Resolution of Transporter Problem

[Malerin]

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

I'm surprised you don't catch a lot more grief for this. It's one thing to claim that matter doesn't exist- it's a whole different ballgame to claim you don't exist. You are much more of a radical skepticist than I.

 

[PixyMisa]

Not on a quantum scale.

Do you think that somehow bubbles up to larger scales?

Definitely does in some instances. More often, quantum effects aren't significant on a larger scale.

I always figured that everything was deterministic on macro scales, including our behavior/choices/ect.

Strictly speaking, nothing is deterministic; practically speaking, most things are pretty close. I don't think quantum effects are significant in brain function, but it's not a settled question.

 

[PixyMisa]

Does consciousness really happen in the brain, do you think?

Yes.

 

[PixyMisa]

I suppose it is, but only in the sense that my computer has a self to me (i.e. I identify it as being persistent) but is not self-aware.

If your computer was built in the past, hmm, fifteen years, or runs a multi-user operating system, it almost certainly is self-aware. (In the sense of self-referential thought processes.)

This is kind of tricky. I think it's an illusion, but I define "illusion" as an impression of something false. That is, the illusion has real existence, it's a thought process, but it depicts something that doesn't exist. The falsehood is the idea that there is some sort of intrinsic connection between our past thoughts and our present thoughts, as if they were experienced by the same metaphysical Self (whose existence I reject).

There's no metaphysical Self, sure. But there's certainly a physical self.

Actually, I should be more rigorous with my definitions. I don't think the sense of self is necessarily an illusion. It is only an illusion when a metaphysical self is assumed to exist.

Yes, exactly.

When it's just about different thoughts admittedly playing self-referential games, it's not really an illusion at all.

...ish. I'd say self is still an illusion, because it doesn't look like a self-referential information processing system. But maybe it does look like that, in which case, yeah, it's not an illusion.

I suppose this does lead to a more flexible sense of self, but it still works in all pragmatical situations we might find ourselves in.

Yep.

That's cool. It has happened to me a couple of times, but not very often at all.

Yeah, it's kind of neat. What's going on? How did... Oh, right, I'm dreaming.

This is also true.

I came here for an argument!

Oh well. Honest question: are you afraid of anesthesia?

Yep.

Mind you, I've never had general anaesthesia. Maybe if I had, it would bother me less.

I know I am a little, but that's because I'm afraid that I will die, not because I will cease to exist for a couple of hours.

Yes, I'd say the former does worry me more than the latter.

 

[PixyMisa]

I have a few issues with this. I think the environment is the real long-term memory for visual perception and so for me it's hard to say where consciousness is really taking place. Generally, I doubt that the notion of a "stream of consciousness" is valid. I suspect that it's more "spread out" than this though clearly highly associated with brain activity.

It's not hard at all.

If you're looking at a tree, the tree is not thinking. Your brain is thinking. Consciousness is an informational process, and it happens in the brain. Trees need not apply.

 

[PixyMisa]

Pixy, what is your opinion of the argument in the OP?

Unfortunately this thread has kind of derailed into an argument whether there is a continuous self to begin with, and my OP has nothing to do with that.

My OP is about whether there is a discontinuity of information when information is transferred from one substrate to another. I say no, there isn't a discontinuity, because if there was then the information must be lost instead of transferred, and we know it isn't lost by definition -- we are told it is transferred.

What say you?

The problem I run into is precisely the continuity problem. In the OP, you say:

This implies that, in the transporter experiment, it is impossible to discontinue C because D2 is purely information.

D2 is purely information, but information is physical, and you have a physical discontinuity. Whether that matters is an open question, but that it exists is not.

 

[rocketdodger]

D2 is purely information, but information is physical, and you have a physical discontinuity.

I disagree. Where is the discontinuity? Simply changing the substrate of the information doesn't imply a discontinuity.

How can there be a discontinuity in information if the information never disappears, or even jumps? I mean as far as I can tell all known forms of information transfer would satisfy the mathematical definitions of a "continuous" function because at the lowest level they all involve direct interactions between physical contsructs, whether they be particles or forces or a combination thereof.

 

[Nick227]

Yep. I'm wherever the original body was moved to. I would not wake up and experience the bed on which the copy is located.

Nick, here's a series of situations for you to consider:

OK

a) Man walks up with a gun and intends to shoot you in the head, no explanation offered. Do you defend yourself?

