Ghosts and Mind Copies - The Identity Question

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by whswhs

But both the law and the theory are part of the logical and conceptual structure of science; they exist within the human mind. There was no law of gravity till Newton; there was no law of conservation of energy till Joule; there was no law of the minimum till Liebig. That's how the term is used. Of course the behavior that the law describes exists before it's recognized by human beings; that's why we can say that a law of nature is true. But the law doesn't exist out there in nature; it exists in here, in our minds.

That's exactly the point I was making in regard to other concepts.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

That's exactly the point I was making in regard to other concepts.

I'm sure it was, and I can't see how it can be right. It seems as if you're saying that electrons don't have a charge, because charge is a property and not an entity; that the surface of the sun doesn't have a temperature, because temperature is a property; that mammals don't lactate, because lactation is a function and not a thing. And when we strip away all the properties from things, then we are left with bare thingishness with no properties. And I don't see how we could even say that such a formless entity could even exist.

Bill Stoddard

Edit: It seems that you accept my formulation about the consistent behavior of entities existing out there, in nature, but the law that describes it existing in our minds. But then, if you think that the properties of things exist in our minds, what, if anything, do you think exists out there in nature?

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Isn't a ghost's purpose to be a simulation of consciousness rather than a simulation of physical existence?

Yes, but there are numerous other steps simulated necessarily in order to fulfill that purpose,including the simulation of a physical nervous system and body.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There was no law of gravity till Newton

There was, however, gravity, and objects behaved in a manner consistent with Newton's laws even before Newton wrote those laws down. This means Newton did not create something with his law -- he described something that already existed.

[ErhnamDJ]

what, if anything, do you think exists out there in nature?

The physical material itself.

Originally Posted by whswhs

It seems as if you're saying that electrons don't have a charge, because charge is a property and not an entity

I'm not going to get into the modern physics stuff. I don't understand enough about it, and I'm not sure what implications about the composition of reality can be drawn from it. It's very good at being predictive. I don't know if it's useful at all for being descriptive. I look at things like the various possible interpretations of quantum mechanics and I don't want to touch that. I look back at the luminiferous aether and can't help but wonder how we could possibly interpret this stuff without making the same mistakes. So I won't be going into these sorts of examples. I don't think it matters, though.

that the surface of the sun doesn't have a temperature, because temperature is a property

Temperature describes the motion of things, right? That's what it's doing. Temperature doesn't seem like an example of what you're calling a 'property' here. I say that only physical material exists, and what it does with its existence is move around and interact with other physical material. What we call 'temperature' is our understanding of how this movement is occurring in certain groups of particular pieces of physical material.

that mammals don't lactate

This is another example of movement, rather than what you might call a property. Lactation is when certain particular pieces of physical material (it would have been a lot easier if they hadn't ruined the word 'atom') move around in a way that the human brain interprets to be lactation.

And when we strip away all the properties from things, then we are left with bare thingishness with no properties.

What could those properties be, if not the rules that govern the movement and interactions of physical material?

My position is that the only thing that exists is physical mater in the form of indivisible units. These units move around and interact with other units, and that's all that's going on in reality. You've already agreed that the rules that govern their movement and interaction don't exist, but those rules are all that are needed in my metaphyics in addition to the physical matter itself.

And I don't see how we could even say that such a formless entity could even exist.

I mean, maybe this is a semantic argument and we agree.

You define 'form' as: "Form is being-something-in-particular, as opposed to (notionally) just having bare existence without actually being any particular thing."

I'm not denying that each particular individual unit is itself. That's what I would be saying if I denied, in your terms, that physical material has a form.

I'm saying that the entirety of reality is made up of particular indivisible units of physical material.

As I'm understanding Buridan's explanation of Aristotle here, properties only come into play when referring to multiples of the same kind, rather than to particulars. But I'm only accepting the existence of particulars, so I can't accept properties.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There was, however, gravity, and objects behaved in a manner consistent with Newton's laws even before Newton wrote those laws down. This means Newton did not create something with his law -- he described something that already existed.

Well, yes and no. Newton did not create gravity. But he did create the proposition that stated that gravity existed and behaved in a certain way. Before Newton, F = mM/r^2 was unheard of, even though the physical phenomena that that equation describes were going on. It isn't as if there were a god, or a cosmic computer, or a vast multitude of individual computers in particles of matter, that were solving the equation to figure out how things should accelerate. The equation describes the phenomena; it does not create the phenomena it describes.

Bill Stoddard

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

The equation describes the phenomena; it does not create the phenomena it describes.

Well, yeah, but I don't have any real problem with the concept of a descriptive law.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

Yes, but there are numerous other steps simulated necessarily in order to fulfill that purpose,including the simulation of a physical nervous system and body.

The desired result is the simulation of consciousness and self identity though. It's that the people on the other side from Bill are counting as being copied and not the physical body.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It's that the people on the other side from Bill are counting as being copied and not the physical body.

I don't understand. Is the claim here this: Anything that gives the same outputs as Bill literally is Bill?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I don't understand. Is the claim here this: Anything that gives the same outputs as Bill literally is Bill?

I'm saying that the "Bill" that we are talking about here, not the physical body of Mr. Stoddard but the process in Bill's brain that thinks, and specifically that thinks it has identity isn't really a physical entity at all, but rather an emergent process that only really has an illusion of continuity. If that's really the only important bit for uploads, which it seems to be, then if we duplicate that process perfectly on another medium besides the Stoddard corpus then wouldn't that new process possess the same illusion of continuity every time it's generated?