The Banach-Tarski paradox depends on a paradoxical set decomposition, which I don't think we have in the real world.
Regardless, if we could somehow magically "split" someone into two exact copies, my point wasn't that there is an original and a copy and one is somehow superior than the other. My point was that the two different copies are literally two different objects (brains). Further, that each of these objects will have their own viewpoint (i.e. - sense perceptions) and will be able to identify themselves as different (I'm here) than their copy (he's over there).
They are not the same particle mind you, since they exist simultaneously in two locations, but they are truly equivalent in every way.
Umm... the "copy" says exactly the same thing.
Yeah, those were basically my points. The copies are literally two different things. They are self aware and each has a distinct viewpoint (i.e. - sense perceptions). They will not confuse themselves with one another. They will each think "I am me (over here)" and "that is a copy of me (over there)."
Freezing, copying, and moving all take time in our universe. The copy will already be different from the original by the time it "boots up." Also, even if you could somehow exactly duplicate Earth somewhere else far away (with necessary time delay), that would still be a different Earth. The original would still exist and at a different point in space-time than the copy. In other words, you've already introduced unavoidable differences between the copies from the moment you began creating the copy because they are different physical objects.
That being said, if you could make an exact copy and move it to another exact (time delayed) copy of Earth, then it likely would act very similarly to the original for a while until the (other) unavoidable differences that you reference would creep in. But to say that the two copies share their consciousness or that "you have equal chance to become any one of them" is pretty bizarre. Each copy would have their own consciousness (that would be extremely similar, possibly even equivalent) from the get-go. That's all. Yes, each "you" would be one of them, but that was true even when they were equivalent (i.e. - before they diverged in the way you describe).
If you could transplant memories that way, then after the transplantation that brain would think it had been moved, even if only a tiny % of the brain actually had been. That brain probably would not be able to distinguish between having its memory transplanted or just having switched the operating tables around while they were under.
My real point though was that when the altered brain woke up, then it would not be confused about where it was nor what it was perceiving. It would not confuse itself with the other person lying on the other table. It would be able to recognize and distinguish between itself and its copy as distinct physical objects / humans. It (each of them) would have its own distinct viewpoint.
Yeah, I think we are basically agreeing. I'm just saying that each of the copies would have their own distinct perceptions each tied to their own brain + body and each of them would not confuse themselves with the other copies.
They would share common belief systems, thought patterns, emotions, memories, intelligence, etc., and they would all have a similar (largely indistinguishable) claim on their shared past.
No (the sky is not inside my skull although my perception of it is). Yes. Yes. No.
Humans (most animals) are sensitive to being stared at because of evolution and being prey animals. You are physically sensing the person staring at you to some extent and that raises feelings in your brain to react (e.g. - turn and look) so that you can determine if the threat is real or not. Cameras look like unblinking eyes and can easily cause similar sensations.
I'm not arguing there is one "special" you. I'm not arguing that the original is somehow superior or more valuable than the copy.
I'm saying that when I, or my copies, awoke they would have no confusion about where they were or what bodies they inhabited. We wouldn't share a hive mind and nor would our perceptions flit between the different bodies we inhabited. Each of us would be able to distinguish between ourselves and the others.
That being said, we would share a common past (memories, emotions, etc.) and that would be very weird. Questions of property rights, what is "mine," etc., would get very complicated very quickly. But none of us would get confused about which body we occupied or that the other copies were distinct entities from ourselves.
That's interesting, but I'm not claiming there is one "special" you. I'm saying what we call "me" is emergent from our brains. Even if you recombined my brain with a copy of my brain such that every other atom of the original is interspersed with one from the copy, and the other's brain is similarly arranged, each of us when we awoke would still have a perspective tied to that brain (and body). One would see the red light, the other would see the blue light and neither of us would be confused about which of us was which or what we were seeing.
What would happen in the particular scenario you describe is very hard to say, because the two brains actually were different before you combined them. Previously, one brain was on one operating table perceiving and remembering one color light while the other was on another operating table perceiving and remembering the other color light. When you mixed these two brains up together somehow, I really have honestly no idea what that would yield in each of their memories because you've unavoidably altered them to some extent. Unless, you did the full brain swap. In which case, one would go from seeing red then awaking to see blue (and being on the other side of the room) while the other would remember and perceive the opposite.
