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The Ship of Theseus would like to be so certain. At what point are you not you? Bionic organs? limbs? New bones, artificial blood? Neuro-prosthetic interface

The Ship of Theseus would like to be so certain. At what point are you not you? Bionic organs? limbs? New bones, artificial blood? Neuro-prosthetic interfaces or implants? "Biologically integrated coprocessors"? I'm Genuinely curious where you choose to draw the line since it's not often discussed from a personal standpoint it's usually just the philosophical arguments that get discussed in what I've read.

runeks 10y ago
I am my experience of the world, so to speak. Creating an exact copy of me wouldn't make me experience the world from two different perspectives at the same time. It would just create a new human being that, allegedly, would be a "copy" of me (or so people would say). To me, it would just be another person walking around. There wouldn't be any essential difference between this person and an adult child of mine.
- the8472 10y ago
  But today's you has diverged from yesterday's you just as much as tomorrow's copy would have diverged from today's original. At the moment of copying - assuming a sufficiently high fidelity - they would be practically identical. The differentiation would only happen over time. So if you kill the original - maybe because the procedure is destructive or because it's a consciousness-saving emergency measure - the "copy" would have a pretty good claim to be a continuation of you.
- plokiju 10y ago
  But why is "your experience of the world" tied to your current physical body? I think that the brain is just a machine that creates the illusion of a consciousness. If you turn the machine off, copy the all the data into new hardware, and turn it back on, it will start back where it left off, and the "you" inside won't know the difference. You might not even notice it happened
- pugio 10y ago
  Agreed. Responding to the replies, regarding the fidelity of a copy: Yes, the copy would have a great claim to being you. Assuming the physiology of the copy is also (nearly) identical (behavior and personality is not a pure function of the brain), the world at large would also identify it as you. But I'm not interested in legacy style immortality. I don't care at all if a separate version of me continues to exist – I want to be continuous with the physical substrate I now occupy. In other words, we are all Ship's of Theseus, and that's fine, but a perfect replica of the Ship breaks my internal narrative of continuity. To distinguish: If a form of "immortality" supports the possibility of another copy of me existing simultaneously with the current incarnation, then it is not the immortality I'd desire. Responding to the parent, I would much prefer slowly replacing my neural hardware with circuitry to wholesale scanning and instantiation in another substrate. Summarize: Identity is (partially) a function of substrate. Change the substrate in a discontinuous fashion, and identity itself becomes discontinuous. I call that discontinuity (one form of) "Death".

runeks 10y ago

I am my experience of the world, so to speak. Creating an exact copy of me wouldn't make me experience the world from two different perspectives at the same time. It would just create a new human being that, allegedly, would be a "copy" of me (or so people would say). To me, it would just be another person walking around. There wouldn't be any essential difference between this person and an adult child of mine.

the8472 10y ago
But today's you has diverged from yesterday's you just as much as tomorrow's copy would have diverged from today's original. At the moment of copying - assuming a sufficiently high fidelity - they would be practically identical. The differentiation would only happen over time. So if you kill the original - maybe because the procedure is destructive or because it's a consciousness-saving emergency measure - the "copy" would have a pretty good claim to be a continuation of you.
plokiju 10y ago
But why is "your experience of the world" tied to your current physical body? I think that the brain is just a machine that creates the illusion of a consciousness. If you turn the machine off, copy the all the data into new hardware, and turn it back on, it will start back where it left off, and the "you" inside won't know the difference. You might not even notice it happened
pugio 10y ago
Agreed. Responding to the replies, regarding the fidelity of a copy: Yes, the copy would have a great claim to being you. Assuming the physiology of the copy is also (nearly) identical (behavior and personality is not a pure function of the brain), the world at large would also identify it as you. But I'm not interested in legacy style immortality. I don't care at all if a separate version of me continues to exist – I want to be continuous with the physical substrate I now occupy. In other words, we are all Ship's of Theseus, and that's fine, but a perfect replica of the Ship breaks my internal narrative of continuity. To distinguish: If a form of "immortality" supports the possibility of another copy of me existing simultaneously with the current incarnation, then it is not the immortality I'd desire. Responding to the parent, I would much prefer slowly replacing my neural hardware with circuitry to wholesale scanning and instantiation in another substrate. Summarize: Identity is (partially) a function of substrate. Change the substrate in a discontinuous fashion, and identity itself becomes discontinuous. I call that discontinuity (one form of) "Death".