6 ms·

I think there is. If you cloned me while I'm sleeping and I never knew about it, you could torture and kill the other "me" and I'd be none the wiser, so that de

by ericb 9y ago

I think there is. If you cloned me while I'm sleeping and I never knew about it, you could torture and kill the other "me" and I'd be none the wiser, so that definitely seems like it isn't "me" because for whatever definition of me that I have, it involves this particular instance of conscious experience. Other conscious experiences, even if they are similar, are not me if they don't share my conscious experiences. Programming wise, I'm an instance of an object, not a class.

gagege 9y ago
This is the part I'm always surprised people don't seem to get. If someone makes an exact copy of me, the original me is still going to think "I'm me. That other thing is a copy of me." So, if the original me has to die for the clone to be created... unless my consciousness somehow jumps to the clone, I experience a death which I do not come back from.
- ajuc 9y ago
  > unless my consciousness somehow jumps to the clone You don't have conciousness when you sleep (at least during some parts of it). Your conciousness disappears every night for several hours and is recreated every morning. Why is it not a problem, but when there is 2 of you - it suddenly becomes a problem? If you were sleeping while someone made a clone - would that make it OK? If no - why? There's no evidence of anything external that has to "jump".
  - gagege 9y ago
    I disagree that I disappear during states of "unconsciousness". Sleep/general anesthesia/drugs are just different states of brain activity, but I'm still "me" during these states. We don't say people become no one, or someone else when they sleep. So, a copy of your consciousness (if such a thing is possible) is different than sleeping. No matter how much the clone believes it is me, it will never be me. I still die in my scenario, even though the other feels differently about it. To add to that, asking "who am I" is a philosophical question, and I'm not a strict empiricist, so I don't categorically dismiss the idea that there exists an "I" outside of my natural body.
    - ajuc 9y ago
      What about multiple personality disorder? Are there 2 of you time-sharing a body? I don't see how you can distinguish "different brain-states that are still me", and "different brain-states that are not me" other than by looking at the data in these brain-states. If the data is the same - what makes it ok to say "these 2 brainstates are the same person, and these 2 are not"? > We don't say people become no one, or someone else when they sleep. We say a lot of things that are wrong or simplified, it's not an argument anymore than the word "sunrise" is an argument for geocentrism. > I don't categorically dismiss the idea that there exists an "I" outside of my natural body. I agree that existence of souls would change things, but it's untestable and unnessesary to explain all phenomena we experience, so I consider it a waste of time to discuss these.
    - ccostes 9y ago
      I think the point about unconscious states was not that you "become no one", but rather that it is an interruption to the continuity of consciousness. As a thought experiment, imagine you were magically replicated during sleep such that, at the time of replication, both "you"s were completely physically identical. Both would wake up thinking that they are the same person that went to sleep, but now there are two of them. Are either/both/none of them "you"? My answer would be that they both are, and don't think there's anything special about our physical selves, nor any reason that we're limited to being singletons (to give a code analogy). The combination of our physical self and our cumulative experience and memories are what defines "us". Thinking of identity in possessive terms and the desire to think of ourselves as unique is a quirk of psychology, I think.
  - Vadoff 9y ago
    So if someone said they'd shoot you in your sleep, but replace you with a clone with your memories and give that clone $100. You'd do it?
    - projektir 9y ago
      No, that's not even what they're saying. They're basically saying killing them in their sleep is not a problem. That's where that logic goes. Because you die when you go to sleep.
      - ajuc 9y ago
        As long as someone who is exactly like me with my memories and thought processes is created in the morning.
  - projektir 9y ago
    I'm not sure, are you comfortable living one day only, and leaving all the problems to be for future you to take care of? Because for that logic, you basically don't exist that much at all, and the moment you go to sleep, the rest of your life is somebody else's problem, because you effectively die. That is what you're saying (and that is what people like us would expect from mind upload). So you tell me why it's a problem, but it seems, I may go to sleep all I want, but when I wake up the next day, all my problems are still my own. I doubt that if someone makes a clone of me, and I go to sleep, that I'm going to wake up as them and that other clone. How would that even work if there's two of us? There's only one of "me" to go around. Oh, it's very awkward, yes, because it implies there's something else going on here that is required to hold this information, but we're all supposed to think that's impossible...
