[HN Gopher] Staying Alive
___________________________________________________________________
Staying Alive
Author : memalign
Score : 52 points
Date : 2023-06-24 09:11 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.philosophyexperiments.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.philosophyexperiments.com)
| downvotetruth wrote:
| Could be more convincing if the
| https://www.philosophyexperiments.com/Contact.aspx did not return
| a Runtime Error.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| I played this after playing the No vehicles in the park one the
| other day.
|
| When I got to the question about the soul I saw it as misleading
| and confidently selected the other option because previously the
| teleportation worked, and IIRC the other option had 30% success,
| both of which disproved the existence of a soul.
| apocalypstyx wrote:
| It depends on a certain consideration. If you take the argument
| (which I can't remember who laid it out) that (in Christian
| metaphysics, was the example) the experience of the individual
| (self) is replicable by God but the unique soul is not,
| consciousness experience (memories and sense of self) can be
| replicated by definition but the soul (necessarily unique)
| cannot. So soul and conscious experience must be distinct. The
| conclusion was that everything that makes an individual an
| individual as known (memories, experience, perception,
| personality) perishes with death and only the soul continues on
| and is completely distinct from the individual sense of self.
| So there is no experience of "heaven" by the self. Such is
| immaterial from the point of view of consciousness.
|
| A version of this is what I took to be laid out by the 3rd
| question.
|
| On this basis, the continuation of the soul is irrelevant with
| regards to the self. The death of the soul would be as
| immaterial to the self as the soul's continuation to "heaven"
| would be to consciousness.
| powerset wrote:
| Yeah the soul question seemed unfair, in the sense that I
| answered the first two with the assumption there is no soul,
| but the third question asks to assume a soul exists, so there's
| no way to answer it and stay consistent with my previous two
| answers
| brookst wrote:
| Same. If you accept the game's assertion that souls and
| reincarnation have been proven, it go e's you a hard time for
| changing your answer based on new evidence. Very strange for
| a game purporting to explore beliefs.
| Ukv wrote:
| I thought that initially, but I think the question is
| intentional in only describing (as stated facts, rather than
| as implied by labelling of "call it a soul") its properties
| as something immaterial that floats between humans/animals
| very slightly affecting their character - without asserting
| that it's "the real you".
|
| E.G: A family heirloom might travel between people on death
| and slightly affect the character of whoever's wearing it
| through self-perception, but (under the assumption that what
| I value is self-preservation) I wouldn't sacrifice my
| physical brain containing the only copy of my
| personality/memories/etc. in order to save it.
|
| I'd guess what it's testing would then be whether you
| identify this thing with a pre-existing belief of an
| immaterial you, or already believe you are physical(ly
| instantiated patterns) and that this thing is just incidental
| - like any other environmental impact on yourself.
| aflag wrote:
| > Your choices are consistent with the theory known as
| psychological reductionism.
|
| > But there is a tension. In allowing your brain and body to be
| replaced by synthetic parts, you seemed to be accepting that
| psychological continuity is what matters, not bodily continuity.
| But if this is the case, why did you risk the spacecraft instead
| of taking the teletransporter?
|
| It seemed to me that the virus would essentially kill me anyway
| by altering my personality and making me lose all my memories.
| Which means deep alteration of the physical brain as well. The
| other solution was also death, my brain would be entirely
| replaced, but at least my psyche would continue. It seemed to me
| I'd die either way, I picked the least bad.
| Krollifi wrote:
| I took the transporter, silicon, and freeze. The soul comes from
| the brain/mind. I don't accept the premise of the third question.
| It is not a reduction to see that the brain/mind produces the
| soul. And I use the term soul because if one does not then their
| morality is questioned so that is an easy fix to make.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| Yeah, I have never read a definition of "soul" that made sense
| to me. The premise for Question 3 said that it has some small
| effect on character, smaller than upbringing and genes. But
| lots of people have character or genes like me. So are souls
| unique? If not memories, what information _is_ stored in the
| soul?
| dudinax wrote:
| It's kind-of a bad test. When you get to the "reincarnation is
| real" bit, you've undermined anyone who doesn't believe in a
| transcendent soul.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| A lot of people on the planet do believe in a soul, and it
| impacts these decisions. It makes the people that do believe in
| souls wonder "hmm what would a transporter do", and those that
| don't believe in souls wonder "hmm if there was a soul, how
| would that change this".
