Moby Dick is not a single physical manuscript somewhere.
“Moby Dick” can refer either to a specific object, or to a set. Your argument is that people are like a set, and Error’s argument is that they are like an object (or a process, possibly; that’s my own view). Conflating sets and objects assumes the conclusion.
I’m not conflating them, I’m distinguishing between them. It’s because they’re already conflated that we’re having this problem. I’m explicitly saying that the substrate is not what it’s important here.
But this works both ways: what is the non-question begging argument that observer slices can only be regarded as older versions of previous slices in the case that the latter and the former are both running on meat-based substrates? As far as I can see, you have to just presuppose that view to say that an upload’s observer slice doesn’t count as a legitimate continuation.
I don’t want to get drawn into a game of burden of proof tennis because I don″t think that we disagree on any relevant physical facts. It’s more that my definition of identity just is something like an internally-forward-flowing, indistinguishable-from-the-inside sequence of observer slices and the definition that other people are pushing just...isn’t.
All I can say, really, is that I think that Error and Mark et al are demanding an overly strong moment-to-moment connection between observer slices for their conception of identity. My view is easier to reconcile with things like quantum physics, ageing, revived comatose patients etc. and that is the sort of thing I appeal to by way of support.
It’s more that my definition of identity just is something like an internally-forward-flowing, indistinguishable-from-the-inside sequence of observer slices and the definition that other people are pushing just...isn’t.
Hm. Does “internally-forward-flowing” mean that stateA is a (primary? major? efficient? not sure if there’s a technical term, here) cause of stateB, or does it mean only that internally, stateB remembers “being” stateA?
If the former, then I think you and I actually agree.
All I can say, really, is that I think that Error and Mark et al are demanding an overly strong moment-to-moment connection between observer slices for their conception of identity. My view is easier to reconcile with things like quantum physics, ageing, revived comatose patients etc. and that is the sort of thing I appeal to by way of support.
Aging? Don’t see the connection. You seem to argue that information patterns are identity, but information patterns change greatly as you age. Mark at age 12, the troubled teenager, is very different than Mark at age 29, the responsible father of two. But I think most people would argue they are the same person, just at two separate points in time. Why?
Comatose patients? Connection please? I am not aware what objective data you are pointing to on this.
I’m like a third of the way through that Tegmark paper and I agree with it so far as I understand it but I don’t see how it contradicts my view here. He claims that consciousness is a state of matter, i.e. a pattern of information. You can make a table out of a variety of materials, what matters is how the materials are arranged (and obviously brains are a lot more complicated than tables but it’s what they can do by virtue of their arrangement in terms of the computations they can perform etc. that matters). To Tegmark (and I think to me, as well) consciousness is what certain kinds of information processing feel like from the inside. Which is is pretty much exactly what I’m saying here (that is equivalent to the story in my Moby Dick analogy). If the information processing is indistinguishable from the inside and internally forward-flowing in the sense that the resulting observer slice is a continuation of a previous one to same degree as meat-based humans, then mission accomplished. The upload was successful.
Aging? Don’t see the connection. You seem to argue that information patterns are identity, but information patterns change greatly as you age. Mark at age 12, the troubled teenager, is very different than Mark at age 29, the responsible father of two. But I think most people would argue they are the same person, just at two separate points in time. Why?
I hold that Mark at age 29 is a legitimate continuation of Mark at age 12 but I also hold that this is true of Mark the upload, age 29. Neither are made of the same particles nor do they have the same mental states, as Mark, age 12. so I don’t see why one is privileged with respect to the other. I actually make this same point, with almost the same example, in support of my position that non-meat based future observer slices are just as valid as meat based ones.
As for comatose patients, some possible objections that someone could make to my view are that it doesn’t constitute a legitimate continuation of someone’s conscious narrative if there is a significant interruption to that narrative, if significant time has passed between observer slices or if the later observer slice is running on a significantly different substrate. However, someone revived from a coma after ten years, say, ought to still be regarded as the same person even though there has been a massive discontinuity in their conscious narrative, ten years have passed between observer slices and, even on classical physics, every single one of the particles of which they were composed prior to the coma has now been replaced, meaning they are now literally running on a different substrate.
“Moby Dick” can refer either to a specific object, or to a set. Your argument is that people are like a set, and Error’s argument is that they are like an object (or a process, possibly; that’s my own view). Conflating sets and objects assumes the conclusion.
I’m not conflating them, I’m distinguishing between them. It’s because they’re already conflated that we’re having this problem. I’m explicitly saying that the substrate is not what it’s important here.
But this works both ways: what is the non-question begging argument that observer slices can only be regarded as older versions of previous slices in the case that the latter and the former are both running on meat-based substrates? As far as I can see, you have to just presuppose that view to say that an upload’s observer slice doesn’t count as a legitimate continuation.
I don’t want to get drawn into a game of burden of proof tennis because I don″t think that we disagree on any relevant physical facts. It’s more that my definition of identity just is something like an internally-forward-flowing, indistinguishable-from-the-inside sequence of observer slices and the definition that other people are pushing just...isn’t.
All I can say, really, is that I think that Error and Mark et al are demanding an overly strong moment-to-moment connection between observer slices for their conception of identity. My view is easier to reconcile with things like quantum physics, ageing, revived comatose patients etc. and that is the sort of thing I appeal to by way of support.
Hm. Does “internally-forward-flowing” mean that stateA is a (primary? major? efficient? not sure if there’s a technical term, here) cause of stateB, or does it mean only that internally, stateB remembers “being” stateA?
If the former, then I think you and I actually agree.
Details please.
Quantum physics? Max Tengmark does this subject better than I have the time to. And btw, he’s on our side.
Aging? Don’t see the connection. You seem to argue that information patterns are identity, but information patterns change greatly as you age. Mark at age 12, the troubled teenager, is very different than Mark at age 29, the responsible father of two. But I think most people would argue they are the same person, just at two separate points in time. Why?
Comatose patients? Connection please? I am not aware what objective data you are pointing to on this.
I’m like a third of the way through that Tegmark paper and I agree with it so far as I understand it but I don’t see how it contradicts my view here. He claims that consciousness is a state of matter, i.e. a pattern of information. You can make a table out of a variety of materials, what matters is how the materials are arranged (and obviously brains are a lot more complicated than tables but it’s what they can do by virtue of their arrangement in terms of the computations they can perform etc. that matters). To Tegmark (and I think to me, as well) consciousness is what certain kinds of information processing feel like from the inside. Which is is pretty much exactly what I’m saying here (that is equivalent to the story in my Moby Dick analogy). If the information processing is indistinguishable from the inside and internally forward-flowing in the sense that the resulting observer slice is a continuation of a previous one to same degree as meat-based humans, then mission accomplished. The upload was successful.
I hold that Mark at age 29 is a legitimate continuation of Mark at age 12 but I also hold that this is true of Mark the upload, age 29. Neither are made of the same particles nor do they have the same mental states, as Mark, age 12. so I don’t see why one is privileged with respect to the other. I actually make this same point, with almost the same example, in support of my position that non-meat based future observer slices are just as valid as meat based ones.
As for comatose patients, some possible objections that someone could make to my view are that it doesn’t constitute a legitimate continuation of someone’s conscious narrative if there is a significant interruption to that narrative, if significant time has passed between observer slices or if the later observer slice is running on a significantly different substrate. However, someone revived from a coma after ten years, say, ought to still be regarded as the same person even though there has been a massive discontinuity in their conscious narrative, ten years have passed between observer slices and, even on classical physics, every single one of the particles of which they were composed prior to the coma has now been replaced, meaning they are now literally running on a different substrate.