What were the chances of me being born?

[Taffer]

Originally posted by BillyJoe

Nearly correct. But this bit sounds like Dualism to me...."trapped in this physical body".
Would you like to rephrase that? Dualists talk about a soul or spirit "trapped in a physical body", or at least residing there, but for a Materialist there is no soul or spirit or self "trapped in a physical body". The self is an intrinsic part of the brain's function.

You are "trapped in a physical body" because your 'self' is simply a by product of said body. Take away the body, take away the 'self'.


Dualism again. :(
*You* are a product of a brain. Two identical brains with identical functioning means two identical selves. Both those selves are *you*.
Zaayrdragon, don't try to refute this for a moment, just see if you can see that this is correct (because it is). It will make of you a better Materialist. ;)

Personal attack aside, we agree that an identical brain will, for all intents and purposes, appear to all others to have two identical 'yous'. That is not the problem in your logic. The problem arrises when you try to think about it from the point of view of the original subject. I'll explain later.


At the time of the duplication, the original and the duplicate were identical. That is part of the game, not something to be denied. It is a given for the purposes of this thought experiment.

Agreed.


Then consider the case where the original is not destroyed and the original and the duplicate find themselves next to each other with no way of telling each other apart. Your explanation doesn't help at all in this scenario so it cannot be correct.

Actually it does. In this situation there will be no way to tell between the two. Simply because from the objective viewer there is no way to tell between the two 'copies', unless you know which was copied. Both copies will think they are the original. This is true, but it does not take away from the fact that they are seperate and distinct entities who both think they are the original. If I was copied, and I faced my clone, we would not think the same thing. I would be looking at a person who was the same as me, true, but it isn't me from my point of view, is it?


The self is like a program (software) running in the brain. That program however is an integral part of the brain and you cannot simply pull it out like you can with a computer and run it in another brain. However if you duplicate the brain and the brain state, you duplicate the self. It does not depend on a transfer of the same molecules that made up the originally brain. How on Earth could you think so.

Simply because of the way it works, my friend. True, whe you duplicate a brain you duplicate the self. However, if you were to clone me, and then kill me, I would not suddenly experience life out of the clones eyes. The point is that, true, to everyone else there would be no difference. I would still be me with all my memories etc, but from my point of view I have died. And no, this is not saying that I have some magical soul that makes me me. It is simply saying that copying a brain will get an exact copy, but it will not be the same as the original. That is the difference.


No. They do not share the same space so they cannot possibly share the same experiences. If their selves were identical at one point, they would immediately, from that point on, diverge as their experiences diverged.

Which is exactly the same with a cloned 'me'.


No. I agree this is not correct. We have already agreed that the selves are identical but not the same.....

True. This is exactly the point. Not the same. To everyone else they are, but not to you, the person who was cloned.


My view of materialism does not suggest this either. Moreover I have already explicitly explained this.

You view of materialism is 99% correct. You are just, IMHO, failing to consider it from the point of view of the person who was cloned. Are you saying that if you went on the Transporter, you would go to sleep on earth and wake up on mars?


Nothing is being transferred. The self is being duplicated. *You* are present in both the original (if it survives) and the duplicate. It is a tricky point, zaayrdragon, but believe me when I tell you this, it is your view that implies the existence of a spirit or soul (as in your "trapped inside the physiczal body"). Materialism says that the self is merely the function of the brain and therefore, if there are two identical brains with two identical brain functions, there are two identical *you*s with no way of telling which is which (if you construct the experimant appropriately).

Again, they are the same to everyone else, except the original. If I were copied, and then killed, *I* would die. But my clone would live on, still being me for everyone else who knew me. But *I* would have died. See? I wouldn't use the Transporter, because *I* wouldn't make it to Mars...only someone who for all apearences seemed to be just like me.


The actual molecules do not matter (I should mention that there is a quantum mechanical objection to this but that is not concerning us here). How could it make any difference if you used the original molecules or if you used fresh molecules (neglecting quantum mechanical affects)?

Because to keep me being me, my brain functions must continue to work. If there is any disruption to their continuity, I will cease to be.


I understand more than you think. I have had an education on this board that I am very grateful for. I hope the same happens for you.

This is very egotistical, with all due respect. I think it is safe for others to decide who is smart and who is not, rather then the people involved. However, like I said before, IMHO you have Materialism 99% correct, with the only flaw being that you fail to take the point of view of the person being cloned.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Correa Neto

From this post it seems you understand *identity* from the point of view of Materialism. From your previous two post you don't. So I don't know what more to say.

I wonder what Taffer, Atlas and Zaayrdragon think of this post of yours. I think all three would deny you. :cool:
BillyJoe BillyJoe,

Like Taffer, I'm pretty much in agreement with Correa.

But I've gotten alot from your descriptions of Materialism. And I'm glad Ian included the link to the test.

It's one thing to talk about Self and Identity as creations of the brain. But I really had a problem with the wording of the Mars Teleportation question.

As I said before, if the company operated in the strict Materialist sense promising to transfer "You" safely to your destination, (and structured all teleportations such that everyone was destroyed at the source and perfect copies created at the destination), it would make alot of people happy. Travel and Commerce would boom. I can't think of a reason why people wouldn't love it.

However, I think the teleporter description tells us that we have ceased talking philosophically about Materialism and have begun to talk about murder. Do you disagree?

That is, we can learn alot about particular philosophies with these questions, but a teleporter as described could never be used to transfer humans without redefining our murder laws.

A life is being snuffed, and just because another appears to continue it, it is unique and different, all it would take is 1 survivor at the source to prove it.

So apart from your excellent descriptions of Materialism, you need a different kind of teleporter for human transport, don't you.

I'm not disagreeing with any of your thoughts on the transfer of consciousness, self and identity - but I agree with Taffer, from the pespective of the original - it's death. And I have to call it murder.

[BillyJoe]

Atlas,

Originally posted by Atlas
As I said before, if the company operated in the strict Materialist sense promising to transfer "You" safely to your destination, (and structured all teleportations such that everyone was destroyed at the source and perfect copies created at the destination), it would make alot of people happy. Travel and Commerce would boom. I can't think of a reason why people wouldn't love it. I agree with all of this.

Originally posted by Atlas
However, I think the teleporter description tells us that we have ceased talking philosophically about Materialism and have begun to talk about murder. Do you disagree? It's a separate question but, yes, in a sense, I disagree. *You* still exist and from the point of view of *you* that's all that matters.

Originally posted by Atlas
A life is being snuffed, and just because another appears to continue it, it is unique and different, all it would take is 1 survivor at the source to prove it. That would be a bummer.

BillyJoe

[Z]

It's not dualism, B.J. - it's simple materialism.

If the matter that makes up my brain is destroyed, then I am destroyed. That one, or two, or ten million duplicates is made elsewhere is irrelevant to me, because I am a product of THIS brain, RIGHT HERE, not that other or those other brains.

I wouldn't suddenly start experiencing anything out of anyone else's brain, because in order to do that, either a) material from my brain would have to have been transferred to the new body, or b) some previously unknown communication method would be employed linking the two brains... which is highly unlikely, given the original brain would be destroyed.

What if the product on Mars was only 80% accurate? Would you be so quick to declare two identical selves? Of course not - the person on the other end would clearly be someone new who shared SOME traits and memories of the person on Earth. What if part of the data stream were corrupted, and every 200th bit were missing?

Take the example of the cars - if a car is completely disassembled to analyze its structure, and that structure were transmitted to Mars, where a new car would be made from new materials perfectly duplicating the original car's structure, would it be the same car? NO.

Or a computer. If a computer on Earth were broken down and data about its silicon states were transmitted to Mars, where an identical computer were constructed, would it be the same computer? NO.

Why is it so hard to understand that, from a pure Materialist perspective, you CANNOT HAVE two selves? You can only have one self - the self generated by your brain - and any 'duplicates' would have their OWN separate and distinct self - the self generated by their brains. They may be indistinguishable from each other, but that doesn't make them the exact same self - unless, from moment of creation, they have occupied the exact same space simultaneously - which is of course impossible.

So the poor idiot on Earth would be vaporized, and end of story for him. He has no longer a brain to generate a self.

This is the end for that conscious awareness. The spontaneous generation of an identical replica elsewhere is irrelevant to that brain, which no longer exists.

BJ, since you are so confused by what dualism entails, I suggest you read this (http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~philos/MindDict/dualism.html) . I agree my statement 'trapped in this brain' may appear to espouse dualism, but, in fact, it's only a vague metaphor. The 'self' is a direct result of physical processes in this brain, and therefore, the self is purely limited to this brain and only this brain. Materialism.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Taffer, Correa, Zaayrdragon and Rolfe,


Consider the following definitions:

[b]OriginalTaffer: The original body/brain/*Taffer*
DuplicateTaffer: The duplicate body/brain/*Taffer*
*Taffer*: The self produced by the functioning of the identical brains in the identical bodies of OriginalTaffer and DuplicateTaffer. Ther are two *Taffer*s, identical but not the same.



Why aren't they the same??

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Taffer, Correa, Zaayrdragon and Rolfe,


Consider the following definitions:

[b]OriginalTaffer: The original body/brain/*Taffer*
DuplicateTaffer: The duplicate body/brain/*Taffer*
*Taffer*: The self produced by the functioning of the identical brains in the identical bodies of OriginalTaffer and DuplicateTaffer. Ther are two *Taffer*s, identical but not the same. Not to be confused with....
Taffer: The body/brain/*Taffer* that is both OriginalTaffer and DuplicateTaffer. There are two Taffers, identical but not the same.

Scenario A: The duplicator produces a DuplicateTaffer whilst retaining, without alteration, OriginalTaffer.

We therefore have two Taffers, OriginalTaffer and DuplicateTaffer. They are, as we all agree, identical but not the same. Each Taffer has a body including a brain which produces a self which we will call *Taffer*. There are therefore two *Taffer*s. They are identical but not the same as we all agree.



Er . .no. I don't agree :)

[Z]

Why aren't they the same??

1) Because they cannot occupy the exact same space-time.

2) Because they cannot be influenced the same by stimuli. (i.e. a heat source closer to one than to the other will not raise their temperature equally)

3) Because probability manifestation is now given TWO operands through which to select results - i.e. each one is now being affected different through probability on the subatomic level and elsewhere.

I'm sure there are more reasons, but these are the first that come to mind.

(edit - you can't be 'effected. :D )

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyJoe


We therefore have two Taffers, OriginalTaffer and DuplicateTaffer. They are, as we all agree, identical but not the same. Each Taffer has a body including a brain which produces a self which we will call *Taffer*. There are therefore two *Taffer*s. They are identical but not the same as we all agree.

They'd have to be the same, otherwise this is a denial of materialism. The self is nothing over and above physical patterns and processes. Identical patterns and processes therefore cannot lead to differing selves, otherwise patterns and processes are insufficient to tie down a unique self.

[Taffer]

Originally posted by BillyJoe

It's a separate question but, yes, in a sense, I disagree. *You* still exist and from the point of view of *you* that's all that matters.
BillyJoe

Alas, that is not the case. From the point of view of you, you have just been killed. Assume there is an after life, and you get to hang around for a little while observing life on earth. After you enter the machine, you are copied and then are killed. So there you are, floating around, and lo and behold the duplicate appears. Unfortunatly, everyone keeps dealing with it as they would deal with you. It reacts just like you. It is even having sex with your wife. But no-one seems to realise that it isn't you. Not even the duplicate. To the duplicate, it is you, and remembers being on earth, entering the transporter and waking up on mars. However, it isn't you. You were killed on earth, and are now watching your clone bonk your hot blonde wife (hey, it's my thought experiment :P).

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

I 'm still in there trying to help you. :)

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
It's not dualism, B.J. - it's simple materialism.Sorry. So, you are a Materialist who speaks like a Dualist....

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
If the matter that makes up my brain is destroyed, then I am destroyed. That one, or two, or ten million duplicates is made elsewhere is irrelevant to me, because I am a product of THIS brain, RIGHT HERE, not that other or those other brains.Pure Dualist language.
Listen, you are nothing (no, I'm not insulting you). That brain up there produces a self and all those duplicates produce a self. Those selves are absolutely identical. If we call the self produced by the original brain *zaayrdragon*, then the selves produced by all the duplicates are also *zaayrdragon*.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
I wouldn't suddenly start experiencing anything out of anyone else's brain..... No you won't. One self for the original, one self for the duplicate. But absolutely identical.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
.....because in order to do that....material from my brain would have to have been transferred to the new body.... It is not material but patterns in the brain that constitute a self. The actual molecules do not matter one iota.
You really sound like a substance Dualist.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
What if the product on Mars was only 80% accurate? Would you be so quick to declare two identical selves? Of course not - the person on the other end would clearly be someone new who shared SOME traits and memories of the person on Earth. What if part of the data stream were corrupted, and every 200th bit were missing? Well, if the duplication was only 80% accurate, by definition the duplicate would not be identical to the original. Your point does not make a differnce to the argument.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Take the example of the cars - if a car is completely disassembled to analyze its structure, and that structure were transmitted to Mars, where a new car would be made from new materials perfectly duplicating the original car's structure, would it be the same car? NO. Of course not, It is identical but not the same. We agreed on that a long time ago.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Why is it so hard to understand that, from a pure Materialist perspective, you CANNOT HAVE two selves? .This is dualist language again, Zaayr. Your phrase "you CANNOT HAVE two selves", is dualist language. The Materialist version: There are two selves. The original produces a self. The duplicate produces a self. These selves are identical.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
You can only have one self - the self generated by your brain - and any 'duplicates' would have their OWN separate and distinct self - the self generated by their brains. .Dualist language again, zaayr. Listen to this carefully....
"You can only have one self..."
"....the self generated by your brain."
Can you see the redundancy?
The "you" is superfluous. The original brain produces a self. All the duplicates produce a self each. All these selves are identical.
Your "you" is like that spirit or soul, something separate from the brain. Read it again and see if you don't agree.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
So the poor idiot on Earth would be vaporized, and end of story for him. He has no longer a brain to generate a self....This is the end for that conscious awareness. The spontaneous generation of an identical replica elsewhere is irrelevant to that brain, which no longer exists..More dualist language:
"He has no longer a brain to generate a self"
"he" IS the self in that brain. The self cannot have a brain to generate itself. Surely you are beginning to see this. Remember, I am trying to help you see, I am not trying to be critical. Someone did me this favour some time ago on this board.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
[B]This is the end for that conscious awareness. The spontaneous generation of an identical replica elsewhere is irrelevant to that brain, which no longer exists.[B]It doesn't matter that that brain doesn't exist. What matters if the self produced by that brain. If there is another identical brain producing another identical self, then that self still exists.

regards,
BillyJoe

[Z]

They'd have to be the same, otherwise this is a denial of materialism. The self is nothing over and above physical patterns and processes. Identical patterns and processes therefore cannot lead to differing selves, otherwise patterns and processes are insufficient to tie down a unique self.

Only of reductive materialism.

However, I think your understanding of materialism excludes environmental factors, which are also purely material in nature, and which have obvious influences as well. Thus, unless each individual occupies the precise same space-time, they must be different automatically.

Semantically, yes, they would be the 'same' except for their x-y-z-t variables. But that doesn't mean each would have the same experience - each would be accepting sensory input from slightly different coordinates, which would affect their 'self'. And since both are not plugged into a central processor, they cannot share their experiences with each other; each is experiencing unique data streams, accepting unique inputs, and processing unique results. From every objective standpoint, they would be nearly the same, but not entirely the same.

[BillyJoe]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Why aren't they the same?? Because, for one thing, they occupy different positions in space.

[Taffer]

Billy. I agree that, from the point of view of everyone else, the two 'selves' will be identical. From the point of view of the duplicate, he has successfully been transported from earth to mars. But from the point of view of the original, he is now dead. Sure, the clone creates a 'self' that is identical to the original 'self'. This is fine to everyone but the original. No-one else, not even the clone, can tell the difference but the original...namely because he is now dead.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
If the virus goes to work, my brain is still functioning, only in a different way. However, there was no loss of continuity between the 'pre-virus' brain and the 'post-virus' brain, thus my sense of self would remain. I would go to sleep, as it were, and wake up with different memories, thoughts, emotions etc. I would seem to be a different person, however if I were experiencing it, I would still be alive, as it were. I would still be me, but with different memories, thoughts, emotions etc.


This is absurd. This isn't materialism! You're voicing the sort of beliefs *I* have, the number 1 vehement opponent of materialism!

[Z]

Alas, that is not the case. From the point of view of you, you have just been killed. Assume there is an after life, and you get to hang around for a little while observing life on earth. After you enter the machine, you are copied and then are killed. So there you are, floating around, and lo and behold the duplicate appears. Unfortunatly, everyone keeps dealing with it as they would deal with you. It reacts just like you. It is even having sex with your wife. But no-one seems to realise that it isn't you. Not even the duplicate. To the duplicate, it is you, and remembers being on earth, entering the transporter and waking up on mars. However, it isn't you. You were killed on earth, and are now watching your clone bonk your hot blonde wife (hey, it's my thought experiment :P).

While I agree with the concept you're trying to espouse, this only works IF the soul is determined to be material in nature as well - which generally is held as false.

Ian, Joe, others: Consider this: You are killed. You don't know why or what happened, but for some reason, you are killed.

Unbeknownst to you (being dead, it'd be hard for you to know anything), you died in the process of pattern analysis. Those who took your pattern and murdered you in the process then produce an identical being (or ten, one hundred, whatever). That being is 'you' from every known viewpoint EXCEPT your own, which ended the moment you were killed. If the duplicate being were altered in some way, it would still be 'you', though an altered 'you', to all other viewpoints, but it wouldn't be 'you' to the now non-living you.

Case two: Unbeknownst to you, your pattern is analyzed, and you are replicated. Neither you nor your duplicate know this has happened, and both assume that they are 'you'. However, when you meet, you are not looking at 'you', you are looking at 'him'. He is looking at 'you'. You are identical, but not the same.

Is a sneeze a fundamental physical process? A change of state? I think most people would accept that. So suppose that, in the chamber where you've just been analyzed, a random dust particle causes you to sneeze. The duplicate wouldn't sneeze, since no physical stimulus has altered his state, but already, the two of you are differentiating.

Suppose the mission were to Jupiter instead of Mars, and just prior to the completion of the duplicate's creation, the system used to compensate against Jupiter's gravity fails. The duplicate you would die (crushed instantly) but you wouldn't suddenly die.

Why is this so hard to grasp?

[Taffer]

II, firstly we have moved way one since then. Secondly, it is not what you are talking about. There is no 'soul' or anything that carries on over between bodies. There is simply the continuity of brain functions that continues to create a sense of 'self' and conciousness. If my memory is erased, I will simply no longer remember things, but I am still alive and can experience things; my 'self' is still alive. If I am copied, then destroyed, I am now dead, even though my duplicate is alive, has the same 'sense of self' (note, not the same self) and could swear to god that he had just ridden the transporter.

[BillyJoe]

Ian,

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
They'd have to be the same, otherwise this is a denial of materialism. The self is nothing over and above physical patterns and processes. Identical patterns and processes therefore cannot lead to differing selves..... Selves are "patterns and processes", I agree, but there are two of these "patterns and processes", and therefore there are two selves. Two identical selves, differing only in their position in space.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
.....otherwise patterns and processes are insufficient to tie down a unique self. I guess not. Add in the position in space. Two otherwise identical selves cannot occupy the same position in space.

BillyJoe

[Z]

This is absurd. This isn't materialism! You're voicing the sort of beliefs *I* have, the number 1 vehement opponent of materialism!

If 'I' is the illusion of self generated by a particular brain X, then brain X can only produce I, while brain X2 can only produce I2, etc. If X and X2 are identical, then I and I2 are identical products. However, if X ceases to function, I ceases to exist. I and I2 are in no way linked; they are not mutually dependant; they do not co-occupy space-time.

Every 'I' is different, because every 'I' is produced by a different brain. Duplicate that brain, and you are producing a new 'I'. You cannot produce the same 'I' from two different brains, only two very similar 'I's.

[Z]

All of which has drifted faaaar off the original course...

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
[B]Yep - I was told it was correct from some point of view - I suspect it tells everyone they were correct.



No, it told me I was arguably inconsistent (I said I wouldn't take the teletransporter but wouldn't mind my brain being partially replaced by silicon chips). But that is not an inconsistency. This can be understood if one reads my "Are we machines" section (the only one completed) on my website (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/interesting.ian/MindandReality.htm)

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
Alas, that is not the case. From the point of view of you, you have just been killed. Well, I said *you*, meaning the self in the original brain. That self still exists - in the duplicate.

Originally posted by Taffer
Assume there is an after life Are we still Materialists. :D

Originally posted by Taffer
Assume there is an after life, and you get to hang around for a little while observing life on earth. After you enter the machine, you are copied and then are killed. So there you are, floating around, and lo and behold the duplicate appears. Unfortunatly, everyone keeps dealing with it as they would deal with you. It reacts just like you. It is even having sex with your wife. Unfortunate for the self produced by the original (now floating about), but very fortunate for the duplicate let me tell you. ;)

Originally posted by Taffer
But no-one seems to realise that it isn't you. The self produced by the duplicate brain is identical to the self produced by the original brain. When you say "you" who are you referring to?

Originally posted by Taffer
To the duplicate, it is you, and remembers being on earth, entering the transporter and waking up on mars. However, it isn't you. Again who is this "you" you keep talking about? (yes, I know it's hard. If it was easy I wouldn't have to be giving this lesson in the Materialism of *identity* :) ). If you are talking about the self produced by the duplicate's brain, then, yes, it is identical to the self produced by the original brain.

Originally posted by Taffer
You were killed on earth, and are now watching your clone bonk your hot blonde wife (hey, it's my thought experiment :P). She's a brunette. And, hey, how do you know that doesn't turn me on. :eek:

regards,
BillyJoe

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Semantically, yes, they would be the 'same' except for their x-y-z-t variables. But that doesn't mean each would have the same experience - each would be accepting sensory input from slightly different coordinates, which would affect their 'self'. Well, when we say "identical", we all mean "identical at the moment of duplication". Therafter the selves will diverge because oif different sensory inputs.

BillyJoe

[Z]

Well, I said *you*, meaning the self in the original brain. That self still exists - in the duplicate.

If the self in the original brain is the product of that original brain or the material activity of that original brain, it ceases to exist when the original brain is destroyed.

The self in the duplicate brain is the self of the duplicate brain. Though it may have falsely implanted memories of being the original brain, it isn't and has never been the original self.

Interestingly, though, the second self would experience all qualia precisely the same as the first self (barring the obvious awareness of its own artificiality), which would prove that qualia are materially reducible as well.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Atlas
BillyJoe,

Like Taffer, I'm pretty much in agreement with Correa.

