Does the traditional atheistic worldview contradict materialism?

[dafydd]

That post is very hard to read. Can you use conventional orthography in future? Pretty please?

 

[Complexity]

That post is very hard to read. Can you use conventional orthography in future? Pretty please?

Normally, I'd agree, but I don't think it would help his post at all.

Lipstick on a pig, and all that.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Just some words on Open Individualism: it has many different versions. There is variations of it in Hinduism, in Averrois' monopsychism, and (unfortunately!) in some naive new-age religions. I am here to bog you just because I think that is possible an atheist and materialist version of Open Individualism. I don't care about the effective possibility or life-reloading or brain joining or the creation of real consciousness in some virtual worlds. I just try to reason in a rational and mathematical way. So don't attribute to me any statement you find of other people. As I wrote in our Open Individualism group, I have my personal path with my personal arguments. I read the book of Kolak, our opinions are compatible but they do not are always the same. Our discussion would be more constructive if you'd stop to consider me as someone that is coming here to give you the revelation or so. I am posting you the same problems that I found by myself and I say my opinion about it, but it is just my opinion. You must know that I knew Open Individualism after that I came to the same idea by my own (and I am not the only one having doing this).

Then define your terms better for us. Use your words. When you say "Open Individualism" we are going to assume you mean Open Individualism. If that's not what you mean, you need to explain why.

For example,

Be aware that "counting two people" is just an effect of these people be (eventually) two different persons, not the cause. So we must find some cause that make me exist with a different personal identity from all the others, and if we are materialist, this must be a material cause.

Do you mean the Open Individualism definition of "personal identity," or your own which is somehow subtly different? Because the OI-stated one is a crock of ****, let me tell you.


To summarize the rest of your post, I think you're just talking about the ol' Ship of Theseus paradox. Put into that context, what we're saying here is if you made a perfect replica of the Ship of Theseus, both would be Ships of Theseus but only the original would be the Ship of Theseus, despite not being able to tell them apart. Savvy?

 

[Soapy Sam]

It's just a matter of availability of space and time. I find difficult to imagine restrictions to this formulation that didn't appear arbitrary. It doesn't say that it must happen: it says that nothings can definitely prevent it from happening again.

For you to type the above paragraph, a number of things had to happen.
You had to have a computer.
The JREF forum had to exist.
The internet had to exist.
You had to exist.
Your mother had to exist- and yes, she had to eat an adequate diet during your embryonic development or you would be too brain damaged to type at all.
Your grandmother had to exist.
Your great grandmother...usw all the way back to an RNA molecule.
Before that, there had to be a planet. In the right place relative to a star that had to put out the right amount of radiation.
The star had to form from a dustcloud containing heavy elements formed in a previous generation (or several) of stars.
(About now, we are starting to get back to the big bang. Just WHEN do you propose this one event, the paragraph you just posted, is going to recur?)

And , when you sit down and think about it, (I advise a cup of coffee), you will realise that the concatenation of events leading to your post was so staggeringly improbable, so totally unique, as to be...quite incredible.
And yet, here you are.
Me too.
And we are not the same person at all.

 

[IacopoV]

Dafydd, I wrote it in a editor before paste it in the Quick Reply Message box. I did some formatting but in that case the post was too long. I will try to limit the length in future.

Complexty, why you still waste your time following this silly thread?

Beelzebuddy, as I said there's no a orthodox version of Open Individualism, and the book of Kolak states that it can be apted to different metaphysics. My personal interpretation is direct to an atheist and materialist version.

I may define the "personal identity" as the "selfhood of my consciousness" that is supposed cannot change from birth to death, despite any extreme change I might undergo without to die, including total memory loss and any kind of plastic surgery. My committment is that is possible to imagine that it is still the same through all our lives, without the need to imagine a kind of "Cosmic Soul".

In the long post I tolk of many things, but the main question with 1-2-3 points is not equivalent to Theseus Ship. That involves the identity of a object composed by component, not a conscient subject with a personal identity. I want to point out that in a materialist metaphysics even my personal identity must have some material causes, otherwise we are hiddenly using some dualist conception.

