11 ms·

Staying Alive

73 points by memalign 3y ago

hiccuphippo 3y ago
I played this after playing the No vehicles in the park one the other day. When I got to the question about the soul I saw it as misleading and confidently selected the other option because previously the teleportation worked, and IIRC the other option had 30% success, both of which disproved the existence of a soul.
- powerset 3y ago
  Yeah the soul question seemed unfair, in the sense that I answered the first two with the assumption there is no soul, but the third question asks to assume a soul exists, so there's no way to answer it and stay consistent with my previous two answers
  - brookst 3y ago
    Same. If you accept the game's assertion that souls and reincarnation have been proven, it go e's you a hard time for changing your answer based on new evidence. Very strange for a game purporting to explore beliefs.
  - Ukv 3y ago
    I thought that initially, but I think the question is intentional in only describing (as stated facts, rather than as implied by labelling of "call it a soul") its properties as something immaterial that floats between humans/animals very slightly affecting their character - without asserting that it's "the real you". E.G: A family heirloom might travel between people on death and slightly affect the character of whoever's wearing it through self-perception, but (under the assumption that what I value is self-preservation) I wouldn't sacrifice my physical brain containing the only copy of my personality/memories/etc. in order to save it. I'd guess what it's testing would then be whether you identify this thing with a pre-existing belief of an immaterial you, or already believe you are physical(ly instantiated patterns) and that this thing is just incidental - like any other environmental impact on yourself.
- apocalypstyx 3y ago
  It depends on a certain consideration. If you take the argument (which I can't remember who laid it out) that (in Christian metaphysics, was the example) the experience of the individual (self) is replicable by God but the unique soul is not, consciousness experience (memories and sense of self) can be replicated by definition but the soul (necessarily unique) cannot. So soul and conscious experience must be distinct. The conclusion was that everything that makes an individual an individual as known (memories, experience, perception, personality) perishes with death and only the soul continues on and is completely distinct from the individual sense of self. So there is no experience of "heaven" by the self. Such is immaterial from the point of view of consciousness. A version of this is what I took to be laid out by the 3rd question. On this basis, the continuation of the soul is irrelevant with regards to the self. The death of the soul would be as immaterial to the self as the soul's continuation to "heaven" would be to consciousness.
lores 3y ago
The game told me I was a psychological reductionist, for whom only psychological continuity is important. Fair enough, but it then berated me for taking the spaceship rather than the teleporter. Um, what? Whatever appears at the other end of the teleporter is not me, I'm dead and my consciousness extinct, so why the tut-tuting?
- behrlich 3y ago
  I took Space Ship + silicon rather than virus. I thought the tut-tutting was pretty well explained: > But there is a tension. In allowing your brain and body to be replaced by synthetic parts, you seemed to be accepting that psychological continuity is what matters, not bodily continuity. But if this is the case, why did you risk the spacecraft instead of taking the teletransporter? You ended up allowing your body to be replaced anyway, so why did you decide to risk everything on the spacecraft instead of just giving up your original body there and then? The question being posed is "what is the difference between replacing all of your cells, vs all of your neurons over time?". My logic was that my molecules are being replaced over time, so is that so different than my neurons being replaced over time, whereas a wholesale replacement of my body felt like a break in continuity. I'm no philosopher though :)
  - hiccuphippo 3y ago
    This is a thought experiment know as the Ship of Theseus[0]. I never thought of it in terms of replacing molecules in a human body, it certainly spices things up. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
  - darepublic 3y ago
    Yes it is like the difference between rolling a wheel from point a to b and picking it up and carrying it over. Life is the rolling. Once the rubber leaves the road it's rip.
- sweetsocks21 3y ago
  If you do take the teleporter it mentions that as well: > Your three choices show that this is what you see as central to your sense of self, not any attachment to a particular substance, be it your body, brain or soul. However, some would say that you have not survived at all, but fallen foul of a terrible error. In the teletransporter case, for example, was it really you that travelled to Mars or is it more correct to say that a clone or copy of you was made on Mars, while you were destroyed?
benlivengood 3y ago
70% is an outstanding success rate for cryonics. The real problem, of course, is that whatever idiot scientists regrew a complete biological replacement for me from silicon didn't bother to keep a backup before the cryonics attempt. Like, the teleteleporter already made a perfect cellular replica so the technology is readily available.
- zerocrates 3y ago
  It's a 70% failure rate, not success rate.
  - benlivengood 3y ago
    Still outstanding since current real-world success rates are estimated to be somewhat less than 1%.
Krollifi 3y ago
I took the transporter, silicon, and freeze. The soul comes from the brain/mind. I don’t accept the premise of the third question. It is not a reduction to see that the brain/mind produces the soul. And I use the term soul because if one does not then their morality is questioned so that is an easy fix to make.
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago
  Yeah, I have never read a definition of "soul" that made sense to me. The premise for Question 3 said that it has some small effect on character, smaller than upbringing and genes. But lots of people have character or genes like me. So are souls unique? If not memories, what information _is_ stored in the soul?
downvotetruth 3y ago
Could be more convincing if the https://www.philosophyexperiments.com/Contact.aspx https://www.philosophyexperiments.com/Contact.aspx did not return a Runtime Error.
qawwads 3y ago
