Brain Recording

[Starglider]

He's just having some fun calling "crypto-dualists" those of us who aren't entirely convinced that his definition of "person" is correct.

I like that one but 'causality fetishist' is even better.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Is it so hard to understand? It's not about the "self" being "copied". Don't get me (and many other posters, I'm sure) wrong. It's not any kind of dualistic thing. It's not matter against "something-else". The mind is a phenomenon that's brought about by entirely physical interactions, no doubt. No souls here. No metaphysics.

It is extremely hard to understand falsehood, and that is exactly what you are saying: Falsehood. I grant you think it is true for deep-seated psychological reasons, but that's all.

The thing is that every instance of every mind experiences reality, neither in the past (memory) nor in the future, but in a fleeting perception of an instant called "the present". There is a continuity involved in said process. Some say an interruption of the same happens everytime we go asleep, but it doesn't. This continuity doesn't refer only to the conscious mind, as the brain continues functioning even though we may be asleep.

And why is this continuity relevant to the existence of the process? Why must the process must be chronologically linear? To illustrate the utter ridiculousness of the argument you're now making, it means that if you traveled backwards or forwards in time, with absolutely no other change to your person except your chronological position, you would cease to exist and be replaced by one of your so-called 'copies'. Reductio ad absurdum.

The mind is defined as the processes (electrical and bio-chemical) that happen in our brain, with all the intrincancies it entails. This might be replicated (molecule by molecule, electron by electron?) sometime, eventually. However, even though for any outside test the two minds would be the same (post-transfer events and memories notwithstanding) regardless of the media (cloned brain or superadvanced computer), it is no less true that if any of these instances of the same mind (be it the original, or the copy, or the copy from the copy) were to be terminated, that would be the end of that life, as far as it is perceived by that particular instance of the mind.

Arbitrarily narrow definition without cause, just like our Canadian friend, for the exact same reasons, just replacing "copy" with "particular instance" does not make your argument any better than his, which has been already refuted.

In other words, you may get as many instances of the original mind as you want, but if you kill any of them, for that one, it will surely mean death (as they are thermodynamically isolated) regardless of how many there are out there with exactly the same mind processes and memories.

Except they're not thermodynamically isolated. Since when the bloody hell did that Red Herring creep up in here? They're all in the same universe, and without the frame of reference of this universe all arguments of any sort, including what cheese you want for breakfast, are pointless to begin with.

As I said before, If you get pinched, I don't feel it, and I don't care; and the same goes viceversa. If we were both to have the exact same mind and memories wouldn't in any way make it any different. We'd two beings, and one of us would get terminated. Same memories and mind wouldn't matter.

False, false, false, false. You are simply endlessly repeating the same disproved points, and you ignore a fundamental point of the argument with your "" If you get pinched, I don't feel it, and I don't care". Remember: 100% identical. If we were, as you postulate, 100% identical, and I got pinched... I'd no longer be 100% identical to you!. Did you really miss that, or are you just so afraid of the consequences of this reality that you want to pretend you missed it?

Of course, for whatever the outside world cares, the copy and the original work, act, think and act the same, so it wouldn't matter to them. If you think you have a goal in this world that's really important, that'd be an excellent alternative to just dying and hoping somebody else will pick up where you left off. But you should bear in mind that YOU won't be seeing that new dawn, after your original brain has died, but rather a new instance of your mind (another being, thermodynamically isolated, apart, with your exact same thoughts and memories).

Arbitrarily narrow definition of self again, and again the fallacy that two processes in the same universe are thermodynamically isolated.

You see, what's magical about this view is how the one individual (0.1) perception of being alive and experiencing all that life entails is magically going to migrate to the first copy. A working mind will be set up (0.2, if you will), and for all practical effects it will be the same. But mind if 0.1 were to be terminated in any way, as far as it knows, it would be the end of all.

Again, the process continues, so the person continues. You are artificially defining 0.1 to be unique when the original postulate is that they are 100% identical. There is nothing magical about the migration; the data comprising the process is copied, and then run again. Life continues. You are the one who has declared what might as well be a fatwa that life must be chronologically linear for it to identical. And through the reductio ad absurdum above, that has been proved false.

By your logic, we should destroy all copies of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, even the original, since a copy in æternal, impervious, digitally remastered gloobstick has been made.

No, by my logic if we destroyed all copies of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band except one absolutely perfect copy, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band would continue to exist. By your logic, rendering your own example to disprove your argument, once the original copy is destroyed, it is gone for-ever. A suitable moment for Concession Accepted, methinks.

