Designing a test to determine continuity of consciousness

[Steel]

Argument from personal incredulity, look it up.

I am still trapped in my original body. And my body and thoughts are separate from the body and thoughts of that clone copy, who is similarly restrained.

If I understand Starglider's fancy graphs, the appropriate question here is 'why'? Where are 'you' coming from, if not the processes in your brain?

Take your example. What if the scientist lied and painted the X on ShroomA instead of ShroomB. Switched the tanks and everything so you'd never know and there would never be any proof. This would be somewhat easier to do in a computer, obviously.

ShroomA would then go on to act as ShroomB would have and vice versa. Have their minds traded places, then, or is it a farce? What if, with the powers of mad science, we did switch their minds? Did 'you' just switch places? Both minds are identical, so is the identity now determined who has the original body? By changing the brain's wiring, did two people just die and get replaced with identical ones? What if we just switch brains? Do we need some budget to keep track of 'you'?

What if you copy the Copy and then overwrite the Original. Since we're pretending the error margins are insignificant, there is no difference. Nothing changes. Did you die despite your mind being replaced by itself?

You could pull any of these tricks thousands of times and, by the what you say, have killed thousands of people. Awaken the bodies and there is no difference.

This bring us to what I really hope is Starglider's point or I will look like a doofus-is there any real difference? Do 'you' only inhabit one mind and the other is a copy? The answer would seem to be no; 'you' are both minds at the same time. If we take a math example, it's a bit like saying Shroomy(x) = Shroomy(x) despite whatever physical location the function is operating in, assuming identical input.

So, if you decide to fake kill one and then wipe his mind to the template and then show him the recording, it'd be the same as if he -actually- died and a 'copy' saw it, as we have (hopefully) established identical mind is identical self, which is what I'm getting.

But nobody is arguing against that. Suppose yesterday i used my long range mind scanner to put you in a perfect cloned body that i made from some of your dna i found all without your knowledge.

Now i send someone out to give you serious brain damage with a baseball bat.

Is it ok that your current body has been reduced to this state?

Theres an identical version of you out there who can take over living your life while you are unable to move any more. However you know that you cannot move and you have no knowledge of the clone. Does this sound like good insurance against death? Great immortality? Now you succumb to your injuries and die. Does any different process happen now to if the clone had not existed? You wont close your eyes in your original body and open them in the cloned one will you?

From the perspective of society this process is great, because you can replace people without any problems in the case of accidental death/murder/assasination.

From the perspective of the deceased individual, it is useless.

[petesampras]

But nobody is arguing against that. Suppose yesterday i used my long range mind scanner to put you in a perfect cloned body that i made from some of your dna i found all without your knowledge.

Now i send someone out to give you serious brain damage with a baseball bat.

Is it ok that your current body has been reduced to this state?

Theres an identical version of you out there who can take over living your life while you are unable to move any more. However you know that you cannot move and you have no knowledge of the clone. Does this sound like good insurance against death? Great immortality? Now you succumb to your injuries and die. Does any different process happen now to if the clone had not existed? You wont close your eyes in your original body and open them in the cloned one will you?

From the perspective of society this process is great, because you can replace people without any problems in the case of accidental death/murder/assasination.

From the perspective of the deceased individual, it is useless.

You are applying intuitions from our current society and level of technology, to a society and level of technology where copying someone is possible. Imagine a world where people didn't sleep. Imagine what they would think of the idea of sleep. Isn't it possible that they would have a strong intuitive feeling that sleep is a form of death?

Our concept of self is built in a world where our physical self dying results in the end of our mental self as well. It is thus reasonable to view the physical self and mental self as the same, in terms of the morality of killing one.

In a world where your mental self could be copied into another physical form, this is no longer the case. In such a world there is no longer any need to tie the mental self to the physical self.

It comes down to a simple question. Is your mental identity a product of the actual matter that makes up your body, or a product of information that is stored by the configurations of that matter?

[Gigaliel]

But nobody is arguing against that. Suppose yesterday i used my long range mind scanner to put you in a perfect cloned body that i made from some of your dna i found all without your knowledge.