IMHO, the body, the psyche and the soul can't be separated like that. A body without a soul is a cadaver. The soul is whatever makes the body not a cadaver. The psyche appears from the interaction of the body and the soul. So, in question 1, the teleportation kill you 100%. In question 2, unsure but both choices is probably equaly deadly. And question 3 is pure fantasy because you can't have a living body without a soul.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    Yikes. You took the thread way into religious flamewar here. That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Personal attacks will also get you banned, so please don't do that again either. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      I think it was completely in context. The original submittal had religious questions, the comment I responded to, had religious reasoning to those questions. If I'm not allowed to respond, then just don't allow submittals of any kind that contain a religious overtone. But I think that will become more and more difficult as AI continues to progress and there are more posts allowed to discuss the nature of mind, 'self' and 'consciousness' and what is 'sentient'. These questions beg religious responses in a lot of people. I did read the guidelines, and the recent "No vehicles in the park" post, and understand the difficulties of parsing language. You are in a difficult position. I tend to think linking religious beliefs with terrorism is a common argument, not controversial at all, so it seemed a reasonable response. My error was in calling him 'deluded', that is personal and un-called for. Instead of 'You are deluded', I could have said "such beliefs are delusional", or "such beliefs indicate a lack of self awareness".
aflag 3y ago
> Your choices are consistent with the theory known as psychological reductionism. > But there is a tension. In allowing your brain and body to be replaced by synthetic parts, you seemed to be accepting that psychological continuity is what matters, not bodily continuity. But if this is the case, why did you risk the spacecraft instead of taking the teletransporter? It seemed to me that the virus would essentially kill me anyway by altering my personality and making me lose all my memories. Which means deep alteration of the physical brain as well. The other solution was also death, my brain would be entirely replaced, but at least my psyche would continue. It seemed to me I´d die either way, I picked the least bad.
dudinax 3y ago
It's kind-of a bad test. When you get to the "reincarnation is real" bit, you've undermined anyone who doesn't believe in a transcendent soul.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  A lot of people on the planet do believe in a soul, and it impacts these decisions. It makes the people that do believe in souls wonder "hmm what would a transporter do", and those that don't believe in souls wonder "hmm if there was a soul, how would that change this". These are long standing questions that go back hundreds of years. And for many people are not solved. The point is to make you think. To say a test should not have questions that make you think is wrong. Note: I do not believe either. But I understand it is a long standing question, that is still open for a lot of people, so worth asking.
  - dudinax 3y ago
    In my case I made some choices following my belief that we don't have transcendent souls (took transporter), then the game says we do have transcendent souls, so I changed my course of action based on this new knowledge. The game criticized me for being inconsistent, but the new me on Mars is acting on new knowledge to save their life. It's the same choice original me would have made if I'd been alive to make it given the circumstances.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      The question asked "FOR YOU TO LIVE". What does 'LIVING' mean? If you freeze, and the soul dies, but it doesn't contribute anything, does it matter? You can very well choose to let the soul die, because to you, that isn't what defined life. What this teases out, is if a soul does not provide any information about you, do you care? If the soul does NOT contribute to the next person, and you can't remember it, does it matter? They question outlined that genes, nature-nurture, are what make up a persons personality and memory. The soul does not contribute. Typically people that believe in souls think that they are the essence, even if they don't continue on mentally. They think there is something immaterial that makes them 'alive'. But even in this question, since soul contributes nothing, you can choose to freeze yourself and kill the soul. I choose Freeze. I chose that Psychological continuity defines life. It sounds like you took 'soul' as meaning 'life' and chose that. But that was not necessary to live. From my result: Congratulations! You have survived! You chose: Round 1: It's the teletransporter for me Round 2: I'll take the silicon, thanks Round 3: Freeze me now There are basically three kinds of things that could be required for the continued existence of your self. One is bodily continuity, which may actually require only that parts of the body stay in existence (i.e., the brain). Another is psychological continuity, which requires the continuance of your consciousness - by which is meant your thoughts, ideas, memories, plans, beliefs, and so on. The third possibility is the continued existence of some kind of immaterial part of you, which might be called the soul. Of course, it may be the case that a combination of one or more types of these continuity is required for you to survive.
runjake 3y ago
For scenario 1, in terms of a soul (self-awareness), will it replicate you or a clone of you? What does our soul constitute? In other words, does option #1 effectively kill you? Edit: Thanks for the polite clue, klausa. Back to mowing. Edit 2: If this thought experiment interests you, check out this[1] Black Mirror episode (which has mixed reviews, but illustrates this experiment fairly well). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel,_Jack_and_Ashley_Too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel,_Jack_and_Ashley_Too
- klausa 3y ago
  Congratulations, you correctly identified the underlying philosophical thought experiment!
  - runjake 3y ago
    Well, I guess I'll have to stop doing my yardwork and do the other two scenarios!
platz 3y ago
> But your last choice sees the end to your psychological continuity, since the continued existence of the soul does not provide it. So you first ended bodily continuity and then you ended psychological continuity. I reject the framing of the centrality of the soul in this exercise, and being forced to reconcile this question with the previous questions that do no pre-suppose the existence of the soul.
