Argonaut's Dilema and Consciousness

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-09-18 04:44pm

But your conciousness was torn apart.

Unnoticeably so, according to the thought experiment.

I tell you what. I'll take a sledge to your skull and then put the icky stuff that seeps out into a convenient blender and have fun. After that, I'll get a really good brain surgeon to reconstruct your brain from the smoothie I just made. Would you still be "you" as it were?

This is significantly different than the ideal conditions outlined in the initial thought experiment. If this really good brain surgeon reconstructed my brain EXACTLY, as per the initial standards, then yes, I would still be "me", because there would be no difference.

That is precisely why pulling it apart and then putting it back together again will not, technically, be bringing you back. Only a perfect replica.

How do you tell the difference between a "perfect replica" and the original? If the replica is, indeed, perfect, there's no way to distinguish, so it is useless to.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-09-18 04:58pm

I was talking about the teleporter incident, the original thought exercise is different, as you say. I don't see why it wouldn't be the same you since, as it is, your mind is still intact, even if it is being replaced by newer, or at least different, components all the time. It's when you destroy the active mind and then rebuild it when we get into difficulties. Yes, it will be an exact replica and no one could tell the difference unless they saw you teleported (the Trek way, not wormholes, naturally). It wouldn't be you, though, which is where the contention against such a technology arises in most discussions. Of course, we have no real way to confirm this, but I'd not like to volunteer.

So the original scenario is really what is going on already and we still have mental integrity. The second, future technology scenario is something that is similar to the "If you cloned Hitler, he'd start WWIII!" mentality.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2005-09-18 05:48pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:That would be like replacing a corpse's brain matter with that of a donor. Would you argue it was still you with your dead half of a brain being subject to excision and then, in place, some new, alive cells being placed there instead? A better analogy would be having a memory fault in your PC. I give you a brand new piece of RAM to take over from the dead RAM you were using to write your work in. If your work was your conciousness, then it wouldn't be there given it died with your old RAM and although you have shiny new memory, it may as well be someone elses given it is clean.

Once your brain dies beyond certain points, such as the cerebrum suffering a stroke, that is it. Your "RAM" is erased. Putting a new brain in your head doesn't bring you back anymore than giving you new memory sticks in a PC brings back that lost file you were writing at the time of the crash.

There is probably a line drawn somewhere since people who have amnesia are still "them", they just don't remember but they CAN recover. They clearly aren't different people then.

So where is the line?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-09-18 05:51pm

I don't know, and clearly no one is going to be able to draw that line anytime soon. With the concepts we've been talking about such as the teleporter, it produces an unfalsifiable result and can't be rationalised empirically, at least not easily nor today.

This is philosophy, and this is the area souls start coming into discussions, something I'd rather avoid since the engrams that make us operate at atomic resolution (or at least should do, I don't know what Roger Penrose is debating nowadays).

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-09-18 07:30pm

I guess I just take a pretty gestalt view on the whole thing. A person is made up of many different parts AS WELL AS the way those parts are put together. Think of a jigsaw puzzle.... if you take the whole thing apart and then put it back together, is it still the same picture?

Remember that the human mind can take some serious whacks and keep working. If you have a three-foot metal pipe blasted through your head that destroys your frontal lobe, it'll change your personality... does it change you? Did that Old You cease to exist the second those clumps of gray matter were destroyed? Or are you Still You, and that partial destruction of your brain is simply absorbed into the lexicon of your existence, just like any other experience that will change your personality?

Would a very traumatic breakup with your girlfriend, which prompts you to become bitter and misogynistic, destroy the Old You and create a New You? Or is it the same You?

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2005-09-18 07:43pm

Would we all agree that someone with Alzheimers is still the same person? Or would it depend on how far the disease has progressed?

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-09-18 07:46pm

An excellent point. I guess it can easily be said that there's no ONE way to define the self. It's not memories, because those are so fragile. It's not personality, because that's so easily altered (relatively). It's not physical matter, because that changes over long periods of time (or short periods, if we have a teleporter

). Some sort of blending of all these attributes, the whole being greater than the sum of the yadda-yadda, and all that.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-09-19 09:33am

That's one criticism of Locke's theory. Another is if you can remember what you have done since you were ten years old, but not recall anything about when you were 11 or so, then it can be argued someone else inhabited your mind at that point. Mental disorders or amnesia can really screw the simple theory up, but then it can be argued you technically aren't the same person for any real length of time. Though there are limits to that change since drastic alterations brought on by Alzheimer's or parasitic organisms can be readily noticeable.