Do you get confused about who you are when other people enter the same room with you? Probably not. Then why would you get confused about yourself if your doppelgänger walked into the room?
I'm saying "you" is physically tied to your brain. A copy of you walking into the room has a different brain that is very similar to yours. Your perception of yourself isn't going to suddenly fly across the room and occupy its body or anything weird like that.
I agree that most conceptions of the soul arise out of the fear / hatred of death for oneself and loved ones.
"This is incompatible with most people's beliefs about how the universe works, and it currently cannot be tested to be proven true."
I'm not so sure about that. We can alter the brain with drugs, surgery, treatment, accidents, etc., and the person will act drastically differently than they did before. Some would even say "They aren't even the same person." And on some level they would be correct.
I'm saying that they truly are two different things: one is a file on computer A, the other is a file on computer B (where A is not the same computer as B). The fact that their contents are equivalent doesn't change the fact that IN REALITY they actually are two different things.
Now, you could argue that this doesn't matter at a certain level (e.g. - digital copies of a movie are indistinguishable) and at those certain levels I would agree. However, here I was talking about people and people absolutely do have a "privileged viewpoint" of themselves (i.e. - their current sense perceptions).
That is, if you put me in a room with a new perfect copy of myself, I will still be me (on this side of the room) and the copy will still be the copy (on that side of the room). The copy might think the exact same thing too, but in opposite terms, but neither of us will be confused about which of the us is "me." We will each think of ourselves as "me" and the other as the "other." Nor will we have our perception suddenly flip into the other's body on the other side of the room.
If someone walks into the room and shoots one of the copies, then the other will not suddenly fall over dead as if it were shot too or anything bizarre like that.
I'm not claiming that "the original" is somehow superior or has more intrinsic worth or anything like that. I'm saying that each copy will view itself as an independent entity, because that is what they are. They are different things.
"The materialist argument is that a copy of you is also "you," you've basically just been "forked.""
On some level, yes. On another, no. The copies are very similar and share a common history, but from the moment they "forked" they actually are different people because they are different human brains.
If you bring two copies of a person together and tell them they must choose one of them to die because by law only one "you" is allowed to exist, then there will be some serious consternation, stress, and conflict between them most likely.
"The sticky problem is that even with a materialist explanation, it still doesn't explain what conscious awareness actually IS, just that it's an aspect of certain arrangements of matter. The problem of qualia is not solved, in fact it's a total mystery."
My bet is that what we call our consciousness is the amalgamation of the brain's higher functions. It's how the brain perceives itself, basically. How that works and why we experience it the way we do may eventually be figured out in detail.
"All that you can know for sure is that you exist"
That depends on what exactly you mean by "you exist." I agree that what humans consider thinking certainly implies something fairly complex is happening (e.g. - self contemplation).
The "problem of consciousness becoming local to one's skull and inseparable from gray matter" is no problem at all. That's the fact of the matter. What "you" perceive as "your consciousness" is purely a function of your brain.
When you make an exact copy of a brain, that doesn't complicate anything really. That brain will perceive its own consciousness similarly. And it will very likely function very similarly to the original.
"... which brings up the problem of consciousness becoming local to one's skull and inseparable from gray matter. This idea sounds a bit unscientific because it introduces the notion that there's something about our brain which cannot be described in terms of physics, almost like soul."
No, all it says is that a copy of a brain is not the original brain.
If you make a perfect copy of an orange, all the way down to the subatomic level, then that copy is still not the original orange. It's the copy.
If you make a perfect copy of me, down to the sub-atomic level and that copy walks into my room, then I will not suddenly confuse that copy with myself.
If the scenario you sketched out can happen, then that implies the car should start braking when it detects a questionable object moving towards its lane.
There never should be a scenario where the car detects something possibly solid in or moving into its lane with which it will eventually collide if things keep moving the way they are and it just keeps on going full speed anyway.
Some of the main advantages AVs should have over humans is that they are always alert and that they can detect and react sooner and better to dangers than humans.
There is no good reason why an AV shouldn't have much better night vision than a human relying on headlights. Uber screwed up either on their sensors or on their collision avoidance logic. In the process, they gave the entire industry a black eye. Kudos!
