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2016-08-02 at 3:29 PM UTCImagine you have a favorite sock. Because it's your favorite, you wear it often. Over time it starts to fall apart, so you patch it up and keep on truckin'. Eventually, over the years, the sock no longer possesses any of the original material - it has all been replaced. Is it still the same sock you fell in love with all those years ago?
If I were a genius and invented a magical machine that could slowly swap every single molecule of Lanny's body with every single molecule of Sophie's body, one molecule at a time, at what point would Lanny and Sophie become each other? Would we ever reach that point? Does this question even make sense?
If we lived in a future world where synthetic body parts were created in labs to replace our natural parts as we got older, including brains, and you eventually got so old that you had to have 100% of your parts replaced, would you still be you after everything that makes you what you are has been replaced? -
2016-08-02 at 4:06 PM UTCThat's an interesting thought. Have you ever seen the movie 'John Dies at the End' before? The beginning starts off with the same question though phased with a different analogy (he kills this psycho with an axe but breaks the handle, a season later with replaced axe shaft he kills this alien bug creature and breaks the head. Soon after the guy he beheaded originally returns with his head sewn on with weed Wacker line and says as the guy brandishes the axe 'that's the axe you killed me with' or something to the effect- now was it since both shaft and head had been replaced? Besides that, its a very good movie, one of my favorite and goes on with all sorts of complex questions like the one in the OP.)not just for the the idea at hand, but just because its a damn good movie, I highly recommend you checking it out. Its a little sci-fi, horror, and dark comedy wrapped in one.
I guess it wouldnt be. We all change, nothing lasts forever. I've been told that most people change their tastes and attitudes every 7 years- possibly due to our cells replacing? Another thought on this is with organ transplants. There have been documented cases of people say recieving a heart and developing unusual traits just as the donor had in life- maybe they aren't that exact person because of one organ being replaced but it lends to the idea if we replaced everything would we in fact be the same person and where would that line be drawn at. Interesting stuff. -
2016-08-02 at 4:39 PM UTCThe question is, at what point stops how you define me as me and Lanny as Lanny. What makes a person?. It's an interesting question one to which i don't know the answer to. Maybe we can first try it with something easier, like the concept of a chair. We can paint the chair blue and it would still be a cvhair, we could make it big and it would still be a chair, wer could stick some tentacles on it and it would be a big blue chair with tentacles. Now as we continue adding or removing things there comes a point at which the object we have doesn't fit the concept of a chair anymore. The final thing we have added or removed will be it's a essence so to speak, so what is the essence of a Sophie or a Lanny?
That all being said, when will we finally become one Lanny-senpai.
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2016-08-02 at 5:24 PM UTCYou seem to be saying that what makes you what you are, the true source of a person's identity, comes from their essence. What is an essence? Something similar to a pattern, or a collection of patterns/processes, something like that? For example if we were to ignore the chemical, biological and physical components of your friends identity and were able to recreate their essence via computer simulation, would you call the simulation a recreation of your friend? When you spoke to it, would you still be talking to your friend? Would they be the same?
Also what is the cause of a person's essence? I see the patterns that make up what we could call a person's essence as being caused by other various events throughout a person's life and development, events beyond our control and really are an essential and integral part of our own pattern or essence. Considering this what determines the boundaries of an individuals essence? -
2016-08-02 at 5:34 PM UTCVery deep. Not only food for thought, but a nice warm drink for the heart
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2016-08-02 at 5:56 PM UTCThe mind could live on forever if the same memories can be retained and new ones learned. Existence is synchronicity and egoism occurring infinity simultaneously.
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2016-08-02 at 6:47 PM UTCKind of rehash of an earlier thread but w/e.
So a lot of people argue that the essence of identity is not material but structure and continuity. That gives us a pretty intuitive answer for the classic ship of Theseus scenario but as mentioned before it doesn't seem to give us a satisfactory answer to branching scenarios. Inclusion of continuity (which is the more controversial condition for survivorship) at least gives us an answer to "Theseus builds a new ship out of the pieces he keeps pulling off the earlier one" although it's far from intuitive as in the "grandfather's axe" variation of what is essentially the same problem. Specifically branching rules out the possibility of a true identity relation across time: no two things with disparate physical embodiments may share an identity.