Soapy Sam, I agree on what you write, except for the conclusion "we are not the same person", but is premature to face this argument now. This trial on 1-2-3 statements is not an introduction to Open Individualism. It's a discussiona about one of the problems that requires to review the traditional way to consider the personal identity. I wrote a paper that summarizes my arguments for Open Individualism but is composed by 20 pages in A4 format. Here I try to introduce one argument at a time, if somebody will continue to be interested.

 

[Dancing David]

Hi IcopaV!

What I meant is not that the model is incomplete: I simply deny the relevance of the "contingent history".

And that is the problem, it is fine to talk about individual particles in a certain fashion and wrong to talk about aggregates that way>

I ask you for the third time:

Do the atoms and molecules of quartz exchange themselves with atoms and molecules of quartz half a world away?

Why have you not answered that question twice?

I ask for a reason. Why do you not answer it?

To be more clear, I should have written "because it cannot be reduced to something similar".

that still makes no sense, an object that is larger than quantum indeterminacy does not go flying around the universe. An object of that size is subject to the theories of classicall physics, it cab be described through position, time, vector of motion, mass, momentum and charge.

You saying that there needs to be something else seems to be you, imposing a requirement upon reality that it does not require.

I have mentioned this before too, and yet you still have not addressed it.

Now I will save the rest of your post. But before I write any further with you I am curious if you will engage in discussion on these two points.

For me they are completely germane and relevant to why I disagree with your statements so far, so for me to understand your POV I would like you to address them.

 

[PixyMisa]

Hi everybody.

Just some words on Open Individualism: it has many different versions. There is variations of it in Hinduism, in Averrois' monopsychism, and (unfortunately!) in some naive new-age religions.

Are there any variations that are supported by the slightest shred of evidence?

I am here to bog you

I know English isn't your first language - and you are doing very well - but I don't think that's what you meant to say.

just because I think that is possible an atheist and materialist version of Open Individualism.

How?

The very thing that I want support here is the same that Croc411 acknowledges:

"The contentious point of the debate here is that you guys think you can assign identities to those illusions created by the processes in our brains (our perceived selfs), while IacopoV and me think you can not. Just like you cannot assign an identity to a particle."

The problem with this claim is that this is exactly what we do. This assertion is false-to-fact.

I couldn't have express it better. This is not a mystical or religious assuption. On the contrary, it is a materialist and skeptical assumption.

But it's not true.

I think it is actually a more skeptical position than the traditional materialistic view.

But it's not true.

It acknowledges that we cannot assume that the perceived selfs originated by these processes should have each a different personal identity.

Anything else is physically impossible. It's not much of an assumption to assume that what is physically impossible is not, in fact, what is happening.

yy2bggggs said I doubt that all materialists would agree. Otherwise, there's a problem with "Gibbs_paradox" (see wikipedia).

Nope.

2b) All what can happen one time, can happen many other times.

No. Fail. Stop there.

It is not possible, even in principle, to determine that two humans are identical. Since you can't determine that it has happened, any argument based on it happening is terminally flawed.

3) If we could know this list of condition

You can't. It's impossible.

it were just a matter of technical difficulties to build a lot of replica of me

You can't. It's impossible.

I may try an equivalent expression:

3b) If my existence were possible in the past, theoretically it will continue to be possible in the future, and even in the present.

That's not equivalent at all.

As I said, it is sufficient to acknowledge that theoretically it would be possible

It's not.

But beware that I am speaking about my same existence, not the existence of a perfect replica of me.

No.

If you think that there's something that is not even theoretically possible

People have. You haven't responded. The Uncertainty Principle rules out your claim immediately. So does the nature of identity.

Maybe this would help Soapy Sam to understand how 3b) descend by 1) and 2b). I agree with him that two mental processes doesn't have to continue to give identical output, but in this case I added this condition to underline the fact that they may continue to be identical at least during our observation.

That's impossible to ensure, and impossible to determine.

Even if it is not mandatory, it is always possible (there's no theoretical reason that will impede this).

Nonsense. It's entirely ruled out by the laws of physics.

In the comment of the last statement, he said that if the same causes that generates me occurred again ,they will generate another person. But when I speak about the causes that generates me, I mean precisely me, not a perfect clone of me.

Begging the question. If those causes happen again - which is impossible - simple arithmetic shows us that the new you is not the original.

