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[kaijyuu]

Burden of proof is on whoever's making a claim. Whether the claim is "affirmative" or "negative" is irrelevant.


In other words, "provide proof I'm wrong" is not a valid counter argument. "Provide proof to your claim that I am wrong" however, is. If you make a claim, of any sort, you need to provide evidence. Period.


It'd be a pretty silly world if people could run around making claims they couldn't possibly prove and expect be taken seriously. It really doesn't matter what the claim is; saying "this is how it is" needs to be backed up.

[DeKaFu]

Sorry, I was commenting while running out the door so it came out a bit short. Bad form.

My argument is just that two objects that are identical down to the atom but physically distinct are still two separate objects, and not the same object. I think arguing that they're the same object is pretty weird and I have trouble grasping that point of view? (Edit: I don't think anyone's arguing this)

So given that, if the event of perception of self and the world that is going on right now in each of us is entirely derived from the brain, two identical but physically distinct brains will have two identical but physically distinct instances of that perception, only one of which is being experienced by each brain.

As far as I'm concerned that event of perception is me, it's the only me I really care about. And when one of those brains is annihilated, the event of perception caused by the chemicals and electrical impulses whizzing around in that single, physical instance of the brain is also annihilated.

If that's MY brain, and given the definition of self I just gave, I'm annihilated when that happens.

I'm pretty sure I'm just saying the same thing over and over. I'm not sure how else to say it? Sorry guys.

[Tarran]

Burden of proof is on whoever's making a claim. Whether the claim is "affirmative" or "negative" is irrelevant.

In other words, "provide proof I'm wrong" is not a valid counter argument. "Provide proof to your claim that I am wrong" however, is. If you make a claim, of any sort, you need to provide evidence. Period.

The question is, did I make a claim to something? Is stating your opinion making a claim?

If I say, "I believe that aliens exist on earth", is that a claim or opinion?

Or am I perhaps completely misunderstanding your post and you are not in fact arguing against me?

[Skyrunner]

This kinda seems similar to this.

[Drago55577]

I wanna reiterate that the whole teleportation thing can be a bad idea even without believing in a soul.

It's really simple to me:
Your consciousness is physically/biochemically based in your brain. In the process of teleportation...
1. A perfect copy of your brain (and body) is made on the other side. You now have two identical brains, and two identical but separate consciousnesses. They are each complete entities that percieve the world separately.
2. The original brain/consciousness is destroyed. The second one continues on.

If 1 happened and 2 didn't happen, it'd be like one person going to sleep and two identical people waking up (with the same memory of going to sleep). When both happen, it's like one person going to sleep and never waking up, and another person waking up (with the memory of going to sleep). Going to sleep and never waking up = death. That's you, the original.

Even if 1 and 2 are simultanious, or 2 happens before 1, the outcome is exactly the same. As far as I can tell, any other arguments only matter from an outside point of perception, like a third person observing and going "well, they seem the same to me!".


That said, if it turned out that teleporting myself would let me do something amazing I could never otherwise do, like study biological life on an alien planet, I'd probably go through with it. But I'd treat the decision as sacrificing myself to give a person with my dreams the opportunity to fulfill them.

i agree with this, i always have.

(just putting in my 2 cents )

[Eagle_eye]

I didn't read the whole of the last page, so I may be restating something there, but, saying that consciousness needs to be continuous to be the same doesn't make sense. As I understand it, just as the planck length is the minimal distance in space, the planck time is the smallest possible unit of time. It can't be subdivided any further. Thus, there's no continuous chain of "you" going back, there are just an immense number of discreet moments.

[Drago55577]

I didn't read the whole of the last page, so I may be restating something there, but, saying that consciousness needs to be continuous to be the same doesn't make sense. As I understand it, just as the planck length is the minimal distance in space, the planck time is the smallest possible unit of time. It can't be subdivided any further. Thus, there's no continuous chain of "you" going back, there are just an immense number of discreet moments.

So life has a frame rate?

Lol
I'm laughing alot now.

[Eagle_eye]

it's about 10^43 fps though, so it will never matter outside of philosophy.

[Drago55577]

I was hoping to be quoted, but it was still funny

[Tarran]

I didn't read the whole of the last page, so I may be restating something there, but, saying that consciousness needs to be continuous to be the same doesn't make sense. As I understand it, just as the planck length is the minimal distance in space, the planck time is the smallest possible unit of time. It can't be subdivided any further. Thus, there's no continuous chain of "you" going back, there are just an immense number of discreet moments.

I guess it's just what you see your existence of yourself as. You may not think it makes sense--and nothing is wrong with that--but to others it might.

[Eagle_eye]

I'm not saying that I personally don't understand it. I'm saying that as continuity doesn't exist, claiming it as a requirement for continued consciousness is illogical.

[Tarran]

Do you have evidence to back up your claim that it doesn't exist? I'm just curious.

[alway]

Do you have evidence to back up your claim that it doesn't exist? I'm just curious.

Yes.

One Planck time is the time it would take a photon travelling at the speed of light to cross a distance equal to one Planck length. Theoretically, this is the smallest time measurement that will ever be possible,[3] roughly 10⁻⁴³ seconds. Within the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, for times less than one Planck time apart, we can neither measure nor detect any change.

Aside from that, neurons only fire at a relatively slow rate of at most once per millisecond; or about 3 million CPU cycles per neuron cycle for a modern CPU.

[Tarran]

...I don't understand how that explains anything.

[Eagle_eye]

Well, because time can only be subdivided so far, which happens to also be the reason zeno's paradox isn't actually the case, there is an instant where you exist, another instant where you exist, and nothing in between. Thus, your existence isn't continuous.