- jonahss 3y ago
  I had the same problem, the last question added new information.
- scruple 3y ago
  Had the exact same thought.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 3y ago
[flagged]
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  [flagged]
vharuck 3y ago
I chose teleporter, silicon, and reincarnation. My view of a "person" is a continuous arc through time: unlikely to be constant, but you can see how f(t) is connected to f(t-1). The teleporter preserves physicality and behavior. Ship of Theseus via silicon is fine, because replacing bit by bit is close enough to continuity. Reincarnation is a strange twist in the arc, but still continuous; the other option had a chance of termination.
vsareto 3y ago
My brain groks this by considering it pass-by-reference vs. pass-by-value. The original you is the first instance. It occupies a particular place in space which you move about, and also experiences a particular path and timeline. As long as I'm considered alive, I'm adding to that path by moving around and interacting with the universe. You can keep finding and adding more details to get a unique picture of the first instance. The challenge here is easy because you only have to find one unique difference between the first instance and your copies to figure out which is which. It gets harder and harder to prove that one is perfectly equal to another. If you're building a copy of someone (regardless if the original is destroyed), that's pass-by-value. It's just making a copy at another memory location in the universe. If you're moving me around in a space ship, that's obviously pass-by-reference. If you're moving my soul (even with some limitations), that's pass-by-reference as well. What's convenient about this is that if you remove enough things from the soul enough that you can't know if it really is your soul, it casts doubt on how this transfer process was found out and proven in the first place, so we could reject the premise. But if you go and make a second copy of yourself (regardless of destroying the first), memories and personality and other things might be equal, but you can't replicate the path you took unless you can go back in time, so that will always be unique to the instance you're making a copy from. Teletransporters and brain implants are far, far more believable technologies compared to time travel. Experienced history is as much apart of you as your body and mind, and it's conveniently observable externally, so people don't have to trust your word that you're really 'you' or the first instance of you.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
To all the people with a problem with the 3rd question on Soul. The point is, that many religions, and many people, do believe in a soul, or form of dualism, some form of immaterial soul. Thus the question is to tease out your stance, to make people think through some of the issues with their own beliefs. Since it is impossible to define a single form of the immaterial soul, since there are a million interpretations, they provided a very generic simple model to base the question. Who cares if it was new information, at the very start they said each question did NOT depend on the others, and would provide information for that question, that applies to that unique and generic hypothetic situation. It would be pointless to have a questionnaire like this, but the first question be "if you don't believe in a soul, don't take the quiz, this isn't a safe space for the scientist." The discussion of soul's and the possible interactions between material and immaterial go back 1000's of years, and not all from the religious. Early scientist spent a lot of time trying to reconcile science and soul, back to early scientist like Newton, Leibniz, Descartes. Even, does a soul have mass, with experiments on weighing a live body and dead body. It is a long standing question, and one that most people do not think is solved, hence still worth asking. So, a lot of people believe in souls, there is hundreds of years of Scientist, Philosophers and Theologians trying to define and reconcile those views. But what? You, in particular, think it is all solved and wrapped up so it is a stupid question? Note. I don't believe in the immaterial soul, but to discount a philosophical survey because it mentions it, is pretty bogus reason to discount that line of thought. These are all very valid questions in the latest craze of AI. I wouldn't doubt that at some point soon, there would be some religious type protest when someone's loved one is 'mimicked' by an AI bot and then the rest of the congregation calls it a demon, or possesedd, or that it has trapped the persons soul.
- hn_throwaway_78 3y ago
  > You should always base your decisions on nothing more than the desire to keep yourself in existence. Also, each scenario should be taken at face value. The situation will be as described - there are no "tricks" - and you do not need to worry about other 'what ifs'. > Strange as it may seem, it has been discovered that reincarnation of a sort does actually occur. It seems that there is some immaterial part - call it a soul - in all human beings. In the premise of this fictional reality a soul exists; as does reincarnation. It has a 100% success rate to "keep myself in existence" vs. a 30% chance via cryogenics. I was told there would be no tricks, to take each question at face value, and to keep myself in existence. I did so. I was then "tricked" via mid-witted word-play. I'll up the ante, and reduce this problem further: there is no "you." "You" are not in existence. "You" are a collection of atoms in the singular universe (a single entity, where the grouping of its individual parts is a purely subjective matter, and open to interpretation by different pieces of itself). "You" will continue to exist, because "you" are just a collection of energy that is neither created nor destroyed -- simply rearranged. If we take this to the extreme, your choices in this hypothetical philosophical reality do not matter. "You" will always be in "existence." I feel the meme with the bell curve is apt to be used here -- and the author of this tomfoolery is squarely in the middle of it.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