But I've gotten alot from your descriptions of Materialism. And I'm glad Ian included the link to the test.

It's one thing to talk about Self and Identity as creations of the brain. But I really had a problem with the wording of the Mars Teleportation question.

As I said before, if the company operated in the strict Materialist sense promising to transfer "You" safely to your destination, (and structured all teleportations such that everyone was destroyed at the source and perfect copies created at the destination), it would make alot of people happy. Travel and Commerce would boom. I can't think of a reason why people wouldn't love it.

However, I think the teleporter description tells us that we have ceased talking philosophically about Materialism and have begun to talk about murder. Do you disagree?

That is, we can learn alot about particular philosophies with these questions, but a teleporter as described could never be used to transfer humans without redefining our murder laws.

A life is being snuffed, and just because another appears to continue it, it is unique and different, all it would take is 1 survivor at the source to prove it.

So apart from your excellent descriptions of Materialism, you need a different kind of teleporter for human transport, don't you.

I'm not disagreeing with any of your thoughts on the transfer of consciousness, self and identity - but I agree with Taffer, from the pespective of the original - it's death. And I have to call it murder.

I agree with you that we cannot but conclude it's murder. Yet materialism states otherwise. Therefore materialism is false.

[Z]

I agree with you that we cannot but conclude it's murder. Yet materialism states otherwise. Therefore materialism is false.

How does materialism claim that it's not murder?

Isn't the destruction of a life i.e. a physical body constitute murder?

Sorry, Ian - your logic fails again.

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
Billy. I agree that, from the point of view of everyone else, the two 'selves' will be identical. From the point of view of the duplicate, he has successfully been transported from earth to mars. But from the point of view of the original, he is now dead. Sure, the clone creates a 'self' that is identical to the original 'self'. This is fine to everyone but the original. No-one else, not even the clone, can tell the difference but the original...namely because he is now dead. If the original brain is dead, then there is no other self being produced. The only self being produced is that produced by the duplicate brain. This self is identical to the self produced by the original brain before the original was vapourized. The self produced by the original brain therefore still exists - it is being produced by the duplicate brain.

Is it getting any clearer?

BillyJoe

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Originally posted by zaayrdragon
.....because in order to do that....material from my brain would have to have been transferred to the new body....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BJ
It is not material but patterns in the brain that constitute a self. The actual molecules do not matter one iota.
You really sound like a substance Dualist.



No, he seems like a person who believes in a material substance. In other words that a physical thing is not exhausted by it's properties, rather a physical thing is a substance which has properties. Compare the notion of a self. It is either the simple summation of verious experiences, or it is an existent which has experiences (ie the self is a substance hence "substance dualism").

If you think in terms of material substance then it might be this substance which gives rise to consciousness. But when we duplicate a person we arguably are only duplicating the properties rather than the substance.

Is this something along the lines you're thinking of zaayrdragon??

Or do you have no idea what I'm talking about?

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
If the self in the original brain is the product of that original brain or the material activity of that original brain, it ceases to exist when the original brain is destroyed. Yes, that particular self ceases to exist.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
The self in the duplicate brain is the self of the duplicate brain. Though it may have falsely implanted memories of being the original brain, it isn't and has never been the original self. The self produced by the duplicate brain is identical to the self produced by the original brain. When the original brain dies with the original body, the self produced by that brain is no longer being produced. However the duplicate brain is still there producing this self. Call the self *zaayrdragon*. The duplicater brain is still producing *zaayrdragon*.

BillyJoe

[Z]

Hmmm.... Ian, I'll mull that one over. I think I see what you're saying here... but let me take a moment to consider it.

The self, in this theory, is still the physical brain, because the brain is what 'has experiences'.

But let me juggle this one a bit - I'll get back to you.

BJ, it's just like the computer example: the program might have all the same apparent properties but the original program would still be inactive/dead/gone.

It's a logical error to say that the original 'self' continues in the new 'self', from the POV of the original 'self'.

Or is there no subjective POV to be had by the 'self'?

[Taffer]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Taffer,

If the original brain is dead, then there is no other self being produced. The only self being produced is that produced by the duplicate brain. This self is identical to the self produced by the original brain before the original was vapourized. The self produced by the original brain therefore still exists - it is being produced by the duplicate brain.

Is it getting any clearer?

BillyJoe

But not from the point of view of the original self!!! That is the point. The original self is dead, and even though another identical self exists, from the point of view of the original self it doesn't help at all...'it' is still dead. To everyone else, thought, it would be as if there was nothing wrong at all. You are still failing to see from the point of view of the original self.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
If the self in the original brain is the product of that original brain or the material activity of that original brain, it ceases to exist when the original brain is destroyed.

The self in the duplicate brain is the self of the duplicate brain. Though it may have falsely implanted memories of being the original brain, it isn't and has never been the original self.

Interestingly, though, the second self would experience all qualia precisely the same as the first self (barring the obvious awareness of its own artificiality), which would prove that qualia are materially reducible as well.

Ummm . .it proves qualia are reducible?? :eek:

Dear me.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
How does materialism claim that it's not murder?

Isn't the destruction of a life i.e. a physical body constitute murder?

Sorry, Ian - your logic fails again.

Because a physical thing is exhausted by its properties (no material substance). Create an exact duplicate of your brain you must create an exact duplicate. Destroying your original and creating a duplicate is no more murder (according to materialism) then taking a step to the left.

Remember there is no enduring self according to materialism. In a sense you are continuously ceasing to exist and ex nihilo spontaneously springing into being.

The self is nothing more than your dispositions, memories, psychological being etc. There is nothing about the original brain such that an exact duplicate of that brain couldn't be you in a 100% sense.

Remember that the stuff constituting our bodies gets completely replaced once every 7 years anyway. So it can't be the actual physical stuff that is important. It's the processes that "stuff" carries out.

[BillyJoe]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
No, he seems like a person who believes in a material substance. In other words that a physical thing is not exhausted by it's properties, rather a physical thing is a substance which has properties. Compare the notion of a self. It is either the simple summation of verious experiences, or it is an existent which has experiences (ie the self is a substance hence "substance dualism").

If you think in terms of material substance then it might be this substance which gives rise to consciousness. But when we duplicate a person we arguably are only duplicating the properties rather than the substance.

Is this something along the lines you're thinking of zaayrdragon??

Or do you have no idea what I'm talking about? :) (but it's my fault)

[BillyJoe]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
It's a logical error to say that the original 'self' continues in the new 'self'..... Now where did I say that?
This is what I said....
The original brain produces a self. Let's call it *zaayrdragon*. When the original brain dies, *zaayrdragon* ceases to exist. When the duplicate brain is created, it produces a self identical to the self produced by the original brain just before it died. This self is therefore *zaayrdragon*. One *zaayrdragon* ceases to exist. Another *zaayrdragon* comes into existence. Ergo, *zaayrdragon* still exists.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
....from the POV of the original 'self'. The self doesn't have a POV, it is a point of view.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Or is there no subjective POV to be had by the 'self'? :clap:

[BillyJoe]

Originally posted by Taffer
But not from the point of view of the original self!!! That is the point. The original self is dead, and even though another identical self exists, from the point of view of the original self it doesn't help at all...'it' is still dead. To everyone else, thought, it would be as if there was nothing wrong at all. You are still failing to see from the point of view of the original self. I KILLED THE ORIGINAL TO FORCE YOU TO SEE MY POINT OF VIEW.

So what do you do?

YOU FRIGGIN' WELL BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE!

ARGHH

[Taffer]

Dude, I see what your point is. I simply disagree with it.

I agree that the 'self' created by the duplicate brain is indeed exactly the same 'self' created by the original brain. Let me spell this out to you. To everyone but the original 'self', the 'self' created by the duplicate is the same as the original. No one would be able to tell the difference (including the duplicate himself). But (and it is a big "but") from the original's point of view, they are not the same. If the original dies, to everyone else he lives on in the new 'self' because it is identical in every way to the original. But to the original, he does not live on. He is dead.

The whole point is that from everyone's pov but the original, there is not difference. He does, indeed, live on. However, from the pov of the original, he is dead...and ex parrot...he has ceased to be.

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Because a physical thing is exhausted by its properties (no material substance). Create an exact duplicate of your brain you must create an exact duplicate. Destroying your original and creating a duplicate is no more murder (according to materialism) then taking a step to the left.

Remember there is no enduring self according to materialism. In a sense you are continuously ceasing to exist and ex nihilo spontaneously springing into being.

The self is nothing more than your dispositions, memories, psychological being etc. There is nothing about the original brain such that an exact duplicate of that brain couldn't be you in a 100% sense.

Remember that the stuff constituting our bodies gets completely replaced once every 7 years anyway. So it can't be the actual physical stuff that is important. It's the processes that "stuff" carries out.

Interesting point, Ian. It depends on what pov you take. If you take the view from everyone but the 'original', then it is not murder (you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the original and the copy). But if you are taking the pov of the 'original', then it is indeed murder, as although a copy is being made, it is simply an exact copy, not the original.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
Dude, I see what your point is. I simply disagree with it.

I agree that the 'self' created by the duplicate brain is indeed exactly the same 'self' created by the original brain. Let me spell this out to you. To everyone but the original 'self', the 'self' created by the duplicate is the same as the original. No one would be able to tell the difference (including the duplicate himself). But (and it is a big "but") from the original's point of view, they are not the same. If the original dies, to everyone else he lives on in the new 'self' because it is identical in every way to the original. But to the original, he does not live on. He is dead.

The whole point is that from everyone's pov but the original, there is not difference. He does, indeed, live on. However, from the pov of the original, he is dead...and ex parrot...he has ceased to be.

Well, one might argue there is no break in experience. You're there in the booth. Your body is destroyed. Another you is created at the destination booth. If you consider your ongoing experiences, and if both booths are identical and you cannot see outside them, then your experience will be continuous. You will notice nothing at all as you are destroyed then recreated. So it is surely silly to say you have died?? You might as well argue the same for your current second by second existence.

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

But the original is dead, DEAD, DEAD, goddammit!

Please, please, consider the scenario WITHOUT ressurrecting the original. The original is dead and has no POV.

So, can you please tell me whether *Taffer* - the self produced by the original brain before the original brain dies - has any interest at all in seeing a duplicate brain created at the moment that the original brain dies. Or would *Taffer* not care one way or another whether a duplicate was created.

Remember, of course, (BIG HINT) that the duplicate brain will produce *Taffer* as soon as it is created (which is at the moment of the original brain dies).

BillyJoe.
(And now I am off to bed. :) )

[Taffer]

I know the original is dead. I agree it is. I'm not ressurecting it all. Plus, that is my whole bloody argument! It is dead. How can an exact copy of it's 'self' be it any more? It is dead!

Think of it this way. Take you. Make a copy (you++). Both are alive. Both are exact copies. Now kill you. Do you (that is, the 'you' that is being created by the first brain) suddenly become you++? Before you was killed, were you experiencing life as two 'yous'? If not, then how does killing you mean you do not die? The way you are talking about it, you have to be living out of both yous before they are killed, then when you die 'you' becomes the other one.

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Well, one might argue there is no break in experience. You're there in the booth. Your body is destroyed. Another you is created at the destination booth. If you consider your ongoing experiences, and if both booths are identical and you cannot see outside them, then your experience will be continuous. You will notice nothing at all as you are destroyed then recreated. So it is surely silly to say you have died?? You might as well argue the same for your current second by second existence.

*Sigh*

Ok, lets go through this step by step.

Firstly from the point of view of the original.

He wakes up, decideds to go to mars, drives to the 'transporter booth', steps inside, is scanned and then killed. So far, does he exist? No, of course not.

And now from the point of view of the duplicate.

He wakes up in the booth. He now thinks that he did all those things that the original had, but has he? No! He was just created in the booth!

The sense of self is a byproduct of the brain. It is not some kind of substance. What you are saying is that your brain creates a 'you' signal, which is your sense of self. If you shoot yourself in the brain, you die. But if on the other side of the galaxy another brain exactly the same as yours is created, the 'you' signal will begin again, and you will wake up in that new brain. Is this what you are suggesting?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
*Sigh*

Ok, lets go through this step by step.

Firstly from the point of view of the original.

He wakes up, decideds to go to mars, drives to the 'transporter booth', steps inside, is scanned and then killed. So far, does he exist? No, of course not.

And now from the point of view of the duplicate.

He wakes up in the booth. He now thinks that he did all those things that the original had, but has he? No! He was just created in the booth!

The sense of self is a byproduct of the brain. It is not some kind of substance. What you are saying is that your brain creates a 'you' signal, which is your sense of self. If you shoot yourself in the brain, you die. But if on the other side of the galaxy another brain exactly the same as yours is created, the 'you' signal will begin again, and you will wake up in that new brain. Is this what you are suggesting?

Yeah, one would just be resurrected. We can even imagine scanning your brain, saving the pattern somewhere as information, and then resurrecting you 10,000 years in the future! :eek: You would just find yourself disappearing (getting killed), to suddenly instantaneously appearing in a strange environment (10,000 years in the future).

I think that materialism must necessarily entail this. Otherwise *you* yourself must amount to more than physical patterns and processes.

But!

I agree that it cannot really be *you*, but merely someone who is indistinguishable from the 3rd person perspective.

This is another reason why materialism must be false.

I have expressed in a thought experiment in a post in the other thread the fact it can't really be you (the one where I am watching Groundhog Day).

As a matter of fact I think that a duplicate would simply be a corpse.

[Z]

This still doesn't explain how it refutes materialism.

In fact, the entire rebuttal you proposed DEPENDS upon the utter destruction of the original prior to or simultaneous to the generation of the duplicate.

If there is no destruction involved, then two concurrent and identical 'selves' exist, each the product of an identical brain, but clearly not the same 'self'.

Can you continue to refute materialism given the 'clone' example without destruction of the original clone?

I say you cannot, that in order to refute materialism you must destroy one or the other copy; but even so, this doesn't refute materialism at all, certainly not from the third-person standing. Yet by NOT destroying one of the two, you have another third-person point of view which does NOT jive with everyone else's third-person point of view.

In fact, the idea that the clone is 'utterly indistinguishable' also depends on the absolute LACK of ANY third-person awareness of the actual process at hand. If even one person is aware that Ian(earth) was destroyed and Ian(mars) created from raw material, then his knowledge alone marks a discernment between clone and original.

So the argument against materialism is still flimsy, and still based on a supposition that ought to be removable, but apparently isn't.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
[B]This still doesn't explain how it refutes materialism.



It refutes materialism because if we consider the case where the original doesn't get destroyed, so there are 2 of you, it leads to a logical absurdity. I explained how it does in the other thread. I paste in here:

I think it has been broadly agreed that with a star trek teletransporter device, where the original person gets destroyed and a perfect duplicate gets created somewhere else, that the duplicate would be you in the absolute fullest sense of the word. Anyway I'm going to take for granted that this is agreed upon.

Now if we imagine a case where the original person is not destroyed and simply get duplicated, we will then have 2 streams of consciousnesses. Let's imagine that someone offers me £10,000,000 if I agree to be duplicated with the duplicate being killed after about an hour after duplication. And let's for the sake of argumentation ignore the ethical implications. Now this might seem like a good deal to me. After all, how could I lose out? A duplicate is created, lives for an hour, and then is destroyed. So after the duplicate is destroyed is exactly the same as before the duplicate was created, except I'm £10,000,000 richer! :D

So ok, I agree to it. Now let's suppose that the copying will take place in a room with a TV set. The copying will take place sometime whilst I am watching my favorite film of all time Groundhog Day, although precisely when duplication will take place is not specified. It could take place anytime during the duration of the film. Imagine also that the duplicate will suddenly appear in an absolute identical room with the same film playing which is also precisely synchronized to the other film.

It should be obvious that nothing untoward will happen at the precise moment of duplication. If I am the original obviously nothing will happen. I will be watching the film and will notice absolutely nothing at the precise moment of duplication. If I am the duplicate, again I will note nothing untoward. At the precise moment of duplication I will suddenly appear in the duplicate room, sitting exactly in the same relative position and posture, the film will be continuous with the film being shown in the other room, and my memories will be continuous with the original Ian just prior to duplication.

So ok, I'm sitting there watching the film, and I most probably will be thinking to myself "hmmmm, I wonder if I have been duplicated yet or not?". Because I have no way of knowing. Moreover, even if I have been duplicated, I have absolutely no way of telling whether I am the original or the duplicate. But now the end of the film arrives. I know that duplication must have taken place, but there is absolutely nothing about the character of my experiences which could enable me to determine whether I am the original or the duplicate. My consciousness has been continous. I might feel therefore that I must be the original Ian. But of course the duplicate will be thinking exactly the same thoughts. Bearing this in mind I cannot ascribe anymore probability than I am the original than the duplicate, and the same reasoning will be gone through by the other Ian. So I will conclude that there is a 50/50 chance I am the original.

Then the door to the room opens, and the person standing there says "I regret to inform you that you are the duplicate Ian, and therefore must be immediately executed".

So we reach our paradox. I had concluded that I was just being given £10,000,000 to watch my favorite film of all time. There should have been no danger to myself at all. But yet there is. But this is clearly absurd! After all, how could it meaningfully differ from the situation where the same situation pertains yet no duplication takes place? Then, since no duplicate is created, there is absolute 100% certainty that I am the original Ian.

It might be popinted out that at least the other Ian gets the £10,000,000. But this doesn't interest me anymore than anyone else I like who receives £10,000,000.

I honestly don't think there is anyway around this paradox apart from suggesting my own solution, namely that after duplication and before an Ian gets destroyed, in other words whilst there exist 2 Ians', I will simultaneously experience out of both of Ian's bodies. Otherwise materialism just generates an incoherency.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by Atlas
However, I think the teleporter description tells us that we have ceased talking philosophically about Materialism and have begun to talk about murder. Do you disagree? A life is being snuffed...
Originally posted by BillyJoe
It's a separate question but, yes, in a sense, I disagree. *You* still exist and from the point of view of *you* that's all that matters.
BillyJoe
It's ALL that matters?!!? I think you have completely IANized your position.

This is really kind of fun. Let me extend the hypothetical anew.

What if it wasn't the Duplicator Police dragging OriginalBilly off to a nice clean disintegrator disposal unit, which I agree probably wouldn't bother either of us. What if it was al Queda, snatching you off the the street, beating you, OriginalBilly, to within an inch of your life and then beheading you live on Al Jazeera TV. Are we getting close to murder yet?

You are putting me in the strange position of arguing for Originals' Rights. And I sir, am not a Democrat. :D

Do you believe that somewhere, outside of MOOROOLBARK perhaps, some would see the beheading as murder even if they knew you personally? And even if they knew you to be in technical violation of the "Duplicate Laws" forbidding multiple copies?

You gotta cut me some slack. I've watched alot of Perry Mason reruns in my time. I know he uses that archaic definition of murder: "Taking a life" rather that yours: "Extinguishing all traces of Self" but you gotta admit if it was your neck under the scimitar, it would "feel" like murder, wouldn't it?

[Z]

Explain how two identical beings is an absurdity. Are twins logically absurd? Are two identical computers logically absurd? It makes absolutely no sense to claim this. It's not absurd at all - it's the natural logical consequence to cloning.

Consider Dolly, for a moment. Mental states aside, that sheep is genetically identical to another sheep. If we then add the capacity to clone all the RNA and other structures within the sheep's brain into Dolly, then the two will be two identical beings. Is it logically absurd? Of course not.

So, explain why two identical beings is an absurdity. Without resorting to a POV explanation of either being - since that depends entirely upon ANOTHER premise being assumed.

As I mentioned before, it only appears absurd if every aspect of both Ians' rooms were made perfectly identical - but any flaw, any flaw at all, and the duplicate Ian becomes aware of his status and impending doom. Again, no logical absurdity there - it is completely sensible.

Can your example stand the test of making a simple change? Let's say that Ian(prime) is in a room watching Groundhog Day on a wood TV set; while Ian(clone) is generated in a room watching Groundhog Day on a metal TV set. There would be a brief instance where the wood set would spontaneously become the metal set, at the point of Ian(clone)'s generation; he would therefore have reason to believe he was the clone.

Too easy to overlook? How about if Ian(clone) wakes up in a vat instead of a room. How the hell can he then be at all confused over being the clone?

In other words, your attempt to explain the logical absurdity when the destruction of original premise is removed contains another base-assumption that both original and clone share an identical environment initially.

Can your argument stand up if you remove any and all such premises? I think not. Your argument depends upon a) the destruction of the original, AND/OR b) an identical evironment for the clone to appear in. Remove these two factors, and the logical absurdity fades away at once. Remove these two factors, and it is clear that what you have are two identical but seperate, completely self-contained entities generating two seperate but similar selves. Two people instead of one.

Congratulations, Dr. Clone - you just re-discovered asexual reproduction.

[Correa Neto]

Back after a good night of sleep...

I posted the very samething on the other thread. Since I have no idea where the discussion will continue, here it is wit some add-ons at the end...

IIan,

The tough experiment you described is no different at all from those presented by the other posters. The results are quite similar, also. Yes, I could use less bandwidth and just say I agree with you, but I preffer to use those two sentences above:p

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
..snip...I honestly don't think there is anyway around this paradox apart from suggesting my own solution, namely that after duplication and before an Ian gets destroyed, in other words whilst there exist 2 Ians', I will simultaneously experience out of both of Ian's bodies. Otherwise materialism just generates an incoherency. [/QUOTE]

Here's where I, and AFAIK most other posters around disagree with IIan. I think this is one of the key points, and needs to be discussed more, since it is a disagreement between most of us and IIan - and is (one of the places) where IIan's argument crumbles. There is no paradox at all! At least not this particular one.

There are two IIan selves after duplication, at different XYZ coordinates. Both IIan selves are identical and produced by interactions between your brain, the hormones produced by your body and what's stored in your brain. They will start to differentiate at the moment they start to have different experiences. Still, both have the right to claim being IIan and both are.

And yes, you can claim that you will experience simultaneously what both IIans will experience, but just because both are IIans. But, if the IIan located at coordinates X1Y1Z1 drinks a beer, at time t=10, the IIan located at X2Y2Z2 can not possibly feel the taste unless get drinks it by himself! there is no communication between both IIan's neural systems. The only possible way would be to somehow link their brains and transmitt impulses from one to the other.

If your claim were true, during the cloned frongs experiment I proposed on the other thread, frog copy A would feel when frog B is stimulated. Note also that forms of cloning happens in nature, and we would have already detected such effects!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Star-trek teletranporters-

There's more than one episode where they malfunction in Star Trek. for example, Kirk was divided in two (one good and one bad) in TOS and an identical copy of Riker was made in TNG. OK, geekish demonstrations by by part aside, this was just tio show that it has already been addressed. And their conclusions- copy and original were both Riker. But they were independent individuals, with separate existences. Star Trek does not agrees with IIan.:p

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, we are completely substistuted by new material ever seven years or so. And we still have psichological continuity. So what? This does not denies materialism or is an evidence of a self detached from the body.

