I assume by “physical brain” here you mean one made of protoplasm. What does contemplating the possibility that you aren’t running on such a brain now do to your confidence?
If I knew that I am currently running on a silicon chip (Gunm-style), then I would be highly confident that replacing that chip by another, identical one, preserves my identity, because it’s the same configuration. Moreover, replacing my old chip by a newer one, before the physical deterioration significantly affects the actual software processing, probably would work as well.
But if we’re talking about running my software on a different chip through, say, a virtual machine that emulate my original chip, then I would be less confident that it would still be me. As confident as I am that, an EM of my current wetware would still be me. Which is, currently, not confident enough to make the leap.
Ah, and if I do learn that I run on a chip, I won’t turn crazy. I may be worried if I knew my wetware self were still running around, and I may not tell my mother, but besides that I don’t really care. If I knew that my wetware self was “dead”, then I would wonder if I should feel sorry for him, or if I’m actually him. Because I value my life, I know that my wetware self did too. But I’d probably get over it with the knowledge that the rest of the world (including my family) didn’t lose anything, (or at least they wouldn’t suspect a thing).
Presumably the reason you have such confidence about the interchangeability of identical chips is because your experience encompasses lots of examples of such chips behaving interchangeably to support a given application. More generally, you’ve learned the lesson through experience that while two instances of the same product coming off similar assembly lines may not be 100% identical, they are reliably close enough along the dimensions we care about to be interchangeable.
And, lacking such experience about hardware/wetware interchangeability, you are properly less certain about the corresponding conclusion.
Presumably, if that sort of experience became commonplace, your confidence would increase.
As I often say; you are not your meat. You are the unique pattern of information-flow that occurs within your meat. The meat is not necessary to the information, but the information does require a substrate.
Consider the following set of statements: 1) “I am my meat.” 2) “I am the unique pattern of information-flow that occurs within my meat.” 3) “I am the class of patterns of information-flow that can occur within meat, of which this unique pattern is one example.” 4) “I am the class of patterns of information-flow that can occur within any substrate, of which this unique pattern is one example.” 5) “I am all the matter and energy in the universe.”
What sorts of experiences would constitute evidence for one of them over the others?
The class of patterns of information-flow that can occur within meat includes the pattern of information-flow that occurs within your meat. 3 therefore asserts that I am you, in addition to being me. 2 does not assert this. They seem like different claims to me, insofar as any of these claims are different from the others.
I’m not really sure what non-local phenomena are, or what they have to do with psychic powers, or what they have to do with the proper referent for “I”.
Good point. This is precisely the source of my doubt, and the reason why I’m not sure that changing substrate preserves identity.
The thing is, quantum mechanics makes me confident that if I go from configuration X to configuration Y, through a path that preserves identity, then any path from X to Y preserves my identity. But I am less confident about intermediate states (like the temporary emulation in the simulated green room).
I’m not sure that’s a meaningful question. I undoubtedly change from year to year, so… But there is some kind of continuity, which I’m afraid could be broken by a change of substrate. (But then again, we could change my substrate bit by bit…
If it weren’t, I would not care, because it wouldn’t break anything I value. If preservation of identity doesn’t even happen currently in our mundane world, I would be stupid to value it. And I’ll happily upload, then (modulo the mundane risk of being badly emulated of course).
But first, I must be convinced that either identity wasn’t preserved in the first place, or that uploading preserves identity, or that I was just confused because the world actually works like… who knows.
A change of substrate occurs daily for you. It’s just of a similar class. What beyond simple “yuck factor” gives you cause to believe that a transition from cells to silicon would impact your identity? That it would look different?
No, it doesn’t. You could argue that there’s a renewal of atoms (most notably water), but swapping water atoms doesn’t have physical meaning, so… No. Heck, even cut&paste transportation doesn’t change substrate.
The “yuck factor” I feel cause me to doubt this: If an EM of me would be created during my sleep, what probability would I assign to wake up as silicon, or as wetware? I’m totally not sure I can say 1⁄2.
Actually it’s more complicated than that. Not just water atoms; over time your genetic pattern changes—the composition of cancerous to non-cancerous cells; the composition of senescent to non-senescent cells; the physical structures of the brain itself change.
Neurogenesis does occur in adults—so not even on a cellular level is your brain the same today as it was yesterday.
Furthermore—what makes you confident you are not already in a Matrix? I have no such belief, myself. Too implausible to believe we are in the parent of all universes given physics simulations work.
Yes, they do. And that’s the end of this dialogue.
(EDIT: By end of this dialogue I meant that he and I were at an impasse and unable to adjust our underlying assumptions to a coherent agreement in this discussion. They are too fundamentally divergent for “Aumanning.”)
I assume by “physical brain” here you mean one made of protoplasm.
What does contemplating the possibility that you aren’t running on such a brain now do to your confidence?
Yes, I meant protoplasm.
If I knew that I am currently running on a silicon chip (Gunm-style), then I would be highly confident that replacing that chip by another, identical one, preserves my identity, because it’s the same configuration. Moreover, replacing my old chip by a newer one, before the physical deterioration significantly affects the actual software processing, probably would work as well.
