I think there's so many different questions involved in this topic it's
going to be hard to sort them out. There's 'what produces our sense of
self', 'how can continuity of identity be quantified', 'at what point do
differentiated substrates produce different consciousnesses', 'can the
nature of consciousness be captured through snapshots of mental activity, or
only through a dynamic interpretation taken over a period of time?'... and
it's far too late for me to attempt to unravel all that!
My feeling, though, is that once you've managed to assign some informational
entity as being a conscious mind, then you could track it through time. If
you tweaked some physical variables, then much like a monte carlo simulation
you could see potential paths it could follow. Given enough variables and
tweaking, you might be able to fully populate the state-space according to
what question we're asking, and it would seem to me to be all about measure
theory. Of course, this doesn't say anything yet about any characteristics
of the conscious mind itself, which is undoubtedly of importance.
2008/11/2 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
>
> What are you calling "the process" when you've made two copies of it?
>
> Bretn
>
> Michael Rosefield wrote:
> > But, given that they are processes, then by definition they are
> > characterised by changing states. If we have some uncertainty
> > regarding the exact mechanics of that process, or the external input,
> > then we can draw an extradimensional state-space in which the degrees
> > of uncertainty correspond to new variables. If we can try and place
> > bounds on the uncertainty then we can certainly produce a kind of
> > probability mapping as to future states of the process.
> >
> >
> > 2008/11/2 Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden
> > <mailto:meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>>
> >
> >
> > Kory Heath wrote:
> > > On Oct 31, 2008, at 1:58 PM, Brent Meeker wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > >> I think this problem is misconceived as being about probability of
> > >> survival.
> > >>
> > >
> > > In the case of simple teleportation, I agree. If I step into a
> > > teleporter, am obliterated at one end, and come out the other end
> > > "changed" - missing a bunch of memories, personality traits,
> > etc., it
> > > doesn't seem quite correct to ask the question, "what's the
> > > probability that that person is me?" It seems more correct to ask
> > > something like "what percentage of 'me' is that person?" And in
> > fact,
> > > this is the point I've been trying to make all along - that we
> > have to
> > > accept some spectrum of cases between "the collection of molecules
> > > that came out is 100% me" and "the collection of molecules that
> came
> > > out is 0% me".
> > >
> > > The idea of probability enters the picture (or seems to) when we
> > start
> > > talking about multiple copies. If I step into a teleporter, am
> > > obliterated, and out of teleporter A steps a copy that's 100% me
> and
> > > out of teleporter B steps a copy that's 10% me, what's the best
> > way to
> > > view this situation? Subjectively, what should I believe that I'm
> > > about to experience as I step into that teleporter? It's hard for
> me
> > > not to think about this situation in terms of probability - to
> think
> > > that I'm more likely to find myself at A than B. It's especially
> > hard
> > > for me not to think in these terms when I consider that, in the
> case
> > > when the thing that ends up in teleporter A is 100% me and the
> thing
> > > that ends up in teleporter B is 0% me, the answer is unambiguous: I
> > > should simply believe that I'm going to subjectively experience
> > ending
> > > up in teleporter A.
> > >
> > > I'm sympathetic to the argument that it's still not correct to
> frame
> > > this problem in terms of probability. But I don't understand how
> > else
> > > to frame it. How do you (Brent) frame the problem? Subjectively,
> > what
> > > should I expect to experience (or feel that I'm most likely to
> > > experience) when I step into a teleporter, and I know that the
> thing
> > > that's going to come out Receiver A will be 100% me and the thing
> > > that's going to come out of Receiver B will be 10% me?
> > >
> > > -- Kory
> > >
> > The way I look at it, there is no "I". Kory-A and Kory-B are just
> two
> > different processes. We can ask how similar each one is to the Kory
> > that stepped into the teleporter, but there's no fact of the matter
> > about which one is *really* Kory. And there's no sense to the
> > question
> > of what "I should expect to experience" because "I" is nothing but a
> > process of experiencing anyway. We could make up some legal rule
> > (which
> > we would need if there really were teleporters) but it would have
> > to be
> > based on it's social utility, not ontology.
> >
> > Brent
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
>
>
> >
>
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Received on Sat Nov 01 2008 - 23:47:45 PDT