to separate rooms, the 'copy' is asked if he is able to see
what the 'original' (me) sees, the 'copy' reports that he can not.
Therefore the copy is not me, as he does not experience, subjectively, what
I experience. The 'original' (me) is then killed.
Is the 'copy' me?
- Destructive copying example -
I lay on a table, a destructive scanning machine determines the precise
location of every atom in my body while disrupting the information of the
previous atom it scanned. Using the collected information, an atomic level
duplicate is made of me. This duplicate is then asked if he is the
original, as far as he can tell, he is. Did he experience subjectivity
continuity of consciousness? Given the information provided in the previous
two scenarios, it is reasonable and logical to assume he did not. 'I' the
original 'me' therefore did not experience continuity of consciousness.
Therefore sentience and continuity of consciousness relies on the material
making up the pattern as well, otherwise it is a copy experiencing its own
things.
Since this logical excursion demonstrates that...
1) Sentience and continuity of perception is reliant upon the pattern of
atoms
2) Sentience and continuity of perception is reliant upon the atoms that
make up the pattern
Then is it reasonable, logical, and scientific to assume that a 'copy' is
subjectively not me, but in fact a unique individual of its own.
--------------------
Subjective continuity could be defined by experiencing things through time
while maintaining the same pattern of atoms and group of atoms. If I should
stop experiencing things for a time being, that does not mean that my
pattern was disrupted or that the atoms making up the pattern were destroyed
and recreated. Both of these later scenarios have real world examples were
a measurable difference would occur as outlined above. A gap in your
perception of time through neural cessation has no real world example that I
can think of with a measurable difference in person. That is, as long as
the medium is kept in tact, if you are anesthetized and then wake up, you
would still pass a Turing test and nothing has occurred to indicate you may
have loss subjective continuity. You would if copied and you would if your
atoms were re-arranged to a different patter (mush), as outlined above. So
I do not see how that demonstrates a flaw in my argument, perhaps you could
elaborate some more on it?
"The question is, how could you know that severe discontinuities like
John's anesthesia example, or severe head trauma, don't break the chain?"
I don't think you could ever be sure, I would suspect that in severe cases
of amnesia from head trauma than effectively a death of personality has
occurred (as depicted in the Harrison ford film 'Regarding Henry') so I
would do what I could to avoid that.
"It certainly won't work to ask the person afterwards if he feels the
same, because I think everyone agrees that he would say he does, even if
in fact the chain of identity had been broken. Someone who was copied
without his knowledge would say the same thing, and on this view he
is wrong, his identity is no longer the same, but he doesn't know it.
So statements and even personal experience are no evidence."
Except for in the case of a non-destructive copy being objectively
demonstrated to not have the same subjective experience as the original.
"If you agree that there is no way to tell if severe trauma breaks the
chain of identity, and even the person involved can't tell afterwards,
then how confident can you be that ordinary sleep doesn't break it,
either? Your personal experience and memories are no guide."
Because, as I have outlined multiple times, there is no scientific reason to
assume that because something *could* happen then it probably did. If you
are comprised of the same atoms in the same pattern in the same state after
sleeping, arm amputation, anesthesia, or whatever else, then for all
reasonable minds you are the same person. A blow to the head, if severe
enough, is a different story, as it could alter the pattern or the state of
your atoms, as in the case of sever amnesia (does this actually happen?, or
is it only in movies and soap operas?)
again...
-------------------
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.
To elaborate a little further, there is a principle in science referred to
as Occam's Razor, that is 'The simplest explanation tends to be the correct
one' or it is assumed to be the correct one depending on your
interpretation. A prime example is the question of the existence of the
Universe. If one is to say that the universe exists and the reason for that
is that God created the universe, the next question obviously is who created
god. Only three logical possibilities exist, 1) that god created himself,
2) that he was created by another god or 3) that he was always there. If
one presumes that the universe must have been created because it is so
complex, then it would follow that any being that created the universe must
be pretty complex as well to create such a complex thing. Yet this just
moves the goal post back, who created this more complex being? If you
assume that God created itself or was always there, then it is just
reasonable to assume that the universe created itself or was always there,
in fact, once you add an arbitrary concept when attempting to explain
something (the presence of the universe) then it makes no difference to add
an infinite number of them. For example, saying the Universe was created by
God is functionally no different then saying the universe was created by God
who was created by another god who was created by a giant turtle who was
created by a giant robot who was created by a super alien ad infanitum.
There is no evidence to distinguish these lines of reasoning, the only line
of reasoning that is scientifically supported is that the Universe exists,
and does not require a supernatural source.
Similarly, saying that while you sleep it is possible you were destroyed,
copied, and resurrected is adding arbitrary entities to an observed
situation. If observed one would find that I sleep through the night,
undisturbed, no murders, no transporters, no spontaneous flashes of energy
associated with my body vaporizing. Since none of these things can be
observed to occur, arguing that they could have because you cant prove other
wise is anti scientific, as you can not prove a negative, and these
occurrences are arbitrary entities not based in any factual observations.
--------------------
"Evolutionarily there would be no reason for brains to have evolved to
maintain "identity" since it has no operational effect in the world."
I am in total agreement with you there.
Michael
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