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My anticipation of the counterargument (which is not a bad one): As soon as you whisper something to the clone, the physical state of the clone is different fro

My anticipation of the counterargument (which is not a bad one): As soon as you whisper something to the clone, the physical state of the clone is different from his. The counter-counter-argument is that if consciousness is a product of one physical state, rather than a range of states, then a person harbors an entirely different consciousness from one moment to the next, which is utterly contrary to our notion of consciousness. The upshot of hardcore materialism is that if it's true, the notion of consciousness is an illusion. Then there's no reason to be upset over death, since the thing that will be annihilated doesn't exist. It really is some other person in the distant future who will die.

joeyo 18y ago
Excellent points. Even sleep is problematic-- if I go to sleep and wake up after a nice nap, does the post-nap me share the same consciousness as the pre-nap me? Now while you were asleep I create a clone of you. Which one do you wake up as? Why? It's to bad the story went dead, this is just starting to get fun.
- banned_man 18y ago
  You are still conscious during sleep, but you usually aren't forming memories. The word "unconscious" (meaning nonresponsive) and "consciousness" (as a metaphor for "mind" in the Buddhist sense, subjective experience, or "soul") shouldn't be connected because they refer to entirely different phenomena. With practice in mindfulness meditation, you can remain aware in the early stages of sleep, and form memories nonetheless. It can actually be jarring, because you experience with full awareness the paralysis, the strange pains/zaps (that are actually harmless). If you get good at it, you can pop into a lucid dream (sometimes) or follow the mind into fairly deep levels of sleep... though it's debated whether or not awareness in Stage IV sleep is possible.
  - joeyo 18y ago
    Perhaps we should now define our terms very carefully, I am using the word consciousness to refer to the state of having a subjective experience. So states without a subjective experience-- sleep or anesthesia or death-- are unconscious. Do you disagree? It's not at all clear to me that you can have subjective experiences while you are asleep. Usually dreams are considered a subjective experience and this is interpreted to mean that you experience a dream, and upon waking you remember that experience. But consider this alternative hypothesis: There is random brain activity during sleep, but no subjective experience of it. Upon awakening, the brain has to make sense of this nonsense activity and shoves it all into memory. This is, in a way, a "false memory". Thus you wake up and "remember" a dream that you did not experience.

joeyo 18y ago

Excellent points. Even sleep is problematic-- if I go to sleep and wake up after a nice nap, does the post-nap me share the same consciousness as the pre-nap me? Now while you were asleep I create a clone of you. Which one do you wake up as? Why? It's to bad the story went dead, this is just starting to get fun.

banned_man 18y ago
You are still conscious during sleep, but you usually aren't forming memories. The word "unconscious" (meaning nonresponsive) and "consciousness" (as a metaphor for "mind" in the Buddhist sense, subjective experience, or "soul") shouldn't be connected because they refer to entirely different phenomena. With practice in mindfulness meditation, you can remain aware in the early stages of sleep, and form memories nonetheless. It can actually be jarring, because you experience with full awareness the paralysis, the strange pains/zaps (that are actually harmless). If you get good at it, you can pop into a lucid dream (sometimes) or follow the mind into fairly deep levels of sleep... though it's debated whether or not awareness in Stage IV sleep is possible.
- joeyo 18y ago
  Perhaps we should now define our terms very carefully, I am using the word consciousness to refer to the state of having a subjective experience. So states without a subjective experience-- sleep or anesthesia or death-- are unconscious. Do you disagree? It's not at all clear to me that you can have subjective experiences while you are asleep. Usually dreams are considered a subjective experience and this is interpreted to mean that you experience a dream, and upon waking you remember that experience. But consider this alternative hypothesis: There is random brain activity during sleep, but no subjective experience of it. Upon awakening, the brain has to make sense of this nonsense activity and shoves it all into memory. This is, in a way, a "false memory". Thus you wake up and "remember" a dream that you did not experience.