There may be sets of physical entities that we consider sufficiently similar, maybe there exists some formalizable morphism between elements or maybe it's purely a colloquial construction, and this we call identity, but it's not formal identity. Certainly there are things we call "Lannies" and "Sophies" out in the world but we should not confuse a time-frame's (the "Lanny of August 2nd, PST morning" or "my sock from a day ago") membership in such a set as having a true identity relation with all other members of the set. I think a "functional identity" (or more accurately, if less obvious "set inclusion considerability") model is significantly more powerful, in concept, than our traditional notion of identity. It allows us to articulate notions like "distributed identity" as mentioned in another thread (again, not actually identity), regardless of if you think it's a useful idea or not, precisely. It let's us discuss notions of personal responsibility without invoking identity semantics, which as I've argued elsewhere, are non-relevant in, say, ethical contexts. -
2016-08-02 at 7:58 PM UTC
… no two things with disparate physical embodiments may share an identity.
But why not? If I had a magical machine that could create a precise simulation of you, why is the simulation not you? Let's say the machine did not just simulate your essence, but had the power to manipulate matter itself and actually recreate an entire living, breathing simulation of yourself why would the simulation not be you? Why can't the same person exist in two different locations at the same time? -
2016-08-02 at 10:16 PM UTC
But why not? If I had a magical machine that could create a precise simulation of you, why is the simulation not you? Let's say the machine did not just simulate your essence, but had the power to manipulate matter itself and actually recreate an entire living, breathing simulation of yourself why would the simulation not be you? Why can't the same person exist in two different locations at the same time?
Because strict identity implies, well, identity. Hmm, I guess that's circular if anything ever was. But OK, so let's consider the set of all things that are you or a simulation of you. If this set contains two distinct things then they're not identical: they're distinct. If it only contains one thing, and we accept the premise that you exist in two places at once, then we are committed to affirming both the statement "the single member of this set is a simulation" and the statement "the single member of this set is not a simulation", which is a contradiction. Similarly we can make statements like "this thing is in place X and not in place X". -
2016-08-03 at 2:25 AM UTC
would you still be you after everything that makes you what you are has been replaced?
Really... Are you fucking serious right now?... This is such a basic bitch question. I thought you were smarter than this.
Physical shit doesn't make you the person you are.
Experience makes you the person you are.
E.G.
Just because you got plastic surgery to remove a burn scar, doesn't mean it erased the experience of you escaping a burning building. -
2016-08-03 at 3:51 AM UTC
Really… Are you fucking serious right now?… This is such a basic bitch question. I thought you were smarter than this.
Physical shit doesn't make you the person you are.
Experience makes you the person you are.
E.G.
Just because you got plastic surgery to remove a burn scar, doesn't mean it erased the experience of you escaping a burning building.
So it's back to branching and forgetfulness problems. We constantly forget facts about our pasts, hopefully most of them are minor but undeniably we can lose substantive memories, all memories are distorted with time. At what level of memory loss or distortion do we become different people, lose prior identity? Further what is the identity status of a perfect material clone of ourselves, one who has all our memories, skill, experience? Are those sorts of being us? If they are then what does it mean for there to be more than one us, if they aren't then clearly our own identity is not founded purely on experiences or states of matter. Do such beings even have any non-incidental relationship with us?
It's a complex topic, there are a lot cases to consider and so far no one has been able to come up with a coherent formulation that fits perfectly (or even well) with our intuitions. -
2016-08-04 at 3:07 PM UTC
Because strict identity implies, well, identity. Hmm, I guess that's circular if anything ever was. But OK, so let's consider the set of all things that are you or a simulation of you. If this set contains two distinct things then they're not identical: they're distinct. If it only contains one thing, and we accept the premise that you exist in two places at once, then we are committed to affirming both the statement "the single member of this set is a simulation" and the statement "the single member of this set is not a simulation", which is a contradiction. Similarly we can make statements like "this thing is in place X and not in place X".