If our self is created by interplays between what's stored in our brain, our brain architecture and the hormones (among other substances) produced (or ingested) by our body, there would be no interruption if the substitution is slow say, by changing some molecules at time in our brain's neurons without messing with the data stored within them or just by making backups of the data in other neurons.

Note that our brain degrades with age and alcohol, among other things, and we start forgetting things at a point, and our behavior and personality -yes, the self- are affected by changes in the brain and even by hormonal unballances. Therefore materialism is true.

Besides, can you realy prove that there is psichological continuity of the self, rather than an illusion of continuity? Here's two analogies-

(i) The continuty as a mathematical equation's XY graph -say an parabole (pun intended)- composed of several individual results plotted on the screen. From a distance you'll see a continuous line, from up close, just dots.
(ii) The continuity as a bmp image. Increase magnification and there is no continuous image, but rather individual pixels.

Edited to add Its a bright sunny sunday out there and I'll soon get out to the beach to enjoy the day, so please don't be surprised if I do not post a reply soonEnd edit

[chance]

Interesting Ian
II> Looks like you fail to understand the words "sum probability of all other postions". chance>
Give me an example of what you mean by the “sum probability of all other positions� and we will se if its applicable to the situation. II> Throw a die (dice?). The probability of it landing on a 6 is 1/6. The sum probability of all other positions is (1/6th of a chance landing on a 1) + (1/6th of a chance landing on a 2) + (1/6th of a chance landing on a 3) + (1/6th of a chance landing on a 4) + (1/6th of a chance landing on a 5) = 5/6

Note that 5/6 is a greater probability than 1/6
Cool, Note that there is no difference philosophically between the ‘die’ (yes, you are correct that is the correct term) example and a deck of cards (pick one card) 1/52. The exercise could include a denominator of any size, scale you astonishment to the size of the denominator. As an example how astonished would you be if you did throw a 6? Not much is suspect.

Like I predicted on the first page, care to give odds on that prediction :), you have nothing in your argument other than argument from incredulity.

[Skeptic]

Because a physical thing is exhausted by its properties (no material substance). Create an exact duplicate of your brain you must create an exact duplicate. Destroying your original and creating a duplicate is no more murder (according to materialism) then taking a step to the left. So it can't be the actual physical stuff that is important. It's the processes that "stuff" carries out. [/B]

Well, for starters, the new duplicate "self" will lack psychological continuity with the old "self", unlike the self that takes a step to the left.

What makes psychological continuity is a difficult problem. Complete annihilation and reconstruction of a duplicate surely is enough to destroy it, but so are less drastic things, like becoming a "vegetable". I, for one, am not at all convinced that if someone has themselves cyrogenically frozen and some future technology revives him, that this 25th century (say) revived person will be the same self as the previous person who lived in the 21st century.

If I HAD to choose radical cyrogenic freezing for space travel or teleportation, I'd take my chance with the freezing than with the instant annihilation of the teleportation. But I would much rather not submit to either.

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
I know the original is dead. I agree it is. I'm not ressurecting it all. In your previous posts you were talking about the dead original's POV. I was just pointing out the fact that a dead person has no POV. I was asking you to make your argument without using the POV of a dead man - because a dead man has no POV. That's all.

Originally posted by Taffer
Think of it this way. Take you. Make a copy (you++). Both are alive. Both are exact copies. Now kill you. Do you (that is, the 'you' that is being created by the first brain) suddenly become you++? No.

Originally posted by Taffer
Before you were killed, were you experiencing life as two 'yous'? No.

Originally posted by Taffer
If not, then how does killing you mean you do not die? The way you are talking about it, you have to be living out of both yous before they are killed, then when you die 'you' becomes the other one. Obviously I do not agree with this and, if you think so, you are not understanding me. :(
I have said several times that they are identical but no the same.

I see you didn't comment on the scenario in my last post to you. Nevermind here is a better one. It is a variation of Ian's scenario

Suppose we have a duplicator that is able simultaneously and instantaneously to scan the original, vapourize it and create the duplicate from fresh molecules. Futhermore, it can do so without the original or the duplicate being aware of it. The duplicator flips a coin. Heads and the original gets replaced by a duplicate in the exact same position and orientation as the original. Tails nothing happens.

Okay..........it has just happened to you as you read this post.

Would you be able to tell?
If not, why would you not take the teleporter?

BJ

[BillyJoe]

Atlas,

Originally posted by Atlas
It's ALL that matters?!!? I think you have completely IANized your position. Oh, I thought you were about to insult me. :D

Originally posted by Atlas
What if it wasn't the Duplicator Police dragging OriginalBilly off to a nice clean disintegrator disposal unit, which I agree probably wouldn't bother either of us. What if it was al Queda, snatching you off the the street, beating you, OriginalBilly, to within an inch of your life and then beheading you live on Al Jazeera TV. Are we getting close to murder yet? You are being a little silly here, Atlas.
Original BillyJoe being painlessly vapourized is a little different from the scenario you have outlined. In the former, *BillyJoe* (i'm referring here to the self produced by Original BillyJoe's brain), ceases to exist, in the latter *BillyJoe* is tortured to within an inch of his life and beheaded. This is worth a life sentence.
In the former, however, *BillyJoe* is immediately replaced by....guess what?......*BillyJoe*.

Do you see what I'm getting at when I say that, in a sense (and I'm quoting), this is not murder, because *BillyJoe* still exists

BJ

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Skeptic

II
Because a physical thing is exhausted by its properties (no material substance). Create an exact duplicate of your brain you must create an exact duplicate. Destroying your original and creating a duplicate is no more murder (according to materialism) then taking a step to the left.[/B] So it can't be the actual physical stuff that is important. It's the processes that "stuff" carries out.

Skeptic
Well, for starters, the new duplicate "self" will lack psychological continuity with the old "self", unlike the self that takes a step to the left.


Indeed it would not. The duplicate self, at the point of duplication, has exactly the same psychological state.



What makes psychological continuity is a difficult problem. Complete annihilation and reconstruction of a duplicate surely is enough to destroy it,



No, even if the duplicate were not created until a 1000 years in the future, what would happen is your environment would suddenly disappear to be replaced by the environment of 3004. No feeling of any time would have passed. You would be psychologically continuous.

[BillyJoe]

Originally posted by Skeptic
What makes psychological continuity is a difficult problem. Complete annihilation and reconstruction of a duplicate surely is enough to destroy it.... Not if Materialism is true.


edit: Sorry, didn't see Ian's post.

[Z]

Suppose we have a duplicator that is able simultaneously and instantaneously to scan the original, vapourize it and create the duplicate from fresh molecules. Futhermore, it can do so without the original or the duplicate being aware of it. The duplicator flips a coin. Heads and the original gets replaced by a duplicate in the exact same position and orientation as the original. Tails nothing happens. Okay..........it has just happened to you as you read this post. Would you be able to tell? If not, why would you not take the teleporter?

IF heads and original, you would be dead. No further experiences whatsoever. IF heads and duplicate or tails, you would not notice at all. This doesn't mean that it doesn't matter, because the original person is dead and gone.

Consider this (sort of) diagram:

Original psychological/sensory continuity:

-----------------------------------------|X
Clone psychological/sensory continuity:
-----------------------------------------|------------------------>
where | is the point of cloning, -> is continuing experience into the future, and X is point of death.

Now from the clone's perspective (all else being the same) nothing happened. But from the original's perspective, nothing is happening anymore. There is absolutely no transfer of anything between original and clone except pattern itself, and the pattern of material is not the only determining factor of self, but also its logical XYZT coordinate. If you can't understand why this is completely consistant with materialism, then you're daft.

Notice how your arguments always hinge upon an environment and conditions being identical, and on the death of the original? This is because this highly artificial construct is the only one in which your 'continued sense of self' concept works properly. And it only does so for the newly made duplicate and various third-party observers. For the original, it becomes PLAINLY obvious if he has died.

So... when an amoeba divides into two amoeba, since they're completely identical including their memories (such as they are), are they both sharing experiences now? Or are they two seperate and distinct entities? Which one is the 'original'?

When you cut a worm in half, and each half becomes a new worm, same question.

What if (back to our super Sci-Fi world) you took half of Ian's brain out, and used advanced cloning techniques to create two identical brains (plus bodies to house them) from each brain half. Would these, then, both be the original self extended into two bodies?

[Atlas]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
You are being a little silly here, Atlas.
Original BillyJoe being painlessly vapourized is a little different from the scenario you have outlined. In the former, *BillyJoe* (i'm referring here to the self produced by Original BillyJoe's brain), ceases to exist, in the latter *BillyJoe* is tortured to within an inch of his life and beheaded. This is worth a life sentence.
In the former, however, *BillyJoe* is immediately replaced by....guess what?......*BillyJoe*.

Do you see what I'm getting at when I say that, in a sense (and I'm quoting), this is not murder, because *BillyJoe* still exists
BJ I absolutely get what you are saying. Until this thread I never thought about the implications of Materialism on life and consciousness. I really appreciate your insights and those of the other posters.

You accuse me of being silly and I was going for absurd :p , but no matter, you caught my point although I'm not sure you understood the timeframe.

Both abductions, (by the Duplicator Police and by al Queda), were taking place the day after your teleportation to Mars. Both had the same design, to extinguish OriginalBilly. One was more bloody, one was less. If one was not murder then neither should be.

Ever since you discussed the implications, in an early explanation, of the individual at the source surviving simultaneously with his off world duplicate I've had a dark scenario in mind.

I have imagined a company, Teleporter Inc., whose executives are all former Enron officials, still bent on providing the people a service in the most self enriching and unethical method possible.

They come up with a technology that duplicates matter, but it's not a cost effective technology to feed the world. They identify, however, extreme profit potential in the transportation industry. The one problem is that the apparatus doesn't exactly transport, it duplicates. But by installing a disintegrator module in the embarkation unit, the appearance of travel can be made very real.

As long as the people remain unaware of the actual workings of the machine and as long as there are no failures of the disintegrator module, Teleporter Inc. is hailed as a boon to mankind and a marvel of science and industry.

Of course, company executives know the technology and build themselves a personal unit that does not contain the disintegrator module in the embarkation unit. They go into hiding whenever they send duplicates off world to transact business. When the duplicates have completed their business and are ready to return home they use another company executive embarkation unit that is nothing more than a disintegrator module.

Thus, the executives continue in their original body and consciousness destroying all duplicates while all other travelers exist as their own latest duplicate.

My only problem with this storyline is, how to get the off world duplicate executives to step onto the embarkation disintegrator. The first duplicate might be fooled somehow, but since each duplicate knows what the original knows, he'll be aware that the original has done this before and plans the destruction of the duplicate.

It's possible that only the president/inventor of the machine can know the secret of it's operation. He would have to be a power mad capitalist bent on bringing the benefits of Materialism to a world steeped in its own religious superstition. Someone who realized that humanity wasn't about life. It was about consciousness! He would also probably need to be someone who didn't like to travel, otherwise he'd raise suspicions, don't you think?

In your replies to my earlier posts you have wriggled free from answering me directly by invoking the phrase, "in a sense" it's not murder. You do not plead innocence, just "in a sense".

What a boon to mankind this technology would represent if the people remained blissfully unaware of it's true workings. BillyJoe, would your moral compass lead you to bring it to the world as described if you could be assured that you could somehow keep that secret as the inventor and Founder of Teleporter Inc.

If not, isn't that a tacit admission not that there is a flaw in Materialism, but in your treatment of the implied equivalence of the consciousness of a duplicate and it's original? Although you say they are identical but not the same, up to this point you have been willing to dispose of the hypothetical original in favor of the hypothetical duplicate.

I agree that mechanistically there is equivalence, but humanistically, ethically, and legally Materialism has nothing to say about this equivalence. We follow our own moral compass in the treatment of each embodiment of consciousness.

By describing what I call mechanistic equivalence, have I captured the meaning of your phrase, "in a sense"?

[Atlas]

One more thing about Teleporter Inc.

If the pattern buffer information could be saved to disk as easily as it could be transmitted through space, Teleporter Inc might be able to get into the Jesus business, raising people from the dead.

How many of us would bury a family member if we could take the corpse in and have it replaced by a younger, living equivalent. Sure there would be some memory loss, the exact amount would depend on the time elapsed from the deceased's last teleportation.

Of course the corpse is not required for anything except appearances. If too much time had elapsed I'd recommend failure. We don't want the public to realize they are all just copies of copies. The only "successful" procedures should be allowed on individuals who had traveled within the last year. ;)

[Taffer]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Taffer,

In your previous posts you were talking about the dead original's POV. I was just pointing out the fact that a dead person has no POV. I was asking you to make your argument without using the POV of a dead man - because a dead man has no POV. That's all.

Ok, think of it like this. Up until time of clone/death, the original had a POV. Then when he is killed, his POV stops. Are you saying that, when a clone is made, his POV suddenly changes to that of the clone?


I see you didn't comment on the scenario in my last post to you. Nevermind here is a better one. It is a variation of Ian's scenario
BJ

Sorry, I didn't have time to answer in full, and I still don't (I should be doing assignments ;). I'll get to them, hold your horses!

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
IF heads and original, you would be dead. No further experiences whatsoeverWho would be dead?
Say we are talking about Zaayrdragon. We have OriginalZaayrdragon and DuplicateZaayrdragon. The self is a merely a particular pattern of neural activity. It is substrate neutral. *Zaayrdragon* exists in OriginalZaayrdragon's brain and *Zaayrdragon* exists in DuplicateZaayrdragon's brain. There are, of course, two *Zaayrdragon*s. As we said they are identical but not the same. But, from the point of view of *Zaayrdragon* all that matters is that there is *Zaayrdragon*. And if *Zaayrdragon* is the self produced by two brains (necessarily identical) then there are two *Zaayrdragon*s. They have equal legitimacy to the title not exclusive legitimacy to the title. But let's continue for a moment....

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
IF heads and Duplicate.....you would not notice at all. Would not notice what? That he had just come into existence? That *Zaayrdragon* had just come into existence? Well, guess what, I agree. *Zaayrdragon* existed before the point of duplication and *Zaayrdragon* continues to exist after the duplication. Nothing has changed for *Zaayrdragon*. The duplication has made totally no difference for *Zaayrdragon*. I am glad you agree with this.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Now from the [duplicate's] perspective (all else being the same) nothing happened. But from the original's perspective, nothing is happening anymore. But the original's perpective IS *zaayrdragon*. And we have just agreed (haven't we?) that "the duplication has made totally no difference for *Zaayrdragon*".

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
There is absolutely no transfer of anything between original and [duplicate] except pattern itself..... And it is the pattern alone that is important because the self is merely a pattern of neural activity. Nothing more and nothing less (from the point of view of Materialism)

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
...and the pattern of material is not the only determining factor of self, but also its logical XYZT coordinate. It is not relevant. That was the very point of this scenario, The XYZT coordinates are the same...... "the original gets replaced by a duplicate in the exact same position and orientation as the original".

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
If you can't understand why this is completely consistant with materialism, then you're daft. It really isn't Materialism, zaayrdragon. Your view is not Materialism because your are assuming (although you do not recognise this) the existence of an "essential self" or "essence of zaayrdragon". This is just another way of saying that the soul exists. No, there is just *zaayrdragon*, a particular pattern of neural activity. If there are two of these patterns, there are two *zaayrdragon*s, each with equal legitimacy, irrespective of position in time and space. If you want to know who YOU are, forget it, there is no soul. YOU are nowhere. YOU do not exist. There is just *zaayrdragon* or two *zaayrdragon*s as the case may be. This is Materialism.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Notice how your arguments always hinge upon an environment and conditions being identical, and on the death of the original? .The purpose of this is to try to clearly draw out why your interpretation must be incorrect.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
This is because this highly artificial construct is the only one in which your 'continued sense of self' concept works properly. My interpretation of Materialism works in all scenarios I have seen so far.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
And it only does so for the newly made duplicate and various third-party observers. For the original, it becomes PLAINLY obvious if he has died..Well, we are only interested in *Zaayrdragon* and *Zaayrdragon* continues to exist in all scenarios.

regards,
BillyJoe

[Z]

Wrong again, BJ.

In destroying zaayrdragon(original), you terminate its XYZT coordinate. zaayrdragon(duplicate) cannot be formed in XYZT(zaayrdragon) since matter cannot cooccupy the same space-time. So at best zaayrdragon(duplicate) must exist in XYZ(zaayrdragon)T(zaayrdragon)+1. This rates a difference, and therefore, a differentiating factor between original and duplicate.

Plus, just as with any program, integral continuity is key in existence. What you seem to be absolutely unable to understand is that original and clone are two seperate, different entities. They may share precise patterns at the onset of their beings, but they are nonetheless two different programs run by two different brains.

The only scenario in which your ideas even start to work are scenarios where the clone is unaware of his status, and where the original is destroyed. Otherwise, it becomes patently clear that you now have two beings, each under the appellation of 'zaayrdragon', but both considerably different, from several points of view.

Do you think every caucasian named 'Bob Denver' plays the guitar and wears glasses?

Temporal continuity of awareness is as much a factor of 'self', and as much a materialistic factor, as the pattern-state.

Honestly, your argument crumbles if any variables are altered - mine does not. Consider.

[Interesting Ian]

BillyJoe,

Are there any sophisticated materialists who would agree with Taffer, zaayrdragon et al?? It seems to me that materialism cannot be reconciled with what they say, but I wonder if their position has any intellectual champions so to speak?

Personally I would doubt there are any such defenders of this position, but there again I am continually being astounded by what materialists say.

[BillyJoe]

Originally posted by Atlas
I absolutely get what you are saying. Until this thread I never thought about the implications of Materialism on life and consciousness. I really appreciate your insights and those of the other posters. Well, thanks, but I 'm not sure I have been a good teacher because......

Originally posted by Atlas
I have imagined a company [that] comes up with a technology that duplicates matter....The one problem is that the apparatus doesn't exactly transport, it duplicates. But by installing a disintegrator module in the embarkation unit, the appearance of travel can be made very real. What difference does it make? *Atlas* still gets to travel.

Originally posted by Atlas
Of course, company executives know the technology and build themselves a personal unit that does not contain the disintegrator module in the embarkation unit. They go into hiding whenever they send duplicates off world to transact business. When the duplicates have completed their business and are ready to return home they use another company executive embarkation unit that is nothing more than a disintegrator module.The selves produced in the brains of the original executives do not get to travel. The selves produced in the brains in the duplicate executives do get to travel but they then die.

Originally posted by Atlas
In your replies to my earlier posts you have wriggled free from answering me directly by invoking the phrase, "in a sense" it's not murder. You do not plead innocence, just "in a sense". All I meant is that, according to *BillyJoe*, no murder has occurred. There was one *BillyJoe* before the duplication, and there is one *BillyJoe* after the duplication. No problem at all for *BillyJoe*.
If no vapourization had occurred, there would be one *BillyJoe*, before the duplication but two *BillyJoe*s after the duplication.
In the former, according to *BillyJoe*, nothing has changed. In the latter, according to each *BillyJoe*, his life is now more complicated because he has another *BillyJoe* to contend with legitimately laying claim to *BillyJoe*s wife, family and friends.

Originally posted by Atlas
What a boon to mankind this technology would represent if the people remained blissfully unaware of it's true workings. BillyJoe, would your moral compass lead you to bring it to the world as described if you could be assured that you could somehow keep that secret as the inventor and Founder of Teleporter Inc. The details woulkd be made clear to all who used the teleporter. I they did not understand that it makes no difference (all those dualists and idealists), they do not have to avail themselves of the technology. However I would be hopeful that the experience of those who did avail themselves of the teleporter (the materialists :) ), would convince those others to leave their ideology behind as they step into the teleporter.

Originally posted by Atlas
If not, isn't that a tacit admission not that there is a flaw in Materialism, but in your treatment of the implied equivalence of the consciousness of a duplicate and it's original? Although you say they are identical but not the same, up to this point you have been willing to dispose of the hypothetical original in favor of the hypothetical duplicate. Because, *BillyJoe* lives on. That is all that matters. Two *BillyJoe*s are just an unneccessary, awkward complication (see above).

Originally posted by Atlas
I agree that mechanistically there is equivalence, but humanistically, ethically, and legally Materialism has nothing to say about this equivalence. We follow our own moral compass in the treatment of each embodiment of consciousness.Since we are talking about *BillyJoe*, I think we should consider what would be best for *BillyJoe*. For *BillyJoe*, I think it would be preferable that there was only one *BillyJoe*. Like there was before the duplication. I really don't see a problem.

Originally posted by Atlas
By describing what I call mechanistic equivalence, have I captured the meaning of your phrase, "in a sense"? I think I have explained this above.

regards,
BillyJoe

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
In destroying zaayrdragon(original), you terminate its XYZT coordinate. zaayrdragon(duplicate) cannot be formed in XYZT(zaayrdragon) since matter cannot cooccupy the same space-time. So at best zaayrdragon(duplicate) must exist in XYZ(zaayrdragon)T(zaayrdragon)+1. This rates a difference, and therefore, a differentiating factor between original and duplicate. If OriginalZaayrdragon had not been destroyed, his next coordinate would be X,Y,Z,T+1. This is the exact same coordinate of DuplicateZaayrdragon when he comes into existence. This means there is a continuity in *Zaayrdragon*.
Again, I don't think that is important anyway.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Plus, just as with any program, integral continuity is key in existence. What you seem to be absolutely unable to understand is that original and clone are two seperate, different entities. They may share precise patterns at the onset of their beings, but they are nonetheless two different programs run by two different brains. Well, in fact, I do understand this and I agree with it.
But for *BillyJoe*, it is important only that a neural pattern called *BillyJoe* exists. If there two *BillyJoe*s, the same applies. But it's a friggin' nuisance for each, because there is only one wife and family and job. And both lay legitimate claim to them all. Bummer!

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
The only scenario in which your ideas even start to work are scenarios where the [duplicate] is unaware of his status, and where the original is destroyed. Otherwise, it becomes patently clear that you now have two beings, each under the appellation of 'zaayrdragon', but both considerably different, from several points of view. But we agree don't we that the original and duplicate are identical for only a moment. Therafter their different experiences will mean that they will immediately diverge. It is only after having further experiences that the original and duplicate will know which is the original and which is the duplicate. This is exactly the reason why I think these more restricted scenarios tell us more accurately what is happening. It removes complicating and distrating varibles. Just like in any well designed scientific experiment where attempts are made to reduce variables.
Materialism works in all scenarios, provided you understand what Materialism implies for the probelm of *identity*.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Do you think every caucasian named 'Bob Denver' plays the guitar and wears glasses?What a strange question, zaayrdragon. What prompts this diversion?