People were arguing that identical =! self, which I was trying to argue against, apparently not very well. Also, that violates all kinds of privacy issues.

Now i send someone out to give you serious brain damage with a baseball bat.

Is it ok that your current body has been reduced to this state?

Inflicting horrible pain is not ethical even if you mind wipe them afterward. You agree with this, yes? So no, it wouldn't be ethical. Someone already brought this up, anyway.

Theres an identical version of you out there who can take over living your life while you are unable to move any more. However you know that you cannot move and you have no knowledge of the clone. Does this sound like good insurance against death? Great immortality? Now you succumb to your injuries and die. Does any different process happen now to if the clone had not existed? You wont close your eyes in your original body and open them in the cloned one will you?

Did I even say that? I said it would be like amnesia, as there is no difference, even in terms of self-hood, between -you- and your clone at the time of copying. So, when you die, 'you' wake up like it was the moment after copying, except the date has changed.

This is identical to if they hit you with the mindray and wiped your memories to the date of copy. Both the copy and the amnesiac you have everything in common and could have every crazy mental cup shuffling to them, just as before, and they would still be identical. Read the last post again and criticize why selfness includes all identical versions of a person's mind.

Feel free to address that part. It's the part that I might have messed up, versus these strawmen.

From the perspective of society this process is great, because you can replace people without any problems in the case of accidental death/murder/assasination.

From the perspective of the deceased individual, it is useless.

Remember the part where I chopped Shroomy's brain all crazy like to show that switching the minds, bodies, and overwriting thousands of times either results in thousands of dead people or two identical minds? Yell at that please.

[Singular Intellect]

It comes down to a simple question. Is your mental identity a product of the actual matter that makes up your body, or a product of information that is stored by the configurations of that matter?

Why is there an "or" in there? That's a false dilemma.

[petesampras]

It comes down to a simple question. Is your mental identity a product of the actual matter that makes up your body, or a product of information that is stored by the configurations of that matter?

Why is there an "or" in there? That's a false dilemma.

Nope.

If you take the view that mental identity is information, the exact matter used is irrelevant. It is only important that it is capable of represented the information required.

The alternate view is that mental identity depends upon the physical matter for reasons which go beyond information. The matter must have other important properties beyond the need to represent the required information, in order to form mental identity.

It is an either/or situation. So no false dilemma.

[Darth Raptor]

This is an extremely simple concept, and it boggles my mind that anyone could argue with it.

He's not; at least, that's not how I'm reading it. No one is disputing that Stark Prime is a rapidly-cooling, bullet-ridden corpse. Starglider is claiming that the loss of the original is insignificant as a minimal amount of what objectively makes Stark himself was lost. Hence his likening of death to amnesia. Make of that what you want, but I thought I should clarify (again, assuming I read that mess correctly).

[Steel]

Inflicting horrible pain is not ethical even if you mind wipe them afterward. You agree with this, yes? So no, it wouldn't be ethical. Someone already brought this up, anyway.

That wasnt the perspective i was coming from. It doesnt matter at all about the ethical side of it for the purposes of this debate. I'm looking purely at the aspect of would a process like this prevent an individual from dying. From that example its very clear to see that its shit all use to make this clone of you at the moment you get injured as it very obviously benefits you in no way does it? Why is death suddenly magically different to any other form of brain damage that when it occurs you actually do transfer into the new body.

This is the transporter issue: The action of using a trek style matter transporter has been argued on this board that it is certain that using the device results in your death. This cloning process is logically equivalent to the transporter except you are not necessarily destroying the original. This difference makes it even more obvious that you can be unaware of the existence of the duplicate you and thus can never magically jump to be in the new body.

Did I even say that? I said it would be like amnesia, as there is no difference, even in terms of self-hood, between -you- and your clone at the time of copying. So, when you die, 'you' wake up like it was the moment after copying, except the date has changed.

