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We actually have no way to know that our stream of consciousness is continuous, because all we have of the past is memory, and memory is not consciousness. Ther
by beaconstudios 5y ago
We actually have no way to know that our stream of consciousness is continuous, because all we have of the past is memory, and memory is not consciousness. There's quite a few unnerving ideas in this space, like that we can't really know whether we wake up the same "us" after we sleep. The only thing we really experience is the present moment.
- reducesuffering 5y agoYes that's a good point but that doesn't distinguish natural cells/neurons from artificial.
- beaconstudios 5y agoTrue - I suspect that if you were to gradually replace human neurons with artificial ones that you could potentially achieve continuity of experience, but it would be impossible to prove one way or the other so doing it on somebody who wasn't dying might be unethical.