Resolution of Transporter Problem

[Z]

As much as I've grown to dislike Eastern philosophy over the years due to its moral components, I feel like beating your heads with it. Seriously, dudes, the sense of self is an illusion. Everyone is supposed to know this by now.

Fine - then you don't mind dying, no matter the cause, since self doesn't really exist. Right?

Because that's what the Eastern philosophy of 'illusionary sense of self'
is really about - letting go of personal ego, fear of death, and personal desires. It's about regarding yourself as a non-person, with no inherent rights, moral responsibilities, social requirements, etc. If you are willing to embrace 'self' as merely an illusion, then you are willing to relinquish all personal effects, dissolve all personal connections, and become 'one with the universe' - i.e. starve to death on some remote nature location.

Experience is the only certainty we possess. Self-identity is a rational derivative - one of the first we discover as we explore experience. Self may not exist, but lacking self, all other assumptions about the nature of the universe dissolve into meaninglessness. Denial of self leads merely to acosmism, and at that point, we might all as well tell lifegazer he was right after all.

(Search for some of lifegazer's longer threads to see what I mean.)

I'm not personally willing to relinquish sense of self. I'll gladly relinquish the idea of any immortal consciousness, or of any transcendental awareness, or of any continuing essence - but the sense of self, tied to the physical construct of this particular unit of matter (in this case, the brain), which has existed for 29 years to this brain's memory (I can't remember anything earlier than 7, so I have no reason to include that as a part of me)... I'll hang on to that sensation a bit longer.

 

[Rairun]

Let me ask you a simple, plain question - please answer as simply as possible.

If you step into the device, and a moment later, step out into the same room; if you are then told that the machine failed in one respect, and that while, yes, you have appeared on Mars, you are ALSO right here on Earth in the sending room - which life is the person who walked into the machine experiencing?

Either both or none at all. Both if you consider experiences to be continuous for practical purposes. None if you realize that there is no continuity of thought and that the person who walked into the machine belongs to the past, and is no more.

Then you get shot in the head - which life is the person who walked into the machine experiencing?

My answer is the same. Either both or none at all.

 

[Rairun]

Fine - then you don't mind dying, no matter the cause, since self doesn't really exist. Right?

I do mind dying, because that would mean that this complex web of memories and desires (which I call mine for practical reasons; but I should really call it me) would cease to exist. This is not the case when the transporter is used, obviously. It keeps on existing.

Because that's what the Eastern philosophy of 'illusionary sense of self'
is really about - letting go of personal ego, fear of death, and personal desires. It's about regarding yourself as a non-person, with no inherent rights, moral responsibilities, social requirements, etc. If you are willing to embrace 'self' as merely an illusion, then you are willing to relinquish all personal effects, dissolve all personal connections, and become 'one with the universe' - i.e. starve to death on some remote nature location.

That's what I mean by the "moral components" of Eastern philosophy. There are no reasons to let go of our desires just because the sense of a continuous self is a illusion. That's because we don't have desires, we are desires.

I'm not personally willing to relinquish sense of self. I'll gladly relinquish the idea of any immortal consciousness, or of any transcendental awareness, or of any continuing essence - but the sense of self, tied to the physical construct of this particular unit of matter (in this case, the brain), which has existed for 29 years to this brain's memory (I can't remember anything earlier than 7, so I have no reason to include that as a part of me)... I'll hang on to that sensation a bit longer.

You do realize that the transporter wouldn't relinquish your sense of self, right? It would keep on existing. The problem here is that you think you (homunculus) have a sense of self. But you are a sense of self. If the same sense of self is recreated elsewhere, you are that.

 

[Lithrael]

I do mind dying, because that would mean that this complex web of memories and desires (which I call mine for practical reasons; but I should really call it me) would cease to exist. This is not the case when the transporter is used, obviously. It keeps on existing.

This.

