John, It's not a scientific question, it's a philosophical question. Early Christian thinkers such as Augustine considered preservation of personal identity when you died and went to heaven. The fact that there is no heaven does not invalidate the *philosophical* point any more than the scientific impossibility of teleportation would invalidate conclusions drawn from such thought experiments. So, suppose God destroyed your body at A and then created a perfect copy at B: would you survive the procedure? If not, then in what sense have you survived the last few years given that all the atoms in your body have been replaced by natural processes?Stathis PapaioannouFrom: jamikes.domain.name.hidden: everything-list.domain.name.hidden: Re: ASSA and Many-WorldsDate: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 17:00:11 -0500
Stathis,
maybe it is a postulate that (in my mind) what you write
does not make sense?
A Cc generated/operated by tissue - partially transferred
to parts unknown without (the?) tissue and still
functions? I am a simpleminded primitive peasant, cannot condone that you, a
'thinking' person (no insult meant) accept the drawing of final conclusions upon
our present insufficient knowledge base. 50 years ago everything was explained
as a telephone switchboard, 150 years ago as a steam-engine.
Always by metaphors we did not (yet) quite know and
science was happy. Even things like phlogiston or vitality survived for some
time. Today it is comp on equipment and process exceeding the present technique
and things borrowed from sci-fi. And people take it SSOOO seriously!
E.g. your calculation of the speed of thought upon the
physical registrations of visual measurements. It is the inertia of the tool we
use. Thought, by all metaphors, is timeless/spaceless, you can
experimentally proove it to yourself by 'thinking' of Dzhingis Kahn, Cleopatra
and Hitler around a table in South america. Or: on the Moon.
You wrote:(I added the asterisks)
"... *if I found myself*
continuing to have similar experiences despite teleportation, ..." -- what
I would read as corrected into::
"... *if I think about myself as*...." making a
difference for me in drawing conclusions. And you emphasized this in your
subsequent sentence in
"IF... THEN" - by the capitalization. So: if
not, not. A typical 'sowhat'.
I was hoping that you refer a bit to my ideas, not just repeat yours.
But, alas, so are the lists....
Have a good weekend
John
----- Original Message -----
From:
Stathis Papaioannou
To: everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 10:55
PM
Subject: RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
John, I guess my brain is generating my consciousness,
but I regard this as a contingent fact. My conciousness is that which I
experience, and if I found myself continuing to have similar experiences
despite teleportation, brain transplant, resurrection in Heaven or whatever,
then I would have survived as me. Note that I am not saying these things are
possible (perhaps this is where you are scornful of the fantastic scenarios),
just that IF in these situations I continued to think I was me, THEN ipso
facto, I would still be me, despite losing the original body and
brain.Stathis Papaioannou
From: jamikes.domain.name.hidden:
everything-list.domain.name.hidden: Re: ASSA and
Many-WorldsDate: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:54:32 -0500
Stathis:
interesting. See my additional question after your
reply
John
-----
Original Message -----
From:
Stathis Papaioannou
To:
everything-list.domain.name.hidden
Sent:
Friday, January 26, 2007 9:03 AM
Subject:
RE: ASSA and Many-Worlds
John Mikes writes: > Stathis:> your
concluding sentence is> " But my brain just won't let me think this
way."> *> Have you been carried away?> Who is "your
brain" to make decisions upon you? (maybe you mean only that the mechanism
of your brain, the main tool "YOU" use in mental activity, is not
predesigned for such action?) So: is there a pre-design (ha ha)?>
More importantly: who is that "me" in conflict with 'your'
brain?> How do you 'want' to 'think' something (which involves your
brain) when 'your brain' won't let it happen?> OK, let's introduce
"you", the homunculus, who wants to think some way and your 'brain' did
not reach the sophistication of the design (yet?) to comply - as a reason
for "won't let me".> With what 'tool' did "you" WANT to "think this
way"? How many people are you indeed?> *> I am asking these
stupid qiestions in the line of my search for SELF ("I"), vs. the total
interconnectedness of our personal existence with 'the rest of the world'.
I expect that you may provide useful hooks for me in such respect.>
John"I" am the product of a consciousness-generating mechanism, my
brain, in the same way as "walking" is the product of a
locomotion-generating mechanism, my legs. "I" am not identical to my brain
just as "walking" is not identical to my legs. Now, of course "I can only
think what my brain will let me think", and of course "I can only walk
where my legs will let me walk", but these statements are not tautologies
in the way that saying "I can only think what I can think" or "I can only
walk where I can walk" are. Stathis Papaioannou-----------------------------------
JM:
so you consider the biologic tissue-grown (stem-cell
initiated) BRAIN the origin of a thinking person? Life growing out from
'matter' - which is the figment of our explanatory effort to poorly and
incompletely observed impact received from parts unknown? Funny: you
invested so many posts into the (partial) teleportation and copying into
other universes - did you really MEAN
the transfer of tissues (like in StarTrek?) How 'bout
the multiple 'copying' of matter? How can you duplicate the
atoms for copying? StarTrek had only 1 copy and that, too, by 'physical'
transfer.
Save the wrong conclusion: I am not defending this line,
I find it unreal and just mention the position of yours and others on this
list for argument's sake.
I find it 'interesting, but amazing' that different
brains (see: the multiplicity of humans and other animals among
themselves) behave like mental clones in accepting very similar "3rd
person views" into their 1st person ideas, to form images of the 'material
world' etc. Mental images, that is, which, however you would make
into their own origination? Are we all (and the world, the existnce
etc.) only fiction of ourselves?
Then again I feel that the 'consciousness' you generate
by the brain may be very close to personality, self, the "I" we are
talking about. Which would close the loop: "there must be the
'primitive matter' forming the brain and out of that comes the
'not-so-primitive' matter, the mental complexity and all"???
I agree withBruno to disagree in the absolute primitive
matter concept. IMO
It is only an explanatory imaging in this
universe's consciousness activity to order the part of the system we so
far detected. Together with space-time and OUR pet-causality - the 'within
model' ordering.
John
PS I still would appreciate to be directed to a short
text explaining the essence of ASSA (RSSA?). J
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Received on Sat Jan 27 2007 - 22:24:03 PST