I am bit surprised by the diversity of discussion. There seems to be so many strong opinions on both sides of the same argument that has raged for centuries. Immaterialist: There seems to be as many people that believe in a soul very strongly, to the point where they can't fathom the questions. The questions almost have no meaning in a worldview with souls. Or extreme, the belief in soul has changed their mind to extent they can't see the point of these questions, can't get the point of the questions. (belief in soul in context of the questions in post means dead in a lot of cases) Materialists: There are just as many people that so strongly believe there is NO soul, scientific minded, that the third question that contains the word soul invalidates the entire questionnaire. Materialist think that modern science and technology has rendered the question pointless, that all the answers are already known. This is also false, there might not be an immaterial soul, but the nature of self and its continuity is still open question, and a lot of people equate that with soul, for better or worse. Soul is just all around bad word to describe what we are getting at with consciousness, or sentience. It is too loaded with baggage. Thus, it is a successful questionnaire, it makes both sides think a bit more.
- morelisp 3y ago
  It didn't make me think more. I don't believe there is a soul, and I answered the first two questions accordingly. The third stipulated I must believe in one, so of course my behavior changed. But that did nothing to convince me there is a soul, nor to change how I would behave if there is or isn't one. "If things were different, you'd act different!" is some reply-guy gotcha bullshit, not serious philosophical discussion. You might as well lead with "Imagine the teleporter kills you. Should you use it?"
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    If you don't dig the teleporter question, nor the soul question, because they are just hypotheticals. And "If things were different, you'd act different!" Is off limits because it is just a 'gatcha'. Then how do you think about any issues that don't have pre-determined iron-clad answers. If thinking through un-known situations is not allowed, how would people come up with anything new? I'm really not seeing how these long standing philosophical questions (look them up, they have been around for a long time), are some how not valid for 'serious philosophical discussion', because you personally don't believe them. The concept of continuity of self and what constitute a self, and is it a soul or not, has been part of philosophical and scientific debate for centuries. I don't believe in a soul either, but it's foolish to dismiss most of the world that does believe, or dismiss a questionnaire that includes some aspect of what most of the world believes. This sounds like it should have been pre-faced with "this questioner is not a safe space for those that can't think in hypotheticals from other points of view"
whatever1 3y ago
Even if we replicate 100% the state of our cells, we would also need all of the micorobiome that was developed on/in us over the year. Myself without my current gut, is not the same person.
Claude_Shannon 3y ago
I had went with spaceship, virus, letting my body die. Teleportation would kill me anyway, it is not the same person. Either getting a silicon brain or letting virus go on would kill my current self, so I chose to preserve my body; and if in third question we are sure soul exists, risking its' obliteration is never worth the gamble.
BestGuess 3y ago
Just to cut off a problem at the pass I ain't nitpicking him here like he is reading palms or nothin. Just blabbering about some frustrations on somethin I think important but maybe for dumb reasons I don't know. So I want to share in case it is, but don't want claims it's dumb for reasons I ain't meaning. I can't be the only one who feels round 3 didn't make sense and feel bamboozled by the jumping guesses about why I answered the prior two. Not in some silly way like "how dare the fella" I mean like he might not notice people interpret his soul thing in a way he definitely doesn't seem to. I took the teleporter, and sure silicon whatever, but round 3 claims souls exist changing what my assumptions are for the game. The guy who made it seems to assume soul means no 'psychological continuity', but I ain't ever heard nobody think that and they seem to think the opposite which is why I went with dying because round 3 gave me information telling me reality don't work like I think it does now. Gotta say ahead of time I read the thing and I know he says the "soul effect" is small but that don't matter if 'that small part is what counts'. Thing is that's exactly what everybody who believes in a soul thinks so I went with the stuff I've heard all my life and thought "Well guess they were right so I better change how I think and answer like they do". Now where that seems a problem is he seems to think people who think souls exist don't think that mental continuity exists in souls in an important way, or that changing your choice based on new information implies I believe in souls when I don't. I'm tryin to explain, badly I guess, that he tried to make it sound unimportant in a way that doesn't do what he thinks it does. Just goin by a lifetime of bibles being thumped on me. So others might make the same choice for the same reason but don't seem many notice the mountain looks real darn different from where someone like me is at.
JoelSanchez 3y ago
> Your choices are consistent with the view that bodily continuity is necessary for personal survival. You risk death on the spacecraft, allow your mind to be messed around with by the virus and allow your soul to be destroyed so that your body (or at least your brain in a body) can have a chance of staying in existence. And it does. apparently i have survived. the "virus vs silicon" choice was very easy, i already took something that changed my entire personality and rewrote my memories (mtf hrt) > But is this survival of you? Is it enough for your body to continue to exist if your personality, wishes, beliefs, desires and memories do not? it's the survival of a version of me and that's enough imo
sterlind 3y ago
I took spaceship, then virus, under the idea that what I was keeping "alive" was some sort of soul - at least potentially - and that I could be sure of the soul's continuity as long as I took the ship, and then that the virus wouldn't change me as much as I'd changed from being an infant. then, with the existence of the soul seemingly confirmed, there's no way I'd let myself be frozen - I'd become a philosophical zombie. but it takes me to task for my inconsistency, since I made previous choices to preserve bodily integrity over mental integrity. and I don't quite understand that.