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Temporal continuity of awareness is as much a factor of 'self', and as much a materialistic factor, as the pattern-state. No, it is not. Consider when you go to sleep or get knocked unconscious. When you awaken, there has been a temporal discontinuity, but you are still *zaayrdragon*

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Honestly, your argument crumbles if any variables are altered - mine does not. Consider. No, it only makes it harder to see what is going on. The proper way to fucus the mind on a problem is to reduce distracting and complicating variables. In these scenarios, my arguement shines. :)

regards,
BillyJoe

[Atlas]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Do you think every caucasian named 'Bob Denver' plays the guitar and wears glasses?

Not me...

http://www.bobdenver.com/islandBob1.jpg

But everyone named John Denver probably would - maybe not.

http://www.kaibab.org/gc/misc/j_denver.jpg

[BillyJoe]

Ian,

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
BillyJoe,

Are there any sophisticated materialists who would agree with Taffer, zaayrdragon et al?? It seems to me that materialism cannot be reconciled with what they say, but I wonder if their position has any intellectual champions so to speak? In fact, I doubt that there are, because it quite clearly is not materialism.
Before the light switched on for me suddenly a couple of years ago, my intuitive response to the teleporter experiment was very similar to theirs. The only difference was that I knew that it was not consistent with materialism. It was just that I could not see how to reconcile the problem of personal identity with materialism.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Personally I would doubt there are any such defenders of this position, but there again I am continually being astounded by what materialists say. That's nothing compared with Idealists. :D

regards,
BillyJoe

[Atlas]

BillyJoe,

I don't know quite what to think of all this. While Zaayrdragon and Taffer and I are willing to concede the mechanical aspects of Materialistic "cloning" as we've been discussing on these pages, you seem unwilling or unable to see the moral dimension as we do.

This is particularly disconcerting to me. Try as I might I cannot help but notice your callous disregard for hypothetical people. Perhaps it comes from living with marsupials, I don't know. But up here, well, if it weren't for hypothetical people, I'd have no friends at all. I wish you could be more sensitive to that. :mad:

I know you haven't said this but one of the "logical?" extensions of your Moral/Materialism is that people in a coma or suffering the onset of Alzheimers are candidates for euthanasia. After all, their conscious sense of self is "all that matters" and let's face it - it ain't there no more.

I keep trying to come up with examples that will illuminate the demarcation between the moral dimension and purely philosophical one but you intentionally fuzz it up. So far your moral argument for destroying an Original or a Duplicate is that it would be "inconvenient" to have two. Certain supremacists have articulated a similar argument against whole classes of people as "it's inconvenient to have any."

I sure do wish you'd reconsider your argument combining the natural and moral implications of Materialism. Every time you dispose of somebody it makes me cry, "There goes another imaginary friend I'll never have."

(Since my appeals to reason have had little effect, this new tactic is an appeal to your sense of weirdness. Perhaps it will be a little more convincing.)

[BillyJoe]

Atlas,

Originally posted by Atlas
I don't know quite what to think of all this. While Zaayrdragon and Taffer and I are willing to concede the mechanical aspects of Materialistic "cloning" as we've been discussing on these pages, you seem unwilling or unable to see the moral dimension as we do. But we are, in fact, disagreeing about the materialist interpretation of *identity*. So it's no wonder we disagree about the moral dimension.

Originally posted by Atlas
This is particularly disconcerting to me. Try as I might I cannot help but notice your callous disregard for hypothetical people. Perhaps it comes from living with marsupials, I don't know. But up here, well, if it weren't for hypothetical people, I'd have no friends at all. I wish you could be more sensitive to that. :mad: I like your style, Atlas, that was good. :)

Originally posted by Atlas
I know you haven't said this but one of the "logical?" extensions of your Moral/Materialism is that people in a coma or suffering the onset of Alzheimers are candidates for euthanasia. After all, their conscious sense of self is "all that matters" and let's face it - it ain't there no more. No, I was talking about *BillyJoe*. *BillyJoe* believes that *BillyJoe* survives the destructive teleporter. And it is *BillyJoe* in the original making the decision to enter the destructive teleporter. He is not demanding that others must do so.
(In fact, I did say that the details of how the teleporter operates must be openly explained to all. But, then, I do have a vested interest: I only want to see materialists - TRUE materialists ;) - taking that holiday. :D )

Originally posted by Atlas
I keep trying to come up with examples that will illuminate the demarcation between the moral dimension and purely philosophical one but you intentionally fuzz it up. So far your moral argument for destroying an Original or a Duplicate is that it would be "inconvenient" to have two. Certain supremacists have articulated a similar argument against whole classes of people as "it's inconvenient to have any." But it is only *BillyJoe* deciding for *BillyJoe* what is best for *BillyJoe*. I still do not see a problem.

Originally posted by Atlas
I sure do wish you'd reconsider your argument combining the natural and moral implications of Materialism. Every time you dispose of somebody it makes me cry, "There goes another imaginary friend I'll never have." :D
This reminds me of my natural-born-sceptic son who, in Kindergarten, announced matter-of-factly to his friend who believed in faeries, that faeries are not real. His friend said that, every time he said that, a faery died. It worried my son a great deal that he had upset his friend. He was telling me this when suddenly he announced: "I know, I'll just tell him that I DO believe in faeries!"
(True story)

Originally posted by Atlas
(Since my appeals to reason have had little effect, this new tactic is an appeal to your sense of weirdness. Perhaps it will be a little more convincing.) I liked it a lot, Atlas. But it is still incorrect. ;)

regards,
BillyJoe

[Taffer]

BillyJoe. Please explain to me how your conciousness can jump from earth to mars in the transporter example. From your argument as I understand it, all that is required is an exact duplicate brian. From your reasoning, if an exact duplicate brain was created and you were still alive, then you would 'experience' existance out of two bodies. It is the only way to think of it from your argument. However, if this does not happen, then how can your 'conciousness' 'travel' from earth to mars? And by this I mean go to sleep on earth, wake up on mars from your bloody view point.

[TillEulenspiegel]

Cheebus did I wander into the wrong place!!!
Come on Harvey....

[Lithrael]

Uh.. I'm utterly lost as to what the question is.

I don't understand how the creation of two identical copies of anything creates a logical problem. At all. Sure, a problem of what the extra copy gets to do for a living, but that's a different question isn't it?

Nor do I understand what the difference would possibly be between an 'original' and an 'exact copy.'

Or what the problem could possibly be in the original teleportation question.

Is the whole point of the thing to figure out whether you think all of a person's identity is purely physical? I do.. so what's the question once that part's settled? I mean, yeah it would suck for the 'deconstructed' version but if that exact identity lives on, then what's lost? It seems to me that nothing's lost.. it would only be traumatic if the new copy had to see the old one get hideously quantumboiled or something... which is still a different issue than the one the question raises, right?

As for the moral implications of destroying the extra copy - I've always figured it's the identity that's the important part in human life. People lose some squeamishness about allowing people to die when they're braindead, cause the identity's gone. With an exact copy, you don't lose the identity cause one copy of it lives on. I don't see that becoming a moral problem unless both copies got to go on living and laying down new experiences, allowing the identities to diverge. Then they would become two different people, and no longer be two identical copies of the same person.

At the moment of duplication there are two copies of one individual and only one copy of that individual must continue living.

If you say that both copies have to live because each has the *potential* to become an individual, then you probably feel the same way about zygotes and I don't want to talk to you.

To be honest, if there was some kind of glitch and it created two permanent me's, I'd want someone standing by to chloroform and gank me quick- I like myself, I don't want to fight me for my stuff. It would be wierd... it would be *really* wierd... but I would still see that other me, as me- and I'd rather there only be one me, even if I had to be the one to go ;) And imagining it.. If it was face-to-face, I don't think I'd even be all that distressed, to look at that other me there, and give up my life, just to keep other-me's life running smoothly. Everything that I like about me, everything that's important to me, would still be going on.

Wow.. that actually makes me feel really good. Wierd.

On the other hand if my sweetie wanted identical twin hott luvrs and there was enough moolah to go around, it would be neat to stay and have two of me, too ;) Sounds like there'd have to be some sort of pre-teleport-ey contract in case of glitches so people can decide what they want to do.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lithrael
[B]Uh.. I'm utterly lost as to what the question is.

I don't understand how the creation of two identical copies of anything creates a logical problem. At all. Sure, a problem of what the extra copy gets to do for a living, but that's a different question isn't it?



If you don't understand why people are puzzled by the scenario, then what is your purpose in contributing to this thread?

[Lithrael]

Cause I wanted to know why people were puzzled. I PM'd a couple folks yesterday but nobody replied so I took it public.

The first bit of my post was the question part, and then I started to ramble on about the ethics-of-duplication part (which I *do* understand people wanting to chew over, but wasn't and still am not sure has anything to do with the original question)...

It's all the X2 != X1+ T+1000 stuff that I was looking at and going 'bwa?' and wondering what people were on about. And why on earth anyone would think that one self would operate out of two identical brains, rather than two identical selves.

I... didn't fully realise everyone has to have a purpose, in order to talk here, beyond wanting to talk about whatever the topic was. My apologies.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Lithrael
Cause I wanted to know why people were puzzled. I PM'd a couple folks yesterday but nobody replied so I took it public.

The first bit of my post was the question part, and then I started to ramble on about the ethics-of-duplication part (which I *do* understand people wanting to chew over, but wasn't and still am not sure has anything to do with the original question)...

It's all the X2 != X1+ T+1000 stuff that I was looking at and going 'bwa?' and wondering what people were on about. And why on earth anyone would think that one self would operate out of two identical brains, rather than two identical selves.

I... didn't fully realise everyone has to have a purpose, in order to talk here, beyond wanting to talk about whatever the topic was. My apologies.

I just get a bit tired of people making vacuous posts, that's all. But don't let it worry you, the vast majority of people on here make vacuous posts also.

[Atlas]

Hi Lithrael,

Welcome to the forum. You're doing fine. Interesting Ian is tendentious and generally argumentative. That's what makes him interesting. Consider yourself baptized.

Before this thread I had never stopped to consider many of the scenarios that Materialism implies with this "atomic reconstruction yields a duplicate consciousness" idea.

I've always suspected in the back of my mind that an atomic reconstruction would yield a corpse and that life itself was a force of nature like electromagnetism that science had yet to identify and quantify through experiment. Even after I stopped believing in the soul I carried that residual concept.

Now in this discussion I am presented with a chance to think about my self and identity in a new way. You seem close to BillyJoe in your idea. Original, Duplicate what does it matter?

I can't seem to get on board with that. I see 2 human beings, each with consciousness, each with survival instinct. The duplicate is more like a twin than a disposable human. What happens to human rights? I can't believe you would really blithely step into a disintegrator so that your impostor could party on, just because having a twin would be weird, man. It doesn't make any sense.

I sure do have fun thinking up different scenarios. My latest involves a man who asks his loving, beautiful, and devoted wife to step into the snapshot chamber. Here he records her atomic information and stores it on disk.

Later that day something horrible happens. She finds out that he is really a murdering rapist pedophile, or perhaps she is involved in a disfiguring car accident. Anyway, to her husband she is suddenly considerably less desirable.

Fortunately, he can disintegrate the undesirable original and replace her with a very desirable duplicate.

Is there anything wrong with him making his family unit happy again? Yah somebody gets snuffed but an amoral materialism has it's duplicate consciousness - is it a net zero which yields happiness?

Every way I look at this teleporter/duplicator problem I come away with 2 impressions...

1) What the people don't know makes for a brighter happier world.
2) It's wrong, wrong, wrong.

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
BillyJoe. Please explain to me how your conciousness can jump from earth to mars in the transporter example. My self does not jump anywhere because I do not even exist (There is no soul/spirit/essence that has a self). All there is is *BillyJoe*. *BillyJoe* is a particular pattern of neural activity. *BillyJoe* is in the original on Earth before the duplication and *BillyJoe* is in the duplicate after the duplication. *BillyJoe* doesn't jump from Earth to Mars. *BillyJoe* is the particular pattern of neural activity in the original and in the duplicate.
Am I making any sense?

Originally posted by Taffer
From your argument as I understand it, all that is required is an exact duplicate brian. All that is required is an exact duplicate pattern of neural activity.

Originally posted by Taffer
From your reasoning, if an exact duplicate brain was created [B]and you were still alive[/B.....You are still using that word "you" as if it is something separate from a self. You are saying that that "you" has a self. I am saying that that "you" doesn't exist. There is only a self, not a "you" to have a self.
Am I getting any clearer?

Originally posted by Taffer
.....then you would 'experience' existance out of two bodies. If the original survives the duplication, then there is *BillyJoe* (that pattern of neural activity) in the brain of the original and *BillyJoe* (that pattern of neural activity) in the brain of the duplicate. I am not experiencing out of both bodies. I am not experiencing out of either body. I do not exist. All that exists is *BillyJoe* and there are two of them, identical but not the same.

Originally posted by Taffer
It is the only way to think of it from your argument. However, if this does not happen, then how can your 'conciousness' 'travel' from earth to mars? And by this I mean go to sleep on earth, wake up on mars from your bloody view point. From my bloody view point? :D
If it is any consolation it is equally frustrating not being able to clearly articulate my viewpoint.

regards,
BillyJoe.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Originally posted by Taffer
BillyJoe. Please explain to me how your conciousness can jump from earth to mars in the transporter example.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My self does not jump anywhere because I do not even exist (There is no soul/spirit/essence that has a self). All there is is *BillyJoe*. *BillyJoe* is a particular pattern of neural activity. *BillyJoe* is in the original on Earth before the duplication and *BillyJoe* is in the duplicate after the duplication. *BillyJoe* doesn't jump from Earth to Mars. *BillyJoe* is the particular pattern of neural activity in the original and in the duplicate.
Am I making any sense?


Yes and I've thought of a better way of conveying the idea. Let's suppose that reverse time travel is impossible (which I believe). Now let's imagine a teletransporter which doesn't transport you to a different place (mars or wherever) but rather to a different point in time. Suppose 500 years ago in 1504 someone reproduces the exact you at the moment you get vaporized in 2004. So here you appear to jump suddenly from 2004 to 1504! But of course you didn't really jump through time because reverse time travel is impossible.

[BillyJoe]

Atlas,

Originally posted by Atlas
I've always suspected in the back of my mind that an atomic reconstruction would yield a corpse and that life itself was a force of nature like electromagnetism that science had yet to identify and quantify through experiment. Even after I stopped believing in the soul I carried that residual concept. Unfortunately, I don't think you are alone.

Originally posted by Atlas
Now in this discussion I am presented with a chance to think about my self and identity in a new way. You seem close to BillyJoe in your idea. Original, Duplicate what does it matter? Depending on the interpretation of some of his phrases, I think we are on the same wavelength.
BTW, Ian was only reprimanding him for not understanding why people are puzzled. In this I differ from Lithrael, because I can see clearly the puzzlement because I've been there myself.

Originally posted by Atlas
I can't seem to get on board with that. I see 2 human beings, each with consciousness, each with survival instinct. The duplicate is more like a twin than a disposable human. What happens to human rights? I can't believe you would really blithely step into a disintegrator so that your impostor could party on, just because having a twin would be weird, man. It doesn't make any sense. I see you didn't understand my explanation then. :(


And you new scenario......

Originally posted by Atlas
I sure do have fun thinking up different scenarios. My latest involves a man who asks his loving, beautiful, and devoted wife to step into the snapshot chamber. Here he records her atomic information and stores it on disk.

Later that day something horrible happens. She finds out that he is really a murdering rapist pedophile, or perhaps she is involved in a disfiguring car accident. Anyway, to her husband she is suddenly considerably less desirable.

Fortunately, he can disintegrate the undesirable original and replace her with a very desirable duplicate.

Is there anything wrong with him making his family unit happy again? Yah somebody gets snuffed but an amoral materialism has it's duplicate consciousness - is it a net zero which yields happiness?Let us call this self *Sally*.
*Sally* gets stored in memory. *Sally* remains unchanged from that point on until the "duplication". *Sally* in the brain of the man's wife, however, does change and, at the time of the"duplication", is now *Sally₂₇₈₉*, for example. At the so called "duplication", *Sally₂₇₈₉* is terminated and not replaced. This is murder pure and simple. *Sally* is duplicated but *Sally* is not *Sally₂₇₈₉*.

Originally posted by Atlas
Every way I look at this teleporter/duplicator problem I come away with 2 impressions...

1) What the people don't know makes for a brighter happier world.
2) It's wrong, wrong, wrong. No. Everyone must know exactly what is going on and agree to destructive duplication. If Materialism is correct there is no problem with the destructive duplication. Does anyone understand?

despairing,
BillyJoe.

[Z]

You know, the response of "Does anyone understand?" is most often an indicator of being wrong.

The problems here, BJ, are that you are assuming that materialism doesn't allow for any individualization of awareness, which we know isn't true, considering that twins and other genetic near-duplicates (in some cases, total duplicates) are individually aware. Further, the assumption is that any given individual awareness of self, which is the product of a certain bio-mass at a certain specific space-time coordinate, will gladly sacrifice itself for the continuance of an identical awareness of self produced by a different bio-mass at a different space-time coordinate under the assumption that externally apparent continuity of 'self' is more important than internally apparent continuity of 'self'.

The second concept makes a broad assumption that the first concept is true, which we know is false. Further, the second concept ignores 'survival instinct', which never developed the 'good of the species over individual good' concept very well. Or, to clarify, the basic nature of the biomass producing each individual self is hard-wired to cause that biomass to protect its own existance and to reproduce as much as possible. Not to protect its 'external sense of self' but its 'internal sense of self', which in this case means to protect the individual biomass generating this particular 'self'.

Materialist theory suggests that everything is matter (by definition, matter/energy), not that every identical combination of matter is the same. In searching the various literature, I can find no materialist who claims that every precise arrangement of bio-matter will be the same person; not one suggests that every twin is the same person, nor do any suggest that every creature that reproduces through precise genetic replication ('budding') is simply creating a number of same selves. The notion of 'replicating' a certain biomass with all appropriate properties is no different from generating a 'twin'. There would be a certain attraction to the idea of replication because this would be a new form of reproduction, but not of destructive replication, because this would entail a pointless form of suicide. What guarantees that individual X-243 would, in fact, be successfully generated when individual X-243 is destroyed on Earth? What if something went wrong, and no being emerged whatsoever? Individual X-243 would be dead, end of subject. Creating a new X-243 would in no way resurrect the original X-243; only generate a new individual X-243 who would be an all-new person with falsely implanted memories.

Again, if you alter any of the conditions of the teletrans scenario, it becomes plainly clear that no 'transportation' is occuring at all; merely reproduction, which means generation of a new life-form. Only by strictly limiting the conditions of the thought experiment does materialism in any way appear to be threatened; this is, of course, merely an illusion crafted from a set of conditions designed to cause such an illusion to occur.

Notice, gentle reader, how those arguing against materialism are required to make specific restrictions upon each scenario to prevent the realization of actual conditions from occuring! "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Materialism is false!"

Pshaw.

Again, I say, with certainty, alter the conditions of the scenario and explain why Materialism is refuted. I say it cannot be done. Materialism cannot be refuted for the simple fact that matter/energy is all that is; nothing else has ever been observed, nor can ever be observed. The keen awareness of 'self' that each individual possesses is another matter/energy construct comprised in part of the aggragated memories of the individual and a number of biochemical reactions occuring throughout the mind/body union. Nothing more, whatsoever.

(Just as a side-note, Gentle Reader, this isn't my personal viewpoint. Personally, I agree that there is some sort of non-material, non-energy, non-real component to Self which is both independant of and integral to the mind/body; that it carries with it some aspect of memory, but is influenced heavily by the mind/body it inhabits; and that it cannot be reproduced by any 'real'/'material' means. However, I also recognize that this is an illogical belief, not a factual truth. Just remember - proof denies faith.)

[Atlas]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
I see you didn't understand my explanation then. :(
Well there is "understand" and there is deep resonating comprehension. I understand it but it doesn't resonate with me.

I don't know what is exactly holding me back.

Pardon me now as I sift through my personal history for a corresponding shift point.

I was a good Christian once and a good Buddhist once. I was taken by the magic of the subjective experience. That is a world dominated by feeling. Guilt is big one. Especially coming out of Christianity.

Joseph Campbell said something that had resonance. In order to attain the spiritual experience, enlightenment, God, whatever... the last obstacle that you must overcome is the mask of God.

It hit me like a ton of bricks and I knew exactly what it meant. I mean, I'm in a totally different place now and it's strange to say this, but I probably couldn't have gotten here without that bit of profundity. It was like a permission slip to leave the rigidity of the classroom, journey the hallways and drop all the ***** I was carrying in a private stall.

Ah, I love talking religion.

Eventually I emerged into the fresh air of the material world. (People always complain that I take too much time in there.)

Here's the deal BillyJoe. If you're a Christian and you're doing it right there is a great deal of psychological benefit. You don't have to think hard. There's a wonderful guy within a prayer's breath who has promised to take care of you. And let's not not forget the big reward if you can just die in a state of grace.

I make it sound tempting don't I.

What am I building to? Well I think it's this. I'm no longer in love with death. And a Christian, well I'm sure they would argue with me, but I'm gonna phrase this like you BillyJoe, in a sense a Christian is in love with death. That's what they live for.

It's something I left behind. *I* live, *I* get one chance, and then it's the grave.

But for me, the material self is still locked on a fact. *I* am locked, brain and body are "self".

It doesn't matter to me that a brain produces a "self". A brain doesn't exist without a body. Furthermore, another brain, another body, yields another self. My self is not "Identical" to a duplicate self made of different atoms. But I "understand" how you can say it is. In fact, I marvel at it.

But, I'm not there.

Perhaps I can get there if Joseph Campbell is duplicated and utters some magic words that let me walk down the hall to my favorite stall. But even then it'll take me some time to purge everything I hold dear.

You did a pretty good impression of Joseph Campbell. You preached that I must get past my last obstacle, the mask of "self" and I was ready. I thought I was ready. I got stuck on a love of death. How beautifully wonderful it would be for all of us to step onto the disintegrators and give over our consciousness to our impostors. Ok, bad phraseology. Um... To attain conscious continuance in a reconstructed IDENTITY.

I recoil at the religiosity of it. It's death and resurrection but with a Materialist spin. I don't trust it.