Finally, PixyMisa:
About Hofstadter, I meant that I don't agree on his (and your) idea that all might be reduced somehow to a classical logical network, but I agree on the idea of a logical structure that works like a "strange loop".

A strange loop IS a classical logical network.

But if you are convinced that our brain is equivalent to a classical logical network, you should have no problem to imagine a program that emulates perfectly a living brain.

No, that's impossible.

You can emulate a living brain with arbitrary precision. You cannot emulate anything perfectly.

So I don't understand why you say , or , when we speak about classical logical networks with deterministic behaviour. Anyhow, I agree that two real brains almost surely "will diverge immediately", but exactly because they are not simply classical logical network; I suppose that they stay in synch for a while, just to clarify the problem. This, though very unlikely, is not physically impossible.

Actually, it's not just impossible, it's meaningless.

About "If my existence is possible, it required a finite number of rational/material conditions."

"Rational conditions" means some causes that can be described and explicated at least theoretically.

Okay. Just use the word "physical" instead; everyone will understand that.

It means that there's no causes that make appeal to something of divine or unexplicable, no matter if we actally don't know them.

Fair enough.

(#158)
So you think that is true one or both of these statements:
Given that you exist, do you think that an infinite number of rational/material (physical) conditions (causes) were required, or that there were required some conditions (causes) that are not rational/material/physical?

Neither. It is simply impossible to precisely know what those conditions were.

There is a law of physic that impedes two particles to have the same state, differing only in position?

There's a law of physics that precludes even knowing this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Two systems of two particles? Two systems of a billion particles? Two systems with a whole brain?

All of those.

Maybe I am wrong, but I supposed that materialist and skeptical people would think that the universe is at least theoretically explicable in rational terms.

Certainly. Your problem is that you are ignoring the actual explanations.

You are saying that there is a mystery at the base of your individual existence that it cannot be explained "even in principle". It seems to be not a skeptical/materialist POV.

No, that bears no relation to anything I have said.

I am saying that it is impossible to construct identical humans, that it is impossible to know if two humans are identical, that it is impossible to know precisely the conditions that made you, you.

This is physics. It's the reality of our Universe. You can't just ignore it, not if you want to be taken seriously.

That link again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Please stop suspect that I want to give you some new mystical truth.

Oh, we don't suspect that. We suspect that you want to give us some new mystical wrongth.

The issue with the 3 points I presented here is that you should be aware that if I am alive, there are some causes that allowed my birth

Which are imposible to precisely know.

with my personal identity

Which changes constantly and is impossible to precisely quanity.

and if the same causes act again

Which is impossible to even determine.

I must presuppose that not only generate a person like me, but with my same personal identity, otherwise these causes would be not precisely all the causes that allowed my birth.

And yet, this person would not be you. Any simple test would establish this.

Deny this, means to deny that my birth could be explained by a number of physical/material/rational causes, i.e. that there is something more that is "unexplicable", and I consider this to be dualism. I think that the majority of you would agree on this.

No. Your position is based on any number of false premises, which you have refused to examine.

Be aware that "counting two people" is just an effect of these people be (eventually)

Immediately. At the first quantum of time, they will diverge.

two different persons, not the cause.

No, they are two different persons. We can count them. One. Two.

It doesn't matter if you disagree. That just means that you are wrong.

So we must find some cause that make me exist with a different personal identity from all the others, and if we are materialist, this must be a material cause.

You are a different collection of matter in a different position from your duplicate.

That said, the duplicate is an impossibility, and determining that it is a duplicate is also an impossibility.

This material cause must be valid even in the hypothetical scenario in which we were all built assembling our bodies in exactly the same way.

The same thing always applies: If there are two of you, there are two of you. It's not that complicated.

No matter if it is practically impossible, or statically improbable:

If it's imposible, it's impossible.

If you think so, you may say that if it were possible, then we could have the same personal identity; otherwise, no matter if it is impossible, we must search another possible cause.

No. Wrong.

You are assuming that there is only one thing wrong with your argument. On the contrary, every part of your argument is wrong.

The simply fact that "I am here now, so I cannot be in another place in this same time", doesn't take in the account that doesn't exist an absolute time, and the perception of time is linked to our consciousness.

Absolute time is irrelevant. Perception of time is utterly irrelevant.

