Modal Logic
There is a difficulty in the previous section, although it may be surmountable. You said that matter/energy was not being conserved in the back-up and restoration process. But I can see a possible way that that notion might be challenged.
Let us first consider the normal situation of a person transferring himself over time. Just about every molecule in our body is replaced many times over in the course of a human lifetime. So what is it that is actually being conserved in the process of this transference? Some molecules obviously "become" officially part of the human body over time. Others officially become separate. So the matter/energy that we actually consider to be our bodies is something that is constantly changing, just as our memories are. We need an account of conservation that is sophisticated enough to withstand these changes. Yet it must still able to resist the back-up and restoration process. What is it that content replacement performed by the body has, but that content replacement performed by a machine does not?
You said it right there. Content replacement is performed by the human body, not by some machine. Furthermore the system by which the body replaces content is completely different from the system by which the machine does it. So whatever is getting transferred by the back-up and restoration process, ceases to be human by this process.
I am sympathetic to that argument. But I fear that lots of people out there will not care about losing their humanity if they still think that they are being transferred in this process.
But something must not be getting transferred. Now we are getting to the basic reason why I would never allow myself to die just because I had backed myself up. Because when I die, my consciousness has ended. And I have no reason to believe that it simply starts up again at the other side, even if someone else's starts up with my memories. I have no reason to believe that that consciousness is mine, and that I will be the one experiencing it.
In other words, your image of yourself is that of a consciousness that gets transferred over time. This is a very Lockean view, that consciousness makes personal identity. But it is very tricky to say what consciousness is in the first place. Trying to account for its transference would be tricky at best.
Perhaps if I appeal to modal logic instead. One thing that does not happen by the normal process of content replacement is that there are no other competitors to be me in principle. What goes into me cannot be made into a person by any intelligible means. What goes out of me cannot be made into a person by any intelligible means. But if I am backed up, then there is an infinite number of possible competitors to me in principle. There is nothing in principle to stop copies of me being downloaded into bodies grown in tanks ad infinitum. Each of them will have their own consciousness. It is impossible to say that their consciousness is the same as mine, because what they see will not be what I am seeing and what they hear will not be what I am hearing. Consciousness is locational in nature. If I am conscious, one of the things of which I am conscious is a very specific position in space-time where I am located. I am conscious of sitting at my desk right now, whereas a competitor to me will be conscious of being in a decanter. Even if they can be made to sense everything that I am sensing, this will only mask their different location. If they are in two different places, then they are two different tokens.
You can use modal logic to argue that restored humans have a different token of consciousness. It is perfectly possible that they could exist at the same time as you. Under those circumstances they would be occupying different places, which means that they must be different tokens. It is only in practice that they happen not to exist at the same time that you do. So different tokens occupy different places at the same time in some possible worlds. In other possible worlds, different tokens do not exist at all. But in no possible worlds do different tokens ever occupy the same space at the same time.
So, you can have two different tokens of the same type of consciousness. When you die after being backed up, your token of consciousness has still ended. It certainly does not start up again on the other side of the restoration process. Your type of consciousness may start up again, but your token of consciousness is gone forever. And that is what you find so disturbing about dying even if you have backed up your consciousness. You have a natural emotional attachment to your specific token of consciousness. You have an emotional investment in seeing it live as long as possible.
Of course, this view has its own difficulties. For a start, what on earth makes a token of consciousness the same token of consciousness over time? In order to answer this question, we must ask what is consciousness, and that would get us into philosophy of mind.
Yes, well, as far as I'm concerned, mind is just brain viewed from the inside. Mind is an essentially phenomenological thing, whereas the brain is phenomenal.
You mentioned this in your essay for Points of View during your B.A. You paid attention to the marker's comments for this essay because you thought that your argument was important. He asked a question that annoyed me terribly because it sounded so stupid to my ears: If mind and brain were the same thing, then how couldn't you find out about neurons through introspection?
I don't think that's a stupid question, but we'll leave it till the next section...
Let us first consider the normal situation of a person transferring himself over time. Just about every molecule in our body is replaced many times over in the course of a human lifetime. So what is it that is actually being conserved in the process of this transference? Some molecules obviously "become" officially part of the human body over time. Others officially become separate. So the matter/energy that we actually consider to be our bodies is something that is constantly changing, just as our memories are. We need an account of conservation that is sophisticated enough to withstand these changes. Yet it must still able to resist the back-up and restoration process. What is it that content replacement performed by the body has, but that content replacement performed by a machine does not?
You said it right there. Content replacement is performed by the human body, not by some machine. Furthermore the system by which the body replaces content is completely different from the system by which the machine does it. So whatever is getting transferred by the back-up and restoration process, ceases to be human by this process.
I am sympathetic to that argument. But I fear that lots of people out there will not care about losing their humanity if they still think that they are being transferred in this process.
But something must not be getting transferred. Now we are getting to the basic reason why I would never allow myself to die just because I had backed myself up. Because when I die, my consciousness has ended. And I have no reason to believe that it simply starts up again at the other side, even if someone else's starts up with my memories. I have no reason to believe that that consciousness is mine, and that I will be the one experiencing it.
In other words, your image of yourself is that of a consciousness that gets transferred over time. This is a very Lockean view, that consciousness makes personal identity. But it is very tricky to say what consciousness is in the first place. Trying to account for its transference would be tricky at best.
Perhaps if I appeal to modal logic instead. One thing that does not happen by the normal process of content replacement is that there are no other competitors to be me in principle. What goes into me cannot be made into a person by any intelligible means. What goes out of me cannot be made into a person by any intelligible means. But if I am backed up, then there is an infinite number of possible competitors to me in principle. There is nothing in principle to stop copies of me being downloaded into bodies grown in tanks ad infinitum. Each of them will have their own consciousness. It is impossible to say that their consciousness is the same as mine, because what they see will not be what I am seeing and what they hear will not be what I am hearing. Consciousness is locational in nature. If I am conscious, one of the things of which I am conscious is a very specific position in space-time where I am located. I am conscious of sitting at my desk right now, whereas a competitor to me will be conscious of being in a decanter. Even if they can be made to sense everything that I am sensing, this will only mask their different location. If they are in two different places, then they are two different tokens.
You can use modal logic to argue that restored humans have a different token of consciousness. It is perfectly possible that they could exist at the same time as you. Under those circumstances they would be occupying different places, which means that they must be different tokens. It is only in practice that they happen not to exist at the same time that you do. So different tokens occupy different places at the same time in some possible worlds. In other possible worlds, different tokens do not exist at all. But in no possible worlds do different tokens ever occupy the same space at the same time.
So, you can have two different tokens of the same type of consciousness. When you die after being backed up, your token of consciousness has still ended. It certainly does not start up again on the other side of the restoration process. Your type of consciousness may start up again, but your token of consciousness is gone forever. And that is what you find so disturbing about dying even if you have backed up your consciousness. You have a natural emotional attachment to your specific token of consciousness. You have an emotional investment in seeing it live as long as possible.
Of course, this view has its own difficulties. For a start, what on earth makes a token of consciousness the same token of consciousness over time? In order to answer this question, we must ask what is consciousness, and that would get us into philosophy of mind.
Yes, well, as far as I'm concerned, mind is just brain viewed from the inside. Mind is an essentially phenomenological thing, whereas the brain is phenomenal.
You mentioned this in your essay for Points of View during your B.A. You paid attention to the marker's comments for this essay because you thought that your argument was important. He asked a question that annoyed me terribly because it sounded so stupid to my ears: If mind and brain were the same thing, then how couldn't you find out about neurons through introspection?
I don't think that's a stupid question, but we'll leave it till the next section...
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