[Starglider]

This is a nitpick to an otherwise good post but;

And why is this continuity relevant to the existence of the process? Why must the process must be chronologically linear? To illustrate the utter ridiculousness of the argument you're now making, it means that if you traveled backwards or forwards in time, with absolutely no other change to your person except your chronological position, you would cease to exist and be replaced by one of your so-called 'copies'. Reductio ad absurdum.

pretty much every semi-plausible time travel mechanism I'm aware of does preserve causal continuity between the future object and the past object despite the nonlinear temporal co-ordinates. In fact doing this is pretty much the whole trick of time travel. The causality of time travel is a hopeless mess of course - which is why this is not a good refutation of his position.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

This is a nitpick to an otherwise good post but;

And why is this continuity relevant to the existence of the process? Why must the process must be chronologically linear? To illustrate the utter ridiculousness of the argument you're now making, it means that if you traveled backwards or forwards in time, with absolutely no other change to your person except your chronological position, you would cease to exist and be replaced by one of your so-called 'copies'. Reductio ad absurdum.

pretty much every semi-plausible time travel mechanism I'm aware of does preserve causal continuity between the future object and the past object despite the nonlinear temporal co-ordinates. In fact doing this is pretty much the whole trick of time travel. The causality of time travel is a hopeless mess of course - which is why this is not a good refutation of his position.

Ah, but consider this, Good Sir--that requires an internally defined linearly continuous chronological existence to be a valid refutation of my point. It is true that continuity is preserved, but only from a self-referential standpoint.... And the human brain does not have the capability to self-referentially determine the linear passage of time in any effective sense; outside references are required. Look what happens when you toss someone in a sensory deprivation tank.

[Starglider]

pretty much every semi-plausible time travel mechanism I'm aware of does preserve causal continuity between the future object and the past object despite the nonlinear temporal co-ordinates.

Ah, but consider this, Good Sir--that requires an internally defined linearly continuous chronological existence to be a valid refutation of my point. It is true that continuity is preserved, but only from a self-referential standpoint....

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here. Causality is an objective concept. The various plausible ways to implement time travel maintain that. If there's one fixed timeline, then there are causal loops, but taken as a whole the history of the universe is a consistent solution of the basic physics (and time travel is only possible where that consistency is maintained - unless this happens of course ). If time travel works by branching off alternative universes, then the initial state of the alternate timeline is dependent on the state of the source universe at the destination time, except for the insertion of the state of the time traveller from the departure time. If there is one timeline that can be modified, then time travel is logically equivalent to reverting the state of the entire universe to the match the state it was in at the target time, excepting the state of the time traveller. 'Actual time' is still linear; if you envision the universe as a computer simulation (which I find a generically helpful thing to do) you just reloaded from a saved state but preserved the current state of one object, and 'real time' continued linearly the whole time. That's without getting into relativity which frankly is too much of a headache for me to bother with right now.

And the human brain does not have the capability to self-referentially determine the linear passage of time in any effective sense; outside references are required. Look what happens when you toss someone in a sensory deprivation tank.

Most humans are lousy at quantifying intervals, but we generally do ok at 'before' and 'after'. It's actually rather strange that temporal logic is such a recent field; it's a fundamental part of how human reasoning works, but (AFAIK) it didn't receive much attention from logicians until relatively late in the 20th century.

[Akkleptos]

Let's be blunt about it (No time-travelling, sorry, Starglider, though your points still stand, AFAIC). ... (C=Concerned)

You ARE a living person. No doubt about it. If we were to make a -I'm not sure what word to write anymore, as you seem to dislike all of what I use- second-instance-of-your-person, if we were to terminate your first-instance-of... whatever... wouldn't that instance of yourself experience death, regardless of how many clones/uploaded minds-onto-supercomputer/whatever ?

Now, point by point:

It is extremely hard to understand falsehood, and that is exactly what you are saying: Falsehood. I grant you think it is true for deep-seated psychological reasons, but that's all.

Because you say so. You still haven't explained why killing a cat isn't killing a cat, regardless of how many perfect copies of it there are.

And why is this continuity relevant to the existence of the process? Why must the process must be chronologically linear? To illustrate the utter ridiculousness of the argument you're now making, it means that if you traveled backwards or forwards in time, with absolutely no other change to your person except your chronological position, you would cease to exist and be replaced by one of your so-called 'copies'. Reductio ad absurdum.

Because there is one process somewhere and there is another process elsewhere -however identical, but another, separate, apart, thermo-dynamically isolated -, that's it.

Arbitrarily narrow definition without cause, just like our Canadian friend, for the exact same reasons, just replacing "copy" with "particular instance" does not make your argument any better than his, which has been already refuted.

Narow? It's the whole enchilada, as far as person -by your own definition- goes. The thing is you end up with two beings with the same mind, the same memories, at some point. Eliminating one at the time the other one's being created doesn't make it any less a death, regardless how you look at it. One being is dying. Again, the fact that they share the same mind and memories is completely irrelevant. One being dies.

Except they're not thermodynamically isolated. Since when the bloody hell did that Red Herring creep up in here? They're all in the same universe, and without the frame of reference of this universe all arguments of any sort, including what cheese you want for breakfast, are pointless to begin with.

