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[Eric Blank]

The continued consciousness held by the reiterated flesh brain. If that consciousness ceases to constantly reiterate, that is death. So, simply copying your consciousness at present and tossing yourself in the incinerator is in effect making a duplicate of you and then committing suicide; you did not become that other thing, that other thing became synonymous with you and then removed you. You still experience death, while your replacement goes on to be immortal in your stead, so you accomplished nothing. What others desire is a way to slowly replace components of the weak, mortal fleshy brain without losing consciousness, so that we are becoming immortal, but without ever the need to replace ourselves.

[Sirus]

You don't even have your original flesh-brain if you are over nine years old, after which all of the neurons you were born with will have died.

It might not be the original fleshbrain, but unless you jumped to an entirely new body at some point you're still the same "mind". You still have the memories and experiences of your pre-nine-year-old self. And thus you have never ceased to exist.

The continued consciousness held by the reiterated flesh brain. If that consciousness ceases to constantly reiterate, that is death. So, simply copying your consciousness at present and tossing yourself in the incinerator is in effect making a duplicate of you and then committing suicide; you did not become that other thing, that other thing became synonymous with you and then removed you. You still experience death, while your replacement goes on to be immortal in your stead, so you accomplished nothing. What others desire is a way to slowly replace components of the weak, mortal fleshy brain without losing consciousness, so that we are becoming immortal, but without ever the need to replace ourselves.

Another person who can state this better than I can

[Descan]

The continuity between birth and "now", whenever "now" is, of the fleshy brain (more to the point, of the connections BETWEEN the neurons that make UP the brain. The fleshy brain itself is unimportant) is the original consciousness.

Also, MSH. That's exactly my -point-. It proves it is possible to retain the current continuity of consciousness, even without being always the original neurons.

So there's no change by replacing those neurons with artificial versions than what already changes when it's done naturally, as long as it's done gradually, like how our current neurons are replaced.


Damnit Eric! I KEEP SAYING THAT! I hope they get it this time. :I

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The continued consciousness held by the reiterated flesh brain. If that consciousness ceases to constantly reiterate, that is death. So, simply copying your consciousness at present and tossing yourself in the incinerator is in effect making a duplicate of you and then committing suicide; you did not become that other thing, that other thing became synonymous with you and then removed you. You still experience death, while your replacement goes on to be immortal in your stead, so you accomplished nothing. What others desire is a way to slowly replace components of the weak, mortal fleshy brain without losing consciousness, so that we are becoming immortal, but without ever the need to replace ourselves.

There's no real distinction between the two things you have listed other than the time it takes to complete.

To deal with this you must essentially answer Theseus' paradox. I answer it through the assertion that I am not just a pile of specific atoms, but that I am, more than anything else, an idea. The analogy fits that if you replace all the parts of a ship, it would be utterly absurd to say it is a different ship? Why? Because the letters on the side of the ship spell the same word as it did before.

If an indistinguishable "copy" is made of me and the "original" is destroyed, that does not destroy me. My idea-self continues on.

[Graknorke]

Continuous consciousness is created by memories of being conscious previously.
If both versions of you retain their memories then both are the same person. And they're both you. Then they diverge from there.

[Descan]

But if you make blueprints off the ship, then build a new ship based off those blueprints and destroy the original, then it is NOT the same ship. While replacing parts over time would keep it the same ship.

The analogy breaks down when you add in the idea of a crew. In a ship, you can retain the crew, and that is what makes the new ship, even if made out of entirely new material and only the design is what connects it otherwise, is functionally the old ship.

But if we go back to the consciousness idea, than the crew would by necessity be a soul. A thing that survives the death of the body, or of the ship. Until I have proof of a soul, I'm not going to trust my life and death to it existing, when there's a different way to do things.

[anzki4]

I'll try to demonstrate what I have a problem with cloning and destroying the original. Take the following examples:

A: You walk into the laboratory, where someone is going to clone you and then kill/destroy the original. You step into the cloning pod, see some flickering lights or other scifi-shit and then die. Your clone raises from another pod.

B: You walk into the laboratory, where someone is going to clone you and then kill/destroy the original. You step into the cloning pod, see some flickering lights or other scifi-shit and then die. Unfortunately the whole thing was a scam and there never was a clone of you.

From your personal point of view, both situations are identical. It doesn't matter whether they made a clone of you or just lied about it killed you, in both cases the end result is you being dead. (Of course whether clone was made or not matters to other people.)

Fake'edit: Ninja'd 67 times.

[Eric Blank]

Continuous consciousness is created by memories of being conscious previously.
If both versions of you retain their memories then both are the same person. And they're both you. Then they diverge from there.

Yes, so if you shove one of them in the incinerator, someone who did not want to die did die.

Mission failed either way. If the world comes to making duplicates of ourselves and then jumping out of a building, I will instead just make 300 copies of myself. And then I'll go to mars and start an empire. ALL of me. Screw you guys.

[Nadaka]

Continuous consciousness is created by memories of being conscious previously.
If both versions of you retain their memories then both are the same person. And they're both you. Then they diverge from there.

OK, let me put it this way.

