Argonaut's Dilema and Consciousness

[Nephtys]

Reading the mortality thread got me thinking again on the Argonaut's Dilema. The scenario is like this: If you're a sailor on a ship during a long voyage, and need to replace boards, nails and sails on the way... when you replace 100 percent of your starting stuff, is it the same ship?

I'm thinking of this in terms of our bodies and brains. If we replace all of our cells at least once in our lifetimes, are we still us? Or are we a new version of us that thinks it's the original? The second question is purely philosophical of course. If I replace you atom by atom, are you still you? Providing that there's no wacky transporter buffer subplot?

[Zadius]

I think I read somewhere that, in fact, after so many years all the matter (atoms) that makes up you has changed. I think the book was A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

[Darth Raptor]

This dillema is inevitable for pretty much anything that isn't a subatomic particle. As a multicellular organism composed of levels of increasingly simple structures (which are constantly interchanged) any useful definition of self must be cumulative. It doesn't matter what it's composed of or at what speed the replacements are made. Ultimately, if the transformation is unnoticeable, what does it matter?

The physical organism that was yourself at the age of six no longer exists (you can tell that by simply comparing that organism to its present iteration) but the transition was made smoothly and imperceptibly. The fluid, cumulitive identity is all that remains and is all that can ever hope to be preserved, unless you stop time.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I think I read somewhere that, in fact, after so many years all the matter (atoms) that makes up you has changed. I think the book was A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

In all actuality, it's probably closer to several times a year. The typical person apparently consumes fifty tons of food and fifty tons of liquid. Assuming a reasonable average weight, this means they consume around or over 1300 times their mass in food and water . . . or approximately twenty times one's mass in a given year.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Our brain cells - what makes you you - never get replaced (although new techniques could solve this for sufferers of chronic diseases). So even though our bodies may be replenished by new cells completely every 10 or so years I belive, our minds are always the same.

However, as far as Locke's theory of personal identity goes, your mind state should remain constant so long as you don't tinker with your brain. For instance, making an exact copy of you via a Trek teleporter. Would that second version be you? It would have the exact same genetics, same personality and, for all intents and purposes, be you. But it wouldn't, because while to anyone else it may appear a perfect copy, it is not your mind state in that body. Unless you somehow perfect brain transplantation, that other mind is not you and never will be. Now, this is somewhat of an odd subject given some will argue when we sleep or are unconcious, we don't know if we're the same person when we wake. But it is an interesting thought exercise and does dispell that myth of making clones of yourself to live forever (without transplanting your current mind like in The Sixth Day which somehow sucks your conciousness out, put it on disc, then flash it into a fresh brain without you noticing a thing).

[Lord of the Abyss]

Our brain cells - what makes you you - never get replaced (although new techniques could solve this for sufferers of chronic diseases). So even though our bodies may be replenished by new cells completely every 10 or so years I belive, our minds are always the same.

The cells may not be replaced, but I expect most of the molecules they are made of are replaced. They undergo metabolism just like any other cell, and are constantly consuming nutrients, producing neurotransmitters and expelling waste.

[Admiral Valdemar]

To an extent, yes. These cells cannot repair perfectly, so they won't be fully replaced. So long as the engram that is our conciousness remains intact enough, we shouldn't change. Though this is somewhat erroneous since our very essence can be altered by drugs or parasites which can practically change our personalities entirely without replacing our brains cell-by-cell.

[anybody_mcc]

Reading the mortality thread got me thinking again on the Argonaut's Dilema. The scenario is like this: If you're a sailor on a ship during a long voyage, and need to replace boards, nails and sails on the way... when you replace 100 percent of your starting stuff, is it the same ship?

I'm thinking of this in terms of our bodies and brains. If we replace all of our cells at least once in our lifetimes, are we still us? Or are we a new version of us that thinks it's the original? The second question is purely philosophical of course. If I replace you atom by atom, are you still you? Providing that there's no wacky transporter buffer subplot?

