A question for scientists: Primary and Secondary qualities

[DanishDynamite]

Win:

Materialism's still false though.

Obviously not.

 

[Win]

Danish:

Obviously not.

Maybe not, but not so obviously, but I still think so anyway.

But what would a Swede know.

 

[Dancing David]

I think that he inherent difficulty in this series of communication is this:

1. materialists view the stream of consiousness as the product of the brain, just the way that a boat produces a wake.

2. idealism says that the stream of consiousness is the boat.

Therefore when a materialist says that there are two seperate brains that are identical at the start and have identical streams of consiousness: it is as though at the point of duplcation there are two boats generating the same wake, as the two boats drift apart they begin to create seperate wakes. There is the moment of superposition from the duplication process.

From the idealist viewpoint, there can not really be two boats because the stream of consiousness is the same, and that stream itself is the self. Given the boat analogy that means that either the two boats stay superimposed(Ian's seeing through four eyes) or that they are stacked on top of each other. So even if they are translocated to seperate locations the boats stay superimposed through the dimension of 'identity'.

And please Ian, you don't have to respond to my posts, I find the name calling distracting.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Why? Why can't they both be you? And I don't mean that a single you is in both of them at the same time. I mean they are two identical copies of the same thing. We can photocopy documents. We can make backup copies of CDs. If you want to look at this from a materialist's point of view, then we can also copy Ians.

Because I can only ever experience one or the other. Let me take that android thought experiment again. This is what I said before:


And incidentally, talking about the function of the brain, and assuming functionalism is true, imagine if the physical activity in my brain was precisely scanned now and saved somewhere. Then in a thousand years time when people have the technology to create androids, they could create an android with precisely my brain function.

Now imagine the situation. I am typing in front of my computer now, and suddenly I will jump 1000 years into the future and find myself in a strange environment. I'll think "WTF has happened here!" . Someone will explain to me that I am now "inhabiting" an androids body, and that I actually died 950 years ago, and out of interest they thought they would bring me back to life since they were curious about my posts in this forum (which also have been stored somewhere). They will describe my future life which my android self will now never experience. They will correctly state that after this message I had gone down to Stockton centre to go shopping. They will discuss my future posts on this board which my android self has never actually written.


Now what are the possibilities here? It would seem that I will either:

1. Just continue typing and my life goes on, and I will never ever know anything about an android which will (or is this might?) be created with my consciousness a thousand years hence.

2. I will suddenly jump forward a thousand years into the future and find myself "inhabiting" an androids body.

3. I will find myself experiencing out of my body now and also "simultaneously" the androids body a thousand years in the future.

4. I will find myself experiencing out of my body now, and the androids but not simultaneously as my consciousness will have forked into 2 streams.

Let's forget 3 and suppose it's an impossibility.

As you know I think that 4 is simply unintelligible. And it is unintelligible because of a consideration of my ongoing conscious experiences. I will as a matter of fact witness either 1 or 2 happening. You no doubt will say that if say 1 happens, that is just one branch of me. Also 2 will happen.

But it simply remains a fact that I will experience either 1 or 2. I will either continue typing at my keyboard or suddenly jump a 1000 years in the future. From the first person perspective I will either experience 1 or 2. And if I find I continue to type at my keyboard then my self, which will inhabit the android a thousand years hence, will not literally be me.

 

[Mercutio]

Close, but #4 is phrased awkwardly. Your consciousness has not forked. It has, at a particular point in time, been copied. The android will not have your past, it will have your memory of the past. We do not have to fork a single consciousness into two, as a "consciousness" is not something we carry with us. Rather, it is who we have come to be. Our experience changes us, but those changes (up to the point of copying) are what we have measured and transferred to the android. So, yes, you will "continue typing away and life goes on", AND you jump forward a thousand years, yadda yadda yadda.

You continue to give special meaning to "consciousness" that is not in the materialist (or at least this materialist's) world view.

 

[Interesting Ian]

II
Why can't the original stream end up in another brain? If you have absolutely identical physical processes then you must get one and the very same stream of consciousness. Otherwise there is something more than the totality of physical facts which determines you i.e you are denying materialism.
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Win
Maybe I can contribute something here.

There's an equivocation on the words "same" and "identical" in what you write above. You allow that the physical processes in Ian1 and Ian2 can be "identical" while being spatially distinct, yet maintain that the streams of consciousness can't be the "same" while also being spatially, or otherwise, distinct.

