But who is the original you? Do you mean you as you are now; or the future iteration of yourself who steps out of that person copying machine? Those are two different people, and it's important as to which you mean.
Mu.
Those questions are fundamentally flawed, as they make an immense volume of assumptions. First among which is that there is such a thing as 'you.' A thing which exists. This is absolutely false. "You" is simply a cascade of neural activity within a mesh network of signal modification influenced by outside forces. A concept we impose, not a thing which actually exists.
Now you're mixing stuff up again. What you gave there was a perfectly good (albeit unintended) definition of "you", and that concept totally exists in concept space (although it obviously can't be physically influenced). Now please don't mix up with the definition with the instance. You are an instance of your definition of "you", and you totally exist, or would you say that there is no cascade of neural activity within a mesh network of signal modification influenced by outside forces inside the body that operates on a mind containing the memory of typing all the posts under the name of "alway"? So you defined "you", you are an instance of "you", therefore this question makes perfect sense and can be answered. Example answer: "You as you are now", another example answer: "the future iteration of yourself who steps out of that person copying machine", third example answer (in this case the correct one): "Both of them", since both are cascades of neural activity within a mesh network of signal modification influenced by outside forces. The only problem with your definition is that there are currently trillions of yous on Earth, since your definition doesn't exclude neural cascades in other people.
A related question is this: if I were to move a file on my hard drive, is it still the same file, despite it possibly being copied and deleted, or having its meaning changed by the file system?
If you define a file as a binary string, it is still the same file, but it is now differently encoded into memory. If you define a file as a specific setting of bits on a specific portion of the hard drive, then it is not the same file. It all depends on the damn definition of your words, but there is an explicit yes/no answer for every definition of "file". The trick is to give your definitions of the words in your question while you ask the question, so the people answering them don't have to do a definition-by-definition analysis.
Similarly, is the game you are playing the same game you played before, since it is loaded into different areas in memory than last time?
If you define a game as an interactive algorithm, then yes, it is still the same game. If you define a game as a specific state of memory which happens to contain the machine encoding of an interactive algorithm, then no. It's all kinda obvious now that you think about it, isn't it? And if you want to refer to a specific definition of "game", feel free to ask the question like this instead:
Similarly, is the interactive algorithm, an instance of which a human body is interacting with, the same interactive algorithm an instance of which a continuous temporal backwards extension of that human body has interacted with before, if a machine encoding of this interactive algorithm is loaded into different areas in computer memory than last time?
Suddenly the question becomes obvious and redundant, and the answer should be a resounding "Yes". This is the power of unambiguous questions.
Mu.
A few years ago, I read "Gödel, Escher, Bach" which contained a few chapters regarding the concept of Mu. I became entranced by this concept and immediately started answering "Mu" to every ill-posed question. A few years later, after getting some first experiences with rationality, I thought about this again and realized that saying "Mu" didn't really clarify anything, it only avoided the question, changed the subject and made me sound like a gigantic wiseass (which I obviously was at the time, since, let's be honest, the only reason I said Mu was to sound smart). Then I read that book again, and suddenly half the book turned out to be a load of equivocative fallacious bullshit (although the other half was still great). Also I learned that Zen Buddhism is actually the worship of unlogic itself, and as such, everyone thinking that Zen Buddhism is a great and awe-inspiring thing is worshipping the worship of unlogic, which is even worse.
In both cases, something has happened to these concepts we designate as 'things' out of convenience. But they aren't things. They're abstractions we use to think about the world because to do otherwise would be too complicated to be practical on just about any level.
No, they're
instances of abstractions, which is an entirely different thing, and as such, they are totally able to physically exist.
That is to say, don't get caught up in the terminology and mental constructs; if you find yourself going down a rabbit hole, it's likely because you are making too many assumptions when you ask your questions.
No, it's because you mentally intermingle different definitions of the same word. Avoid that, and you're fine to go.
Getting trapped in concepts of our own making with no bearing or existence in reality is as pointless as asking how many angels can sit on the head of a pin. There is no original; there is no copy; there is no you.
Now read this paragraph again. If you understood everything I wrote before, this should immediately sound like a festering load of bullshit.
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Topic: Consciousness and brain transfers (Read 14391 times)