tronvillain

Are you going to link this to morality, or would it be better off in philosophy?

d'naturalist

Well, I think meeting myself would be kind of creepy. I think if I was dying and had only a limited time to live, I would have my original body put in stasis (providing that was possible in our hypothetical "Brave New World") and the new exact duplicate brain & body made. And Yes, I would awaken as me in my new body.

To those of you who are attached to your bodies, consider this. Now, I'm no expert on biology, so hopefully someone who is can help me on this, but the majority of the body you have right now is not the body you had five or ten years ago, or were born with. A significant amount of the material (atoms & molecules) that make up the body are constantly being cycled through the system. This is one of the main reasons we consume organic foods, to replace the organic materials that have perished or been damaged. The specific collection of atom & molecules we call our bodies are not the same from year to year.

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: d'Naturalist ]</p>

d'naturalist

I am my mind (to put it simply). My body, for all intents & purposes, is an organic machine who's sole purposes (I know, bad grammar) are to provide sensory input, storage of data, production of consciousness, physical mobility & interactivity, communication with other organisms, reproduction, et al. I would not want any part of my mind -- materialistically speaking, my brain in it's specific state and the data stored within -- altered in any way short of repairing damage that would, if left unrepaired, leave me mentally or physically impaired. I'll keep my painful & useless memories. I think it was Capt. Kirk in ST:5 who said, "I want my pain. I need my pain. It's a part of who I am." (or something like that)

Now, if I could alter my body to make myself 6' tall, blonde haired, blue eyed, and hung like a horse... sign me up!

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: d'Naturalist ]</p>

hedonologist

You don't know what you would do?

If you are not sure whether you would trade your brain in, like a used car (no matter how different the new one is), doesn't this imply that you are unsure of "materialism"?
I thought we were already discussing the morality of having a brain transplant. I was going to tie it into more practical, everyday sorts of decisions we make, through questioning your intention in trading in your brain for a new one. This seems like an act of altruism, to me, similar to procreating. Helping "your own future", would be like doing things for someone else. So my aim in discussing this is to find some way to harmonize and understand the desire to survive, to procreate, to serve a "better" person, etc. Getting a brain transplant with significant "improvements", is like having a child who seems to have these "improvements", or like dieing for a person with these improvements. There are many moral issues this relates to, and this is a very fundamental moral topic because it involves what is most valuable to you.

One question is, what will bring a similar type of fulfillment, to these intentions to "improve yourself" or "survive", if we have a greater understanding of what we are. Are we (like) the "same person" who is having different experiences? Would this change our desire to "survive" to a desire to serve "others" or vice versa?

[ January 11, 2002: Message edited by: hedonologist ]</p>

hedonologist

I think it is creepy, because it represents the paradoxical mystery we are discussing. Your copy wouldn't be you because it would be having a different experience. I'm speaking on behalf of the one side of the paradox, when I say that.

Maybe you are meeting yourself, as you would be if you had had some different experiences, etc, and we are all just copies of you. You are in someone else's room. Whose writing is that?-- not yours. hehe
Isn't just the desire to "survive", attachment to your body?

I might replace each part of my brain, piece by piece, so I could "make sure" I still existed, as it was happening. I would have to tell the surgeon/programmer to replace a part and let me have some experiences, then put the old part back in so I could make a decision, while I was, "in my right mind". But then again, I would have no way of knowing whether the memories were "mine" or "someone else's". These replacement parts may just imitate what the old parts did, and fool the rest of my brain into thinking these new parts were "me", and so the amount of my subjective experience would become less and less, until, when the last part was replaced, I (the first experiencer) disappeared. So maybe I would have no way of knowing when my experience was diminishing, because the new parts were fooling me into thinking my experience was the same as before the part was implanted.

In a way this seems similar to how you wouldn't want to meet your copy, though I wouldn't mind meeting a copy of who I was in the past. I just wouldn't want to die afterwards.
So you identify yourself with the data and structure of your whole brain. It is ironic that you suggest that I am attached to my body, when I would change/"improve" many of my brain functions, like you would change/"improve" the rest of your body. There is no fine line between super-intelligence and just repairing an "impairment". You haven't known super-intelligence, so you don't know what you are missing, thus you don't have much of a desire to have it.

tronvillain

Did you not read what you you quoted hedonologist? This has nothing to do with my confidence in materialism - I simply do not know enough about how my brain works to say whether or not I would undergo an upgrade. Of course, that is because I would not submit to a procedure "I" would not survive, except under extreme circustances such as being in excrutiating pain or near death. I would certainly undergo an upgrade if I felt "I" would survive.