    - ajuc 9y ago
      > all my problems are still my own. Or you can decide the leave everything and become a monk. I don't see how that's an argument one way or another. > There's only one of "me" to go around. Why? It seems to be the crux of your argument, but you don't justify it in any way.
      - projektir 9y ago
        > Or you can decide the leave everything and become a monk. I don't see how that's an argument one way or another. You seem to have missed what I said. I mean that, if I don't wash the dishes today, and I go to sleep, it's still me who's going to have to wash those dishes tomorrow. It's not someone else. It's me. That "me" is the question. I can't just not wake up as "me" tomorrow. If continuity wasn't a thing then the concept of "me" shouldn't exist at all, so there would be no responsible party in the first place, but every morning I find that I need to wake up, go to work, and then sometimes wash the dishes. Of course, the entire experience of "me" can be falsified by a 3rd party, sure, but the world itself could also be falsified, neither of these beliefs are particularly actionable. But "the person who didn't wash the dishes and the person who then suffers the consequences is a continual entity" is actionable, it means I should wash my dishes. > Why? It seems to be the crux of your argument, but you don't justify it in any way. Because I can't wake up and control two people at the same time. That doesn't even happen in the case of multiple personality disorder.
ajuc 9y ago
> If you cloned me while I'm sleeping and I never knew about it, you could torture and kill the other "me" and I'd be none the wiser If I tortured you, then healed you and removed your memories you would be none the wiser as well. Does that mean I weren't torturing you, but someone else? If I cloned you, tortured your clone and killed it while you were asleep, then merged his memories to you - was it you who I was torturing or not? Why is the difference meaningful? Programming isn't very good analogy, because there is no definition of conciousness, so even if we recreate the problematic situations in some programming model - we still don't have any answers. Example: You can serialize an instance of a class, delete the instance, then deserialize it. The memory address will be different, the == operator in some languages will return true, in many others - false, but there's no one answer if the object is the same or not when it comes to conciousness. There is no clear analog of pointer identity in real world. If we had evidence of souls that would be it, but we don't :) Some GC languages can move objects in memory when the application is running. Is this the same object? What does this say about conciousness? Nothing IMHO. When GC moves object in memory and updates all references to it - is this the same object, or a different one? What if it created a pool of objects, serialized object at address 1, loaded a different object there, and deserialized old object from address 1 to address 2? Is the object at address1 or the object at address 2 the old one? The pointer equality isn't very useful here. > for whatever definition of me that I have, it involves this particular instance of conscious experience Then sleeping is the same as death.
- ericb 9y ago
  > If I cloned you, tortured your clone and killed it while you were asleep, then merged his memories to you - was it you who I was torturing or not? Why is the difference meaningful? If I merged the bash logs where I nuked rm -rf / on a given computer into the logs of one where I have not ran that command, the result is not the same. > You can serialize an instance of a class, delete the instance, then deserialize it. This would not be the same object since you can do that, but not delete the object. Programming is a great analogy. I think the answer for identity/consciousness, even in programming involves an uninterrupted flow of unique locations in time/space that has continued existing as a cohesive whole. > Some GC languages can move objects in memory when the application is running. Is this the same object? In general, if there can be "two" instances simultaneously utilizing a given approach (like mind transfer), then it is not the same "one." But this is a flow, so ship of theseus alterations like you propose do not change identity, they are part of the flow. > Then sleeping is the same as death. I can't rule that out, actually, although I seem to be conscious some of it, so there's that.

