I’ll call the original Epiphany and the copy I’ll call Valorie.
So your definition of self stops at the physical body? Presumably mostly your brain? Would a partial brain prosthesis (say, to save someone’s life after a head trauma) mimicking the function of the removed part make the recipient less of herself? Does it apply to the spinal cord? How about some of the limbic system? Maybe everything but the neocortex can be replaced without affecting “self”? Where do you put the boundary and why?
So your definition of self stops at the physical body?
No. As I mentioned, “This (referring to Death of Body) is important if your brain isn’t somewhere else when it happens but may not be important otherwise.”
If you get into a good replacement body before the one you’re in dies, you’re fine.
Presumably mostly your brain?
If you want to live, a continuation of your experience is required. Not the creation of a new instance of the experience. But the continuation of my (this copy’s) experience. That experience is happening in this brain, and if this brain goes away, this instance of the experience goes away, too. If there is a way to transfer this experience into something else (like by transforming it slowly, as Saturn and I got into) then Epiphany1′s experience would be continued.
Would a partial brain prosthesis (say, to save someone’s life after a head trauma) mimicking the function of the removed part make the recipient less of herself?
If Epiphany1′s experience continues and my “self” is not significantly changed, no. That is not really a new instance. That’s more like Epiphany1.2.
Does it apply to the spinal cord? How about some of the limbic system?
Not sure why these are relevant. Ok limbic system is sort of relevant. I’d still be me with a new spinal cord or limbic system, at least according to my understanding of them. Why do you ask? Maybe there’s some complexity here I missed?
Maybe everything but the neocortex can be replaced without affecting “self”?
Hmmm. If my whole brain were replaced all at once, I’d definitely stop experiencing. If it were replaced one thing at a time, I may have a continuation of experience on Epiphany1, and my pattern may be preserved (there would be a transformation of the hardware that the pattern is in, but I expect my “self” to transform anyway, that pattern is not static).
I am not my hardware, but I am not my software either. I think we are both.
If my hardware were transformed over time such that my continuation of experience was not interrupted, then even if I were completely replaced with a different set of particles (or enhanced neurons or something) that as long as my “self pattern” wasn’t damaged, I would not die.
I can’t think of a way in which I could qualify that as “death”. Losing my brain might be a cause of death, but just because something can cause something else doesn’t mean it does in every instance. Heat applied to glass causes it to become brittle or melt and change form, destroying it. But we also apply heat to iron to get steel.
I’m trying to think of a metaphor that works for similar transformations… larva turns into a butterfly. A zygote turns into a baby, and a baby, into an adult. No physical parts are lost in those processes that I am aware of. I do vaguely remember something about a lot of neural connections being lost in early childhood… but I don’t remember enough about that to go anywhere with it. The chemicals in my brain are probably replaced quite frequently, if the requirements for ingesting things like tryptophan are any indicator. Things like sugar, water and nutrients are being taken in, and byproducts are being removed. But I don’t know what amount of the stuff in my skull is temporary. Hmm…
I want to challenge my theory in some way, but this is turning out to be difficult.
Maybe I will find something that invalidates this line of reasoning later.
Hmmm. If my whole brain were replaced all at once, I’d definitely stop experiencing. If it were replaced one thing at a time, I may have a continuation of experience on Epiphany1, and my pattern may be preserved
If my hardware were transformed over time such that my continuation of experience was not interrupted, then even if I were completely replaced with a different set of particles (or enhanced neurons or something) that as long as my “self pattern” wasn’t damaged, I would not die.
So the “continuity of experience” is what you find essential for not-death? Presumably you would make exceptions for loss of consciousness and coma? Dreamless sleep? Anesthesia? Is it the loss of conscious experience that matters or what? Would a surgery (which requires putting you under) replacing some amount of your brain with prosthetics qualify as life-preserving? How much at once? Would “all of it” be too much?
Does the prosthetic part have to reside inside your brain, or can it be a machine (say, like a dialysis machine) that is wirelessly and seamlessly connected to the rest of your brain?
If it helps, Epiphany has implied elsewhere, I think, that when they talk about continuity of experience they don’t mean to exclude experience interrupted by sleep, coma, and other periods of unconsciousness, as long as there’s experience on the other end (and as long as the person doing that experiencing is the same person, rather than merely an identical person).
