• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Cont: Proof of Immortality, V for Very long discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.
Loss Leader said:
The individual is a process of a working neurosystem. It is the physical thing. An uploaded emulator is a process of a working computer. It's not the person, though it might believe it is.

Here's a thought experiment: Imagine we are able to upload an exact map of a person's brain into a computer or, heck, into a clone of that person. Bob goes in, gets strapped down, spends twenty minutes with electrodes on his head, and then a clone is ready. What happens to Bob?

He's still alive. He's still making more memories. The clone may think it's Bob, but the consciousness of Bob wasn't divided or diluted. His consciousness resides in himself and, when he dies, it's gone forever.
Click to expand...

Here's another thought experiment: Suppose it were revealed to you that we live in a simulation, would you instantly stop having your sense of self?

Any other answer requires a rejection of materialism.
Click to expand...

This is false.

And there is no evidence on which to base a belief in anything else.
Click to expand...

There's no evidence for materialism either, not that it's relevant.

So, I reject your call for evidence. If you believe consciousness can be transferred or uploaded, then show evidence that it is anything other than a materialistic process. You are making the positive claim. I disbelieve consciousness can be transferred absent evidence to the contrary.
Click to expand...

Physical systems can be simulated. So if you argue that the sense of self can not be simulated, then you are arguing that the sense of self includes more than a physical system, thereby making a positive claim and incurring a burden of proof.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- The following was my understanding of what you had accepted after our preceding discussion. Where was I mistaken?
Click to expand...
Let's see:
1. There must be an infinite number of potential, different, personal identities (Human).
Click to expand...

Here.

There mustn't. There's a finite number of arrangements of particles that could constitute a human being. It's an almost unimaginably large number, but, nevertheless, it is not infinite.
 
Last edited:
Jabba said:
Dave,
- The following was my understanding of what you had accepted after our preceding discussion. Where was I mistaken?

1. There must be an infinite number of potential, different, personal identities (Human). 2. Personal identities are not physically reducible or re-creatible. 3. The likelihood of their current existence, therefor, can be treated as random. 4. The likelihood of the current existence of your personal identity is therefor analogous to you winning the lottery. 5. There are about 7 billion current examples of personal, human, identities.6. And the likelihood of the current existence of your personal identity is therefor about 7 billion over infinity.
Click to expand...


Jabba, is your "personal identity" currently occupying your body?
 
I may be slow, but I just realized an implication of Jabba's argument.

"No, your honor. I cannot be guilty of murder. The deceased is not really dead. His sense of self is just pining for the fjords returned to the infinite pool of selves. He will return just as soon as he feels like it, or wins the lottery, or something."

Jabba should be out there reforming the legal system
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- The following was my understanding of what you had accepted after our preceding discussion. Where was I mistaken?

1. There must be an infinite number of potential, different, personal identities (Human). 2. Personal identities are not physically reducible or re-creatible. 3. The likelihood of their current existence, therefor, can be treated as random. 4. The likelihood of the current existence of your personal identity is therefor analogous to you winning the lottery. 5. There are about 7 billion current examples of personal, human, identities.6. And the likelihood of the current existence of your personal identity is therefor about 7 billion over infinity.
Click to expand...

godless dave said:
2, 3, 4, 5, and in 1 "different" means "separate", not "unique".
Click to expand...

Dave,
- I accept the "separate" part for #1.
- For #2, how about dropping "reducible," and defining "re-creatible" as ability for the same identity (sense of self) to be returned to existence (life)?
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- I accept the "separate" part for #1.
- For #2, how about dropping "reducible," and defining "re-creatible" as ability for the same identity (sense of self) to be returned to existence (life)?
Click to expand...

If I create an exact copy of a Ming vase that was destroyed, is it the same Ming vase, or a copy? Has the original vase been returned to existence?
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- I accept the "separate" part for #1.
- For #2, how about dropping "reducible," and defining "re-creatible" as ability for the same identity (sense of self) to be returned to existence (life)?
Click to expand...

