There is no chain of implications that starts with “I think I value me” and “everything is atoms” and ends with “transplanting a brain to another body preserves me”.
Right, you need more than those two statements. (Also, the first one doesn’t actually help—it doesn’t matter to the conclusion if you value yourself or not.)
contradiction-free (physically possible, in other words)
Contradiction-free doesn’t mean physically possible.
“I am my body” doesn’t require atoms to be in wrong places
Right. The contradiction is in your brain in the form of the data encoded there. It’s not an incorrect belief about where atoms are.
in addition to “I am my body”, you have “I remain myself after sleep” and then you figure out atoms and start to use “the body after sleep is not really the same”, then obviously there are many other ways to resolve this instead of “I am substanceless pattern”.
There are. The problem is that there is more than one (“I remain myself after sleep”) statement and if you consider all of them together, there is no longer another way.
you can conclude that you are not you after sleep
You can’t. Nobody can actually believe that.
Like I said, is it about consciousness specifically, where you think people can’t be wrong about what way point to when they think about blacking out? Because it’s totally possible to be wrong about your consciousness.
People can be wrong when doing this sort of reasoning, but the solution isn’t to postulate the answer by an axiom. The solution is to be really careful about the reasoning.
“To be sure, Fading Qualia may be logically possible. Arguably, there is no contradiction in the notion of a system that is so wrong about its experiences.” So, by “correct” you mean “doesn’t feel implausible”?
That would require some extremely convoluted theory of consciousness that nobody could believe. (For example, it would contradict one of the things you said previously, where a consciousness belongs to a macroscopic, spatially extended object (like a human body), and that’s what makes the object experience that consciousness. (That wouldn’t be possible on the theory of Fading Qualia (because Joe from the thought experiment doesn’t have fully functioning consciousness even though both the consciousness and his body function correctly, etc.).))
I mean, where did you even got the idea that it is possible to derive anything ethical using only correctness?
The problem is that there is more than one (“I remain myself after sleep”) statement and if you consider all of them together, there is no longer another way.
Well, yes, there are other statements—“I am my body” and “I remain myself after sleep” are among them. If your way allows contradicting “I am my body” then it’s not the only contradiction-free way, and other ways (that contradict other initial statements) are on the same footing. At least as far as logic goes.
The contradiction is in your brain in the form of the data encoded there. It’s not an incorrect belief about where atoms are.
Then patternist identity encodes contradiction to “I am my body” in the same way. And if your choice of statements to contradict is not determined by either logic or beliefs about atoms, then it is determined by your preferences. There is just not much other kinds of stuff in the universe.
That would require some extremely convoluted theory of consciousness that nobody could believe.
So like I said, requirement for a theory of consciousness to not be convoluted is just your preference. Just like any definition of what it means for someone to actually believe something—it’s not logic that forces you, because as long as you have a contradiction anyway, you can say that someone was wrong about themselves not believing in convoluted theory of consciousness—and not knowledge about reality. That’s why it’s about ethics. Or why do you thing someone should prefer non-convoluted theory of consciousness?
For example, it would contradict one of the things you said previously, where a consciousness belongs to a macroscopic, spatially extended object (like a human body), and that’s what makes the object experience that consciousness.
Nah, you can just always make it more convoluted^^. For example I could say that usually microscopic changes are safe, but changing neurons into silicon is too much and destroys consciousness.
Well, yes, there are other statements—“I am my body” and “I remain myself after sleep” are among them.
The first one can’t be there. If you put it there and then we add everything else, there will be some statements we’re psychologically incapable of disbelieving, and us being our body isn’t among them, so it is that statement that will have to go.
And if your choice of statements to contradict is not determined by either logic or beliefs about atoms, then it is determined by your preferences. There is just not much other kinds of stuff in the universe.
There is a fourth kind of data—namely, what our psychological makeup determines we’re capable of believing. (Those aren’t our preferences.)
So like I said, requirement for a theory of consciousness to not be convoluted is just your preference.
Right, but the key part there isn’t that it’s convoluted, but that we’re incapable of believing it.
Caring about what our psychological makeup determines we’re capable of believing, instead of partially operating only on surface reasoning until you change your psychological makeup, is a preference. It’s not a law that you must believe things in whatever sense you mean it for these things to matter. It may be useful for acquiring knowledge, but it’s not “correct” to always do everything that maximally helps your brain know true things. It’s not avoiding mistakes—it’s just selling your soul for knowledge.
