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> > The continuity is an illusion. > That is an assertion. Yes. > No, my body is part of me, it makes little sense to try to divorce what appears to be the e

> > The continuity is an illusion. > That is an assertion. Yes. > No, my body is part of me, it makes little sense to try to divorce what appears to be the emergent phenomenon of consciousness from the wetware that it runs on. There is no sense in which I am not tied to my brain. Interesting that you used "brain" at the end when instead of the body as a whole, isn't it? If parts of your brain started to degrade and fail, but could be replaced with machine equivalents, would the result not be "you"? How much would need to be replaced before it stopped being "you"? How is that change different from the changes your brain underwent during your growth as a human being? > People can live, but damage to parts of the brain very much changes them, and can change all aspects of their personality. At that point the "you" is very much changed or (usually) diminished. But that doesn't speak to continuity of experience or singularity either. That just begs the question: how much change is necessary to make "you" no longer "you"? You have undoubtedly undergone extreme changes in both body and mind over the course of your life and will continue to do so but, for some reason, still consider yourself the same "you". Which is it, by the way? Is the conscious experience "you" or are "you" defined by your personality and traits? > None of this makes any difference or even much sense in the context of my consciousness being continuous or singular. It's subject to change and physical damage. That doesn't mean if you copy my brain into a computer somehow that it's anything other than a copy, I will not experience its experiences, live its life. I think it makes all the difference, because the only reason you assume this continuity exists is because you have memories, which are a property of how your mind works and provided by your brain with input from your body. Or at least that's what your memories of biology and neurology lessons tell you. Memories are, science tells us, pretty malleable. But the thing is, you do not experience the past, you only experience memories of the past, your conscious experience exists now and only now. There is no continuation. If you define "you" as your conscious experience, then your body and mind are irrelevant except as an interface to experience the world. Your copy will also have memories and remember being you. It will believe it is the same "you" as you do, and the only reason you will believe it is wrong is that you remember being you and have the "original" (again, not a static entity) body. But if your conscious experience is what defines you as "you", then that is irrelevant. > > Consider why people are willing to sacrifice their lives for others > This seems entirely orthogonal to any question about whether consciousness is continuous or singular. There are many reasons that people may choose to do this, none of them maintains their conscious experience. Yes, that's precisely the point. The reasons people do it are precisely the point. Remember this all started with your statement: > If a fork or a copy can be made and run on a computer of some sort, it would be a technological marvel. But it’s not the sort of immortality I’d be interested in, if little old biological me still shuffles off and dies somewhere. Yet parents are interested in the continuation of their children even if they themselves still shuffle off and die. In fact, they are so deeply devoted to it that they will often sacrifice their own lives prematurely to ensure it. Why should that matter to them more than the continuation of their self? Here's another assertion for you: self can be greater than "I".

