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Epiphany comments on Open Thread, October 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong Discussion
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The million dollar question: Do I stop experiencing?
If I were to be disassembled by a Star Trek transporter, I'd stop experiencing. That's death. If some other particles elsewhere are reassembled in my pattern, that's not me. That's a copy of me. Yes, I think a Star Trek transporter would kill me. Consider this: If it can assemble a new copy of me, it is essentially a copier. Why is it deleting the original version? That's a murderous copier.
I remember researching whether the brain is replaced with new cells over the course of one's life and I believe the answer to that is no. I forgot where I read that, so I can't cite it, but due to that, I'm not going to operate from the assumption that all of the cells in my brain are replaced over time.
However, if one brain cell were replaced in such a way that the new cell became part of me, and I did not notice the switch, my experiencing would continue, so that wouldn't be death. Even if that happened 100,000,000,000 times (or however many times would equate to a complete replacement of my brain cells) that wouldn't stop me from experiencing. Therefore, it's not a death - it's a transformation.
If my brain cells were transformed over time into upgraded versions, so long as my experience did not end, it would not be death. Though, it could be said to be a transformation - the old me no longer exists. Epiphany 2012 is not the same as Epiphany 1985 because I was a child then, but my neural connections are completely different now and I didn't experience that as death. Epiphany 2040 will be completely different from Epiphany 2012 in any case, just because I aged. If I decide to become a transhuman and the reason I am different at that time is because I've had my brain cells replaced one at a time in order to experience the transformation and result of it, then I have merely changed, not died.
It could be argued that if the previous you no longer exists, you're dead, but the me that I was when I was two years old or ten years old or the me I was when I was a zygote no longer exists - yet I am not dead. So the arguer would have to distinguish an intentional transformation from a natural one in a way that sets it apart as having some important element in common with death. All of my brain cells would be gone, in that scenario, but I'd say that's not a property of death, just a cause of death, and that not everything that could cause death always will cause death. Also, it is possible to replace brain cells as they die, in which case, the more appropriate perspective is that I was being continued, not replaced. Doing it that way would be a prevention of death, not a cause of death. I would not technically be human afterward, but my experience would continue, and the pattern known as me would continue (it is assumed that this pattern will transform in any case, so I don't see the transformation of the pattern as a definite loss - I'd only see it that way if I were damaged) so I would not consider it a death.
The litmus test question is not "Would the copy of me continue experiencing as if nothing had happened." the litmus test question is "Will I, the original, continue experiencing?"
Here are two more clarifying questions:
Imagine there's a copy of you. You are not experiencing what the copy is experiencing. It's consciousness is inaccessible to you the same way that a twin's consciousness would be. Now they want to disassemble you because there is a copy. Is that murder?
Imagine there's a copy of you. You've been connected to it via a wireless implant in your head. You experience everything it experiences. Now they want to disassemble you and let the copy take over. If all the particles in your head are disassembled except for the wireless implant, will you continue experiencing what it experiences, or quit experiencing all together?
I used to think this way. I stopped thinking this way when I realized that there are discontinuities in consciousness even in bog-standard meat bodies -- about one a day at minimum, and possibly more since no one I'm aware of has conclusively established that subjective conscious experience is continuous. (It feels continuous, but your Star Trek transporter-clone would feel continuity as well -- and I certainly don't have a subjective record of every distinct microinstant.)
These are accompanied by changes in physical and neurological state as well (not as dramatic as complete disassembly or mind uploading, but nonzero), and I can't point to a threshold where a change in physical state necessitates subjective death. I can't even demonstrate that subjective death is a coherent concept. Since all the ways I can think of of getting around this require ascribing some pretty sketchy nonphysical properties to the organization of matter that makes up your body, I'm forced to assume in the absence of further evidence that there's nothing in particular that privileges one discontinuity in consciousness over another. Which is an existentially frightening idea, but what can one do about it?
(SMBC touched on this once, too.)
What do you mean by discontinuities? I have not heard about this.
Sleep, total anesthesia, getting knocked on the head in the right way, possibly things like zoning out. Any time your subjective experience stops for a while.
Actually, I expect that our normal waking experience is also discontinuous, in much the same sense that our perception of our visual field is massively discontinuous. Human consciousness is not a plenum.
Yeah, I was trying to get at that with the parenthetical bit in my first paragraph. Could probably have been a bit more explicit.
Ok are you saying that temporarily going unconscious is the same as permanently going unconscious?
Would you assert that because we temporarily go unconscious that permanent unconsciousness is not death?
