A philosophical pondering

IHateGovernment

IHateGovernment

Is this your homework?
Lately I have been musing on the ideas of continuance of consciousness and the self.

What is the self. I would describe it as the mind that is a result of the accumulated experience and knowledge. However this can be transcribed to another body but this isn't self.

In addition it must be a linear continuation of conscience in the same vessel.

But what is the demarcation between what continues infomation yet annihilates the self and what does not.

Let us delve into this idea.

You would not submit to have the vessel of your body destroyed if all your memories, knowledge and experience could be transferred to a written record. This record cannot act and mere information is not the self but a combination of the information and a vessel through which to interact. A text is not sentient and cannot benefit nor live through the information attached to it.

However what of transferring this data to a machine that can import and export informaiton or even a biological machine. The tether of consciousness would be snapped and even if this new machine had all your memories personality and knowledge it wouldn't be you.

I meander to the transporter in star trek. In the show the device worked by converting the body of the crewman to energy saving the information and recreating it at a new location. I had often thought that these men were fools as they willfully committed suicide to create a facsimilie in another location. Of course this facsimilie was none the wiser that it was just a recreation as it was no different than the original yet the original had died.

However the above example is a total obliteration of the vessel of the mind and seat of consciousness. What of a partial destruction of this vessel and how much can be destroyed before the self is destroyed.

We know that our cells in our body do not have the longevity our bodies have as a whole. Over the course of every seven years all the cells in our body are replaced including nerve cells in our cerebral cortex. Thus ass the nerves operating in my mind as I type will be gone seven years from now.

The information that makes our memories and knowledge is copies into new cells via mitosis. We do not however view this process as the obliteration of the self even though seven years from now all that will remain of my current mind is a copy. This is because it does not happen all at once and is incremental. But should this matter?

At what rate does the reproduction of the brain and the mind within allow for the continuation of the self and at what rate does it no longer do so.

For that matter would even a portion of my brain being a replica of its current state mean that I have in affect died. Since this is happening with great frequency is my current level of consciousness merely a fleeting of life lasting minutes or seconds?

If this is true does life even matter? If our lives are so short and we just will our bodies to a copy of ourselves what does it matter if that copy inherits our consciousness or not?


What do you all think?
 
In many ways it doesnt.

Its just the string of the past or the projection of your next moment.

Its the contect in which we percieve that moment that we exsist.
 
However it would cause people to change the value of preserving their life if they not they cannot actually experience it at a later time.
 
Life is generally viewed as the continuation of consciousness. I have already stated that most would consider the raw data transfer of your mind into another vessel to not be a continuation of that consciousness and would be the end of your life.

However the cells which make up our mind are always being copied and eventually all the cells in our brain will be copies. Has our consciousness remained intact from this transfer into copies? That is what I'm pondering.

If we say that it doesn't than our lives are very short for we are constantly just loading information into copies and our consciousness is then severed. Would preserving that life matter if we know it wouldn't last long. Is the continuation of our knowledge and experience into just a copy be as meaningful to us?
 
IHateGovernment said:
We know that our cells in our body do not have the longevity our bodies have as a whole. Over the course of every seven years all the cells in our body are replaced including nerve cells in our cerebral cortex. Thus ass the nerves operating in my mind as I type will be gone seven years from now.

The information that makes our memories and knowledge is copies into new cells via mitosis. We do not however view this process as the obliteration of the self even though seven years from now all that will remain of my current mind is a copy. This is because it does not happen all at once and is incremental. But should this matter?

At what rate does the reproduction of the brain and the mind within allow for the continuation of the self and at what rate does it no longer do so.

For that matter would even a portion of my brain being a replica of its current state mean that I have in effect died. Since this is happening with great frequency is my current level of consciousness merely a fleeting of life lasting minutes or seconds?

If this is true does life even matter? If our lives are so short and we just will our bodies to a copy of ourselves what does it matter if that copy inherits our consciousness or not?