Well I think I understand what you're saying, there's more than one way to identify something. I could have two apples that grew from the same tree, they might both look similar, taste similar, might even have extremely similar genetic structures, yet they are distinct. In the same way you and a precise simulation may look exactly the same, think exactly the same, have the exact same "essence" if you will, but of course we can still draw a distinction between the two; one of you is original and one is a simulation. That may very well be and I am fine with that, but you must agree that from a certain perspective you are also the same, you are both still Lanny, in the same sense that the two distinct apples are both still apples. What I am more curious about is whether or not you would agree that your simulation is you, and whether or not that even makes any sense. If your simulation could be simulated for eternity have you achieved immortality? If your grandchildren wanted to talk to you after you were dead, how would you feel about them talking to your simulation? Would it be the same as talking to the original Lanny? Is there any substantial differences beyond the simple distinctions separating you from your simulation?Really… Are you fucking serious right now?… This is such a basic bitch question. I thought you were smarter than this.
Physical shit doesn't make you the person you are.
Experience makes you the person you are.
E.G.
Just because you got plastic surgery to remove a burn scar, doesn't mean it erased the experience of you escaping a burning building.
So according to this logic if your mother had a brain injury and lost all of her memories, forgot the experiences of giving birth to you and raising you and no longer recognized you as her own son, she's no longer your mother, despite the undeniable fact that she physically gave birth to you and your shared genetic information. Is that what you're saying? -
2016-08-04 at 5:25 PM UTC
That may very well be and I am fine with that, but you must agree that from a certain perspective you are also the same, you are both still Lanny, in the same sense that the two distinct apples are both still apples. What I am more curious about is whether or not you would agree that your simulation is you, and whether or not that even makes any sense.
I agree that I and such a simulation would be related in a very significant way. I would even go so far as to say I would feel compelled to defend its interests as if they were my own (indeed for a time at least it would have more in common with me than the Lannies of the recent past or near future), and depending on how it diverges it might serve as a sufficient stand in for me in a legal or ethical context. But I don't think we strictly need to share a personal identity for any of those things to be true (although perhaps we'd share a legal identity, depending on society and the properties of the simulation). Which doesn't strictly answer the question. I don't think there's a strict interpretation of what it means to say "that thing is me". For example, I don't believe I share a personal identity with past selves, and yet of course I might look at an old picture and say "hey, that's me" casually speaking. I don't think the "that's me" relationship is sufficiently clear cut to make a determination here, but as mentioned I do think a simulation of sufficient fidelity would carry many of the rights and responsibilities conferred by what is colloquially called personal identity.
So that's a general framework for the possibility of distributed rights and responsibilities, issues with strict identity. A further issue with the notion of "distributed identity" which is not fundamental but incidental to the simulation cases: on the common view (as well as my own) the kernel of personhood is the subjective consciousness. Descartes cogito, the thinking thing which is the only thing we may detect directly (well at least that's the way the argument goes). In a simulation scenario it would be impossible to perceive a simulation directly, in the same way we can detect our own consciousness. Indeed we could conceive of a simulation being created without our awareness and such a simulation might exist without knowledge of the consciousness it simulates. Thus there are distinct cogitos, distinct people if you accept personhood is predicated on subjective self-perception. -
2016-08-04 at 5:59 PM UTC
… the kernel of personhood is the subjective consciousness. Descartes cogito, the thinking thing which is the only thing we may detect directly (well at least that's the way the argument goes).
Speaking of this, I know you are familiar with my stance on free will and might remember the argument that we are not authoring our own thoughts, thoughts simply arise in our mind as we become conscious of them. If we were to author our own thoughts that would require thinking about what we are going to think about before we think it! So if it is true that we are not authoring our own thoughts how can our thoughts be the kernel of personhood? If we are not authoring our own thoughts than "I think, therefore I am" is about as meaningful as "I see, therefore I am" or the more basic "I am aware, therefore I am".
But who says thoughts are an essential part of consciousness anyway? Maybe thoughts are just things we become conscious of, like the sounds we hear and sights we see. But if that's true, then... what is it? What are you? -
2016-08-04 at 11:57 PM UTC
If we are not authoring our own thoughts than "I think, therefore I am" is about as meaningful as "I see, therefore I am" or the more basic "I am aware, therefore I am". But who says thoughts are an essential part of consciousness anyway? Maybe thoughts are just things we become conscious of, like the sounds we hear and sights we see.
