Does the traditional atheistic worldview contradict materialism?

[steenkh]

Rule 3: Everything that constitutes a person can be traced back to the configuration of the particles his body (in particular his brain) consists of. This includes all brain states, memories, thoughts etc. This also includes what Person X at spacetime coordinate z perceives as his "self". No exceptions!
(Definition of materialism)

I am unsure of this one. It has been shown that people can perceive stuff outside their bodies as being part of themselves, and amputees can feel pain in limbs they no longer have. This pain can be removed by giving them mechanical contraptions that they perceive as being their missing limb. In short, the "self" is more complicated than what you outline here. Your transporter scenario fails because if you do not obliterate the original, you will have two copies, both of which feel that they are the original, but none of which feel that the other is themselves. Obliterating one of them is not the same as transporting a single self to another place.

 

[A'isha]

Croc411, you seem to be under the impression that "continuity of self" is something that exists independently from the physical structure (ie, brain) housing that "self".

All three of your scenarios have the same thing in common: from the point of view of the person involved, they would all subjectively have the same sense of "continuity of self".

That is, the person in scenario 1 chronologically experienced every moment of his 70 years of life, so as far as he's aware he's had the same "continuity of self" all that time. In each of your other two scenarios, the person is forcibly altered to be identical to a version of themselves that experienced those 70 years, but without actually physically going through those 70 years. However, if you ask any of them, all of them - scenario 1, 2, or 3, will report the exact same subjective "continuity of self". As far as all three of them are concerned, they've all been continuously alive for 70 years, and have the memories and experiences which shaped them to prove it.

Even though from an outside perspective, you know that only one of those persons lived a chronological 70 years, as far as each of them is concerned, they all lived a chronological 70 years. To the point where if you mix up those three individuals, so that you don't know which person was put through which scenario, you will never be able to tell them apart.

But even though each of these persons experiences the same subjective "continuity of self", they're still individual entities, and their objective existence can be ended. Because if there's no way to either subjectively objectively to figure out which person is a "copy" and which is the "original", killing one of them is still killing one of them, and will end that person's subjective "continuity of self".

This might not seem obvious if you're killing one of them instantly at the moment of creation, but what happens if you delay the killing for a while? Each of the versions, "original" and "copy" alike, will be undergoing different subjective experiences and creating new memories, diverging ever more into separate "selves".

And this, I think, is where you're getting tripped up in this whole soul-that's-not-a-soul-but-is-a-universal-single-soul thing, and why you're getting hung up on the "continuity of self" thing.

 

[marplots]

If, after transportation, I am identical to the "other," I have no basis to claim a special status and have as much (and as little) right to exist as the other. If, on the other hand, I am informed that I am a copy, I now possess a special status and gain "unique" right back.

I also object that leaving out spacetime considerations seriously damages the exactness of the copies. After all, two particles may be indistinguishable, but the one I have here is different in what it can do and who it can dance with, than the other on Mars.

 

[AlBell]

Per thread title, ignoring the op and subsequent posts:

IMO, atheism is illogical unless it fully accepts materialism as the ontology of choice, and vice-versa.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Now lets deal with the darned continuity ...

One problem. You're not dealing with continuity of the self.

scenario #1:

You are a healthy but skinny, nice young person living at location A-town (let's call this state A). After a while you become dissatisfied with your appearance. Your start to change your body. Cosmetic surgery is cheap in A-town, so you get yourself a new face, new hair, start to build up muscle etc. (state B). You move to C-town at the other side of the planet (state C). As you get older you slowly but surely become an old grumpy bastard. Nothing is left of your once nice personality (state D). At old age, you catch Alzheimer disease and slowly degenerate. After a few years with the disease, you have totally forgotten your friends, family and how it was to live in A-town 70 years earlier (state E).

Transitions A to B, B to C, and C to D are non sequiturs. Transition D to E is missing the one key ingredient. You can add it easily, with at least a hypothetical form of Alzheimer's, though it's still not exactly what you need to do.

