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Comments
Well, again, that's the point that's in contention here. Some people think that doesn't matter- the other entity is you, with no difference between the two that prevents them from being 'you'.
But is a shared consciousness necessary for someone to be "you"?
That is, are "you" merely a sum of your memories, experiences, etc? Or does that just form an... instance, of you?
Yes. Yes it is. Continuity of consciousness is very, very important for...pretty much all matters relative to duplicating a person.
Without it, you are, in fact, just creating multiple instances of a person. Whose minds will diverge the instant the second comes into existence.
isn't this just the Theseus Ship problem or whatever it's called
No. The Ship of Theseus involves a ship that has all of its parts replaced. This is...two ships that are identical down to the molecule, sailing next to each other.
But no, it isn't, because a person is not wholely the sum of their consciousness.
At least, that is what some people believe.
And this dissonance in understanding is where the problem is coming in. To some people, a person is not wholely the sum of their consciousness, and thus, creating a copy of their consciousness is, essentially, creating themselves.
True; I am assuming that there is no magical force that will create a mental link between the two bodies.
Which, given that duplication this precise can't really occur without magic, is kind of a silly assumption, I guess.
No. Dammit.
There's no need for a mental link, because the two instances or whatever do not need to have the same experiences, memories, and such, in order to make both of them 'you'.
Other people feel differently; apparently, you are one of those people. (I don't know which party I stand in, as I don't really know what I define as 'me'.) But to some people, a person is... not simply a sum of their parts, I guess.
I wouldn't consider the clone to be "me", if it did not have my experiences and memories. I would just consider it to be a person with my exact DNA.
Well...that's fair, but given that this thread is about an exercise that involves killing the original, I think that even if you could say that they're both "you," unless they do have a mental link, it would be unethical to do the thing.
^Um...we aren't talking about cloning at all. We're talking about duplication.
I haven't seen anything in this thread that requires killing the original.
DNA doesn't need to get involved with it at all. Brain uploading as discussed earlier, etc.
^^^I guess it's generally sort of assumed, though? I mean, the point of the whole singularity thing, silly as I find it, is to be an immortal computer, not to be a computer and also be a human that will die.
^^Yes, but cloning hasn't really been mentioned at all before this point.
I think that humanity is just kind of expected to die off for the most part after that.
True, I guess.
I'm not sure why I'm even debating this when I consider the concept to be pretty impossible. I guess I'm just that pedantic, even about unknowable things.
Well, I also argued back, but I just like thinking about things like that.
The weird thing about this is that it's theoretically really important, but nobody can really ever know the answer or act on it.
Well, that also means computers will die off not too long after, so at least we're all on the same page.
Relevant: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Turned-Jaron-Lanier-Against-the-Web-183832741.html?viewAll=y&page=1
That seems more like a criticism of the internet in general (which I think is a silly thing to criticize in the first place, but what do I know).
Mostly, but he does call the pseudo-messianic mysticism behind transhumanism like he sees it, which should mean something coming from one of the people who kicked it off.
Even Vernor Vinge thinks the nerd-rapture folks are looney. That's the most amusingly telling bit.
Am I the only one who keeps seeing this thread and thinking "hey, there's no need to insult all the extropers on this site?"
We were doing that?
it's a pun on the thread's title