Yes that's right. They can't be the same because my stream of consciousness experiences out of one Ian and not the other. The other Ian is not my stream of consciousness, but merely someone who thinks and acts identically to me. That's why if materialism is correct it can only be saved by supposing that the person who is duplicated experiences out of both his bodies simultaneously.

If you think about it, you'll see that the two "identical" physical processes are correlated with two streams of consciousness that are the "same."

Well you can say the same. And I admit my duplicate will act and think and be physically like me in every conceivable way. Nevertheless, although I will like my other Ian immensely, I will not care about his fate quite as much as my own.

BTW welcome back. Loki will be delighted you're arguing against me (he once complained about us ganging up against the materialists since we disagreed with each other as much as with the materialists)

 

[Mercutio]

Well you can say the same. And I admit my duplicate will act and think and be physically like me in every conceivable way. Nevertheless, although I will like my other Ian immensely, I will not care about his fate quite as much as my own.

And he will feel precisely the same about you.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Close, but #4 is phrased awkwardly. Your consciousness has not forked.

It hasn't? So does this mean my stream of consciousness, prior to duplication, will literally be in the original Ian's body post duplication, and not at all in my duplicate body? What implications does this have for using the teletransporter?

It has, at a particular point in time, been copied.

But what happens from the first person perspective?

The android will not have your past,

Does everyone agree with Mercutio here?

it will have your memory of the past.

I don't understand the distinction.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

Well you can say the same. And I admit my duplicate will act and think and be physically like me in every conceivable way. Nevertheless, although I will like my other Ian immensely, I will not care about his fate quite as much as my own.
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And he will feel precisely the same about you.

Yes, so what?

 

[Mercutio]

Yes, so what?

It just reminded me a bit of your own earlier complaint. You quite correctly chided some folk for making a distinction between the original and the copy of the body, since if they were identical there should really be no distinction. After all, the particular molecules involved are not special in any way. The same argument can be made here. You are calling one of the "consciousnesses" my consciousness, when in fact they both lay equal claim to being yours.

I just saw the prior post...

It hasn't? So does this mean my stream of consciousness, prior to duplication, will literally be in the original Ian's body post duplication, and not at all in my duplicate body? What implications does this have for using the teletransporter?

It will literally be in both, after duplication, in the same sense that both new bodies are originals. Again, you do not carry your past with you, you carry your memory of your past. Both new Ians have this identical memory, and if the duplicator does its job (and we are not allowed to use the third person perspective of the experimenter), both are you, in the full sense of the word.

If the idea of spontaneously creating a conscious, thinking, remembering, feeling self is incredible, it is only because the thought problem itself is incredible. The perfect replication of a body is no less remarkable than the thought that this perfectly replicated body should think, feel, and remember just like the original.

 

[hammegk]

I'm not sure paradox is the right word. Damned odd anyway.

Trial 1. Ian goes into transporter room, one chair, teleports to a physically identical room, one chair. Gets paid.

Trial 2. Ian goes in room, one chair, teleports to identical room except 2 chairs side-by-side. Who gets paid?

Trial 3. Same as 2, except "Ian" also held in storage for 1000yrs and also sent to android body. Two new Ians?

Trail 4, like 3 except 2 chairs, 1 the android, 1 Ian.

Where the heck is Ian???? Materialism must say they are all "Ian", right?


Teleportation? Not for me at the moment, thanks anyway.

 

[ceptimus]

Does everyone agree with Mercutio here?

I do. I've carefully read your post about a snapshot of you being recorded now, and set going again in 10,000 years time. When I read it, I think, 'Yes Ian is explaining what would happen, correctly, from my (materialist) standpoint'. Then you suddenly say, '...and of course that's completely absurd and ridiculous...', and I'm left thinking, 'Why is it absurd?

I might doubt whether such a duplicating machine could ever be made, but if we take that as a given, for the thought experiment, then I don't see any difficulty with one Ian getting up and going shopping, and another copy of Ian being surpised to find himself in a lab in the year 12003. If the copy produced of you in 12003 copied all the quarks in the right place, then that copy would be you in just as strong a sense as the current you is. If the copy of your brain function was running in an android, then things, would, I guess, be different for the copy. It would depend on how the android was configured. If it had three arms for example, you would have the novel experience of learning to use the third one.

 

[ceptimus]

Ian, I don't know whether you intend to address Dancing David's post about the automatic spirograph toy. I was rather hoping you would, as, from a materialist's standpoint it is an excellent analogy to work with.

