3 ms·

Every nanosecond the set of atoms constituting you changes, each of those are a different you.

smeej 2y ago
There's a difference between "I have changed" and "I have been copied." This seems obvious enough to me that I don't question it, but is it not obvious to everyone?
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Copies are impossible because every moment is change with bounded but non-zero uncertainty.
  - smeej 2y ago
    The fact that "you are different" does not mean a "different you" now exists, though. Change of this specific kind is already intrinsically integrated into your existence and identity.
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Every moment of consciousness is different. It is a different you in that sense. What is the strand that keeps it the same ‘you’?
      - Charon77 2y ago
        Honestly I'd like to have my mind copied, but may only be 'simulated' once the current me is dead. From my perspective I'll be dead and there's no changing that, but from the clone's perspective, life just goes on.
      - smeej 2y ago
        Physical continuity, in the sense that there is no break so significant that at any point one could say, "Before this, smeej0, and after this, smeej1." Unlike the ship of the famous thought experiment, there is and can be no reconstructing of the replaced parts such that smeej0 could ever be reconstituted, so the analogy breaks down in any attempt to apply it to humans. Change is ssential to human nature. A human exists--and the same human exists--fron fertilization to death. Fertilization is a change before which we can say "not smeej" and after which, "smeej." And death is also a change before which we can say "smeej" and after which, "not smeej." There will be vastly, vastly more cells at death than there were at fertilization (assuming smeej made it out of the womb and to an observable state), and the original fertilized cell will no longer exist, but there is no other point along the existence of smeej in which a change happens of such significance as to alter whether or not the same thing is present.
  - jiveturkey 2y ago
    true quantum scale copies may be impossible but that resolution may not be necessary to fully copy a person.
ruszki 2y ago
Not if “you” is created by emergence.
maximus-decimus 2y ago
switching a sesame seed on my burger bun is not the same thing as scanning it and uploading the file to the cloud.
prometheus76 2y ago
Because you are more than atoms. You are a pattern. A pattern plays out over time. Like music. Music has a physical component, of course, but music is enjoyable because it's a pattern over time.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Which is the "real" Moonlight Sonata: Beethoven's original sheet music, the first performance, the photons carrying some radio broadcast, some physical vinyl or CD master copy, a lossless encoded digital copy? The thing about a copy, it reproduces that pattern. The question is, how good does a copy need to be to retain the important features? For now, I suspect that any attempt to actually scan a brain would be a cargo-cult copy of a mind… but I don't know that for sure, I'm just going with what I hear from the occasional neuroscientist who bothers to comment on misconceptions in this field.

There's a difference between "I have changed" and "I have been copied." This seems obvious enough to me that I don't question it, but is it not obvious to everyone?

mensetmanusman 2y ago
Copies are impossible because every moment is change with bounded but non-zero uncertainty.
- smeej 2y ago
  The fact that "you are different" does not mean a "different you" now exists, though. Change of this specific kind is already intrinsically integrated into your existence and identity.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    Every moment of consciousness is different. It is a different you in that sense. What is the strand that keeps it the same ‘you’?
    - Charon77 2y ago
      Honestly I'd like to have my mind copied, but may only be 'simulated' once the current me is dead. From my perspective I'll be dead and there's no changing that, but from the clone's perspective, life just goes on.
    - smeej 2y ago
      Physical continuity, in the sense that there is no break so significant that at any point one could say, "Before this, smeej0, and after this, smeej1." Unlike the ship of the famous thought experiment, there is and can be no reconstructing of the replaced parts such that smeej0 could ever be reconstituted, so the analogy breaks down in any attempt to apply it to humans. Change is ssential to human nature. A human exists--and the same human exists--fron fertilization to death. Fertilization is a change before which we can say "not smeej" and after which, "smeej." And death is also a change before which we can say "smeej" and after which, "not smeej." There will be vastly, vastly more cells at death than there were at fertilization (assuming smeej made it out of the womb and to an observable state), and the original fertilized cell will no longer exist, but there is no other point along the existence of smeej in which a change happens of such significance as to alter whether or not the same thing is present.
- jiveturkey 2y ago
  true quantum scale copies may be impossible but that resolution may not be necessary to fully copy a person.

ruszki 2y ago

Not if “you” is created by emergence.

maximus-decimus 2y ago

switching a sesame seed on my burger bun is not the same thing as scanning it and uploading the file to the cloud.

prometheus76 2y ago

Because you are more than atoms. You are a pattern. A pattern plays out over time. Like music. Music has a physical component, of course, but music is enjoyable because it's a pattern over time.

ben_w 2y ago
Which is the "real" Moonlight Sonata: Beethoven's original sheet music, the first performance, the photons carrying some radio broadcast, some physical vinyl or CD master copy, a lossless encoded digital copy? The thing about a copy, it reproduces that pattern. The question is, how good does a copy need to be to retain the important features? For now, I suspect that any attempt to actually scan a brain would be a cargo-cult copy of a mind… but I don't know that for sure, I'm just going with what I hear from the occasional neuroscientist who bothers to comment on misconceptions in this field.