I am thankful that the impossibleness of the hypothetical examples we've discussed lets me remain agnostic. Hammegk twisted me up like this once and I had to admit to him and myself that I make a bad atheist. Ain't that a helluva thing? To have the "faith" of an atheist, but still not able to put it all together. There is an Idealistic component to my thinking that I'm unable to shake and I find I like it there. It's such a tiny voice compared to what it used to be, but I still hear it squeek, "Save me". What am I supposed to do.

Keep passing the prunes my way BillyJoe. I may make that trip yet.

Originally posted by BillyJoe
And you new scenario......

Let us call this self *Sally*.
*Sally* gets stored in memory. *Sally* remains unchanged from that point on until the "duplication". *Sally* in the brain of the man's wife, however, does change and, at the time of the"duplication", is now *Sally₂₇₈₉*, for example. At the so called "duplication", *Sally₂₇₈₉* is terminated and not replaced. This is murder pure and simple. *Sally* is duplicated but *Sally* is not *Sally₂₇₈₉*.

Everyone must know exactly what is going on and agree to destructive duplication. If Materialism is correct there is no problem with the destructive duplication. Does anyone understand?

despairing,
BillyJoe. I had despaired of ever making you see any aspect of murder in the transfer of consciousness, that's why I wrote this to Lithrael. Ain't the universe funny. Sometimes to get what you want, you have to give up trying.

So enjoy this moment of despair. Good things might be ready to happen.

Hey... we might have positive influences on each other. That's a nice thought to end with.

[Atlas]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Atlas,

your new scenario......

Let us call this self *Sally*.
*Sally* gets stored in memory. *Sally* remains unchanged from that point on until the "duplication". *Sally* in the brain of the man's wife, however, does change and, at the time of the"duplication", is now *Sally₂₇₈₉*, for example. At the so called "duplication", *Sally₂₇₈₉* is terminated and not replaced. This is murder pure and simple. *Sally* is duplicated but *Sally* is not *Sally₂₇₈₉*.
BillyJoe. I want to add something. I agree that this murders *Sally₂₇₈₉*. What we might explore is the difference between Sally and the BillyJoe who teleported to Mars but whose Original was not immediately destroyed. That Original BillyJoe went home, watched TV, went to bed, and in the morning was visited by the Duplicator Police who apologetically dragged him off to the disintegrator chamber to correct the screw up.

BillyJoe is different from Sally in 2 ways.
1) No lifechanging consciousnes changing traumatic effect struck BillyJoe
2) BillyJoe is a Materialist who accepts that his consciousness is probably still alive somewhere on Mars.

I don't think either of these 2 reasons make any difference. One Original BillyJoe and one Original Sally get snuffed.

But I did want to reiterate, I certainly agree that duplication with informed personal destruction is in a different class. It's much more like suicide to me than murder.

I almost prefer the uninformed destructive duplication. The consciousness continues without any of these messy questions to consider. I would almost wish to change the laws on murder to allow it, except for one thing... it would mean there was a Democrat in the White House. :p

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

I have read your last post and, first up, I have this to say....

I am not refuting Materialism in this thread.
I am refuting that you are using Materialist concepts in your discussion of *identity* in this thread.
You acknowledge now, what I have suspected all along, that you believe in some form of soul/spirit/essence.
I think that your belief is not allowing you to see the arguments from the POV of Materialism (without that soul/spirit/essence bit).
Finally, I think you owe Taffer an apology, because I don't think his soul/spirit/essence is as overt as yours and you may have led him up the garden path letting him to think that you are a real Materialist.

Anyway.....

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
You know, the response of "Does anyone understand?" is most often an indicator of being wrong. Well, I wasn't saying that to the whole wide world, just a few short people on this miserable little thread. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
The problems here, BJ, are that you are assuming that materialism doesn't allow for any individualization of awareness, which we know isn't true, considering that twins and other genetic near-duplicates (in some cases, total duplicates) are individually aware. I emphatically deny that this is what I have been saying. I have repeatedly said that they are identical but NOT the same. How much clearer can I be?
What I am saying is that it doesn't matter!

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Further, the assumption is that any given individual awareness of self, which is the product of a certain bio-mass at a certain specific space-time coordinate, will gladly sacrifice itself for the continuance of an identical awareness of self produced by a different bio-mass at a different space-time coordinate under the assumption that externally apparent continuity of 'self' is more important than internally apparent continuity of 'self'. I emphatically deny that this is what I have been saying. I have nowhere stated that there is any self sacrifice going on here. In fact, I have repeatedly denied that there is. That is my whole point, Goddamn. And nowhere have I stated that the "continuity of selves" are the same or even identical. Only the instantaneous selves at the time of duplication are identical.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
The second concept makes a broad assumption that the first concept is true, which we know is false....... Okay, neither of us believes in either. So let's move on....

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Further, the second concept ignores 'survival instinct', which never developed the 'good of the species over individual good' concept very well. Or, to clarify, the basic nature of the biomass producing each individual self is hard-wired to cause that biomass to protect its own existance and to reproduce as much as possible. Not to protect its 'external sense of self' but its 'internal sense of self', which in this case means to protect the individual biomass generating this particular 'self'. Well, I disagree but that is a different topic entirely. Suffice to mention obvious altruistic qualities such as the mothering instinct.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Materialist theory suggests that everything is matter (by definition, matter/energy), not that every identical combination of matter is the same. In searching the various literature, I can find no materialist who claims that every precise arrangement of bio-matter will be the same person; not one suggests that every twin is the same person, nor do any suggest that every creature that reproduces through precise genetic replication ('budding') is simply creating a number of same selves. No, not the same self, just identical selves. But that is besides the point because there is no soul/spirit/essence to have a self. There is only the self.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
destructive replication.....would entail a pointless form of suicide. What guarantees that individual X-243 would, in fact, be successfully generated when individual X-243 is destroyed on Earth? What if something went wrong, and no being emerged whatsoever? Individual X-243 would be dead, end of subject. Yes, of course.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Creating a new X-243 would in no way resurrect the original X-243; only generate a new individual X-243 who would be an all-new person with falsely implanted memories.So you say. But it is NOT consistent with the following observation...
When someone goes to sleep, or when someone is knocked unconscious, or when someone is resuscitated from being brain dead, the self is discontinuous in time, place and pattern. Do you agree? Surely you do. The self before the period of coma is in a different time and place from the self after the period of coma. And, of course, the pattern of neural activity must also be different. What then connects the self before and the self after the period of coma? Memories? That must be a big factor. The self after the coma has memories shared with the self before the coma. That is basicly the connection between them. How is this different, then, from the situation between the original and the duplicate? Unless you are saying the actual body/brain is important. Tell me you are not saying that!

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
....with falsely implanted memories.Both qualifiers are incorrect. If the memories were implanted, weren't they correctly implanted? But they are not implanted are they? They are the result of the pattern of neural activity in the brain.
So what do you mean by this phrase exactly? Not that it matters really.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Again, if you alter any of the conditions of the teletrans scenario, it becomes plainly clear that no 'transportation' is occuring at all; merely reproduction, which means generation of a new life-form. Only by strictly limiting the conditions of the thought experiment does materialism in any way appear to be threatened; this is, of course, merely an illusion crafted from a set of conditions designed to cause such an illusion to occur. Materialism is not threatened at all by these scenarios. Perhaps your soul infected view of Materialism is threatened but who really cares about that sort of materialism.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Notice, gentle reader, how those arguing against materialism are required to make specific restrictions upon each scenario to prevent the realization of actual conditions from occuring! "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! Materialism is false!" :rolleyes:

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
(Just as a side-note, Gentle Reader, this isn't my personal viewpoint. Personally, I agree that there is some sort of non-material, non-energy, non-real component to Self which is both independant of and integral to the mind/body; that it carries with it some aspect of memory, but is influenced heavily by the mind/body it inhabits; and that it cannot be reproduced by any 'real'/'material' means. However, I also recognize that this is an illogical belief, not a factual truth. Just remember - proof denies faith.) In other words you are a woowolfol.

disappointed,
BillyJoe

[BillyJoe]

Atlas,

Thank you for your beautiful post.

You are giving your honest view of identity, uncluttered with any hidden agendas. And I can see you are a person who is able to free yourself sufficiently from your own viewpoint so as to try to understand anothers point of view. I don't mind if you can't see it or that you don't agree. After all, there may be something I'm not seeing that's impairing me from communicating my viewpoint or perhaps, God forbid :D, even invalidating it.

You are honest about your own view and and respectful of other's views.
What else can anyone ask.

Thanks again,
BillyJoe

[Taffer]

Thank you for the kind thoughts BillyJoe, however he has said that he is not arguing for any kind of soul in this instance. Also, although I appreciate the thought, I am able to make my own judgements. If I believe he is no longer viewing things from a materialist point of view, I will say so. I am, as you have probably noticed, not afraid of stating my opinions on...well...basically anything ;).

You see, I do understand where you are coming from (or at least I think I do), I just do not think, personally, that you are taking the entire situation into account. I personally do not believe in a soul. Reguardless of this, I think that in the teleporter example, I would not take it because I would concider myself dead, even if an exact copy were made on mars, because it would be me.

Maybe you are right. Maybe this isn't materalism. I'm willing to concede that I could be wrong about that (although I personally don't think I am, as I believe I understand what materalism is on about, and I believe that it is what I believe...of you follow). I have greatly enjoyed discussing this with you, as you are (generally ;)) the kind of person who puts forward sensible arguments. Although I may have become a bit heated at times, that's just how I am. :D
And indeed, your arguments have on a number of occasions made me pause and reconsider my argument. I agree it is a tricky subject to get your head around, and (as I just said) I have had to reconsider what my view of things is a number of times, as a result of your arguments. Which is, of course, the whole point, isn't it?

Even this, though, has not convinced me enough to change my view. It my mind, my explanation of things is the 'best', and I'm afraid all of your arguments have not yet convinced me otherwise.

I am more the willing to keep at this, though, as it is indeed a very interesting subject.

[Z]

BJ, it's like you ALMOST speak English... But for argument's sake, I'll respond.

When someone goes to sleep, or when someone is knocked unconscious, or when someone is resuscitated from being brain dead, the self is discontinuous in time, place and pattern. Do you agree? Surely you do.

Absolutely not. This is ridiculous.

When someone goes to sleep or are knocked unconscious, neural activity doesn't cease. There is no cessation of function, only of conscious response to sensory input. Thus, no discontinuity of self.

Being 'brain dead', however, is a certain discontinuity - and as far as I can find, there has never been a 100% successful resuscitation from brain death, has there? In every case I can discover, either brain death did not actually occur, or the resuscitated individual has suffered brain damage i.e. is not the same 'self' that they were.

Moving right along...

Suffice to mention obvious altruistic qualities such as the mothering instinct.

As you said, different topic entirely, but altruistic qualities are neither for nor against survival of the continued external sense of self... they are different issues altogether.

No, not the same self, just identical selves. But that is besides the point because there is no soul/spirit/essence to have a self. There is only the self.

The self, which you have now admitted is not the same, only identical. And identical is not the same, therefore, two identical but seperate selves... i.e. two different entities.

What then connects the self before and the self after the period of coma? Memories? That must be a big factor. The self after the coma has memories shared with the self before the coma. That is basicly the connection between them. How is this different, then, from the situation between the original and the duplicate? Unless you are saying the actual body/brain is important. Tell me you are not saying that!

It appears you take a 'all one or the other' stance - Surely, the continuity of physical body AND the continuity of memory together must be the defining factor of self - Remove one or the other continuity, and you cannot have the same self, only an identical self. So obviously the actual body/brain is important - as is the memory stored within that body/brain. You cannot remove one or the other without changing the 'self' into a new albeit identical 'self'.

Elsewise, any two people sharing identical memories would be the same 'self', which is absolutely ridiculous.

If the memories were implanted, weren't they correctly implanted? But they are not implanted are they? They are the result of the pattern of neural activity in the brain.

True, I spoke wrongly here - language being my worst subject...

Implanted false memories, then.

Implanted, because the brain did not generate these memories itself. False, because they refer to experiences this brain-body did not have.

Of course, now we get into the concept of where memories are stored, exactly, and how they are stored.

Did you know - that RNA removed from the brains of rats trained to do a particular task, then injected into untrained rats, appears to reduce the time required for the second group of rats to learn the same skill? Which suggests, that in some way, learning (memory) can be transferred physically between two individuals? (Obviously, at this point, it's a very crude and uncertain transfer, but eventually, who knows?) Similar observations have been made concerning other experiments, such as flatworm behaviors, etc.

So it is possible (will be possible) to implant memories into brains that have never had said experiences. Who's to say the person on Mars is really a clone, and not just some poor dupe whose own memories have been wiped clean, ready to receive new memories from our poor victim on earth? Would the 'self' therefore be transferred into some other person altogether?

In other words you are a woowolfol.

Never heard of this particular insult - but I find it a mouthful, to say the least.

I have expressed elsewhere, to people far more worthy than you, that what I believe and what I argue are two different things. I have no compulsion whatsoever to try to logically defend my personal beliefs. There is no logic behind them, no reason... in fact, logic and reason deny my beliefs. So?

Nonetheless, from a materialistic point of view, it would be absolutely illogical to destroy yourself on the idea that a clone of you would survive elsewhere. To the point of view of one claims a soul, since there is no apparent method of soul transfer, this method is equally illogical. I can't imagine the mind-frame of one who would accept this method of 'travel' - it seems the kind of person who might end his own life if he contributed nothing of value to society, i.e. someone who viewed himself as nothing more than a cog in the machine, so to speak. Someone who placed no value at all upon life.

'But', you assert, 'since the self continues in this identical but different person on Mars, then the self continues, end of subject.' Only to the POV of the self on Mars and to various persons observing the situation - To the POV of the self on Earth faced with this decision, he is being told, "We will kill you." There is nothing else to consider. The POV of this Martian dupe is irrelevant, as he does not exist yet; the POV of persons external to the person with this choice should also be irrelevant, as it's not their life threatened in this scenario.

This is the same consideration in the brain-replacement scenario. The poor victim is faced with the following choices: "The virus is going to kill you. Someone else will wear your face and drive your car, but you will be dead." or "We will mostly kill you by replacing huge parts of your brain, but enough of you will survive to continue your sense of continuity and physical continuity, and if we're lucky, you'll recover even so."

In fact, until you get to the third question, from the POV of the soul-less, the directive should be to continue the personal experience of life for as long as possible, knowing that when it's over, it's over, end of story. In the first question, the personal experience of life is over if the person gets zapped to mars. In the second question, the personal experience of life is over if the virus runs its course.

(Strangely, from my own, personal perspective, I feel no different about the choices made. In the first question, no mention of what becomes of the soul is mentioned, so better to risk normal death than accept definite death with a questionable quasi-existence in some clone - assuming any soul transfer at all, which seems unlikely. In the second question, since the 'soul' wouldn't leave the body in either case, it's a matter of personal preference. I'd rather continue the experience I've already started, then wipe it all out and become someone new with no memory of the original me.)

Nonetheless, BJ, there is nothing in any of this that refutes materialism at all, as much as I'd like to believe otherwise.

(So, what exactly, is a woowolflol?)

[BillyJoe]

Atlas,

Originally posted by Atlas
I want to add something. I agree that this murders *Sally₂₇₈₉*. What we might explore is the difference between Sally and the BillyJoe who teleported to Mars but whose Original was not immediately destroyed. That Original BillyJoe went home, watched TV, went to bed, and in the morning was visited by the Duplicator Police who apologetically dragged him off to the disintegrator chamber to correct the screw up. This is murder as well.

Originally posted by Atlas
BillyJoe is different from Sally in 2 ways.
1) No lifechanging consciousnes changing traumatic effect struck BillyJoe I am not sure what you mean here. He was carted off the teleporter to be killed.

Originally posted by Atlas
2) BillyJoe is a Materialist who accepts that his consciousness is probably still alive somewhere on Mars. The two BillyJoes have diverged due to accumulation of further experiences/memories. There is now a different self on Mars. At the point of duplication, however, they are identical and it doesn't matter what happens, as far as BillyJoe is concerned, as long as one of them survives. But, it's just a bit awkward if they both survive, especially if the teleporter stuffs up again and both remain here on Earth.

Originally posted by Atlas
I don't think either of these 2 reasons make any difference. One Original BillyJoe and one Original Sally get snuffed. Yes, they both are murdered.

Originally posted by Atlas
But I did want to reiterate, I certainly agree that duplication with informed personal destruction is in a different class. It's much more like suicide to me than murder. Yes, it's certainly not murder. But it's not suicide either. BillyJoe wanted to go to Mars and he definitely has gone to Mars. Put yourself in his shoes. He is, in every way, BillyJoe. Identical body. Identical Brain. Identical memories. Identical emotional state. Everything is absolutely identical. BillyJoe lives on. The BillyJoe back on Earth just before the duplication feels exactly the same as the BillyJoe on Mars immediately after the duplication. And the BillyJoe on Mars immediately after the duplication feels exactly the same as the BillyJoe back on Earth just before the duplication. Put yourself in their shoes. Doesn't it feel exactly the same. So where is the difference?
This is all there is to a self, not some soul that has to reside in any particular self. This is not Materialism. And certainly not a soul that can take up residence in any body it so desires. This is certainly not Materialism.

Originally posted by Atlas
I almost prefer the uninformed destructive duplication. The consciousness continues without any of these messy questions to consider. But the self continues even with these questions then, doesn't it? It's just that only the Materialists will get to have a holiday on Mars because they are the only ones who accept the answers. :)

Originally posted by Atlas
I would almost wish to change the laws on murder to allow it, except for one thing... it would mean there was a Democrat in the White House. Sorry, I don't get your joke, I'm not very well informed about American politics. :(
Well, I guess it would require a change in the law because there would always be some impossible people who would continue to insist it was murder. ;) (only joking)

regards,
BillyJoe

[Taffer]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Yes, it's certainly not murder. But it's not suicide either. BillyJoe wanted to go to Mars and he definitely has gone to Mars. Put yourself in his shoes. He is, in every way, BillyJoe. Identical body. Identical Brain. Identical memories. Identical emotional state. Everything is absolutely identical. BillyJoe lives on. The BillyJoe back on Earth just before the duplication feels exactly the same as the BillyJoe on Mars immediately after the duplication. And the BillyJoe on Mars immediately after the duplication feels exactly the same as the BillyJoe back on Earth just before the duplication. Put yourself in their shoes. Doesn't it feel exactly the same. So where is the difference?
This is all there is to a self, not some soul that has to reside in any particular self. This is not Materialism. And certainly not a soul that can take up residence in any body it so desires. This is certainly not Materialism.


And this is where I believe you are going wrong. Materalism tells us that your 'sense of self' is created by the patterns of the brain. Duplicate these patterns, and you create another person who has the same 'sense of self'. But the two are not related. Sure, the duplicate feels just like the original, and sure he cannot be told appart form the original (both behave the same, have the same memories etc), but it is a different body, and a different brain that is 'creating' this 'sense of self'. Just because the duplicate feels like BillyJoe doesn't mean that he is the original BillyJoe.

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
Thank you for the kind thoughts BillyJoe, however he has said that he is not arguing for any kind of soul in this instance. Also, although I appreciate the thought, I am able to make my own judgements. If I believe he is no longer viewing things from a materialist point of view, I will say so. I am, as you have probably noticed, not afraid of stating my opinions on...well...basically anything ;).

You see, I do understand where you are coming from (or at least I think I do), I just do not think, personally, that you are taking the entire situation into account. I personally do not believe in a soul. Reguardless of this, I think that in the teleporter example, I would not take it because I would concider myself dead, even if an exact copy were made on mars, because it would be me.

Maybe you are right. Maybe this isn't materalism. I'm willing to concede that I could be wrong about that (although I personally don't think I am, as I believe I understand what materalism is on about, and I believe that it is what I believe...of you follow). I have greatly enjoyed discussing this with you, as you are (generally ;)) the kind of person who puts forward sensible arguments. Although I may have become a bit heated at times, that's just how I am. :D
And indeed, your arguments have on a number of occasions made me pause and reconsider my argument. I agree it is a tricky subject to get your head around, and (as I just said) I have had to reconsider what my view of things is a number of times, as a result of your arguments. Which is, of course, the whole point, isn't it?

Even this, though, has not convinced me enough to change my view. It my mind, my explanation of things is the 'best', and I'm afraid all of your arguments have not yet convinced me otherwise.

I am more the willing to keep at this, though, as it is indeed a very interesting subject. I am more than happy with that.

I am not part of a religious cult that wants to convert everyone to their point of view. I think we have all gotten something out of this. As for insults and harsh language. Well, I always post with a smile on my face regardless of what the smilies are saying. Above everything else, this is fun time for me. I hope it's the same for everyone else.

regards,
BillyJoe

[Taffer]

Totally :). The problem with an un-personal internet forum is that mistakes often happen, and emotions and feelings of words are hard to express. I try to give people the benifit of the doubt, but sometimes I mess up, just like everyone else ;).

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Oops, I thought you were signing off. :D

Originally posted by Taffer
And this is where I believe you are going wrong. Materalism tells us that your 'sense of self' is created by the patterns of the brain. Duplicate these patterns, and you create another person who has the same 'sense of self'. But the two are not related. Sure, the duplicate feels just like the original, and sure he cannot be told appart form the original (both behave the same, have the same memories etc), but it is a different body, and a different brain that is 'creating' this 'sense of self'. Just because the duplicate feels like BillyJoe doesn't mean that he is the original BillyJoe. I agree with you. They are not the same BillyJoe. There are two of them after all. But they are both BillyJoe (I've decided to drop the asterisks for the moment). All that is important for BillyJoe is that there is at least one BillyJoe after the duplication (and, as I said, two could be a bit awkward). Vapourize BillyJoe in the original and there is still BillyJoe (feeling exactly like BillyJoe in the original) in the duplicate. BillyJoe lives on! There is no actual me anywhere, there is just BillyJoe (or two BillyJoes as the case may be).

I wish there was someone else here who could put a different slant on it. Maybe that would help.

BJ

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
BJ, it's like you ALMOST speak English... But for argument's sake, I'll respond. You forgot the smily....here it is.....:D

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Absolutely not. This is ridiculous.

When someone goes to sleep or are knocked unconscious, neural activity doesn't cease. There is no cessation of function, only of conscious response to sensory input. Thus, no discontinuity of self.

Being 'brain dead', however, is a certain discontinuity - and as far as I can find, there has never been a 100% successful resuscitation from brain death, has there? In every case I can discover, either brain death did not actually occur, or the resuscitated individual has suffered brain damage i.e. is not the same 'self' that they were. So you don't think consciousness is essential for a self?
Can you explain how there be a self without consciousness?