Sure, those are equally valid in the cartesian model. "Thinking" to Descartes doesn't just mean like internal monologue, he means perception and spontaneous cognition, subjective experience. Perception proves the existence of a perceiver even if we have to remain skeptical about the truthfulness of those perceptions, and even if we can't claim ownership over them in some sense. Now if we didn't have reason, say we were rabbits or some sort of less sophisticated animal, we'd have the same facts available to us (awareness, thought in some form or another) but we couldn't apply methodological doubt and come to the conclusion that our awareness implies existence or that we would have reason to doubt any other proposition about the world born of our perceptions. So in some ways a certain level of thought is necessary not because that sort of thought is the only admissible evidence in a cartesian argument but rather the implement by which the argument is made. -
2016-08-06 at 4:22 PM UTCConscious mind is a creation of words. Words are ultraspacial structures created by abstracting common features of significance while ignoring unique features. Words amplify similarities and eliminate differences by wave interference. Words are the product of fusing all the unique images of several structures into an ultraspacial gestalt. The gestalt represented by its abstract noun is not visible to the material eye because it is a ultratridimensional physical structure that is manifest to our Consciousness only as a form of what we conceive to be mental energy, more rarified than electromagnetic substance. A word is an image of an ultraspatial mental Form; words are the very Ideas that Plato talked about.
Abstract verbal concepts are understood only as they can be comprehended within the temporal dimensions of one's mind; a mind is perceived to grow to the extent that it perceives precedents and consequences. Athena is merely the god of intellect; the ruler of consciousness is Kronus, the Overlord of Time and Change. Words referring to abstract concepts are projections of spiritual structures from hyperspace into our mental space. We are unable to know the higher dimensions of the hyperspacial universe we live in because our culture lacks the verbal concepts for our minds to perceive what our eyes plainly see.
The nemesis of abstraction is that the symbol becomes the reality, and the individual differences in the real world are occulted behind the Veils of Maja. As the focus of the mind shifts from the immediately tangible world to verbal concepts, the mind becomes separated from the body and both lose their health. Paradise is a myth about a preverbal Consciousness, before men created words and subsequently mistook the symbol (idol) for reality (God); the Fall of Man and his Expulsion is the consequence of worshipping verbally fashioned images. Philosophers pretend to lead us back to reality on ways paved with more words of higher abstraction, like devils promising to lead us to Heaven. -
2016-08-06 at 4:54 PM UTCWhat is an "ultra spatial structure" and what are their properties per se?
What does wave interference have to do with words?
What reason do you have to believe that "the product of fusing all the unique images of several structures"?
Words are not Plato's forms, they are both imperfect (we have words describing incoherent notions) and mutable (changing with time), clearly properties Plato thinks are notable in their absence of.
Is this pasta? Why did you post it? -
2016-08-10 at 3:06 PM UTC[h=1]Genetic Engineering Will Change Everything Forever – CRISPR:[/h]
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2016-08-10 at 3:14 PM UTC
What is an "ultra spatial structure" and what are their properties per se?
What does wave interference have to do with words?
What reason do you have to believe that "the product of fusing all the unique images of several structures"?
Words are not Plato's forms, they are both imperfect (we have words describing incoherent notions) and mutable (changing with time), clearly properties Plato thinks are notable in their absence of.
Is this pasta? Why did you post it?
Just as only one side of a solid structure can be seen at a time, without a mirror, only one phase of a hyperspacial structure can be perceived directly at one time. It is natural, therefore, to assign a unique identity to different phases that exceed the observer's capacity for resolution into a single gestalt. Virtue is not recognized as the front of vice, no light is seen in darkness, and you have to know your tao to find strength in compliance. Union of complementary opposites transforms them both into a structure of higher dimension. The degree to which you can resolve polar opposites establishes the dimensional scope of your Consciousness. An understanding of hyperspace enables you to answer problems that defy all philosophers limited to three-dimensional concepts.
Cognitive dissonance is produced by harmonic discord among the vibrations defining ideas, images, and sounds. All differences produce cognitive dissonance until discordant phases are cancelled and the remaining vibrations are resolved into a harmonically integrated gestalt in a higher dimension, like a musical chord. Wave cancellation is the physical basis of the concept of psychological repression established by Freud; these wave mechanics also produce karma.
