Although this isn’t a universal Christian position (there are some Christian materialists/naturalists), most Christians believe that souls exist on a different metaphysical plane than your brain or an EM. I wouldn’t expect to find any physical atoms that could be identified as being part of a soul. I would obviously expect to find those in an EM.
Also, great article. I think the 1000:1 odds bit is a reasonable analysis. Given an atheistic starting point, although it may feel that future-theist-you is almost certainly wrong, this prediction isn’t easily extricable from the fact that it is being created by atheist-you.
Even if there is a 1:1000 chance that you have a metaphysical soul, you would certainly be making a bad deal (if it were actually possible to sell your soul online as this article posits).
If anything I said doesn’t make sense, feel free to AMA.
most Christians believe that souls exist on a different metaphysical plane than your brain or an EM
Even if that’s true, do you think that the EM has a link to the same metaphysical human who was uploaded or does the soul that was linked to the human is not linked in any way to the EM?
That’s a great question, ChristianKI. I have no idea if a soul-human link would transfer to an uploaded consciousness. The thought experiment of the Ship of Theseus definitely intrigues me, and I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. I wouldn’t expect to find any sort of material link to a soul, so I actually wouldn’t know how to test for it even if I had an EM in the room with me right now.
I will also add that I don’t think a belief in a soul, given that it (as far as I know) has only anecdotal evidence, and doesn’t fit into the scientific method, isn’t self-supporting, and I wouldn’t hold it if it didn’t have borrowed strength from other theistic beliefs.
I’m a Christian user of LessWrong.
Although this isn’t a universal Christian position (there are some Christian materialists/naturalists), most Christians believe that souls exist on a different metaphysical plane than your brain or an EM. I wouldn’t expect to find any physical atoms that could be identified as being part of a soul. I would obviously expect to find those in an EM.
Also, great article. I think the 1000:1 odds bit is a reasonable analysis. Given an atheistic starting point, although it may feel that future-theist-you is almost certainly wrong, this prediction isn’t easily extricable from the fact that it is being created by atheist-you.
Even if there is a 1:1000 chance that you have a metaphysical soul, you would certainly be making a bad deal (if it were actually possible to sell your soul online as this article posits).
If anything I said doesn’t make sense, feel free to AMA.
Even if that’s true, do you think that the EM has a link to the same metaphysical human who was uploaded or does the soul that was linked to the human is not linked in any way to the EM?
That’s a great question, ChristianKI. I have no idea if a soul-human link would transfer to an uploaded consciousness. The thought experiment of the Ship of Theseus definitely intrigues me, and I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. I wouldn’t expect to find any sort of material link to a soul, so I actually wouldn’t know how to test for it even if I had an EM in the room with me right now.
I will also add that I don’t think a belief in a soul, given that it (as far as I know) has only anecdotal evidence, and doesn’t fit into the scientific method, isn’t self-supporting, and I wouldn’t hold it if it didn’t have borrowed strength from other theistic beliefs.
Does that add any clarity?