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There is one thing that I could do differently that's enormously significant: freely undertake teleportation and mind uploading, given I live to be able to do i

There is one thing that I could do differently that's enormously significant: freely undertake teleportation and mind uploading, given I live to be able to do it; and it's in turn what's driving me just now into Philosophy (I'm learning German even). Surprisingly for me, Graham nails that, but may not quite explore the possibilities ensuing, when he talks about sectioning one's brain in half, putting the other in a clone body, and trying to figure out which person you are now. My working line of reason is that consciousness is, as he puts it, merely an abstract concept we get attached to and have the illusion of having. There is no consciousness, only the awareness of a single moment--a point in time. What we take for consciousness is nothing more than a succession of these single moments, much as a computer's processor clocks at so many Gigahertz. With each moment of awareness creating new memory and storing that memory back in the brain, the subsequent moments are able to access it. You coud think that the current moment of awareness is all that ever really "exists", because for all the other previous ones you only have the memory, you have no concrete evidence that it ever existed. There is no past awareness, there is only a current awareness of what we have registered as the past. With that decoupled thinking, you can start to realize that any given moment of awareness that I have is as different (and as similar) from any given moment you have as it is different from a moment I had 5 minutes ago, or ever. So who I "am" now is as entirely different from who I was just a second ago, in essence, as it would be different from a clone that could be made of me. There is nothing in my flesh ensuring I am a continuous consciousness. There is only the memory. The reason I am closer to my 5-minute younger self than I am to another human being is that the former and I share all the memory up to 5 minutes ago. We have a base commit to our memories in common. But a clone of me, made now, would be exactly as close to my 5-minute younger self. The bottom line is that I should not think that being teleported should kill me, as that would imply that I'm dying after every moment of awareness, birthing a new person who happens to share all my memories. Indeed I may well be, and we have the illusion that we have a continuous life since we have all these vivid memories of what just happened a second ago, even if it's not us who lived through it. And though I'm finding this train of thought increasingly alluring, I know nothing of how philosophy ever brushed it, or it may well have tackled it head on and I wouldn't know it.

yakiv 14y ago
What if there is no passage of time? You could be in a single state but remember the "past" and the perception of moving through time during the "past".
theraccounman 14y ago
There is no consciousness, only the awareness of a single moment I believe many people would say that consciousness and awareness are synonymous terms. And further, consciousness is undeniable, the a priori to all inference and understanding. What have you ever known outside of your consciousness?
GreyZephyr 14y ago
I presume you are acquainted with Buddhist thought on this matter? One of the central tenants of Buddhist philosophy is the idea that there is no such thing as the self, but rather a linked series of experiences. The Chan and Zen traditions make something of a big deal about this; the main goal of the religious and esoteric practices associated with them is to come to the realisation that you do not in some sense exist and are 'selfless' at this point you are said to be enlightened. (As an aside one of the core rules for Buddhist monastic communities is that you can't claim to be enlightened as if you have achieved enlightenment there is no self to make the claim.) The European philosophers came to the idea much later on, historically this would seem to be a side effect of the notion of a soul, and in particular its indivisible nature.
- goldfeld 14y ago
  Buddhist philosophy did shape much of my thinking in the years I read and meditated on the Vipassana variety. But I hadn't been aware that other traditions took the notion of detachment as extremely--and down to it's essence--as I'm now taking, thanks for pointing it out. I hear all of the hype around Zen but the fetishism of Japanese culture keeps me at a distance; though Chan sounds like a wonderful indulgement to go with my Mandarin studies, I'll look into it.
kitbrennan 14y ago
And though I'm finding this train of thought increasingly alluring, I know nothing of how philosophy ever brushed it, or it may well have tackled it head on and I wouldn't know it. Philosophers have actually wrote a lot about the subject of personhood, and it sounds like you would find the discussion fascinating. Not only is the discussion practical in the future for the examples you have given, but it is also incredibly valuable to the present in terms of the abortion debate and the consent debate See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood While a number of pre-19th Century philosophers have wrote about the subject (eg. Descarte, Locke and Hume), I would suggest just reading an outline of their works and delving into the more interesting discussions found in current philosophy journals.

yakiv 14y ago

What if there is no passage of time? You could be in a single state but remember the "past" and the perception of moving through time during the "past".

theraccounman 14y ago

There is no consciousness, only the awareness of a single moment I believe many people would say that consciousness and awareness are synonymous terms. And further, consciousness is undeniable, the a priori to all inference and understanding. What have you ever known outside of your consciousness?

GreyZephyr 14y ago

I presume you are acquainted with Buddhist thought on this matter? One of the central tenants of Buddhist philosophy is the idea that there is no such thing as the self, but rather a linked series of experiences. The Chan and Zen traditions make something of a big deal about this; the main goal of the religious and esoteric practices associated with them is to come to the realisation that you do not in some sense exist and are 'selfless' at this point you are said to be enlightened. (As an aside one of the core rules for Buddhist monastic communities is that you can't claim to be enlightened as if you have achieved enlightenment there is no self to make the claim.) The European philosophers came to the idea much later on, historically this would seem to be a side effect of the notion of a soul, and in particular its indivisible nature.

goldfeld 14y ago
Buddhist philosophy did shape much of my thinking in the years I read and meditated on the Vipassana variety. But I hadn't been aware that other traditions took the notion of detachment as extremely--and down to it's essence--as I'm now taking, thanks for pointing it out. I hear all of the hype around Zen but the fetishism of Japanese culture keeps me at a distance; though Chan sounds like a wonderful indulgement to go with my Mandarin studies, I'll look into it.

kitbrennan 14y ago

And though I'm finding this train of thought increasingly alluring, I know nothing of how philosophy ever brushed it, or it may well have tackled it head on and I wouldn't know it. Philosophers have actually wrote a lot about the subject of personhood, and it sounds like you would find the discussion fascinating. Not only is the discussion practical in the future for the examples you have given, but it is also incredibly valuable to the present in terms of the abortion debate and the consent debate See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood While a number of pre-19th Century philosophers have wrote about the subject (eg. Descarte, Locke and Hume), I would suggest just reading an outline of their works and delving into the more interesting discussions found in current philosophy journals.