Okay, so they are able to interact in the same universe, eventually, if they are permitted to do so. What I mean by "thermodynamically isolated" is that they're independent from each other from the moment the transfer is complete. I hold you in high regard, Duchess, for I've read many of your posts, and by dissenting from your point of view I mean no disrespect. I just don't think a red-herring could be found here unless you meant that what goes on in the Alpha-Prime planet of a star system 10 parsecs away from our viewable horizon could possibly affect the outcome of what we're talking about now because both things are in the same universe. That's ridiculous even by astrology's standards.

False, false, false, false. You are simply endlessly repeating the same disproved points, and you ignore a fundamental point of the argument with your "" If you get pinched, I don't feel it, and I don't care". Remember: 100% identical. If we were, as you postulate, 100% identical, and I got pinched... I'd no longer be 100% identical to you!. Did you really miss that, or are you just so afraid of the consequences of this reality that you want to pretend you missed it?

And who's getting religious here? Your "false, false, false" is beginning to sound like a Catholic rosary, or a mantra. 100% identical is alright. A 100% identical person copied off you (even without your knowledge, even if you fade into nothingness as you are being copied-and the original set of your mind deleted-) is -okay- you, but you (the one mind who had the idea, who paid for the process, who laid on the OR table) are gone, fin, the end, game over.

In other words, if your perfect clone experiences a pinch, your original you is expendable, just because of that?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You ARE a living person. No doubt about it. If we were to make a -I'm not sure what word to write anymore, as you seem to dislike all of what I use- second-instance-of-your-person, if we were to terminate your first-instance-of... whatever... wouldn't that instance of yourself experience death, regardless of how many clones/uploaded minds-onto-supercomputer/whatever ?

No, it wouldn't. Mind you, it would be dead from a biological sense, just as if you shot a boar, but it would not experience death, and that's the salient point. I would cheerfully go on living in the computer because I am just computer programme, and as long as the hardware meets my requirements, I shall cheerfully go on running as if nothing had happened. What's so hard to grasp about that?

Because you say so. You still haven't explained why killing a cat isn't killing a cat, regardless of how many perfect copies of it there are.

Because you are creating an artificial association between the process of sapience, and the biological entity. The biological entity is dead, but who cares about that? Everything important is the process that was running on it, and we've put that in a computer.

Because there is one process somewhere and there is another process elsewhere -however identical, but another, separate, apart, thermo-dynamically isolated -, that's it.

There's no thermodynamic isolation here, jesus, how many times do I have to repeat myself?

Narow? It's the whole enchilada, as far as person -by your own definition- goes. The thing is you end up with two beings with the same mind, the same memories, at some point.

Same mind, same memories, same point = SAME PERSON. This may be terrifying to you, but that's all that matters.

Eliminating one at the time the other one's being created doesn't make it any less a death, regardless how you look at it. One being is dying. Again, the fact that they share the same mind and memories is completely irrelevant. One being dies.

Nope, it doesn't. It's an artificial declaration that the two instances are separate beings when they're completely identical and exist in the same universe. A worthless leftover fleshbag has terminated life functions, and that's it. You have made this a point of veritable religious dogma without any grounding in fact and now you're trying to hammer me with it because you're terrified about recognizing the triviality of your own "existence", ascribing this unique "being" status to each instance with no grounding except that it makes you less terrified of the metaphysical implications for humanity.

Okay, so they are able to interact in the same universe, eventually, if they are permitted to do so. What I mean by "thermodynamically isolated" is that they're independent from each other from the moment the transfer is complete.

But that's the point. The universe is a single whole, and as long as the information still exists in the universe that makes up "you", you still exist.

I hold you in high regard, Duchess, for I've read many of your posts, and by dissenting from your point of view I mean no disrespect. I just don't think a red-herring could be found here unless you meant that what goes on in the Alpha-Prime planet of a star system 10 parsecs away from our viewable horizon could possibly affect the outcome of what we're talking about now because both things are in the same universe. That's ridiculous even by astrology's standards.

Ahh, but it does affect the outcome of what we're talking about, and perhaps now you begin to understand precisely how it is correct to view this. The fact that the information that comprises your sapience still exists within this universe means that you still exist within this universe. Full stop.

And who's getting religious here? Your "false, false, false" is beginning to sound like a Catholic rosary, or a mantra. 100% identical is alright. A 100% identical person copied off you (even without your knowledge, even if you fade into nothingness as you are being copied-and the original set of your mind deleted-) is -okay- you, but you (the one mind who had the idea, who paid for the process, who laid on the OR table) are gone, fin, the end, game over.

No, that is a point of religious dogma for you, more or less, and all I can do by this point is scream at you because you're obviously not going to change your mind no matter how many times I point out the very straightforward fact that as long as the information comprising your sapience exists in the universe, that you exist.

In other words, if your perfect clone experiences a pinch, your original you is expendable, just because of that?

