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[Cthulhu]

What do you think you're "transferring over" in that case?  And what is the mechanism for doing it?

Also,

Is a consciousness itself a physical 'tag' that humanity will never be able to read or modify?

What does this even mean?

[Reelya]

If consciousness is just the pattern, then it shouldn't make a difference whether meat-you was thawed. Here's one flaw in the argument above: what if meat-you is digitized then you've been transfered over. Now, "you" are digital-you. What if meat-you is thawed out afterwards? Who is that? Meat-you was merely cloned. So the thawed meat-you should have still be the conscious-you from before.

So we have a problem if consciousness is just the pattern and not any magical-sauce. We can branch off additional copies of the digital consciousnesses at any moment, and all of them are completely valid. Meat logic breaks down. The concept of "self" itself comes under attack.

Say we split digital-you into 10 copies but each copy receives the same inputs exactly. There is only one pattern then, but repeated in 10 machines. Have we spawned 9 additional people? Then we turn 9 of them off again. What happens to the additional 9? Do they die or do they merge? If you turned one machine off, and another one on, would it "jump"? Does it make sense to say that there's only "room" for one consciousness per pattern? That seems very arbitrary.

Like quantum physics does for physical reality, digital consciousness challenges our very concept of what an individual is.

[majikero]

I feel like this thread is just a setup for the punchline.

We are all in a computer running a complete version of Dwarf Fortress.

[Nirur Torir]

If consciousness is just the pattern, then it shouldn't make a difference whether meat-you was thawed. Here's one flaw in the argument above: what if meat-you is digitized then you've been transfered over. Now, "you" are digital-you. What if meat-you is thawed out afterwards? Who is that?

Me-instance2.

Alright, trying again:

Pause meat-me with cryonics. Uploading creates a digital save-state. It can be copied into another computer, call it digital-me-save2. It's virtually identical to digital-me-save1. Because our emulator is really spiffy, and all mes are paused, it's also virtually identical to meat-me-save. Because we managed to copy my consciousness exactly, it doesn't matter if meat-me-save or digital-me-save2 activates. I continue. If we activate another, I'm cloned. But that clone too is a continuation of first-me. We've forked.
It also doesn't matter if the backups are destroyed or copy-pasted-deleted in an endless loop, so long as they're not running. (But the idea makes me uncomfortable anyway. Please do not do that sort of thing.)

If consciousness is just the pattern, then it shouldn't make a difference whether meat-you was thawed. Here's one flaw in the argument above: what if meat-you is digitized then you've been transfered over. Now, "you" are digital-you. What if meat-you is thawed out afterwards? Who is that? Meat-you was merely cloned. So the thawed meat-you should have still be the conscious-you from before.

So we have a problem if consciousness is just the pattern and not any magical-sauce. We can branch off additional copies of the digital consciousnesses at any moment, and all of them are completely valid. Meat logic breaks down. The concept of "self" itself comes under attack.

Say we split digital-you into 10 copies but each copy receives the same inputs exactly. There is only one pattern then, but repeated in 10 machines. Have we spawned 9 additional people? Then we turn 9 of them off again. What happens to the additional 9? Do they die or do they merge? If you turned one machine off, and another one on, would it "jump"? Does it make sense to say that there's only "room" for one consciousness per pattern? That seems very arbitrary.

Like quantum physics does for physical reality, digital consciousness challenges our very concept of what an individual is.

You're misunderstanding. I'm not saying I'm quantum-jumping between selves or making some sort of me-hive. I'm saying that, if we have "consciousness" understood, and make an AI with one, we can freeze the program and move it to a different computer without committing AI-murder-probably. If we move it to two computers, and run both, we now have two identical AIs. If we stop one after running it, it's AI-murder.

What do you think you're "transferring over" in that case?  And what is the mechanism for doing it?

Whatever the philosophical value of "I" is. Future tech.

Is a consciousness itself a physical 'tag' that humanity will never be able to read or modify?

What does this even mean?

I took it to mean that, if we don't have souls, there's nothing preventing us from eventually figuring out what consciousness is and moving it to something more durable than meat.

[Descan]

... And? What's your point? How does that address my point at all?

because we're already replaced piece by piece, and the brain is not wholly an exception to this; however slowly (and admittedly it is slowly to the point that it was undetectable until about a decade or two ago), neurons are replaced too.

Yes. You realize I was one of the people that advocated replacing neurons one by one, because of that same trait of brains. After all, if a brain already replaces neurons and I feel continuous, then by replacing neurons with longer-living/expandable neurons with the same idea, continuity would be more likely to be preserved, at least insofar as it already is.