|
| These are long standing questions that go back hundreds of
| years. And for many people are not solved.
|
| The point is to make you think. To say a test should not have
| questions that make you think is wrong.
|
| Note: I do not believe either. But I understand it is a long
| standing question, that is still open for a lot of people, so
| worth asking.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| [flagged]
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| [flagged]
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I am bit surprised by the diversity of discussion. There seems to
| be so many strong opinions on both sides of the same argument
| that has raged for centuries.
|
| Immaterialist:
|
| There seems to be as many people that believe in a soul very
| strongly, to the point where they can't fathom the questions. The
| questions almost have no meaning in a worldview with souls. Or
| extreme, the belief in soul has changed their mind to extent they
| can't see the point of these questions, can't get the point of
| the questions. (belief in soul in context of the questions in
| post means dead in a lot of cases)
|
| Materialists:
|
| There are just as many people that so strongly believe there is
| NO soul, scientific minded, that the third question that contains
| the word soul invalidates the entire questionnaire. Materialist
| think that modern science and technology has rendered the
| question pointless, that all the answers are already known. This
| is also false, there might not be an immaterial soul, but the
| nature of self and its continuity is still open question, and a
| lot of people equate that with soul, for better or worse.
|
| Soul is just all around bad word to describe what we are getting
| at with consciousness, or sentience. It is too loaded with
| baggage.
|
| Thus, it is a successful questionnaire, it makes both sides think
| a bit more.
| vharuck wrote:
| I chose teleporter, silicon, and reincarnation. My view of a
| "person" is a continuous arc through time: unlikely to be
| constant, but you can see how f(t) is connected to f(t-1).
|
| The teleporter preserves physicality and behavior. Ship of
| Theseus via silicon is fine, because replacing bit by bit is
| close enough to continuity. Reincarnation is a strange twist in
| the arc, but still continuous; the other option had a chance of
| termination.
| lores wrote:
| The game told me I was a psychological reductionist, for whom
| only psychological continuity is important. Fair enough, but it
| then berated me for taking the spaceship rather than the
| teleporter. Um, what? Whatever appears at the other end of the
| teleporter is not me, I'm dead and my consciousness extinct, so
| why the tut-tuting?
| sulam wrote:
| I took the same path and got the same tut-tutting. The clear
| issue is being uncomfortable with immediate replacement vs
| incremental. I agree it's illogical, but I'm okay with being
| illogical on this very hypothetical question.
|
| For me, personally, it comes down to the risk of copies. While
| both scenarios make copies possible it seems less likely in the
| case where you're simply replacing parts of my brain. I cannot
| imagine copies not being made in the teletransportation
| scenario.
| behrlich wrote:
| I took Space Ship + silicon rather than virus. I thought the
| tut-tutting was pretty well explained:
|
| > But there is a tension. In allowing your brain and body to be
| replaced by synthetic parts, you seemed to be accepting that
| psychological continuity is what matters, not bodily
| continuity. But if this is the case, why did you risk the
| spacecraft instead of taking the teletransporter? You ended up
| allowing your body to be replaced anyway, so why did you decide
| to risk everything on the spacecraft instead of just giving up
| your original body there and then?
|
| The question being posed is "what is the difference between
| replacing all of your cells, vs all of your neurons over
| time?".
|
| My logic was that my molecules are being replaced over time, so
| is that so different than my neurons being replaced over time,
| whereas a wholesale replacement of my body felt like a break in
| continuity. I'm no philosopher though :)
| darepublic wrote:
| Yes it is like the difference between rolling a wheel from
| point a to b and picking it up and carrying it over. Life is
| the rolling. Once the rubber leaves the road it's rip.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| This is a thought experiment know as the Ship of Theseus[0].
| I never thought of it in terms of replacing molecules in a
| human body, it certainly spices things up.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
| sweetsocks21 wrote:
| If you do take the teleporter it mentions that as well:
|
| > Your three choices show that this is what you see as central
| to your sense of self, not any attachment to a particular
| substance, be it your body, brain or soul. However, some would
| say that you have not survived at all, but fallen foul of a
| terrible error. In the teletransporter case, for example, was
| it really you that travelled to Mars or is it more correct to
| say that a clone or copy of you was made on Mars, while you
| were destroyed?
