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[Vester]

...

Wait, I just remembered. We had this discussion in the Afterlife thread already.

It degenerated into nonsense about seeing the 5th dimension, and eye arms.

...

[ENTITY:FORUM]
            [NATURE:CYCLICAL]

[Aqizzar]

eye arms

...And now I wished I hadn't abandoned that thread to the wolves.

[Vester]

It was... interesting, to say the least.

[Jude]

Also, your body is constantly swapping out parts. You aren't made of the same cells you were made up of 10 years ago. So what kept you, you?

The fact that I am me sure my cells might be gradually changing but thats changes happening to me, not a duplicate being made out of different cells whilst I die and it goes out to live my life.

Ok, what if each month, you transplanted a different replacement organ into your body, ending with a brain that was a perfect copy of yours, made right before you went under the anesthetic for the surgery? At what point would you stop being you - or wouldn't you?

As I pointed out earlier the only person it makes a difference to is you. If you don't mind dieing so that as far as everyone else is concerned you live forever then go ahead, but I'd much rather have my consciousness live forever rather than a perfect copy.

But that's what I'm trying to tell you. There IS no "your consciousness." Your consciousness is the functioning of your brain; it's not as if there's a homunculus inside you that is YOU, whereas all your brain processes are external to it. There's no consistent essence of your consciousness since it's always been in flux and always changing and expanding. A perfect copy, by the way, would be identical to you in ALL ways, including memory. It would have all the memories of your entire life prior to the swap - it would even remember deciding to duplicate itself, and the duplicate (the original you) dying or being done away with. And given that it is functionally identical to you, what's the basis for saying it is NOT you? You cannot point to anything substantial in your mind or consciousness that would distinguish the "original you" from the "duplicate you" in this case. That's because there's no essence, essentialism is just an artifact of fallacious human cognition.

They wouldn't and I'm sure that would be very pleasing to everyone else around me as well as the copy. But I would still be dead. How are you not getting this, if you want to live for ever then the feelings of a complete copy who is indistinguishable is not of interest to me.

Oh, well that's a different story, but originally I was asssuming that you could upload yourself into a computer piece by piece and, presumably, remain conscious the whole time even as parts of your original brain went offline.

Anyway, yeah, this thread is destined for giving people headaches.

[Cheddarius]

HeadOn! Apply directly to the aaaaagh HeadOn is just wax two of its main ingredients are diluted to one in a friggin' trillion aaargh nobody buy it I am for serious

[Dwarf]

HeadOn! Apply directly to the aaaaagh HeadOn is just wax two of its main ingredients are diluted to one in a friggin' trillion aaargh nobody buy it I am for serious

The fuck?

[Morrigi]

.

[qwertyuiopas]

The whole lego house metaphos is that if you made an identical one and discarded the old, it would still function the same and be insistinguishable to an outside observer. However, *you* know that it is not the original. And the original, if it were concious, would also, at least until it was disassembled.

A slow replacement is more ethical than an instant clone of the brain as well.

As the brain is the core of the self, you could replace most or all of the rest of the body all at once with fewer arguments, but replacing the brain itself will still cause conflicts.

[Psyco Jelly]

If humans are processes, defined by iterations of cells transmitting data, then immortality is in one big-ass for loop.

[qwertyuiopas]

I would prefer a double-nested while(1)
(So that a careless break; isn't the end of everything)

[DreamThorn]

This raises the question: What if, without your knowledge, your brain cells are replaced with identical copies one by one.

Or with identically-behaving electronic copies?

I prefer quantum immortality myself.  As long as there is any chance of my survival at all, there will exist universes where I survived, and these will be the only ones that I am aware of at that time.  Thus, to me at least, it will seem as if I am immortal.

[Cheddarius]

I think the brain can be narrowed down even further - in my experience, it feels like "me" is my morality and consciousness and such. Sure, people learn things in school, and their brains change, but that doesn't make them different people or whatnot. I'd gladly accept a uber-arithmetic implant or whatnot. It's replacing my "consciousness", shall we say, that sounds iffy.

[A Dwarven Smokeologist]

This raises the question: What if, without your knowledge, your brain cells are replaced with identical copies one by one.

Or with identically-behaving electronic copies?

I prefer quantum immortality myself.  As long as there is any chance of my survival at all, there will exist universes where I survived, and these will be the only ones that I am aware of at that time.  Thus, to me at least, it will seem as if I am immortal.

Holy, you just put into words what I've been thinking for a few years now. I've never figured out how to actually say it so that it made sense though. FYI I'm stealing your quote there and will probably use it in the future with no credit to you at all.

[The Doctor]

I think the brain can be narrowed down even further - in my experience, it feels like "me" is my morality and consciousness and such. Sure, people learn things in school, and their brains change, but that doesn't make them different people or whatnot. I'd gladly accept a uber-arithmetic implant or whatnot. It's replacing my "consciousness", shall we say, that sounds iffy.

I don't know about that, I'm pretty sure I changed into an uber-militant leftist because of what I've learned.


Whether that counts as a change in morality and consciousness, I don't know. I think so.

[Jude]

This raises the question: What if, without your knowledge, your brain cells are replaced with identical copies one by one.

Or with identically-behaving electronic copies?

This is what it comes down to


Given that we don't understand consciousness enough to KNOW whether that would preserve your consciousness or not, you can't make any argument that this would no longer  be "you" or that you would lose awareness in this situation.