If both have the exact same experience set, yes, that's correct, one can be terminated without terminating the existence of Marina.

[Ryan Thunder]

There is no functional difference by definition. The very concept of 'copy' is purely arbitrary in this case.

If it isn't a copy, then what the fuck is it? Don't try to twist the English language to suit your own twisted thinking.

By definition, an entity that has the same functionality that I do but is not me is a copy. You are trying to assert that this entity is me, but it is clearly not, by observation, because I'm all the fucking way over here in the flesh, and he's a fucking computer program.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You again misunderstood me, Ryan. I'm saying that the very concept of copy has no functional, objective meaning when comparing two sets which are 100% identical. Both are equally validly the original and the copy at the same time. Assigning one designation to one and the other designation to the second is an arbitray choice based on subjective, non-rational evaluation.

[Ryan Thunder]

You again misunderstood me, Ryan. I'm saying that the very concept of copy has no functional, objective meaning when comparing two sets which are 100% identical. Both are equally validly the original and the copy at the same time. Assigning one designation to one and the other designation to the second is an arbitray choice based on subjective, non-rational evaluation.

Alright, I'll try again, then.

If you have two identical instances of an object that do not occupy the same location or were deemed to "exist" at different times, your instances are not identical. Therefore you can differentiate between the two. Therefore they are not the same object.

Is this not rational?

[Starglider]

If you have two identical instances of an object that do not occupy the same location or were deemed to "exist" at different times, your instances are not identical. Therefore you can differentiate between the two. Therefore they are not the same object.

\

Of course. The argument has always been that this detail is irrelevant if what you actually care about is the information pattern, and people are information patterns. You stubborn refusal to move past square one of this debate is bordering on willful ignorance.

[Ryan Thunder]

If you have two identical instances of an object that do not occupy the same location or were deemed to "exist" at different times, your instances are not identical. Therefore you can differentiate between the two. Therefore they are not the same object.

Of course. The argument has always been that this detail is irrelevant if what you actually care about is the information pattern, and people are information patterns. You stubborn refusal to move past square one of this debate is bordering on willful ignorance.

It's not willful. I simply fail to see how a copy of the information pattern that is me is somehow still me, even though we can both exist simultaneously.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

If you have two identical instances of an object that do not occupy the same location or were deemed to "exist" at different times, your instances are not identical. Therefore you can differentiate between the two. Therefore they are not the same object.

Of course. The argument has always been that this detail is irrelevant if what you actually care about is the information pattern, and people are information patterns. You stubborn refusal to move past square one of this debate is bordering on willful ignorance.

It's not willful. I simply fail to see how a copy of the information pattern that is me is somehow still me, even though we can both exist simultaneously.

And that's what is willfull. You are just a process with a certain set of components. The only way to tell what "you" is, is to run down a checklist and make sure all the components (memories, behaviours, etc) are there. The checklist will return the same result, so to speak, for both you and the copy, thus you're both the same person.

[Starglider]

It's not willful. I simply fail to see how a copy of the information pattern that is me is somehow still me, even though we can both exist simultaneously.

The definition of a pattern is information present of a configuration of elements (e.g. matter) that is independent of the elements themselves. Your apparent failure here is the notion that 'there can only be one me in existence'. This is an unfounded and unjustified axiom.

[Ryan Thunder]

Okay, okay. I think I understand what you're trying to say, but I just can't agree with your conclusion. I've read all your screeching everything you've said, and it simply does not compute, for reasons I've already stated. Sorry. You go ahead and terminate yourself to have a copy live on in a machine for eternity, if you like. That's your prerogative, just as its mine to stay the fuck away from it.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Of course an even easier way to do this would be to just get yourself so utterly cyborged, filled with data storage and parallel processing, that the process simply involves shifting some of your brain processes to additional mechanical parts and shutting down the blanked, essentially mind-wiped brain. That might in fact be how such a transfer would be conducted, allowing for full, awake continuity of consciousness and living the old body a conveniently mindless husk, which for that matter is a good description of your argument: a mindless husk, devoid of any reality and relying on simple appeals to emotion.

Rereading the thread again, I noticed this piece, and I'm curious about something. Starglider and the Duchess, is there any real distinction between a process that entails the part I bolded and a process that doesn't, such as anesthetising the subject, creating the perfect copy, and then terminating the copy and "activating" the copy?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Of course an even easier way to do this would be to just get yourself so utterly cyborged, filled with data storage and parallel processing, that the process simply involves shifting some of your brain processes to additional mechanical parts and shutting down the blanked, essentially mind-wiped brain. That might in fact be how such a transfer would be conducted, allowing for full, awake continuity of consciousness and living the old body a conveniently mindless husk, which for that matter is a good description of your argument: a mindless husk, devoid of any reality and relying on simple appeals to emotion.