| raldi wrote:
| If you were an AI on a computer, and you had a choice of either
| being copied to a fresh computer with 100% reliability, or
| having your computer packed up and shipped with a 50% chance of
| being destroying in transit, which would you pick?
| 13415 wrote:
| Exactly the same for me, this is incorrect, though not for the
| reason you point out. The person at the other side of the
| teleporter is you. One copy of myself dies whereas another copy
| of myself lives. Both copies are identical, so both of them are
| me. So in my opinion this should count as a half death.
|
| Otherwise, if the argument was that the destroyed copy doesn't
| count because I can "feel no continuity", then any quick and
| sudden death wouldn't count as a death. That would be absurd.
| If, on the other hand, you believe the teleporter makes a copy
| of yourself that isn't you, then you're simply not a genuine
| psychological reductionist.
|
| In my opinion, it makes sense to avoid a 1/2 death by taking a
| 1/2 chance of staying 100% alive. If it doesn't bother you to
| die at the teleporter, then any sudden, quick death shouldn't
| bother you either, which goes against the explicit instruction
| to ensure survival. This is also true in general without the
| instruction. If a perfect copy was made of someone, it would be
| rational for both copies to desire to survive.
| lores wrote:
| I'm not following. Let's assume the teleporter fails and the
| original is not destroyed, leading to a clone of you on Mars.
| What then? Who are you?
| fasterik wrote:
| _> Whatever appears at the other end of the teleporter is not
| me, I'm dead and my consciousness extinct, so why the tut-
| tuting?_
|
| If you think you died when you entered the teletransporter,
| then you either think bodily continuity or an immaterial soul
| is relevant. All that matters for psychological continuity is
| that the person has the same memories, personality, etc. as
| you.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| This isn't my first rodeo down this particular philosophical
| culdesac, but what I've always wondered is - why do you have
| to destroy the source person in the teleporter? If you don't,
| then there's still an exact replica of you at the
| destination. What if the copy comes back to Earth via
| spaceship and shoots you? The end result is the same, but it
| sure looks like you're dead.
| dforrestwilson wrote:
| Same. Is there not a reductionism for memories, which is what I
| believe at least partially defines who I am and probably
| greatly impacts my choices?
| Ukv wrote:
| Under "memory reductionism" as you describe, wouldn't the
| correct choice be to take the teleporter that preserves
| memories?
| sunaurus wrote:
| What is the difference between slowly replacing your cells a
| few at a time through biological processes, and instantly
| replacing all of your cells through the teleporter?
|
| In both cases, an older version of you is "extinct", meanwhile,
| the latest version of you does not have any recollection of
| becoming extinct.
| lores wrote:
| Imagine the "destroy the original" part of the teleportation
| fails. Is your consciousness still in your original body or
| on Mars? Certainly, still in your original body.
|
| Now the doc is replacing parts of your brain with silicon.
| It's posited that it makes no difference to your mind.
| Because of that, is your consciousness still in your body?
| Very probably.
|
| So I'm not following their logic.
| aflag wrote:
| I think it comes down to how that replacement happens. If
| you keep adding new chips or whatever it is as your old
| cells die or get altered by the virus, that's one thing.
| However, if you download your conscience to silicon and
| have that replace your brain, that's entirely different.
| I'm unsure which one it was in that question.
| sunaurus wrote:
| > Imagine the "destroy the original" part of the
| teleportation fails. Is your consciousness still in your
| original body or on Mars? Certainly, still in your original
| body.
|
| How do you reach this conclusion? The only conclusion I can
| reach is that an identical consciousness is certainly in
| both bodies. (And as soon as both bodies are making new
| memories, you have a "fork", where the two persons stop
| being identical)
| lores wrote:
| How would that work? Would you control both bodies, see
| through both set of eyes, think with both brains? How
| would the ineffable quality that makes you feel like you
| are you get transported to Mars? I don't think that's a
| tenable possibility.
| sunaurus wrote:
| There is no single "you" in this scenario, there are two
| distinct persons. One experiences being transported to
| Mars, the other experiences the transporter failing and
| them being stuck on Earth.
| lores wrote:
| I think we're talking at cross purposes. Me, the body I
| inhabit, is still on Earth. The person on Mars, who
| likely also has a consciousness, and is for the whole
| world exactly the same as me, is still not me, but
| someone else, because _I_ am on Earth, and _I_ can 't be
| in both bodies.
