From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Oct 30 2002 - 00:12:15 MST
Michael writes
> I apologize Lee, I will attempt to keep my posts more brief, but I fear that
> will contribute to misunderstandings of my points.
Oh, okay. I apologize for not being able to respond to it all
(or even to take the time to thoroughly study it all).
> I "know"... through [a] simple thought experiment. If my pattern
> of my atoms is imprinted on new atoms, creating a new group of
> atoms in the same pattern, while I am still standing around, we
> do not feel / see / hear the same things.
Yes, but remember that this would happen if you fell into
a man hole while walking down the street. More abruptly
still, what if a space warp were transmitted through this
part of space, and you found yourself (same atoms) instantly
on another planet? It seems to me that your criterion for
"same experience" is too strong.
Moreover, what you are really doing is reasoning from what
is (to me) the conclusion---namely that one's duplicate
cannot be one's self---back to statements about your atoms.
Of course, one man's conclusion may be another man's starting
point (to make non-sexists wordplay on "poison").
At this point I can only appeal to your imagining that
you grew up in a world where people ordinarily teleported.
Say that teleportation had been discovered long before
people knew that there were atoms. Then it would seem
like any other kind of abrupt movement. Now, if they
had fully become accustomed to teleportation, can you
really imagine that this would supply ammunition against
the atomic theory?
> "Why, atoms were unknown to vastly better philosophers than you or I for
> millennia, and you must read
> at least enough SF to understand that duplicates would be accepted as the
> original people *regardless* of what the
> underlying theories are, so long as the theories do not contain the
> equivalent of souls."
>
> So a lot of Sci Fi authors have said this, therefore it must be so? I do
> not dispute that many people (like you) would accept copies as the
> originals, instead of another person much like the original, but that does
> not mean that a) that are justified in doing so (argumentum ad populum) and
> b) that I must. And it does not necessitate the equivalent of souls, all
> one need to is show that a copy does not experience the same subjective
> events as the original to show that he is a copy, and not a continuation of
> the original subjective consciousness.
Yes, you are right. But our feelings of who we are can be
strongly affected by SF, we are not so all-rational as we
sometimes think, and thoughts are indeed affected by
feelings. I urge you to read (if you are not already)
Rafal's posts on the balance and interplay of multiple
agents in our minds. (Marvin Minsky's book "The Society
of Minds" is very valuable in unhinging our notions that
we have a *truly* integrated self, but so do most books
on neuroscience. Especially effective (hence disturbing)
is also Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain: Probing
the Mysteries of the Human Mind -- V. S. Ramachandran
& Blakeslee.)
As Rafal explains, we believe that our view of identity
correctly encompasses all the relevant thought-experiments
and overrides the "simple-self" directive.
> "Have you considered the case that the replacement is done without altering
> the location? In that case, the experience would be the same."
>
> Subjectively it would be the same, I do not know if I am continually
> destroyed and recreated in the same place from instant to instant. But is
> that reason enough to assume that I am being destroyed from one instant to
> the next and to then think it ok to be destroyed and recreated the next
> instant somewhere else without worry?
Yes, I would say so.
> If you first show that I am being destroyed and recreated from
> one instant to the next then I will consider this a valid argument
> (as I addressed this point in my post to gts) but just because it
> is possible does not mean it is occurring and that we should
> adjust our lives to something we merely imagine as a possible
> explanation for the way the universe works.
I don't understand. To me, the mere fact that you *might* be
yet suffer in no untoward way whatsoever powerfully suggests
that it is irrelevant to personal identity (i.e. survival).
> "Most importantly, however, if your location suddenly changes and so you
> start having "different experiences" it does *not* alter your identity.
>
> How can my location 'suddenly change' exactly without me either moving from
> point a to b (and thus having the same pattern and same atoms) the only way
> it can suddenly change is if I were teleported. If I were teleported
> without destroying the original, the teleported entity would clearly have
> different subjective experiences then I would, thus it is not a continuation
> of me.
I mentioned a space warp; I'm sure that you would not find it
absolutely impossible if such a device were announced the day
after tomorrow---we (especially on this list) are accustomed
to believing many impossible things before breakfast each
morning! ;-)
> I see you chose not to respond to the very next sentence "As I
> have emphasized from the get go, a copy will not experience the same
> subjective events that a reference or original does, thus it CAN NOT be a
> continuation of the consciousness of the original. "
Have I addressed this now?
> "Which one is the original?" is not the same question as "Was there an
> original?"
> AND
> "then there is NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM."
>
> Depends on what you consider significant. Do you disagree that one of them
> was made up of the same atoms that made up his pattern the instant before?
> And the other one is made up of atoms that were not arranged into his
> pattern the instant before? There is clearly a difference, rather you
> consider it significant is a matter of opinion.
Well, this of course has to go back to the relevance of atoms.
I found it quite significant that you agreed with the idea that
perhaps you are being replaced every millisecond by a picosecond
replacement of all your atoms. Perhaps I overreacted to this
concession above. You do understand that from the point of view
of physics precisely the *same* events unfold; all your neurons
fire just in the same way, all your thoughts develop in exactly
the same way, and so on.
In any discussion with you, absolutely no difference would obtain,
nor would any physical measurement at all be any different (unless
it got down to the picosecond event---but no matter, make it a
10^-100 event). Now if there is *no difference* from the standpoint
of physics, just what is it that has suddenly gone?
It seems to me that it is a vestige of a soul. I write about this
at http://www.leecorbin.com/LastRefuge.html
> "Then in this case, we have *no* reason to suppose that the
> one who happened physically to be the original differs in
> any important way from the other. "
>
> If he and the other do not share the same subjective
> experiences, then it is clear that he and the other
> differ in a pretty significant way, they are both
> individual unique entities and do not have some sort
> of shared consciousness.
Yes, but (1) if the foregoing arguments dispense with the
relevance of atoms, and (2) you could have radically
different experiences if the lights suddenly go out
in your house, then it follows that your criterion
here isn't adequate to refute the more general notion
of survival.
Lee
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