I'm a little fuzzy on some of the other things you said, but that bit is the bit I was trying to get at when I got into this discussion.

I can't figure out why I should value the continuity of or fear the death of my first instance, apart from the bits that make adrenalin saying so. And I already know how dumb those bits can be - they're for dealing with lions.

 

[Rairun]

Let me try to correct this misunderstanding for you.

there IS NO homonculus - there is NOTHING that is transferred between A and Aclone that allows brainA to experience the first person POV of AClone. Only brainA has A's first person POV. Nothing changes that.

There - does that make you understand this, yet?

No, because this is a very confusing explanation.

Again, in these circumstances, you have to consider oldA (i.e. A right before the transfer), newA and cloneA. Everything that actually exists is transferred from oldA to both newA and cloneA. There is no essence in oldA that cannot be transferred to cloneA but that magically remains in newA.

Your explanation is confusing because it says two things at the same time: that there is and there is no homunculus. If you deny that, it's hard to continue this discussion. I don't know how I can explain this any more clearly.

 

[rocketdodger]

And this is where you're wrong. It doesn't preserve the notion of a 'single entity' - it provides the vague illusion of one. An illusion is not equal to sameness.

What does that even mean, "an illusion is not equal to sameness?"

It is a mathematical fact that the same computations can be performed on the same information in multiple locations on multiple substrates.

So it seems to me that you are just asserting your view that consciousness is entirely dependent on location and substrate. That is fine, but I don't know why don't just admit it in a straightforward manner.

Show me how this applies to self-aware, self-referential, internally redundant software which is trapped in, and a direct result of, a singular physical construct.

It applies because what you just described above is still a form of computation, and if something is computation then the rules of computation apply by definition.

Show me how these rules of mathematics take into account the utterly unique, continuous yet dynamic, first person point of view. That's the only failing to the theory - if the theory cannot explain how a person's first person point of view awareness is supposed to appear in multiple bodies at once, it fails. You haven't yet denied that, if the transporter fails to operate properly, that the person will be standing right there at point A still trapped in his original form, with only his own ongoing awarenss, same as always, and NOT with any awareness of the newly formed mirror image at point B.

I did show you. But instead of reading, you shoot off your mouth in this epic testosterone laden shouting match with strawmen.

If you had bothered to read, you would have seen where I explicitly said there is no "multiple first person perspective" or any other incoherent nonsense because the instances are only the same person for an instant.

What kind of perspective change do you think could possibly occur in an entity constrained by the laws of physics during a time interval of zero, hmmmm? What kind of processing could occur period, hmmm? None at all.

Or, if you prefer the stasis version, what kind of processing could occur when the process is completely frozen, hmmmm? How could you experience a perspective change when there is zero information flow in your mind?

Nor have you really addressed the issue that a photo, hologram, or TV image isn't the same as the person they are reflections of.

I did. It isn't an issue.

One of you (and forgive me, I forgot who) even went so far as to admit that, if the teletrans failed and they were being approached to be killed, that they would fight back because they did not want to die. That is a blatant admission on their part that they realize the teletrans is inherently absurd.

So explain to me how it's different, just because you're vaporized instantly.

Are you serious? You want to know why being vaporized instantly is different from being approached by an executioner, knowing they are going to try to kill you?

 

[Nick227]

Your video game characters have a first person awareness? I'm amazed.

Can you prove you have first person awareness? To what precisely does the word "I" refer when you use it? Can you explain the reasoning behind the phrase "my body?" To whom does this body belong?

IMO "first person awareness" is an evolutionarily-favoured and socially-necessary convention. It has no ontological foundation.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

One of you (and forgive me, I forgot who) even went so far as to admit that, if the teletrans failed and they were being approached to be killed, that they would fight back because they did not want to die. That is a blatant admission on their part that they realize the teletrans is inherently absurd.