As long as there is no point where you cease to exist , it is you.

[Darth Servo]

Getting an organ transplant doesn't change who you are.

[Darth Servo]

As long as there is no point where you cease to exist , it is you.

What about flatline near death experiences?

[anybody_mcc]

As long as there is no point where you cease to exist , it is you.

What about flatline near death experiences?

What is your definition of those experiences ? There is a problem with clinica; death , but that may be because i don't have enough knowledge about that.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Clinical death is brain death. Once that happens, you're not coming back. You can technically be "dead" for a while and preserved. Some have been, reportedly, dead hours but had their metabolism effectively halted so no harmful effects occur. But as soon as your brain starts dying, you either awake mentally impaired or not at all.

[Braedley]

There's a line from CSI I like: "Who we are never stops changing, what we are never changes." As in our mental self is always changing, but our DNA never changes. If we go about this by the mind route, then we are always changing, and consequencly never the same person as any previous itteration. Despite the fact that our DNA sequence may never change, the fact still remains that in all likelyhood, not a single original base pair remains from the time we were concieved.
So I guess what I'm saying is that we will always and never be "us" at the same time. (ohh...deep)

[Stark]

I don't think identity is our body or our DNA: identity is the software. Change the hardware all you want: Quake is still the same game. That's why brain damage changes us, because now the software doesn't work properly.

[Rye]

My personal suspicion in regards to self awareness and consciousness is that it is ever changing, and that no individual moment of consciousness is any more officially "you" than any other.

Much as your other senses detect outward stimuli, and relay them to the brain, the working brain, the neurones, due to their very composition, can treat the messages between other neurones like senses. Awareness of self is as intuitive as awareness of light, you detect your own thought, and recognise that as generating from a part of yourself. Likewise, you can look in a miror and realise that the light represents yourself, and otherwise distinguish yourself from other objects.

Self awareness, or rather, conscious awareness is more like sensory awareness-> sensing you are aware->sensing that you just sensed you were aware ...and on and on. The basic architecture stays generally the same, with defined cortexes, but due to the nature of neurones, you can rewire the brain, and in fact must in order to be conscious and adapt to changes in your environment.

Are you the same person? I don't think so, I think that's what growth is, the persistant gradual evolution of the self to deal with outward stimuli and even concepts that you introduced into your own brain. The general architecture is not malleable enough to make a distinct change on your personality, however, short of disease that rampantly rewires your brain, like Fronto-temporal Dementia. One's consciousness changes, I suspect, from firing of neurone to neurone, but this is the way a true consciousness should be. If you replaced your neurones, this would just be an additional attachment to the whole process, and unless it was significantly different, you'll keep your old ways.

I think that made sense, anyway..I dunno, it's late.

[anybody_mcc]

I don't think identity is our body or our DNA: identity is the software. Change the hardware all you want: Quake is still the same game. That's why brain damage changes us, because now the software doesn't work properly.

I think differencing between hardware and software in the brain is very inaccurate. There is no sw ( in traditional sense ) in the brain. That is like saying there is a sw in hw implemented artificial neural net , but there is none.

[SPOOFE]

There is no sw ( in traditional sense ) in the brain.

Software in the brain is more like it's generated on the fly... memories, for example, aren't stored as pictures or movie clips (or the organic brain equivalent), but as approximations.... heavily compressed, essentially. When recalling memories, the reconstruction is dependent on the hardware - experiences that have been encoded into the actual structure of the brain. Traumatic experiences will change the hardware, which will then change the software when it's generated. Mood can also change this.

There's no one "you", but there's a range of "you"s, a totality of possible variations that shift based on mood, physical well-being, age, etc.

[Darth Servo]

Clinical death is brain death. Once that happens, you're not coming back. You can technically be "dead" for a while and preserved. Some have been, reportedly, dead hours but had their metabolism effectively halted so no harmful effects occur. But as soon as your brain starts dying, you either awake mentally impaired or not at all.