If you accept that the duplicator could copy the toy without difficulty, then we could suggest a series of increasingly more complex machines, and find out where you think the paradox begins to kick in.

My sequence might go: spirograph toy, pocket calculator, PC, bacterium, amoeba, whelk, ant, fish, bat, dog, ape, Ian in a coma, Ian asleep, Ian.

Is that interesting? Is there a point at which the paradox begins to work, and if so, where would you put it on my scale?

Thanks in anticipation.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Ian, I don't know whether you intend to address Dancing David's post about the automatic spirograph toy. I was rather hoping you would, as, from a materialist's standpoint it is an excellent analogy to work with.

If you accept that the duplicator could copy the toy without difficulty, then we could suggest a series of increasingly more complex machines, and find out where you think the paradox begins to kick in.

My sequence might go: spirograph toy, pocket calculator, PC, bacterium, amoeba, whelk, ant, fish, bat, dog, ape, Ian in a coma, Ian asleep, Ian.

Is that interesting? Is there a point at which the paradox begins to work, and if so, where would you put it on my scale?

Thanks in anticipation.

The paradox would kick in when consciousness kicks in.

 

[LuxFerum]

Let me see if I get it right.

If you copy a car, you wouldn't mind if you get the original or not.

If you copy someone you love, you will normaly prefer the original, but if you don't know who the original is, what should you do?Since both are the same, in the materialist point of view, there is no way of distinguishing one from another. It really doesn't matter which one you get.

The problem appears when you are one who don't know if you were copied or not. The claim that the stream of consciousness is flawed because that is interrupted every time that you sleep.

 

[ceptimus]

The paradox would kick in when consciousness kicks in.

That's what I thought. But where does it kick in? Dogs seem to be conscious to me. I'm not sure about ants though - so I'd put it somewhere around the fish / bat mark. Now if you tell us where you think it kicks in for you, we can home in on the dividing line - maybe we would settle on a species of mouse, and the paradox wouldn't exist for the dimmer members of the species, but would for the smart ones.

I'm not trying to be funny here - I think this is a gaping flaw in your argument.

 

[LuxFerum]

That's what I thought. But where does it kick in

I think that the paradox kick in when a materialist have a preference for one of the copies, that are the same in a materialist view.

 

[Interesting Ian]

That's what I thought. But where does it kick in? Dogs seem to be conscious to me. I'm not sure about ants though - so I'd put it somewhere around the fish / bat mark. Now if you tell us where you think it kicks in for you, we can home in on the dividing line - maybe we would settle on a species of mouse, and the paradox wouldn't exist for the dimmer members of the species, but would for the smart ones.

I'm not trying to be funny here - I think this is a gaping flaw in your argument.

I have no idea where consciousness kicks in. Nor do I see any relevance whatsoever.

 

[ceptimus]

I have no idea where consciousness kicks in. Nor do I see any relevance whatsoever.

That doesn't make sense to me. You admit that the paradox only applies to things that are conscious, but you can't see that causes a problem when there is a gradual scale of consciousness from zero up to the most conscious thing we know of - an adult human?

Do you think consciousness suddenly comes on like a light bulb? If you admitted (say) that a baby baboon wasn't conscious, but an adult one was, then there would be a stage in the baboon's life where we could keep running off copies of it in the duplicator. For a while there wouldn't be a problem. Then suddenly, the baboon would become conscious, and now we have a paradox on our hands.

You see no relevance whatsoever in this?

 

[Interesting Ian]

That doesn't make sense to me. You admit that the paradox only applies to things that are conscious, but you can't see that causes a problem when there is a gradual scale of consciousness from zero up to the most conscious thing we know of - an adult human?

A scale of consciousness? So some sentient beings are more conscious than others? How do you measure this?

Do you think consciousness suddenly comes on like a light bulb?

Yes.

On the other hand I suppose we're considering this from the materialist perspective. I haven't really thought about this question supposing that materialism is correct. I mean since materialism is absurd anyway.

If you admitted (say) that a baby baboon wasn't conscious, but an adult one was, then there would be a stage in the baboon's life where we could keep running off copies of it in the duplicator. For a while there wouldn't be a problem. Then suddenly, the baboon would become conscious, and now we have a paradox on our hands.

A materialist would say a baby baboon isn't conscious?

You see no relevance whatsoever in this?

Well let's suppose a boulder is conscious. After all, it rolls down a hill so why shouldn't it be conscious? So how exactly is duplicating a boulder different from duplicating human beings?