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[LordBucket]

I would posit that it doesn't matter for any case in which there are not expectations of action in which there is a deficit. I don't want or expect to ever meet you in person in a case in which your internet-personality is involved. LordBucket could be an alternate person, or even an AI; it makes no difference to me. The difference you are stating only comes as a result of a deficit of expected action.

Question:
Are you asserting that it wouldn't matter if you died and were replaced by a robot provided that the robot's behavior was "close enough" to yours that nobody else could tell the difference? It wouldn't matter? Not even to you?

Which makes your last statement a lie.

Which last statement? The statement preceeding the one you quoted was "I am unable to answer whether dogs, insects or even humans are self aware." I see no contradiction.

You can not, in fact, be aware of your own consciousness, since that too
could be a lie just as much as you telling me about it could be a lie.

I'm having a difficult reconciling this statement with itself. An interpretation of experience might be "incorrect," but that does not negate the fact of observation. If I see a UFO and conclude it's an alien spaceship...but it later turns out to be a helicopter shining a spotlight...that doesn't change the fact of my initial observation. Only my interpretation was "incorrect" not the experience.

Whether the interpretation of an observation is accurate or not, the observation may still exist. All that I have is my experience. My experience is, that which I observe. My consciousness is, awareness...is the fact of observation. Really, my own consciousness is the only that I am aware of. I have no awareness of any "external world" except my observed experience that I may infer to be the observation of an external world. Yet you say that one cannot be aware of their own consciousness.

I'm uncertain whether this is a disagreement of worldview, or if we're having semantic difficulty.

You, nor I, nor anyone else can determine they are not, themselves, a p-zombie; rendering the entire exercise one of nonsensical mental masturbation.

You really believe that? That you personally are unable to determine whether or not you are a conscious entity?

Therein lies the fundamental flaw with the p-zombies argument; you yourself are an observer capable of being lied to. You may 'know' and 'feel' you aren't a p-zombie; but that's exactly what a p-zombie would 'know' and 'feel' internally.

No. A philosphical zombie would not know or feel anything, by definition.

[alway]

Here's where the problem lies: If you are some sort of soul/non-material being, you must also be riding a p-zombie. We can trace motion back to signals sent to muscles; those signals back through the brain. And, given sufficient observation, trace those signals back through time, identifying the trillions upon trillions of origins for every minute detail of those signals. Which is to say, without violation of the laws of physics in a directly observable fashion (either through statistical anomalies or imbalanced equations of energy transfer or similar), interaction can be at best from your brain to your non-physical bits, and not the other way around. That rules out extra-universal souls or non-physical causes; making p-zombies an incoherent notion in those scenarios.

Then there's a purely material world of p-zombies. In this, the material soul-object is a measurable phenomena, much like the Ghost Line from the Ghost in the Shell series. In this case, you can reproduce it by simply using adequately meticulous duplication methods. Furthermore, if it turns out to be a relatively stable, self-reinforcing pattern (as most brain activity patterns turn out to be; give a simple neural structure mimicking a brain's, then an application of some current stimulating it, it will create activity patterns at least similar to that of a brain), even an imperfect replication will fall into a similar pattern. And again, everything is thus measurable; if it ends up being different, that is a detectable difference, preventing it from falling into p-zed classification, making it a matter of methods rather than philosophy.

[Sheb]

If I were replaced by a robot so identical than himself would be fooled into thinking he's me, I wouldn't mind. For all intent and purpose, I'd continue existing.

[10ebbor10]

True, but it's just a philosophical disctinction. If someone took you car and replaced it by one identical to the molecular level, you wouldn't even notice the difference. For all intent and purpose, it'd be your car.

However, I'd like to point out that you don't really have the hardware/software dichotomy in the brain. The software is largely encoded in the various connections between neurons. Moving a human on a computer would require a brain emulator, which would be... maybe not impossible, but certainly a challenge.

Honestly it's probably easier to just create strong AI optimized for the electronic medium and let them take over from the fleshy human race.

Actually, we're working on the brain thingy.

IBM is working on it too.    Honestly getting the brain emulated in place is looking possible pretty soon.  I think the hard part will be figuring out how to get what is in our brain, out of our brain and into the emulator.

As far as I can see, IBM merely provided the computer, and has had no further input in the project. ((Meanwhile, a significant part of the program is funded through the European flagship program.))

[LordBucket]

If I were replaced by a robot so identical than himself would be fooled into thinking he's me, I wouldn't mind. For all intent and purpose, I'd continue existing.

You're walking down the street one night when suddenly you feel someone grab you from behind and put a bag over your head. You're tossed into the trunk of a car and driven to a lab, where they inject nanoprobes into your head to scan your brain. They use this to create a robot with a perfect duplicate of your memories and personality.

You wake up tied to a chair in front of a one-way glass window. The robot is on the other side. You watch as he's told that it was all a mistake and they kidnapped the wrong person and he's free to go. You watch as he leaves to live your life. Your kidnappers put a gun to your head and pull the trigger.