Caring about what our psychological makeup determines we’re capable of believing, instead of partially operating only on surface reasoning until you change your psychological makeup, is a preference.
You can’t change your psychological makeup to allow you to hold a self-consistent system of beliefs that would include the belief that you are your body. Even if you could (which you can’t), you haven’t done it yet, so you can’t currently hold such a system of beliefs.
It’s not a law that you must believe things in whatever sense you mean it for these things to matter.
If you don’t believe any system of statements that includes that you are your body, then you have no reason to avoid a mind upload or a teleporter.
If you want to declare that you have null beliefs about what you are and say that you only care about your physical body (instead of believing that that is you), that’s not possible. Humans don’t psychologically work like that.
it’s not “correct” to always do everything that maximally helps your brain know true things
Right, you need more than those two statements. (Also, the first one doesn’t actually help—it doesn’t matter to the conclusion if you value yourself or not.)
Contradiction-free doesn’t mean physically possible.
Right. The contradiction is in your brain in the form of the data encoded there. It’s not an incorrect belief about where atoms are.
There are. The problem is that there is more than one (“I remain myself after sleep”) statement and if you consider all of them together, there is no longer another way.
You can’t. Nobody can actually believe that.
People can be wrong when doing this sort of reasoning, but the solution isn’t to postulate the answer by an axiom. The solution is to be really careful about the reasoning.
That would require some extremely convoluted theory of consciousness that nobody could believe. (For example, it would contradict one of the things you said previously, where a consciousness belongs to a macroscopic, spatially extended object (like a human body), and that’s what makes the object experience that consciousness. (That wouldn’t be possible on the theory of Fading Qualia (because Joe from the thought experiment doesn’t have fully functioning consciousness even though both the consciousness and his body function correctly, etc.).))
Oh, I don’t have ethics in mind there.
Well, yes, there are other statements—“I am my body” and “I remain myself after sleep” are among them. If your way allows contradicting “I am my body” then it’s not the only contradiction-free way, and other ways (that contradict other initial statements) are on the same footing. At least as far as logic goes.
Then patternist identity encodes contradiction to “I am my body” in the same way. And if your choice of statements to contradict is not determined by either logic or beliefs about atoms, then it is determined by your preferences. There is just not much other kinds of stuff in the universe.
So like I said, requirement for a theory of consciousness to not be convoluted is just your preference. Just like any definition of what it means for someone to actually believe something—it’s not logic that forces you, because as long as you have a contradiction anyway, you can say that someone was wrong about themselves not believing in convoluted theory of consciousness—and not knowledge about reality. That’s why it’s about ethics. Or why do you thing someone should prefer non-convoluted theory of consciousness?
Nah, you can just always make it more convoluted^^. For example I could say that usually microscopic changes are safe, but changing neurons into silicon is too much and destroys consciousness.
The first one can’t be there. If you put it there and then we add everything else, there will be some statements we’re psychologically incapable of disbelieving, and us being our body isn’t among them, so it is that statement that will have to go.
There is a fourth kind of data—namely, what our psychological makeup determines we’re capable of believing. (Those aren’t our preferences.)
Right, but the key part there isn’t that it’s convoluted, but that we’re incapable of believing it.
Caring about what our psychological makeup determines we’re capable of believing, instead of partially operating only on surface reasoning until you change your psychological makeup, is a preference. It’s not a law that you must believe things in whatever sense you mean it for these things to matter. It may be useful for acquiring knowledge, but it’s not “correct” to always do everything that maximally helps your brain know true things. It’s not avoiding mistakes—it’s just selling your soul for knowledge.
You can’t change your psychological makeup to allow you to hold a self-consistent system of beliefs that would include the belief that you are your body. Even if you could (which you can’t), you haven’t done it yet, so you can’t currently hold such a system of beliefs.
If you don’t believe any system of statements that includes that you are your body, then you have no reason to avoid a mind upload or a teleporter.
If you want to declare that you have null beliefs about what you are and say that you only care about your physical body (instead of believing that that is you), that’s not possible. Humans don’t psychologically work like that.
You can’t avoid that. By the time you are avoiding doing something that would maximally help you know the truth, you already know your current belief is false.