Let's back up. We're not merely talking about "continuity" in the sense of continuous transformations. What we are talking about is continuity of the self. Before we get into that, let's discuss what the self is.

We are separate agencies. I have thoughts, and you have thoughts. I see things, and you see things. But I do not think your thoughts, nor do you think my thoughts. I cannot see what you're currently looking at, and you cannot see what I'm currently looking at. We each have our own respective set of subjective states. (This also gets into intentions and so on, but I'll leave that topic for another day).

Now as well as having separate experiences, we remember separate experiences; furthermore, we remember our own experiences. Not only do I not think your thoughts, but I do not remember thoughts that you have (that you don't express); and likewise, you don't remember thoughts that I have (that I don't express). I cannot remember what you see and you cannot remember what I see. But I can remember some of my thoughts, and remember some of the things I see; and you can remember some of your thoughts and some of what you see. (Ignoring for now how flawed some of these memories can be...)

In other words, just as I am a separate agency from you, I remember being a separate agency from you. And I remember being a particular agency with particular experiences--particular thoughts, particular sights, and so on. In other words, in the past, there was a separate agency; in the present, I remember "being" that agency, in that I remember some of the things that this agency to the exclusion of all other agencies was privy to. And that is the continuity of the self.

You can, hypothetically, remove those memories by changing my brain states. If you do, you remove the continuity of the self. Right there in scenario #1, before you get to your "problems" of #2 and #3.

But I might also add, that you're going to have a hell of a time making my brain state match yours by simply removing experiences. There's no way you can just make me forget this, forget that, forget that, and so on, and wind up making my brain state match yours. To do that requires some addition; Alzheimer's just won't do. You're going to need some neurosurgery for that one. So if you want to argue that you can make me go from state A immediately to state E and that therefore I am the same as you, you don't get to do that with a scenario #1.

You can, however, involve a neurosurgeon and perform this sort of transformation. If you like, you can perform it very gradually; take your 70 years, and slowly transform my brain state into you.

Once you do that, the entity you get winds up being a version of you. Though it's not going to see what you see, and so on, so it'll diverge quickly (the problem with universal symmetries--they're only applicable in general in principle; in particular, move me one foot to the left, and I see something different than you). Nevertheless, if you want to argue that because you can slowly transform me into you, then we're both the same, then you're simply committing the fallacy of the heap.

So there you have it. Continuity of the self involves, by my account, an actual memory tie to your "being" a former self--specifically, a former particular agency in the world. Continuous transformations from one person to another simply changes the self from one person to another, if you do it. (And if you want to build a chimera brain, you'll just get a chimera self).

 

[tsig]

If, after transportation, I am identical to the "other," I have no basis to claim a special status and have as much (and as little) right to exist as the other. If, on the other hand, I am informed that I am a copy, I now possess a special status and gain "unique" right back.

I also object that leaving out spacetime considerations seriously damages the exactness of the copies. After all, two particles may be indistinguishable, but the one I have here is different in what it can do and who it can dance with, than the other on Mars.

Ain't philosophy wonderful where else can you talk so much about the ramifications of a machine that doesn't exist.

Qualia.

 

[IanS]

*Sigh*, I see I still could not get my point across. So I will try one more time, this time even more detailed. Here we go:
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A word about the transporter we will use: of course it must work on principles that do not violate any natural laws, and no new science can be involved. We know today how to scan and place individual atoms and we know how to transmit information over long distances, basically that's all that is needed. Let's assume that it scans an object on an atom-by-atom basis, transmits the data via fibre channel and then its counterpart reassembles the object, creating a perfect 1-to-1 copy. At the same instant, the original is destroyed by a strong laser beam.

Despite that we cannot build such a device today (and won't be able to for a very long time), this is only an engineering / technical issue and thus can be used in thought experiments to validate theories / worldviews.


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I don't think that's true at all - where is there any genuine science published to show that there is a real possibility that we could ever make identical copies of every subatomic particle, atom, molecule and physical component of any human being, and then somehow make that hypothetical copy appear somewhere else in the universe?

