Proof of Immortality II

[Jabba]

675

481
499
628
- I do need to slow down when reading your responses...
- You tend to say a lot per post, and I'm always in a hurry (says the tortoise), so I rush through your posts trying to deal with one sub-issue at a time. By doing that however, I tend to focus on a small portion of what you're saying and miss later clarification...
- So anyway, we seem to agree that there is an identity difference between the original and the replica, and that the cause of this difference can be said to be their space/time coordinates.
- How's that?

675-699

Causes (in the technical causality sense) are events. Differences aren't events. They're not even things. They're closer to being abstract concepts, like numbers.

- I would say that situations are caused by events, but differences in situations are caused by differences in events.

 

[Loss Leader]

- I would say that situations are caused by events, but differences in situations are caused by differences in events.

Well, that advanced the conversation in no way whatsoever.

Perhaps you could provide evidence that there is any sort of a self that is continuous through life, let alone able to survive from one life to the next.

Then you could distinguish how that self is different from the smell of coffee or the speed of 65 mph and why humans might be immortal but volkswagens not be.

 

[Butter!]

- I would say that situations are caused by events, but differences in situations are caused by differences in events.

I think I got a fortune cookie that said that once.


COSMIC!

 

[Akhenaten]

675-699
- I would say that situations are caused by events, but differences in situations are caused by differences in events.

Your response to 25 posts explaining your dismal failure to understand the meaning of "same" is to highlight your dismal failure to understand the meaning of "different"?

I wish I could pretend to be surprised.

 

[Jabba]

688

675
- Re #1: Yeah. I suspect that this is a (maybe, THE) big hang-up for us...
- We're talking about a different kind of difference here. We have the “basic physical” difference, and another difference that I’ll call the “emergent property” difference -- if that’s acceptable to you. (Just seeing if we can find some words that we can both agree upon…)...

688-699

You're talking about. I've agreed that there are two kinds of differences: differences of identity and differences of features. Now you're trying to introduce a third kind. No, I don't agree. At best, you're talking about something that's orthogonal to the two kinds of differences we've actually agreed on, and is thus irrelevant. (Not that any of this seems relevant to me.)...

xt,
- Apparently you don't consider identity to be an emergent property. I don't understand why you don't.

 

[godless dave]

I don't consider identity an emergent property either. Identity is more of a concept humans use to separate what they perceive into discreet objects that they can refer to.

 

[xtifr]

688

688-699xt,
- Apparently you don't consider identity to be an emergent property. I don't understand why you don't.

Identity is one of the simplest properties there is. There's nothing at all emergent about it. Photons have identity. A photon strikes my photon detector, so I can distinguish it from another photon that hits someone else's detector. But photons are very simple; so simple, they're almost intuitive. (Or as intuitive as anything happening at a quantum level can be.) They don't have any emergent properties I'm aware of.

Why are we even discussing this? How is it even vaguely relevant to proving immortality?

ETA: we might as well be engaging in physics puns, for all this is furthering the debate.

 

[Agatha]

Consciousness including the sense of self is an emergent property of a neurosystem.

Identity is not equivalent to the sense of self, although a feeling of personal identity is of course part of consciousness. Identity and the feeling of personal identity is not the same.

Even the rich English language uses single words which encompass many shades of meaning. The problem Jabba is facing here is that he is taking one word (such as identity) and using it in a way where the wrong definition shores up his ideas.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Consciousness including the sense of self is an emergent property of a neurosystem.

Identity is not equivalent to the sense of self, although a feeling of personal identity is of course part of consciousness. Identity and the feeling of personal identity is not the same.

Even the rich English language uses single words which encompass many shades of meaning. The problem Jabba is facing here is that he is taking one word (such as identity) and using it in a way where the wrong definition shores up his ideas.

Very well said!

 

[godless dave]

Consciousness including the sense of self is an emergent property of a neurosystem.

Identity is not equivalent to the sense of self, although a feeling of personal identity is of course part of consciousness. Identity and the feeling of personal identity is not the same.

Yep. That feeling of personal identity is what I've been calling "sense of self" or "self awareness".

