Your clone takes over when you die. Is that you or not?

[FBM]

Whether or not 'consciousness' or 'self' exists is irrelevant to the original question. When this body that I feel I inhabit dies, this thing, whatever it is, that I consider to be me, the workings of my brain, the thing that's thinking, this animal, will cease.

I think we're very close to agreement here. But what is it that ceases? We know from basic physics that matter and energy are conserved, so what actually comes to an end?

Body #2 might have all that information transferred to it, but it will not be me. I will be dead. It might think it's me, behave like me, have my memories, but it is still a copy - a distinct and separate animal.

Numerically distinct, definitely.

[FBM]

Okay, so you agree you can't prove it doesn't exist. I'm cool with that. As to "where" self is, let's not get into string theory.

Mind if I keep pestering you over this?

I didn't say I couldn't prove that it doesn't exist. Actually, I posited a list of questions to that point. If those questions cannot be answered, then the only reasonable conclusion is that this 'self' doesn't really exist.

There is the principle of Occam's Razor to be considered. We've got a pretty good grip on what matter and energy comprises a human, but there is no 'self' element on the Periodic Table of Elements, is there? What is this 'self' composed of?

I didn't ask 'where' the self is, I asked 'what' it is, if it is. If you posit its existence, then the onus (no, not the anus) is on you to demonstrate it.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Nothing new, it is the Ship of Theseus paradox.

After the hero Theseus accomplished his mission to sail to Crete to kill the Minotaur, his ship (Ship 1) was put on display in Athens. As the time went by, its original planks and other parts were replaced one by one with new materials until one day all of its parts were new, with none of its original parts remaining. Do we want to say that the completely rebuilt ship (Ship 2) is the same as the original or that it is a different ship? The case is further complicated. If all the original materials were kept and eventually used to construct a ship (Ship 3), would this ship be the same as the original?

No, that's different. Being gradually replaced bit-by-bit is not the same as being copied and replaced wholesale. After all, our component parts are (at a molecular/cellular) level being replaced all the time, in one sense you are not the same person you were several years ago in terms of the atoms you are made of, yet you still maintain a 'continuity of experience' from that earlier self.

Say if I died/was killed and replaced in the manner described in the OP. There would now be a 'Horwood2' who was created with the built-in illusion that he has had an uninterrupted 'continuity of experience' from being 'Horwood1' (me). He would truly feel Horwood1's (my) experiences to be truly and genuinely his, just as much as I currently feel my past experiences to be mine, and just as much as he will go on to feel the experiences he has as Horwood2 to be real.
From his point of view he died only to instantly find he was in fact not dead after all, but still alive in a new functioning body, and he would quite legitimately be entitled to this view.

However, the fact that Horwood2's 'continuity of experience' from being Horwood1 is as real to him as anyone else’s 'continuity of experience' from simply being younger, does not alter the fact that Horwood1 also had a 'continuity of experience', and that for Horwood1, that continuity ended with his (my) death.


In other words, if I were to be told that this procedure really was possible and was going to be carried out upon my death, I'd know that my death for me will still be the end, I would not expect to find myself wake up in a new body. However I also know that for Horwood2, that's exactly what it will seem like has happened.


So is Horwood2 'me'? Well I guess that for me Horwood2 is not me, but for him he is.


Does this answer the question?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I didn't say I couldn't prove that it doesn't exist. Actually, I posited a list of questions to that point. If those questions cannot be answered, then the only reasonable conclusion is that this 'self' doesn't really exist.

Um, no, the only reasonable conclusions is we don't know if it exists, unless you can guarantee me you're asking the right questions. [/trap]

I don't know if self exists. I hope to find out, but I doubt.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Let me throw this one into the mix. Let's say that the technology exists to perform a 100% successful brain transplant. Your brain is then swapped with another person.

Would you: -

(a) Wake up in a new body with your own memories intact?
(b) Wake up in your original body but with a completely different set of memories and convinced that you are person2?
(c) Wake up with awareness of both bodies?
(d) Something wakes up in each body but neither of them are 'you' - your soul/consciousness/self is gone?

Now consider that surgical techniques have moved on a little further still and it is possible to separate the two halves of both brains and join each to the other before replacement.

Where, if anywhere, do you wake up in that case? And what if four brains are recombined? Or 100?

[FBM]

I didn't say I couldn't prove that it doesn't exist. Actually, I posited a list of questions to that point. If those questions cannot be answered, then the only reasonable conclusion is that this 'self' doesn't really exist.

Um, no, the only reasonable conclusions is we don't know if it exists, unless you can guarantee me you're asking the right questions. [/trap]

I don't know if self exists. I hope to find out, but I doubt.

OK, I guarantee you that I'm asking the right questions.

And since it's closing in on 3:30 a.m. here, I'm going to suggest a resolution.

This 'self' exists conventionally, in the same way that all abstractions exist, such as love, the economy, justice, chair, etc.
It doesn't, however, exist absolutely or fundamentally the way we assume it does. This is what science has shown us with, for example, the Periodic Table and this:



The elements and elementary particles are science's contribution to answering the question of what actually exists as opposed to abstractions derived from/imposed upon it.

[Rum]

The self simply does not exists mates - just the illusion of it. There is no ghost in the machine - just the effects of the machine. My take anyway.

[FBM]

The self simply does not exists mates - just the illusion of it. There is no ghost in the machine - just the effects of the machine. My take anyway.

What's so neat about the phenomenological approach is that it changes nothing. Reality doesn't change when the self isn't taken as ultimately real. Everything goes along as it always has, but the interpretation of it is, in terms of Occam's Razor, lighter.

[Rum]

There is a 'philosophy - 'On Having No Head' or the Headless Way. One has to be very careful with this, but I challenge you fellow atheists to be opened minded about it - it isn't religious in any way but at first glance it looks 'mystical'. Knocked me out when I came across it a few years ago now.

Read before you just dismiss..

http://www.headless.org/english-welcome.htm

[Don't Panic]

I take the view that I am my memories and experiences, if they can be copied or transferred to a brain in a new body then that body becomes me, right up to the point the copy was made, if my original body is destroyed then that new body will be me.

A more interesting experiment is a copy of one self while still alive and allow both copies to live their lives, with only the original knowing the copy exists, then compare notes after a year. Would you live your life differently knowing that your genes and memories will still survive in your copy?

[lordpasternack]

This is exactly the same as asking if identical twins are one and the same person. The answer is no.

I suppose if you're asking about the possibility of transplanting your brain into the skull of, or somehow transferring your consciousness to your younger clone by other means, that might liven the philosophical debate a little...

[Don't Panic]

This is exactly the same as asking if identical twins are one and the same person. The answer is no.

I suppose if you're asking about the possibility of transplanting your brain into the skull of your younger clone, that might liven the philosophical debate a little...

It isn't really the same, the question is are you more than the sum of the electrical patterns in your brain that record the sum of your experiences in life.

[Mallardz]

No I don't think so surely all our thoughts are constructed of electro messages and not ours we would not be concious of ourselves. Different personality and indeed beliefs so it would not be us as we are.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...I suppose if you're asking about the possibility of transplanting your brain into the skull of your younger clone, that might liven the philosophical debate a little...

We're actually talking about exactly copying the brain, memories and all, then destroying the original.


I don't know why people consider the possibility of a straightforward brain transplant such a philosophical puzzler. That one's easy, if it's still my brain, it's still me. No question about it.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...
It isn't really the same, the question is are you more than the sum of the electrical patterns in your brain that record the sum of your experiences in life.

That's not the whole point as far as I'm concerned. The question of whether the copy is 'you' is a question of continuity of experience, see my earlier post.