Temporarily going unconscious is not the same as permanently going unconscious.
Whether we temporarily go unconscious or not does not entail permanent unconsciousness being or not being death.
Now, some questions of mine: you said "If I were to be disassembled by a Star Trek transporter, I'd stop experiencing. That's death."
When you fall asleep, do you stop experiencing?
If so, is that death?
If it isn't death, is it possible that other things that involve stopping experiencing, like the transporter, are also not death?
We need to focus on the word "I" to see my point. I'm going to switch that out with something else to highlight this difference. For the original, I will use the word "Dave". As tempting as it is to use "TheOtherDave" for the copy, I am going to use something completely different. I'll use "Bob". And for our control, I will use myself, Epiphany.
Epiphany takes a nap. Her brain is still active but it's not conscious.
Dave decides to use a teleporter. He stands inside and presses the button.
The teleporter scans him and constructs a copy of him on a space ship a mile away.
The copy of Dave is called Bob.
The teleporter checks the copy of Bob before deleting Dave to make sure he was copied successfully.
Dave still exists, for a fraction of a second, just after Bob is created.
Both of them COULD go on existing, if the teleporter does not delete Dave. However, Dave is under the impression that he will become Bob once Bob exists. This isn't true - Bob is having a separate set of experiences. Dave doesn't get a chance to notice this because in only fractions of a second, the teleporter deletes Dave by disassembling his particles.
Dave's experience goes black. That's it. Dave doesn't even know he's dead because he has stopped experiencing. Dave will never experience again. Bob will experience, but he is not Dave.
Epiphany wakes up from her nap. She is still Epiphany. Her consciousness did not stop permanently like Dave's. She was not erased like Dave.
Epiphany still exists. Bob still exists. Dave does not.
The problem here is that Dave stopped experiencing permanently. Unlike Epiphany who can pick up where Epiphany left off after her nap because she is still Epiphany and was never disassembled, Bob cannot pick up where Dave left off because Bob never was Dave. Bob is a copy of Dave. Now that Dave is gone, Dave is gone. Dave stopped experiencing. He is dead.
Ah! So when you say "If I were to be disassembled by a Star Trek transporter, I'd stop experiencing" you mean "I'd [permanently] stop experiencing." I understand you now, thanks.
So, OK.
Suppose Dave decides to go to sleep. He gets into bed, closes his eyes, etc.
The next morning, someone opens their eyes.
How would I go about figuring out whether the person who opens their eyes is Dave or Bob?
Well, first, is there a human copier nearby? If not, you're probably Dave.
How about this: If you had stepped into a teleporter and pressed the button, how would you know that it killed you?
This is exactly backwards.
I recognize a copier because it makes copies. That's how I know something is a copier.
If I need to know whether something is a copier before I can decide whether what it creates is a copy or not, there's something wrong with my thinking.
I wouldn't, naturally.
Of course, if Dave steps into an incinerator and presses the button, Dave also doesn't know that the incinerator killed Dave.
Dave is just dead, and knows nothing.
OTOH, if Dave steps into a non-incinerator and presses the button, Dave knows it didn't kill Dave.
And the way that Dave knows this is that something is standing there, not-dead, after pressing the button, and that something identifies as Dave, and resembles Dave closely enough.
This happens all the time... I have pressed many buttons in my life, and I know they haven't killed me, because here I am, still alive.
And I expect this is exactly what happens with a properly functioning teleporter. I press the button, and in the next moment something is aware of being Dave, and therefore not dead. It just happens to be in a different location.
No, temporary unconsciousness is not the same thing as permanent unconsciousness; you perceive yourself to return to consciousness. The tricky part is unpacking the "you" in that sentence. Conventionally it unpacks to a conscious entity, but that clearly isn't useful here because you (by any definition) aren't continuously conscious for the duration. It could also unpack to about fifty to a hundred kilos of meat, but whether we're talking about a transporter-clone or an ordinary eight hours of sleep, the meat that wakes up is not exactly the meat that goes unconscious. In any case, I'm having a hard time thinking of ways of binding a particular chunk of meat to a particular consciousness that end up being ontologically privileged without invoking something like a soul, which would strike me as wild speculation at best. So what does it unpack to?
It's actually very tricky to pin down the circumstances which constitute death, i.e. permanent cessation of a conscious process, once you start thinking about things like Star Trek transporters and mind uploading. I don't claim to have a perfect answer, but I strongly suspect that the question needs dissolving rather than answering as such.