Consciousness
You have had quite a philosophical journey in the last few days. I'm still not sure that it all hangs together properly, so I will recapitulate it here.
You directed your attention to the question of what makes a person the same person over time. You identified what you took to be a source of confusion with this question. It is type/token ambiguity in what is considered to be the same thing. You can definitely say that a backed-up and restored person are the same type of person. But they are two different tokens of the same type. The question of what makes a person the same person over time is therefore not really one question, but two. What makes a type of person the same type of person over time, and what makes a token of person the same token over time.
The former question is the easier one to answer. Continuity is what makes any type of thing the same type over time. In this case, the basic argument made in the Altered Carbon series is that continuity of consciousness makes for the same type of person over time. Consciousness is perceived as largely dependent on memory, but presumably not reducible to memories alone. A continuity of consciousness makes for the same type consciousness over time. If a person is a consciousness, then two people with continuity of consciousness are the same type of person.
The latter question, of what makes a token the same token over time, is more difficult. The basic idea with which I came up was transference. A token has to undergo some kind of transference across space and time. We decided that transference is marked by conservation of form and material. The form of a person may exist in the form of the information required to make that person, but the material is the actual matter/energy of which the person is made.
Conservation of human bodies is complicated. Parts of human bodies are constantly being replaced. Any account of the conservation of human bodies must be compatible with this process. But I am willing to grant that people are not their bodies, but their minds, so it is the conservation of the mind that really matters for a transference of the token of a person.
But this is where you get into trouble, because you must then ask what is mind. This brings us into issues of philosophy of mind.
I think that mind is brain viewed from the inside. This brings me back to the question asked by one of my markers: If mind and brain are the same thing, then why couldn't you learn about neurons by introspection?
Well, admittedly, I have worked out my view more clearly now. Mind is brain viewed from the inside, and brain is mind viewed from the outside. But this is where perspectivism comes to the fore, in that knowledge here is necessarily limited by perspective. You cannot learn everything about the brain--such as neurons--through introspection. Nor can you learn everything about the mind through prodding around with the brain. It is only when you combine these two perspectives into an abstracted, scientific view that you can talk about the mind/brain. It is simply that for every event in the mind, there will be a corresponding event in the brain.
But for every event in the brain, there will not necessarily be a corresponding event in the mind. Hence, mind is a subset of brain.
But it seems to me that mind is essentially phenomenological. Isn't it possible that you could have all the same kinds of activity occuring in the brain as we do, yet have no mind?
Er, that's logically possible, but it is not physically possible. This is something that science should be able to clarify more and more with time. We should be able to say with more and more certainty which neural events correspond to which mental events. With time, we should also be able to say which neural tissue corresponds to which kind of mental experience. I assume that the phenomenology of the mind depends on both material and form. I certainly think that phenomenology would be affected by any attempt to "transfer consciousness" into a machine.
And that is part of why the material part of consciousness is not conserved by the transference?
In part. But also because the process would not be conserved in any way that we could recognise as normal conservation.
But where do you draw the line between what gets conserved and what doesn't? What difference does it make how much of the brain gets replaced at what time?
The basic difficulty is that the difference seems to be one of degree. If only a little part of us at a time were being replaced, then we perceive ourselves as conserved over time. But if a big enough chunk of us got replaced, then we would see ourselves as killed and replaced with a copy.
It also matters what has consciousness. Because if I die after being backed up, then this collection of animated matter called me will lose its consciousness forever. But if a little part of me is replaced, the part that left me was never conscious. The part of me that is replaced is not conscious. I just think that when I die after being backed up, it is the part of me that is conscious that is taken away, and that is why I die.
I'll probably reiterate this material again for clarity in the next section.
You directed your attention to the question of what makes a person the same person over time. You identified what you took to be a source of confusion with this question. It is type/token ambiguity in what is considered to be the same thing. You can definitely say that a backed-up and restored person are the same type of person. But they are two different tokens of the same type. The question of what makes a person the same person over time is therefore not really one question, but two. What makes a type of person the same type of person over time, and what makes a token of person the same token over time.
The former question is the easier one to answer. Continuity is what makes any type of thing the same type over time. In this case, the basic argument made in the Altered Carbon series is that continuity of consciousness makes for the same type of person over time. Consciousness is perceived as largely dependent on memory, but presumably not reducible to memories alone. A continuity of consciousness makes for the same type consciousness over time. If a person is a consciousness, then two people with continuity of consciousness are the same type of person.
The latter question, of what makes a token the same token over time, is more difficult. The basic idea with which I came up was transference. A token has to undergo some kind of transference across space and time. We decided that transference is marked by conservation of form and material. The form of a person may exist in the form of the information required to make that person, but the material is the actual matter/energy of which the person is made.
Conservation of human bodies is complicated. Parts of human bodies are constantly being replaced. Any account of the conservation of human bodies must be compatible with this process. But I am willing to grant that people are not their bodies, but their minds, so it is the conservation of the mind that really matters for a transference of the token of a person.
But this is where you get into trouble, because you must then ask what is mind. This brings us into issues of philosophy of mind.
I think that mind is brain viewed from the inside. This brings me back to the question asked by one of my markers: If mind and brain are the same thing, then why couldn't you learn about neurons by introspection?
Well, admittedly, I have worked out my view more clearly now. Mind is brain viewed from the inside, and brain is mind viewed from the outside. But this is where perspectivism comes to the fore, in that knowledge here is necessarily limited by perspective. You cannot learn everything about the brain--such as neurons--through introspection. Nor can you learn everything about the mind through prodding around with the brain. It is only when you combine these two perspectives into an abstracted, scientific view that you can talk about the mind/brain. It is simply that for every event in the mind, there will be a corresponding event in the brain.
But for every event in the brain, there will not necessarily be a corresponding event in the mind. Hence, mind is a subset of brain.
But it seems to me that mind is essentially phenomenological. Isn't it possible that you could have all the same kinds of activity occuring in the brain as we do, yet have no mind?
Er, that's logically possible, but it is not physically possible. This is something that science should be able to clarify more and more with time. We should be able to say with more and more certainty which neural events correspond to which mental events. With time, we should also be able to say which neural tissue corresponds to which kind of mental experience. I assume that the phenomenology of the mind depends on both material and form. I certainly think that phenomenology would be affected by any attempt to "transfer consciousness" into a machine.
And that is part of why the material part of consciousness is not conserved by the transference?
In part. But also because the process would not be conserved in any way that we could recognise as normal conservation.
But where do you draw the line between what gets conserved and what doesn't? What difference does it make how much of the brain gets replaced at what time?
The basic difficulty is that the difference seems to be one of degree. If only a little part of us at a time were being replaced, then we perceive ourselves as conserved over time. But if a big enough chunk of us got replaced, then we would see ourselves as killed and replaced with a copy.
It also matters what has consciousness. Because if I die after being backed up, then this collection of animated matter called me will lose its consciousness forever. But if a little part of me is replaced, the part that left me was never conscious. The part of me that is replaced is not conscious. I just think that when I die after being backed up, it is the part of me that is conscious that is taken away, and that is why I die.
I'll probably reiterate this material again for clarity in the next section.
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