73 points by memalign 3y ago

I played this after playing the No vehicles in the park one the other day. When I got to the question about the soul I saw it as misleading and confidently selected the other option because previously the teleportation worked, and IIRC the other option had 30% success, both of which disproved the existence of a soul.

powerset 3y ago
Yeah the soul question seemed unfair, in the sense that I answered the first two with the assumption there is no soul, but the third question asks to assume a soul exists, so there's no way to answer it and stay consistent with my previous two answers
- brookst 3y ago
  Same. If you accept the game's assertion that souls and reincarnation have been proven, it go e's you a hard time for changing your answer based on new evidence. Very strange for a game purporting to explore beliefs.
- Ukv 3y ago
  I thought that initially, but I think the question is intentional in only describing (as stated facts, rather than as implied by labelling of "call it a soul") its properties as something immaterial that floats between humans/animals very slightly affecting their character - without asserting that it's "the real you". E.G: A family heirloom might travel between people on death and slightly affect the character of whoever's wearing it through self-perception, but (under the assumption that what I value is self-preservation) I wouldn't sacrifice my physical brain containing the only copy of my personality/memories/etc. in order to save it. I'd guess what it's testing would then be whether you identify this thing with a pre-existing belief of an immaterial you, or already believe you are physical(ly instantiated patterns) and that this thing is just incidental - like any other environmental impact on yourself.
apocalypstyx 3y ago
It depends on a certain consideration. If you take the argument (which I can't remember who laid it out) that (in Christian metaphysics, was the example) the experience of the individual (self) is replicable by God but the unique soul is not, consciousness experience (memories and sense of self) can be replicated by definition but the soul (necessarily unique) cannot. So soul and conscious experience must be distinct. The conclusion was that everything that makes an individual an individual as known (memories, experience, perception, personality) perishes with death and only the soul continues on and is completely distinct from the individual sense of self. So there is no experience of "heaven" by the self. Such is immaterial from the point of view of consciousness. A version of this is what I took to be laid out by the 3rd question. On this basis, the continuation of the soul is irrelevant with regards to the self. The death of the soul would be as immaterial to the self as the soul's continuation to "heaven" would be to consciousness.

lores 3y ago

The game told me I was a psychological reductionist, for whom only psychological continuity is important. Fair enough, but it then berated me for taking the spaceship rather than the teleporter. Um, what? Whatever appears at the other end of the teleporter is not me, I'm dead and my consciousness extinct, so why the tut-tuting?

behrlich 3y ago
I took Space Ship + silicon rather than virus. I thought the tut-tutting was pretty well explained: > But there is a tension. In allowing your brain and body to be replaced by synthetic parts, you seemed to be accepting that psychological continuity is what matters, not bodily continuity. But if this is the case, why did you risk the spacecraft instead of taking the teletransporter? You ended up allowing your body to be replaced anyway, so why did you decide to risk everything on the spacecraft instead of just giving up your original body there and then? The question being posed is "what is the difference between replacing all of your cells, vs all of your neurons over time?". My logic was that my molecules are being replaced over time, so is that so different than my neurons being replaced over time, whereas a wholesale replacement of my body felt like a break in continuity. I'm no philosopher though :)
- hiccuphippo 3y ago
  This is a thought experiment know as the Ship of Theseus[0]. I never thought of it in terms of replacing molecules in a human body, it certainly spices things up. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
- darepublic 3y ago
  Yes it is like the difference between rolling a wheel from point a to b and picking it up and carrying it over. Life is the rolling. Once the rubber leaves the road it's rip.
sweetsocks21 3y ago
If you do take the teleporter it mentions that as well: > Your three choices show that this is what you see as central to your sense of self, not any attachment to a particular substance, be it your body, brain or soul. However, some would say that you have not survived at all, but fallen foul of a terrible error. In the teletransporter case, for example, was it really you that travelled to Mars or is it more correct to say that a clone or copy of you was made on Mars, while you were destroyed?

benlivengood 3y ago

70% is an outstanding success rate for cryonics. The real problem, of course, is that whatever idiot scientists regrew a complete biological replacement for me from silicon didn't bother to keep a backup before the cryonics attempt. Like, the teleteleporter already made a perfect cellular replica so the technology is readily available.

zerocrates 3y ago
It's a 70% failure rate, not success rate.
- benlivengood 3y ago
  Still outstanding since current real-world success rates are estimated to be somewhat less than 1%.

Krollifi 3y ago

I took the transporter, silicon, and freeze. The soul comes from the brain/mind. I don’t accept the premise of the third question. It is not a reduction to see that the brain/mind produces the soul. And I use the term soul because if one does not then their morality is questioned so that is an easy fix to make.