This is identical to if they hit you with the mindray and wiped your memories to the date of copy. Both the copy and the amnesiac you have everything in common and could have every crazy mental cup shuffling to them, just as before, and they would still be identical. Read the last post again and criticize why selfness includes all identical versions of a person's mind.

Feel free to address that part. It's the part that I might have messed up, versus these strawmen.

I would say that yes, using the mind wipe ray on a person does certainly kill them in effect, and replaces them with an earlier version of themselves, but the one you just wiped is gone.

How on earth do you just wake up in the new body? To the one that just woke up, yes thats what happened, but if you never died, then the exact same thing just happened to the new body, but you werent there were you? You could still be living out your life as if nothing had happened, as in my first example minus the bat.

Remember the part where I chopped Shroomy's brain all crazy like to show that switching the minds, bodies, and overwriting thousands of times either results in thousands of dead people or two identical minds? Yell at that please.

Of course performing identity transformations results in nothing happening. Either the process is instantaneous in which case genuinely nothing has happened, or the process happens over some finite timescale which might be long enough to result in the effective death of the original consciousness.

Think in terms of the transporter again. For the captain of the ship, the transporter is great, as he knows he gets the engineering team to the surface in order to play with the tachyon thingy, yet for the team not much use as they end up as soup or whatever.

[petesampras]

This is the transporter issue: The action of using a trek style matter transporter has been argued on this board that it is certain that using the device results in your death. This cloning process is logically equivalent to the transporter except you are not necessarily destroying the original. This difference makes it even more obvious that you can be unaware of the existence of the duplicate you and thus can never magically jump to be in the new body.

What, exactly, is this you that needs to magically make this jump in the first place? The soul?

Why must it be aware of the other physical manifestation? Me right now is not aware of me in 5 years time, doesn't mean that both entities aren't me.

[Steel]

This is the transporter issue: The action of using a trek style matter transporter has been argued on this board that it is certain that using the device results in your death. This cloning process is logically equivalent to the transporter except you are not necessarily destroying the original. This difference makes it even more obvious that you can be unaware of the existence of the duplicate you and thus can never magically jump to be in the new body.

What, exactly, is this you that needs to magically make this jump in the first place? The soul?

Why must it be aware of the other physical manifestation? Me right now is not aware of me in 5 years time, doesn't mean that both entities aren't me.

Thats the entire point. You the original can be totally unaware of the new copy.

Ask yourself: how you would know if a copy of you had been made yesterday, a year ago, just now?

You couldnt, could you?

Now how exactly do you just 'continue thinking' into the new body when we add the special circumstance of destroying the original?

If that were the case then there would be some special 'soul', which is definitely not true.

Lets imagine that i put you on the transporter pad and tell you you are going to be transported, but actually i just vaporise you. You're dead.

Why if i vaporise you but at the same time create a clone somewhere else are you not dead? What happens if i vaporise you, but then flip a coin to decide to rematerialise you 10 seconds later? You were dead, annihilated, just as in the original scenario, yet now you are alive again? Bullshit.

[petesampras]

Thats the entire point. You the original can be totally unaware of the new copy.

Ask yourself: how you would know if a copy of you had been made yesterday, a year ago, just now?

You couldnt, could you?

Right, but this physical manifestation of me is not aware of me in 5 years time, either. That doesn't make that not me. If I were to come back in time from 5 years in the future, there would be 2 mes in the world right now. This manifestation of me could, potentially, be completely unaware of the time traveling one. That doesn't alter the fact that it is still me.

Now how exactly do you just 'continue thinking' into the new body when we add the special circumstance of destroying the original?

The answer is - you don't. This is a strawman. You were thinking in the new body before the original copy was destroyed. The new one started thinking, as you, from the moment it was created and had activity in its brain. There is only a conundrum if you have a problem with your mental identity being in two places at once.

If that were the case then there would be some special 'soul', which is definitely not true.

Lets imagine that i put you on the transporter pad and tell you you are going to be transported, but actually i just vaporise you. You're dead.

