Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

I would be upset if it tried to use my bank accounts without my permission while I was alive. Once I'm dead, it might as well be me, because I'm beyond caring and it's probably the closest thing to me around anymore.

But you're looking at it from the perspective of "what should happen after I'm dead." Once you're dead, you won't be there to care; nothing will have any value of disvalue to you. But while you're still alive, whether you die or go on living makes a difference. And choosing to submit to destructive uploading would result in your span of life being shortened, at least if the uploading took place ante mortem.

I won't say it would never be rational to choose destructive uploading. There are cases in which death is preferable to life. And having a reproduction of yourself carry on for you after your death could have value, and might even have enough value to tip the balance toward an earlier death than you would otherwise choose. But it's still death: You yourself would never experience the "life" of your digital ghost.

Bill Stoddard

[Pomphis]

So the ghost is not the original until the original dies, and then it becomes the original ? What and who is the ghost till then ?

We have C/Original. Then we create C/Ghost. Now C/Original dies. C/Ghost becomes C/Original. But what if C/Ghost earned money in the meantime, or committed a crime ? Can the new C/Original be punished for what C/Ghost did before it´s identity changed ? Does he get the money ? Or will the new being have two identities ? What if C/Original wrote a will leaving his money to me ?
Can I show the corpse and claim the money, or does the identity change of C/Ghost mean that he gets to keep it ? Which would mean that once somebody would make a ghost of somebody, that original could no longer make a will that would have any legal value.

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by whswhs

"He" does not wake up. Not ever.

The idea that two entities with the same information content are somehow the same entity is sheer mysticism.

The idea that humans possess some kind of magical continuity of consciousness or viewpoint even though that continuity breaks every time they go to sleep; that's mystical. The idea that AIs are incapable of having personal identities simply because they can move from one shell to another; that's mystical (at best; at worst, you're basing your observations on your desired conclusion, rather than vice-versa). The idea put forth by Ze' that there's something inherently different between a mind operating in a natural brain and one operating in emulation that causes one to be "alive" and the other "a puppet" is mystical; he might as well stop being vague about what the difference is and call it a "soul" so the rest of us can chuckle and move on.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Heh, I thought I was posting in a thread called Is Transhuman Space a "silly" genre?, that's the title of this response chain even, so if someone wants to toss all my comments onto that thread instead, no skin off my nose.

This thread (whose title is clear on the TS forum list) was split off from the "is TS silly" thread because of the frequent discussions about identity on this forum in attempt to have all the philosophical arguments for the varying positions in a consolidated place.

Originally Posted by whswhs

But you're looking at it from the perspective of "what should happen after I'm dead." Once you're dead, you won't be there to care; nothing will have any value of disvalue to you. But while you're still alive, whether you die or go on living makes a difference. And choosing to submit to destructive uploading would result in your span of life being shortened, at least if the uploading took place ante mortem.

Well yes, I probably wouldn't choose destructive uploading unless I was in a great deal of pain or suffering that wasn't going to end anytime soon. But that's mainly due to a "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality, rather than some feeling that I'd be ending my life. If I've already got a functional body to tool around in, there's no need for the expense of undergoing uploading.

Originally Posted by whswhs

I won't say it would never be rational to choose destructive uploading. There are cases in which death is preferable to life. And having a reproduction of yourself carry on for you after your death could have value, and might even have enough value to tip the balance toward an earlier death than you would otherwise choose. But it's still death: You yourself would never experience the "life" of your digital ghost.

My ghost would perceive that it experienced all my biological life + it's new digital life. Really, I don't see the difference between destructive uploading and going to sleep. Well, perhaps an induced coma to fix a medical condition, since we go to sleep frequently but destructive uploading happens only once. I go to a hospital, go unconscious, and wake up.

EDIT: Analogy. I used to need glasses. I recently got corrective surgery. Now, I wasn't put under, but if I had been, I envision the experience being roughly similar. I go to the doctor, pass out, and wake up with less limitations than what I initially had. There's a small period of adjustment and blurry vision/learning to interface in a digital format, but then I'm back with my life with more options.

Originally Posted by Pomphis

So the ghost is not the original until the original dies, and then it becomes the original ? What and who is the ghost till then ?

I was mostly making a comment that I want to be able to do what I want with what I've earned. If I was married, I'd be upset if my wife blew three months pay on new furniture without consulting me, and the same would apply if my ghost (assuming we coexisted) was out living the high life using funds I've worked to earn. The ***hole can get his own job if he wants a tricked out cybershell.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Xplo

The idea that humans possess some kind of magical continuity of consciousness or viewpoint even though that continuity breaks every time they go to sleep; that's mystical.

And it's not what I said. My continuity of existence is primarily my continuity of bodily existence. My consciousness is something that my body does. If a different body does it, it's a different consciousness, except under very specialized circumstances which do not occur in THS.

The idea that AIs are incapable of having personal identities simply because they can move from one shell to another; that's mystical (at best; at worst, you're basing your observations on your desired conclusion, rather than vice-versa).

And that's not what I said. What I said was that the fact that memories can be ported from one AI to another very freely means that the personal identity of an AI cannot reside in its memories.

The idea put forth by Ze' that there's something inherently different between a mind operating in a natural brain and one operating in emulation that causes one to be "alive" and the other "a puppet" is mystical; he might as well stop being vague about what the difference is and call it a "soul" so the rest of us can chuckle and move on.