Yeah that has gotten tricky. I’ve worded the question as “Same instance or different instance?”. I’ve also discovered a stickier problem—just because a re-assembled me might qualify, in all ways, as “the same instance” I am not sure that guarantees the continuation of my experience. I explore that here, in two examples being re-assembled from the same particles both in the same arrangement and in a different arrangement. (scroll to “Scenarios meant to explore instance differentiation and the relation to continuous experience”—I labeled it to make it easy to find.)
As TheOtherDave pointed out, the question is what is, in your opinion, the essence of “self”. Clearly it cannot just be all the same “particles” (molecules?), since particles in our bodies change all the time. You seem to be relating self with consciousness, but not identifying the two. That’s why I’m asking questions aimed to nail the difference. That’s why I asked these questions earlier:
So the “continuity of experience” is what you find essential for not-death? Presumably you would make exceptions for loss of consciousness and coma? Dreamless sleep? Anesthesia? Is it the loss of conscious experience that matters or what? Would a surgery (which requires putting you under) replacing some amount of your brain with prosthetics qualify as life-preserving? How much at once? Would “all of it” be too much?
“The essence of self” seems like the wrong question to me. That sounds too much like “What is the essence of your personality?” and that’s irrelevant here.
What I’m talking about is my ability to experience. We all have an ability to experience (I assume) that, although it may be shaped by our personalities, it is not our personalities. Example:
A Christian sees a Satanic ritual.
A Satanist sees the same ritual.
The Christian is horrified. The Satanist thinks it’s great.
The reason one was horrified and the other thought it was great is because they have different beliefs, possibly different personality types, different life experiences and possibly even different neurological wiring.
What did they have in common?
They both saw a Satanic ritual.
THAT is the part I am trying to point out here. The part that experiences. It’s not one’s personality, or beliefs, or experiences or neurological traits.
I am saying essentially “Even if personality, beliefs, experiences and neurological differences are copied, this does nothing to guarantee that the part of you that experiences is going to survive.” Asking to define the essence of self is not relevant since I’m saying to you “Even if self is copied, this thing that I am talking about may not survive”.
How would you convince someone who thinks instants of experience are real and memories that give instants of experience historical context are real, but doesn’t believe in any meaningful process of forward continuity from one instant of experience to another beyond the similarity of memories, to believe otherwise? There’s no difference between blinking, taking a nap and being destructively teleported in this stance. It’s all just someone experiencing something now, and someone else with very similar memories that include the present experience moment experiencing something else in the future.
I’ve noted to self that this seems like a pattern with us, as you have complained about a question being ignored a few times now. Not sure what I should be doing about it when I don’t see a question as relevant but maybe I should just be like “I don’t see how this is relevant.”
Don’t know how I got the habit of ignoring things that seem irrelevant and moving on to whatever seems relevant but I can see why it would be annoying so I will be thinking about that. Thanks for getting me to see the pattern.
So your definition of self stops at the physical body? Presumably mostly your brain? Would a partial brain prosthesis (say, to save someone’s life after a head trauma) mimicking the function of the removed part make the recipient less of herself? Does it apply to the spinal cord? How about some of the limbic system? Maybe everything but the neocortex can be replaced without affecting “self”? Where do you put the boundary and why?
No. As I mentioned, “This (referring to Death of Body) is important if your brain isn’t somewhere else when it happens but may not be important otherwise.”
If you get into a good replacement body before the one you’re in dies, you’re fine.
If you want to live, a continuation of your experience is required. Not the creation of a new instance of the experience. But the continuation of my (this copy’s) experience. That experience is happening in this brain, and if this brain goes away, this instance of the experience goes away, too. If there is a way to transfer this experience into something else (like by transforming it slowly, as Saturn and I got into) then Epiphany1′s experience would be continued.
If Epiphany1′s experience continues and my “self” is not significantly changed, no. That is not really a new instance. That’s more like Epiphany1.2.
Not sure why these are relevant. Ok limbic system is sort of relevant. I’d still be me with a new spinal cord or limbic system, at least according to my understanding of them. Why do you ask? Maybe there’s some complexity here I missed?
Hmmm. If my whole brain were replaced all at once, I’d definitely stop experiencing. If it were replaced one thing at a time, I may have a continuation of experience on Epiphany1, and my pattern may be preserved (there would be a transformation of the hardware that the pattern is in, but I expect my “self” to transform anyway, that pattern is not static).
I am not my hardware, but I am not my software either. I think we are both.
If my hardware were transformed over time such that my continuation of experience was not interrupted, then even if I were completely replaced with a different set of particles (or enhanced neurons or something) that as long as my “self pattern” wasn’t damaged, I would not die.