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
The self, which you have now admitted is not the same, only identical. And identical is not the same, therefore, two identical but seperate selves... i.e. two different entities. I have never admitted this and I am not admitting it now. It has been an essential part of my argument all along. You will probably find it on page one if you care to look.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
It appears you take a 'all one or the other' stance - Surely, the continuity of physical body AND the continuity of memory together must be the defining factor of self - Remove one or the other continuity, and you cannot have the same self, only an identical self. Identical is all that is required for a self.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
So obviously the actual body/brain is important - as is the memory stored within that body/brain. You cannot remove one or the other without changing the 'self' into a new albeit identical 'self'. Identity is all that is required.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Elsewise, any two people sharing identical memories would be the same 'self', which is absolutely ridiculous. No, just identical selves and that is all that is required.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Never heard of this particular insult [wowolfol]- but I find it a mouthful, to say the least. wowolfol -> wolf in sheeps clothing. :D

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
I have expressed elsewhere, to people far more worthy than you, that what I believe and what I argue are two different things. I have no compulsion whatsoever to try to logically defend my personal beliefs. There is no logic behind them, no reason... in fact, logic and reason deny my beliefs. So? I am glad to hear that you don't consider me worthy enough to inform me that you are not what you seem. Seems to me a less worthy person would have more need of this information than a more worthy one though. :(

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Nonetheless, from a materialistic point of view, it would be absolutely illogical to destroy yourself on the idea that a clone of you would survive elsewhere. To the point of view of one claims a soul, since there is no apparent method of soul transfer, this method is equally illogical. I can't imagine the mind-frame of one who would accept this method of 'travel' - it seems the kind of person who might end his own life if he contributed nothing of value to society, i.e. someone who viewed himself as nothing more than a cog in the machine, so to speak. Someone who placed no value at all upon life. Problem is, you don't get to choose how things are. If that is the way they are you just have to deal with it. The illusion of self is a pretty damn good one. So good in fact that it hard to tell the difference. I'm more than happy with that.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
'But', you assert, 'since the self continues in this identical but different person on Mars, then the self continues, end of subject.' Only to the POV of the self on Mars and to various persons observing the situation - To the POV of the self on Earth faced with this decision, he is being told, "We will kill you." There is nothing else to consider. The POV of this Martian dupe is irrelevant, as he does not exist yet; the POV of persons external to the person with this choice should also be irrelevant, as it's not their life threatened in this scenario. If you feel that way don't use the teleporter then. Me, I'm going for a holiday on Mars. And I'll be back soon to tell you all about it. :)

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
This is the same consideration in the brain-replacement scenario. The poor victim is faced with the following choices: "The virus is going to kill you. Someone else will wear your face and drive your car, but you will be dead." or "We will mostly kill you by replacing huge parts of your brain, but enough of you will survive to continue your sense of continuity and physical continuity, and if we're lucky, you'll recover even so." Well, I'm going to get myself a new body. Perfect cure.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
In fact, until you get to the third question, from the POV of the soul-less, the directive should be to continue the personal experience of life for as long as possible, knowing that when it's over, it's over, end of story. In the first question, the personal experience of life is over if the person gets zapped to mars. In the second question, the personal experience of life is over if the virus runs its course. So you say. But you need a soul for this to be true and that's not Materialism.

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
(Strangely, from my own, personal perspective, I feel no different about the choices made. In the first question, no mention of what becomes of the soul is mentioned, so better to risk normal death than accept definite death with a questionable quasi-existence in some clone - assuming any soul transfer at all, which seems unlikely. In the second question, since the 'soul' wouldn't leave the body in either case, it's a matter of personal preference. I'd rather continue the experience I've already started, then wipe it all out and become someone new with no memory of the original me.) I bet you wish you were a Materialist then. :)


zaayrdragon, you are mostly expounding a point of view. You never really attempt to dissect the argument made. I have imitated you above to show you how frustrating that can be. (Not for me though, I 'm still smiling :) )

BillyJoe

[Z]

Oh, I'm not irritated at all, BJ - I find it quite amusing to watch you spout ignorance.

Since you have now repeatedly claimed that identity is all that is required for self, I know you're wrong. If we were to assume that were true, then there really is no self, since your identity is in a constant state of change. Every infinitessimal second, your identity is altering. Every single experience you partake in changes your identity. Thus, there can be no 'self'.

Hence, identity is not all that is required for self. Self cannot subsist on identity alone. This isn't a POV, it's just a fact.

You go right ahead and have yourself cloned. I'll send flowers to your gravesite, and I'll be sure to explain to your widow and loved ones all about their new 'cousin' on Mars. :D Meanwhile, I'll be on that slow, dangerous spaceship, and I'll actually enjoy a vacation on Mars (or, apparently not, given the rest of the scenario presented). Not my twin, not my clone, but me. Yay!

[BillyJoe]

zaayrdragon,

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Since you have now repeatedly claimed that identity is all that is required for self, I know you're wrong. If we were to assume that were true, then there really is no self, since your identity is in a constant state of change. Every infinitessimal second, your identity is altering. Every single experience you partake in changes your identity. Thus, there can be no 'self'. And I thought you'd never understand. :)

BillyJoe.

[Taffer]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Taffer,

Oops, I thought you were signing off. :D

I agree with you. They are not the same BillyJoe. There are two of them after all. But they are both BillyJoe (I've decided to drop the asterisks for the moment). All that is important for BillyJoe is that there is at least one BillyJoe after the duplication (and, as I said, two could be a bit awkward). Vapourize BillyJoe in the original and there is still BillyJoe (feeling exactly like BillyJoe in the original) in the duplicate. BillyJoe lives on! There is no actual me anywhere, there is just BillyJoe (or two BillyJoes as the case may be).

I wish there was someone else here who could put a different slant on it. Maybe that would help.

BJ

Perhaps it comes down to one of personal choice. I want my brain, with my particular neural patterns untouched, to survive. I don't want another me to survive, even if he is exactly like me, I want me to survive. As I have said, there is on continuity between the 'me' on earth and the 'me' on mars. The only thing connecting them, in fact, is that they both think they are me. However, think of it this way. You get cloned, and then you face your clone. From your point of view, if one had to be killed, who would you rather? You, or your clone? Any sensible person, as far as I can tell, would choose their clone...they wouldn't die, then, would they?

Oh, and I'm not done yet ;). I was mainly apologising for calling you something that I now see you are not...namely, an I.I rip-off ;).

[Taffer]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
zaayrdragon,

And I thought you'd never understand. :)

BillyJoe.

You see, I agree with this. I agree that there really is no such thing as a 'self', but it is rather simply a byproduct of the brains processes. However, I guess my belief is that two identical brains are not the same. If my brain is cloned, I do not consider it another me, but rather a new person who just happens to be exactly like me.

And no, I don't think *I* have some special soul or anything like that, it's simply the way I view the situation.

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
Perhaps it comes down to one of personal choice. I want my brain, with my particular neural patterns untouched, to survive. I don't want another me to survive, even if he is exactly like me, I want me to survive. As I have said, there is no continuity between the 'me' on earth and the 'me' on mars. I agree that there is no continuity between the two. There does not have to be. Just as long as they are identical is all that matters.

Originally posted by Taffer
The only thing connecting them, in fact, is that they both think they are me. Well, as you know by now, I would say that they both are *Taffer*

Originally posted by Taffer
However, think of it this way. You get cloned, and then you face your clone. From your point of view, if one had to be killed, who would you rather? You, or your clone? Any sensible person, as far as I can tell, would choose their clone...they wouldn't die, then, would they? I have to rephrase that question and then my answer follows naturally....
When BillyJoe gets duplicated, there are two BillyJoes. If one had to be killed, each BillyJoe would say that he'd rather the other BillyJoe was killed so that way he wouldn't get killed himself.

BJ

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
You see, I agree with this. I agree that there really is no such thing as a 'self', but it is rather simply a byproduct of the brains processes. However, I guess my belief is that two identical brains are not the same. If my brain is cloned, I do not consider it another me, but rather a new person who just happens to be exactly like me. But, if it is just a byproduct of the brain (and I agree that it is), what about if the brain produced a green ooze as a by product. Identical brains would produce an identical green ooze (but not the same green ooze of course). Similarly two identical brains produce identical selves (but not the same self). If they are identical, there cannot be anyway to distinguish them other than their space coordinates. Each of them must be Taffer (but not the same Taffer). The ooze in the original brain is green and so is the ooze in the duplicate brain but you don't say this is the real green and that is the fake green. They are both green. Similarly both selves are Taffer. Duplicate Taffer is every bit as much Taffer as Original Taffer is Taffer. There is nowhere for you to be. The two Taffers are all there is.

But, hey, we're going around in circles aren't we?

BillyJoe.

[Taffer]

We are, but I think we are working down to where we differ.

You see:

I have to rephrase that question and then my answer follows naturally....
When BillyJoe gets duplicated, there are two BillyJoes. If one had to be killed, each BillyJoe would say that he'd rather the other BillyJoe was killed so that way he wouldn't get killed himself.


This is exactly my point. Lets say it is me who is duplicated, and I'm faced with the choice of killing myself, or my duplicate. Agreed, they are both 'Taffer', and they both have equal right to be 'Taffer' (no one would be able to tell the difference anyway). But I would still choose the other Taffer. Why? Because I want to preserve this body, this brain, my view point. Even though if I am killed *I* live on (as in, the Taffer we all know and love will live on), but my view point will not. I think, to be honest, language is as big a part of this discussion as anything else. We are throwing around words like 'sense of self' and 'self awareness' without really first defining them.

See, I totally agree that no one would be able to tell the two Taffers appart. They would both be Taffer, in every sense of the word. However, I can only consider my own self preservation, which is, of course, my own body, brain, and point of view*.

I think the difference between us is that you are willing to kill yourself to allow you to live on. In other words, you are sacrificing yourself to let others, your friends and family, live on with you there as well. Where as I'm much more selfish, and have decided that I'd rather not die, even if I will live on from every other persons view, if I don't take the teleporter my body is not destroyed, my brain lives on, my 'conciousness' is not interrupted etc etc etc.

*By "Point of View" I simply mean this: If you clone yourself, then kill yourself, you do not suddenly experience the universe from the new body. Although Taffer lives on, the you that is your body and brain at the moment will not suddenly experience life on mars, just because a clone is created there. To explain further, I think that the cloned Taffer is a 'new' Taffer, where as the original Taffer is my 'self' right now. Even though the new Taffer is still Taffer, it is a new 'view point' (to use the term I'm trying to define ;)), and my view point stays in my body.

Arg, it's all horribly mishy mashy.

See, BillyJoe, I've come to realise that we agree on everything but this small detail. Interesting, no?

[Atlas]

You know Taffer, you and I both talk the same way about this all being a killing exercise.

But I can't help being struck by your ironic sig line. Oh sure, You want to live... but you don't want that for everybody.

Pardon me if you've explained yourself elsewhere...

But who is Dulce Fruere and why do you hate him so much?

By the way, Have a nice day ;)

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Atlas
You know Taffer, you and I both talk the same way about this all being a killing exercise.

But I can't help being struck by your ironic sig line. Oh sure, You want to live... but you don't want that for everybody.

Pardon me if you've explained yourself elsewhere...

But who is Dulce Fruere and why do you hate him so much?

By the way, Have a nice day ;)

:D
;)
:p

He was this horrible person in my 3rd grade class who mocked me all the time. I was traumatised by this, and have developed several neurotic disorders, including cronic lying and M.P.D.
;)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyJoe
Similarly two identical brains produce identical selves (but not the same self). If they are identical, there cannot be anyway to distinguish them other than their space coordinates.

No, they can be diustinguished! Not objectively, but from the subjective perspective of both BillyJoes'.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Yes and I've thought of a better way of conveying the idea. Let's suppose that reverse time travel is impossible (which I believe). Now let's imagine a teletransporter which doesn't transport you to a different place (mars or wherever) but rather to a different point in time. Suppose 500 years ago in 1504 someone reproduces the exact you at the moment you get vaporized in 2004. So here you appear to jump suddenly from 2004 to 1504! But of course you didn't really jump through time because reverse time travel is impossible.

Actually it's possible that this could generate the same paradoxes as actual reverse time travel. Yet another difficulty for materialism therefore :)

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Actually it's possible that this could generate the same paradoxes as actual reverse time travel. Yet another difficulty for materialism therefore :)

Your 'experiment' is flawed, because you have already stated that reverse time travel is impossible, then you use reverse time travel to prove your point.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
Your 'experiment' is flawed, because you have already stated that reverse time travel is impossible, then you use reverse time travel to prove your point.

{sighs} No it isn't reverse time travel! It's no more reverse time travel than saying you jump to Mars when using the teleporter!

[Z]

I swore I wasn't going to post for a while, but the wife took the baby out for a while and I got a nap...

I just had to post to say, I agree with Ian this time.

:eek:

[BillyJoe]

Taffer,

Originally posted by Taffer
We are, but I think we are working down to where we differ.

You see:

I have to rephrase that question and then my answer follows naturally....
When BillyJoe gets duplicated, there are two BillyJoes. If one had to be killed, each BillyJoe would say that he'd rather the other BillyJoe was killed so that way he wouldn't get killed himself.This is exactly my point. Lets say it is me who is duplicated, and I'm faced with the choice of killing myself, or my duplicate. Agreed, they are both 'Taffer', and they both have equal right to be 'Taffer' (no one would be able to tell the difference anyway). But I would still choose the other Taffer. Why? Because I want to preserve this body, this brain, my view point. Even though if I am killed *I* live on (as in, the Taffer we all know and love will live on), but my view point will not. I think, to be honest, language is as big a part of this discussion as anything else. We are throwing around words like 'sense of self' and 'self awareness' without really first defining them.

See, I totally agree that no one would be able to tell the two Taffers appart. They would both be Taffer, in every sense of the word. However, I can only consider my own self preservation, which is, of course, my own body, brain, and point of view*.

I think the difference between us is that you are willing to kill yourself to allow you to live on. In other words, you are sacrificing yourself to let others, your friends and family, live on with you there as well. Where as I'm much more selfish, and have decided that I'd rather not die, even if I will live on from every other persons view, if I don't take the teleporter my body is not destroyed, my brain lives on, my 'conciousness' is not interrupted etc etc etc.

*By "Point of View" I simply mean this: If you clone yourself, then kill yourself, you do not suddenly experience the universe from the new body. Although Taffer lives on, the you that is your body and brain at the moment will not suddenly experience life on mars, just because a clone is created there. To explain further, I think that the cloned Taffer is a 'new' Taffer, where as the original Taffer is my 'self' right now. Even though the new Taffer is still Taffer, it is a new 'view point' (to use the term I'm trying to define ;)), and my view point stays in my body.

Arg, it's all horribly mishy mashy.

See, BillyJoe, I've come to realise that we agree on everything but this small detail. Interesting, no? Not mishy mashy. You have expressed yourself very well and I understand you exactly. And you are right, that is exactly and completely the difference between us.

Let me have another try at getting closer.....

When we talk about an object's attributes, for most of its attributes we say it HAS them. For example, we would say "that man HAS one leg" or "that woman HAS a long nose". But for colour, we use the word IS. For example, "He IS a black man" or simply "He IS black". So, just as we might say "The original IS black and the duplicate IS black", we could also say "The original IS Taffer and the duplicate IS Taffer".
If there there was a black car which we used as a template to produce another black car, we would say that both of them ARE black. One is not the real black and the other the false black. Similarly the original is not the real Taffer and the duplicate the false Taffer, they both ARE Taffer.

Ugh....maybe that won't work either, because you will still want to say that a POV is special. All I can say is that Materialism regards this as being an illusion. From the POV of Materialism, there is nothing special about the attribute we call the self - apart, of course from being an extremely more complex attribute than colour. There is nothing more to the self than physicality, There is no immaterial soul that HAS the self.

May be it IS langauge that's to blame or perhaps how we use language. :(

BillyJoe

[BillyJoe]

.....and that brings us to page friggin' eighteen. :D

[BillyJoe]

Ian,

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
No, they can be diustinguished! Not objectively, but from the subjective perspective of both BillyJoes'. yeah but.....the subjective perspectives are identical. The subjective perspective of the original and the subjective perspective of the duplicate are identical. One feels himself to be every bit as much BillyJoe as the other. If the feeling of being BillyJoe disappears one instant and then reappears, doesn't matter where, doesn't matter when, then the feeling of being BillyJoe lives on. That is all there is, or that is all it means to being BillyJoe from the Materialist POV.

BJ

[Interesting Ian]

Taffer
*By "Point of View" I simply mean this: If you clone yourself, then kill yourself, you do not suddenly experience the universe from the new body.



You assert this but do not back your assertion up.



Although Taffer lives on, the you that is your body and brain at the moment will not suddenly experience life on mars, just because a clone is created there.


Again, you assert this but do not back your assertion up.


To explain further,



You have only asserted and have provided no explanations.




I think that the cloned Taffer is a 'new' Taffer, where as the original Taffer is my 'self' right now. Even though the new Taffer is still Taffer, it is a new 'view point' (to use the term I'm trying to define ), and my view point stays in my body.



Why does it?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by BillyJoe

There is nothing more to the self than physicality, There is no immaterial soul that HAS the self.



Indeed not, and a non-materialist would not claim such. The soul/self is the self. Just like an apple is an apple.

Now the soul/self has various mental states. The self is NOT the summation of mental states. Thus *I* experience anger, or love. I am NOT equivalent to love and anger and other mental states. These mental states are something I have.

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
You assert this but do not back your assertion up.

Then back up your assertion that you do. From a Materalistic point of view, I can not see any way that this would happen, as there is no transfer of 'conciousness' between the two bodies. Sure, both are Taffer, both feel like Taffer, both think like Taffer, but from my point of view, the other Taffer is simply a clone, or another person who is exactly like me. The fact that I (or any other sane person) would choose to kill the clone, rather then yourself, proves this. I do not think that I am both Taffers, I simply think that I am this Taffer and the other is a clone, nothing more.


Again, you assert this but do not back your assertion up.

And again you do not have and proof that your assertion is correct either. Mine is simply a belief. I believe that my view point will not suddenly swap to that of the Taffer on mars. In fact, I do not see how it can. I am here, not on mars. My body, my brain, is here, on earth. It is then killed to create the copy on mars. The Taffer on mars is still Taffer, but from my point of view I don't suddenly start experiencing life on mars. All the Taffer on mars is is an exact copy, who cannot be told apart from the real Taffer. The only person in the entire universe who can tell them apart is me. I know that I am Taffer, the real Taffer, that that it is he who is the clone.

Of course, he would feel like a real Taffer to, but would know he is the clone (as he has my memories of talking about what will happen, stepping into the trasporter etc).


You have only asserted and have provided no explanations.

Actually I felt I explained myself rather well. In fact I believe that BillyJoe agrees with me. Perhaps it is you who simply does not like my explanations and has decided to disregard them?


Why does it?
Why does it not? As I've said, I believe that *me* (as in, my sensation of being me and my view point) are created by this physical body, nothing more. As there is no transfer of physical parts (chemical reactions and electrical interactions included) then there is no transfer of my 'point of view'. I do not wake up on mars.

However, the person that we all know and love as Taffer is hardwired proporties of the brain. You could duplicate them and get another Taffer who was indistinguishable from the first. But I wouldn't think it was me, would I?

Think of it this way Ian. You are cloned. Then the clone police turn up and tell you that there has been a mix up, and one of you must be destroyed. Which would you choose? Yourself or the clone?

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Indeed not, and a non-materialist would not claim such. The soul/self is the self. Just like an apple is an apple.

Now the soul/self has various mental states. The self is NOT the summation of mental states. Thus *I* experience anger, or love. I am NOT equivalent to love and anger and other mental states. These mental states are something I have.

Nope, emotions are simply byproducts of chemical processes in the brain. The emotion that you call love might simply be a mixture of two chemicals that are released into the brain when you see the person who you are attracted to. This has evolutionary value, of course, as it makes you take more care of your potential mate. It's the same thing with anger. They are not a 'thing', but are rather your brains interpretations of chemical and sensory stimuli.

[Robin]

From Taffer:

Nope, emotions are simply byproducts of chemical processes in the brain.

We know that there are certain chemicals associated with certain emotions, but do we have a causal relationship? Do we know if the chemicals trigger the emotions, or the emotions trigger the chemicals?

What is the evidence that the emotions are the byproduct (rather than, say, the chemicals)?

It seems to me that we cannot draw any reductionist conclusions from the relationship between emotions and chemicals.

[Taffer]

Perhaps my post wasn't as clear as it could have been. I'm saying that emotions are chemicals (and various other reactions). The fact that we feel, say, love, is the result of these chemicals. There is no such thing as love, or any other emotion for that matter. There is only an interpretation by our brain to make us 'feel' love. And as all things have a cause, then the chemical must come first, rather then the emotion. To say that we feel love, then the 'love chemical' is released into our brains is to give a tangable, but ummaterialistic, proporty to emotions.

Think of them as you would a computer program. We someone who we are attracted to, for example, and who we are compatible with, etc etc etc, and the 'program' interprets this and releases the 'love' chemical, which makes us behave in a particular fassion (which will, of course, have an evolutionary benifit). It is a result of sensory stimulae, nothing more.

Well, all IMHO of course.

EDIT: As a Materialist (well, I consider myself a materalist anyway ;)), emotions must have a material componant. It is, in my view, safe to assume that emotions are a byproduct of material processes, not the other way around.

[Robin]

From Taffer:

The fact that we feel, say, love, is the result of these chemicals.

I think I understand what you are saying, but I am asking how do you know? What is the evidence?

Supposing for the sake of argument that there really was an extended mind and that the brain was simply the connection between the physical and extended.

In this case the brain would have certain physical actions and chemical reactions associated with certain emotions but you could not say that the physical actions and chemical reactions were the emotions.

Now take the purely materialistic case. In this case love is by definition a physical phenonemon. But there is still no evidence behind a statement like 'there is no such thing as love'. Emotions could be deeply complex events encompassing both the intellectual and sensory.

Just because we learn some of the science (in fact still very little) behind something does not mean that it stops existing.

[Taffer]

Ok, fair dues, I should perhaps say I believe this to be so. Not the "IMHO" bit at the end of my last post ;).

Now:

Now take the purely materialistic case. In this case love is by definition a physical phenonemon. But there is still no evidence behind a statement like 'there is no such thing as love'. Emotions could be deeply complex events encompassing both the intellectual and sensory.


1)If love is a physical phenomenon, then it is, by definition, limited to the brain.
2)The brain works simply through chemical and electrical processes.

Therefore, 'love' is caused, or is, chemical and electrical processes.

I guess you are arguing that an emotion, for our example lets stick with love, may or may not be the cause of said chemicals in the brain, right?

Thus, the problem becomes if I feel love, and I detect chemicals in my brain, are they the reason why I feel love or are they there
because I feel love. Is this your point?

It is fair enough, too. However, in my opinion, this argument is flawed.

