[ExI] Uploading and selfhood

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 29/03/2008, Michael Miller <ain_ani at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think my previous reply may have covered these issues, but to clarify:
> principally, the self and thoughts are not reducible to the machinery which
> generates them, whatever that machinery may be. They are not 'reducible' at
> all, especially the self, as it is not an isolatable thing. Therefore, to
> think that it can be 'transferred' from one set of hardware to another is to
> posit some kind of supernatural or metaphysical entity as the self.
> Secondly, the self is not identical with thoughts. The self, whenever we use
> the concept, is better understood as being based in social action.
>
> I have never experienced an identical set of atoms to my body, but if I were
> in that situation I would probably argue that my conscious experience
> correlated with what was happening to only one of those groups. However, I
> think we're barking up the wrong tree as soon as we start trying to pin down
> 'me' to a specific material object. There's no such thing as 'me'. And
> unless we're positing some kind of non-physical essential self, how can
> uploading be any kind of 'transferrence' or 'sequel' other than a
> simulation?

Even if we can't say exactly what consciousness is or how it is
generated, there are some obvious scientific observations about it
that we can make. For example, a normally functioning brain seems
necessary and sufficient for consciousness to occur. It seems
necessary because if we destroy the brain the consciousness also
stops, and it seems sufficient because a normally functioning brain
leads to behaviour as if conscious, and there is no reason to believe
that a subset of normally behaving humans are actually zombies. Also,
continuity of consciousness with maintenance of a sense of self
survives dissolution of the matter constituting the brain provided
that it is replaced with matter of a similar type in a sufficiently
similar configuration, since this is what happens in the course of
normal metabolism. Now, all we have to do is show that consciousness
and the self are preserved (or if you prefer, *appear* to be preserved
in the same way as they appear to be preserved in the course of
ordinary life) if biological tissue is replaced with functionally
identical machinery. This is proved by the argument in the following
paper:

http://consc.net/papers/qualia.html

It's a devastating argument for those who would hold on to the idea
that consciousness is a quality unique to a particular substrate and
cannot be simulated. I would be happy to summarise it if the paper is
not clear.




-- 
Stathis Papaioannou