Personally, I would for sure fight back. This would be my immediate instinct. The various bits of street-fighting skills and martial arts I've garnered over the years would most certainly be put into practice! The guard with the blaster would be history, as far as I could make him so. I mean, that the machine or teletransporter company have ****ed up is not my problem.

But this actually proves nothing. My instinctual response to a life-threatening situation I have no problem with. Also I can appreciate that there is no actual continuing self so I don't have a problem with getting into the teletransporter.

I think if I escaped from the guard it would be interesting to meet my double and then see what was best.

Nick

 

[Rairun]

I don't think I'd actually fight back, if I were assured I wouldn't die in a painful way. It's really like being told I'm going to be anesthetized and forget the last five minutes I've lived. It doesn't make much of a difference.

Fighting back could lead to very interesting outcomes, but I don't think I'd risk being violently killed. Violently being the key word here.

 

[Z]

Either both or none at all. Both if you consider experiences to be continuous for practical purposes. None if you realize that there is no continuity of thought and that the person who walked into the machine belongs to the past, and is no more.



My answer is the same. Either both or none at all.

Then your answers are meaningless to me, and I can't see how further discussion on the matter can continue in any logical fashion.

 

[Z]

The hypocrisy is amazing - as long as you were instantly killed, and could be fooled by the illusion that you'd somehow survive via a clone, you're happy to die; but if your death were a little slower, more violent, and the illusion of survival shattered by coexisting in the same time period as the clone, you'd fight back.

And you can't see the blatant, obvious conceptual contradiction here?

Rairun makes no sense to me at all. No offense intended, but a person cannot either be both original and clone simultaneously, or neither.

If you were you before the cloning, why would you suddenly not be you? And clearly, you cannot be you twice - there can be you, and him; but as you are keen to focus on, there is no transfer of any homonculus that allows for the singular first person POV to shift from one biomass to the other.

Nick, your argument seems to rest on a complete absurdity - that the first person POV does not exist at all. Since this is something that we can only assume about each other, it's fair to question that assumption; but the answer leads us in one of three directions:
1) The first person POV does exist, and the world is pretty much as we observe it to be;
2) The first person POV exists, but only for myself; which means everyone else is merely some P-Zombie; or
3) The first person POV does not exist - meaning nobody and nothing exists; it's all illusion, it's all unimportant, and we are but a dream of some immaterial God.

Neither 2 nor 3 make any sense under a deterministic, materialistic universe; the only remaining rational assumption is 1) - that all similar beings possess a unique first person point of view. And by beings here, I refer to the brain. We can change clothes, shed skin, lose fingers, etc, and still be ourselves; but the brain is the very thing which defines us, which gives us the sense of self, which is what we are. We are our brains and their processes. Duplicating a brain does not give an individual two senses of self; it only creates a new twin.

Twins don't share the same first person POV; why do you think you would share one with a clone?

This is the very crux of the argument for me - that the first person POV never changes from one biomass to the next during the 'transfer'. You obviously agree with that point, as you'd fight for your lives if the disintegration had failed; yet you cannot seem to grasp that this clearly and unambiguously means the clone is not you.

The only way I could accept the teletrans is if, upon failing to disintegrate the body, the thing left behind was a non-conscious blank-slate biomass... a body without awareness, without computation - brain-dead, in other words. The problem with that situation, of course, is that such a result assumes an immaterial homunculus has been transferred from A to B, thereby violating materialism.

That's the other issue I perceive - the OP violates materialism by claiming there's a non-physical component to consciousness that can be transferred from one physical mass to another - and there's not, if we assume materialism to be true.

I really think, though, that I've reached a logical impasse with the pro-trans. If this thing ever does come to be, I'll be one of the operators of the machine, though. Imagine the possibilities - people willingly lining up to die, thanks to a convincing illusion.

And with software the way it is now, creating Martian simuloids ought to be a piece of cake.

 

[rocketdodger]

That's the other issue I perceive - the OP violates materialism by claiming there's a non-physical component to consciousness that can be transferred from one physical mass to another - and there's not, if we assume materialism to be true.