Essentially, what is most valuable to me is me.

Personally, I don't think it would be creepy to meet myself. It would be interesting, and possibly quite useful, though potentially quite dangerous. I see nothing paradoxical about it - we would simply diverge, becoming less and less the same person as we had more and more different experiences.

Jamie_L

I'm not exactly sure how this thread ties into morality, but I'm having fun thinking about the whole brain-copy thing. If the thread needs to be moved, so be it.

To continue to try and explain my thoughts on the issue:

Suppose you were put in suspended animation. Then an exact copy of you was made, also in suspended animation. The copy is put in a room with green walls. The original "you" is put in a room with red walls. Both copies are awakened at exactly the same time. What color walls will you see when you open your eyes?

If you say "red", then you are in some way (I think) aknowledging that your experiences, the consciousness that you think of as "you", is tied to that original brain. If you don't say "red", please explain what you see instead, and your reasoning behind it.

For the record, I firmly believe that I will open my eyes and see red walls.

Jamie

d'naturalist

The problem with meeting myself is that it disrupts the "linear consciouness". What I mean by that is that when a mind goes from point A to point B to point C in time as a single consciousness, you have a single identity. If, between points B & C, the original and copy of my brain were both conscious, then you would have the effect of intellectual siamese twins having been separated and given their own bodies. Both would have separate experiences from different points of view and as time went on would become more and more individual identities.

I'll save you the trouble of asking which I think would be "me". The one in the original body would be Me. Possession is 9/10th of the law, afterall. Me-2 would develop an individual identity based on his different perspective & experiences after the separation. If the original Me were to die later, then I would be lost because all the new experiences and the effect they had on my identity would be lost. However, much of me would live on in the new person that was created from me. But only if there was a single line of consciousness from old body to new body would I be able to consider that a true migration of my individual identity.

As for this "super-intelligence" concept, I get a nervous twitch every time someone feels the need to append "super" to the front of a word. I might be willing improve the efficiency of my brain or improve my memory, but I wouldn't want to alter the mapping of my neural pathways or the data that is stored therein. Maintaining my individual identity is the most important thing. If I can improve the functioning of the body without altering the mind that it projects, I would consider it.

The problem with super-intelligence is that I just couldn't believe in myself if I became too godlike.

As for a doctor/surgeon replacing your brain parts with someone else's, that's an issue of professional ethics and a real hazard in this whole procedure.

hedonologist

Maybe I am not defining materialism, as you do. I can't think of any other way to define materialism, in a meaningful way, without mention of its implications on behavior.

You made a useful distinction, between "info-matters" and "matter-matters". I'm making the case that "more than" info matters. If info were all that mattered to someone, I would think they could trade in their brain like it were a hard drive, so long as they had the same info and structure in the new brain. How could "you" not survive this, if "you" are only info?
I was assuming that you would be valuable to yourself. The next question is, what are "we", in physical terms, or what arrangement of matter "sustains us" as experiencers?

If we can not be "sustained" as experiencers, but instead who we are at this moment is a different person than who we are the next moment (as one pole of the paradox seems to suggest), then is there any more sense in valuing or trying to sustain "ourselves" if "ourselves" die every moment regardless of what happens physically. So the question becomes, what data in our brains do we want to sustain? Do we want to "survive" as an act of altruism for "our future self", or for some other purpose (other data in the brain)?
I don't see any danger. It is like having an identical twin, to me, just more similar. When I contemplate the idea, I imagine that we are all just like copies of one person. Maybe I would act the same as anyone else, if I had their genetics and environment. Materialism certainly says so.

hedonologist

Morals come from values. It is a question of what data, or brain state we value (such that we would get a brain transplant or not), either as the result of thinking this brain state causes us to exist, or as the result of thinking that who we are changes as our experience changes.

These different beliefs can lead to different morals/behaviors. Is there any sense in striving to "survive" if "survival" is really just slavery to essentially a different experiencer who will inhabit your brain, as the moments change? Maybe what we call "survival" is just to make the arrangement of matter which is our bodies, persist in this arrangement, but is this really a rational choice or just slavery to a "different person" (ie your future "self")? This may seem like a destructive belief, but it could also lead one to perceive other people as though they are like a copy of "you", and maybe perceiving their needs as, as valuable as the needs of "your future self", etc.

As for your hypothetical, I'm going to question from the perspective of the other side of the paradox now. How do you prove that you are the "same person" who went to sleep last night? Similarly, when you are imagining the experience of waking up in a red room, why do you imagine the experience of the one waking up in the red room? Maybe neither is "you".