Yes.

b) Man walks up with a gun and intends to shoot you in the head. He explains you have a perfect duplicate nearby, and only one of you can be legally allowed to exist at a time. Do you defend yourself?

Yes, like I'm just going to believe him. I mean, it's hardly the sort of thing that happens every day.

c) Man walks up with an instantaneous disintegrator ray, and intends to vaporize you, no explanation offered. Do you defend yourself?

Yes.

d) Man walks up with an instantaneous disintegrator ray, and intends to vaporize you. He explains you have a perfect duplicate nearby, and only one of you can be legally allowed to exist at a time. Do you defend yourself?

Yes.

e) You walk into a booth marked 'transporter'. In front of you is a red button marked 'Start'. Around you are serrated blades, blender-style, that are clearly set to start grinding the moment you push the button. Death is likely to be rather messy and painful. Do you push the button?

No.

f) You walk into a booth marked 'transporter'. Around you are several ballistic weapon muzzles, tracking your head and heart. In front of you is a red button marked 'Start', which is clearly going to cause the weapons to fire at you. Do you push the button?

No.

g) You walk into a booth marked 'transporter'. Half of a pamphlet is in front of you, on a shelf next to the 'Start' button, which details how advanced laser scanning apparati will dissect you, atom by atom, over the course of 0.03 seconds, totally vaporising your body. Do you push the button?

No

h) You walk into a booth marked 'transporter'. There is a pamphlet in front of you, on a shelf next to the 'Start' button, which details how advanced laser scanning apparati will dissect you, atom by atom, over the course of 0.03 seconds, totally vaporising your body; while on Mars a similar apparatus assembles a perfect duplicate of you atom by atom from stock matter, creating a perfect duplicate and programming that duplicate with all your consciousness. Do you push the button?

No.

In each case, I would answer either to defend myself, or not to push the button, because in either case, I'm about to wind up dead if I don't defend myself/do push the button. To me, each and every one of these examples is equivalent. Yet you've already said that you would defend your life in A, but push the button in H. What I'm wondering is, at what points do you value your life over this illusion of transport, and at what points the illusion overcomes your survival instinct.

I'd need a bit more than a pamphlet. How about at least a decade of successful transmissions and no recorded probs. Note that in Blackmore's version of the thought experiment it's stated that the machinery cannot fail and this cannot be an issue. In reality I would need more than a pamphlet.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

post accidentally duplicated

 

[Nick227]

...????

WHOA WHOA WHOA...

You're saying that consciousness is not entirely a result of brain processes? Um... Nick, bro, that's completely against materialism, there, buddy. Environment doesn't have jack squat to do with memory, short or long term. It's all, every single bit, in the brain.

I don't buy that there's a movie running in the head, or a stream of consciousness. I prefer Susan Blackmore and Kev O'Regan - the Sensorimotor Theory of Vision. Check it out. You can't say clearly where consciousness is located. You can only cut and see what happens and make pronouncements.

How do you separate consciousness from that which appears in consciousness?

Nick

 

[Nick227]

And that's the end of the story. Sorry, just because a convincing simulation of me lives on, doesn't mean I'm happy to die.

Now, if I knew death were inevitable - for example, if I was succumbing to old age, and was certain the end was near, yes. I'd gladly have my brain activity patterns and structure transferred to some other body or computer medium. Not for personal survival, but to make sure that my thought patterns could continue to contribute to future knowledge. Like writing the ultimate book, that could still learn and adjust its ideas as times changed.

But I'd still be just as dead.

You are still entrapped by instincts, Z. The phrase "my brain activity and patterns" has no ontological foundation. There is a body. It is processing. Big deal. It does not definitively belong to anyone. Your "my" is just Dennett's "benign user illusion" - a notional owner of the body, a notional subject of experience. These things are only notionally real. And, as such, they will all be replicated. Because there is no actual "I," only a notional "I", it can be identically reproduced.

Get rational, dude.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I'm surprised you don't catch a lot more grief for this. It's one thing to claim that matter doesn't exist- it's a whole different ballgame to claim you don't exist. You are much more of a radical skepticist than I.

Self is a process, Malerin. If you replicate the physical substrate from which self notionally emerges then self itself is identically replicated.

The thing is...it doesn't seem like this. It seems that self is real and physical and there is only one and it can't just be whizzed across to the other side of the universe. This is because of our evolutionary heritage. We are programmed to believe in a persisting self even though nature is helpless to ever create such a thing.

The teletransporter thought experiment challenges the instinctual response to death by offering a rational alternative. You choose....instinct or rational...