There is no frame of reference in which two distinct people are the same person.

We should investigate further on the nature of time. AlBell (#120) gave some suggestion on that matter. I read "End of time" of Julian Barbour (a physicist, not a philosopher involved in Open Individualism), and there are interesting considerations about "contingent history" as well.

No. It's not relevant, it's just an excuse.

If you have sources that you think I should read, give me some links.

Done.

Thank you all, I am aware that here I am seen as a disturbing presence.

Actually, no, you're welcome here, and we're happy to have you present your ideas.

You just happen to be wrong.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I may define the "personal identity" as the "selfhood of my consciousness" that is supposed cannot change from birth to death, despite any extreme change I might undergo without to die, including total memory loss and any kind of plastic surgery. My committment is that is possible to imagine that it is still the same through all our lives, without the need to imagine a kind of "Cosmic Soul".

That's too bad, because you're talking about a soul. Your mind, and your consciousness, changes continually. It could be subtle, like learning that the correct phrase is "Kolak's book," or extreme, like having a railroad spike shoved up your nose, but you are changing nonetheless. You are not the same person who woke up this morning as went to sleep last night. That kind of thinking unnerves us, so by convention we apply selfhood to the material brain. You gotta remember though, it's only convention.

In the long post I tolk of many things, but the main question with 1-2-3 points is not equivalent to Theseus Ship. That involves the identity of a object composed by component, not a conscient subject with a personal identity. I want to point out that in a materialist metaphysics even my personal identity must have some material causes, otherwise we are hiddenly using some dualist conception.

You are hiddenly using a dualist conception. There is no material embodiment of your personal identity apart from the fleshy bits that make up you, just as there is no material embodiment of the Ship of Theseus apart from the boards and such that composed it.

 

[Complexity]

Complexty, why you still waste your time following this silly thread?

Because I like and respect several of the people who are posting in it.

Because some people are making me laugh with pleasure.

This is true for most of threads in the subfora that I visit - please don't feel that you have any responsibility for my continuing to post in this thread.

 

[PixyMisa]

That's too bad, because you're talking about a soul.

Yes, precisely.

 

[catsmate]

Show me the transporter, tell me the details about how it works and on what principles and then we can have a discussion, till then all you have is a "what if' as in "what if the moon is made of green cheese" IOW you have created an artificial scenario designed to create an artificial dilemma.

I'm curious as to where the energy to create a duplicate body came from; ~7E16 Joules is a fair amount.
Anyway Spock Must Die did the whole duplicate person thing far better.

 

[IacopoV]

Hello everybody!

Dancing David,

Do the atoms and molecules of quartz exchange themselves with atoms and molecules of quartz half a world away?

because I think that elementary particles has no identity, such a change would be ininfluent (and meaningless). Simply, the global state of the system (the world) that includes these particles would not change. Moreover, no matter if the elementary particles would build atoms or moleculas of the same type. It is enough that the elementary particles were of the same type and the in same state.

You saying that there needs to be something else seems to be you, imposing a requirement upon reality that it does not require.

No, I didn't say that "there needs", I did not imposed any requirement, on the contrary, I deny that there exist a requirement upon reality that impede that this may happen. I know that it would be extremely improbable, and that given our limitations, we could not even check it it is really happened or not. But I am saying that doesn't exist a requirement upon reality that allow us to exclude this possibility.


It's convenient comment Belzebuddy before PixyMisa:

That's too bad, because you're talking about a soul. Your mind, and your consciousness, changes continually

I don't want to talk about soul, but is difficult to define precisely the "personal identity" in a materialist way, exactly because I am convinced that it really doesn't exist at all. So it is natural that if I try to give any definition, is an easy trick to charge me of dualism. In another discussion, I called it our (supposed) individual "instance of consciousness", but not meaning that is something immaterial, just to underline that it is (natively supposed to be) not the same consciousness for each of us, whatever were its origin. I think that a source that you could appreciate is this: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

I may try this: "the thing that gives me the inner convincement to be the same person I was when I was born". I understand that "I am not the same person who wake up this morning", but this simply states that my personality continues to change. But I think you act everyday in a way that conforms to the expectation that the person that will wake up tomorrow morning will still be you, in a different sense of what you meant.