ReactiveJelly 3y ago
Yeah, I have never read a definition of "soul" that made sense to me. The premise for Question 3 said that it has some small effect on character, smaller than upbringing and genes. But lots of people have character or genes like me. So are souls unique? If not memories, what information _is_ stored in the soul?

downvotetruth 3y ago

Could be more convincing if the https://www.philosophyexperiments.com/Contact.aspx https://www.philosophyexperiments.com/Contact.aspx did not return a Runtime Error.

qawwads 3y ago

IMHO, the body, the psyche and the soul can't be separated like that. A body without a soul is a cadaver. The soul is whatever makes the body not a cadaver. The psyche appears from the interaction of the body and the soul. So, in question 1, the teleportation kill you 100%. In question 2, unsure but both choices is probably equaly deadly. And question 3 is pure fantasy because you can't have a living body without a soul.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Yikes. You took the thread way into religious flamewar here. That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Personal attacks will also get you banned, so please don't do that again either. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    I think it was completely in context. The original submittal had religious questions, the comment I responded to, had religious reasoning to those questions. If I'm not allowed to respond, then just don't allow submittals of any kind that contain a religious overtone. But I think that will become more and more difficult as AI continues to progress and there are more posts allowed to discuss the nature of mind, 'self' and 'consciousness' and what is 'sentient'. These questions beg religious responses in a lot of people. I did read the guidelines, and the recent "No vehicles in the park" post, and understand the difficulties of parsing language. You are in a difficult position. I tend to think linking religious beliefs with terrorism is a common argument, not controversial at all, so it seemed a reasonable response. My error was in calling him 'deluded', that is personal and un-called for. Instead of 'You are deluded', I could have said "such beliefs are delusional", or "such beliefs indicate a lack of self awareness".

aflag 3y ago

> Your choices are consistent with the theory known as psychological reductionism. > But there is a tension. In allowing your brain and body to be replaced by synthetic parts, you seemed to be accepting that psychological continuity is what matters, not bodily continuity. But if this is the case, why did you risk the spacecraft instead of taking the teletransporter? It seemed to me that the virus would essentially kill me anyway by altering my personality and making me lose all my memories. Which means deep alteration of the physical brain as well. The other solution was also death, my brain would be entirely replaced, but at least my psyche would continue. It seemed to me I´d die either way, I picked the least bad.

dudinax 3y ago

It's kind-of a bad test. When you get to the "reincarnation is real" bit, you've undermined anyone who doesn't believe in a transcendent soul.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
A lot of people on the planet do believe in a soul, and it impacts these decisions. It makes the people that do believe in souls wonder "hmm what would a transporter do", and those that don't believe in souls wonder "hmm if there was a soul, how would that change this". These are long standing questions that go back hundreds of years. And for many people are not solved. The point is to make you think. To say a test should not have questions that make you think is wrong. Note: I do not believe either. But I understand it is a long standing question, that is still open for a lot of people, so worth asking.
- dudinax 3y ago
  In my case I made some choices following my belief that we don't have transcendent souls (took transporter), then the game says we do have transcendent souls, so I changed my course of action based on this new knowledge. The game criticized me for being inconsistent, but the new me on Mars is acting on new knowledge to save their life. It's the same choice original me would have made if I'd been alive to make it given the circumstances.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    The question asked "FOR YOU TO LIVE". What does 'LIVING' mean? If you freeze, and the soul dies, but it doesn't contribute anything, does it matter? You can very well choose to let the soul die, because to you, that isn't what defined life. What this teases out, is if a soul does not provide any information about you, do you care? If the soul does NOT contribute to the next person, and you can't remember it, does it matter? They question outlined that genes, nature-nurture, are what make up a persons personality and memory. The soul does not contribute. Typically people that believe in souls think that they are the essence, even if they don't continue on mentally. They think there is something immaterial that makes them 'alive'. But even in this question, since soul contributes nothing, you can choose to freeze yourself and kill the soul. I choose Freeze. I chose that Psychological continuity defines life. It sounds like you took 'soul' as meaning 'life' and chose that. But that was not necessary to live. From my result: Congratulations! You have survived! You chose: Round 1: It's the teletransporter for me Round 2: I'll take the silicon, thanks Round 3: Freeze me now There are basically three kinds of things that could be required for the continued existence of your self. One is bodily continuity, which may actually require only that parts of the body stay in existence (i.e., the brain). Another is psychological continuity, which requires the continuance of your consciousness - by which is meant your thoughts, ideas, memories, plans, beliefs, and so on. The third possibility is the continued existence of some kind of immaterial part of you, which might be called the soul. Of course, it may be the case that a combination of one or more types of these continuity is required for you to survive.

runjake 3y ago

For scenario 1, in terms of a soul (self-awareness), will it replicate you or a clone of you? What does our soul constitute? In other words, does option #1 effectively kill you? Edit: Thanks for the polite clue, klausa. Back to mowing. Edit 2: If this thought experiment interests you, check out this[1] Black Mirror episode (which has mixed reviews, but illustrates this experiment fairly well). 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel,_Jack_and_Ashley_Too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel,_Jack_and_Ashley_Too

klausa 3y ago
Congratulations, you correctly identified the underlying philosophical thought experiment!
- runjake 3y ago
  Well, I guess I'll have to stop doing my yardwork and do the other two scenarios!

