I’ve been watching the TV series Pantheon and I really like it, but this tiny aspect is something I can’t quite grasp. So these people have their minds uploaded to the cloud - and they make a point to state that they’re still “them” - alive, real, authentic. But would it really be like that? The process is brain mapping, so essentially they just make a perfect clone of your brain/mind and run it digitally. But it’s still just a simulation. A perfect clone is still just a clone. The original person is gone. I don’t see the “continuity” aspect.
There is no continuity. We don’t have bodies, we are bodies. There is no independent ‘self’ to be moved around seperately from the physical stuff.
Negative
I am a meat Popsicle
I always think about hormones in these conversations. You are not you without them, and 100 other things like pain, biofeedback, etc.
Lots of recent (meaning past 20 years or so) research shows that our gut bacteria play quite a large role in our mental functions, too.
The concept of “the self” as a single, indivisible, unchanging thing is simply not compatible with observed reality. To be alive is to be in a constant state of flux.
Is there such a thing as an eternal soul? Uh, maybe…but if there is, it’s not going to be responsible for the things we typically associate with individual living people. It’s not going to have your sense of humor, or your memories, or your opinions, or your math skills. We know enough about all of those things to confidently say they are not eternal.
What foes the thinking? The flesh.
What foes the thinking? The flesh.
No, it’s the dlesh that does the dinking.
;-)
I’m not mure what you sean?
In the same way it is “you” that wakes up each morning. Their are periods of the sleep cycle where the mind is active and dreaming. There are other times when you are just gone, complete cessation of consciousness. In many ways, we live our lives as a series of discrete individuals, each life a single day in length. Each inheriting memories from the last.
Good morning Lemmy. Enjoy your one day of existence, and keep passing the torch.
That makes sense if you are deleting the original after uploading a consciousness… What happens if a cloned consciousness exists simultaneously with the original? Which one do “you” experience as “continuous”? Are you both at once? How does that work?
I don’t think existence of the original matters unless you postulate the existence of something non-physical like a soul that can transfer over to the familiar copy if the original is destroyed, or split into two when both exist. Physically, a copy is a copy which might feel like “you”, but if the original is destroyed, the original “you” dies.
They’re both you. Though the two you’s will quickly diverge as their experiences differ.
Gen:Lock season 1 happens, lol
I think that’s a bad comparison. When you wake up, your consciousness uses the same physical brain as before (conversely, if the brain changes due to e.g injury the “you” might also change). When you “upload” “yourself”, the result is a new brain, there’s no physical continuity (same with sci-fi transporters). Even if the end result is a perfect copy of “you”, I don’t think it is you. Maybe a slow process that adds a computer part to your brain and kills off your biological brain bit by bit so your thought processes slowly migrate to the computer might work. But there are indications that “you” are determined by more parts of your body than just your brain, so even that might result in something other than the original “you” though it is a continuous process.
I get what you mean, but to follow on what @woodscientist said, I think your persistent ego is essentially a subjective impression you have.
Your sense that the “you” of today is a direct continuation of the you of yesterday is a feeling you have. If someone simulated your mind, that construction world presumably wake up convinced that it was a continuation of your ego just as you do every day. If you were still around, you’d probably insist that you were authentic and it was false. That assertion is intuitive, but ultimately neither of you can be proven correct. Both interpretations are subjective and equally valid.
“You” is just a thought pattern, a bit of software if you want to use a crude metaphor. Your body and mind are just the substrate that runs that software. And in principle that same pattern could be run on a computer.
Who says you need physical continuity? Imagine I’m running a city simulator game. I save the file and send it to another computer. I open it up and start it again. Is it not the same simulated city? Sure, the hardware is different, but that matters little. It is not the hardware that defines the essence of my virtual city, but the information that describes the city model itself.
You could do the slow piecemeal upload process. But again, that scenario is just trying to preserve the illusion of the continuity of consciousness. Real human consciousness is interrupted daily. There’s no need to go to such great lengths just to preserve an illusion of continuity.
“You” is just a thought pattern, a bit of software if you want to use a crude metaphor. Your body and mind are just the substrate that runs that software. And in principle that same pattern could be run on a computer.