I doubt if that's just an engineering problem. The first very obvious problem is that as far as we know, it's just not possible to make truly identical copies of anything. Not even a single atom. The reason is that "certainty" of that type appears to be excluded by the uncertainty principle ... all you can ever do is change things with a certain probability (but not with the sort of certainty that your scenario requires).

There may be other quite obvious problems too, eg as soon as you recreate the very first atom (which is not an identical copy anyway ... if nothing else, then time and space have changed at least), in the instant taken to create the second of your zillion to the power one-zillion atoms of a human person, everything else in the experiment has changed, in which case each subsequent atomic creation would never be identical to the original anyway.

IOW - not only is your transporter idea is making an absolutely massive assumption, but it's also one which afaik is probably fundamentally mistaken anyway.

If you cannot get past that initial stage, then it seems to me that all further philosophical speculation is probably entirely erroneous.

You may wish to leave that sort of consideration aside and say " well suppose it would work anyway ", but the problem with that idea is that it's precisely the reason that science has replaced so-called "philosophy" as a genuinely reliable way of truly understanding things ... eg, in science it has been repeatedly found that when mistakes have crept into various work, it's for precisely that very reason of making an unwarranted assumption in the first place ... you have to show that the initial assumption is correct to begin with, and you have to do that scientifically (not philosophically with an argument composed merely of words and dictionary definitions of language).

 

[Dancing David]

Croc411,

Here is the deal about the transporter problem.

The individual bodies are each having separate experiences, each one will want to preserve its own life.

Your argument is based upon a fallacy that somehow an intellectual notion that there is another copy of you should matter.

The idea that this purely abstracted notion that 'I have a copy somewhere' will be enough to make human bodies be willing to just kill themselves is silly.

 

[IacopoV]

Hello everybody, I found this thread searching for ""Open Individualism". I am a member of the FB group "I Am You: Discussions on Open Individualism", where not all partecipants subscribe Open Individualism, so discussion is interesting.

I gave an overview at your posts and these resemble similar debates we had too. My personal conviction is that Open Individualism, although may appear "silly", is really the most atheist and materialist hypothesis on personal identity.

I am aware that my position is extremely minoritary (for now...), so no surprise if it is easily misunderstood as something "mystical" or irrational. Specifically, I refuse the conception of a "Cosmic Soul", I rather consider the self as a function that we have in common, so this at the end implies that we have the same personal identity.

This for express my view in short. But to continue your discussion, I think that Croc411 scenarios could be express equivalently in another form that doesn't even imply teleportation.

I think you may already know about thought experiment involving brains-in-vats that Daniel Dennet and others used in their arguing. I will use a pair of these brains, just to clarify the problem, but it would work even for normal brains of normal people.

We can imagine two different but very similar brain with two (supposed) different personal identities. As each brain changes in time, we can suppose to be able to force these changes until these two brains are perfectly equals for at least few seconds. After they can diverge and be different again.

No matter if you think that it would be actually impossible: if we had a sufficient number of brains changing casually, we could expect that an occasional synchronization may happen casually, in the same way we can imagine that if we had a large enough number of Rubick cubes continuously shuffled, we can expect that statistically two of them may result to be in the same state for a while.

If we could "stop the time" in the instant when the two brains are in the perfectly equal state, how you could consider their personal identity? It would be the same or not?

The problem with materialism is where the personal identity is supposed to be determined. If it represented by something inside the brain, we should conclude that two identical brains had the same personal identity, even if they had different pasts and different futures.

If we think that it might depend by something outside the brain, seems that if my parents were in another place when my foetus began to have a personal identity, it would had another one, different from mine. Here there is also the big question about "when" the personal identity began to be determined, but if we think that it is not determined only by the brain state, then the location of this event appears to be determinant.

Open Individualism allows to get rid of these problems. If we study it deeper, we can see that its "silly" and "mystical" halo is not completely justified, and we can find a materialist and rational version of it that solves all the problems related to personal identity.

 

[Darat]

What problems? The brains at the "synchronisation" point are still separate brains so there are two personal identities, there is no problem.

 

[yy2bggggs]

Welcome to the forums.