I can’t think of a way in which I could qualify that as “death”. Losing my brain might be a cause of death, but just because something can cause something else doesn’t mean it does in every instance. Heat applied to glass causes it to become brittle or melt and change form, destroying it. But we also apply heat to iron to get steel.
I’m trying to think of a metaphor that works for similar transformations… larva turns into a butterfly. A zygote turns into a baby, and a baby, into an adult. No physical parts are lost in those processes that I am aware of. I do vaguely remember something about a lot of neural connections being lost in early childhood… but I don’t remember enough about that to go anywhere with it. The chemicals in my brain are probably replaced quite frequently, if the requirements for ingesting things like tryptophan are any indicator. Things like sugar, water and nutrients are being taken in, and byproducts are being removed. But I don’t know what amount of the stuff in my skull is temporary. Hmm…
I want to challenge my theory in some way, but this is turning out to be difficult.
Maybe I will find something that invalidates this line of reasoning later.
You got anything?
So the “continuity of experience” is what you find essential for not-death? Presumably you would make exceptions for loss of consciousness and coma? Dreamless sleep? Anesthesia? Is it the loss of conscious experience that matters or what? Would a surgery (which requires putting you under) replacing some amount of your brain with prosthetics qualify as life-preserving? How much at once? Would “all of it” be too much?
Does the prosthetic part have to reside inside your brain, or can it be a machine (say, like a dialysis machine) that is wirelessly and seamlessly connected to the rest of your brain?
If it helps, Epiphany has implied elsewhere, I think, that when they talk about continuity of experience they don’t mean to exclude experience interrupted by sleep, coma, and other periods of unconsciousness, as long as there’s experience on the other end (and as long as the person doing that experiencing is the same person, rather than merely an identical person).
Right, it’s her definition of “same” vs “identical” that I am trying to tease out. Well, the boundary between the two.
Yeah that has gotten tricky. I’ve worded the question as “Same instance or different instance?”. I’ve also discovered a stickier problem—just because a re-assembled me might qualify, in all ways, as “the same instance” I am not sure that guarantees the continuation of my experience. I explore that here, in two examples being re-assembled from the same particles both in the same arrangement and in a different arrangement. (scroll to “Scenarios meant to explore instance differentiation and the relation to continuous experience”—I labeled it to make it easy to find.)
As TheOtherDave pointed out, the question is what is, in your opinion, the essence of “self”. Clearly it cannot just be all the same “particles” (molecules?), since particles in our bodies change all the time. You seem to be relating self with consciousness, but not identifying the two. That’s why I’m asking questions aimed to nail the difference. That’s why I asked these questions earlier:
“The essence of self” seems like the wrong question to me. That sounds too much like “What is the essence of your personality?” and that’s irrelevant here.
What I’m talking about is my ability to experience. We all have an ability to experience (I assume) that, although it may be shaped by our personalities, it is not our personalities. Example:
A Christian sees a Satanic ritual. A Satanist sees the same ritual.
The Christian is horrified. The Satanist thinks it’s great.
The reason one was horrified and the other thought it was great is because they have different beliefs, possibly different personality types, different life experiences and possibly even different neurological wiring.
What did they have in common?
They both saw a Satanic ritual.
THAT is the part I am trying to point out here. The part that experiences. It’s not one’s personality, or beliefs, or experiences or neurological traits.
I am saying essentially “Even if personality, beliefs, experiences and neurological differences are copied, this does nothing to guarantee that the part of you that experiences is going to survive.” Asking to define the essence of self is not relevant since I’m saying to you “Even if self is copied, this thing that I am talking about may not survive”.
Here is a clarifying example:
Transporter Malfunction Scenario
Note to self: Thinking about motion might be the key to this.
How would you convince someone who thinks instants of experience are real and memories that give instants of experience historical context are real, but doesn’t believe in any meaningful process of forward continuity from one instant of experience to another beyond the similarity of memories, to believe otherwise? There’s no difference between blinking, taking a nap and being destructively teleported in this stance. It’s all just someone experiencing something now, and someone else with very similar memories that include the present experience moment experiencing something else in the future.
Well, that makes the second time you ignored my questions, so I will tap out.
I’ve noted to self that this seems like a pattern with us, as you have complained about a question being ignored a few times now. Not sure what I should be doing about it when I don’t see a question as relevant but maybe I should just be like “I don’t see how this is relevant.”
Don’t know how I got the habit of ignoring things that seem irrelevant and moving on to whatever seems relevant but I can see why it would be annoying so I will be thinking about that. Thanks for getting me to see the pattern.