Simply put:
1) All things (including the functions of the brain) have a cause.
2) I feel love.

Thus, my feelings of love must have a cause.

As a materalist, these causes are material in nature, and thus I can conclude that the feeling of love has a material cause.

What this cause may be, I'm not sure, but I have a theory.

Consider, for the moment, that the brain is simply a very very very complicated computer, that functions with both electrical 'gates' and chemical 'gates' (boolian gates, i.e. true of false...or possible in the case of chemical reactions, true, a little bit true, more true, a little false, very false, false etc). In essence, it is a biological computer.
Thus, all the functions of the brain are electrical or chemical in nature, and are caused, in turn, but either external stimulae or internal stimulae.

Now, as emotions such as love, anger, hate and so on are always attributed to something, we can assume that some external stimulae is the cause.

To continue the computer analogy, such emotions as love are simply a program that has been run by said stimulae, and as all brain processes are either electrical or chemical in nature, it can be said that it is either electrical signals or chemical signals that cause us to 'feel' love.

Please remember, before you cry "PROOF!", that I am not claiming this to be the case. Rather, it is simply my belief of the way things work.

EDIT:
Just because we learn some of the science (in fact still very little) behind something does not mean that it stops existing.
Of course not. It is just that science has provided strong evidence of a material universe, and as a materialist myself, I must conclude certain things. I.E. that emotions are chemical in nature, and that the 'feeling' of emotions is really an illusion.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer

Of course not. It is just that science has provided strong evidence of a material universe,

It's provided no evidence at all.

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
It's provided no evidence at all.

Yes it has, my friend. It has observed natural phenomae and has found suitable theories based on said observations that match the observations. It is always possible that it is wrong, but the more experiments that are done, the more unlikely this becomes.

On a side note, where is your evidence that it is wrong?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
Yes it has, my friend. It has observed natural phenomae and has found suitable theories based on said observations that match the observations. It is always possible that it is wrong, but the more experiments that are done, the more unlikely this becomes.



This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with materialism.



On a side note, where is your evidence that it is wrong?

Let me address the reason why I think materialism is unintelligible. What we need to do is take a look at materialism to see if it is internally consistant. Now the particular question I would like to address is why should we suppose that other peoples bodies are "inhabited" by conscious minds (or why phenomenal consciousness is associated with brains). Your argument no doubt will be that materialism stipulates this to be so; it is an axiomatic premise of materialism. But this makes your definition of materialism an arbitrary one. A metaphysic which glosses over awkward facts. Allow me to explain.

It seems to me that materialism should stipulate that the physical exhausts reality. That once we have completely described the Universe in physical terms then we have said all that can be said about the Universe or reality.

But what is the physical? It seems to me that it should be everything, that, at least in principle, can be observed by anyone with appropriate faculties and suitable instruments. In other words all that is objective exists, or to put it another way, all that is discernable from the third person perspective exists. This will also include things which can only be indirectly seen (although strictly speaking I reject the direct/indirect dichotomy). This then includes such entities as electrons, because although they can only be "indirectly" seen they nevertheless play fruitful roles in our theories describing the world ie we need to hypothesise electrons in order to explain certain aspects of reality.

Now there is something peculiar about conscious experience which marks it off from all other existents. It is simply this. It cannot be observed or detected by anyone with appropriate faculties and/or suitable instruments! Thus according to my prior definition of the physical it is not a physical existent. Thus I may have toothache to take an arbitrary example. But you cannot observe that toothache, all you can obseve is the effects of the toothache, the grimace of pain for example. Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.

Now you will no doubt say that by observing the grimace, or at least by observing the neurons fire, then you are observing the toothache since materialism holds that the toothache and its neural correlates are one and the same thing, or at least aspects of the same thing. But an objective examination of this toothache will necessarily leave out the subjective irreducibly sensation of pain. The actually sensation of pain does not figure into the physical facts about the pain according to our prior definition of the physical. Nor can we infer the sensation of pain since, unlike an electron, the (phenomenological) pain does not play a part in any description of our behaviour. The pain per se cannot play a part because pain per se is not part of the objective publically accessible realm. Only the neural correlates of the pain can play any fruitful role in our theories.

In short then either a materialist has to concede his metaphysic is internally inconsistent, or he must arbitrarily include phenomenological consciousness within his world picture. But if he opts for the latter then the whole prima facie plausibility of his world view crumbles away. No longer can he say that for something to exist it must be in principle be directly observable or play a fruitful role in some theory about the world, because this then necessarily precludes phenomenological consciousness. He
has to expand the notion of the physical to even include things that cannot be directly or even indirectly detected, even in principle!

This is what materialism entails and is just one of many reasons why we should reject this metaphysic.

[Z]

However, if the precise physical/energy mechanism of 'pain' can be analyzed and reproduced in another person, along with the necessary mental attributes to precisely duplicate the 'subjective' feeling of 'pain', then it would still be consistant with materialism.

To a broad scale, we can already induce states of emotional/subjective condition as we desire - we can, through various means, induce sensations of love, lust, pain, fear, desire, revulsion, etc. in a general way. As science progresses, I don't doubt at all that we will have the capability to perfectly transmit your 'subjective' experience of pain to others, turning it into a quite ordinary objective experience. Of course, we probably won't ever bother - like turning lead into gold, it's possible, but not overly desirable.

At best, Ian, I'd say you can only say that so far the consensus isn't back as to the validity of materialism. If it eventually proves absolutely impossible to transfer some 'subjective' experience, then we may safely reject materialism; but until such time, materialism is no more nor less valid than points of view that rely upon unobservable phenomenae.

It also depends on how broad you define "material". If we strictly include directly observable phenomenae, the jury is still out, as many things we believe to exist haven't yet been observed directly. If we broaden it to include those things we can infer due to their interaction with observable systems, then we should also include 'subjective' states, as our emotions, thoughts, etc. cause us to behave in such a way as to affect the observable world. If, however, it can be demonstrated that the subjective mental condition in no way affects the observable world, then we have something that goes against materialism - yet we know this isn't true, since emotions such as fear, etc. cause observable physical effects - or, perhaps, ARE observable physical effects.

In other words - not enough data to respond at this time...

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
However, if the precise physical/energy mechanism of 'pain' can be analyzed



No it can't be analysed.




and reproduced in another person, along with the necessary mental attributes to precisely duplicate the 'subjective' feeling of 'pain', then it would still be consistant with materialism.



No, read my argument and understand it.



To a broad scale, we can already induce states of emotional/subjective condition as we desire - we can, through various means, induce sensations of love, lust, pain, fear, desire, revulsion, etc. in a general way.



Great. However it doesn't invalidate my argument.




As science progresses, I don't doubt at all that we will have the capability to perfectly transmit your 'subjective' experience of pain to others, turning it into a quite ordinary objective experience.



I don't care about what you feel. I only care if you have any arguments which cast doubt on my argument. You haven't.




It also depends on how broad you define "material". If we strictly include directly observable phenomenae, the jury is still out, as many things we believe to exist haven't yet been observed directly. If we broaden it to include those things we can infer due to their interaction with observable systems, then we should also include 'subjective' states, as our emotions,



Please do not respond to my posts if you don't bother to take them in. I have explained all this.

[Z]

Please do not respond to my posts if you don't bother to take them in. I have explained all this. \

No, you've demonstrated your own flawed opinion of things. If you don't like it (as you're always telling everyone), put me on ignore. :D

No it can't be analysed.

Yet. How many things have we made the same claim for in the past and been proven wrong? :D

[Robin]

From Taffer:

It is just that science has provided strong evidence of a material universe.

Well it was the evidence, not the proof, that I was asking about.

Let me put in my own computer analogy - suppose you sit down at a computer, type in a calculation and get an answer. You might infer that the computer you are looking at made the calculation. Looking for further evidence you see a graph showing CPU, disk and paging activity all occuring while you were waiting for output.

But none of this is evidence that the computer you are looking at made the calculation. Your computer might be attached via a network to another computer that performed the calculation and returned the result. The activity you see might be involved with making the connection, passing arguments and receiving results and so on.

So there is still a missing link between the evidence and the inference.

[Taffer]

Yep, fair enough.

There is just no evidence of a non-material universe, then. It also makes more sense (to me at least) of a material universe. It seems to me that saying "It's just mysterious, that's why you can't detect it" is just a cop-out.

EDIT: Also, you can, a lot of time, eliminate certain theories based on logic alone.

For example, in your computer analogy, you could eliminate another computer doing the calculations if your computer is not attached to any LAN, or any network at all for that matter. You could, fairly safely, assume that it was the computer that did the calculation.

[Taffer]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with materialism.

Then you don't understand Materalism. It states that everything is material in nature. Nothing more. If said theories are based on observations, the theories are materalistic and the theories fit the observations, it is usually strong evidence for a materalistic universe. Notice, however, that most theories that deal with nonmateralistic things, are usually flawed and debunked by professionals in the field.


Let me address the reason why I think materialism is unintelligible.

Unintelligible means that it cannot be understood. You don't understand materalism? Then why are you arguing against it?


What we need to do is take a look at materialism to see if it is internally consistant.

Yep, indeed we do.


Now the particular question I would like to address is why should we suppose that other peoples bodies are "inhabited" by conscious minds (or why phenomenal consciousness is associated with brains).

Materalism tells us that 'consciousness' is but an illusion created by the functions of the brain. If other people have similar brain structures, then it is fairly safe to assume that they, too, experience 'consciousness' like we do; they are 'inhabited'.


Your argument no doubt will be that materialism stipulates this to be so; it is an axiomatic premise of materialism. But this makes your definition of materialism an arbitrary one. A metaphysic which glosses over awkward facts. Allow me to explain.

Well, I see materalism as explaining this "awkward fact" quite well, without glossing over anything.


It seems to me that materialism should stipulate that the physical exhausts reality. That once we have completely described the Universe in physical terms then we have said all that can be said about the Universe or reality.

Yes, indeed it would. But it's the same with any other philosophy. God made everything? Well there you go, you've just said all that can be said about the universe. Whatever happens, it's that way because god made it. This is a pointless argument, because it is not just common to materalism. Not only that, but it has nothing to do with the argument at hand, and is not even mentioned later on. I.I, learn how to construct arguments ;).


But what is the physical? It seems to me that it should be everything, that, at least in principle, can be observed by anyone with appropriate faculties and suitable instruments.

Yes, of course it does. Not only does this have nothing to do with materalism, it is blatently obvious. If it is physical, it should be able to be observed. Note, maybe not with our current technology, but it would with some level of technology.


In other words all that is objective exists, or to put it another way, all that is discernable from the third person perspective exists.

I'm not sure how this follows at all, as you have just defined it fairly well above. However, nothing can be observed from a third person perspective, as we are forever trapped inside our own heads. We cannot 'leave' our brain to observe something, then come back in. It's just silly.


This will also include things which can only be indirectly seen (although strictly speaking I reject the direct/indirect dichotomy). This then includes such entities as electrons, because although they can only be "indirectly" seen they nevertheless play fruitful roles in our theories describing the world ie we need to hypothesise electrons in order to explain certain aspects of reality.

Well, to nitpick, many things are 'indirectly' observed. The wind, for example. Do you postulate that it doesn't exist? Indirectly observing something leads to a hypothese and a theory about it's cause. Nothing more. On a side note, you can fairly directly observe an electron in those gas-chamber thingies (for the life of me I can't remember their name) when different particles get different spiral patterns depening on their charge. If you discount that, then you discount things like wind.


Now there is something peculiar about conscious experience which marks it off from all other existents. It is simply this. It cannot be observed or detected by anyone with appropriate faculties and/or suitable instruments!

No, no and no. This is assuming, in the first place, that 'conscious experience' is both independant of the brain, and is a physical (or metaphysical) 'object'. Also, materalism simply tells us that all things are material in nature. You are turning it into something it is not. It says that 'consciousness' is material in nature; either a byproduct of the brain, or in the form of some other, material, object or process.


Thus according to my prior definition of the physical it is not a physical existent. Thus I may have toothache to take an arbitrary example. But you cannot observe that toothache, all you can obseve is the effects of the toothache, the grimace of pain for example. Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.

Again, say it with me. Materalism tells us that everything is material in nature, nothing more. You could 'observe' the toothache if we were able to, for example, isolate the part of the brain that is responsible for 'your' feeling of pain. What's that you say? It isn't observing pain itself? Materalism tells us that there is no such thing as pain, but it is an illusion created by the proccess of the brain. Hmm, I see no problem here so far...


Now you will no doubt say that by observing the grimace, or at least by observing the neurons fire, then you are observing the toothache since materialism holds that the toothache and its neural correlates are one and the same thing, or at least aspects of the same thing. But an objective examination of this toothache will necessarily leave out the subjective irreducibly sensation of pain.

This is true, because pain is an illusion. There is no such thing as pain, so there is nothing to observe. You 'feel' pain because of the way the brain interpretates stimulae fed to it through the senses. The feeling 'pain' is both caused by, and is, processes in the brain. Nothing more, nothing less. You are, again, assuming there is something there to 'observe' in the first place.
Again, I see no problem for materalism here.


The actually sensation of pain does not figure into the physical facts about the pain according to our prior definition of the physical.

That is because your definition of physical has nothing to do with materalism. I will say it again. All materalism tells us is that everything is material in nature.

It is not something more then this, it is just this.


Nor can we infer the sensation of pain since, unlike an electron, the (phenomenological) pain does not play a part in any description of our behaviour. The pain per se cannot play a part because pain per se is not part of the objective publically accessible realm. Only the neural correlates of the pain can play any fruitful role in our theories.

This is because, once again, there is no such thing as pain. It is an illusion, Ian. But you can't seem to understand, or handle, this can you?


In short then either a materialist has to concede his metaphysic is internally inconsistent,

Nope, it isn't. But your view is inconsistant with materalism.


or he must arbitrarily include phenomenological consciousness within his world picture. But if he opts for the latter then the whole prima facie plausibility of his world view crumbles away. No longer can he say that for something to exist it must be in principle be directly observable or play a fruitful role in some theory about the world, because this then necessarily precludes phenomenological consciousness. He
has to expand the notion of the physical to even include things that cannot be directly or even indirectly detected, even in principle!

Nope, because all materalism tells us is that everything is material in nature!!!
I've already explained that, with your pain example, there is nothing to observe. You can not observe consciousness, because it is not a thing. It is an illusion, caused by the brain functions. Thus, you are making the assumption that your metaphysic (or whatever it is, either way you are assuming that pain and consciousness are actual objects, and are physical things. They are not, as has been explained to you.) is correct to disprove another. This is bad practice, unless done very well. I must say that that isn't the case here, I'm afrain ;).


This is what materialism entails and is just one of many reasons why we should reject this metaphysic.
Once again, all materialism says is that everything is material in nature. NOTHING MORE!.

[Robin]

From Interesting Ian:
Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.

But they are not irreducibly private. We experience pain in ourselves, and observe others experiencing pain and in particular that their reactions and descriptions of it match our own. We observe great similarity between ourselves and others so it is a rational inference that they are feeling what we are feeling.

Nor can we infer the sensation of pain since, unlike an electron, the (phenomenological) pain does not play a part in any description of our behaviour.

Suppose that we didn’t experience pain, but that other animals did. In this case the whole mechanism would have no mystery attached to it. We could see that for example a light pin jab to a rat’s body resulted in a consistent set of reactions and we could infer that injuries to the rat’s body produce an unignoreable signal. Further study would show that the nervous system transmits these messages and brain scans would probably lead us to conclude that the brain processed them.

The reasons for pain in this context are self evident. Furthermore pain would be meaningless outside of the context of a fragile physical body.

We could infer a good deal about the experience of pain, for example that it was unpleasant, that it took precedence over any other sensation.

There would be no reason to suppose that pain was anything else than the observable physical evidence.

But we do experience pain and as a consequence we have just one more piece of directly observable evidence. We know what it is like to receive these messages. Why does this one more piece of information suddenly make the previous theory unintelligible?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
Originally posted by Interesting Ian

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Let me address the reason why I think materialism is unintelligible.

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Unintelligible means that it cannot be understood. You don't understand materalism? Then why are you arguing against it?



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What we need to do is take a look at materialism to see if it is internally consistant.

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Yep, indeed we do.



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Now the particular question I would like to address is why should we suppose that other peoples bodies are "inhabited" by conscious minds (or why phenomenal consciousness is associated with brains).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Materalism tells us that 'consciousness' is but an illusion created by the functions of the brain. If other people have similar brain structures, then it is fairly safe to assume that they, too, experience 'consciousness' like we do; they are 'inhabited'.



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Your argument no doubt will be that materialism stipulates this to be so; it is an axiomatic premise of materialism. But this makes your definition of materialism an arbitrary one. A metaphysic which glosses over awkward facts. Allow me to explain.

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Well, I see materalism as explaining this "awkward fact" quite well, without glossing over anything.



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It seems to me that materialism should stipulate that the physical exhausts reality. That once we have completely described the Universe in physical terms then we have said all that can be said about the Universe or reality.

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Yes, indeed it would. But it's the same with any other philosophy. God made everything? Well there you go, you've just said all that can be said about the universe. Whatever happens, it's that way because god made it. This is a pointless argument, because it is not just common to materalism. Not only that, but it has nothing to do with the argument at hand, and is not even mentioned later on. I.I, learn how to construct arguments .



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But what is the physical? It seems to me that it should be everything, that, at least in principle, can be observed by anyone with appropriate faculties and suitable instruments.

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Yes, of course it does. Not only does this have nothing to do with materalism, it is blatently obvious. If it is physical, it should be able to be observed. Note, maybe not with our current technology, but it would with some level of technology.



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In other words all that is objective exists, or to put it another way, all that is discernable from the third person perspective exists.

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I'm not sure how this follows at all, as you have just defined it fairly well above. However, nothing can be observed from a third person perspective, as we are forever trapped inside our own heads. We cannot 'leave' our brain to observe something, then come back in. It's just silly.



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This will also include things which can only be indirectly seen (although strictly speaking I reject the direct/indirect dichotomy). This then includes such entities as electrons, because although they can only be "indirectly" seen they nevertheless play fruitful roles in our theories describing the world ie we need to hypothesise electrons in order to explain certain aspects of reality.

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Well, to nitpick, many things are 'indirectly' observed. The wind, for example. Do you postulate that it doesn't exist? Indirectly observing something leads to a hypothese and a theory about it's cause. Nothing more. On a side note, you can fairly directly observe an electron in those gas-chamber thingies (for the life of me I can't remember their name) when different particles get different spiral patterns depening on their charge. If you discount that, then you discount things like wind.



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Now there is something peculiar about conscious experience which marks it off from all other existents. It is simply this. It cannot be observed or detected by anyone with appropriate faculties and/or suitable instruments!

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No, no and no. This is assuming, in the first place, that 'conscious experience' is both independant of the brain, and is a physical (or metaphysical) 'object'. Also, materalism simply tells us that all things are material in nature. You are turning it into something it is not. It says that 'consciousness' is material in nature; either a byproduct of the brain, or in the form of some other, material, object or process.



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Thus according to my prior definition of the physical it is not a physical existent. Thus I may have toothache to take an arbitrary example. But you cannot observe that toothache, all you can obseve is the effects of the toothache, the grimace of pain for example. Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Again, say it with me. Materalism tells us that everything is material in nature, nothing more. You could 'observe' the toothache if we were able to, for example, isolate the part of the brain that is responsible for 'your' feeling of pain. What's that you say? It isn't observing pain itself? Materalism tells us that there is no such thing as pain, but it is an illusion created by the proccess of the brain. Hmm, I see no problem here so far...



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Now you will no doubt say that by observing the grimace, or at least by observing the neurons fire, then you are observing the toothache since materialism holds that the toothache and its neural correlates are one and the same thing, or at least aspects of the same thing. But an objective examination of this toothache will necessarily leave out the subjective irreducibly sensation of pain.

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This is true, because pain is an illusion. There is no such thing as pain, so there is nothing to observe. You 'feel' pain because of the way the brain interpretates stimulae fed to it through the senses. The feeling 'pain' is both caused by, and is, processes in the brain. Nothing more, nothing less. You are, again, assuming there is something there to 'observe' in the first place.
Again, I see no problem for materalism here.



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The actually sensation of pain does not figure into the physical facts about the pain according to our prior definition of the physical.

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That is because your definition of physical has nothing to do with materalism. I will say it again. All materalism tells us is that everything is material in nature.

It is not something more then this, it is just this.



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Nor can we infer the sensation of pain since, unlike an electron, the (phenomenological) pain does not play a part in any description of our behaviour. The pain per se cannot play a part because pain per se is not part of the objective publically accessible realm. Only the neural correlates of the pain can play any fruitful role in our theories.

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This is because, once again, there is no such thing as pain. It is an illusion, Ian. But you can't seem to understand, or handle, this can you?



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In short then either a materialist has to concede his metaphysic is internally inconsistent,

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Nope, it isn't. But your view is inconsistant with materalism.



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or he must arbitrarily include phenomenological consciousness within his world picture. But if he opts for the latter then the whole prima facie plausibility of his world view crumbles away. No longer can he say that for something to exist it must be in principle be directly observable or play a fruitful role in some theory about the world, because this then necessarily precludes phenomenological consciousness. He
has to expand the notion of the physical to even include things that cannot be directly or even indirectly detected, even in principle!

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Nope, because all materalism tells us is that everything is material in nature!!!
I've already explained that, with your pain example, there is nothing to observe. You can not observe consciousness, because it is not a thing. It is an illusion, caused by the brain functions. Thus, you are making the assumption that your metaphysic (or whatever it is, either way you are assuming that pain and consciousness are actual objects, and are physical things. They are not, as has been explained to you.) is correct to disprove another. This is bad practice, unless done very well. I must say that that isn't the case here, I'm afrain .



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This is what materialism entails and is just one of many reasons why we should reject this metaphysic.
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Once again, all materialism says is that everything is material in nature. NOTHING MORE!.

Your post is vacuous and doesn't get to grips with my argument at all. All it boils down to is your assertion that pain and all other conscious states are illusionary. Now what exactly does it mean to say that all conscious states are illusionary?

You might be saying they do not actually exist. So no-one ever has any conscious states. No one ever experiences pain, or indeed anything else. So this is the position that we're all philosophical zombies. As I have mentioned other times, I'm in agreement that this defeats my argument. However, *I* know that at least *I* do experience conscious states, even though you and everyone else doesn't. Therefore this attack fails.

You might object that you do not mean this. You might say we do have experiences, but they are illusionary experiences. So we experience an illusionary pain which is both distinct from experiencing a real pain and from experiencing nothing at all.

