4 ms·

Why would it not be you? If I replace a single one of your neurons with a mechanical replacement, are you still you? What if I replace half? All? If you walk

Why would it not be you? If I replace a single one of your neurons with a mechanical replacement, are you still you? What if I replace half? All? If you walk across a room, are you still you? What if I break you down, and reassemble you at the other side of the room, using the same atoms? What if I only use half the original atoms? What if I freeze you, move you across the room, and then dethaw you?

Izkata 6y ago
It's the question of what is consciousness. As far as I (crudely) understand it, we don't know what exactly the cause is, other than it's tied extremely tightly to the brain and seems to be an accident of evolution/an illusion. My guess is that as long as the neurons keep firing continuously and the illusion is unbroken, the "you" that is you right now will remain you. So you may well be able to go full ship-of-theseus and piece-by-piece completely replace the physical layer without breaking the consciousness, but if you stop it completely with an upload/download* , continuity is broken and the new "you" will be an exact duplicate while the "you" right now will cease to be. Because it's an exact duplicate there would be no way to confirm this, though - the new "you" would think it had continuity due to how complete their memories are. * I'm thinking of switching to a robotic brain all at once here, instead of piece-by-piece. I'm not going to touch a transporter as suggested in your comment, as that probably depends on technical details of the transporter for what exactly is going on.
- antepodius 6y ago
  What about piece-by-piece? What if we 'upload' you piece-by-piece, by replacing neurons in your head with remote connections to virtual neurons on a computer one-by-one? I think that conventional notions of identity are probably incoherent, and mean you die from second to second anyway.
xsmasher 6y ago
We're soaking in a stew of hormones and chemicals that change the functioning on the machine. I'm not likely to have the same reactions after lunch that I had before lunch, or consistency from yesterday to today.

Izkata 6y ago

It's the question of what is consciousness. As far as I (crudely) understand it, we don't know what exactly the cause is, other than it's tied extremely tightly to the brain and seems to be an accident of evolution/an illusion. My guess is that as long as the neurons keep firing continuously and the illusion is unbroken, the "you" that is you right now will remain you. So you may well be able to go full ship-of-theseus and piece-by-piece completely replace the physical layer without breaking the consciousness, but if you stop it completely with an upload/download* , continuity is broken and the new "you" will be an exact duplicate while the "you" right now will cease to be. Because it's an exact duplicate there would be no way to confirm this, though - the new "you" would think it had continuity due to how complete their memories are. * I'm thinking of switching to a robotic brain all at once here, instead of piece-by-piece. I'm not going to touch a transporter as suggested in your comment, as that probably depends on technical details of the transporter for what exactly is going on.

antepodius 6y ago
What about piece-by-piece? What if we 'upload' you piece-by-piece, by replacing neurons in your head with remote connections to virtual neurons on a computer one-by-one? I think that conventional notions of identity are probably incoherent, and mean you die from second to second anyway.

xsmasher 6y ago

We're soaking in a stew of hormones and chemicals that change the functioning on the machine. I'm not likely to have the same reactions after lunch that I had before lunch, or consistency from yesterday to today.