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Yes

10 (17.9%)

No

46 (82.1%)

Total Members Voted: 53

[DeKaFu]

GlyphGryph, your logic has one fatal flaw, namely that you don't account for continuous functionality. For you see, to properly extend the analogy, the ships have to work continuously during the whole process, all the while without changing expected behaviour, which would generally not work.

Luckily we are talking about identity, minds, and continuity, not preservation of a functional match. If we were, the ship would have been different immediately after suffering the initial damage. If we were you would die a multitude of deaths every moment. You are the first to argue this as a requirement - can you seek to explain how it would make any sense as one?

Well, I was never talking about identity. This must be why this metaphor just got super confusing for me. :/

I think we're actually defining mind/identity/consciousness differently here. Identity for me is the sum of your personality and memories, which is obviously preserved in a brain-clone.

I've been using mind mostly interchangably with consciousness, to avoid the unhelpful "but you're unconscious when you're asleep so you're saying you don't exist when sleeping, nyeh" arguments. I define death as a permanent end of your ability to think and percieve the world around you, and that's what you'll get if your body is destroyed, regardless of clones.

[PanH]

Now, we take this out for a couple weeks, sail around, it works fine. But this is the first point of contention. Does anyone think S.S.Teddy is NOT the same ship? Does anyone feel it lacks continuity?

This is not the same ship.

[GlyphGryph]

Now, we take this out for a couple weeks, sail around, it works fine. But this is the first point of contention. Does anyone think S.S.Teddy is NOT the same ship? Does anyone feel it lacks continuity?

This is not the same ship.

So you feel, as of Step 2, that it is no longer the same ship, right? Just to make sure. If the ship receives damage, and the damage is repaired, we now have a different ship.

(this is a valid stance, in fact. It is where phrases such as "changing one's mind" come from - the belief that if we no longer believe the same thing, our mind is actually, literally different)

[Catsup]

They both have exactly the same number of components from the first panel S.S.Teddy. Just a couple posts ago you said every single component up there was a component of the S.S.Teddy. How can you say that one of the subships is the 'original', when they are both identical, with identical but mirrored histories of how they were created, both composed 100% of S.S.Teddy pieces...

well you did fast forward so i assumed you built the other ship non-symmetrically. If there really is no absolute way to distinguish the 2, then i would say that the original SS teddy was destroyed:
there is no longer a single ship that can provide 1 single shipping function, but instead 2 new ships that can each provide shipping function. Its like cell division, both of the resultant ships are functional offspring that are completely identical.

[GlyphGryph]

I never built another ship. You even agreed that I wasn't building another ship! Every step I fast forwarded through was just continual modifications and repairs to the same ship, and you even said it was the same ship after I finished. We've even tied them together for you, now!

I just don't understand what you're trying to say at all. It doesn't make any sense.

Anyways, I'm out for a couple hours, gotta go. Someone else feel free to pick up where I left off in this discussion, by slowly lengthening ropes.

[PanH]

So you feel, as of Step 2, that it is no longer the same ship, right? Just to make sure. If the ship receives damage, and the damage is repaired, we now have a different ship.

(this is a valid stance, in fact. It is where phrases such as "changing one's mind" come from - the belief that if we no longer believe the same thing, our mind is actually, literally different)

Yup. You cannot step twice into the same stream.

[GlyphGryph]

Then I imagine you wouldn't have a problem you wouldn't have a problem with splitting your consciousness, and I have no real disagreement with you. It is a different stance than my own, but one that makes sense and is easy enough to support. It is valid. So if you can get these guys to accept that instead of the one I'm trying to build towards, good luck! I don't care if people agree with me, just that they stop being so wrong.

[Cthulhu]

If you hooked a human brain up to an identical brain so they somehow shared a consciousness, it wouldn't just be two identical connected but separate minds, or one mind identical to the old one.  I'm of the opinion that the human mind's existence and nature is entirely contingent on the physical structure of the brain.  Two connected brains is one big brain with a new structure.