platz 3y ago

> But your last choice sees the end to your psychological continuity, since the continued existence of the soul does not provide it. So you first ended bodily continuity and then you ended psychological continuity. I reject the framing of the centrality of the soul in this exercise, and being forced to reconcile this question with the previous questions that do no pre-suppose the existence of the soul.

jonahss 3y ago
I had the same problem, the last question added new information.
scruple 3y ago
Had the exact same thought.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 3y ago

[flagged]

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
[flagged]

vharuck 3y ago

I chose teleporter, silicon, and reincarnation. My view of a "person" is a continuous arc through time: unlikely to be constant, but you can see how f(t) is connected to f(t-1). The teleporter preserves physicality and behavior. Ship of Theseus via silicon is fine, because replacing bit by bit is close enough to continuity. Reincarnation is a strange twist in the arc, but still continuous; the other option had a chance of termination.

vsareto 3y ago

My brain groks this by considering it pass-by-reference vs. pass-by-value. The original you is the first instance. It occupies a particular place in space which you move about, and also experiences a particular path and timeline. As long as I'm considered alive, I'm adding to that path by moving around and interacting with the universe. You can keep finding and adding more details to get a unique picture of the first instance. The challenge here is easy because you only have to find one unique difference between the first instance and your copies to figure out which is which. It gets harder and harder to prove that one is perfectly equal to another. If you're building a copy of someone (regardless if the original is destroyed), that's pass-by-value. It's just making a copy at another memory location in the universe. If you're moving me around in a space ship, that's obviously pass-by-reference. If you're moving my soul (even with some limitations), that's pass-by-reference as well. What's convenient about this is that if you remove enough things from the soul enough that you can't know if it really is your soul, it casts doubt on how this transfer process was found out and proven in the first place, so we could reject the premise. But if you go and make a second copy of yourself (regardless of destroying the first), memories and personality and other things might be equal, but you can't replicate the path you took unless you can go back in time, so that will always be unique to the instance you're making a copy from. Teletransporters and brain implants are far, far more believable technologies compared to time travel. Experienced history is as much apart of you as your body and mind, and it's conveniently observable externally, so people don't have to trust your word that you're really 'you' or the first instance of you.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

To all the people with a problem with the 3rd question on Soul. The point is, that many religions, and many people, do believe in a soul, or form of dualism, some form of immaterial soul. Thus the question is to tease out your stance, to make people think through some of the issues with their own beliefs. Since it is impossible to define a single form of the immaterial soul, since there are a million interpretations, they provided a very generic simple model to base the question. Who cares if it was new information, at the very start they said each question did NOT depend on the others, and would provide information for that question, that applies to that unique and generic hypothetic situation. It would be pointless to have a questionnaire like this, but the first question be "if you don't believe in a soul, don't take the quiz, this isn't a safe space for the scientist." The discussion of soul's and the possible interactions between material and immaterial go back 1000's of years, and not all from the religious. Early scientist spent a lot of time trying to reconcile science and soul, back to early scientist like Newton, Leibniz, Descartes. Even, does a soul have mass, with experiments on weighing a live body and dead body. It is a long standing question, and one that most people do not think is solved, hence still worth asking. So, a lot of people believe in souls, there is hundreds of years of Scientist, Philosophers and Theologians trying to define and reconcile those views. But what? You, in particular, think it is all solved and wrapped up so it is a stupid question? Note. I don't believe in the immaterial soul, but to discount a philosophical survey because it mentions it, is pretty bogus reason to discount that line of thought. These are all very valid questions in the latest craze of AI. I wouldn't doubt that at some point soon, there would be some religious type protest when someone's loved one is 'mimicked' by an AI bot and then the rest of the congregation calls it a demon, or possesedd, or that it has trapped the persons soul.

hn_throwaway_78 3y ago
> You should always base your decisions on nothing more than the desire to keep yourself in existence. Also, each scenario should be taken at face value. The situation will be as described - there are no "tricks" - and you do not need to worry about other 'what ifs'. > Strange as it may seem, it has been discovered that reincarnation of a sort does actually occur. It seems that there is some immaterial part - call it a soul - in all human beings. In the premise of this fictional reality a soul exists; as does reincarnation. It has a 100% success rate to "keep myself in existence" vs. a 30% chance via cryogenics. I was told there would be no tricks, to take each question at face value, and to keep myself in existence. I did so. I was then "tricked" via mid-witted word-play. I'll up the ante, and reduce this problem further: there is no "you." "You" are not in existence. "You" are a collection of atoms in the singular universe (a single entity, where the grouping of its individual parts is a purely subjective matter, and open to interpretation by different pieces of itself). "You" will continue to exist, because "you" are just a collection of energy that is neither created nor destroyed -- simply rearranged. If we take this to the extreme, your choices in this hypothetical philosophical reality do not matter. "You" will always be in "existence." I feel the meme with the bell curve is apt to be used here -- and the author of this tomfoolery is squarely in the middle of it.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