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I'm surprised you don't catch a lot more grief for this. It's one thing to claim that matter doesn't exist- it's a whole different ballgame to claim you don't exist. You are much more of a radical skepticist than I.

Self is a process, Malerin. If you replicate the physical substrate from which self notionally emerges then self itself is identically replicated.

The thing is...it doesn't seem like this. It seems that self is real and physical and there is only one and it can't just be whizzed across to the other side of the universe. This is because of our evolutionary heritage. We are programmed to believe in a persisting self even though nature is helpless to ever create such a thing.

The teletransporter thought experiment challenges the instinctual response to death by offering a rational alternative. You choose....instinct or rational...

Nick

 

[Nick227]

It's not hard at all.

If you're looking at a tree, the tree is not thinking. Your brain is thinking. Consciousness is an informational process, and it happens in the brain. Trees need not apply.

Thinking is an aspect of consciousness, for sure. But I haven't heard anyone claim that it's a defining aspect. There is a lot more to consciousness than just thinking. So, I don't see how the above is particularly relevant.

We don't know so much about consciousness in reality. It is clearly associated with brain processing and some specific areas of the brain are associated with some specific aspects of consciousness. But that's about it.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I'm surprised you don't catch a lot more grief for this. It's one thing to claim that matter doesn't exist- it's a whole different ballgame to claim you don't exist. You are much more of a radical skepticist than I.

Self is a process, Malerin. If you replicate the physical substrate from which self notionally emerges then self itself is identically replicated.

The thing is...it doesn't seem like this. It seems that self is real and physical and there is only one and it can't just be whizzed across to the other side of the universe. This is because of our evolutionary heritage. We are programmed to believe in a persisting self even though nature is helpless to ever create such a thing.

The teletransporter thought experiment challenges the instinctual response to death by offering a rational alternative. You choose....instinct or rational...

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

I disagree. Where is the discontinuity? Simply changing the substrate of the information doesn't imply a discontinuity.

Yes, it does.

How can there be a discontinuity in information if the information never disappears, or even jumps?

There's a physical dicontinuity. Whether that matters is one question. But you can't dispute that it happens, because you've specified that it happens.

 

[PixyMisa]

Thinking is an aspect of consciousness, for sure. But I haven't heard anyone claim that it's a defining aspect.

Then you haven't been listening.

There is a lot more to consciousness than just thinking.

Name one aspect of consciousness, just one, that isn't thinking.

We don't know so much about consciousness in reality.

Yeah, we do. We know a lot. That lecture series I've mentioned a couple of hundred times goes into it in some depth.

It is clearly associated with brain processing and some specific areas of the brain are associated with some specific aspects of consciousness. But that's about it.

No, that's not "about it".

 

[rocketdodger]

There's a physical dicontinuity. Whether that matters is one question. But you can't dispute that it happens, because you've specified that it happens.

No, there isn't, and I never specified such a thing. How could I, being a materialist?

All information transfer relies on direct, continuous interactions between something physical. At a fundamental level there is no such thing as discontinuity.

If you don't agree, can you provide a counterexample?

 

[gentlehorse]

I have a few issues with this. I think the environment is the real long-term memory for visual perception and so for me it's hard to say where consciousness is really taking place. Generally, I doubt that the notion of a "stream of consciousness" is valid. I suspect that it's more "spread out" than this though clearly highly associated with brain activity.

Nick

Brain-independent long-term memory and "spread out" consciousness-- Hmm...

By "more spread out", are you suggesting that consciousness permeates the universe and that emergent properties that fall prey to an illusory sense of "I" are but fleeting points of perspective in an uberconsciousness? Or am I way out there in left field again? If I'm not, can you provide any reason for someone to consider that this might be the case?

 

[Nick227]

Then you haven't been listening.


Name one aspect of consciousness, just one, that isn't thinking.

Seeing. Hearing. Smelling. Tasting. Touching. Emoting.

You want more?

Yeah, we do. We know a lot. That lecture series I've mentioned a couple of hundred times goes into it in some depth.

I have actually downloaded it and made a start though I've been away for a month so I've not got far yet. I will pursue it for sure though I am skeptical that it will fulfil the claims you make for it. I'm expecting that it will show how certain areas of the brain relate to aspects of conscious experience. I'm also expecting that it won't deal with the "hard problem" or with selfhood, though for sure I could be wrong. This is just my expectation and I look forward to being pleasantly surprised.

Nick