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> If you simulated a human brain by the atom, That is what we don't know is possible. You don't even know what physics or particles are as yet undiscovered. An

by prmph 1y ago

> If you simulated a human brain by the atom, That is what we don't know is possible. You don't even know what physics or particles are as yet undiscovered. And from what we even know currently, atoms are too coarse to form the basis of such "cloning" And, my viewpoint is that, even if this were possible, just because you simulated a brain atom by atom, does not mean you have a consciousness. If it is the arrangement of matter that gives rise to consciousness, then would that new consciousness be the same person or not? If you have a basis for answering that question, let's hear it.

gf000 1y ago
Well, if you were to magically make an exact replica of a person, wouldn't it be conscious and at time 0 be the same person? But later on, he would get different experiences and become a different person no longer identical to the first. In extension, I would argue that magically "translating" a person to another medium (e.g. a chip) would still make for the same person, initially. Though the word "magic" does a lot of work here.
- prmph 1y ago
  I'm not talking about "identical" consciousnesses. I mean the same consciousness. The same consciousness cannot split into two, can it? Either it is (and continues to be) the same consciousness, or it is not. If it were the same consciousness, then you would have a person who exists in two places at once.
  - gf000 1y ago
    Consciousness has no agreed upon definition to begin with, but I like to think of it as to what a whirlwind is to a bunch of air molecules (that is, an example of emergent behavior) So your question is, are two whirlwinds with identical properties (same speed, same direction, shape etc) the same in one box of air, vs another identical box?
    - prmph 1y ago
      Exactly, I guess this starts to get into philosophical questions around identity real quick. To me, two such whirlwinds are identical but not the same. They are the same only if they are guaranteed to have the same value for every conceivable property, forever, and even this condition may not be enough.
  - tsimionescu 1y ago
    Well, "the same consciousness" it's not, as for example it occupies a different position in spacetime. It's an identical copy for a split second, and then they start diverging. Nothing so deep about any of this. When I copy a file from one disk to another, it's not the same file, they're identical copies for some time (usually, assuming no defects in the copying process), and will likely start diverging afterwards.
    - pka 11mo ago
      It might be deeper than you think. Qualia exist "outside" spacetime, e.g. redness doesn't have a position in spacetime. If consciousness is purely physical, then how can two identical systems (identical brains with identical sensory input) giving rise by definition to the same qualia not literally be the same consciousness?
      - tsimionescu 11mo ago
        > Qualia exist "outside" spacetime, e.g. redness doesn't have a position in spacetime. I'm sensing redness here and now, so the sensation of redness exists very clearly tied to a particular point in spacetime. In what sense is the qualia of redness not firmly anchored in spacetime? Of course, you could talk about the concept redness, like the concept Pi, but even then, these concepts exist in the mind of a human thinking about them, still tied to a particular location in spacetime. > If consciousness is purely physical, then how can two identical systems (identical brains with identical sensory input) giving rise by definition to the same qualia not literally be the same consciousness? The two brains don't receive the same sensory inputs, nothing in the experiment says they do. From the second right after the duplicate is created, their sensory inputs diverge, and so they become separate consciousnesses with the same history. They are interchangeable initially, if you gave the same sensory inputs to either of them, they would have the same output (even internally). But, they are not identical: giving some sensory input to one of them will not create any effect directly in the other one.
        pka 11mo ago
