We exist as a contiguous, always active self-modifying chemical cascade. This is a scientific fact.
Our sense of consciousness is what we refer to as our selves. This is pretty concrete philosophical conjecture.
Any teleporter device that rearranges atoms breaks this contiguity. This is scientific fact.
If a teleporter device that rearranges atoms can be invented (and I believe it can but not for a long time) to move a human, then the human that arrives on the other end of the teleport will not be the ‘you’ that looks out from your eyes now as the contiguity is broken. It will THINK it is you, will have your memories, but your current consciousness wouldn’t ‘jump’ to that newly created homunculus. It would simply cease to exist. You think this is philosophy but it is a scientific fact.
I’m not arguing for the existence of a ‘soul’ here, just stating the simple truth that a machine that reassembles atoms into you isn’t making a you that exists now, but rather a just-born being who thinks its been living your life.
And the you that exists now ceases to be.
Please don’t try the ‘falling to sleep’ argument, at no point during that time does the complex bioprocess that makes up our being cease.
Your arrogance is staggering. Is science not also a form of philosophy? And anyway, it’s not a scientific ‘fact’ that your consciousness will do anything at all, the hard problem of consciousness is not yet solved.
Your arrogance is staggering. Is science not also a form of philosophy?
Sure, 200 years ago when they called it ‘natural philosoply’, but the advent of the scientific method is what transitioned it away from pretty words and feelings to concrete observable, recordable data.
If you can’t see the difference, you aren’t worth wasting electrons on.
s not a scientific ‘fact’ that your consciousness will do anything at all,
Oh but it is my friend and the wonderful thought experiment that is the game SOMA can make that clear to you, if you are capable of understanding it.
Every examination of cranial and nerve damage in relation to consciousness has made it pretty clear that whatever it is that is our self-awareness is tied to the fat and nerves in our skull, and when disturbed often have drastic results on our cognition, awareness, and sense of self. These are things we have been documenting for centuries. Damage the brain, damage the consciousness. And to a lesser extent the spine but that is still fringe.
Our consciousness isn’t anything special phenomenologically, it consists of complex interactions yes but there is no non-material aspect of it other than what we experience as our cognition, which is not an actual space but rather the results of our self-modifying chemical cascade.
What you think of as arrogance is rather the result of spending decades both in a scholarly frame as well as for personal pleasure studying biology, physics, and psychology. I’m sorry that up until now your main conversation group has consisted of people who think communications in excess of 144 characters is mentally draining.
Yeah I’m with you on this. Even from a pure science fiction perspective there’s just no way the experience of consciousness “transfers” by any currently understood science.
Just like when you move a computer’s file across the Internet the result would be a copy, and that wouldn’t really be noticable or impactful to the copy or the people who know you and the copy would interact with, but it would make a hell of a lot of difference for the person going in. Great if you’re dying and want to do what you can (The Culture book series covers this possibility quite well) but otherwise small comfort.
Best case scenario is “The Prestige”, but with a much quicker and cleaner death.
And if someone slaps “quantum entanglement” on the table like that is a real answer for anything, imma not even bother.
Consciousness can be thought as software running on hardware (your brain). You do not destroy software by destroying hardware.
Whether you agree with this or not is not relevant to this discussion, since my point is that whether the above statement is true belongs to philosophy, not to science.
Not really.
We exist as a contiguous, always active self-modifying chemical cascade. This is a scientific fact.
Our sense of consciousness is what we refer to as our selves. This is pretty concrete philosophical conjecture.
Any teleporter device that rearranges atoms breaks this contiguity. This is scientific fact.
If a teleporter device that rearranges atoms can be invented (and I believe it can but not for a long time) to move a human, then the human that arrives on the other end of the teleport will not be the ‘you’ that looks out from your eyes now as the contiguity is broken. It will THINK it is you, will have your memories, but your current consciousness wouldn’t ‘jump’ to that newly created homunculus. It would simply cease to exist. You think this is philosophy but it is a scientific fact.
I’m not arguing for the existence of a ‘soul’ here, just stating the simple truth that a machine that reassembles atoms into you isn’t making a you that exists now, but rather a just-born being who thinks its been living your life.
And the you that exists now ceases to be.
Please don’t try the ‘falling to sleep’ argument, at no point during that time does the complex bioprocess that makes up our being cease.
Your arrogance is staggering. Is science not also a form of philosophy? And anyway, it’s not a scientific ‘fact’ that your consciousness will do anything at all, the hard problem of consciousness is not yet solved.
Sure, 200 years ago when they called it ‘natural philosoply’, but the advent of the scientific method is what transitioned it away from pretty words and feelings to concrete observable, recordable data.
If you can’t see the difference, you aren’t worth wasting electrons on.
Oh but it is my friend and the wonderful thought experiment that is the game SOMA can make that clear to you, if you are capable of understanding it.
Every examination of cranial and nerve damage in relation to consciousness has made it pretty clear that whatever it is that is our self-awareness is tied to the fat and nerves in our skull, and when disturbed often have drastic results on our cognition, awareness, and sense of self. These are things we have been documenting for centuries. Damage the brain, damage the consciousness. And to a lesser extent the spine but that is still fringe.
Our consciousness isn’t anything special phenomenologically, it consists of complex interactions yes but there is no non-material aspect of it other than what we experience as our cognition, which is not an actual space but rather the results of our self-modifying chemical cascade.
What you think of as arrogance is rather the result of spending decades both in a scholarly frame as well as for personal pleasure studying biology, physics, and psychology. I’m sorry that up until now your main conversation group has consisted of people who think communications in excess of 144 characters is mentally draining.
Yeah I’m with you on this. Even from a pure science fiction perspective there’s just no way the experience of consciousness “transfers” by any currently understood science.
Just like when you move a computer’s file across the Internet the result would be a copy, and that wouldn’t really be noticable or impactful to the copy or the people who know you and the copy would interact with, but it would make a hell of a lot of difference for the person going in. Great if you’re dying and want to do what you can (The Culture book series covers this possibility quite well) but otherwise small comfort.
Best case scenario is “The Prestige”, but with a much quicker and cleaner death.
And if someone slaps “quantum entanglement” on the table like that is a real answer for anything, imma not even bother.
Fucking finally someone in this thread that makes sense.
Haven’t read the Culture books yet but your post is the third reference I’ve seen this week so maybe I got a new series to read.
That’s okay, you won’t understand it.
Consciousness can be thought as software running on hardware (your brain). You do not destroy software by destroying hardware.
Whether you agree with this or not is not relevant to this discussion, since my point is that whether the above statement is true belongs to philosophy, not to science.