Oh, another time I got shaken down by a police officer while vacationing in Cancun. I was told I could pay the $120 "speeding ticket" (I was driving an obvious rental, so an easy mark) on the spot or go down to the station. I said "I don't have that kind of money on me." He said: "Well, how much do you have on you?" Luckily, I had about $80 in cash, which seemed to satisfy him and off I went a little lighter in the pockets.
So, maybe, that's an argument for carrying cash? I guess?
I've lived in and around Baltimore most of my adult life. I've never been mugged (yet). I have had my car (a beater at the time) broken into to get the toll change out of it. That was in a fairly nice neighborhood.
One roommate had a knife held to her throat while walking with her boyfriend on the street in a mugging in the middle of the day. Luckily, she wasn't physically hurt but was badly shaken. That was on the edge of a bad neighborhood. (We were poor graduate students at the time)
Another time, my now-wife and an entire bachelorette party were held up at gunpoint by two guys on bicycles while they were waiting outside the bride-to-be's house for cabs to go out for the evening. That was in a good neighborhood -- but good quickly blends into bad and back again in Baltimore (and many other cities I imagine). They took their jewelry, phones, cash, wallets, etc. Threatened to blow off one of my wife's bests friend's head when a couple of the girls got nervous and started to make a break for it.
I've had three different close friends have their houses broken into and robbed.
Moral of my story, I guess, is that living in a high crime city makes you a bit more paranoid about what you do and how you do it.
Let's posit that we are in a simulation. If the simulation creators / runners care about the simulation running "properly" and they detect us somehow violating that (e.g. - by "breaking out" of it), then they likely can simply rollback the state to a previous state and make whatever changes necessary to prevent the same thing from occurring again.
Slashdot Mirror
The Banach-Tarski paradox depends on a paradoxical set decomposition, which I don't think we have in the real world.
Regardless, if we could somehow magically "split" someone into two exact copies, my point wasn't that there is an original and a copy and one is somehow superior than the other. My point was that the two different copies are literally two different objects (brains). Further, that each of these objects will have their own viewpoint (i.e. - sense perceptions) and will be able to identify themselves as different (I'm here) than their copy (he's over there).
They are not the same particle mind you, since they exist simultaneously in two locations, but they are truly equivalent in every way.
Umm... the "copy" says exactly the same thing.
Yeah, those were basically my points. The copies are literally two different things. They are self aware and each has a distinct viewpoint (i.e. - sense perceptions). They will not confuse themselves with one another. They will each think "I am me (over here)" and "that is a copy of me (over there)."
Nice!
Freezing, copying, and moving all take time in our universe. The copy will already be different from the original by the time it "boots up." Also, even if you could somehow exactly duplicate Earth somewhere else far away (with necessary time delay), that would still be a different Earth. The original would still exist and at a different point in space-time than the copy. In other words, you've already introduced unavoidable differences between the copies from the moment you began creating the copy because they are different physical objects.
That being said, if you could make an exact copy and move it to another exact (time delayed) copy of Earth, then it likely would act very similarly to the original for a while until the (other) unavoidable differences that you reference would creep in. But to say that the two copies share their consciousness or that "you have equal chance to become any one of them" is pretty bizarre. Each copy would have their own consciousness (that would be extremely similar, possibly even equivalent) from the get-go. That's all. Yes, each "you" would be one of them, but that was true even when they were equivalent (i.e. - before they diverged in the way you describe).
We have plenty of evidence and knowledge about how physical changes to the brain affect consciousness, personality, behavior, etc.
The best evidence points to "you" are your brain.
That person wouldn't be able to and they wouldn't care so long as the other copy never came around, did stuff in "their" name, etc.
I agree about the neuroscience of memories.
If you could transplant memories that way, then after the transplantation that brain would think it had been moved, even if only a tiny % of the brain actually had been. That brain probably would not be able to distinguish between having its memory transplanted or just having switched the operating tables around while they were under.
My real point though was that when the altered brain woke up, then it would not be confused about where it was nor what it was perceiving. It would not confuse itself with the other person lying on the other table. It would be able to recognize and distinguish between itself and its copy as distinct physical objects / humans. It (each of them) would have its own distinct viewpoint.