(1) I don't see why you are tasking me with something that Ze' said. Ze's position strikes me as not making much sense.

(2) However, there is a related point. Do you know the concept of qualia? They are thought be philosophers to be the essential hard point about objective accounts of consciousness: My sensation of yellow as I look at this screen, or your sensation of pain if someone hits your thumb with a hammer, are distinctively mine or yours. But I think that that has it backward! What makes my pain distinctively mine is not that it's hidden in the inner recesses of my mind, but that it's the pain of my body. A disembodied intelligence might not have consciousness at all; if it did have consciousness, it might be consciousness without qualia. I'm not certain that a digital ghost would be conscious.

Bill Stoddard

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Xplo

The idea that humans possess some kind of magical continuity of consciousness or viewpoint even though that continuity breaks every time they go to sleep; that's mystical. The idea that AIs are incapable of having personal identities simply because they can move from one shell to another; that's mystical (at best; at worst, you're basing your observations on your desired conclusion, rather than vice-versa). The idea put forth by Ze' that there's something inherently different between a mind operating in a natural brain and one operating in emulation that causes one to be "alive" and the other "a puppet" is mystical; he might as well stop being vague about what the difference is and call it a "soul" so the rest of us can chuckle and move on.

I think one of the great tragedies of these discussions is that every time each side claims that the other side's viewpoint requires a soul/magic to function. While Ze's assertion that TS is magic is slightly annoying (partly because I disagree but mostly because I don't think relevant to this thread) I think slinging the "you're irrational" accusation is about as helpful and more rude.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Xplo

The idea that humans possess some kind of magical continuity of consciousness or viewpoint even though that continuity breaks every time they go to sleep; that's mystical. The idea that AIs are incapable of having personal identities simply because they can move from one shell to another; that's mystical (at best; at worst, you're basing your observations on your desired conclusion, rather than vice-versa). The idea put forth by Ze' that there's something inherently different between a mind operating in a natural brain and one operating in emulation that causes one to be "alive" and the other "a puppet" is mystical; he might as well stop being vague about what the difference is and call it a "soul" so the rest of us can chuckle and move on.

Actually, I think whswhs has a weird but acceptable belief in the 'viewpoint' as a replacement for 'soul' (i.e. something special that can't be scientifically detected, and which dogs don't have for some reason), while Ze'Manel is just acting trollish with all this 'high magic' put into each paragraph to make all the hard-science fans angry.

I respect whswhs' opinion even if I don't agree with it, but I don't see why Ze'Manel keeps doing it.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Xplo

The idea put forth by Ze' that there's something inherently different between a mind operating in a natural brain and one operating in emulation that causes one to be "alive" and the other "a puppet" is mystical; he might as well stop being vague about what the difference is and call it a "soul" so the rest of us can chuckle and move on.

I would counter that Technoworship and the mystical belief that you can create and upload a copy of "you" which then lives on after your body dies is not any different from the mystical belief in a "soul" which lives on after your body dies.

Uploaded sentient ghosts and souls are all equivalent mystical wishful thinking, though with the upload you also become legion instead of merely having an immortal soul.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

I think one of the great tragedies of these discussions is that every time each side claims that the other side's viewpoint requires a soul/magic to function. While Ze's assertion that TS is magic is slightly annoying (partly because I disagree but mostly because I don't think relevant to this thread) I think slinging the "you're irrational" accusation is about as helpful and more rude.

Well, not to make excuses, but I probably should be sleeping and like I said, I thought I was posting in a different thread, my netbook has a small screen so I keep seeing the title which reads "Re: Is Transhuman Space a "silly" genre?".

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Actually, I think whswhs has a weird but acceptable belief in the 'viewpoint' as a replacement for 'soul' (i.e. something special that can't be scientifically detected, and which dogs don't have for some reason), while Ze'Manel is just acting trollish with all this 'high magic' put into each paragraph to make all the hard-science fans angry.

I respect whswhs' opinion even if I don't agree with it, but I don't see why Ze'Manel keeps doing it.

(a) There's a terminological confusion here, which is partly my fault: I don't think that a dog has a worldview, but I do think that a dog has a viewpoint. For that matter, I think a flatworm has a viewpoint. Viewpoint is a question of simple sensory awareness; worldview is conceptual and requires a self-concept.

(b) I don't agree that viewpoint can't be scientifically detected. Viewpoint exists, ultimately, because communication does not take place at infinite speed or with infinite bandwidth, and therefore you can have separate nexuses of information processing. If two of them are engaged in modeling the physical environment, they will build models that differ, if only in which parts are at the highest resolution. But if one nexus's model includes the existence of the other nexus, and the fact that the other nexus is engaged information processing, then its own modeling can take into account the fact that the other has a different model; it can, for example, request more detailed information from the other on something on which the other is better informed, or act in such a way as to induce the other to form an inaccurate model.

In short, I can know that other people are conscious; I can even perceive that other people are conscious. What I can't do is share their viewpoint. My viewpoint is created by the information I process; your viewpoint is created by the information you process. And ultimately, it's important that the information is being processed in different bodies; if I throw vodka into your open eyes, I may know that you're in pain but I won't be in your pain.

Bill Stoddard