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if my brain were separated into two halves by the neuroscientists of the future, and placed into two bodies. Where would "I" go? Suppose we take the simplest
by zzzeek 4y ago
if my brain were separated into two halves by the neuroscientists of the future, and placed into two bodies. Where would "I" go? Suppose we take the simplest route which is "I" die, and two new consciousnesses spring into life. OK what if my brain were instead divided by 3/4s and 1/4 ? do "I" die then as well? is the "1/4" part "less" conscious? if we say, well no, the conscious organ cannot be subdivided and still retain consciousness. Or how many cells can the conscious organ lose where it suddenly switches off?
my discomfort with these issues has nothing to do with some notion that we are "special" as the universe might have quadrillions of other conscious life forms and I'm OK with that. it has to do with the fact that it's completely paradoxical and links to basically all of existence being a paradox, which then makes the whole thing pretty suspect, and at the very least completely out of the realm of something that can be "understood" by the beings that are the ones currently experiencing consciousness.
- ajmurmann 4y agoI don't think we can answer that questions because we don't even know what "I" is. Are we even "the same person" from one minute to the next? Are we a different person with the same memories? My wife had a rare condition called Global Transient Amnesia three times and I was there for all three occurrences. In essence she temporarily forgets the last few years and cannot form new memories. One remarkable thing that happens is that she will be caught in a loop that last 20-40 seconds. She'll reset and repeat the exact same dialog. This to me intuitively drove the point home that we in a way are just passengers on a somewhat deterministic machine. At that point it practically becomes a somewhat religious assertion though.
- zzzeek 4y agofor sure we're on a deterministic machine. i didnt presume consciousness being ineffable implies free will.
- whimsicalism 4y agoDerek Parfit had a lot of good writing on this subject.
- whimsicalism 4y agoI don't see the paradox. "I" is a notion of semantics.. all there is is interacting wavefunctions behaving according to physical laws. There is nothing else. This seems entirely self-consistent and non-paradoxical.
- zzzeek 4y agoit is but none of it includes the subjective experience part, which is the part I find paradoxical. subjective experience itself makes no sense. Where would I go "experientially" as my "self" is split? to the left or the right? I know the answer is, "nowhere, there is no 'I'". but to imagine it experientially, seems as though I'd find myself on one side or the other.