Rebirth

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Geronimo


you destroy a computer that way but not the software. You destroy a brain and the mind ceases as a process but replace the hardware and it could be re-implemented.

Mostly this is just semantics. I agree that the body rots in the ground but I think the mind simply ceases at death and does not "rot" or otherwise further deteriorate along with the body after death.

To the extant that it's probably impossible for the cessation of the mind to be anything other than permanent without the means to produce a functioning copy I would agree that the mind was "destroyed".

But it is those neural pathways, the combination of neurons and neuroglia, that make up the concept of the mind - a manifestation of the brain. They cease to function and disintegrate, and everything they consitute also decays.

I'm sorry, that may not be what people want to hear and it may not be comforting, but that is how it goes. Face it, when your life ends, so do you and everything you were.

[Dauphin]

I remember a conversation from years back where it was discussed whether making a back-up of your mind and body every day in case of your death would result in you never dying. If you were hit by a bus, then you just get regenerated at your last back point and in every physical sense you are the same person. But yet you are not the same stream of consciousness.

It's an old philosophical question, going way back to Theseus' ship IIRC (although it is no doubt buddhist in origin ).

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I remember a conversation from years back where it was discussed whether making a back-up of your mind and body every day in case of your death would result in you never dying. If you were hit by a bus, then you just get regenerated at your last back point and in every physical sense you are the same person. But yet you are not the same stream of consciousness.

It's an old philosophical question, going way back to Theseus' ship IIRC (although it is no doubt buddhist in origin ).

I remember a Scifi short story about almost the same topic.

At some time in the future a crime investigator is called to the physics institute of the local university, because human ashes have been found in the garbage bin of the university along with the ID tag of one of the profs working there.
But strangely the prof still seems to be alive and turns up during the examinaton.

Everything is getting clear however when the prof is questioned and talks about the experiments in beam technology he conducts (at the same time demonstrating the machine).
He enters the chamber, whereupon every atom in his body is analysed and ther information is sent to the other machine in some distance.
Finally the new body is assembled atom for atom in the other maxchine, whereas in the machine that sent the informations everything is destroyed via high energy laser beams.
Which is when the investigator hears the *zap* from the laser beams and sees a small cleaning robot entering the chamber and removing human ashes, while at the same time the duplicate of the prof steps out of the other chamber.

The story ends with the investigator having successfully solved the riddle, but nevertheless leaving the institute with somewhat strange feelings about the constant murder being commited in this institute without the victim (the prof) being aware of him being murdered over and over again.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


But it is those neural pathways, the combination of neurons and neuroglia, that make up the concept of the mind - a manifestation of the brain. They cease to function and disintegrate, and everything they consitute also decays.

I'm sorry, that may not be what people want to hear and it may not be comforting, but that is how it goes. Face it, when your life ends, so do you and everything you were.

That's like saying a story is just ink and paper or software is just magnetic particles in a hard disk. The mind appears to be a process that cannot exist without something to implement it so of course having no functioning brain or equivalent means the mind has ceased, stopped, and is certainly not experiencing anything. However, a mind appears to be information, data, rather than a brain per se, which I think of as lost rather than destroyed since so long as a copy remains the information has not been destroyed in a meaningful sense. A fine distinction I admit. This will not, of course, save you from being dead so comforting or the lack of comfort doesn't come into it.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


I remember a Scifi short story about almost the same topic.

At some time in the future a crime investigator is called to the physics institute of the local university, because human ashes have been found in the garbage bin of the university along with the ID tag of one of the profs working there.
But strangely the prof still seems to be alive and turns up during the examinaton.

Everything is getting clear however when the prof is questioned and talks about the experiments in beam technology he conducts (at the same time demonstrating the machine).
He enters the chamber, whereupon every atom in his body is analysed and ther information is sent to the other machine in some distance.
Finally the new body is assembled atom for atom in the other maxchine, whereas in the machine that sent the informations everything is destroyed via high energy laser beams.
Which is when the investigator hears the *zap* from the laser beams and sees a small cleaning robot entering the chamber and removing human ashes, while at the same time the duplicate of the prof steps out of the other chamber.

The story ends with the investigator having successfully solved the riddle, but nevertheless leaving the institute with somewhat strange feelings about the constant murder being commited in this institute without the victim (the prof) being aware of him being murdered over and over again.

Personally I suspect our stream of consciousness 'dies' every time it is interrupted and sort of 'reboots' such as when we go to sleep or when we wake up and possibly between episodes of dreaming. The next time we wake up our 'self' has been replaced by someone who thinks they are the same person but is really an entirely new stream of consciousness that simply shares practically all of the memories and conditioning (minus unconscious re-wiring during the gap in consciousness) of the previous resident of our brains. Of course this has no scientific consequences (ie it's untestable) so there's no reason we have to bother ourselves much with this unless for purely personal quasi-religious reasons.

On the other hand a device that copies our consciousness without any discontinuity in the stream of consciousness probably simply neatly 'splits' our consciousness rather than destroying it (although in the particular case of the sci fi story one of the split off copies gets almost immediately turned to ash.)