As the above would suggest, I don't think there's any way to do a "brain transfer" in the real sense of the word.  To the "transferred" brain it would seem to be a brain transfer, it'd have all the memories of whatever happened before it was created, but there's no non-physical element to the brain that "transfers."

[Catsup]

I never built another ship. You even agreed that I wasn't building another ship! Every step I fast forwarded through was just continual modifications and repairs to the same ship, and you even said it was the same ship after I finished. We've even tied them together for you, now!

I just don't understand what you're trying to say at all. It doesn't make any sense.

Anyways, I'm out for a couple hours, gotta go. Someone else feel free to pick up where I left off in this discussion, by slowly lengthening ropes.

ok "fixed" non-symmetrically. The result is still 2 new functional ships with identical compositions to each other, but not to that of the original. From this point of view i say the original is destroyed.

Up to this point i was not differentiating based on composition, but on function. So i guess i went a lil off track when i mentioned differentiating the copies from each other based on composition.

the fact is though, that you no longer have a single ship that can provide 1 shipping function, but now 2 ships that can provide 2, separate shipping functions, so the original is destroyed.

[Catsup]

splitting your consciousness

since your going away im going to suppose this is your conclusion. Mine is that its not possible to both split your consciousness and yet keep them identical.

a brain that grows new tissue that later becomes another functional brain will result in a new consciousness for so long as the branch is functional as a brain, meaning it does not need to be split off from the main one.

cutting a brain in half will most likely kill 1 half and severely disable the other half because only a certain part of the brain actually controls consciousness. Supposing if that part was split off evenly in 2, and both parts are identical, then neither will fully have all your memories, and both will update their consciousness on their own from then on, and become further separate entities.

Two connected brains is one big brain with a new structure.

doesnt work, well at least not really. The brain's function is determined by its composition and the structural connection of its neurons. Adding in more brain tissue randomly does not necessarily add additional function. Adding another structurally functional brain to an existing brain without interfering with the structural integrity of either still only makes for 2 physically connected brains that do not share a consciousness.

[MagmaMcFry]

GlyphGryph, your logic has one fatal flaw, namely that you don't account for continuous functionality. For you see, to properly extend the analogy, the ships have to work continuously during the whole process, all the while without changing expected behaviour, which would generally not work.

Luckily we are talking about identity, minds, and continuity, not preservation of a functional match. If we were, the ship would have been different immediately after suffering the initial damage. If we were you would die a multitude of deaths every moment. You are the first to argue this as a requirement - can you seek to explain how it would make any sense as one?

Well, if I remember your earlier posts correctly, you are describing, by analogy, a process of continuously creating two minds from one by brain mitosis, and that wouldn't work like you think it will.

But if you are actually trying to make an argument regarding the concept of "same", you're falling for the equivocation fallacy. In fact, this entire conversation seems to have problems deciding on a definition of "same" and "identical", and intermixing different possible interpretations of those things naturally leads to contradictions and confusion. It is entirely possible to constructively continue this conversation without using any sort of variations of "same", replacing those words by the definition you are trying to convey by them instead. Try it, it helps.


Now there is a surprising amount of people who voted "No" on the poll. May I have some explanations for that?

[Graknorke]

If we were you would die a multitude of deaths every moment.

Yes this is a thing that it true.

[Catsup]

i'll vote yes only if my original brain gets to be successfully transferred to the new body.

My interpretation of the question is if they make a clone of me with the perfect physical form, and the same memories and ambitions, but which is NOT me and does not have my consciousness. And then destroy the original body (including the brain).

[Graknorke]

i'll vote yes only if my original brain gets to be successfully transferred to the new body.

My interpretation of the question is if they make a clone of me with the perfect physical form, and the same memories and ambitions, but which is NOT me and does not have my consciousness. And then destroy the original body (including the brain).

But your consciousness is ENTIRELY because of the structure of your brain and the memories you have. That is what defines you.
I swear I will keep making this point until I explain it well enough.

[Kansa]

The main reason I voted no in that poll was the destruction of the original body itself, that body would still be a person in my eyes even if there was a clone so destroying it would basically be committing murder.