But if we’re talking about running my software on a different chip through, say, a virtual machine that emulate my original chip, then I would be less confident that it would still be me. As confident as I am that, an EM of my current wetware would still be me. Which is, currently, not confident enough to make the leap.
Ah, and if I do learn that I run on a chip, I won’t turn crazy. I may be worried if I knew my wetware self were still running around, and I may not tell my mother, but besides that I don’t really care. If I knew that my wetware self was “dead”, then I would wonder if I should feel sorry for him, or if I’m actually him. Because I value my life, I know that my wetware self did too. But I’d probably get over it with the knowledge that the rest of the world (including my family) didn’t lose anything, (or at least they wouldn’t suspect a thing).
I’m confident an EM would not be a PZombie.
(nods) Makes sense.
Presumably the reason you have such confidence about the interchangeability of identical chips is because your experience encompasses lots of examples of such chips behaving interchangeably to support a given application. More generally, you’ve learned the lesson through experience that while two instances of the same product coming off similar assembly lines may not be 100% identical, they are reliably close enough along the dimensions we care about to be interchangeable.
And, lacking such experience about hardware/wetware interchangeability, you are properly less certain about the corresponding conclusion.
Presumably, if that sort of experience became commonplace, your confidence would increase.
As I often say; you are not your meat. You are the unique pattern of information-flow that occurs within your meat. The meat is not necessary to the information, but the information does require a substrate.
Consider the following set of statements:
1) “I am my meat.”
2) “I am the unique pattern of information-flow that occurs within my meat.”
3) “I am the class of patterns of information-flow that can occur within meat, of which this unique pattern is one example.”
4) “I am the class of patterns of information-flow that can occur within any substrate, of which this unique pattern is one example.”
5) “I am all the matter and energy in the universe.”
What sorts of experiences would constitute evidence for one of them over the others?
1 v 2 -- is your “meat” persistent over time? (It is not).
2 v 3 are non differentiable -- 2 is 3.
4 is implied by 2⁄3. It is affirmed by physics simulations that have atomic-level precision, and by research like the Blue Brain project.
5 is excluded by the absence of non-local phenomena (‘psychic powers’).
I agree that my meat does not persist over time.
The class of patterns of information-flow that can occur within meat includes the pattern of information-flow that occurs within your meat. 3 therefore asserts that I am you, in addition to being me. 2 does not assert this. They seem like different claims to me, insofar as any of these claims are different from the others.
I’m not really sure what non-local phenomena are, or what they have to do with psychic powers, or what they have to do with the proper referent for “I”.
Missed that about the class. Makes a difference, definitely.
Two options: trust the assertions of those who are sure, or learn of them for yourself. :)
Good point. This is precisely the source of my doubt, and the reason why I’m not sure that changing substrate preserves identity.
The thing is, quantum mechanics makes me confident that if I go from configuration X to configuration Y, through a path that preserves identity, then any path from X to Y preserves my identity. But I am less confident about intermediate states (like the temporary emulation in the simulated green room).
Given your understanding of quantum mechanics, is your identity in this sense preserved from year to year today?
If it weren’t, would you care?
I’m not sure that’s a meaningful question. I undoubtedly change from year to year, so… But there is some kind of continuity, which I’m afraid could be broken by a change of substrate. (But then again, we could change my substrate bit by bit…
If it weren’t, I would not care, because it wouldn’t break anything I value. If preservation of identity doesn’t even happen currently in our mundane world, I would be stupid to value it. And I’ll happily upload, then (modulo the mundane risk of being badly emulated of course).
But first, I must be convinced that either identity wasn’t preserved in the first place, or that uploading preserves identity, or that I was just confused because the world actually works like… who knows.
A change of substrate occurs daily for you. It’s just of a similar class. What beyond simple “yuck factor” gives you cause to believe that a transition from cells to silicon would impact your identity? That it would look different?
No, it doesn’t. You could argue that there’s a renewal of atoms (most notably water), but swapping water atoms doesn’t have physical meaning, so… No. Heck, even cut&paste transportation doesn’t change substrate.
The “yuck factor” I feel cause me to doubt this: If an EM of me would be created during my sleep, what probability would I assign to wake up as silicon, or as wetware? I’m totally not sure I can say 1⁄2.
Actually it’s more complicated than that. Not just water atoms; over time your genetic pattern changes—the composition of cancerous to non-cancerous cells; the composition of senescent to non-senescent cells; the physical structures of the brain itself change.
Neurogenesis does occur in adults—so not even on a cellular level is your brain the same today as it was yesterday.
Furthermore—what makes you confident you are not already in a Matrix? I have no such belief, myself. Too implausible to believe we are in the parent of all universes given physics simulations work.
Note that neither of these developments are generally considered good.
Indeed. But they do demonstrate the principle in question.
The principal you’re trying to demonstrate is that one shouldn’t fear changing one’s substrate since it’s already happening. So, no they don’t.
Yes, they do. And that’s the end of this dialogue.
(EDIT: By end of this dialogue I meant that he and I were at an impasse and unable to adjust our underlying assumptions to a coherent agreement in this discussion. They are too fundamentally divergent for “Aumanning.”)
It would just be an argument over the definition of “I”. Here, tabooing “I” is probably a useful exercise.
OK… what would you replace “I” with, then?