Someone programs a copy of you. What they programmed is not you, it is a copy of you. You aren't the program, the program isn't you. You die, the program 'lives' on. YOU are dead, the program that is identical to you is not, ergo, you are dead. You are dead, you are staying dead. There's an identical version of you that's roaming around the internet trolling people, but you are dead.

I have news for you. Every cell that made up your original body is already dead. You have only been replaced piece by piece by imperfect copies of those original cells. You died a long time ago, you just have not realized it yet.

[Descan]

Only gonna say it once more:

Connections, not the cells themselves, are what matter.

My brain could be made of fucking CORNFLAKES but as long as it has the same connections between cells, it doesn't matter!

Connections, and continuity. Only things that matter. Fuck the cells.

And as for "replaced, piece by piece", that's a good thing! Thus continuity is retained! Unlike if it were done whole-cloth, all my cells die and are replaced in the same position and connections. Then continuity is broken.

[Sirus]

Continuous consciousness is created by memories of being conscious previously.
If both versions of you retain their memories then both are the same person. And they're both you. Then they diverge from there.

OK, let me put it this way.

Someone programs a copy of you. What they programmed is not you, it is a copy of you. You aren't the program, the program isn't you. You die, the program 'lives' on. YOU are dead, the program that is identical to you is not, ergo, you are dead. You are dead, you are staying dead. There's an identical version of you that's roaming around the internet trolling people, but you are dead.

I have news for you. Every cell that made up your original body is already dead. You have only been replaced piece by piece by imperfect copies of those original cells. You died a long time ago, you just have not realized it yet.

They didn't die all at once, you know. Considering that there has been no cessation of brain activity and I can still remember things from before my brain cells replaced themselves, it makes logical sense to assume that as new cells are made, they copy the old information as they replace the old cells.

[GlyphGryph]

I think I've got a way to keep the Descanites happy.

So what we do is this: First, we /extend/ your brain. We build a copy of your brain, but instead of just booting it up, we HOOK you to the copy somehow, so you can the copy are sharing information.

So basically, it's all you, one consciousness, but you've got a redundant copy of all the data. I think you'd agree that this is still you, right?

Then, rather than replace bits, what we do is slowly cut your brain down the middle, so that when trying to access the opposite hemisphere, it's accessing the backup data instead. This is a gradual process. There's a shares consciousness, but it's getting steadily more out of joint. This mirrors a person that has had a partial bisection, in that they have one consciousness but half their brain has access to information the other part doesn't, but there's still continuity.

Then, like a cell splitting, we continue this process. At some point, well beyond severing the last link, it's far more realistic to think of this as two separate consciousness that share a bit of information, but there's no division where that occurs, no break in continuity.

Then, we sever the last link... and now there's two of! There's two of you, with no break in continuity, meaning both of them are you.

Then we simply repeat the process, except this time not bothering to hook the organic part up to anything, and now we've got two of you with a 100% mechanical brain.

I forget why we wanted two of the same person (or at least two people that WERE the same person at some point in the not-so-distant-past, and thus two people with a common ancestor who both have a 100% valid claim to being the same person as the pre-operation fellow), but the transfer to a mechanical consciousness has succeeded!

[MagmaMcFry]

Here's a new thread for all you consciousness discussers.

[Sirus]

I think I've got a way to keep the Descanites happy.

So what we do is this: First, we /extend/ your brain. We build a copy of your brain, but instead of just booting it up, we HOOK you to the copy somehow, so you can the copy are sharing information.

So basically, it's all you, one consciousness, but you've got a redundant copy of all the data. I think you'd agree that this is still you, right?

Then, rather than replace bits, what we do is slowly cut your brain down the middle, so that when trying to access the opposite hemisphere, it's accessing the backup data instead. This is a gradual process. There's a shares consciousness, but it's getting steadily more out of joint. This mirrors a person that has had a partial bisection, in that they have one consciousness but half their brain has access to information the other part doesn't, but there's still continuity.

Then, like a cell splitting, we continue this process. At some point, well beyond severing the last link, it's far more realistic to think of this as two separate consciousness that share a bit of information, but there's no division where that occurs, no break in continuity.

Then, we sever the last link... and now there's two of! There's two of you, with no break in continuity, meaning both of them are you.

Then we simply repeat the process, except this time not bothering to hook the organic part up to anything, and now we've got two of you with a 100% mechanical brain.

I forget why we wanted two of the same person (or at least two people that WERE the same person at some point in the not-so-distant-past, and thus two people with a common ancestor who both have a 100% valid claim to being the same person as the pre-operation fellow), but the transfer to a mechanical consciousness has succeeded!

...Why do that though?

Assuming Descan and I are of the same mind (no pun intended ), we don't want a copy of ourselves. We want ourselves transferred to a more durable replacement than the flesh-brains our minds currently occupy. No copies. No mechanical duplicates while our fleshy selves run around.

[GlyphGryph]

There are no copies of the mind in my proposal. That's the point. There are two originals, yes, but that's different. Descan's problem, and the same problem you claimed, was loss of continuity. That doesn't happen in my proposal.

Anyway, copied over to the other thread.