None of these scenarios would result in "me" from a monist perspective. The destruction is a discontinuity point, I died there and then, and then the next planck moment a new being was created with all my memories. But "I" died.

The functionalist answer, as you understand it, is dualist. It says "something" survived the utter complete destruction of the physical body and was "put back in it" once it was reassembled. If "it" survived the complete physical destruction of the body, it must be somewhere else, detached from the body.

And, you know, there's really nothing wrong being dualist. I do not mean to denigrate that specific worldview. What is problematic is claiming to be a staunch monist while holding dualist positions.

What if they destroyed and reassembled only 0.5% of your brain? What's your dividing line? 0.36%? 0.0188%?

> The functionalist answer, as you understand it, is dualist.

I think you're misunderstanding that words are social constructs which can point to abstract categories rather than necessarily single concrete objects at a particular moment in time (although words can also do that).

Like if you have multiple tennis balls, each ball is still a tennis ball, despite each ball being different, because "tennis ball" is a social construct and an abstraction that's an indirection to a certain concept. In the worldview I am talking about, the word "you" is an indirection to a mind that is indistinguishable in content and experience from the one you have right now, with the property of fungibility across modalities, time and space.

> What if they destroyed and reassembled only 0.5% of your brain? What's your dividing line? 0.36%? 0.0188%?

Apologies, I read too quickly and skipped over this. See one of my sibling comments. I concede this is problematic for my position and I need to think harder on how to solve it, but I don't think it's unsolvable. The placeholder answer is that there must be a certain level of damage -- the precise % probably doesn't matter as much as exactly which parts you destroy -- that is incompatible with keeping continuity.

For the rest, as a social construct, if we incinerate me to create a clone of me that is identical to the original at the subatomic level I agree that, for everyone else in society, it is me. But my self has still died and whatever replaced it is having its own experiences. And it matters very little what everybody else thinks: if tomorrow an imposter convinces everybody else that they are me, they aren't me for me. Their experiences aren't magically beamed to my brain.

Your tennis ball example is again a textbook dualist position. You can have a tennis match with different balls which is functionally identical to have it with the same ball, because the ball in the game is an abstraction that lives _outside_ the ball itself. But, assuming balls can feel when they are hit by the racket, the ball you used in the previous point and now is lying on the sideline does not feel being hit when the next point starts with another ball.

There's nothing you need to solve because definitions of words are subjective social constructs that are neither correct or incorrect. Definitions are axioms.

You have chosen to define the word "you" to require continuity, under some rubric. By that definition, a copy of you isn't really you. That's correct under your axiom, but it is incorrect under other axioms.

The functionalists I am trying to channel in this conversation have a different subjectively chosen definition of that same word, that is internally coherent assuming functionalism is a true description of the world.

You may wish to argue that their definition/axiom lacks utility, but that's subjective and cannot breach the boundary into a claim about objective correctness (logical deductions) under the axiom.

> You can have a tennis match with different balls which is functionally identical to have it with the same ball, because the ball in the game is an abstraction that lives _outside_ the ball itself.

This sounds like solipsism not dualism vs. monism. In non-solipsistic monism, social constructs can exist outside of a collection of minds, because other minds also exist.

Sorry, perhaps I just don't know what "monism" truly means, I admit my ignorance, but if we just limit ourselves to the mind-body problem, I just meant that a dualist position considers the mind as separate from the body, and monism rejects that.

The functionalist point of view you propose doesn't seem to be to be useful at all in this context. Let's backtrack. The original example I provided you when you asked about whether there can be somebody proposing monism and at the same time holding dualist positions was asking:

"If I do mind uploading, do I die?"

You can be creative in redefining what the word "I" means, which is what you engaged with, but when push comes to shove and I do the actual mind uploading, then the self that experienced my qualia since birth will irreparably stop experiencing qualia (aka: dying) and be replaced by another self. You're free to call that self as if it was me, and be all happy it can do the same things I could do, but that's not gonna change the fact that my previous self (the only "I" that matters to me) died.

Would you step in the Star Trek teleporter knowing that you will die, and think you haven't died just because you have been replaced by a different being that is functionally equivalent to you? I sure as hell will never do it.

I pretty much agree with your position. The thought occurs to me, though, that via this same definition we die every time we go to sleep or are out under anesthesia. Maybe even every moment is a tiny death and rebirth. The real difference between these events and being "teleported" is that you do them without fear (maybe some fear for anesthesia) and without being any worse off for the lack of continuity.

As a monist who holds the view that you’re claiming monists can’t legitimately hold, I don’t see any difficulty at all in squaring these ideas:

- there is no separate “stuff” that minds are made out of, no privileged plane of existence specific to minds; minds are just patterns like everything else

- destroying an instantiation of a pattern != destroying the pattern

And speaking of squaring ideas – if I draw a square on a piece of paper, and then light that paper on fire, I haven’t destroyed the concept of a square. I can always draw an identical square on another sheet of paper. If the square had consciousness, it’d be none the wiser.

> If the square had consciousness, it’d be none the wiser.

This is exactly what don't know, and is interesting to explore.

> there is no separate “stuff” that minds are made out of, no privileged plane of existence specific to minds; minds are just patterns like everything else

So if your brain was somehow cloned, you'd exist in two places at the same time? It seems possible for two separate consciousness to have the same memories and be identical in all respects, and yet still not be the same.

To illustrate, two instances of a programs can share the exact same binary code (the "pattern") and yet they are separate instances.

> So if your brain was somehow cloned, you'd exist in two places at the same time?

There’d be two Mes – two instantiations of the Me pattern co-occurring. And that would likely be confusing for both of us!

> To illustrate, two instances of a programs can share the exact same binary code (the "pattern") and yet they are separate instances.