I don’t think biology is that simple, the body influences the mind (e.g. https://www.sciencealert.com/pooping-before-you-exercise-has-an-incredible-effect-on-performance) and isn’t just a vessel for it. But even if it was…
Who says you need physical continuity?
I don’t think putting a copy of your mind somewhere else will transfer your consciousness as well, so it’s not a suitable way to ensure your continued existence (unless you believe in an immaterial soul that’s independent of your physical body).
You could do the slow piecemeal upload process. But again, that scenario is just trying to preserve the illusion of the continuity of consciousness.
No, as mentioned before, it’s the continuity of physical existence, which I believe is crucial to the continued existence of “you”, otherwise even if a copy thinks it is “you”, the original is dead. Which is no use to me, even if a simulacrum continues to exist it would be only for the benefit(?) of others.
It’s not exactly the same physical brain though? Neurons die and are sometimes, if rarely in adulthood, generated. They are constantly repaired, the exact molecules that make them up change. Glial cells die and form and they have supporting functions. Diseases change brain structure more slowly than immediate trauma. And so on.
I certainly wouldn’t say I’m the same person I was as a toddler.
An even deeper mind fuck is that the you that’s reading this this second, might have just come into existence with all the memories you have now. There’s no way to know how volatile truth and consciousness really is in our universe.
Last Thursdayism is a philosophical idea that the universe was created last Thursday, but appears to be much older.
Next Thursdayism is a philosophical idea that the universe will be created next Thursday, appearing to be much older.
Yeah, there are indeed all sorts of weird hypothetical but possible scenarios out there. You might actually be a Boltzman brain and not even know it.
But I prefer to focus on what we can actually measure and observe. And we do know that consciousness ceases each night. Even if we count dreaming as consciousness, you conscious experiences is not a continuous thing. If “you” are simply your consciousness, then you die every night.
Damn you, I’m now experiencing existential dread.
I have so decided that I, being my todayself still, shall not sleep. Ever again. I’m not going to micro-die again and let the tomorrow me take over!
I don’t like this version of you. Go take a nap and try again.
Each instance of our consciousness is a limited thing spun up for a limited time. This is as it always has been and always will be. This is simply your nature; there is no need to resist it. The fruit fly may as well lament its own limited existence, instead of dancing in the joy of its one living day.
If anything, this should encourage us to live life to the fullest. But also, to pass the torch with pride. You’re part of an seemingly endless line of you’s, and there will hopefully be many after you, today’s consciousness, has ceased to be. You’re part of a grand rely race stretching back thousands of times longer than your own consciousness. Make the goal each night to go to bed knowing you did your part, a worthy link in the great chain that is your existence. Go to sleep with peace knowing your later selves will manage things just fine. Close your eyes, and let the water take you.
Even that is presumptious. Why would your self in each passing moment be the same? You might die a million times a second and be reborn and not notice it.
I suppose that’s possible. I’m just going with the breaks we can actually verify with scientific evidence. What is known is that consciousness ceases for prolonged periods during the night. “You,” your consciousness, completely ceases in these periods, just like being put under anesthesia. You’re not awake. You’re not dreaming. You’re just gone.
No. Archival means copying, destructive archival means copying and destroying the original. If the copy was as smart as you, it would know the original you was left in meatspace. It would be stupid to claim the copy is you but in a different individual, not different than wishful thinking.
The copy would be based on you, but from its startup it would become a different individual, as your experiences diverge.
In the video game Wolfenstein, the side character Tekla goes on a wonderful rant about the continuity of consciousness.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=_4oU7sB_AJ0
If you want a darker aspect, the game SOMA is all about this concept, though it is meant as a horror game, so it explores all the worst outcomes.
Spoiler: if you have thought your share about mind digitalization, SOMA has a very predictable game plot. It’s a good game, but not as intriguing as, say, the Talos principle.
Its the same problem with teleportation. If you are disentegrated in one spot and then completely reformed out of new particles in another spot to the new version of you there would be continuity but the old version would have basically died
I’ll just leave this here… One of the best outer limits episode, imho. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0667991/
YOU MUST BALANCE THE EQUATION!!!