And even if two identical people existed, each one would consider herself to be "me", because the feeling of personal identity does not depend on some unique identifier, but on the ability to be aware of oneself.

Each of the cloned Sontaran warriors in Doctor Who would think of himself as "me".

 

[Loss Leader]

- Apparently you don't consider identity to be an emergent property. I don't understand why you don't.

Identity isn't a property that emerges whenever a complex system works together. Identity is, at best, a taxonomy imposed by the viewer.

Your understanding of "emergent property" still needs work.

A tachyon walks into a bar...

... Ten minutes earlier, he walks out.

(Happy Birthday)

 

[Akhenaten]

- Apparently you don't consider identity to be an emergent property.

An emergent property of what?

I don't understand why you don't.

That's because you want "identity" to mean something other than what it actually does mean. Just like all of the other pseudonyms for "soul" that you've tried to get away with.

 

[Butter!]

What's so bad about simply being a perception of your own brain processes that ceases to exist when they do, Jabba? It's not like you'll know "you've" stopped. You'll just stop.

All these linguistic gymnastics and fretting won't stop it. We ("WE") are all mortal, and that's a little scary but really not that big of a deal.

Honestly the thought that fills me with real existential terror is the concept of an everlasting afterlife. Really think about it - eternity. Awareness for literal eternity. Think about what that actually entails.

*Shudder* That, to me, is truly horrifying.

ETA - Good thing I don't have to worry about it though, because death is the end, and "I" won't know the difference.

 

[Jabba]

768

688
688-699xt,
- Apparently you don't consider identity to be an emergent property. I don't understand why you don't.

797

Identity is one of the simplest properties there is. There's nothing at all emergent about it…

xt,
- From the following, I had understood that you accepted that “identity” was an emergent property.

85

What do you mean by "pre-existing"? That's the phrase here that troubles me most. You are a physical phenomenon. Your consciousness is an emergent property of the functioning of your brain.

170

That's exactly what I, and I suspect pretty much everyone else, thought you meant. The experiencer is an emergent property of the brain. Anything else you want to call it? Still an emergent property of the brain.

- Looks like I still don't understand what you're saying.
- I think of "identity" as being part of consciousness (which you accept is an emergent property).
- I think of "identity" as the same "thing" as the experiencer (as in "features" versus "identity").
- I thought that we understood each other about the meaning of "identity." What am I missing?

 

[Akhenaten]

768

797xt,
- From the following, I had understood that you accepted that “identity” was an emergent property.

Well you were wrong. How many times do you want to be told?

85

170- Looks like I still don't understand what you're saying.
- I think of "identity" as being part of consciousness (which you accept is an emergent property).you accept is an emergent property).
- I think of "identity" as the same "thing" as the experiencer (whiy" was (as in "features" versus "identity"). What am I missing?ch
- I thought that we understood each other about what "identit

What in the name of Thoth is that mess all about?

 

[Jabba]

- Would "experiencers" differ from one replica to the other?

 

[godless dave]

Jabba, I, for one, had no idea that you were using "identity" as a synonym for "experiencer", or that you considered identity to be part of consciousness.

The human sense of identity, of self-awareness, is part of consciousness.

 

[godless dave]

- Would "experiencers" differ from one replica to the other?

No. Each would have its own experiencer, just like each one had its own brain, but the only difference between the experiencers would be which brain they were produced by.

 

[Akhenaten]

Jabba, one of the main difficulties with this stupid thread is the way in which you use words like identity, self, observer, experiencer, consciousness, etcetera.

Sometimes you use them as though they all have the same meaning and at other times you differentiate between them as though they represent discreet entities. Nobody can tell from one post to the next what meaning you intend.

In fact, it mostly seems that you can't even tell yourself.

 

[Akhenaten]

- Would "experiencers" differ from one replica to the other?

No, one would both be the same as not the other one wouldn't.


♪ Turning Jabbanese , I think I'm turning Jabbanese , I really think so. ♫



ETA: Or to answer in English - since you appear to believe that they would differ then perhaps you'd do us the courtesy of explaining the nature of the difference.