I submit to you that the concept of an 'illusionary experience' is an oxymoron. An experience is an experience is an experience. Simply labeling a pain as 'illusionary' achieves nothing. How does it effect the felt experience? How does it differ from a 'real pain'? If by saying conscious states are illusionary you do not mean they do not exist, but mean something else. I submit that this something else is entirely vacuous.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Robin
[quote]
II
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Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.
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Robin
But they are not irreducibly private.



When have you ever experienced anyone elses pain?



We experience pain in ourselves, and observe others experiencing pain



If pain is not identical to some physical process, then you cannot observe or infer their pain, because, should materialism and causal closure of the Universe be true, phenomenological pain cannot play a fruitful role in a scientific theory. Everything a person ever does is explicable in terms of publically accessible physical facts. Thus in order for materialism to be true, pain has to be identical to some physical process. But this is to misunderstand what pain is. Pain is a qualitative experience, not a physical process.



and in particular that their reactions and descriptions of it match our own. We observe great similarity between ourselves and others so it is a rational inference that they are feeling what we are feeling.



I agree. But this line of argument doesn't work if materialism is true as I've just explained.




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Nor can we infer the sensation of pain since, unlike an electron, the (phenomenological) pain does not play a part in any description of our behaviour.
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Suppose that we didn’t experience pain, but that other animals did. In this case the whole mechanism would have no mystery attached to it. We could see that for example a light pin jab to a rat’s body resulted in a consistent set of reactions and we could infer that injuries to the rat’s body produce an unignoreable signal. Further study would show that the nervous system transmits these messages and brain scans would probably lead us to conclude that the brain processed them.

The reasons for pain in this context are self evident. Furthermore pain would be meaningless outside of the context of a fragile physical body.



If we didn't experience pain, but other animals did, then we would reject the idea that they experienced pain. At the very least, even if we accepted they experienced something, that experience wouldn't come under the purview of science. Science only deals with objective physical facts, not with an experience that one solitary sentient being has. This includes any conscious experience.



We could infer a good deal about the experience of pain, for example that it was unpleasant, that it took precedence over any other sensation.



Unpleasant? How do we know they are conscious at all to experience anything whatsoever? If their behaviour can be entirely explained by publically observable facts, then what reason have we to suppose they experience pain? I say again, if materialism is true you could only suppose they experience pain by supposing pain to be identical to some physical process; which is absurd.




There would be no reason to suppose that pain was anything else than the observable physical evidence.

But we do experience pain and as a consequence we have just one more piece of directly observable evidence. We know what it is like to receive these messages. Why does this one more piece of information suddenly make the previous theory unintelligible?



Because the experience of pain cannot be derived from the physical facts. What you would have to say is that certain physical processes give rise to (generate) pain. Not that pain is those physical processes, but rather pain results from those physical processes. But then if the resulting pain is not itself causally efficacious (but merely its neural correlates) and therefore not physical, then this would be epiphenomenalism rather than materialism.

[Z]

:dl:

Oh, this gets even better!

Um, Ian, do you even know what 'pain' is?

Pain is a relatively localized sensation of discomfort, distress, or agony, resulting from the stimulation of specialized nerve endings. When your body functions correctly, pain is a signal that makes you aware of a harmful effect on your body. In other words, it is entirely a physical process.

Relate this, for a moment, to an automobile with an 'engine warning light'. When something goes wrong in the engine, it triggers a signal causing a light to turn on in the compartment with you. The car is not 'feeling pain', merely processing a signal. Same thing with our brains. We receive information about bodily damage or harm through our nerve signals, which are processed by our brain and cause us to react by avoiding or removing, if we can, the symptom of pain (the immediate cause of pain).

Consider the automobile analogy again for a moment. Consider that, instead of a driver, the auto has a very complex computer that guides it (as a very few cars do). When it receives this warning signal, it knows it has experienced damage to its motor, and therefore, will take the steps it knows of to fix the problem, i.e. driving to the repair bay. Humans are exactly like this, except that we have millions of nerve cells and innumerable ways to deal with our pains.

Pain is neither an illusion nor an irreducible personal experience. It is quite physical.

[Taffer]

Firstly, it is bad practice to quote an enire post if you are not going to talk about it.
Secondly, try to actually understand what is told to you. Just because you don't, doesn't mean it is wrong.

Your post is vacuous and doesn't get to grips with my argument at all.

Simply because it negates your argument doesn't mean it "doesn't get to grips".


All it boils down to is your assertion that pain and all other conscious states are illusionary. Now what exactly does it mean to say that all conscious states are illusionary?

This is exactly my assertion. Pain, and indeed all other conscious states, are indeed illusionary.
What does this mean? It simply means that there is no such thing as a 'coscious self' Ian. It is a byproduct. The result of complicated (admitedly very complicated) proccesses in the brain. There is no 'soul' or 'energy spirit' or whatever that resides in our brain. We are our brains. There is no physical thing called 'pain'. It is not a material thing. It is the way our brain interprets signals from the cells of your tooth to tell your brain that it is infected. You 'feel' pain simply because that is the way our brain is wired. It could be perfectly possible that, given a bit of 'rewireing', you could smell roses instead of feeling pain. Does this mean that pain no longer exists? No, becaues pain never existed. All that exists, Ian, are brain processes. Pain is so, well, painfull because, evolutionarily speaking, it must be something that cannot be ignored, otherwise we might go around slaming or thumbs in doors and not noticing.


You might be saying they do not actually exist.

Illusions generally do not exist, Ian. ;)


So no-one ever has any conscious states.

Er, not so. I am simply saying that pain can be attributed to a material cause. In fact, it is entierly material in nature. The 'illusion' is the actual feeling of pain, which really is just an interpretation of data.


No one ever experiences pain, or indeed anything else. So this is the position that we're all philosophical zombies. As I have mentioned other times, I'm in agreement that this defeats my argument. However, *I* know that at least *I* do experience conscious states, even though you and everyone else doesn't. Therefore this attack fails.

Ah, you think therefore you are? Indeed, you can be fairly certain that you exist because you are thinking it arn't you? What does this cute notion have to do with the argument at hand? I am not saying we are all zombies, so what is your point?


You might object that you do not mean this. You might say we do have experiences, but they are illusionary experiences. So we experience an illusionary pain which is both distinct from experiencing a real pain and from experiencing nothing at all.

No, it is only distinct from nothing at all because there is no real pain. Pain is pain is pain, Ian. There is not 'red' pain and 'green' pain. It is all pain, and it is all illusionary.


I submit to you that the concept of an 'illusionary experience' is an oxymoron. An experience is an experience is an experience. Simply labeling a pain as 'illusionary' achieves nothing. How does it effect the felt experience? How does it differ from a 'real pain'? If by saying conscious states are illusionary you do not mean they do not exist, but mean something else. I submit that this something else is entirely vacuous.

This is false, because all experience, and even consciousness itself, is illusionary. There is nothing to compare it to and go "well see? That is not illusionary!". Ian, try to understand this. There is no such thing as pain. There is no such thing as a 'self', nor consciousness, nor any of the other wishy washy words we tend to attribute our personal awareness. They are all illusionary, Ian. There is no self. The self is a 'projection' created by a particular brain pattern (if you will). They do not exist.

[Taffer]

Quite right, except I would argue that

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Pain is neither an illusion nor an irreducible personal experience. It is quite physical.

is not quite right. The feeling of pain is an illusion, but pain itself is physical, indeed.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
[B]:dl:

Oh, this gets even better!

Um, Ian, do you even know what 'pain' is?

Pain is a relatively localized sensation of discomfort, distress, or agony, resulting from the stimulation of specialized nerve endings. When your body functions correctly, pain is a signal that makes you aware of a harmful effect on your body. In other words, it is entirely a physical process.



So what we have here is that something which can only be known from the first person perspective effects objective processes. Why is this not interactive dualism rather than materialism??

[Taffer]

Not at all Ian. If we had the proper technology, we could map the process that your body and brain goes through when stimulated in a 'painful' way.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
:dl:

Oh, this gets even better!

Um, Ian, do you even know what 'pain' is?

Pain is a relatively localized sensation of discomfort, distress, or agony, resulting from the stimulation of specialized nerve endings. When your body functions correctly, pain is a signal that makes you aware of a harmful effect on your body. In other words, it is entirely a physical process.

Relate this, for a moment, to an automobile with an 'engine warning light'. When something goes wrong in the engine, it triggers a signal causing a light to turn on in the compartment with you. The car is not 'feeling pain', merely processing a signal. Same thing with our brains. We receive information about bodily damage or harm through our nerve signals, which are processed by our brain and cause us to react by avoiding or removing, if we can, the symptom of pain (the immediate cause of pain).



Yes this is all fine, and is applicable to a p-zombie (non-conscious automaton). Are you here espousing epiphenomenalism (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/)?? From link " Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events".



Consider the automobile analogy again for a moment. Consider that, instead of a driver, the auto has a very complex computer that guides it (as a very few cars do). When it receives this warning signal, it knows it has experienced damage to its motor, and therefore, will take the steps it knows of to fix the problem, i.e. driving to the repair bay. Humans are exactly like this, except that we have millions of nerve cells and innumerable ways to deal with our pains.



P-zombies are like this, not humans. Humans not only have the neural correlates of pain occurring, but also pain itself.



Pain is neither an illusion nor an irreducible personal experience. It is quite physical.

But you haven't addressed my arguments refuting this notion. What is wrong with my arguments?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer

This is exactly my assertion. Pain, and indeed all other conscious states, are indeed illusionary.
What does this mean? It simply means that there is no such thing as a 'coscious self' Ian.



You really are hopelessly confused. Whether or not there is a (substantial) self has nothing to do with the existence of pain! Sure, you can say the self is illusionary without conceptual absurdity. But you cannot say that pain is illusionary! Pain is simply defined by its felt experience. Nothing is being asserted by saying pain is illusionary! It is entirely a vacuous assertion! {SWEATS}

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
Not at all Ian. If we had the proper technology, we could map the process that your body and brain goes through when stimulated in a 'painful' way.

I don't know what you mean by "map". You can map something which can only be detected by one single sentient creature in the Universe and by no other sentient creatures in principle?? Because this is the case with our conscious experiences including pain.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
It (ie pain) is a byproduct. The result of complicated (admitedly very complicated) proccesses in the brain.



Hold your horses one sec. Pain is a byproduct? It is caused by neural activity in the brain?

OK, but is pain itself causally efficacious?? Or is it simply the processes (ie neural correlates of pain), which it is a byproduct of, which are causally efficacious??

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
There is no physical thing called 'pain'. It is not a material thing.

Then you must deny the existence of pain. Otherwise you are not a materialist. And saying that pain exists but is illusionary doesn't cut the mustard I'm afraid. As I explained, such an assertion is nonsensical.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
You 'feel' pain simply because that is the way our brain is wired. It could be perfectly possible that, given a bit of 'rewireing', you could smell roses instead of feeling pain. Does this mean that pain no longer exists? No, becaues pain never existed. All that exists, Ian, are brain processes. Pain is so, well, painfull because, evolutionarily speaking, it must be something that cannot be ignored, otherwise we might go around slaming or thumbs in doors and not noticing.


If pain doesn't exist then it cannot feel painful and you cannot feel pain. Why is this? Because you just said pain doesn't exist!

Geez.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer

II
So no-one ever has any conscious states.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taffer
Er, not so. I am simply saying that pain can be attributed to a material cause. In fact, it is entierly material in nature.



Do you understand your second sentence here does not follow from the first?



The 'illusion' is the actual feeling of pain, which really is just an interpretation of data.



But here you are acknowledging the existence of pain. But you also say it's an illusion and you say that illusions do not exist.

You are just directly blatantly contradicting yourself all the time!

Geez.

[Z]

Taff, while I normally agree with your statements, you do seem to be contradicting yourself here - but let's not get worked up over it, Ian.

Ian, we can agree that the neurological activity of 'pain' is physical, right? Just as we can agree that the neurological activity of 'sight', 'fear', 'taste', etc. are physical. What you are pointing at is the specific sensation of pain as interpreted by 'you'. In fact, what you are getting at, is that every sensation you possess is unique to you, and you feel that this invalidates materialism in some way.

But, you are also working on the belief that 'you' are a passenger of immaterial nature riding along in the 'brain/body', interpreting the signals of 'pain, sight, etc' in your own unique fashion, yes?

So while one could reproduce the exact signals that equal 'pain, sight, etc' to your brain, the experience you have would itself be without duplication?

So by your belief, it would be irrelevant if we could induce 'love, fear, hate, sorrow' in your brain/body... You would experience them, but the experiences themselves would still be unique to you? In which case, I have to wonder, what's the point? Since everything you experience from your immaterial perspective is still the result of precise physical processes, then does it matter if there's an immaterial perspective or not? Because your brain is still a computer, hard-wired with genetic circuitry, programmed with experiences and sensory input from your environment; and you will still always act and react in perfect accord with the circuitry, programming, and input you receive; in other words, an immaterial rider is also irrelevant.

This, I think, is the big problem you have with materialism: it reduces the immaterial to total irrelevancy, which is uncomfortable because it also reduces (apparently) any phenomenae which have yet to be detected materially as irrelevant as well. However, would you feel the same if the case in question 3 were to come to fruition, if indeed a material 'soul' were discovered? What if science came to realise the rider was real, and not just real, but observable, analyzable, and possibly even reproducable? If case 3 were true, then by logical extension we would be able, eventually, to capture and direct these 'souls' - we could control the process of reincarnation. In fact, with the example from case 1, we could simply pattern a person in their prime, by first removing this 'soul', then duplicate the person, restore their 'soul', and, as they aged, repeat the process, thereby causing a form of immortality. Wouldn't this logically follow from the examples given in the three questions?

That which can affect the material world, can also be affected by the material world. So if there is a 'soul', it MUST be a material thing.

'Nothing immaterial exists.' Sums it up pretty darned well.

[Taffer]

Perhaps I did not explain myself very well, and kudos to I.I and zaayr for pointing it out.

Pain does exist. It is an entirely physical process. The feeling of pain, however, is illusionary. This is not a contradiction.

You really are hopelessly confused. Whether or not there is a (substantial) self has nothing to do with the existence of pain! Sure, you can say the self is illusionary without conceptual absurdity. But you cannot say that pain is illusionary! Pain is simply defined by its felt experience. Nothing is being asserted by saying pain is illusionary! It is entirely a vacuous assertion!

This is both a pointless argument, and just trying to be argumentitive. If you read my post you will realise what I am saying. The two things are related. I can, and just have, said that pain is illusionary. The feeling of pain does not exist (although the physical processes that are interpreted by the brain that in turn result in said feeling do). You cannot use "pain is defined as an experience, therefore it must be real or it isn't pain" argument because this is no longer arguing the point but rathe arguing the language. Then it becomes similar to the "all husbands are married" argument.

If pain doesn't exist then it cannot feel painful and you cannot feel pain. Why is this? Because you just said pain doesn't exist!

You do not even try to understand, do you? The feeling of pain does not exist. That which we call "pain" is simply the result of brain processes etc. There is no physical thing that is the feeling of pain, because it is an illusion. There is a thing called pain, however, and it is an entirely physical process made up the processes i the brain. Why is it because I say so? Because we are discussion view points Ian. By that very fact, that which I say must be true to me, because it is my view point. Do you see?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
Taff, while I normally agree with your statements, you do seem to be contradicting yourself here - but let's not get worked up over it, Ian.



Yeah, otherwise people will say I've lost the argument. Therefore pain must be an illusion or be non-existent :rolleyes:


Ian, we can agree that the neurological activity of 'pain' is physical, right?



The neurological correlates of pain are physical, yeah.




Just as we can agree that the neurological activity of 'sight', 'fear', 'taste', etc. are physical. What you are pointing at is the specific sensation of pain as interpreted by 'you'. In fact, what you are getting at, is that every sensation you possess is unique to you, and you feel that this invalidates materialism in some way.



Yes it refutes materialism because the pain itself is not physical, only its neural correlates are.



But, you are also working on the belief that 'you' are a passenger of immaterial nature riding along in the 'brain/body', interpreting the signals of 'pain, sight, etc' in your own unique fashion, yes?



This has nothing to do with the discussion. Here you're talking about the self. The existence of conscious states do not necessitate a self, but their existence is enough to ensure the falsity of materialism. In other words, even though they might not exist a self, materialism still cannot be correct.




So while one could reproduce the exact signals that equal 'pain, sight, etc' to your brain, the experience you have would itself be without duplication?



You presumably could reproduce the qualitative feel of pain in someone else. But you wouldn't be able to tinker with the brain so that someone would partake of my thoughts and emotions. And none of this addresses the fact that conscious states cannot be part of any scientific theory describing the world. Are you suggesting that we would not be able to scientifically describe, via a theory, someones behaviour without incorporating conscious experiences? If this is so then conscious experiences must be causally efficacious in themselves (not just their neural correlates). I have already spelt out the difficulty of this position. If some conscious experience is causally efficacious per se (rather than just its neural correlates), and yet such a conscious experience can only be experienced by the one person, then you're talking about a non-objective effect in the world. This surely is interactive dualism rather than materialism (also note here that the neural correlates of such a conscious experience would follow rather than lead the experience ie the neural activity is caused by the conscious experience rather than vice versa).





So by your belief, it would be irrelevant if we could induce 'love, fear, hate, sorrow' in your brain/body... You would experience them, but the experiences themselves would still be unique to you?



I suspect you can't induce something like hate. You can only induce dispositions towards certain emotions.

Anyway, the point here is that consciousness cannot be objectively detected. We do not have a consciousness measuring machine. We could not ever know if a computer is conscious. Indeed we can never even know that other people are conscious. If we could measure consciousness this doubt would disappear. But we cannot measure consciousness, therefore it cannot be physical, therefore materialism is refuted.



In which case, I have to wonder, what's the point? Since everything you experience from your immaterial perspective is still the result of precise physical processes, then does it matter if there's an immaterial perspective or not?



Of course it does. If materialism is false, but the brain nevertheless still is the origin of our consciousness, then you are going to slip into a position such as epiphenomenalism together with the difficulties this generates for the notion of free will (which one might argue materialism can avoid). See here (http://members.lycos.nl/Kritisch/index-23.html). A damn good article btw.





Because your brain is still a computer, hard-wired with genetic circuitry, programmed with experiences and sensory input from your environment; and you will still always act and react in perfect accord with the circuitry, programming, and input you receive; in other words, an immaterial rider is also irrelevant.



No, epiphenomenalism is unintelligible as well as materialism, albeit for differing reasons. Read that article. I'm pleased though that you now are seriously considering rejecting materialism. Part 1 of my grand plan almost fulfilled! ;)



This, I think, is the big problem you have with materialism: it reduces the immaterial to total irrelevancy, which is uncomfortable because it also reduces (apparently) any phenomenae which have yet to be detected materially as irrelevant as well. However, would you feel the same if the case in question 3 were to come to fruition, if indeed a material 'soul' were discovered?



AS I say, materialism is unintelligible so I do not have to consider material souls.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Taffer
[B]Perhaps I did not explain myself very well, and kudos to I.I and zaayr for pointing it out.

Pain does exist. It is an entirely physical process. The feeling of pain, however, is illusionary. This is not a contradiction.



No! The very meaning of pain is a certain qualitative feel or experience. If pain exists, then necessarily some sentient being has felt pain. You cannot have pain without anyone ever experiencing pain!

Geez!

[Z]

Again, you seem to be confusing what we are capable of doing NOW with what we will be capable of doing.

If we cannot measure light, does light exist as a material component? If we cannot measure hormone balances within the body, can we say that there is a material cause for aggressive or depressive aberrations of character? But eventually these were measured, and we now know things have material causes that before we could only wonder about.

It would be highly foolish to dismiss materialism based on current knowledge. It is even more foolish to embrace any immaterial viewpoint, for the simple fact that nothing immaterial exists in a material universe. The very definition of 'immaterial' prevents any immaterial object from in any way influencing or being influenced by the material world. The only reconciliation is, as LG is attempting to do, consider that the things we consider 'material' are, in fact, immaterial - which renders the concept moot anyway, since we then claim that 'real' objects (those we can observe and measure) and 'unreal' objects are of the same nature - which STILL leaves us with the need to differentiate between things that have a measurable and observable nature and things that do not.

As to 'rejecting materialism', I tell you, my beliefs are that materialism is lacking in several areas; however, my logic dictates that no such lack exists. My belief is that there are immaterial souls, deities, dragons, faeries, etc... that everything you can imagine is in some way real. My reason states otherwise. I am a dualist in that I accept both views internally at the same time; the paradox doesn't bother me, since paradox relies upon a wholly real nature, which I personally believe is false; that nature is both real and unreal simultaneously. However, as much as I'd like to see an argument that truly effectively refutes materialism, so far there hasn't been one. Sorry.

[Taffer]

You presumably could reproduce the qualitative feel of pain in someone else. But you wouldn't be able to tinker with the brain so that someone would partake of my thoughts and emotions.

Yes, you could. As even thoughts and emotions are physical, you could reproduce the exact same experiences in a brain by 'tinkering'. In the transporter example, the duplicate has the same thoughts and emotions as you. This is because the brain is the same.

Ian, try to understand this. You do not feel pain. What you 'feel' is actually an interpretation of physical stimulae from your body to your brain. Your brain interprets these as the thing we call a feeling. But this is only an interpretation. 'Pain' is a physical process. The feeling of pain is an illusion created by the brain.

Just as the sense of self is an illusion. There is no such thing as a sense of self. There is only physical, material, processes going on in your brain which create an illusion. In other words, they create a feeling, but the actual thing does not exist.

Now, if you are arguing that you feel this feeling, then I would counter by saying "no, you don't, because there is no you". There is only your brain, processes in the brain, and reactions between said processes. Even *you* is an illusion, created by said processes. You are, in other words Ian, an automation. Or a robot. Or a computer. These are all true. To you, a computer as complex as our brain, does not experience anything because it doesn't have a 'soul'. It is not alive. But this is false, because our brains are simply a very very very complicated computer.

[Z]

In fact, if we assume the teletransporter problem is possible, then by necessity of example, thoughts, feelings, emotions, indeed all internal states could be replicated perfectly, save one: the original sense of continuity as continually experienced by the original entity (who is destroyed, thus experiencing no further continuity).

Frankly, I think the Mars-clone would go crazy (depending on his personal mental resiliance) based on the 'knowledge' that he is the Original (which is patently false, since he is the Clone) and the awareness of his clone state. I think it would set up paradox potentials in the brain, and destabilize his personality. In fact, it would cause him to doubt the validity of his memories and experiences, and probably degrade his mental states.

Consider victims of brainwashing. They suffer this degradation when their memories are being restored: they honestly can no longer say whether their memories and thoughts are their own anymore. Reconciliation takes a long and painful process, and sometimes never fully succeeds.

[Interesting Ian]

Oh God!

What a pair you are.