No matter if you think that it would be actually impossible: if we had a sufficient number of brains changing casually, we could expect that an occasional synchronization may happen casually, in the same way we can imagine that if we had a large enough number of Rubick cubes continuously shuffled, we can expect that statistically two of them may result to be in the same state for a while.

Brains are not Rubik's cubes, and their evolution isn't random. You seem to be asking me to imagine a scrambled egg becoming unscrambled.

ETA: Furthermore, suppose I own a blue car. Another person with the same name as me also owns a blue car. We both believe: "I own a blue car" is a true statement. We could even point to our respective blue cars in our respective driveways, and by coincidence, happen to point in the same direction, using the same postures, to our respective blue cars and say, "that is my car". And yet, this does not entail that I own his car, and he owns my car. These are different cars we are talking about.

Think of this from an epistemic viewpoint. I know my car is parked in my driveway, over there (point). I do not know that his car is parked in his driveway, in a same relative position to him, even if it may happen to be the case.

In like fashion, if I remember what I was thinking ten seconds ago, and he remembers what he was thinking ten seconds ago, it doesn't matter if we were thinking the same thing or not. I still don't know what he was thinking without him saying it, and he doesn't know what I was thinking without me saying it. I no more remember him thinking it than he remembers me thinking it. In this way, I'm not the same as him, and he's not the same as me.

We are, indeed, two different brains.

Note that the teleporter experiment doesn't have this issue, as it preserves the causal chains. But it does make two different brains, and those are two different individuals, once made.

 

[marplots]

I think there is a dimension to being an individual that is being glossed over here. I'm a materialist, but I don't think that my entire sense of "who I am" is located in my brain. Why? Because there's a context involved and the context is important. In my view, two identical brains (at the start) who are immersed in different contexts are different.

So, for example, I have a different personality when I am "the boss" than when I am "the father" or "the husband." Same brain, different environments.

Without giving a nod to the importance of environment and interactions with it, I think we are missing the fact that a similar brain can act and feel much differently, just as my brain may sum to a different total experience depending on whether my eyes are open or shut.

And it's even more fine grained that that. I'm a different me in the morning than in the evening, different if I'm drinking coffee or whiskey, changed by a continuous flow of hormones, sugar and oxygen. In short, focusing on the brain as if it could ever be some frozen chess problem printed in a newspaper is incorrect.

 

[Darat]

I think there is a dimension to being an individual that is being glossed over here. I'm a materialist, but I don't think that my entire sense of "who I am" is located in my brain. Why? Because there's a context involved and the context is important. In my view, two identical brains (at the start) who are immersed in different contexts are different.

So, for example, I have a different personality when I am "the boss" than when I am "the father" or "the husband." Same brain, different environments.

Without giving a nod to the importance of environment and interactions with it, I think we are missing the fact that a similar brain can act and feel much differently, just as my brain may sum to a different total experience depending on whether my eyes are open or shut.

And it's even more fine grained that that. I'm a different me in the morning than in the evening, different if I'm drinking coffee or whiskey, changed by a continuous flow of hormones, sugar and oxygen. In short, focusing on the brain as if it could ever be some frozen chess problem printed in a newspaper is incorrect.

Totally agree with your statements. We are not divorced from the environment, indeed we are just a part of the environment. What happens in the environment often has an effects on our sense of self.

 

[steenkh]

I too agree. There is also the question of what is the definition of a personality. A person can receive a brain damage that completely changes his or her personality. Is it still the same person because the memories might be the same, or are we talking about a different person in the same body?

When we look at the action of ourselves when kids, do we feel we are talking about the same person?

 

[Dancing David]

Open Individualism allows to get rid of these problems. If we study it deeper, we can see that its "silly" and "mystical" halo is not completely justified, and we can find a materialist and rational version of it that solves all the problems related to personal identity.

Contingent history states that while I have electrons and molecules in my body, they are not the molecules and electrons your body. So if consciousness is an emergent phenomena of the brain, there are distinct process, they are not the same.

And Welcome!