I am bit surprised by the diversity of discussion. There seems to be so many strong opinions on both sides of the same argument that has raged for centuries. Immaterialist: There seems to be as many people that believe in a soul very strongly, to the point where they can't fathom the questions. The questions almost have no meaning in a worldview with souls. Or extreme, the belief in soul has changed their mind to extent they can't see the point of these questions, can't get the point of the questions. (belief in soul in context of the questions in post means dead in a lot of cases) Materialists: There are just as many people that so strongly believe there is NO soul, scientific minded, that the third question that contains the word soul invalidates the entire questionnaire. Materialist think that modern science and technology has rendered the question pointless, that all the answers are already known. This is also false, there might not be an immaterial soul, but the nature of self and its continuity is still open question, and a lot of people equate that with soul, for better or worse. Soul is just all around bad word to describe what we are getting at with consciousness, or sentience. It is too loaded with baggage. Thus, it is a successful questionnaire, it makes both sides think a bit more.

morelisp 3y ago
It didn't make me think more. I don't believe there is a soul, and I answered the first two questions accordingly. The third stipulated I must believe in one, so of course my behavior changed. But that did nothing to convince me there is a soul, nor to change how I would behave if there is or isn't one. "If things were different, you'd act different!" is some reply-guy gotcha bullshit, not serious philosophical discussion. You might as well lead with "Imagine the teleporter kills you. Should you use it?"
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  If you don't dig the teleporter question, nor the soul question, because they are just hypotheticals. And "If things were different, you'd act different!" Is off limits because it is just a 'gatcha'. Then how do you think about any issues that don't have pre-determined iron-clad answers. If thinking through un-known situations is not allowed, how would people come up with anything new? I'm really not seeing how these long standing philosophical questions (look them up, they have been around for a long time), are some how not valid for 'serious philosophical discussion', because you personally don't believe them. The concept of continuity of self and what constitute a self, and is it a soul or not, has been part of philosophical and scientific debate for centuries. I don't believe in a soul either, but it's foolish to dismiss most of the world that does believe, or dismiss a questionnaire that includes some aspect of what most of the world believes. This sounds like it should have been pre-faced with "this questioner is not a safe space for those that can't think in hypotheticals from other points of view"

whatever1 3y ago

Even if we replicate 100% the state of our cells, we would also need all of the micorobiome that was developed on/in us over the year. Myself without my current gut, is not the same person.

Claude_Shannon 3y ago

I had went with spaceship, virus, letting my body die. Teleportation would kill me anyway, it is not the same person. Either getting a silicon brain or letting virus go on would kill my current self, so I chose to preserve my body; and if in third question we are sure soul exists, risking its' obliteration is never worth the gamble.

BestGuess 3y ago

Just to cut off a problem at the pass I ain't nitpicking him here like he is reading palms or nothin. Just blabbering about some frustrations on somethin I think important but maybe for dumb reasons I don't know. So I want to share in case it is, but don't want claims it's dumb for reasons I ain't meaning. I can't be the only one who feels round 3 didn't make sense and feel bamboozled by the jumping guesses about why I answered the prior two. Not in some silly way like "how dare the fella" I mean like he might not notice people interpret his soul thing in a way he definitely doesn't seem to. I took the teleporter, and sure silicon whatever, but round 3 claims souls exist changing what my assumptions are for the game. The guy who made it seems to assume soul means no 'psychological continuity', but I ain't ever heard nobody think that and they seem to think the opposite which is why I went with dying because round 3 gave me information telling me reality don't work like I think it does now. Gotta say ahead of time I read the thing and I know he says the "soul effect" is small but that don't matter if 'that small part is what counts'. Thing is that's exactly what everybody who believes in a soul thinks so I went with the stuff I've heard all my life and thought "Well guess they were right so I better change how I think and answer like they do". Now where that seems a problem is he seems to think people who think souls exist don't think that mental continuity exists in souls in an important way, or that changing your choice based on new information implies I believe in souls when I don't. I'm tryin to explain, badly I guess, that he tried to make it sound unimportant in a way that doesn't do what he thinks it does. Just goin by a lifetime of bibles being thumped on me. So others might make the same choice for the same reason but don't seem many notice the mountain looks real darn different from where someone like me is at.

JoelSanchez 3y ago

> Your choices are consistent with the view that bodily continuity is necessary for personal survival. You risk death on the spacecraft, allow your mind to be messed around with by the virus and allow your soul to be destroyed so that your body (or at least your brain in a body) can have a chance of staying in existence. And it does. apparently i have survived. the "virus vs silicon" choice was very easy, i already took something that changed my entire personality and rewrote my memories (mtf hrt) > But is this survival of you? Is it enough for your body to continue to exist if your personality, wishes, beliefs, desires and memories do not? it's the survival of a version of me and that's enough imo

sterlind 3y ago

I took spaceship, then virus, under the idea that what I was keeping "alive" was some sort of soul - at least potentially - and that I could be sure of the soul's continuity as long as I took the ship, and then that the virus wouldn't change me as much as I'd changed from being an infant. then, with the existence of the soul seemingly confirmed, there's no way I'd let myself be frozen - I'd become a philosophical zombie. but it takes me to task for my inconsistency, since I made previous choices to preserve bodily integrity over mental integrity. and I don't quite understand that.