        > I'm sensing redness here and now, so the sensation of redness exists very clearly tied to a particular point in spacetime. In what sense is the qualia of redness not firmly anchored in spacetime? Of course, you could talk about the concept redness, like the concept Pi, but even then, these concepts exist in the mind of a human thinking about them, still tied to a particular location in spacetime. But qualia are inherently subjective. You can correlate brain activity (which exists at a position in spacetime) to subjective experience, but that experience is not related to spacetime. Said otherwise: imagine you are in the Matrix at a coffee shop and sense redness, but your brain is actually in a vat somewhere being fed fake sensory input. "Where" is the redness? You would clearly say that it arises in your brain in the coffee shop. Imagine then the vat is moved (so its position in spacetime changes), your brain is rolled back to its previous state, and then fed the same sensory input again. Where is the redness now? You can't differentiate the two sensations of redness based on the actual position of the brain in spacetime. For all intents and purposes, they are the same. Qualia only depend on the internal brain state at a point in time and on the sensory input. Spacetime is nowhere to be found in that equation. > The two brains don't receive the same sensory inputs But let's say they do. Identical brains, identical inputs = identical qualia. What differentiates both consciousnesses?
myrmidon 1y ago
> You don't even know what physics or particles are as yet undiscovered You would not need the simulation to be perfect; there is ample evidence that our brains a quite robust against disturbances. > just because you simulated a brain atom by atom, does not mean you have a consciousness. If you don't want that to be true, you need some kind of magic, that makes the simulation behave differently from reality. How would a simulation of your brain react to an question that you would answer "consciously"? If it gives the same responds to the same inputs, how could you argue it isnt't conscious? > If it is the arrangement of matter that gives rise to consciousness, then would that new consciousness be the same person or not? The simulated consciousness would be a different one from the original; both could exist at the same time and would be expected to diverge. But their reactions/internal state/thoughts could be matched at least for an instant, and be very similar for potentially much longer. I think this is just Occams razor applied to our minds: There is no evidence whatsoever that our thinking is linked to anything outside of our brains, or outside the realm of physics.
- prmph 1y ago
  > "quite robust against disturbances." does not mean that the essential thing gives rise to consciousness is only approximate. To give an example from software, you can write software is robust against bad input, attempts to crash it, even bit flips. But, if I came in and just changed a single character in the source code, that may cause it to fail compilation, fail to run, or become quite buggy. > If you don't want that to be true, you need some kind of magic, This is just what I'm saying is a false dichotomy. The only reason some are unable to see beyond it is that we think the basic logic we understand are all there could be. In this respect physics has been very helpful, because without peering into reality, we would have kept deluding ourselves that pure reason was enough to understand the world. It's like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a well educated person or scientist from the 16th century without the benefit of experimental evidence. No way they'd believe you. In fact, they'd accuse you of violating basic logic.
  - myrmidon 1y ago
    How is it a false dichotomy? If you want consciousness to NOT be simulateable, then you need some essential component to our minds that can't be simulated (call it soul or whatever) and for that thing to interface with our physical bodies (obviously). We have zero evidence for either. > does not mean that the essential thing gives rise to consciousness is only approximate But we have 8 billion different instances that are presumably conscious; plenty of them have all kinds of defects, and the whole architecture has been derived by a completely mechanical process free of any understanding (=> evolution/selection). On the other hand, there is zero evidence of consciousness continuing/running before or after our physical brains are operational.
quantum_state 1y ago
At some point, quantum effects will need to be accounted for. The no cloning theorem will make it hard to replicate the quantum state of the brain.