Huh?

Since I wrote the OP, I am interested to know how you could arrive at this conclusion.

 

[Rairun]

Z, I don't think that you're a stupid person, so don't think I'm saying you are. But the things you're saying are akin to claiming the sun revolves around the Earth because we see it crossing the sky every day. No one here denies that people normally have a strong sense that experience is continuous. But truth is not always intuitive.

There is no first person PoV other than the brain processes themselves. A first person PoV isn't something those processes have as much as it is something they are; kind of like a circle doesn't have roundness, it is round. A first person PoV isn't a distinct thing caused by matter, it's just a certain kind of configuration of matter. A metal head and a handle put together don't have a hammer, they are a hammer.

 

[Rairun]

Rairun makes no sense to me at all. No offense intended, but a person cannot either be both original and clone simultaneously, or neither.

What does it mean to be "a person"? I understand your confusion, but that's because we are used to thinking of a person as a thing of its own--not as a label, a name for a collectivity of processes that come together and behave in a certain way. It's hard to press this matter any further if you don't recognize that there is no actual personhood, no immaterial essence that binds our experiences to one another as a coherent whole.

If you were you before the cloning, why would you suddenly not be you? And clearly, you cannot be you twice - there can be you, and him; but as you are keen to focus on, there is no transfer of any homonculus that allows for the singular first person POV to shift from one biomass to the other.

What is this singular first person PoV you talk about? Seriously, pay close attention to what you're saying here. You are claiming there is something that cannot be transferred from one biomass to the other. That's what you're saying. This is, by definition, a homunculus. The singular first person PoV as you define is a homunculus, except you don't recognize it as such, and you think that it can't be transferred because there is no homunculus to be transferred under materialism! Basically, all you are saying is that a homunculus does exist, but that it can't be transferred.

 

[PixyMisa]

As much as I've grown to dislike Eastern philosophy over the years due to its moral components, I feel like beating your heads with it. Seriously, dudes, the sense of self is an illusion.

Of course it is.

That doesn't mean it isn't real.

 

[Nick227]

The hypocrisy is amazing - as long as you were instantly killed, and could be fooled by the illusion that you'd somehow survive via a clone, you're happy to die; but if your death were a little slower, more violent, and the illusion of survival shattered by coexisting in the same time period as the clone, you'd fight back.

And you can't see the blatant, obvious conceptual contradiction here?

I think you still don't get the point.....there is anyway no persisting self. It is an illusion. For me personally, this seems increasingly clear. The self that starts this sentence is not the same self that completes it, but the continuity of the processing and the presence of short-term memory makes it appear that there is some persisting entity that is the subject of experience. But it is an illusion, if you ask me.

Now, getting into the pod and dying whilst a clone is born somewhere in the distance is OK for me. This is because, even if I took a plane, the self that started the journey would not be the same self that came out at the end anyway. So, I reason, why not just cut out all the intermediary selves and do the whole thing quicker?

But, if it's me versus the guard because the machine malfunctioned then I'm going to react and no amount of Buddhists chanting "I am nothing" is gonna make any difference. I will fight to protect myself, regardless of whether the self is real because that is a position I choose to take as a statement of my individuality.

Don't know if it gets clearer!

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

First of all, I don't see how it matters that they are composed of the same atoms (mostly). I'm sure it has been pointed out that no one would complain if their atoms were replaced one by one.

Which is not what happened.

And yes, person A and person A five minutes ago share pretty much the same memories and experiences, and are influenced to make similar decisions. I agree with that. So do person A and clone A, yet the anti-transporter crowd still claim they are different people because they occupy different spaces in the universe.

And so they do.

Guess what, so do person A and person A five minutes ago.

But there is a continuity of process in one instance and not the other.

You fail to see my point. I'm saying that if you consider person A and clone A to be different people, just like person A and person B are, then you have to consider person A and person A five minutes ago to be different too.

