From: Scott Badger (wbadger@psyberlink.net)
Date: Mon Jul 06 1998 - 07:33:10 MDT
>On Tue, 5 May 1998, David Bradley wrote:
>
>> *If the consciousness is both contained in, and produced by the cells of
the brain*
>> (and is the reason you die if you do not get enough oxygen to the brain)
one sould
>> be able to *logically* assume that:
>>
>> 1) If the cells are all taken away and the new system is implanted, that
the
>> original consciousness *is* lost. There should be no more reason for the
original
>> consciousness to exist than there would be for a person 'a' to still be
living
>> in an apartment after 'a' has been replaced by person 'b'. The apartment
may
>> still be a home (or the body may still have a consciousness,) but there
is a new
>> 'tenant.'
>
>Actually, I find this dubious. If I am playing Bach's "Goldberg
>Variations" on my CD player, and then remove the CD and replace it with
>another identical one, is the same music being played? Yes. The CDs are
>different, but the music is the same.
>
Reminds me of an old Steven Wright remark which went something like:
*I came home to my apartment yesterday and realized that someone had
replaced everything I owned with an exact duplicate.*
I think this notion of *It won't really be me.* is a tough one to deal with.
Consider the following scenario:
You go to sleep one night, and I make an exact duplicate of you then destroy
your original body. Is it still you when it wakes up? It will certainly
believe it is you.
(Remember when Jeff Goldblum was transported across pods in *The Fly*, and
then said to his baboon friend, *Is it me or is it memorex?*)
Now answer the following: If I don't make a duplicate, is the person that
wakes in the morning an exact duplicate of the person that went to sleep
last night?
I think you'd have to say no. Some cells multiplied, some died, dendrites
changed paths, and you're not nearly as sleepy as you were. The change may
be slight but you're not really the same person as you were yesterday. The
change is far more observable if you compare yourself now to yourself 20 -
30 years ago. But that doesn't seem to bother any of us because the change
is so gradual. Glaciers don't seem to be moving either.
If I told you when you were 20 that I was going to turn you into the person
you would be when you were 40, you would probably feel like you'd be losing
more than just time. Seems like most of us are are burdened with the notion
that there's something immutable that represents our essence (the soul meme)
which will be lost if we are uploaded. It's my guess that there is no soul
and that there's precious little if anything about you that is constant and
immutable.
BTW, this isn't just an uploading question. Other transhumanist-related
alterations in our physical and mental make-up will force us to ponder the
same thorny question, *Will it still be me?* Probably not, but the *you*
that you're trying to save is more illusory than you imagine. Bottom line,
eventually no matter what you do, *you* are not going to be *you* anymore.
S.B.
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