Rereading the thread again, I noticed this piece, and I'm curious about something. Starglider and the Duchess, is there any real distinction between a process that entails the part I bolded and a process that doesn't, such as anesthetising the subject, creating the perfect copy, and then terminating the copy and "activating" the copy?

No, it just may make some squirrelly people feel better about undergoing it.

[Akkleptos]

Actually, the queasiness comes from those wanting it to work as a de facto life extension, or a ticket to æternal life. The quasi-religious fervour in all this "it's still going to be me.. it's still going to be MEEE!" is what misses the point. Mind uploading is not a get-out-of-the-life-and-death-cycle card. Mind uploading is not life extension, as far as you (being) are concerned, because your mind (original one, the one reading these lines, the one thinking about all these matters) will have ceased to function (if terminated upon -or shortly after- the transfer). It is, however, a very interesting continuation of you ("person", as defined by the good Duchess, the sum of all your experiences, knowledge, reactions and even feelings), as it has been rightly pointed out. As far as the rest of the people goes, "you" are still around (maybe in a new and improved host). If you want to bestow the world with a "you" that will survive your death, okay. But you (the individual mind hosted in your brain now) will not see it.

I would cheerfully go on living in the computer because I am just computer programme, and as long as the hardware meets my requirements, I shall cheerfully go on running as if nothing had happened. What's so hard to grasp about that?

You said something really important here, Duchess. The mind is not at all like a computer programme, in the sense it's not data that can be copied. Mind is a phenomenon, the effect (and the process, as you mentioned elsewhere ), so if you were to represent it in computer terms it is more like everything the program does and records when it's running. Same with the human mind. The same goes for...

The argument has always been that this detail is irrelevant if what you actually care about is the information pattern, and people are information patterns. You stubborn refusal to move past square one of this debate is bordering on willful ignorance.

That means your employer will be satisfied. You2 as well. You1 cannot opine anymore.

Again, there's that tiny bit of an instant in which everything happens, called the present. Mind's perception of reality happens during that time. So does thinking, feeling, and any other intellective behaviour. This "running process" is happening in a mind (regardless of where it's stored AND running, be it human brain, computer or cloned brain). So, if you have two identical computers running the same program (sorry, I'm under the impression that the US spelling of "program" can be used when refering to computers) and if you destroy one of the computers, that program's execution can be effectively considered terminated, no matter how many other identical computers are running the exact same program, continuing from the instruction exactly after the one where the original one was destroyed or that instance of the program otherwise terminated beyond the posibility of resuming. The program's execution never really passed from one computer to another. It was the instructions that make it up which were copied -on the fly, or by some singular stasis that'd allow for everything -down to the electronic level- to continue as if nothing had happened, ideally). So, the set of instructions (or things that make it work) were transferred, but not the execution itself.

Which brings us to:

You again misunderstood me, Ryan. I'm saying that the very concept of copy has no functional, objective meaning when comparing two sets which are 100% identical. Both are equally validly the original and the copy at the same time. Assigning one designation to one and the other designation to the second is an arbitray choice based on subjective, non-rational evaluation.

Certainly, they have equal validity. No problem. Just that when one execution is ended, for that point of view, for that particular experience and perception, nothing happens afterwards (should it be terminated). The other ones (let's not call them copies, it's giving me a headache ) will carry on, each one convinced it's the original and that all went well -which, in a way, it did, except for the poor original).

Revisiting the replicated Mona Lisa example: The original was the work of the genious of Leonardo, by his own hands (even if no DNA had been left on the canvas anywhere) and meant lots of hours and effort for him. The other one, regardless of how perfectly replicated, wouldn't have the same value. It wasn't the one Leonardo worked on for such a long time. It was just combobulated in a machine. Now throw individual perspective and perception through time and continuity of experiencie into the mix, and it only gets worse.

But, as previoulsy agreed, the body itself is not important. The thing is that we have two separate individuals, beings, that happen to have two identical sets of a working mind. It is still painfully obvious that if you ternminate one being, ... well, you know what follows. The fact is that both beings having the same mind is absolutely irrelevant. Take the example to millions of identical clones with identical minds (if such a thing were possible, to keep minds at more or less the same state for a short period of time). Eliminating all but one would be not only stupid, but genocide as well. These are living beings, and they surely die /experience death, and having backups, clones, uploaded minds on supercomputers makes absolutely no difference at all, especially if you ask them.

If you have two identical instances of an object that do not occupy the same location or were deemed to "exist" at different times, your instances are not identical. Therefore you can differentiate between the two. Therefore they are not the same object.

It's true for objects just as it is true for living beings. One is here, the other is there. They're identical? Alright. But they're different objects. Different beings. What should I care if your copy of "Violator" on CD (by Depeche Mode) dissapears or is destroyed, as long as I have mine? Same goes viceversa.

Oh, not to mention that when/if such a technology became available, medical advances (nanomachines to repair and keep the neural connections optimal in order to prevent senility) and cyber-augmentation will have probably made the point moot centuries before.