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Geronimo


That's like saying a story is just ink and paper or software is just magnetic particles in a hard disk. The mind appears to be a process that cannot exist without something to implement it so of course having no functioning brain or equivalent means the mind has ceased, stopped, and is certainly not experiencing anything. However, a mind appears to be information, data, rather than a brain per se, which I think of as lost rather than destroyed since so long as a copy remains the information has not been destroyed in a meaningful sense. A fine distinction I admit. This will not, of course, save you from being dead so comforting or the lack of comfort doesn't come into it.

The situation is more similar to smashing a hard drive, however more complicated. You can copy a hard drive and have identical contents. Every brain is unique and distinct in its organisation and contents. When it is gone, it is gone. For where else would its contents be?

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST


I remember a Scifi short story about almost the same topic.

At some time in the future a crime investigator is called to the physics institute of the local university, because human ashes have been found in the garbage bin of the university along with the ID tag of one of the profs working there.
But strangely the prof still seems to be alive and turns up during the examinaton.

Everything is getting clear however when the prof is questioned and talks about the experiments in beam technology he conducts (at the same time demonstrating the machine).
He enters the chamber, whereupon every atom in his body is analysed and ther information is sent to the other machine in some distance.
Finally the new body is assembled atom for atom in the other maxchine, whereas in the machine that sent the informations everything is destroyed via high energy laser beams.
Which is when the investigator hears the *zap* from the laser beams and sees a small cleaning robot entering the chamber and removing human ashes, while at the same time the duplicate of the prof steps out of the other chamber.

The story ends with the investigator having successfully solved the riddle, but nevertheless leaving the institute with somewhat strange feelings about the constant murder being commited in this institute without the victim (the prof) being aware of him being murdered over and over again.

Sound like a film with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. The Prestige? The Illusionist? One of those magician type movies. David Bowie had a cameo role as Nicola Tesla - the man who invented the copying machine.

[Provost Harrison]

Nicola Tesla - the man who invented the copying machine?

[Heraclitus]

Nope he invented Tesla Coils.

[Provost Harrison]

I thought it was Xerox who invented the copying machine?

[LordShiva]

Haven't you watched Teh Prestige?

[Wiglaf]

Re: Rebirth

Guys which post is more pathetic? I need some help on this. I'm leaning to the first one because it started the thread, but Geronomo really is making a case for being the bigger time waster.

Originally posted by Blake
Is this your only chance at life? Can you explain the state of your mind as being as the sum of genetics, upbringing and chaos alone? Or is there something more?
What feels true to you (and maybe always has)?

By feeling, I mean; a gut feeling, just what feels true.
By rational, I mean; a process of investigating the evidence, both direct experience and scientific.

Versus this crap that evidences stunning verbosity and a lack of understanding of basic biology

It's not as simple as all that.

One brain appears to have one mind. However, if a brain could be cut in half and each half duplicated and joined with an original half, you'd have two discrete minds. Was the original mind destroyed? If one of the new pair of brains was destroyed would the mind be partly destroyed?

Assuming the above procedure didn't destroy the mind, then if a perfect record of the brain were made and used to make a perfect copy of it long after the person was dead could we be sure that the mind has really been destroyed in the intervening time?

Minds "Cease" when dead or totally unconscious but I'm not sure it's clear they are destroyed.

I think rather that minds are like algorithms in that even if a physical implementation of the process is destroyed you haven't meaningfully destroyed the mind any more than throwing a computer into smelting vat will destroy a bunch of algorithms.

When the last "copy" of a mind is destroyed it has been "lost" to the world perhaps but not really "destroyed".

It's on!

Haven't you watched Teh Prestige?

[Kidlicious]

Re: Rebirth

Originally posted by Blake
Is this your only chance at life?

Why would you think otherwise?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


The situation is more similar to smashing a hard drive, however more complicated. You can copy a hard drive and have identical contents. Every brain is unique and distinct in its organisation and contents. When it is gone, it is gone. For where else would its contents be?

more like a hardrive brought back in time to a prehistoric era where it's the only harddrive in the world. Strictly speaking destroying the thing doesn't destroy the data but the data is lost regardless so you wont be seeing it again and those programs won't be running again.

We don't disagree on any observable consequences of any of this. I don't believe there are copies of brains in the observable universe and have no reason to make any assumptions at all about the unobservable.

[Geronimo]

Re: Re: Rebirth

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Guys which post is more pathetic? I need some help on this. I'm leaning to the first one because it started the thread, but Geronomo really is making a case for being the bigger time waster.



Versus this crap that evidences stunning verbosity and a lack of understanding of basic biology



It's on!

the verbosity is at fault. none of what I said has any testable or observable consequences biological or otherwise so it says nothing about my knowledge of biology (unless you're taking the analogies really far). This seems like the perfect thread for such bsing. You open a thread like this and expect to not have your time wasted? You visit a forum like this and expect not to have your time wasted?

If my posts here should appear to contradict statements I've made earlier about untestable speculation it's partly because I don't see any point in making any assumptions about anything untestable so when conversation strays into such speculation I take whichever absurd angle seems most attractive at the time.