Nursie 5y ago
> Interesting that you used "brain" at the end when instead of the body as a whole, isn't it? Not really, we know that consciousness arises from the brain, and can change if it's damaged. > If parts of your brain started to degrade and fail, but could be replaced with machine equivalents, would the result not be "you"? If it was replaced in such a way that the continuity is not broken, then I imagine you could slowly replace it all without necessarily impacting my experience of myself. However I don't personally believe that merely copying the information over to a new system would achieve the same, as I would be able to observe the copy go about a separate life, I would not have its experiences etc. Perhaps you're right about that part, perhaps it could still be me without any of the current physical body, but only if that was achieved through a continuous transition, a copy that could just be extracted without affecting the original adds nothing to the original. > That just begs the question: how much change is necessary to make "you" no longer "you"? This question is relying on semantics for effect. You can still be a changed you without being someone else, and copy created without changing the individual is a separate thing. > I think it makes all the difference, because the only reason you assume this continuity exists is because you have memories Massive assumption/assertion. Memories are structural within the brain, they are not mere information, they are substance. I experience this continuity of being, and it shapes me. > your conscious experience exists now and only now. Everything exists now and only now, that doesn't mean that a copy of me is the same thing as me. > Your copy will also have memories and remember being you. Sure it will, but it will then lead a separate life, not one I will experience directly. So it is not me. > Yet parents are interested in the continuation of their children even if they themselves still shuffle off and die. In fact, they are so deeply devoted to it that they will often sacrifice their own lives prematurely to ensure it. Why should that matter to them more than the continuation of their self? That question is entirely orthogonal to whether or not it is the continuation of their own life. Which it's not, because they're dead and you've said as much. It could matter more to them for any number or reasons, from the biological drive to continue their line, to pure altruism. The consideration of whether a copied self would be you or not is entirely unrelated to how much people value themselves in relation to others, or why they might undertake such actions. > self can be greater than "I". Metaphorically, allegorically, narratively, certainly, but not in the concrete way we're talking about. You appear to have some sort of metaphysical belief around this area, that a copy of yourself could be considered yourself in some sort of wider consideration of self that includes not only potential clones and virtual copies but even whole groups of other people. To me, that doesn't gel in the slightest - if I get copied, if I have offspring, if I sacrifice myself for whatever reason, I still die. Those others may continue, and that's great, and that might even make the sacrifice worth it in your hypothetical altruistic death scenario. But I still die in that scenario. That's not immortality for me. I'm not trying to attach a moral value to immortality either, or say that's it's good, or more important than the survival of one's children, or altruism, or anything else. I'm literally just saying that I couldn't consider a copy to be the same thing as me, nor would children nor other people, as I would not experience their lives. Just as I am not experiencing your life right now.

Nursie 5y ago

> Interesting that you used "brain" at the end when instead of the body as a whole, isn't it? Not really, we know that consciousness arises from the brain, and can change if it's damaged. > If parts of your brain started to degrade and fail, but could be replaced with machine equivalents, would the result not be "you"? If it was replaced in such a way that the continuity is not broken, then I imagine you could slowly replace it all without necessarily impacting my experience of myself. However I don't personally believe that merely copying the information over to a new system would achieve the same, as I would be able to observe the copy go about a separate life, I would not have its experiences etc. Perhaps you're right about that part, perhaps it could still be me without any of the current physical body, but only if that was achieved through a continuous transition, a copy that could just be extracted without affecting the original adds nothing to the original. > That just begs the question: how much change is necessary to make "you" no longer "you"? This question is relying on semantics for effect. You can still be a changed you without being someone else, and copy created without changing the individual is a separate thing. > I think it makes all the difference, because the only reason you assume this continuity exists is because you have memories Massive assumption/assertion. Memories are structural within the brain, they are not mere information, they are substance. I experience this continuity of being, and it shapes me. > your conscious experience exists now and only now. Everything exists now and only now, that doesn't mean that a copy of me is the same thing as me. > Your copy will also have memories and remember being you. Sure it will, but it will then lead a separate life, not one I will experience directly. So it is not me. > Yet parents are interested in the continuation of their children even if they themselves still shuffle off and die. In fact, they are so deeply devoted to it that they will often sacrifice their own lives prematurely to ensure it. Why should that matter to them more than the continuation of their self? That question is entirely orthogonal to whether or not it is the continuation of their own life. Which it's not, because they're dead and you've said as much. It could matter more to them for any number or reasons, from the biological drive to continue their line, to pure altruism. The consideration of whether a copied self would be you or not is entirely unrelated to how much people value themselves in relation to others, or why they might undertake such actions. > self can be greater than "I". Metaphorically, allegorically, narratively, certainly, but not in the concrete way we're talking about. You appear to have some sort of metaphysical belief around this area, that a copy of yourself could be considered yourself in some sort of wider consideration of self that includes not only potential clones and virtual copies but even whole groups of other people. To me, that doesn't gel in the slightest - if I get copied, if I have offspring, if I sacrifice myself for whatever reason, I still die. Those others may continue, and that's great, and that might even make the sacrifice worth it in your hypothetical altruistic death scenario. But I still die in that scenario. That's not immortality for me. I'm not trying to attach a moral value to immortality either, or say that's it's good, or more important than the survival of one's children, or altruism, or anything else. I'm literally just saying that I couldn't consider a copy to be the same thing as me, nor would children nor other people, as I would not experience their lives. Just as I am not experiencing your life right now.