Isaac Asimov, The Relativity of Wrong. I think it's available online.

 

[PixyMisa]

I think you still don't get the point.....there is anyway no persisting self.

Yes there is.

It is an illusion.

That's true. But that is an illusion doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, it simply means that it's not what it seems to be.

For me personally, this seems increasingly clear. The self that starts this sentence is not the same self that completes it, but the continuity of the processing and the presence of short-term memory makes it appear that there is some persisting entity that is the subject of experience.

That's exactly what the persisting self is. What else could it be?

But it is an illusion, if you ask me.

Yes. But an illusion is a deceptive image of something real.

Now, getting into the pod and dying whilst a clone is born somewhere in the distance is OK for me. This is because, even if I took a plane, the self that started the journey would not be the same self that came out at the end anyway. So, I reason, why not just cut out all the intermediary selves and do the whole thing quicker?

Good question.

My answer is that I balk at the discontinuity. That's ingrained, more than it's based on rational considerations of the technology and its consequences. Discontinuities of self are scary, because you never know if you're going to come back.

 

[Nick227]

Nick, your argument seems to rest on a complete absurdity - that the first person POV does not exist at all.

You got to be careful with the words here. I said that the first person POV has no underlying ontological reality, or words to that effect. This is not quite the same as saying it does not exist. It exists in that it appears to exist and to me it has value. I'm not a Buddhist. I'm a Western egoist. This does not mean that I believe the ego, the "I", has any substantive existence. I believe it does not. But I like the ego and I respect the sensations of pleasure experienced from it.

Since this is something that we can only assume about each other, it's fair to question that assumption; but the answer leads us in one of three directions:
1) The first person POV does exist, and the world is pretty much as we observe it to be;
2) The first person POV exists, but only for myself; which means everyone else is merely some P-Zombie; or
3) The first person POV does not exist - meaning nobody and nothing exists; it's all illusion, it's all unimportant, and we are but a dream of some immaterial God.

Neither 2 nor 3 make any sense under a deterministic, materialistic universe; the only remaining rational assumption is 1)

(1) fails too. Determinism means there's no self, in the sense of a self which takes decisions independent of pre-conditions.

that all similar beings possess a unique first person point of view. And by beings here, I refer to the brain. We can change clothes, shed skin, lose fingers, etc, and still be ourselves; but the brain is the very thing which defines us, which gives us the sense of self, which is what we are. We are our brains and their processes. Duplicating a brain does not give an individual two senses of self; it only creates a new twin.

But, as I keep saying to you, how do you know this sense of self has any materialistic reality. This is what it keeps coming back to here for me. You say that because the self is real there can't be two of them. I'm saying how do you know this self is real?

Twins don't share the same first person POV; why do you think you would share one with a clone?

This is the very crux of the argument for me - that the first person POV never changes from one biomass to the next during the 'transfer'. You obviously agree with that point, as you'd fight for your lives if the disintegration had failed; yet you cannot seem to grasp that this clearly and unambiguously means the clone is not you.

So where then is this seat of conscious experience that you appear to allude to? Scientists have been seeking it since before Descartes and haven't got very far. It's the same again. You seem to me to take it as read that it exists, yet no one can find it. Materialism denies its existence too.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Yes there is.


That's true. But that is an illusion doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, it simply means that it's not what it seems to be.


That's exactly what the persisting self is. What else could it be?

If you agree that this seemingly persisting self is but continuity of processing and short-term memory then, as I see it, you shouldn't object to the Teletransporter as these things will be replicated.

My answer is that I balk at the discontinuity. That's ingrained, more than it's based on rational considerations of the technology and its consequences. Discontinuities of self are scary, because you never know if you're going to come back.

Yes, you would have to let go of control and we're conditioned not to do this. I am the same. There are instinctual responses that are hard to overcome rationally, I agree.

Nick