What I am trying to warn you all, is that to think that:

There is no material embodiment of your personal identity apart from the fleshy bits that make up you

and also that:

Should it be possible to make a perfect clone of me, it would be possible to make a perfect clone of me. That don't make him me, no matter how much the little bastard thinks he is, he ain't.

would imply that there is "something more" than make me to be me, and a perfect copy of me to be "another one". You may say that that "something more" can be something that is impossible to duplicate, but what can you imagine this could be? Don't you see that it is exactly in that "something more" that I see an hidden dualist concept?

Don't you see that I am trying to invite you all to make your materialist view stronger?

PixyMisa,

I will not comment each single statement, but I hope to address the more relevant questions:

I think that is possible an atheist and materialist version of Open Individualism

How?

It is not a short or easy way. Here we are discussing just one of the issues, the fact that supposing that the personal identity could be reduced to something material, force us to allow the theoretical possibility of non-locality, otherwise we are forced to accept some dualistic conception, or we are anyhow forced to admit that there exists an impenetrable mystery over our own existence.

You often repeat "this is false", "this is untrue", but as you don't give arguments or references, how can I reply? "No, this is true!"?

Anything else is physically impossible

I am trying to investigate why it should be "physically impossible". If I evaluate correctly your convincement, it is based on the fact that "if I am here, it is impossible that I were also there". This seems to have an evidence that is impossible to deny. But I am trying to investigate the question at a deeper level.

First of all, I don't care about what is practically possible or impossible, but only about what is theoretically possible or impossible.

It is not possible, even in principle, to determine that two humans are identical.

You derive that "so they must be different". I derive that "so we cannot exclude that they could be identical".

The Uncertainty Principle impede us to check if two physical bodies are identical, but not impede they to be identical. It's not like the Pauli exclusion principle. Even if we cannot actually know if two systems have exactly the same state, nothing prevents that this may happen. It's only a matter of probability, and I agree that it is extremely low for great systems. But it's not zero.

When you say:

I am saying that it is impossible to construct identical humans, that it is impossible to know if two humans are identical, that it is impossible to know precisely the conditions that made you, you.

you actually mean that there's a limit on what we can know, not that there is a mystery at the base of your individual existence that it cannot be explained "even in principle".

It is exaclty what I meant when I said that "2) If my existence is possible, it required a finite number of rational conditions", no matter if they are destined to remain unknown.

The "argument of counting" is a clue that your individual personal identity is different by those of any other living being, even if it were a perfect replica of you, but it cannot be a cause. Even if we cannot know these causes precisely, we may figure what kind of cause it would be. Don't you see that the simply "argument of counting" fit very well for a dualist mataphysics? "everybody have a different soul, so no matter if the bodies are perfectly identical". What can you imagine to workaround this problem? The identity of the particles that consitues your body? they are continuously changing. The "contingent history"? And where it is stored? And why one of your replicas couldn't have and identical one? The configuration of all the universe when you have born?

Don't you see that I am trying to invite you all to make your materialist view stronger?

You may continue to see that only I view these issues as problems, but I am not the only one. Maybe I am the only one in this thread.

 

[catsmate]

Yes, I do. Among the 7 billion people on earth you won't find a single one you could consider similar to yourself, not by a long shot.

Really? I know several people "similar" to myself, in various ways and to various degrees.

But one small addition: our similarity is not exactly 0%. It's a very small fraction of a percent. For instance we both know how the night sky of planet earth looks like.

No. The view of the night sky is different from place to place on Earth. What I'll see tonight is different from what a friend of mine can see in Hawaii currently.

 

[PixyMisa]

It's convenient comment Belzebuddy before PixyMisa:

I don't want to talk about soul, but is difficult to define precisely the "personal identity" in a materialist way, exactly because I am convinced that it really doesn't exist at all.

Okay. We can accept that. If you want to say it doesn't exist, or that it's an illusion, or that is an abstract concept applied pragmatically to real-life situations, all of that is fine.

But then, why all the nonsense?

So it is natural that if I try to give any definition, is an easy trick to charge me of dualism.

Not if your definition isn't dualistic.