For #2, it's the "not physically reducible" part I disagree with. I have no problem with agreeing that the same sense of self can never exist again, since that is the case for everything in existence. Once a flame burns out it, it can never exist again. Once a snowflake melts, the same snowflake will never exist again. The same is true for Volkswagens, mountains, and blades of grass.
 
Last edited:
Jabba said:
Dave,
- The following was my understanding of what you had accepted after our preceding discussion. Where was I mistaken?

1. There must be an infinite number of potential, different, personal identities (Human). 2. Personal identities are not physically reducible or re-creatible. 3. The likelihood of their current existence, therefor, can be treated as random. 4. The likelihood of the current existence of your personal identity is therefor analogous to you winning the lottery. 5. There are about 7 billion current examples of personal, human, identities.6. And the likelihood of the current existence of your personal identity is therefor about 7 billion over infinity.
Click to expand...

godless dave said:
2, 3, 4, 5, and in 1 "different" means "separate", not "unique".
Click to expand...

Jabba said:
Dave,
- I accept the "separate" part for #1.
- For #2, how about dropping "reducible," and defining "re-creatible" as ability for the same identity (sense of self) to be returned to existence (life)?
Click to expand...

godless dave said:
For #2, it's the "not physically reducible" part I disagree with. I have no problem with agreeing that the same sense of self can never exist again, since that is the case for everything in existence. Once a flame burns out it, it can never exist again. Once a snowflake melts, the same snowflake will never exist again. The same is true for Volkswagens, mountains, and blades of grass.
Click to expand...
- Can we therefor treat this aspect of self (the specific sense of self) as random?
 
godless dave said:
No. Because it's physically reducible. It's no more random than the brain that produces it.
Click to expand...
- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness. The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble. But, the specific awareness (singular) is not. We have no idea as to how to recreate the specific "host." The right words are hard to find...
 
Jabba said:
- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness. The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble. But, the specific awareness (singular) is not. We have no idea as to how to recreate the specific "host." The right words are hard to find...
Click to expand...

What do you mean "try this"? Is there any support for this speculation?

How about you stop making stuff up, including what other people think, and just admit that you're wrong?
 
Jabba said:
- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness. The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble. But, the specific awareness (singular) is not. We have no idea as to how to recreate the specific "host." The right words are hard to find...
Click to expand...

Try this: the self is not an actual entity. It is a process that the brain does. The right words are easy to find.
 
Jabba said:
- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness. The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble. But, the specific awareness (singular) is not. We have no idea as to how to recreate the specific "host." The right words are hard to find...
Click to expand...

That does not describe the self under H. Under H, the awareness is as "cause and effect traceable" as every other part of the self. The brain is physical. The brain is what's aware.
 
Jabba said:
- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness. The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble.
Click to expand...

For your theory of an immortal soul you can make up whatever you want. However, under H there is no such division. All aspects of the self are cause-and-effect traceable to the functioning of a human brain. As usual, you're simply making up new concepts and trying to foist them onto H for the sole purpose of declaring them to be something H can't explain.

Straw man.

But, the specific awareness (singular) is not. We have no idea as to how to recreate the specific "host." The right words are hard to find...
Click to expand...

Of course the right words are hard for you to find. When your argument is nothing but obfuscation and equivocation, you'll soon run out of words as people pin down their meanings and thwart you.

Under H if you were able to duplicate the brain, you'd duplicate its sense of self to the same fidelity. It's very easy to express.
 
Jabba said:
- Try this. The self is composed of two types of aspects: characteristics and awareness. The specific characteristics are cause and effect traceble. But, the specific awareness (singular) is not. We have no idea as to how to recreate the specific "host." The right words are hard to find...
Click to expand...


When do those two aspects become associated with each other? At conception? At birth?

Once again, your attempt to foist a soul onto H is obvious, and generates more questions than it answers.
 
godless dave said:
That does not describe the self under H. Under H, the awareness is as "cause and effect traceable" as every other part of the self. The brain is physical. The brain is what's aware.
Click to expand...
Dave,
Is the personal identity, sense of self, re-creatible?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom