Garrett

lol It was well hidden, apparently. The first three words of the first premise.

But wait, you're not quite right. p1) I am aware of my mind.
I am the person performing the experiment.
(The person) is aware of (the mental environment).

:rolling:
Well, except that I genuinely take up the materialist claim and then put it next to mine and see that it contradicts.

We both just said the same thing, except for a comma.
The materialist claim contradicts with my claim.

My cheeks are hurting, sorry, but did you just suggest that I would see that materialism doesn't contradict my premise, if only I would genuinely believe in materialism?
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P1 ROCKS MY WORLD
It is a fact that I exist (I pay taxes), and it is a fact that I report that I am aware of my mind (see?). That is all p1 states. Any worldview in contradiction with p1 must be false.

p1 is not complicated.
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If something important is revealed about awareness of mind, then that is the idea to understand.

You said they do not understand p1, which is probably the simplist possible statement about awareness of mind which could ever be made. So nothing important is revealed to them, but it's a fallacy to claim that not understanding something means that there's nothing to understand.

Maybe they can't understand, because they do not experience awareness of mind, and have no basis of comparison. The statement "I am aware of my mind" contradicts their entire position on the nature of mind!
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READ THIS TWICE PLEASE
These have been accepted by the materialists without question.
p2) My mind is a particular information pattern.
c1) The computer then would have my mind. p2+p3
We don't need two labels for one thing. Find that particular pattern, and you find my mind, so one of the labels is redundant.

Right there, the implicit denial of awareness is expressed. Add explicit affirmation of awareness, and of course there is the contradiction.
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P2 IS FALSE
Of course p2 is false! Information patterns must be instantiated.
A mind is an instance of an information pattern.
My mind is an instance of a particular information pattern.

The computer's mind would be a seperate instance of that particular pattern.

A particular body can have only one instance.
A particular pattern can have many instances.

Do what you want with the pattern, I'm staying right here. I stay with the instance.

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That is so simple and obvious. Why is it opposed? It does create difficult situations when stuffed into a

teleporter: destroy the instance, email the pattern, reinstantiate.

If I stay with the instance then the reinstantiation is not me. There is no difference in physical function between the original instance and the reinstantiation. See the problem?

So the materialist plans to send me with the pattern. I wouldn't get to experience me anymore, because I'm dead, and also to avoid spooky multiple-copies mind-sharing. I don't want to go. GSA shows the plan won't work if I'm aware of my mind, so I'm not going. I just have to pay attention and remain aware of my mind. As long as I don't fall asleep or get distracted, I'll be fine.
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Garrett

Wasn't me.

p1 establishes a relationship.

No. The materialist did that by not objecting to c1. That grants a second instantiation to a particular instance, plain as freaking day.

I am aware of my mind. The materialist tells me what my mind is. c2 then follows. If you don't want singular awareness of plural instances, then don't put my mind into more than one instantiation.
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The argument never uses "I" in quotes. Your c2 does not follow from p1+c1.

James T

Is there some other reason you called it Garrett's Stupid Argument then?

Garrett

Yes.

swamp

to Garrett,

well, ok.

Naked Ape

Holy crap!

Just a thought, but if you are interested in the mind/brain perhaps a little reading on the topic would be more illuminating that scribbling in notebooks.

The Zanvyl Krieger Mind / Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins University

The Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior interfaculty initiative

The Whole Brain Atlas
Center for the study of Mind Brain and Behavior at Princeton

The World of Research at Columbia University

If you want to know how the mind/brain works, I bet that studying the topic and the current state of reasearch would be more productive than introspection even if you manage to fill notebooks with your thoughts.

Thats just me though, I'm funny that way.

Cheers,

Naked Ape

Wiploc

It occurs to me that people who don't believe in infinities don't have any reason to oppose teleportation.

If there aren't an infinite number of places between two points, then nothing can ever move between one point and another. All movement must consist of a series of tiny teleportations.

If that's the case, then a big teleportation is philosophically no different from the normal motions we make every day.

crc

Garrett

teleporter: destroy the instance, email the pattern, reinstantiate.

telecopy: scan the instance, email the pattern, reinstantiate.

CONDITIONAL
If I stay with the instance then the reinstantiation is not me. There is no difference in physical function between the original instance and the reinstantiation. There is a difference in subjective experience between them. Accept the conditional and read on. (Or oppose the conditional and go invalidate GSA.)

It would be interesting to search for a way to explain the difference.

I understand that the universe is made of patterns of matter/energy.

Any ideas how we can account for the subjective difference between the original instance and the functionally equivalent reinstantiation? What, in terms of patterns of m/e, is different between the two instances?

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Naked Ape

Once there are two of you, which one lays claim to 'I'?

What on earth are you talking about when you say "If I stay with the instance"?

What does staying with the instance mean to you, once there are two of you?

Cheers,

Naked Ape

Interesting Ian

I know this post in 2 months old, but I'll respond anyway.

No it doesn't destroy materialism. I used to think it does, but it doesn't.

In a nutshell the materialist cannot believe in an enduring self. What we call the "self" is merely an illusion. From one decade to the next your personality, interests etc might radically change. Thus you cannot literally be the same self because you are purely your physical body and psychological states, and these might be radically different from one decade to the next. But if your self literally changes from 1 decade to the next, then so it does from one second to the next since the world is in a continually state of change. Effectively then we are all continually ceasing to exist only to be replaced by an almost exact duplicate every infinitesimal fraction of a second.

Now let's think of the teleporter. Your body gets destroyed and an exact duplicate gets created at a remote location. The materialist (or indeed any metaphysic which holds that conscious states simply follow physical states in the brain) has to hold that the duplicate is literally "you". You have to hold this because "you" are nothing more than the totality of all physical facts. Recreate the physical facts and you recreate the "self". And of course, vindicating this, your consciousness will be continuous. One moment you will be at one location, then you will suddenly experience a shift in perspective and find yourself at another location.

Indeed you can imagine that every infinitesimal fraction of a second you are getting teletransported from place to place. Obviously if you keep your eyes open you'll just see a confusing blur. But you could close your eyes, and everything would seem to be normal. You could be thinking of a problem, daydreaming, or whatever. Nothing would seem different than from when you have your eyes closed normally even though your self is continuously being killed and spontaneously coming into being every infinitesimal fraction of a second. And you could just be "teleported" to the same place all the time every infinitesimal fraction of a second, but of couse this scenario is absolutely indistinguishable from our everyday second by second existence.

And this thought experiment establishes beyond any shadow of a doubt that under materialism we are effectively all continually ceasing to exist only to be replaced by an almost exact duplicate every infinitesimal fraction of a second. This can be seen when we consider that it's not important in the teleportation when the original gets destroyed. Normally it gets destroyed simultaneously with the creation of the duplicate at some remote location. But why not delay the killing of the original for say 10 minutes? If we don't delay but the original body is killed at the same time as the creation of the duplicate we think that we are simply jumping into the duplicate's body. But delaying the killing of the original body for 10 minutes should bring it home to us that this doesn't happen. "You" indeed are literally getting killed, but the crucial point to bear in mind is that under materialism you are already continually ceasing to exist only to be replaced by an almost exact duplicate every infinitesimal fraction of a second in anycase. So when we delay the killing of your original body, this should no more concern the original you than in your everyday second by second existence.

This is the only way we can make sense of teleportation. It just nicely illustrates how staggeringly counter-intuitive materialism is.

I'm not a materialist and believe in an enduring self which necessarily must be non-physical. Being non-physical it will not be duplicated and hence the duplicate would simply turn up as a corpse.