Actually, scientists would say they don't yet know why the big bang and cosmic inflation happened.
Also, matter still winks into and out of existence all the time. Look up virtual particles and Hawking radiation.
Nope and I don't know what that is. The first post had "Bullshit" as the title, so I doubled it up.
Yeah, I think we are basically agreeing. I'm just saying that each of the copies would have their own distinct perceptions each tied to their own brain + body and each of them would not confuse themselves with the other copies.
They would share common belief systems, thought patterns, emotions, memories, intelligence, etc., and they would all have a similar (largely indistinguishable) claim on their shared past.
No (the sky is not inside my skull although my perception of it is). Yes. Yes. No.
Humans (most animals) are sensitive to being stared at because of evolution and being prey animals. You are physically sensing the person staring at you to some extent and that raises feelings in your brain to react (e.g. - turn and look) so that you can determine if the threat is real or not. Cameras look like unblinking eyes and can easily cause similar sensations.
I'm not arguing there is one "special" you. I'm not arguing that the original is somehow superior or more valuable than the copy.
I'm saying that when I, or my copies, awoke they would have no confusion about where they were or what bodies they inhabited. We wouldn't share a hive mind and nor would our perceptions flit between the different bodies we inhabited. Each of us would be able to distinguish between ourselves and the others.
That being said, we would share a common past (memories, emotions, etc.) and that would be very weird. Questions of property rights, what is "mine," etc., would get very complicated very quickly. But none of us would get confused about which body we occupied or that the other copies were distinct entities from ourselves.
That's interesting, but I'm not claiming there is one "special" you. I'm saying what we call "me" is emergent from our brains. Even if you recombined my brain with a copy of my brain such that every other atom of the original is interspersed with one from the copy, and the other's brain is similarly arranged, each of us when we awoke would still have a perspective tied to that brain (and body). One would see the red light, the other would see the blue light and neither of us would be confused about which of us was which or what we were seeing.
What would happen in the particular scenario you describe is very hard to say, because the two brains actually were different before you combined them. Previously, one brain was on one operating table perceiving and remembering one color light while the other was on another operating table perceiving and remembering the other color light. When you mixed these two brains up together somehow, I really have honestly no idea what that would yield in each of their memories because you've unavoidably altered them to some extent. Unless, you did the full brain swap. In which case, one would go from seeing red then awaking to see blue (and being on the other side of the room) while the other would remember and perceive the opposite.
Do you get confused about who you are when other people enter the same room with you? Probably not. Then why would you get confused about yourself if your doppelgänger walked into the room?
I'm saying "you" is physically tied to your brain. A copy of you walking into the room has a different brain that is very similar to yours. Your perception of yourself isn't going to suddenly fly across the room and occupy its body or anything weird like that.
I agree that most conceptions of the soul arise out of the fear / hatred of death for oneself and loved ones.
"This is incompatible with most people's beliefs about how the universe works, and it currently cannot be tested to be proven true."
I'm not so sure about that. We can alter the brain with drugs, surgery, treatment, accidents, etc., and the person will act drastically differently than they did before. Some would even say "They aren't even the same person." And on some level they would be correct.
I'm saying that they truly are two different things: one is a file on computer A, the other is a file on computer B (where A is not the same computer as B). The fact that their contents are equivalent doesn't change the fact that IN REALITY they actually are two different things.
Now, you could argue that this doesn't matter at a certain level (e.g. - digital copies of a movie are indistinguishable) and at those certain levels I would agree. However, here I was talking about people and people absolutely do have a "privileged viewpoint" of themselves (i.e. - their current sense perceptions).
That is, if you put me in a room with a new perfect copy of myself, I will still be me (on this side of the room) and the copy will still be the copy (on that side of the room). The copy might think the exact same thing too, but in opposite terms, but neither of us will be confused about which of the us is "me." We will each think of ourselves as "me" and the other as the "other." Nor will we have our perception suddenly flip into the other's body on the other side of the room.
If someone walks into the room and shoots one of the copies, then the other will not suddenly fall over dead as if it were shot too or anything bizarre like that.