Why if i vaporise you but at the same time create a clone somewhere else are you not dead? What happens if i vaporise you, but then flip a coin to decide to rematerialise you 10 seconds later? You were dead, annihilated, just as in the original scenario, yet now you are alive again? Bullshit.

Alive and dead are biological terms. We are talking about mental identity. If I kill your body, then it is dead. That is biology. There is no argument there. With current technology, that means your mind, your mental identity, is dead too. However, if I could recreate your mental identity with sufficiently advanced technology, then the terms alive and dead no longer have the same meaning with respect to mental identity. It no longer makes sense to talk about your mental identity as being alive or dead, in the same way we talk about bodies as being alive or dead, if I can have 10000 manifestations of you in the universe at the same time.
[/b]

[Steel]

You were thinking in the new body before the original copy was destroyed. The new one started thinking, as you, from the moment it was created and had activity in its brain. There is only a conundrum if you have a problem with your mental identity being in two places at once.

This is the fundamental difference between our perspectives here. You say that this copy is you, and i say it is a clone that is distinct from you.

I dont care (from a personal perspective) whether or not a clone can have the exact same mental identity as i do.

If you have the original person stand in front of you, and get them to count 1,2,...,10 and make a copy at the 4.5 mark, in an identical setting, then shoot the original at 5, the copy will finish counting to 10.

If you then ask the copy did you count from 1 to 10, the copy will respond yes. Did the original count to 10? No.

Put the question another way: Given the option of choosing between this backing up process and body armour what would you choose?

[petesampras]

You were thinking in the new body before the original copy was destroyed. The new one started thinking, as you, from the moment it was created and had activity in its brain. There is only a conundrum if you have a problem with your mental identity being in two places at once.

This is the fundamental difference between our perspectives here. You say that this copy is you, and i say it is a clone that is distinct from you.

I dont care (from a personal perspective) whether or not a clone can have the exact same mental identity as i do.

If you have the original person stand in front of you, and get them to count 1,2,...,10 and make a copy at the 4.5 mark, in an identical setting, then shoot the original at 5, the copy will finish counting to 10.

If you then ask the copy did you count from 1 to 10, the copy will respond yes. Did the original count to 10? No.

Put the question another way: Given the option of choosing between this backing up process and body armour what would you choose?

Of course, I would choose the body armour. But, I am a being that has both evolved and learnt to protect and value its physical self. That does not mean that this physical self fundamentaly represents the mental identity that I think of as me. The mental self clearly, in the case of most humans, cares about its physical manifestation. Indeed, it makes perfect sense that it would.

[Steel]

You were thinking in the new body before the original copy was destroyed. The new one started thinking, as you, from the moment it was created and had activity in its brain. There is only a conundrum if you have a problem with your mental identity being in two places at once.

This is the fundamental difference between our perspectives here. You say that this copy is you, and i say it is a clone that is distinct from you.

I dont care (from a personal perspective) whether or not a clone can have the exact same mental identity as i do.

If you have the original person stand in front of you, and get them to count 1,2,...,10 and make a copy at the 4.5 mark, in an identical setting, then shoot the original at 5, the copy will finish counting to 10.

If you then ask the copy did you count from 1 to 10, the copy will respond yes. Did the original count to 10? No.

Put the question another way: Given the option of choosing between this backing up process and body armour what would you choose?

Of course, I would choose the body armour. But, I am a being that has both evolved and learnt to protect and value its physical self. That does not mean that this physical self fundamentaly represents the mental identity that I think of as me. The mental self clearly, in the case of most humans, cares about its physical manifestation. Indeed, it makes perfect sense that it would.

So you do agree that there is a difference between the continued existence of a copy, even an exact copy, and the original or another copy.

Thats all i'm talking about. Yes, certainly it is theoretically possible to make the death of an individual totally null to the outside world, (as is the case with the transporter) but for the individual something did happen.

[petesampras]

So you do agree that there is a difference between the continued existence of a copy, even an exact copy, and the original or another copy.

Thats all i'm talking about. Yes, certainly it is theoretically possible to make the death of an individual totally null to the outside world, (as is the case with the transporter) but for the individual something did happen.