Interference between (mental) waves transforms them into other frequencies so that objects are not perceived as they really are, if they are not rendered altogether invisible as a consequence of cognitive dissonance. Therefore, each person sees and hears truly only those signals that are congruent with the conceptual patterns already defining one's own mental structure; all other perceptions are distorted and repressed, occulted behind the Veils of Maja. At the bottom line, intereference produces a pair of predominant patterns separated by 180o of phase. As a result, reality is perceived to be polarized between good and evil, black and white, strong and weak, male and female, etc.
If your views of a cone were limited to the extremes of plan and elevation, only extraordinary conditions and mathematical calculation would enable you to realize that the two mutually incommensurable figures were aspects of the same identity in a higher dimension of space. Ordinarily, you are able to relate one extreme view to the other extreme by innumerable other viewing angles revealing the gradual transformation of the circle into the triangle. Even after identifying the circle as an allotropic aspect of the triangle, you would still be unable to form the concept of a solid cone unless your mental space were large enough to comprehend three dimensions; you would believe that the conical structure alternates between a circle and a triangle according to the viewing angle; it would be the wave-particle paradox all over again.
On the atomic scale, hyperspacial rotations occur at such speed that transition phases between extreme views cannot be resolved within the temporal precision of the experiment. The wave-particle dichotomy is refractory to scientific comprehension not only because an electron flips between its two phases faster than the instruments can follow, but also because both wave packets and particles are three-dimensional concepts. Mentally unable to comprehend ultratridimensional entities, physicists identify different projections of one subatomic particle as several new discoveries, and that is why there is no end to the number of elementary particles.
Fusing disparate images depends upon the development of a faculty for ignoring differences. The mind learns to ignore differences by subsuming them to a common feature, such as association of time, place, utility, or physical property. The subsumption of ideas into abstract classifications is produced by wave interference; and so, particular, individual differences are repressed to the Unconscious as the mind grows from perceptions limited to tangible sense data to comprehend abstract concepts.
Plato wrote the original hyperspacial theory explaining that each of the material bodies in this world is a manifestation of an Ideal Form in Heaven. In modern mathematical terms, Plato can be paraphrased to say that each individual structure is a unique cross- section (or projection) of an entity existing in a space of more than three dimensions, intersecting with our tridimensional world. Plato conceived his concept of Universal Form by the mental process of verbal abstraction, and then with true philosophic backasswardness he declared that the particular is derived from the abstract, instead of the other way 'round; nevertheless, Plato is right.
Since Plato explained that all individual differences are unique aspects of the ideal, and since wave interference is proven to be the physical mechanism that subsumes differences within the gestalt, the technical means for revealing a tangible manifestation of the Ideal Form is self-evident. By superimposing an indefinitely large number of individual images of the same class of tangible manifestations, the individual wave-forms arrange themselves according to the principle of the Conservation of Energy into a single, harmonically integrated structure. Photographers will recognize this process as the way to make a hologram. A hologram, therefore, is a tangible hyperspacial structure. -
2016-08-11 at 5:54 AM UTC
Just as only one side of a solid structure can be seen at a time, without a mirror, only one phase of a hyperspacial structure can be perceived directly at one time. It is natural, therefore, to assign a unique identity to different phases that exceed the observer's capacity for resolution into a single gestalt. Virtue is not recognized as the front of vice, no light is seen in darkness, and you have to know your tao to find strength in compliance. Union of complementary opposites transforms them both into a structure of higher dimension. The degree to which you can resolve polar opposites establishes the dimensional scope of your Consciousness. An understanding of hyperspace enables you to answer problems that defy all philosophers limited to three-dimensional concepts.
Ok, I might of hoped for a more concrete definition for "ultra spatial structures" but I guess that does describe one property they have. You used solid structures in an analogy but it does seem, since the quality by which ultra spatial structures are likened to solid structures is the only one we thus have thus far established as characteristic of ultra spacial structures, that solid objects would qualify as ultra spatial structures. Is this true? Beyond this, what qualities of words make them ultra spatial?Plato wrote the original hyperspacial theory explaining that each of the material bodies in this world is a manifestation of an Ideal Form in Heaven.
But Plato's forms are distinct from substance. He doesn't propose that my chair is some facet of or a perception of the form of chairs, rather that it is a separate object entirely from the form of chairs that happens embody (note, to "embody" a thing is not to be that thing). To plato chairs are obviously, self evidently, distinct from the form of chairs.
