From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Wed Oct 30 2002 - 14:54:58 MST
-----Original Message-----
From: Eugen Leitl
On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Dickey, Michael F wrote:
> In Eugen's case mentioned above, even at 10 ms the, the atoms that
> make up your pattern were dissassembled and that pattern was imprinted
> to a new group of atoms. This is still not a subjective continuation
> of you, since if you were not destroyed, you and the copy would
> experience different things, and this if a far greater time scale than
> the plank length.
"This is silly. There is no point in oversampling your system as the
you-process won't profit from extra precision. If I don't notice even a
flicker, save having time to think "I've bifurc..." that's most assuredly a
subjective continuation. "
Your copy may assert up and down that he is a subjective continuation of the
reference original, but unless your copy and you experience the same thing,
he can not by definition be a subjective continuation. Do you contend that
because we believe something to be true that it must be true? He is a
different, distinct individual. You walked into a passive atomic level
scanner, he walked out of an atomic assembly chamber. You are looking
north, he is looking south, you see clouds, he sees a clear blue sky. You
are different people, if he can not see what you see, then he can not be a
continuation of your subjective consciousness, he must be a copy of it that
is now moving along his own time space line.
> Eugen and GTS, would you not prefer, given the conditions I have
> outlined, to instead have your conscioussness distributed in realtime
> amongst multiple entities? Just as I have outlined, if that vast
"I don't know what this 'consciousness' thing is."
You do not have to know what it is to realize that a copy and you do not
share the same subjective experience, and thus he can not be a continuation
of your subjective consciousness.
I'm a process. A sequence of pattern frames. Subjectively, it doesn't
matter how many instances of the same process they are. In reality I would
prefer to have more instances of me, because real processes can be
terminated, and they have the potential to bifurcate, thus creating more
individuals (which I would have to split my infrastructure with, though, so
one shouldn't overdo it)."
Nothing I have said precludes copying, it just suggest that logically, that
copy is not you, but is a copy of you. This makes him no less valuable as
an individual, and no less a person.
> majority of the things that make up your pattern were part of the same
> group that made it up the instant before, I believe it logical to
> consider it a continuation of you. Given that, one may replace ones
"Huh?"
This would be why I keep having to say the same things over and over again,
most people do not apparently read my arguments.
Briefly, Consider this thought experiment. I walk into a scanner, I am
copied, me and my copy walk out. My copy can not see what I see, and I can
not see what he sees. If he can not see what I see, he can not be a
continuation of my subjective experiences. If this is the result of the
experiment, that he can not see what I see, then I ask 'why' is that the
case. He has the same pattern as me. The only difference I see is that he
has different atoms. But we know that any individual atom has no unique
property over another atom, *except* its location. The atoms he is made up
of are part of his pattern, the atoms I am made up of are part of my
pattern. So far so good. But why is he not a subjective continuation of
me? His pattern is made of atoms, and so is mine? Well my pattern was made
of the same atoms at the previous instant that they are made of this
instant. His atoms, in the previous instant, were a homogenous pile of
CHNOPS and a few minerals. If the result is that he does not see what I see
and thus is not a subjective continuation, then given the factors I just
mentioned, the *only* explanation present for this is to maintain subjective
continuity one requires the same pattern and the same atoms. (that is, the
vast majority of the pattern remains from one instant to the next, and the
vast majority of atoms remains from one instant to the next) Given that,
please point out what you consider to be logically invalid in this argument.
This is, of course, on the condition that said experiment turns out the way
I guess it would, I have no reason to suspect logically otherwise.
"I wonder why I've broken my resolve to not participate in such threads. "
Of course it is because you find my arguments so compelling (joke)
Michael
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