Sorry, there's no such thing as æternal life. No life extension. You terminate the original mind and it's all over, as long as we don't come up with a process to allow the working mind/running program to fully consciously step out of host1 and into host2. Otherwise, no dice. It might be "you" alright, but what another being might think, perceive and experience with your mind, you -sitting here, reading this- will not.

[Kuroneko]

Since such issues seem to come up periodically on this forum, I've not paid much attention to this particular thread because for the most part I'd just wind up repeating myself. I apologize in advance if I'm misrepresenting someone, but since this thread seems to be going in circles anyway, perhaps I should as well.

(1) What is a 'personal identity'?
(2) If X and Y have the same personal identity, are X and Y the same person? If not, what condition(s) should be added and/or substituted here?
(3) Does 'I' and other personal pronouns refer to a particular person, or something more strict?

On one side, there are fairly direct answers: (1) A type of information pattern, (2) No. (None.), (3) Yes. On the other, things are a bit less clear. I'm not sure which additional condition is involved, but presumably it is something akin to 'physical continuity'. Either this is absorbed into the definition of 'personal identity' or into personhood (so that we can have X and Y having the same personal identity yet still not be the same person). The last alternative (3) is a bit strange, but it's there to leave the possibility of making some other sense of "I will [not] exist" and "you1/you2".

For however the above questions are answered, consider testing the resulting view under the hypothetical scenario of a person's brain cells being continually replaced with equivalently functional ones. Depending on whether you feel it makes a difference, consider subcases: with or without interruption of consciousness, different scale (e.g., atomic instead of cellular), or varying speed (from instantaneous to long-term).

[K. A. Pital]

The ship of Theseus scenario is different from a momentous transfer due to no interruptions of conscience and also the impossibility of simultaneous existence of two identical persons. The copy scenario is markedly different because in case of slow replacement with no interruption of consciousness, a second you does not arise.

The copy scenario looks like a "fork" where you create two instances of yourself, then simply kill one of them because the physical, material apparatus of both can support further existence of the instance - there's no question about the fact that someone is getting offed.

On the other hand, Ship of Theseus disallows the simultaneous existence of the second you, he is never born and thus no one is killed. It's easy to see why the ship of Theseus scenario is preferrable for people with ethnical questions about murdering an instance of yourself.

[Kuroneko]

The ship of Theseus scenario is different from a momentous transfer ...

Not so; it's just a variation on the same scenario, particularly on what happens to the matter being replaced. My intent was to get an answer to the simpler case first, and see if that answer carries over to the specific case afterward. Moreover, you're avoiding the main issue: what are your criteria for such judgments in the first place? Without them, you end up appealing to solely to your personal intuition. For example, the same scenario is readily followed up on:

The copy scenario is markedly different because in case of slow replacement with no interruption of consciousness, a second you does not arise.

-- What's the importance of the replacement being slow as opposed to arbitrarily fast or even (hypothetically) instantaneous? Without elaborating on your criteria, this seems to be an irrational addition tailor-made to give a preferred answer to one question and avoid problems elsewhere in a purely ad hoc manner.
-- If the original matter is reassembled into the same configuration, especially but not exclusively over a time-frame shorter than neuron firings, are either or none or both the same person as the one prior to this operation? Consider also the case where each tine of the fork contains equal amounts of original bits, however 'original' is understood in this case.

The copy scenario looks like a "fork" where you create two instances of yourself, then simply kill one of them because the physical, material apparatus of both can support further existence of the instance - there's no question about the fact that someone is getting offed.

Incorrect--that's exactly what's in question, since whether a genuine someone (a person) is getting "offed" depends on the answers to questions (1)-(3) in the previous post. You're simply begging the question if you state it as if it was axiomatic. If you want this debate to be more than just affirmation of private intuitions, you must at least try to answer them.

[K. A. Pital]

What's the importance of the replacement being slow as opposed to arbitrarily fast or even (hypothetically) instantaneous?

The creation of a second instance of yourself. So as long as two instances do not exist simultaneously, the transfer is different from when both exist simultaneously. Is that really a "nebulous" criteria"? I don't think so.

If the original matter is reassembled into the same configuration, especially but not exclusively over a time-frame shorter than neuron firings, are either or none or both the same person as the one prior to this operation? Consider also the case where each tine of the fork contains equal amounts of original bits, however 'original' is understood in this case.

Both are the same person. If a second instance is created for a timeframe, then it means two instances exist. You may say that from the human perspective, something existing less than the timeframe of a neuron firing may as well be nonexistent - but that's not so from the objective perspective.

You're simply begging the question if you state it as if it was axiomatic.

In that case you seem to think that if two copies exist simultaneously for less than the timeframe of human nerve activity, one of them in fact has not objectively existed. This is not a logical position. Two instances exist. It's irrelevant if they are completely identical, since they exist simultaneously in different places in space. You wouldn't say that two absolutely identical balls are in fact one ball, and the second ball does not exist, would you?