 

[IacopoV]

What problems? The brains at the "synchronisation" point are still separate brains so there are two personal identities, there is no problem.

In this case, to avoid a dualist methaphysics, you must think that personal identity depends by some external facts that not involve only the brain state. But what? gravitational forces or another kind of physical force that may influence "who is who"? I think that you may agree that it's no easy to solve this problem. Just constating that "I am here, you are there" may seem an explication, but it's not. It would imply that if your parents would have travel around the world while you are in formation, your organism would have a different personal identity.

 

[A'isha]

In this case, to avoid a dualist methaphysics, you must think that personal identity depends by some external facts that not involve only the brain state. But what? gravitational forces or another kind of physical force that may influence "who is who"?

No, as Dancing David notes, the very fact that the brains involved (even if they have the exact same indistinguishable brain state) are not congruent in either time or space and are different physical objects composed of different matter is what makes them separate beings despite their identical self-perceptions.

If someone magically makes a copy of the Mona Lisa indistinguishable from the original down to the quantum level, and hangs it next to the original in the Louvre so everyone can view them side-by-side, would you say there's still only a single Mona Lisa in existence?

I think that you may agree that it's no easy to solve this problem. Just constating that "I am here, you are there" may seem an explication, but it's not. It would imply that if your parents would have travel around the world while you are in formation, your organism would have a different personal identity.

"Personal identity" is not something separate from the thing having that identity. Two separate and distinct brains in the exact same state and thus having the same sense of "personal identity" are still not a single person, any more than two Rubik's cubes in the same configuration become a single Rubik's cube.

There's nothing magical about self-awareness which causes two identical objects to be linked across time and space by virtue of their identical-ness.

 

[IacopoV]

To answer to yy2bggggs, marplots, steenkh: If we suppose that the two brains have exactly the same state, the corresponding two (or one) mind(s) would have exactly the same memories etc. The surrounding world could be actually different if they are brains in two vats, but their subjective world(s) recreated in their mind (a la Matrix), should be perfectly equal (I suppose that they receive the same input). Maybe that the synchronization lasts only few seconds, but even after then, they would behave like two copies of you, one being you and one being you if you would have done something different than what you did a second ago. The memories would begin to be different only from that point. The differences existing before the syncronization time would have no influence at all (at least, inside the brain).

For steenkh: indeed, we have to distinguish between "personality" and "personal identity". We know that personality may vary during our life and we may say about somebody that "he's not the same person that was before", but really we don't mean that his personal identity is changed. When speaking about "personal identity" we are speaking about what makes each of us a conscious being with a (apparently) separated identity, no matter how much it may change over time.

 

[Complexity]

IacopoV - You are being very silly.

 

[IacopoV]

To Dancing David:

Thank you for your welcome!

You seem to reduce the problem to being build by different molecules, that in turn arebuilt of different elementary particles. But elementary particles have no intrinsic identity, they are indistinguishable, and is questioned if we can speak about "the same electron" when an experiment reveals an electron in the point A and then an electron in the point B on the path that the first electron should have followed. Accrediting an intrinsic identity to particles to base our personal identity on that is like found a castle over the quicksand. An intrinsic "identity of particles" is something that dont's seems to have a scientific confirmation.

For AntPogo:

If someone magically makes a copy of the Mona Lisa indistinguishable from the original down to the quantum level, and hangs it next to the original in the Louvre so everyone can view them side-by-side, would you say there's still only a single Mona Lisa in existence?

I would say that it is impossible detect what is the original picture. But the abstract idea of the Mona Lisa picture is still one. Indeed, even the original surely has changed in those centuries, at least at quantum level!

Two separate and distinct brains in the exact same state and thus having the same sense of "personal identity" are still not a single person, any more than two Rubik's cubes in the same configuration become a single Rubik's cube

This seems to be a dualist view. Appealing to the difference of instantiations ("I am here, you are there") without any other self-state difference, means to appeal to something outside the subject, "something separate from the thing having that identity". But if the two things are perfectly equal, what still remain to save us from a dualist (non materialist) conception of "personal identity"?