|
| So I will not take the teleporter any more than I will
| shoot myself.
| Jack000 wrote:
| This conflict only exists if you believe in a single,
| inviolable self.
|
| Which cell is the "real" one when it divides? Which
| branch of a tree is the true tree?
|
| Both versions of you have equal claim to the past, as
| long as the copy is truly identical.
| sunaurus wrote:
| That brings me back to my original question:
|
| > What is the difference between slowly replacing your
| cells a few at a time through biological processes, and
| instantly replacing all of your cells through the
| teleporter?
|
| If you believe that _you_ die when your cells are
| replaced (because _you_ are in the old cells and thus can
| 't be in the replacement), then I understand your point
| of view. But if you're saying that slowly replacing you
| is different than quickly replacing you, then I would be
| super curious to hear the logic for this! (This is a
| sincere comment, I am not seeing the logic myself and
| would really like to understand it)
| lores wrote:
| So, the slow replacement preserves consciousness. Why,
| who knows, but it happens to us already every day, so we
| can take it as granted. If it didn't, we'd be someone
| different every day, with false memories, and while it's
| not impossible there's not really many places reason can
| take us from there.
|
| The problem with the teleportation is not even that it's
| a quick replacement... it's that it's not a replacement
| at all. You're building a clone somewhere else, and
| destroying the original. You could build 50 clones at the
| same time on 50 planets if you wanted - and of course
| none of them would be _you_ , there's zero chance _you_
| 're preserved. So, you're dead, even if to the rest of
| the world it makes no difference.
|
| Is that clearer?
| sunaurus wrote:
| What you're saying seems like a clear contradiction to
| me.
|
| In your first paragraph, you say that we can take for
| granted that when an original is destroyed, having a
| replacement will preserve consciousness. Then, in your
| second paragraph, you say the opposite - that destroying
| an original would NOT preserve consciousness, even if
| there exists a replacement.
|
| There must be some key assumption which lets you not see
| this as a contradiction. Maybe you believe that there is
| something extra-cellular which wouldn't get replicated in
| a teleporter?
| lores wrote:
| I'm saying replacing a neuron or cell at a time within a
| quadrillion of them empirically leads to continued
| consciousness, and that assembling a quadrillion cells on
| a remote planet with no material connection whatsoever
| with the original body is a very different thing. You
| want to hide both cases behind the same word. I don't see
| why you think that's valid.
| Ukv wrote:
| > and is for the whole world exactly the same as me, is
| still not me
|
| If both are identical I don't see why both aren't equally
| me.
|
| > because I am on Earth, and I can't be in both bodies.
|
| Why must there be a single continuation of "me"? I
| wouldn't necessarily consider this true even under
| current medical technology - we can split the brain in
| two and have two parts that do not directly communicate.
|
| What if the process is symmetrical (one body in, some
| kind of mitosis occurs, two bodies out at equal
| distance)? Does one get assigned "the real me" at random?
| If both have the same memories/personality/train-of-
| thought and experience the process as continuous, why not
| both?
| lores wrote:
| I can't seem to be able to reply to your comment below,
| but thanks for the clear illustration. I don't disagree
| with PM PM; I don't believe in souls. What I do believe
| in is that there is a quality of consciousness that is
| linked to the PM - what makes you see through your own
| eyes and not others. That quality does not seem
| transferable, in that bodily possession is not a thing.
|
| If you posit that teleportation is equivalent to
| spaceship, and that a single consciousness cannot inhabit
| two bodies, then what is your hypothesis about the more-
| or-less instant transfer of that quality to a remote
| planet's newly created clone?
| Ukv wrote:
| > I don't believe in souls
|
| Consider IM to be any immaterial "self" that you believe
| wouldn't be included in the clone - doesn't have to be a
| soul as various religions may conceptualize.
|
| > and that a single consciousness cannot inhabit two
| bodies
|
| I believe there could be two bodies with identical
| personalities/memories/train-of-thought/etc. (whatever we
| label as consciousness) at some instant, but they would
| diverge due to different environments and not have any
| kind of special link between them.
|
| > what is your hypothesis about the more-or-less instant
| transfer of that quality to a remote planet's newly
| created clone?
|
| In my view it's just included in the clone - there's
| nothing extra that hasn't been cloned that needs to be
| transferred afterwards. If you totally clone an ocean, it
| has the same waves.