No, I agree that...

a) In our current technology, and possibly always, physical death = mental death. So I'm gonna protect my physical self.

b) Even if technology to create multiple manifestations of me was available, I am still an entity which evolved to protect its physical self. Each manifestation of me would thus want to protect that physical copy. So I'm gonna protect my physical self. It has nothing to do with this copy of me having something special to me as an individual, and everything to do with evolution.

Imagine the exact same program running on 100 robots. The program is written to treat protecting the physical existance of the particular robot it is running in. Each manifestation of that program will protect the particular robot it is in, and not other identical robots. That does not alter the fact that the programs are, in fact, all the same.

[Steel]

So you do agree that there is a difference between the continued existence of a copy, even an exact copy, and the original or another copy.

Thats all i'm talking about. Yes, certainly it is theoretically possible to make the death of an individual totally null to the outside world, (as is the case with the transporter) but for the individual something did happen.

No, I agree that...

a) In our current technology, and possibly always, physical death = mental death. So I'm gonna protect my physical self.

b) Even if technology to create multiple manifestations of me was available, I am still an entity which evolved to protect its physical self. Each manifestation of me would thus want to protect that physical copy. So I'm gonna protect my physical self. It has nothing to do with this copy of me having something special to me as an individual, and everything to do with evolution.

Imagine the exact same program running on 100 robots. The program is written to treat protecting the physical existance of the particular robot it is running in. Each manifestation of that program will protect the particular robot it is in, and not other identical robots. That does not alter the fact that the programs are, in fact, all the same.

Ok yes the programs are the same, and all robots will react the same way, and if we gave them the same input then they would all remain the same etc. We could then make some more robots from each of the new robots, and if they all have the same inputs then they are again the same and if we had kept the original one separate from all this and subject to the same input, then there would be no difference between it and the 2nd generation copies. Thats all great. I agree with that. I know that if you destroy one of the many copies there has been no information lost. I know if you destroy the original there is no information lost. Great.

The distinction is from a personal perspective each individual robot ceases to exist as it is destroyed. This is what i mean by saying that copying yourself to a robot/clone body is not a way to preserve yourself.

[petesampras]

The distinction is from a personal perspective each individual robot ceases to exist as it is destroyed. This is what i mean by saying that copying yourself to a robot/clone body is not a way to preserve yourself.

Sure, but my point is that that 'personal perspective' is a product of both the way our brains evolved and the fact that we live in a world where physical death does equal mental death.

If an advanced AI was written which didn't have that evolutionary baggage and that could be copied into multiple computers/robots/etc, then it might equally not view physical distruction as ceasing to exist.

The personal perspective you refer to can be neither proved or disproved. It is purely subjective and behavourial. Human beings don't want to die and will try to prevent this. Fine. Having the ability to transfer to a copy won't alter this behaviour. Also fine.

The discussion, however, was not about personal perspectives but about the objective existance of conciousness and mental identities and it is that that I am arguing does not depend, in theory, on the exact physical manifestation.

[Ohma]

So what are you two arguing about? Near as I can tell your opinions are identical, just phrased differently.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

To answer the orinal question, I would say no. A person uploaded into a computer or equilent is not the same as the one walking around in wetware.

My reasoning is semantics I guess: even if you copy the neuron-activity of the human brain, being in a computer is very much different then being in a biomechenical body.

This is incorrect. If f(Zixinus) = X, and f(Zixinus_uploaded) = X, where X is some predefined output, then you are still you. Doesn't matter if you got there via slow electrochemical impulses in neural jelly, or an exquisite simulation thereof.

A computer is purely digital, while a human brain has hormones that influences this behaviour.

For a sufficiently complex and fine-grained simulation, I could simulate the action of hormones on the you which exists on my brain-upload mainframe. I'd probably shortcut and try to abstract things a bit, rather than wasting processor cycles lovingly simulating the production of individual testosterone molecules from your balls, tracking their progress through your bloodstream, and their subsequent reception in your brain. Either way, you wouldn't notice the difference.

