Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If it proved impossible to model a human brain successfully; if regardless of everything else being correct consciousness was still missing, then perhaps, you might be right.

That actually is not the view I hold, by the way; I believe that it's possible in principle to create a virtual brain that would be conscious. But I think that, if you made one based on my brain according to the methods in THS, it would not be MY consciousness, any more than, if you made a virtual alimentary canal based on mine in exhaustive detail, the resulting digestion would be MY digestion. My identity is tied to my body.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Assuming that the human psyche is a purely physical thing is a mistake, I believe. Modeling a brain is not the same thing as creating a soul.

I'm not a dualist. Neither a soul/body dualist nor a mind/body dualist. I consider perception, action, emotion, thought, and volition to be activities of bodies of a certain type. So I'm not going to argue from a dualist perspective.

My argument against uploading is not that a physical process couldn't ever transfer my consciousness into a new body, or a digital model of a body, but that the process described in THS is not the right sort of process to do that.

Bill Stoddard

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That actually is not the view I hold, by the way; I believe that it's possible in principle to create a virtual brain that would be conscious. But I think that, if you made one based on my brain according to the methods in THS, it would not be MY consciousness, any more than, if you made a virtual alimentary canal based on mine in exhaustive detail, the resulting digestion would be MY digestion. My identity is tied to my body.

Yes I understand your point of view here. I generally agree (and I don't have the philosophy background to really explain where I disagree). I only meant to say that combatmedic's extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

It seems simply absurd to claim that a setting isn't hard sf because it lacks proof of the existence of the soul.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yes I understand your point of view here. I generally agree (and I don't have the philosophy background to really explain where I disagree). I only meant to say that combatmedic's extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Not really. My claims about the existence of the human soul are not scientific claims, per se. You need to try to enlarge your mode of thinking for this kind of discussion. We are talking about an area where the physical sciences overlap with metaphysics, faith, spirituality, etc.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Not really. My claims about the existence of the human soul are not scientific claims, per se. You need to try to enlarge your mode of thinking for this kind of discussion. We are talking about an area where the physical sciences overlap with metaphysics, faith, spirituality, etc.

Hard Science Fiction is science fiction in which everything conforms to understood scientific principles or plausible speculations thereof. It doesn't have any place for absolute statements about untestable ideas.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Hard Science Fiction is science fiction in which everything conforms to understood scientific principles or plausible speculations thereof. It doesn't have any place for absolute statements about untestable ideas.

Like the implausible idea that souls can be reproduced by machines?
Right you are- and that's why THS is not hard sci fi in the strict sense. It takes a metaphysical stance on human psyches.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Like the implausible idea that souls can be reproduced by machines?

There is no such idea in the setting. Souls do not provably exist in the setting (just like real life). This isn't a mighty revelation. I'm sure it's quite obvious to you. I'm not going to debate you any further on this subject. If Bill wants to he's welcome to it.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There is no such idea in the setting. Souls do not provably exist in the setting (just like real life). This isn't a mighty revelation. I'm sure it's quite obvious to you. I'm not going to debate you any further on this subject. If Bill wants to he's welcome to it.

I wasn't aware that we were debating.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Like the implausible idea that souls can be reproduced by machines?
Right you are- and that's why THS is not hard sci fi in the strict sense. It takes a metaphysical stance on human psyches.

You're the one who's talking about souls. I don't believe that consciousness is in any sense a product of a nonphysical soul. So I don't believe that it's an issue of souls being reproduced by machines. Rather, it's a question of what physical organization is necessary for an entity to have a viewpoint, and under what conditions we can say that an entity at time 1 and an entity at time 2 have the same viewpoint.

Bill Stoddard

[sjard]

<Moderator>
Keep it civil here please.
</Moderator>