| lores wrote:
| But we are not talking about mitosis, so we don't need to
| go there. We are taking about a machine that assembles
| atoms on a remote planet. None of the atoms come from
| your current body. What magic would transfer your
| consciousness into this clone?
| Ukv wrote:
| > But we are not talking about mitosis, so we don't need
| to go there
|
| I'm probing to get a better understanding of your belief
| system. How does it hold up under symmetrical cloning?
|
| > What magic would transfer your consciousness into this
| clone?
|
| I'll label:
|
| * PM: Physiological "me" - personality, memories, train
| of thought, currently instantiated as a brain
|
| * IM: "Immaterial" "me" - a "soul", impacted by the PM.
| May impact the PM or just be an observer (depending on
| variant of dualism)
|
| From what I understand, you believe there's an IM
| controlling a PM, and the IM is a different kind of stuff
| that would not be cloned. The IM generally follows the
| same PM, but could be "shaken off" from too-large
| changes. On cloning of PM you think this happens (at the
| instant of cloning): IM New soul
| | | PM PM
|
| You ask "Would you control both bodies, see through both
| set of eyes" because you thought sunaurus is proposing
| this happens: IM / \
| PM PM
|
| Whereas I (and I think sunaurus) don't believe in an IM.
| We think two identical PMs really are identical persons,
| including whatever we'd call consciousness:
| PM PM
|
| Others may believe that IMs do exist but supervene on the
| PM (so identical PM has identical IM arising from it):
| IM IM | | PM PM
| stickfigure wrote:
| > What is the difference between slowly replacing [...] and
| instantly replacing [...]
|
| Not to be obtuse, but... _the speed_.
|
| Really this is a shortcoming of the thought experiment.
| Progressive replacement is subjectively more continuous than
| complete replacement. A better thought experiment would be to
| feed it out something like:
|
| * _What if we replaced every atom of you body progressively
| over 24 hours?_
|
| * _What if we replaced every atom of your body suddenly all
| at once?_
|
| * _What if we replaced every atom of your body, but delayed
| by 1s?_
|
| * _What if we replaced every atom of your body, but delayed
| by 1 day?_
|
| * _What if we replaced every atom of your body suddenly all
| at once, but moved about 1mm?_
|
| * *What if we replaced every atom of your body suddenly all
| at once, but a day later and moved by thousands of miles?"
| sunaurus wrote:
| What is the practical difference, though? From the point of
| view of the entity whose atoms have been replaced, I don't
| think that the speed of replacement has any noticeable
| effect. And the previous versions are all "extinct"
| regardless of the speed, so from the point of view of any
| previous versions, the situation doesn't change either.
| vichu wrote:
| I viewed those questions as a play on the Ship of Theseus.
|
| If the ship is completely destroyed and a perfect replica
| rebuilt elsewhere, is it the same ship? Almost certainly not.
|
| If the ship is slowly replaced over time, is it the same
| ship? As a matter of form or psychological continuity as
| posited in the question, almost certainly.
| sunaurus wrote:
| Why do you think those two questions have different
| answers? For me, the only logical option is that both
| questions must have the same answer (regardless of what
| your answer is).
| vichu wrote:
| I don't follow your logic. How would constructing a new
| ship from new materials ever count as being the same as
| the original ship?
|
| At least in the Ship of Theseus paradox, there is the
| case where you take the old replaced parts and construct
| a ship from those parts - which is an interesting
| question, is it the original ship? In this case, the only
| thing consistent about the ship is the design. Take mass
| manufactured goods then - are they the same article
| because the have the same materials?
| sunaurus wrote:
| > How would constructing a new ship from new materials
| ever count as being the same as the original ship?
|
| If it's a perfect replica (as you said in your original
| comment) then by what parameters is it different from the
| original ship? Sure, cooordinates might be different, but
| cooridnates can change. If the exact replica switches
| places with the original, then even that difference would
| disappear.
|
| By the way, I am strictly speaking about this topic in
| the context of the thread we are in. If a replica is
| built according to exact blueprints of a snapshot of the
| original (and assuming no mistakes are made), then why
| would the result be any different than just replacing one
| part on the original with an replica part made according
| to exact blueprints of a snapshot of the original part?
| martindbp wrote:
| We replace the cells in our body every few months, correct?