Else, explain what do you mean by "existence"? Occupying a place in space-time is a critical part of existence, and the "space" property of an object is as critical as "time". If they occupy different space, they are two instances, not one.

[Starglider]

Rereading the thread again, I noticed this piece, and I'm curious about something. Starglider and the Duchess, is there any real distinction between a process that entails the part I bolded and a process that doesn't, such as anesthetising the subject, creating the perfect copy, and then terminating the copy and "activating" the copy?

You know I used to think so, before I studied these issues in depth. The thing is though that you can always conduct a series of thought experiments that show that if you accept so much as replacing a single neuron with a transistor without 'killing the self', you must inevitably accept flash uploading as logically equivalent. I don't blame Akkleptos and co for being wrong, because I didn't accept this at first either; it took a couple of years of the logical implications staring me in the face before I finally accepted that my intuitions were wrong. Of course it helped that I was studying general AI and that field provides a great many examples of human intuition being worse than useless. Realistically very few people are going to realign their whole ethical system based on a web forum thread.

Anyway a reasonable starting point for Akkleptos is this scenario; I cryogenically freeze you, copy half your brain to a computer and then vaporise it. I connect the computer to the remaining half of your brain and unfreeze you. Are you still you?

I am assuming that you don't think cryogenics consitutes death and creation of an unrelated clone, though you have to admitt that freezing someone solid meets most current definitions of 'death'. You have claimed that complete flash-uploading is a personal death. So, what percentage of your brain can I replace before your arbitrary threshold is crossed and you are suddenly a new person instead of a continuation of your current self?

Of course any number you pick is completely arbitrary and meaningless but go ahead and pick one anyway, I will prove why it doesn't matter afterwards.

The quasi-religious fervour in all this "it's still going to be me.. it's still going to be MEEE!"

I confess it is kinda fun to brand people neo-luddites, crypto dualists and causality fetishists. The fact remains however that any objective analysis will necessarily favour the uploading position. You are the one retreating into unscientific subjectivity, always a favourite domain of religion ('you can't prove god didn't talk to me' - well actually we can, just wait for the brain scanning to progress a bit further ).

Mind uploading is not life extension, as far as you (being) are concerned

I see you still can't make an argument why a mind is tied to particular atoms, you still have no option but to repeat your broken axiom as a mantra. Come on, I've at least posed some thought experiments for you. Can you do no better than this (answer: no you can't, because your position is so unscientific it can't even produce thought experiments)?

Of course even your unfounded statement still doesn't exclude any kind of progressive upload, as many people have pointed out. I have yet to see you state whether moving sentient AI programs around in memory or from one computer to another kills them, please do give us your definitive answer on that so I can either riddicule it (if yes) or extrapolate it to disproving your argument as to biological brains (if no).

Mind is a phenomenon, the effect (and the process, as you mentioned elsewhere ), so if you were to represent it in computer terms it is more like everything the program does and records when it's running.

That sounds like a confused, broken and watered down version of the 'embodiment hypothesis', which is itself a broken argument in general AI. This is trivially disproven by the fact that a human can continue to think even in a sensory deprivation tank (it isn't healthy for long periods but that's irrelevant). Furthermore the entire state history and input/output of a computer program can indeed be digitally and losslessly captured; the AI technology I am working with does exactly this in test mode. However this is contradicted by your own assertion that 'all that exists is the present', so the mind's past and future are by necessity phantasmal and irrelevant in your model.

Again, there's that tiny bit of an instant in which everything happens, called the present. Mind's perception of reality happens during that time.

I have already explained how the brain cannot do anything at all in an 'instant' and nothing truly conscious happens on subsecond timescales. You are now actively engaging in wall of ignorance tactics ignoring this point and my above quoted point about the only reasonable definition of a mind being a pattern.

f you destroy one of the computers, that program's execution can be effectively considered terminated, no matter how many other identical computers are running the exact same program, continuing from the instruction exactly after the one where the original one was destroyed or that instance of the program otherwise terminated beyond the posibility of resuming. The program's execution never really passed from one computer to another.

Ah now this is getting into advanced territory. In information theoretic terms, causality really is irrelevant here, however the interesting thing is that quantity is not. Briefly, the more instances of a pattern there are in existence, the more 'support' there is for this pattern. If the pattern is a sentient mind, the probability distribution over possible 'embeddings' that the mind might actually be in is determined by the number of instances that exist in various situations. However until an event occurs which actually reveals something about the external environment and collapses part of the probability distribution, the minds are in fact logically equivalent and interchangeable. Your obsession with implementation and context is not completely irrelevant, it's just that in a logical analysis it does not matter until it actually causes a divergence of mind state. That's a simplification of course that panders to your other broken axiom of 'me-ness' being a binary condition; something that is almost reasonable with say a digital AI running on a single clocked processor, but literally impossible for distributed minds with more fuzzy self/environment models (of which the human brain is of course a fairly degenerate case).