In another discussion, I called it our (supposed) individual "instance of consciousness"

That's fine too.

but not meaning that is something immaterial, just to underline that it is (natively supposed to be) not the same consciousness for each of us, whatever were its origin.

What?

I think that a source that you could appreciate is this: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

Ugh. No. That thing is just riddled with errors.

I may try this: "the thing that gives me the inner convincement to be the same person I was when I was born". I understand that "I am not the same person who wake up this morning", but this simply states that my personality continues to change. But I think you act everyday in a way that conforms to the expectation that the person that will wake up tomorrow morning will still be you, in a different sense of what you meant.

Except when you get a railroad spike through your head, of course. In many ways, Gage was the father of modern neuroscience. Though I expect he'd have preferred a lesser role.

What I am trying to warn you all, is that to think that:

There is no material embodiment of your personal identity apart from the fleshy bits that make up you

and also that:

Should it be possible to make a perfect clone of me, it would be possible to make a perfect clone of me. That don't make him me, no matter how much the little bastard thinks he is, he ain't.

would imply that there is "something more" than make me to be me

No!

If the material body is all that is required, and there are two material bodies, there are TWO OF YOU.

and a perfect copy of me to be "another one".

Of course it's another one!

You may say that that "something more" can be something that is impossible to duplicate

No. We are pointing out that there is nothing more.

but what can you imagine this could be? Don't you see that it is exactly in that "something more" that I see an hidden dualist concept?

We don't care. Our entire point is that there is nothing more.

If you make an identical copy of yourself (which is of course impossible) then there are two of you.

Don't you see that I am trying to invite you all to make your materialist view stronger?

No, because you're not.

I will not comment each single statement, but I hope to address the more relevant questions:

It is not a short or easy way. Here we are discussing just one of the issues, the fact that supposing that the personal identity could be reduced to something material

Personal identity IS something material. It's brain function.

force us to allow the theoretical possibility of non-locality

Why on Earth would you want to drag non-locality into it? How is this relevant? How is it needed? How is it possible, or even meaningful?

otherwise we are forced to accept some dualistic conception

NO.

or we are anyhow forced to admit that there exists an impenetrable mystery over our own existence.

NO.

You often repeat "this is false", "this is untrue", but as you don't give arguments or references, how can I reply? "No, this is true!"?

I've given you the arguments, repeatedly. You've just ignored them.

I am trying to investigate why it should be "physically impossible".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Read it. Understand it. On the macro scale, you cannot, even in principle, create perfect duplicates. You cannot, even in principle, determine if one object is a perfect duplicate of another. Even if one object were a perfect duplicate of another at one instant in time - which is not possible to bring about, or even to determine - it would immediately diverge.

If I evaluate correctly your convincement, it is based on the fact that "if I am here, it is impossible that I were also there".

It's based on reality. If you have two of something, you don't have one of something.

This seems to have an evidence that is impossible to deny. But I am trying to investigate the question at a deeper level.

Why do you think there's a deeper level? What evidence do you have?

First of all, I don't care about what is practically possible or impossible, but only about what is theoretically possible or impossible.

Right.

On the macro scale, you cannot, even in principle, create perfect duplicates. You cannot, even in principle, determine if one object is a perfect duplicate of another. Even if one object were a perfect duplicate of another at one instant in time - which is not possible to bring about, or even to determine - it would immediately diverge.

You derive that "so they must be different". I derive that "so we cannot exclude that they could be identical".

Utter nonsense.

Your argument requires that they be identical. You can't bring that about; you can't even determine if it is the case. Your argument fails.

The Uncertainty Principle impede us to check if two physical bodies are identical, but not impede they to be identical.

See above.

It's not like the Pauli exclusion principle. Even if we cannot actually know if two systems have exactly the same state, nothing prevents that this may happen. It's only a matter of probability, and I agree that it is extremely low for great systems. But it's not zero.

Your argument requires you to know something that it is impossible for you to know. Your argument fails.

When you say:

I am saying that it is impossible to construct identical humans, that it is impossible to know if two humans are identical, that it is impossible to know precisely the conditions that made you, you.

you actually mean that there's a limit on what we can know, not that there is a mystery at the base of your individual existence that it cannot be explained "even in principle".

That is what I said, yes.

We can explain our existence in terms of scientific theory. It is impossible to know the exact parameters that brought about my birth, or yours.

