Comment by mikk14
6 days ago
> If this actually happened, would the 'I' that replaced you be any wiser. How do you know this hasn't happened to you already? Maybe multiple times per second?
If this is true, that the body dies every planck time and the mind survives it, then it simply means the dualist position is true.
> The information of how to put your body and mind back must have survived somewhere, in the alien mind for example or the machine they used. But the information would still be in (a medium in) this universe and bound to this universe physical laws. I would say this is still a monist position.
I'm sorry, but you're circling back to the first message I wrote. You are giving to information magical properties that it cannot have, because they lead to a contradiction. With the same information you can make multiple copies of me at the same time. But if you make two, the experiences of one do not get magically transmitted to the brain of the other. So those are two distinct selves, even if they are made with the exact same information. This clearly does not work. It's the same issue of mind uploading that I initially argued about.
> the experiences of one do not get magically transmitted to the brain of the other. So those are two distinct selves, even if they are made with the exact same information.
How's that a problem? They would both be distinct selves with a common past.
Ok, but then I fear you're either contradicting yourself, or addressing a point I didn't make.
Let me restate:
1. energy123 says that, if we completely annihilate the body of X and then we re-assemble it one planck time later, X is still the exact same self after the annihilation as they were before.
2. I reply: a monist must hold the position that X died with the annihilation and the recomposed being is a different self, Y, which just so happens to have the same memories as X. If you insist that the new being is still the same self X, you must assume that something that was not in the body survived the complete annihilation of the body and was put back in the body during the re-assembly.
3. You attempted to say that that something was the information needed to recompose the body. But now you're saying that actually we have produced two entirely different beings, A and B, both of whom believe to be X.
I 100% agree with you that this is what happened. But you cannot tell me in the same breath that X is still alive. That is a contradiction.
The ultimate challenge is always the same: assuming the technology to perfectly copy and simulate a brain exists, would you upload your mind and do you expect that it is you that awake inside the machine? If you answer "yes" you must concede you are a dualist. A monist can only answer "no". And, as I gather from this discussion, a functionalist would (i) answer "yes" after redefining what "you" means, (ii) mean "no" because as you just admitted we created two new beings, (iii) upload themselves and then die happy knowing that something else with their memories will live on.
(I realize you actually have not explicitly objected to this specific challenge yet, so maybe we fully agree and that's that)
[We are very much in speculative territory here of course, it is not a given that duplication or upload is possible at all for a human mind]
I would say that both A and B would claim to be X and have the "continuous"[1] experience to be X while agreeing that they are distinct persons. I think that the question of whether A or B, both, or neither is the true X, is not a scientific question, and as a philosophical question, a fairly empty one.
Regarding the challenge, I would expect that the consciousness would be forked: there is a "me" that would awake inside the machine and would be very glad to be alive, while the "me" outside would experience dying. This seems to go against the exclusiveness of the experience of being themselves, but assuming the existence of the magically perfect duplication, both would be valid experiences and again neither could make a claim about being the real me. I don't find this to be a contradiction.
An interesting question would be whether consciousness can be reunited after being forked.
But all of these scenarios have been explored extensively. Are you familiar with the Egan's "Permutation City"?
edit: I was not familiar with the functionalist position, but for the little I read, it seems to me that it is just a variant of the monist position. You could say I'm a functionalist I guess. Also I believe that we are fundamentally in agreement and we might just disagree with definitions of words.
[1] what does "continuous" even mean? Do one have a "continuous" experience of being yourself after a night's sleep? After anesthesia? After a coma?
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