From: Filipe Sobreira (warlordbcm1@yahoo.com.br)
Date: Sat Dec 05 2009 - 20:51:39 MST
>>If a copy of you is made by some means then there will be two people who claim to be you. If one of them is killed then one of them is killed.
>>I don't understand why this is such a difficult concept.
It isn't
>>You ask which copy will be you? What will you experience? These are not well formed questions because "you" is not a well defined concept in a world where minds can be copied.
Change 'you' for 'observer'. A copy of an observer is made by some means, then there are two observers who claim to be the same people.
Defining 'same': sharing _all_ measurable qualities
They're right in their assertions? Yes, in a sense, but only for a _third_ observer. Under their own perceptions, they're not the same person. They not share all measurable qualities. No matter how hard you argue they do, no matter how you naively troll me telling you don't believe in the soul: One doesn't need to believe in the soul to verify that if they are two _observers_ then they're also part of the experience, and they also can measure their own qualities. By the time the copy is created/instantiated both the copy and the original (doesn't matter if they know or not who's who) will be able to measure their positions regarding the other (a measurable quality) and also they'll be able to tell themselves apart, just by poking themselves and verifying the other don't feel nothing. Both of them will retain their own 'sense of self'. If you don't believe or don't know what is a sense of self, imagine it as the reflexive mental process that informs each
observer he is a separate being. It is what makes people refer themselves as 'me'.
But the reflexive processes were copied to the other individual too!!! so they must be the same right? wrong. And that's what constitutes the so called 'hard problem': both copies are neuron by neuron identical, so they should be the same, but they aren't (!) since them, as observers, can distinguish themselves as being different from each other, measuring their property of me'ness and verifying this property (perceived as being 'me') isn't the same for them.
In these mental experiments, Extropians and transhumans in general like to ignore the fact people are observers. Lots of people around, and that includes the most famous _troll_ of this list, like to believe themselves to be computer programs running in the brain. This is a quite extraordinary delusion, without any reasonable foundation. It is a blind dogma, not worse of those held by many religions, Abrahamic or not. Just ignorance and hubris disguised as intelligence and reason.
You guys need a reality check sometimes: check out the essay on H+, the transhuman magazine:
http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/ai/ghost-shell-why-our-brains-will-never-live-matrix
>>The question only has artificial importance because of this evolved belief in this nonexistent thing that people so desperately want to preserve, sometimes called a "consciousness", "qualia", "experience", or a "soul" that has absolutely no effect on behavior. So why even talk about it? If you taboo the words "you" and "I" then there is no controversy whatsoever.
Even if you taboo such words, the agent, the observer won't go away. The problem is not with the words, is with the thing they represent. This thing is the sense of self. It has a clear, objective, non-artificial importance: without it there is no agent, no action and hence no conscious behavior. There is no need to worry about losing it during mental experiments like copying and teletransporting, because if you lose your 'self' it means you're not an observer anymore: you're dead. And if you're dead, there isn't a 'you' anymore to worry. Doesn't mean you parents or your perfect neuron by neuron copy won't miss ya.
>>Really, this whole discussion is getting tedious. I could go through the SL4 archives and find a dozen more just like it if I didn't have more important things to do with my time.
This discussion is tedious because most people chose to believe in dogmas, to give pre generated answers based on their memeplex. People should read the philosophers of the past and present. They should constantly check their beliefs against verifiable facts and not what they _think_ are facts.
well, my 2 worth
>>>-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
Filipe
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