| The gradual replacement is key to the continuity. I'd be ok
| replacing every one of my neurons one at a time but not to
| upload my brain to a computer and then kill myself. To an
| outside observer the result may be the same, but not
| something I'd be comfortable with. I know my consciousness is
| an illusion and I probably "die" every time I go into deep
| sleep but the key is to uphold the illusion, otherwise why go
| on?
| sunaurus wrote:
| But why would the feeling of continuity be broken by an
| instant replacement?
|
| In both cases (gradual and instant replacement), at any
| given moment, there exists only one entity with your
| consciousness and self of sense and continuous memories
| leading up to that moment.
| lores wrote:
| It's _not_ a replacement, a collection of atoms is
| assembled on a remote planet. And it needs _not_ be a
| single entity, as the thought experiment with the failure
| to destroy the original body shows.
| martindbp wrote:
| I think my point is, maybe there's no such thing as
| continuity of experience (since we sleep every day) and
| consciousness itself may be an illusion. With an instant
| replacement, and also with a large distances, it makes it
| clear this is not me any longer, but if I replace my
| neurons gradually with digital components it's
| essentially equivalent to what is already happening with
| my brain cells, so it doesn't break the illusion. My
| identity and consciousness is an illusion and I just
| don't want to break it. I know that is contradictory and
| makes no sense, but that's the reason I would not use the
| transporter.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >so why the tut-tuting?
|
| because you've suddenly switched to a sort of dualism. If you
| are a psychological reductionist (from some of your other
| choices, like say using the artificial brain parts), then you
| assume that minds are what brains do. There is no consciousness
| separate from your brain, your brain produces your
| consciousness. So all that matters for you to be alive is for
| some brain to be around that produces the same mental states
| you have. There could even be multiple of you!
|
| But if you hop on the spaceship you threaten that continuity
| for the sake of your body. In that case you treat your
| consciousness as distinct from your body and are afraid of
| 'losing' it or not being able to transfer it should that
| particular body die. So you don't just care about your
| psychological state any more, you think your particular body
| 'carries' your mind around. That's a contradiction.
| benlivengood wrote:
| 70% is an outstanding success rate for cryonics. The real
| problem, of course, is that whatever idiot scientists regrew a
| complete biological replacement for me from silicon didn't bother
| to keep a backup before the cryonics attempt. Like, the
| teleteleporter _already_ made a perfect cellular replica so the
| technology is readily available.
| zerocrates wrote:
| It's a 70% failure rate, not success rate.
| benlivengood wrote:
| Still outstanding since current real-world success rates are
| estimated to be somewhat less than 1%.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| To all the people with a problem with the 3rd question on Soul.
|
| The point is, that many religions, and many people, do believe in
| a soul, or form of dualism, some form of immaterial soul. Thus
| the question is to tease out your stance, to make people think
| through some of the issues with their own beliefs.
|
| Since it is impossible to define a single form of the immaterial
| soul, since there are a million interpretations, they provided a
| very generic simple model to base the question.
|
| Who cares if it was new information, at the very start they said
| each question did NOT depend on the others, and would provide
| information for that question, that applies to that unique and
| generic hypothetic situation.
|
| It would be pointless to have a questionnaire like this, but the
| first question be "if you don't believe in a soul, don't take the
| quiz, this isn't a safe space for the scientist."
|
| The discussion of soul's and the possible interactions between
| material and immaterial go back 1000's of years, and not all from
| the religious. Early scientist spent a lot of time trying to
| reconcile science and soul, back to early scientist like Newton,
| Leibniz, Descartes. Even, does a soul have mass, with experiments
| on weighing a live body and dead body. It is a long standing
| question, and one that most people do not think is solved, hence
| still worth asking.
|
| So, a lot of people believe in souls, there is hundreds of years
| of Scientist, Philosophers and Theologians trying to define and
| reconcile those views. But what? You, in particular, think it is
| all solved and wrapped up so it is a stupid question?
|
| Note. I don't believe in the immaterial soul, but to discount a
| philosophical survey because it mentions it, is pretty bogus
| reason to discount that line of thought.
|
| These are all very valid questions in the latest craze of AI. I
| wouldn't doubt that at some point soon, there would be some
| religious type protest when someone's loved one is 'mimicked' by
| an AI bot and then the rest of the congregation calls it a demon,
| or possesedd, or that it has trapped the persons soul.