I'm still not seeing why you're bringing it up. That doesn't address the qualm with using those metaphors with regards to humans, because of the same reason I stated, ships and axes don't have qualia, to borrow Loud Whispers use of the word.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

[existentialparanoia]What makes you so sure that you have a qualia, p-zombie?[/existentialparanoia]

[MetalSlimeHunt]

[existentialparanoia]What makes you so sure that you have a qualia, p-zombie?[/existentialparanoia]

*drags MetalSlimeHunt out of Plato's Cave by the ear*

Don't you _{know this is the only real philosophy...!}

[Cthulhu]

Again, your empirical observation of your own qualia is hardly proof qualia exists because you have a limited perspective.  From a properly limited perspective it's empirically obvious that the earth is a flat disc with the sun orbiting around it.

[Reelya]

snip

But your idea about AI murder contradicts your idea about transferance. I already outlined some of the problems with that in my own post.

Back to the "frozen you" idea. Say you were frozen, then scanned. then thawed. You are still meat-you. Then, the clone is turned on. There's no logic by which you can say the essence of "you-ness" would suddenly jump to the computer, right? Meat you is the direct continuation of original you, and you do not experience being the computer. There' something in the computer who thinks they are you, but they are definitely separate from original you.

So, what if we modify the order a bit? What if we push "play" on the computer before we thaw you out? Basically, nothing would be different and there's no logic that would make the situation objectively different to thawing you out before we turn the computer on. So saying the "you" in the computer is a direct continuation of your essential "you-ness" because we hit "play" a little early is clearly bullshit. Consciousness is not a material "stuff" that has to transfer to another medium, and that transfer is not constrained by normal causation (again, because consciousness is not a material thing).

Maybe something jumps, but I doubt that the "you" you subjectively jumps, as in a individual self. Because then, who is the copy left behind?

So back to the AI-murder idea you had. My thought experiment already addressed that.

Say you run two copies of the AI, but with identical "inputs" so that they run in lockstep. You say turning one off would be AI-murder? e.g. that one "died"? Why wouldn't the consciousness from one jump to the other? After all, the end-state of the one that was turned off was the same as the current state of the one that was left running. If we go by the transference idea, it's clear that no AI would subjectively die as long as there was an identical simulation running elsewhere which carried on that exact mental state. In fact, it shouldn't matter if the 2nd simulation was run after the first one. e.g. if you run the full simulation first, then later restart a copy of it, you have two running at once (they're identical because we assumed identical stimulus, but they're out of phase). Then, turning the second on off should sync that to the matching state of the other AI, even though it was running at an earlier time frame.

So this actually suggests that two "separate" consciousnesses which have the exact same state are actually just representations of the same consciousness, and they don't actually "fork" until the state itself diverges. I actually imagine that there's a bunch of quantum stuff going on with consciousness, and actually trying to copy the you-ness into a computer will break some of the rules of quantum physics.

[LordBucket]

In all likelyhood, the governments of the world will deal with software copies of humans the same way they deal with software in general (by covering it under mostly unrelated intellectual property regimes).

That's a fascinating statement for those of you who believe uploading transfers your consciousness to consider.

If it does work, you might be considered property. By the people at the console. With the ability to determine which software inputs you receive.

[LordBucket]

your empirical observation of your own qualia is hardly proof qualia exists because you have a limited perspective.

This statement does not make sense.

I recommend you look up the words you're using in a dictionary. You appear to not understand what they mean.

[Bohandas]

your empirical observation of your own qualia is hardly proof qualia exists because you have a limited perspective.

This statement does not make sense.

I recommend you look up the words you're using in a dictionary. You appear to not understand what they mean.

He means that it doesn't prove it to anyone else. No one in he history of the world has ever been able to definitively and/or directly confirm consciousness in more than one test subject.

[Cthulhu]

your - belonging to you
empirical -  Evidence based on observation
observation - Perceived experience
of - I dunno if I can define this one
your - See above
own - Again, belonging to you
qualia - Subjective experience
is - A form of "be"
hardly = Not even close to being
proof - Confirmation of truth
qualia - See above
exists - This is another tough one to define without restating the term being defined
because - As a result of
you - We seem to differ fundamentally on what is signified by this word
have - Possess
a - One instance of
limited - Not infinite
perspective - A viewpoint that, by being a viewpoint, must necessarily have some limits

There you go.

What I mean is that as far as I can tell you're saying "I have subjective expeirence therefore I have subjective experience."

But beyond that some of hte other posts are right.  We're arguing on very ill-defined terms.  This is one of those "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin" arguments.

[Bohandas]

As for uploading transferring consciousness, I don't believe that it does that. It's more of a mitosis/binary-fission type thing. It is conserved but the number of instances is doubled.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

This is one of those "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin" arguments.

3. The answer is 3.

For LB's pleasure:

3 = One more than 2, one less than 4, the most literately significant number, a B without the l.
The = A framework of ontological and gramatical space separation preceding an article.
Answer = Objective truth
Is = Islamic State
3 = Illinois Pi