Hell, even if I abstracted too much and you started to notice something was off, the simulation software would raise an interrupt flag, save your state and halt the simulation. Then I'd patch you, compensating for drift and erasing your memories of having experienced the fact that something was off. Then the simulation would continue from the point just before you noticed something was wrong. From your viewpoint, it would be like nothing was amiss.

Even if you copy or manage to perfectly emulate this behaviour, you still have the problem that the person is in a computer and not in a human body.

This is on a problem with, I suspect, being presented with information that's making the poo-flinging monkey part of you scream in terror. You're looking at this problem as an agent "outside" of existence. If I were to abduct you in your sleep, euthanize you, toss you in a tank of liquid nitrogen and then destructively read out the contents of your brain. Afterwards, after I drop the resulting AI into a simulation of your bedroom, you'd wake up, not realizing what I'd done to you. Even if I had a robot body made for you, and downloaded your consciousness into that, I could, with the correct inputs, fool your primitive bits into thinking they're still organic goo connected to a mass of meat.

The human brain is very specifically "designed" to work a human body. It's base instinghts, its base motivations and underlying reflexes are that of an animal.

A computer is designed to... compute.

And your brain isn't? Your brain is a massively parallel, exceedingly slow analog computer which evolved to accept inputs, process them, and generate outputs based on a function of the inputs, the history of previous computational states, and the present goals of your internal software.

This very line will make the uploaded Joe different then the wetware Joe, even if the uploaded Joe feels that he is the same.

Uploaded Joe can be made not to feel any different. Uploaded Joe can also be made an instant paraplegic. So can wetware Joe. If he gets hit by a bus tomorrow and he wakes up with no feeling below the collar, his body is going to feel very different to him than it did before his fateful encounter.

[Ohma]

So to bring up another hypothetical.

Let's say I upload Joe's consciousness and run say, a hundred separate instances of it in identical virtual environments (during this wetware Joe is experiencing the same simulation via quantum something or other tech). Does it count as a "net loss" if I kill wetware Joe? How about deleting any or all of the computerized Joes?

How about if I let Joe leave and he gets eaten by a bear (or run over or something, but bears are more funny)?

What if the virtual environments are different and I delete the virtual Joes?

If I simulate a long painful death for the virtual Joes prior to deleting them?

If none of those count as a "net loss", then what would?

[Resinence]

So to bring up another hypothetical.

Let's say I upload Joe's consciousness and run say, a hundred separate instances of it in identical virtual environments (during this wetware Joe is experiencing the same simulation via quantum something or other tech). Does it count as a "net loss" if I kill wetware Joe? How about deleting any or all of the computerized Joes?

How about if I let Joe leave and he gets eaten by a bear (or run over or something, but bears are more funny)?

What if the virtual environments are different and I delete the virtual Joes?

If I simulate a long painful death for the virtual Joes prior to deleting them?

If none of those count as a "net loss", then what would?

I think a better scenario would be "If I run 100 different Joe's in 100 different simulations, and then copy all of those memories back, then delete them from the sims, did I just kill and overwrite Joe(TM)? with a new mind?" What if I copy all of them including Joe(TM) into one of the simulations, pasting Joe(TM)'s brain in the process. Would you consider the new entity Joe(TM)? There is no conceivable difference if you look at it logically.

[Ohma]

I think a better scenario would be "If I run 100 different Joe's in 100 different simulations, and then copy all of those memories back, then delete them from the sims, did I just kill and overwrite Joe(TM)? with a new mind?"

If you mean that you copy the memories from the virtual Joes into wetware Joe, then no, you haven't killed wetware Joe, just given him a bunch of new memories in addition to his original ones. If you've deleted the virtual Joes you have pretty much killed them, sure it's a pretty humane way to go, one picosecond you exist the next you don't, but that doesn't make those virtual Joes any less dead (for lack of a more exact term on hand). If they just don't have their accumulated memories anymore then you've pretty much just intentionally induced amnesia in them.