by ericb 9y ago

gagege 9y ago

This is the part I'm always surprised people don't seem to get. If someone makes an exact copy of me, the original me is still going to think "I'm me. That other thing is a copy of me." So, if the original me has to die for the clone to be created... unless my consciousness somehow jumps to the clone, I experience a death which I do not come back from.

ajuc 9y ago
> unless my consciousness somehow jumps to the clone You don't have conciousness when you sleep (at least during some parts of it). Your conciousness disappears every night for several hours and is recreated every morning. Why is it not a problem, but when there is 2 of you - it suddenly becomes a problem? If you were sleeping while someone made a clone - would that make it OK? If no - why? There's no evidence of anything external that has to "jump".
- gagege 9y ago
  I disagree that I disappear during states of "unconsciousness". Sleep/general anesthesia/drugs are just different states of brain activity, but I'm still "me" during these states. We don't say people become no one, or someone else when they sleep. So, a copy of your consciousness (if such a thing is possible) is different than sleeping. No matter how much the clone believes it is me, it will never be me. I still die in my scenario, even though the other feels differently about it. To add to that, asking "who am I" is a philosophical question, and I'm not a strict empiricist, so I don't categorically dismiss the idea that there exists an "I" outside of my natural body.
  - ajuc 9y ago
    What about multiple personality disorder? Are there 2 of you time-sharing a body? I don't see how you can distinguish "different brain-states that are still me", and "different brain-states that are not me" other than by looking at the data in these brain-states. If the data is the same - what makes it ok to say "these 2 brainstates are the same person, and these 2 are not"? > We don't say people become no one, or someone else when they sleep. We say a lot of things that are wrong or simplified, it's not an argument anymore than the word "sunrise" is an argument for geocentrism. > I don't categorically dismiss the idea that there exists an "I" outside of my natural body. I agree that existence of souls would change things, but it's untestable and unnessesary to explain all phenomena we experience, so I consider it a waste of time to discuss these.
  - ccostes 9y ago
    I think the point about unconscious states was not that you "become no one", but rather that it is an interruption to the continuity of consciousness. As a thought experiment, imagine you were magically replicated during sleep such that, at the time of replication, both "you"s were completely physically identical. Both would wake up thinking that they are the same person that went to sleep, but now there are two of them. Are either/both/none of them "you"? My answer would be that they both are, and don't think there's anything special about our physical selves, nor any reason that we're limited to being singletons (to give a code analogy). The combination of our physical self and our cumulative experience and memories are what defines "us". Thinking of identity in possessive terms and the desire to think of ourselves as unique is a quirk of psychology, I think.
- Vadoff 9y ago
  So if someone said they'd shoot you in your sleep, but replace you with a clone with your memories and give that clone $100. You'd do it?
  - projektir 9y ago
    No, that's not even what they're saying. They're basically saying killing them in their sleep is not a problem. That's where that logic goes. Because you die when you go to sleep.
    - ajuc 9y ago
      As long as someone who is exactly like me with my memories and thought processes is created in the morning.
- projektir 9y ago
  I'm not sure, are you comfortable living one day only, and leaving all the problems to be for future you to take care of? Because for that logic, you basically don't exist that much at all, and the moment you go to sleep, the rest of your life is somebody else's problem, because you effectively die. That is what you're saying (and that is what people like us would expect from mind upload). So you tell me why it's a problem, but it seems, I may go to sleep all I want, but when I wake up the next day, all my problems are still my own. I doubt that if someone makes a clone of me, and I go to sleep, that I'm going to wake up as them and that other clone. How would that even work if there's two of us? There's only one of "me" to go around. Oh, it's very awkward, yes, because it implies there's something else going on here that is required to hold this information, but we're all supposed to think that's impossible...
  - ajuc 9y ago
    > all my problems are still my own. Or you can decide the leave everything and become a monk. I don't see how that's an argument one way or another. > There's only one of "me" to go around. Why? It seems to be the crux of your argument, but you don't justify it in any way.
    - projektir 9y ago
      > Or you can decide the leave everything and become a monk. I don't see how that's an argument one way or another. You seem to have missed what I said. I mean that, if I don't wash the dishes today, and I go to sleep, it's still me who's going to have to wash those dishes tomorrow. It's not someone else. It's me. That "me" is the question. I can't just not wake up as "me" tomorrow. If continuity wasn't a thing then the concept of "me" shouldn't exist at all, so there would be no responsible party in the first place, but every morning I find that I need to wake up, go to work, and then sometimes wash the dishes. Of course, the entire experience of "me" can be falsified by a 3rd party, sure, but the world itself could also be falsified, neither of these beliefs are particularly actionable. But "the person who didn't wash the dishes and the person who then suffers the consequences is a continual entity" is actionable, it means I should wash my dishes. > Why? It seems to be the crux of your argument, but you don't justify it in any way. Because I can't wake up and control two people at the same time. That doesn't even happen in the case of multiple personality disorder.

ajuc 9y ago

> If you cloned me while I'm sleeping and I never knew about it, you could torture and kill the other "me" and I'd be none the wiser If I tortured you, then healed you and removed your memories you would be none the wiser as well. Does that mean I weren't torturing you, but someone else? If I cloned you, tortured your clone and killed it while you were asleep, then merged his memories to you - was it you who I was torturing or not? Why is the difference meaningful? Programming isn't very good analogy, because there is no definition of conciousness, so even if we recreate the problematic situations in some programming model - we still don't have any answers. Example: You can serialize an instance of a class, delete the instance, then deserialize it. The memory address will be different, the == operator in some languages will return true, in many others - false, but there's no one answer if the object is the same or not when it comes to conciousness. There is no clear analog of pointer identity in real world. If we had evidence of souls that would be it, but we don't :) Some GC languages can move objects in memory when the application is running. Is this the same object? What does this say about conciousness? Nothing IMHO. When GC moves object in memory and updates all references to it - is this the same object, or a different one? What if it created a pool of objects, serialized object at address 1, loaded a different object there, and deserialized old object from address 1 to address 2? Is the object at address1 or the object at address 2 the old one? The pointer equality isn't very useful here. > for whatever definition of me that I have, it involves this particular instance of conscious experience Then sleeping is the same as death.

ericb 9y ago
> If I cloned you, tortured your clone and killed it while you were asleep, then merged his memories to you - was it you who I was torturing or not? Why is the difference meaningful? If I merged the bash logs where I nuked rm -rf / on a given computer into the logs of one where I have not ran that command, the result is not the same. > You can serialize an instance of a class, delete the instance, then deserialize it. This would not be the same object since you can do that, but not delete the object. Programming is a great analogy. I think the answer for identity/consciousness, even in programming involves an uninterrupted flow of unique locations in time/space that has continued existing as a cohesive whole. > Some GC languages can move objects in memory when the application is running. Is this the same object? In general, if there can be "two" instances simultaneously utilizing a given approach (like mind transfer), then it is not the same "one." But this is a flow, so ship of theseus alterations like you propose do not change identity, they are part of the flow. > Then sleeping is the same as death. I can't rule that out, actually, although I seem to be conscious some of it, so there's that.