What do you all think?
Click to expand...


This is an interesting post, and ypu've posed a compelling question. I have to take issue, however, with the notion that brain cells die and are replaced -- they are not. The only place where any form of nerve cells that are considered to be a part of the CNS may regenerate is in a part of the nasal cavity; these are at the extreme part of the olfactory system and technically are a form of skin cells, yet function in their way as neurons.

Otherwise, brain cells that die do not regenerate and are not replaced. The plasticity of the CNS takes place through existing cells and pathways; cells may branch and form new axonal and dendritic processes, but the cells themselves remain intact. The memories that you retain use the same cells that existed when you first formed that memory (in long-term form); new cells do not replace them. That's why cellular loss from conditions such as Alzheimer's or Pick's disease, for example, ultimately results in the individual becoming a different person from the one who was healthy.

You are who you are so long as your brain remains intact. New experiences may change the way that you perceive different matters, but that's a new phenomenon and doesn't alter the old physiologically or anatomically.
 
Then that changes things a bit. But what of the stream of consciousness and it being broken.

Is consciousness like the Ram in a computer that is wiped once consciouness ends. Or is consciouness as it relates to self continued even if it consciousness temporarily ceases
 
If you could in effect Pour the entire contents of someones brain into a New body I think this is still ad entire New being.

Im not sure if this is what you are getting at but I believe our exsistance is ultimately tied to the physical world.

We are a combination of our experiences and our physical body without the two you are NOT the same.

Our experiences and our physical bodies ability to store and Process the said information is what makes our consciousness possible.
 
I agree but what if this string of consciouness is interrupted. If you enter a coma is the person who awakens the same person even if the memories and knowledge are the same?
 
In some cases NOT.

My father had a brain bleed caused by an embolism and when he awoke some days later he ws not the same.

He could not process and or access the wealth of information in the same manner ever again.

He was a different person from then on.

I truely think the man I had called father ceased to exsist at that time and this silly little guy who tried so hard but couldnt understand the world anymore took his place.

When that man died I morned Him and the father I knew.
 
Please forgive me if this sounds too odd:

You are not the same person from one unit of Planck Time, to the next. If one thinks of time as not being a continuous "thing", but rather, an aspect of each, individual "Quantum-Time/Space-Slice", whereby one would conceptually "see" time as a dimension, bonded to the spatial dimensions, as a single entitity, one could more easily understand the reason why there is no continuous "self".

In this scenario, the difference between the "you" from one unit of Planck Time to the next, is so miniscule, it is seen as "same" in the utilitarian sense. The differences between the two "yous" is so minute as to seem nonexistent, and the arrow of time points as such that the "new" you is, well, new.

The quandary caused by this situation is difficult to untangle. If one thinks about the concept of "Identity", one easily comes to the problem IH8 has put forth. Personally, I think the same way.

A hydrogen atom is considered "the same" as another hydrogen atom, but this simply isn't true. A hydrogen atom is EXTREMELY SIMILAR to another hydrogen atom, to the point that from a UTILITARIAN point of view, it is the same...but when dealing in absolutes, it is NOT the same.

The property of IDENTITY dictates that no one thing can be another thing, regardless of how similar it is. Likewise, one "you" at one "Quantum-Mechanical-Time/Space-Slice" is not the same as its predecessor, nor the one that follows it.

There is no continuation of the same "being". The "self" is the experience of a SEEMING continuation.

Personally, the only situation I can think of that I would accept as a “conservation” of my “self”, would be a gradual replacement of my hardware.
 
Yep Change is what makes us us.
If I were repiicated identically there would only be two me's for the instant of creation of the replicate, we would constantly diverge after that.


Only one me for which the world can be thankful ;)
 
No, there can never be two "yous". Despite the fact that they would be identical, in the utilitarian sense, the property of identity disallows such a thing. "Identical" cannot exist. Infinitesimally different is still different.
 
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