I'm not claiming that "the original" is somehow superior or has more intrinsic worth or anything like that. I'm saying that each copy will view itself as an independent entity, because that is what they are. They are different things.
"The materialist argument is that a copy of you is also "you," you've basically just been "forked.""
On some level, yes. On another, no. The copies are very similar and share a common history, but from the moment they "forked" they actually are different people because they are different human brains.
If you bring two copies of a person together and tell them they must choose one of them to die because by law only one "you" is allowed to exist, then there will be some serious consternation, stress, and conflict between them most likely.
"The sticky problem is that even with a materialist explanation, it still doesn't explain what conscious awareness actually IS, just that it's an aspect of certain arrangements of matter. The problem of qualia is not solved, in fact it's a total mystery."
My bet is that what we call our consciousness is the amalgamation of the brain's higher functions. It's how the brain perceives itself, basically. How that works and why we experience it the way we do may eventually be figured out in detail.
"All that you can know for sure is that you exist"
That depends on what exactly you mean by "you exist." I agree that what humans consider thinking certainly implies something fairly complex is happening (e.g. - self contemplation).
The "problem of consciousness becoming local to one's skull and inseparable from gray matter" is no problem at all. That's the fact of the matter. What "you" perceive as "your consciousness" is purely a function of your brain.
When you make an exact copy of a brain, that doesn't complicate anything really. That brain will perceive its own consciousness similarly. And it will very likely function very similarly to the original.
Where's the confusion?
"... which brings up the problem of consciousness becoming local to one's skull and inseparable from gray matter. This idea sounds a bit unscientific because it introduces the notion that there's something about our brain which cannot be described in terms of physics, almost like soul."
No, all it says is that a copy of a brain is not the original brain.
If you make a perfect copy of an orange, all the way down to the subatomic level, then that copy is still not the original orange. It's the copy.
If you make a perfect copy of me, down to the sub-atomic level and that copy walks into my room, then I will not suddenly confuse that copy with myself.
If the scenario you sketched out can happen, then that implies the car should start braking when it detects a questionable object moving towards its lane.
There never should be a scenario where the car detects something possibly solid in or moving into its lane with which it will eventually collide if things keep moving the way they are and it just keeps on going full speed anyway.
Some of the main advantages AVs should have over humans is that they are always alert and that they can detect and react sooner and better to dangers than humans.
There is no good reason why an AV shouldn't have much better night vision than a human relying on headlights. Uber screwed up either on their sensors or on their collision avoidance logic. In the process, they gave the entire industry a black eye. Kudos!
Oh, another time I got shaken down by a police officer while vacationing in Cancun. I was told I could pay the $120 "speeding ticket" (I was driving an obvious rental, so an easy mark) on the spot or go down to the station. I said "I don't have that kind of money on me." He said: "Well, how much do you have on you?" Luckily, I had about $80 in cash, which seemed to satisfy him and off I went a little lighter in the pockets.
So, maybe, that's an argument for carrying cash? I guess?
I've lived in and around Baltimore most of my adult life. I've never been mugged (yet). I have had my car (a beater at the time) broken into to get the toll change out of it. That was in a fairly nice neighborhood.
One roommate had a knife held to her throat while walking with her boyfriend on the street in a mugging in the middle of the day. Luckily, she wasn't physically hurt but was badly shaken. That was on the edge of a bad neighborhood. (We were poor graduate students at the time)
Another time, my now-wife and an entire bachelorette party were held up at gunpoint by two guys on bicycles while they were waiting outside the bride-to-be's house for cabs to go out for the evening. That was in a good neighborhood -- but good quickly blends into bad and back again in Baltimore (and many other cities I imagine). They took their jewelry, phones, cash, wallets, etc. Threatened to blow off one of my wife's bests friend's head when a couple of the girls got nervous and started to make a break for it.
I've had three different close friends have their houses broken into and robbed.
Moral of my story, I guess, is that living in a high crime city makes you a bit more paranoid about what you do and how you do it.
Let's posit that we are in a simulation. If the simulation creators / runners care about the simulation running "properly" and they detect us somehow violating that (e.g. - by "breaking out" of it), then they likely can simply rollback the state to a previous state and make whatever changes necessary to prevent the same thing from occurring again.