by prmph 1y ago

gf000 1y ago

Well, if you were to magically make an exact replica of a person, wouldn't it be conscious and at time 0 be the same person? But later on, he would get different experiences and become a different person no longer identical to the first. In extension, I would argue that magically "translating" a person to another medium (e.g. a chip) would still make for the same person, initially. Though the word "magic" does a lot of work here.

prmph 1y ago
I'm not talking about "identical" consciousnesses. I mean the same consciousness. The same consciousness cannot split into two, can it? Either it is (and continues to be) the same consciousness, or it is not. If it were the same consciousness, then you would have a person who exists in two places at once.
- gf000 1y ago
  Consciousness has no agreed upon definition to begin with, but I like to think of it as to what a whirlwind is to a bunch of air molecules (that is, an example of emergent behavior) So your question is, are two whirlwinds with identical properties (same speed, same direction, shape etc) the same in one box of air, vs another identical box?
  - prmph 1y ago
    Exactly, I guess this starts to get into philosophical questions around identity real quick. To me, two such whirlwinds are identical but not the same. They are the same only if they are guaranteed to have the same value for every conceivable property, forever, and even this condition may not be enough.
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  Well, "the same consciousness" it's not, as for example it occupies a different position in spacetime. It's an identical copy for a split second, and then they start diverging. Nothing so deep about any of this. When I copy a file from one disk to another, it's not the same file, they're identical copies for some time (usually, assuming no defects in the copying process), and will likely start diverging afterwards.
  - pka 11mo ago
    It might be deeper than you think. Qualia exist "outside" spacetime, e.g. redness doesn't have a position in spacetime. If consciousness is purely physical, then how can two identical systems (identical brains with identical sensory input) giving rise by definition to the same qualia not literally be the same consciousness?
    - tsimionescu 11mo ago
      > Qualia exist "outside" spacetime, e.g. redness doesn't have a position in spacetime. I'm sensing redness here and now, so the sensation of redness exists very clearly tied to a particular point in spacetime. In what sense is the qualia of redness not firmly anchored in spacetime? Of course, you could talk about the concept redness, like the concept Pi, but even then, these concepts exist in the mind of a human thinking about them, still tied to a particular location in spacetime. > If consciousness is purely physical, then how can two identical systems (identical brains with identical sensory input) giving rise by definition to the same qualia not literally be the same consciousness? The two brains don't receive the same sensory inputs, nothing in the experiment says they do. From the second right after the duplicate is created, their sensory inputs diverge, and so they become separate consciousnesses with the same history. They are interchangeable initially, if you gave the same sensory inputs to either of them, they would have the same output (even internally). But, they are not identical: giving some sensory input to one of them will not create any effect directly in the other one.
      - pka 11mo ago
        > I'm sensing redness here and now, so the sensation of redness exists very clearly tied to a particular point in spacetime. In what sense is the qualia of redness not firmly anchored in spacetime? Of course, you could talk about the concept redness, like the concept Pi, but even then, these concepts exist in the mind of a human thinking about them, still tied to a particular location in spacetime. But qualia are inherently subjective. You can correlate brain activity (which exists at a position in spacetime) to subjective experience, but that experience is not related to spacetime. Said otherwise: imagine you are in the Matrix at a coffee shop and sense redness, but your brain is actually in a vat somewhere being fed fake sensory input. "Where" is the redness? You would clearly say that it arises in your brain in the coffee shop. Imagine then the vat is moved (so its position in spacetime changes), your brain is rolled back to its previous state, and then fed the same sensory input again. Where is the redness now? You can't differentiate the two sensations of redness based on the actual position of the brain in spacetime. For all intents and purposes, they are the same. Qualia only depend on the internal brain state at a point in time and on the sensory input. Spacetime is nowhere to be found in that equation. > The two brains don't receive the same sensory inputs But let's say they do. Identical brains, identical inputs = identical qualia. What differentiates both consciousnesses?

myrmidon 1y ago

> You don't even know what physics or particles are as yet undiscovered You would not need the simulation to be perfect; there is ample evidence that our brains a quite robust against disturbances. > just because you simulated a brain atom by atom, does not mean you have a consciousness. If you don't want that to be true, you need some kind of magic, that makes the simulation behave differently from reality. How would a simulation of your brain react to an question that you would answer "consciously"? If it gives the same responds to the same inputs, how could you argue it isnt't conscious? > If it is the arrangement of matter that gives rise to consciousness, then would that new consciousness be the same person or not? The simulated consciousness would be a different one from the original; both could exist at the same time and would be expected to diverge. But their reactions/internal state/thoughts could be matched at least for an instant, and be very similar for potentially much longer. I think this is just Occams razor applied to our minds: There is no evidence whatsoever that our thinking is linked to anything outside of our brains, or outside the realm of physics.

prmph 1y ago
> "quite robust against disturbances." does not mean that the essential thing gives rise to consciousness is only approximate. To give an example from software, you can write software is robust against bad input, attempts to crash it, even bit flips. But, if I came in and just changed a single character in the source code, that may cause it to fail compilation, fail to run, or become quite buggy. > If you don't want that to be true, you need some kind of magic, This is just what I'm saying is a false dichotomy. The only reason some are unable to see beyond it is that we think the basic logic we understand are all there could be. In this respect physics has been very helpful, because without peering into reality, we would have kept deluding ourselves that pure reason was enough to understand the world. It's like trying to explain quantum mechanics to a well educated person or scientist from the 16th century without the benefit of experimental evidence. No way they'd believe you. In fact, they'd accuse you of violating basic logic.
- myrmidon 1y ago
  How is it a false dichotomy? If you want consciousness to NOT be simulateable, then you need some essential component to our minds that can't be simulated (call it soul or whatever) and for that thing to interface with our physical bodies (obviously). We have zero evidence for either. > does not mean that the essential thing gives rise to consciousness is only approximate But we have 8 billion different instances that are presumably conscious; plenty of them have all kinds of defects, and the whole architecture has been derived by a completely mechanical process free of any understanding (=> evolution/selection). On the other hand, there is zero evidence of consciousness continuing/running before or after our physical brains are operational.

quantum_state 1y ago

At some point, quantum effects will need to be accounted for. The no cloning theorem will make it hard to replicate the quantum state of the brain.