It is exaclty what I meant when I said that "2) If my existence is possible, it required a finite number of rational conditions", no matter if they are destined to remain unknown.

But it does matter to your argument that those conditions cannot be precisely known.

The "argument of counting" is a clue that your individual personal identity is different by those of any other living being, even if it were a perfect replica of you, but it cannot be a cause.

Please try to pay attention!

The perfect replica (which is impossible in at least three different ways) is by definition not a perfect replica because it occupies different spatial co-ordinates and exists under subtly different physical conditions.

The argument of counting is sufficient to destroy your argument.

Even if we cannot know these causes precisely, we may figure what kind of cause it would be.

So what?

Don't you see that the simply "argument of counting" fit very well for a dualist mataphysics?

Nope.

"everybody have a different soul, so no matter if the bodies are perfectly identical".

Who cares?

What can you imagine to workaround this problem?

Look, it's very, very simple.

Personal identity is purely material. There are two bodies. There are thus two personal identities.

One. Two.

The identity of the particles that consitues your body? they are continuously changing. The "contingent history"? And where it is stored? And why one of your replicas couldn't have and identical one? The configuration of all the universe when you have born?

You're arguing for a dualist form of personal identity, a soul. We don't believe in any such thing; we don't even believe it means anything.

Personal identity, such as it is in the real world, is a function of the brain and the body. Two bodies, two brains, two identities.

Don't you see that I am trying to invite you all to make your materialist view stronger?

No, you're talking complete nonsense.

You may continue to see that only I view these issues as problems, but I am not the only one. Maybe I am the only one in this thread.

Perhaps the reason that you're the only one who can see the problem is that it's not really there.

 

[PixyMisa]

It's not like the Pauli exclusion principle. Even if we cannot actually know if two systems have exactly the same state, nothing prevents that this may happen.

Actually, it does boil down to the Pauli exclusion principle.

To have two copies of you that are identical and remain identical, they have to be in the same place.

That is also impossible.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

I may try this: "the thing that gives me the inner convincement to be the same person I was when I was born". I understand that "I am not the same person who wake up this morning", but this simply states that my personality continues to change. But I think you act everyday in a way that conforms to the expectation that the person that will wake up tomorrow morning will still be you, in a different sense of what you meant.

There is no such thing. We act in that way because it makes us feel better about sharp cracks on the noggin, or a stint of brain-death on the operating table, but when you get right down to it we're just self-aware patterns of neural activity. That's it. That's all we are.

What I am trying to warn you all, is that to think that:
and also that:
would imply that there is "something more" than make me to be me, and a perfect copy of me to be "another one". You may say that that "something more" can be something that is impossible to duplicate, but what can you imagine this could be? Don't you see that it is exactly in that "something more" that I see an hidden dualist concept?

No, just application of convention. Beelzeclone and I are two identical but separate patterns. It doesn't really matter if we're identical or not, we're still different people, you see? But since my pattern is composed of the original bits of worm food, I get to claim to be the original, while the other poor bastard's got to settle for being the replica. There's nothing more to it than that.

Don't you see that I am trying to invite you all to make your materialist view stronger?

No, you're trying to find an argument for the convention of personhood that doesn't involve a soul. I would advise you to give up and roll with the subjective uncertainty.

 

[yy2bggggs]

IacopoV:

You're still confusing equivalence with identity. You are, in fact, equivocating between these two completely different concepts by using the word "identical" to mean "equivalent". I wish you'd stop; you're not fooling me, you're only confusing yourself. It does not matter how big your wall of text is, so long as you're basing your argument on this equivocation, it's going to be wrong for the same reason. I've tried my best to explain to you what the difference between identity and equivalence is.

The argument from counting demonstrates that there is an identity. You cannot always count things; one of the reason why we have "mass nouns" is because we need to describe things we cannot count; e.g., water, dirt, air, meat.

Counting requires certain aspects of a system. In particular, it requires that there be a kind of system whereby one can identify entities. To count requires a fixed, ordered set of labels; we typically use the decimal system for that. The act of counting involves assigning those labels to each of the identities such that every distinct entity is assigned a label, and such that no distinct entity is assigned two labels.