What if I copy all of them including Joe(TM) into one of the simulations, pasting Joe(TM)'s brain in the process. Would you consider the new entity Joe(TM)? There is no conceivable difference if you look at it logically.

If you mean pasting as in "turning to paste" then you've killed wetware Joe and created computo-Joe. Which I guess computo-Joe has just as much claim to the moniker of Joe as wetware Joe, however that doesn't make wetware Joe any less dead.

[Shroom Man 777]

I find a lot of these concepts hard to grasp, so if I was arguing, I drop out. My positions were all stated from the individual's point of view and my arguements are governed by that, and I guess that puts me in a totally different wavelength and topic from the true point of this discussion (which I cannot grasp).

Anyway, hi Zuul

Somewhat not-so related to the topic is the concept of replacing bits of your mind with cybernetics, for a bid at immortality.

Now, imagine developing a form of schizophrenia or personality disorder with the introduction of these cybernetic components.

I mean, a perfect copy and replacement is possible...theoretically. But in implementation, there are going to be problems - and that's gonna be interesting (story) material.

You are trapped in a body that's no longer your own, as the parts of "you" are being replaced by more cybernetic components while the fleshy bits of your brain are removed. And as less and less of you remain, you become less and less of a person while the cybernetic component becomes more you (to the outside world).

In the end, all that's left of "you" inside your mind is a feeble blabbering marginalized thought-process no different from a baby or that of an old person and darkness encroaches you as you finally achieve "immortality" as that last fleshy bit of your brain is replaced, and your mind is now an immortal machine that is... still you.

Awesome.

[petesampras]

I find a lot of these concepts hard to grasp, so if I was arguing, I drop out. My positions were all stated from the individual's point of view and my arguements are governed by that, and I guess that puts me in a totally different wavelength and topic from the true point of this discussion (which I cannot grasp).

Anyway, hi Zuul

Somewhat not-so related to the topic is the concept of replacing bits of your mind with cybernetics, for a bid at immortality.

Now, imagine developing a form of schizophrenia or personality disorder with the introduction of these cybernetic components.

I mean, a perfect copy and replacement is possible...theoretically. But in implementation, there are going to be problems - and that's gonna be interesting (story) material.

You are trapped in a body that's no longer your own, as the parts of "you" are being replaced by more cybernetic components while the fleshy bits of your brain are removed. And as less and less of you remain, you become less and less of a person while the cybernetic component becomes more you (to the outside world).

In the end, all that's left of "you" inside your mind is a feeble blabbering marginalized thought-process no different from a baby or that of an old person and darkness encroaches you as you finally achieve "immortality" as that last fleshy bit of your brain is replaced, and your mind is now an immortal machine that is... still you.

Awesome.

This is already happening in everyones brain all the time! Your brain is living tissue and is hence constantly renewing the material that constitutes it. The only difference in your example is that the replacement material is not organic. Is organic chemistry a necessary requirement for sentience?

[Zablorg]

I think Joe is still "there", but his mind has been transferred to a new medium. It's still the exact same collection of thoughts and memories and emotions only now it's in the form of bits or whatever cybernetic equivilant we're talking about. Something like if a book was published by a different publisher. It's still the same book.

[Resinence]

I think Joe is still "there", but his mind has been transferred to a new medium. It's still the exact same collection of thoughts and memories and emotions only now it's in the form of bits or whatever cybernetic equivilant we're talking about. Something like if a book was published by a different publisher. It's still the same book.

Thats what I was getting at and what I think starglider meant, the only way for it to be true that the entity Joe(TM) no longer exists is if you:

a) postulate that humans have a soul or other intangible factor that allows sentience(which makes you just as irrational as fundies)
or
b) believe that the mind is inseparable from the organic body because... just because.
or
c) Set a high standard for personhood such that you should be terrified of "dieing" every time you go to bed at night. Which is actually a really creepy thought Though at least it's not Fucking Scary like Shrooms story, if the integration between the new components and the wetwear was that bad I'd become a luddite and go live in a shack far away from the Insane Transhumanists.