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"Resume your consciousness" does not apparently mean to me what it does to others -- hence the thought experiment I gave. Just because there's a computer out th

"Resume your consciousness" does not apparently mean to me what it does to others -- hence the thought experiment I gave. Just because there's a computer out there churning out bits that match mine (for some acceptable definition), in what sense would my consciousness "resume" if you killed me? Whatever sense that is, it doesn't interest me in the slightest. If I proved to you that such a machine already exists for you somewhere, would you feel fine being put to death?

henrikschroder 9y ago
I like the Star Trek teleporter angle, because it shows us how we're susceptible to narrative explanations over actual explanations. The way the Star Trek teleporter works is that you step into it, and then you are dismantled, picked apart atom-by-atom. You cease to exist. You die. You are gone. But immediately afterwards, elsewhere, atoms-by-atoms are put together again, to form a thing that looks like you and talks like you and has your memories. To outside observers, there's no difference between the you that stepped into the teleporter, and the thing that stepped out of it on the other side. The narrative tricks us, first you're here, and then you're over there. Of course it's still you! But the reality of the thing doesn't in any way guarantee the transfer of an unbroken consciousness. And I'm quite attached to mine, thank you very much. I see the arguments downthread about how sleeping or going unconscious aren't guarantees of your unbroken consciousness, and the rabbit-hole of existential dread that entails. But come on. The fact that the matter that makes up me is pretty static, makes it pretty reasonable that my consciousness is unbroken after a nap. But anything that involves movement of my consciousness without also moving the matter that my consciousness emerges in, has to have some serious fucking rationale for me to believe that it will lead to an unbroken consciousness. And, of course, asking the philosophical zombie if it really is me in there, doesn't count.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > I see the arguments downthread about how sleeping or going unconscious aren't guarantees of your unbroken consciousness, and the rabbit-hole of existential dread that entails. It's not a matter of guarantees; “unbroken consciousness” is, itself, only a “narrative” for the experience of memory; insofar as it denotes anything that exists at all it is nothing but present consciousness plus memory, and any other explanation veers into the realm of magical metaphysics.
  - henrikschroder 9y ago
    You are arguing that since to the me that is now, there's no way of knowing if I am a restarted perfect clone of me, or a resumed me that woke up from a nap; dying and falling asleep are the same thing. That is crazy talk. I understand the reasoning that leads you there. It's still crazy talk.

henrikschroder 9y ago

I like the Star Trek teleporter angle, because it shows us how we're susceptible to narrative explanations over actual explanations. The way the Star Trek teleporter works is that you step into it, and then you are dismantled, picked apart atom-by-atom. You cease to exist. You die. You are gone. But immediately afterwards, elsewhere, atoms-by-atoms are put together again, to form a thing that looks like you and talks like you and has your memories. To outside observers, there's no difference between the you that stepped into the teleporter, and the thing that stepped out of it on the other side. The narrative tricks us, first you're here, and then you're over there. Of course it's still you! But the reality of the thing doesn't in any way guarantee the transfer of an unbroken consciousness. And I'm quite attached to mine, thank you very much. I see the arguments downthread about how sleeping or going unconscious aren't guarantees of your unbroken consciousness, and the rabbit-hole of existential dread that entails. But come on. The fact that the matter that makes up me is pretty static, makes it pretty reasonable that my consciousness is unbroken after a nap. But anything that involves movement of my consciousness without also moving the matter that my consciousness emerges in, has to have some serious fucking rationale for me to believe that it will lead to an unbroken consciousness. And, of course, asking the philosophical zombie if it really is me in there, doesn't count.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> I see the arguments downthread about how sleeping or going unconscious aren't guarantees of your unbroken consciousness, and the rabbit-hole of existential dread that entails. It's not a matter of guarantees; “unbroken consciousness” is, itself, only a “narrative” for the experience of memory; insofar as it denotes anything that exists at all it is nothing but present consciousness plus memory, and any other explanation veers into the realm of magical metaphysics.
- henrikschroder 9y ago
  You are arguing that since to the me that is now, there's no way of knowing if I am a restarted perfect clone of me, or a resumed me that woke up from a nap; dying and falling asleep are the same thing. That is crazy talk. I understand the reasoning that leads you there. It's still crazy talk.