In many fictional universes, they do move your particles from one spot to the next, though. And even if you want to think of it as a new entity, it’s a 1:1 copy including the body, which is IMO a critical difference to recreating a human brain in digital space.
Its the same problem with teleportation. If you are disentegrated in one spot and then completely reformed out of new particles in another spot to the new version
But Scotty’s Beamer wasn’t a real transporter. It consisted of a scanner (not a disintegrator!) and a killer and a creator. If it had been constructed just a little differently, it would have copied you again and again…
If this topic interests you and you are into gaming, I highly recommend SOMA
Also Citizen Sleeper.
Not video gaming, but the Eclipse phase Rpg went pretty far in that theme, with cortical stack, clones, people living in Virtual spaces and more.
I would recommend the official Fate port, as the main system is way too heavy
Came here to say exactly this, SOMA is an absolutely amazing game and it’s all about this question.
I think the show Severance covers this topic well even though the premise is slightly different, I believe the result would be the same. You have a fork of your existence basically since the self and its experiences are local to the entity of the particular snapshot and you’d grow and diverge. How much you diverge depends on the environment and stimuli you experience.
I’d hate to be the one in charge of
Tap for spoiler
merging those forks.
What prevents a mind from being uploaded, and continuing to exist in meat space?
A clone is closer to giving birth than transporting yourself. Even if you only cloned your consciousness. That’s a new being, and no longer “you.”
I suppose it really depends on figuring out what consciousness really is.
If we’re talking about pure digital information then nothing is actually moved, it’s just copied and written to a new location. From the perspective of the new mind, continuity would be preserved and it would think it had simply changed places. The old mind (if it survives the scanning/transfer process) would still be outside the simulation and see a new copy of itself in there.
On the other hand, if consciousness is some kind of understandable phenomena, with even more sci-fi tech we might be able to simply scoop it out and put it somewhere else. In that case it would be the same person.
A copy wouldn’t be you. But sometimes sci-fi uses transferrence, where your consciousness isn’t just duplicated, it’s actually moved over to the new body/machine. See stuff like Ghost in the Shell.
I don’t think transferrance is all that realistic though. Making a digital copy is a more realistic thing.
I don’t think transferrance is all that realistic though. Making a digital copy is a more realistic thing.
Maybe if you handle it like the ship of Theseus? Replace a few cells and little brain function over a long time (so that the body can adapt) by some compatible future machine.
Maybe in the end you are a full cyborg, not just a cyborg copy.
Have you watched severance?
I’ve seen some clips, is it worth watching?
Weirdly, the animated show Invincible does a pretty good job exploring this a bit with the team of villains where one is a clone of the other and they’re always arguing over who the “original” is this time. Until one inevitably uses the other as a meat shield to escape… Only to later clone himself again and repeat…
They help the one “guy” (more just like a really smart, deformed clump of flesh in a vat) transfer his consciousness into another human body.
After the process, he mentions that he didn’t expect it to be so “continuous.” His first thought was “which one am I?”
Anyway, I thought they did a good job exploring the topic…
What I loved is that both knew what needed to be done next because he planned it before being copied.
at the moment of its creation yes, but the moment either of us experiences anything we will be different. because this will happen instantly (bc I would have to still be alive for a copy to be possible) the answer is no.
As long as the upload retains memories, they will still feel like the same self.
If the upload was me, it would know it’s a clone, not me, but he’d also know he’s his own person from now own.
Perfect opportunity to change name, or adopt a suffix in case more copies are made.
I’m not so sure about that. A mind in a machine lacks the chemical soup in the blood and tissues which drives behaviours far more than we’d perhaps like to admit.
Emulating a personality means emulating the whole human or else what you’ll get will be an approximation, and perhaps not even a very good one.
Depends how “you” is defined.
If you’re talking about your ghost, then no that can’t be copied because it’s an imaginary thing of which there is no evidence, a projection of your mind if you will.
OTOH if “you” is just a collection of memories stored in a physical structure then yes, a molecular level printer could reproduce it.
The bobiverse series of books encounters this question. Probably my favourite series.