Isn't that just a limitation of modern medicine? What if we do someday learn how to repair the brain?

[tharkûn]

If we go about this by the mind route, then we are always changing, and consequencly never the same person as any previous itteration. Despite the fact that our DNA sequence may never change, the fact still remains that in all likelyhood, not a single original base pair remains from the time we were concieved.

Our DNA sequence changes all the time. Every time a cell divides there is a non-zero probability of an error occuring. Given the number of cells in the body, the number of replications, and the length of the genome, becomes trivially obvious that our DNA sequences in various cell lines change. If you let me through in telemore changes, aceylation, etc. it becomes even more pronounced.

Consciouness rests in the brain. The brain is a fault tolerant chemical-electrical grid. Some brain damage can be sustained with no discernable change in the person, some causes only moderate change, some completely changes the person. The actual shape and functioning of the grid also demonstrably changes over time. To whit I can see no objective basis for saying that the brain (hardware or software) is the "same" throughout a person's life. Subjectively it sure feels that way though.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Isn't that just a limitation of modern medicine? What if we do someday learn how to repair the brain?

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.

[Molyneux]

Our brain cells - what makes you you - never get replaced (although new techniques could solve this for sufferers of chronic diseases). So even though our bodies may be replenished by new cells completely every 10 or so years I belive, our minds are always the same.

However, as far as Locke's theory of personal identity goes, your mind state should remain constant so long as you don't tinker with your brain. For instance, making an exact copy of you via a Trek teleporter. Would that second version be you? It would have the exact same genetics, same personality and, for all intents and purposes, be you. But it wouldn't, because while to anyone else it may appear a perfect copy, it is not your mind state in that body. Unless you somehow perfect brain transplantation, that other mind is not you and never will be. Now, this is somewhat of an odd subject given some will argue when we sleep or are unconcious, we don't know if we're the same person when we wake. But it is an interesting thought exercise and does dispell that myth of making clones of yourself to live forever (without transplanting your current mind like in The Sixth Day which somehow sucks your conciousness out, put it on disc, then flash it into a fresh brain without you noticing a thing).

...A slightly altered scenario.

You step onto a Star Trek-type teleporter pad, and are transported to another area. At the other end, two of you materialize.

You are each completely identical, up until the point at which you materialize - same genetics, same scars, same memories.

Which is the real you? I maintain that neither has any greater claim to 'you-ness' than the other.

[Maku]

Since every atom in a human's body originally came from somewhere else and ultimately from transformation of one type of matter to another in the heart of a star, was there ever really an 'original you' in the first place? We were all 'originally' made from endlessly recycled bits of matterr so why should it matter if some of those pre-used bits are replaced by other pre-used bits?

[Admiral Valdemar]

...A slightly altered scenario.

You step onto a Star Trek-type teleporter pad, and are transported to another area. At the other end, two of you materialize.

You are each completely identical, up until the point at which you materialize - same genetics, same scars, same memories.

Which is the real you? I maintain that neither has any greater claim to 'you-ness' than the other.

None of them. Or do you believe being disintegrated at the molecular level and sent across as a stream in subspace or whatever maintains your conciousness? They are both exact clones with the same mindstate. They are both NOT you. You died entering that transporter.

[SPOOFE]

Or do you believe being disintegrated at the molecular level and sent across as a stream in subspace or whatever maintains your conciousness?

Sure. Why not? There's nothing magically unique about a person. Unless you believe in some sort of soul? No, no.... if the mind that's re-formed is the "same" as the one that was sent, with no apparent loss of continuity on the person's part, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that it's NOT the same person, for all intents and purposes. Even if some stupid Act Of Plot makes two Rikers.

[Admiral Valdemar]

But your conciousness was torn apart. 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?

There is nothing special about the human brain. 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.