You are dead.

I wouldn't mind. For all intent and purpose, I'd continue existing.

...but that's totally ok, because he thinks he's you, so obviously you still exist and the fact that you just got replaced, and murdered doesn't matter one bit.

Really?

[Max White]

Question: Is the robot really a prefect clone? Does it think exactly like me? Does it age like me? Can it reproduce and have children with the same genetic makeup as me?

If so then yea, that isn't so bad. The roughhousing isn't very nice, but I would at least get to go home and live on.

[Sheb]

Yeah, same as Max White.

The fact is, in this situation, you don't even know if you are the "original" one or not. After all, the guy on the other side of the window also remember being pulled into a van and injected with nano probes.

Imagine the same situation, but the clone is then killed behind the glass pane. Have I been killed? You'll probably say no, but for any observer both situation are identical.

You seem to believe that objects (including people) have some sort of essence, some "real me"-ness that can't be copied. If that's the case, the clone is not a perfect copy. If it's not the case, your argument fall flat, because after the cloning there is no "me" and "him", with have two copies of the same person.

[Max White]

Although I would prefer a "Cruelty against clones" clause. I mean with no other means a bullet to the head is somewhat quick, but I have concerns about the possibility of torture.
Letting the robot go free while the original is subject to a life of abuse locked inside a small room I have an issue with.

[Tack]

I agree with the policy of Sheb and Max White.

Ever seen 'The Prestige'? Watch that.

[wierd]

The ethical consideration of "replacement" is irrational to start.

I invoke the analogy of the "My grandfather's axe".

"I am so happy to have inherited my great grandfather's axe! He used it to make his own log cabin! My grand-dad replaced the handle, and my dad replaced the blade-- It's been in the family for generations!"

The components of the nervous system do have a very slow turnover rate, but the actual atoms in there will be more than halfway replaced with wholly new ones before you die. You are in a constant state of having your axe head and axe handle replaced. Any argument about not being the same axe anymore after transhuman conversion is irrational; you aren't the same human now as you were when you started reading this message.

[scrdest]

The ethical consideration of "replacement" is irrational to start.

I invoke the analogy of the "My grandfather's axe".

"I am so happy to have inherited my great grandfather's axe! He used it to make his own log cabin! My grand-dad replaced the handle, and my dad replaced the blade-- It's been in the family for generations!"

The components of the nervous system do have a very slow turnover rate, but the actual atoms in there will be more than halfway replaced with wholly new ones before you die. You are in a constant state of having your axe head and axe handle replaced. Any argument about not being the same axe anymore after transhuman conversion is irrational; you aren't the same human now as you were when you started reading this message.

However, in the case of both the axe and the nervous system, there is continuity. You are not replacing both blade and handle, nor is your organism replacing all the neurons at once; furthermore, atoms are completely unrelated to the nervous system, they operate on different levels altogether.

Yes, a cell is composed out of atoms, but only technically: a cell is composed out of (simplification) proteins, which are composed of amino acids, which are organic compounds composed out of atoms. Swapping an atom in a compound might or might not influence the properties of a compound, and swapping a single amino acid might or might not influence the properties of a protein, which in turn might or might not cause the properties of a single cell to change. Additionally, 'might not' is much more likely than 'might'.

[Sheb]

Is it that different if the replacement happen over time though?

In Star Trek and many other sci-fi works, we have teleportation that work by disintegrating someone, transmitting the information and re-materializing them. (I'm probably getting details wrong, but I'm not a trekkie). Every atoms is, in effect, replace at once. One Captain Kirk is disintegrated, and another is created. Yet I think we'll all agree they're all the same person.

[Descan]

I think we also all agree that that's fiction. :I The show says they're the same person because that's how the sci-fi tech works, so they're the same person.

But you can't just say "That's how it works!" in real life and expect to survive the trip.

There's really no way I can explain the sense of an "I", so I can't really expect you to understand unless you also had the same kind of "I". But it's that "I" that would go away from a scrap-and-replace all-at-once, while I'm not so sure and think it would stay if it were gradual.

[Sheb]

No, but we're talking hypothetical here. Would you, or would you not, consider yourself the same person after going through such a process?

[GiglameshDespair]

Why would we need some non-physical force?

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. Would you rephrase that?

Souls cannot be seen, measured, detected or inferred. Where do they come into play? Memories and the personality generated by the brain can be seen via brain activity. They can be changed by altering the storage medium i.e. the brain. This suggests that personality - the 'you' - is generated by the brain. Where do souls come in to that? What do they do? We don't need to imbue programs with some mystical ether to make them run. Why would humans need it?

A soul isn't necessary to anything there. And what's the qualifications to having one? A level of intelligence? Do dogs? Do insects, cellular automations that they are? Do bacteria? Do viruses, that are arguably not even alive?

If souls exist, then having a soul is the qualification for having a soul.

Circular logic that didn't answer the question. Things with souls have souls. Well. Why do they have souls? What determines having a soul or not?