--- rwas rwas <mc68332.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> I had proposed an experiment very similar to a
> friend
> some years back concerning identity and
> consciousness.
>
> We start with a machine that can download, upload,
> and
> run consciousness. It can also manipulate the
> functioning of the brain of the person strapped into
> it.
>
> So we take one of you and put you in the chair. You
> sit there ready to observe. We shut you down and
> download your consciousness. We awaken you in the
> machine.
>
> Where is your awareness of self? This is not you
> observing someone else with consciousness. The
> object
> is to track *your* awareness of self.
>
> Now we reawaken the you still in human form in the
> chair. Which one do you perceive out of now? The
> computer or the human form?
>
> There is no memory or information to make you aware
> of
> your alternate self. An external observer would see
> two of you operating your consciousness. But you as
> the subject would experience what?
>
> Most people I try this one follow along that their
> awareness would be in one system or the other. They
> would perceive being one place or the other. Then I
> say: now you're both operating, which one are you?
>
> Most people say both after a time. I say: but how
> can
> you be aware in two places at one with no
> communication between systems. They start to get mad
> at this point and degrade into treating the two
> separate systems from an external observer's view
> point.
>
> Another issue one can experiment with is memory. If
> we
> assume that consciousness can be viewed as frames,
> ie., like frames of a movie film, we should be able
> to
> stop and start the consciousness of the entity now
> in
> the machine. We can control the frame-rate as it
> were.
> The entity should not be able to tell. If they could
> observe external events, they'd see the clock on the
> wall move very fast if we slowed his frame-rate
> down.
> So if we assume all this, then we must assume that
> he
> only knows who he is based on memory of self from
> one
> frame to the next. If we replay one frame of
> consciousness over and over again, his consciousness
> will not evolve from a given starting point. If we
> then assume this memory model of consciousness, we
> might be able to manipulate this memory. We could in
> effect change his identity at will. With out the
> ability to compare frames of his own consciousness,
> the entity in the machine should not be able to
> determine that his identity had changed.
>
> If we apply this concept to all humans, we could say
> we are just living in one big machine. We could say
> that our identities are subject to our memories, for
> which we have no control over. We could say we have
> no
> way of knowing if our reality had changed moments
> ago
> from something else very different....
>
>
> Robert W.
>
>
> --- hal.domain.name.hidden wrote:
> > Wei writes:
> > > If you don't think this is paradoxical, suppose
> we
> > repeat the choice but
> > > with the payoffs for button 2 reversed, so that
> > Bob wins $10 instead of
> > > Alice, and we also swap the two minds so that
> > Alice is running on the
> > > substrate that generates more measure instead of
> > Bob. They'll again both
> > > push button 1. But notice that at the end both
> > people would have been
> > > better off if they pushed button 2 in both
> rounds.
> >
> > Maybe you could argue that if they had known ahead
> > of time what was
> > going to happen, they would push button 2.
> >
> > For example, Alice would know that her measure was
> > going to be first
> > low, then high. Therefore whatever wealth she
> gains
> > while her measure
> > is low will be boosted while her measure was high.
>
> > This makes it
> > more important to gain wealth during low measure
> > times than it would
> > have been if she didn't know about the upcoming
> > measure-boost.
> >
> > Hal
> >
>
>
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Received on Mon Mar 05 2001 - 18:47:02 PST