The fact that you can count two individuals means that you have two distinct entities. Those entities can be entirely the same; as you say, "right down to the quantum level"; however, somehow, by counting two of them, you ipso facto assigned the label of "one" to one of those entities, and still had an entity left over to count. If you did not, you would never have had to assign the label "two" to an entity. The fact that you did means that you found a distinct entity.

The counting argument simply emphasizes a very simple test for identity. If X and Y are identical, then the set {X} union the set {Y} has one element in it. If X and Y are not identical, then the set {X} union the set {Y} has two elements in it.

If we're talking about the identity of a green rubber ball instead of a person, would we use different rules? I would say that if you have two green rubber balls in the same exact state, they are nevertheless not the same ball (the fact that I said there were "two" is the giveaway). What would you say?

 

[Nonpareil]

What I am trying to warn you all, is that to think that:



and also that:



would imply that there is "something more" than make me to be me, and a perfect copy of me to be "another one".

No, it really doesn't. As PixyMisa has already explained, the only way to make a truly perfect clone of oneself would be to have it exist in exactly the same time and place, in exactly the same condition, as the original. A "traditionally" perfect clone, on the other hand, is just one that's identical in every way except location - which isn't the same one. Location is as much a property of matter as chemical makeup.

If you have two chemical reactions occurring in two petri dishes right next to one another, and both are taking an identical path to completion, you still couldn't say that they were the same reaction. They're two separate chemical reactions. They're two very similar chemical reactions, but they're not the same.

Don't you see that I am trying to invite you all to make your materialist view stronger?

Don't you see that you're just misunderstanding our materialist worldview?

I am trying to investigate why it should be "physically impossible". If I evaluate correctly your convincement, it is based on the fact that "if I am here, it is impossible that I were also there". This seems to have an evidence that is impossible to deny. But I am trying to investigate the question at a deeper level.

What deeper level?

First of all, I don't care about what is practically possible or impossible, but only about what is theoretically possible or impossible.

So you don't care about what is actually possible or impossible, then. Just what you can imagine to be possible or impossible.

Have fun with your thought experiments, then. They're entirely pointless, but hey, whatever pops your weasel.

you actually mean that there's a limit on what we can know, not that there is a mystery at the base of your individual existence that it cannot be explained "even in principle".

So you don't actually understand anything about the uncertainty principle, then.

"everybody have a different soul, so no matter if the bodies are perfectly identical".

Straw man. We aren't arguing that people have souls. We are arguing that it is impossible, even in principle, to have a perfect duplicate of something and that, even if you have a perfect duplicate of something, it is not the same thing, but a copy.

What about this is so hard to understand?

 

[Dancing David]

Hello everybody!

Dancing David,



because I think that elementary particles has no identity, such a change would be ininfluent (and meaningless). Simply, the global state of the system (the world) that includes these particles would not change. Moreover, no matter if the elementary particles would build atoms or moleculas of the same type. It is enough that the elementary particles were of the same type and the in same state.

'ininfluent" is not a word I recognize, and you did not answer my question.

First off you haven't shown when elementary particles can exchange places, so there is difference between two particles. Given positions far enough away that there wave forms do not overlap.

The question: I have some table salt, it is here in central Illinois, it is similar to table salt that you have where you are.

Yes?

Now they are not identical when we look at an aggregate, or would you say they are?

Now look at a single grain of salt, the arrangement of the atoms (if we say it is arbitrarily pure and not varied by other minerals). If I have one grain of salt, you have another and they vary in the number of molecules of NaCl, are they identical?

What if they have the same number of molecules but they have different lengths to their major axes, are they identical?

I am asking about these grains of salt.

Not the molecules at this point.

 

[Darat]

To yy2bggggs:

Thank you for your explanation. I appreciate your efforts.

But I know the difference between equivalence and identity.

The contentious point of the debate here is that you guys think you can assign identities to those illusions created by the processes in our brains (our perceived selfs), while IacopoV and me think you can not. Just like you cannot assign an identity to a particle.


Walks like a duck, talks like a duck ...

Almost walks like a duck, almost talks like a duck ...

The contentious part of the debate seems to me to be that you believe that copying the meatsack is in principle different from copying anything else, for the rest us it's a matter of rather simple arithmetic i.e. 1+2=2.