It does if the the underlying issue is not actually an issue unless you choose certain, in my opinion inadequate, definitions of the key terms. I can’t force you not to do that. I can point out that it has implications for things like going to sleep that you probably wouldn’t like, I can try my best to help resolve the confusions that I believe have generated those definitions in the first place and I can try to flesh out, with tools like analogy, what I consider to be a more useful way of thinking about identity. Unfortunately, all of these things could potentially open me up to the charge of changing definitions but if that’s the case I can only plead guilty because that’s the appropriate response in situations where the debate happens to turn on the definitions of the relevant terms.
Error wrote that, in the case of non-destructive copying, he doesn’t consider the upload to be a legitimate continuation of the copied entity but he does consider the flesh-and-blood, ‘meat’ version still walking around to be exactly that. I guess the intuition here is that this case effectively settles the question of identity because you would have a flesh-and-blood human who would have first-hand knowledge that it was the real one (“How can he be me? I’m here!”)
I totally get that intuition. I can see how to most people it would be just obvious that the Machine-Version of Error is not the Meat-Version of Error. It’s because it’s not!
The problem is that neither of those entities are the thing that was copied. What was copied was Error as he was at a particular moment. The Meat-Version isn’t that. The Meat-Version is not made of the same particles, nor does he have the same mental states. The Meat Version is a legitimate continuation of the old Meat Version but so is the Machine Version.
I remember having my photograph taken at the seaside when I was a child. When I look at the child in that photograph now I regard myself as the same person. I know we’re not made of the same particles, I know that I have memories of events that he hasn’t experienced yet, knowledge that he doesn’t have, a completely different personality...On my definition of identity, however, I get to call him ‘me.’ I can consistently point at this photograph and say, ‘that was me, when I was a child.’
What I want to know is, how can someone who rejects this view of identity point at a picture of himself as a child and say the same thing without opening the door for a future upload to look at a photograph of him right now (i.e. before the upload) and say, ‘that was me, when I was made of meat’?
Just because the machine version remembers what the meat version did, doesn’t mean the conscious meat version didn’t die in the uploading process. Nothing you have said negates the death + birth interpretation. Your definitions are still missing the point.
Sure, something particular happens to the meat version. But (it is asserted) that thing happens to you all the time anyway and nobody cares. So the objection is to you wasting the nice short code “death” on such an unimportant process. This is a way in which words can be wrong.
Strawman assertion. Even while unconscious / asleep / anesthetized there is still a jumbled assortment of interdependent interactions going on in my brain. Those don’t get broken apart and dematerialized “all the time” the way they do when being destructively uploaded.
Yes, uploading brains is going to be incredibly difficult and possibly impossible; and if any kind of upload process is sufficiently noisy or imperfect, that that surely could result in something better described as a death-and-creation than a continuation. For the purpose of the argument, I thought we were assuming a solved, accurate upload process.
When you introduce something which is irrelevant and misses the point, and then use that to dismiss an argument, yes that is a strawman.
Back to the original issue, the “upload” scenario is usually expressed in the form: (1) somehow scan the brain to sufficient resolution, and (2) create a computer simulation using that data. Even if the scan and simulation were absolutely prefect, better than quantum physics actually allows, it still would be death-and-creation under the OP’s framework.
I can’t tell from your post if you are including “slowly transition brain into electronic medium” under the category of “uploading”, but that is usually grouped under intelligence augmentation, and I don’t know any material reductionalist who thinks that would be a death-and-creation.
Changing the definition doesn’t resolve the underling issue...
It does if the the underlying issue is not actually an issue unless you choose certain, in my opinion inadequate, definitions of the key terms. I can’t force you not to do that. I can point out that it has implications for things like going to sleep that you probably wouldn’t like, I can try my best to help resolve the confusions that I believe have generated those definitions in the first place and I can try to flesh out, with tools like analogy, what I consider to be a more useful way of thinking about identity. Unfortunately, all of these things could potentially open me up to the charge of changing definitions but if that’s the case I can only plead guilty because that’s the appropriate response in situations where the debate happens to turn on the definitions of the relevant terms.
Error wrote that, in the case of non-destructive copying, he doesn’t consider the upload to be a legitimate continuation of the copied entity but he does consider the flesh-and-blood, ‘meat’ version still walking around to be exactly that. I guess the intuition here is that this case effectively settles the question of identity because you would have a flesh-and-blood human who would have first-hand knowledge that it was the real one (“How can he be me? I’m here!”)
I totally get that intuition. I can see how to most people it would be just obvious that the Machine-Version of Error is not the Meat-Version of Error. It’s because it’s not!
The problem is that neither of those entities are the thing that was copied. What was copied was Error as he was at a particular moment. The Meat-Version isn’t that. The Meat-Version is not made of the same particles, nor does he have the same mental states. The Meat Version is a legitimate continuation of the old Meat Version but so is the Machine Version.
I remember having my photograph taken at the seaside when I was a child. When I look at the child in that photograph now I regard myself as the same person. I know we’re not made of the same particles, I know that I have memories of events that he hasn’t experienced yet, knowledge that he doesn’t have, a completely different personality...On my definition of identity, however, I get to call him ‘me.’ I can consistently point at this photograph and say, ‘that was me, when I was a child.’
What I want to know is, how can someone who rejects this view of identity point at a picture of himself as a child and say the same thing without opening the door for a future upload to look at a photograph of him right now (i.e. before the upload) and say, ‘that was me, when I was made of meat’?
Just because the machine version remembers what the meat version did, doesn’t mean the conscious meat version didn’t die in the uploading process. Nothing you have said negates the death + birth interpretation. Your definitions are still missing the point.
Sure, something particular happens to the meat version. But (it is asserted) that thing happens to you all the time anyway and nobody cares. So the objection is to you wasting the nice short code “death” on such an unimportant process. This is a way in which words can be wrong.
Strawman assertion. Even while unconscious / asleep / anesthetized there is still a jumbled assortment of interdependent interactions going on in my brain. Those don’t get broken apart and dematerialized “all the time” the way they do when being destructively uploaded.
That’s not what strawman means. If you think what I’ve said is irrelevant or misses your point, say that.
As I said to Error, above, I’m referring to this.
Yes, uploading brains is going to be incredibly difficult and possibly impossible; and if any kind of upload process is sufficiently noisy or imperfect, that that surely could result in something better described as a death-and-creation than a continuation. For the purpose of the argument, I thought we were assuming a solved, accurate upload process.
When you introduce something which is irrelevant and misses the point, and then use that to dismiss an argument, yes that is a strawman.
Back to the original issue, the “upload” scenario is usually expressed in the form: (1) somehow scan the brain to sufficient resolution, and (2) create a computer simulation using that data. Even if the scan and simulation were absolutely prefect, better than quantum physics actually allows, it still would be death-and-creation under the OP’s framework.
I can’t tell from your post if you are including “slowly transition brain into electronic medium” under the category of “uploading”, but that is usually grouped under intelligence augmentation, and I don’t know any material reductionalist who thinks that would be a death-and-creation.