| runjake wrote:
| For scenario 1, in terms of a soul (self-awareness), will it
| replicate you or a clone of you?
|
| What does our soul constitute?
|
| In other words, does option #1 effectively kill you?
|
| _Edit: Thanks for the polite clue, klausa. Back to mowing._
|
| _Edit 2: If this thought experiment interests you, check out
| this[1] Black Mirror episode (which has mixed reviews, but
| illustrates this experiment fairly well)._
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel,_Jack_and_Ashley_Too
| klausa wrote:
| Congratulations, you correctly identified the underlying
| philosophical thought experiment!
| runjake wrote:
| Well, I guess I'll have to stop doing my yardwork and do the
| other two scenarios!
| qawwads wrote:
| IMHO, the body, the psyche and the soul can't be separated like
| that. A body without a soul is a cadaver. The soul is whatever
| makes the body not a cadaver. The psyche appears from the
| interaction of the body and the soul.
|
| So, in question 1, the teleportation kill you 100%. In question
| 2, unsure but both choices is probably equaly deadly. And
| question 3 is pure fantasy because you can't have a living body
| without a soul.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Yikes. You took the thread way into religious flamewar here.
| That's not cool, and we ban accounts that do it, so please
| don't do it again. It's not what this site is for, and
| destroys what it is for. Personal attacks will also get you
| banned, so please don't do that again either.
|
| If you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to
| the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| I think it was completely in context. The original
| submittal had religious questions, the comment I responded
| to, had religious reasoning to those questions. If I'm not
| allowed to respond, then just don't allow submittals of any
| kind that contain a religious overtone. But I think that
| will become more and more difficult as AI continues to
| progress and there are more posts allowed to discuss the
| nature of mind, 'self' and 'consciousness' and what is
| 'sentient'. These questions beg religious responses in a
| lot of people.
|
| I did read the guidelines, and the recent "No vehicles in
| the park" post, and understand the difficulties of parsing
| language. You are in a difficult position. I tend to think
| linking religious beliefs with terrorism is a common
| argument, not controversial at all, so it seemed a
| reasonable response. My error was in calling him 'deluded',
| that is personal and un-called for. Instead of 'You are
| deluded', I could have said "such beliefs are delusional",
| or "such beliefs indicate a lack of self awareness".
| impissedoff1 wrote:
| At what point is replacing the self, no longer self?
| Hippocampal prosthesis already exist, dealing with memory
| encoding.
| platz wrote:
| > But your last choice sees the end to your psychological
| continuity, since the continued existence of the soul does not
| provide it. So you first ended bodily continuity and then you
| ended psychological continuity.
|
| I reject the framing of the centrality of the soul in this
| exercise, and being forced to reconcile this question with the
| previous questions that do no pre-suppose the existence of the
| soul.
| jonahss wrote:
| I had the same problem, the last question added new
| information.
| vsareto wrote:
| My brain groks this by considering it pass-by-reference vs. pass-
| by-value. The original you is the first instance. It occupies a
| particular place in space which you move about, and also
| experiences a particular path and timeline. As long as I'm
| considered alive, I'm adding to that path by moving around and
| interacting with the universe. You can keep finding and adding
| more details to get a unique picture of the first instance. The
| challenge here is easy because you only have to find one unique
| difference between the first instance and your copies to figure
| out which is which. It gets harder and harder to prove that one
| is perfectly equal to another.
|
| If you're building a copy of someone (regardless if the original
| is destroyed), that's pass-by-value. It's just making a copy at
| another memory location in the universe. If you're moving me
| around in a space ship, that's obviously pass-by-reference. If
| you're moving my soul (even with some limitations), that's pass-
| by-reference as well. What's convenient about this is that if you
| remove enough things from the soul enough that you can't know if
| it really is your soul, it casts doubt on how this transfer
| process was found out and proven in the first place, so we could
| reject the premise.
|
| But if you go and make a second copy of yourself (regardless of
| destroying the first), memories and personality and other things
| might be equal, but you can't replicate the path you took unless
| you can go back in time, so that will always be unique to the
| instance you're making a copy from. Teletransporters and brain
| implants are far, far more believable technologies compared to
| time travel.
|
| Experienced history is as much apart of you as your body and
| mind, and it's conveniently observable externally, so people
| don't have to trust your word that you're really 'you' or the
| first instance of you.
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