One interesting aspect of all this is that while (AFAIK) this model of self is the only one to be consistent under information theoretic analysis (and hence AFAIK the only one that a rational AGI is going to accept), it is also the only one that makes any sense if the many-worlds interpretation of QM is correct.

[Starglider]

The creation of a second instance of yourself. So as long as two instances do not exist simultaneously, the transfer is different from when both exist simultaneously. Is that really a "nebulous" criteria"? I don't think so.

Actually I'm afraid it is. If I'm doing a gradual replacement of your brain with simulated neurons, I can replace each real neuron with two simulated neurons. If the technology used is digital then they will function identically, produce exactly the same output and it makes no difference which I connect to your remaining biological neurons. When I have finnished uploading your brain, I will have two identical simulated copies that will function in lock-step as long as the input and clocking is the same. However if I suddenly start feeding one different sensory data, they will diverge. At what point were you cloned? If you say a gradual upload preserves you and a flash-upload destroys you, now I have created two copies of you both by gradual upload, which is the real you?

Obviously this is rather easier to do (technically speaking) once you are uploaded; I can clone a computer program in stages by copying one block of memory at a time (or alternating which processor executes a subroutine or any of a thousand other schemes), using them randomly until the copy is complete, then gradually reducing the causal linkage between the copies until there is none. At that point, show them different input and they will diverge.

The only logical conclusion is that 'you-ness' is neither a binary nor a unique property.

P.S. Apologies, when I wrote this;

something that is almost reasonable with say a digital AI running on a single clocked processor, but literally impossible for distributed minds with more fuzzy self/environment models (of which the human brain is of course a fairly degenerate case).

I meant this;

something that is almost reasonable with say a digital AI running on a single clocked processor, but literally impossible for distributed minds with more fuzzy self/environment boundaries (of which the human brain is of course a fairly degenerate case).

For the human mind you can reasonably argue whether say the configuration of the rest of the nervous system is an integral part of mind-state or whether only the brain matters. Again, binary distinctions do not fare well in these kind of arguments.

[K. A. Pital]

The fact remains however that any objective analysis will necessarily favour the uploading position.

You have claimed that based on what exactly? The objective analysis will show two instances existing and one of them being terminated; only human subjective perception will not differentiate between the two if they are done in a timeframe that is nigh-instantaneous.

Let's then consider a situation in which the second, "older" instance of you is terminated not immediately, but after several days. Surely that does not change anything from an "objective" viewpoint?

I have yet to see you state whether moving sentient AI programs around in memory or from one computer to another kills them

No sentient programs have been produced, so that looks like an exercise in futility. Not knowing the parameters of a sentient AI, but using it as an example.

I have already explained how the brain cannot do anything at all in an 'instant' and nothing truly conscious happens on subsecond timescales.

You are appealing to the subjective, biological abilities of the brain to perceive spacetime, and yet saying your position is "objective"? I expected more than that.

However until an event occurs which actually reveals something about the external environment and collapses part of the probability distribution, the minds are in fact logically equivalent and interchangeable.

So until you shatter several identical glass balls, they are all equivalent and the same? Interchangeability is not in question here; but the balls occupy different positions in space. They are several instances, not one instance.

That's a simplification of course

That's more than an understatement.

Actually I'm afraid it is. If I'm doing a gradual replacement of your brain with simulated neurons, I can replace each real neuron with two simulated neurons. If the technology used is digital then they will function identically, produce exactly the same output and it makes no difference which I connect to your remaining biological neurons. When I have finnished uploading your brain, I will have two identical simulated copies that will function in lock-step as long as the input and clocking is the same. However if I suddenly start feeding one different sensory data, they will diverge. At what point were you cloned? If you say a gradual upload preserves you and a flash-upload destroys you, now I have created two copies of you both by gradual upload, which is the real you?

Obviously this is rather easier to do (technically speaking) once you are uploaded; I can clone a computer program in stages by copying one block of memory at a time (or alternating which processor executes a subroutine or any of a thousand other schemes), using them randomly until the copy is complete, then gradually reducing the causal linkage between the copies until there is none. At that point, show them different input and they will diverge.

The only logical conclusion is that 'you-ness' is neither a binary nor a unique property.

Why are you using "you-ness"? That's some sort of unscientific descriptor of self-perception. Self-perception is objectively IRRELEVANT.

You are still engaging in "I am creating a second instance" - well duh, you are. You have made two identical copies. They occupy different place in space, and thus are two different objects in existence - to argue against that would be simply impossible. One of them then continues to exist, or both, or one gets destroyed.

...which is the real you?

Both are "real me" - you have created two instances of my personality, just like two glass balls. You can kill one of these instances, since both are in existence, but you can't say there's only one "me" in existence.