Exactly! If we suspend a Docker image, transfer it to a new compatible host machine, and fire it up, we consider it a resumption of the same process (pattern) in a different instance.

Likewise, say we found a mathematical function that would compute the entire state of that Docker image at that moment, and then wiped the image – such that there was no current physical instantiation of it anywhere, on any machine – and subsequently used the function to regenerate it bit for bit.

A dualist would say there’s something fundamentally different about the human analogue of that; that the Mind has a separate existence Elsewhere – and not just in the mathematical sense of patterns not requiring instantiation to still be patterns, since that would apply to all patterns, Minds or not.

>and yet still not be the same.

You're making a fundimental mistake here on understanding substrates.

If I take a hard drive an copy it, is it the same hard drive? Well, no, we'd both agree they are two different hard drives, that's pretty easy to see.

But what if we are executing data off the hard drive. Initially it would operate as if it were the same, the data on the hard drive would have zero ability or knowledge that it was copied. As the execution continued in two different places in physical reality the state of the hard drives would change.

Coming back to people, you are never the same unless you can start taking snapshots at the plank scale. You are always changing at the chemical level. Cells die, new ones are created, organs spurt out chemicals in varying amounts that alter your mental state, you 'remember' memories and by doing so rewrite them, new information enters from your senses and changes the physical makeup of the structure of our brain via re-enforcement/de-enforcement. Simply put this idea of you is an ethereal moving target. Copying that doesn't change it, each one of them will still think they are the you that has lived up till this point. When looking at both, you'll see their lives diverge, but unless they learn about each other, each you will never know that's the case.

> you are never the same unless you can start taking snapshots at the plank scale. You are always changing at the chemical level.

And yet there is a sense of continuity. Are you saying the if your are killed and replaced by an immortal being with your same memories, thought patterns, and body, that'd be an acceptable continuation of you? You'd be ok with that as a form of attaining immortality?

> if I draw a square on a piece of paper, and then light that paper on fire, I haven’t destroyed the concept of a square. I can always draw an identical square on another sheet of paper. If the square had consciousness, it’d be none the wiser.

If you have a son and you kill him, you haven't destroyed the concept of a son. You can always make a new son. If the son had consciousness, it’d be none the wiser.

Is that the same son? Do you not go to prison for murder?

If this actually happened, would the 'I' that replaced you be any wiser. How do you know this hasn't happened to you already? Maybe multiple times per second?

> It says "something" survived the utter complete destruction of the physical body and was "put back in it" once it was reassembled. If "it" survived the complete physical destruction of the body, it must be somewhere else, detached from the body.

The information of how to put your body and mind back must have survived somewhere, in the alien mind for example or the machine they used. But the information would still be in (a medium in) this universe and bound to this universe physical laws. I would say this is still a monist position.

A true dualist believes that consciousness survives outside of a medium in this universe.

> If this actually happened, would the 'I' that replaced you be any wiser. How do you know this hasn't happened to you already? Maybe multiple times per second?

If this is true, that the body dies every planck time and the mind survives it, then it simply means the dualist position is true.

> The information of how to put your body and mind back must have survived somewhere, in the alien mind for example or the machine they used. But the information would still be in (a medium in) this universe and bound to this universe physical laws. I would say this is still a monist position.

I'm sorry, but you're circling back to the first message I wrote. You are giving to information magical properties that it cannot have, because they lead to a contradiction. With the same information you can make multiple copies of me at the same time. But if you make two, the experiences of one do not get magically transmitted to the brain of the other. So those are two distinct selves, even if they are made with the exact same information. This clearly does not work. It's the same issue of mind uploading that I initially argued about.

> the experiences of one do not get magically transmitted to the brain of the other. So those are two distinct selves, even if they are made with the exact same information.

How's that a problem? They would both be distinct selves with a common past.

Ok, but then I fear you're either contradicting yourself, or addressing a point I didn't make.

Let me restate:

1. energy123 says that, if we completely annihilate the body of X and then we re-assemble it one planck time later, X is still the exact same self after the annihilation as they were before.

2. I reply: a monist must hold the position that X died with the annihilation and the recomposed being is a different self, Y, which just so happens to have the same memories as X. If you insist that the new being is still the same self X, you must assume that something that was not in the body survived the complete annihilation of the body and was put back in the body during the re-assembly.

3. You attempted to say that that something was the information needed to recompose the body. But now you're saying that actually we have produced two entirely different beings, A and B, both of whom believe to be X.

I 100% agree with you that this is what happened. But you cannot tell me in the same breath that X is still alive. That is a contradiction.

The ultimate challenge is always the same: assuming the technology to perfectly copy and simulate a brain exists, would you upload your mind and do you expect that it is you that awake inside the machine? If you answer "yes" you must concede you are a dualist. A monist can only answer "no". And, as I gather from this discussion, a functionalist would (i) answer "yes" after redefining what "you" means, (ii) mean "no" because as you just admitted we created two new beings, (iii) upload themselves and then die happy knowing that something else with their memories will live on.

(I realize you actually have not explicitly objected to this specific challenge yet, so maybe we fully agree and that's that)

[We are very much in speculative territory here of course, it is not a given that duplication or upload is possible at all for a human mind]

I would say that both A and B would claim to be X and have the "continuous"[1] experience to be X while agreeing that they are distinct persons. I think that the question of whether A or B, both, or neither is the true X, is not a scientific question, and as a philosophical question, a fairly empty one.

Regarding the challenge, I would expect that the consciousness would be forked: there is a "me" that would awake inside the machine and would be very glad to be alive, while the "me" outside would experience dying. This seems to go against the exclusiveness of the experience of being themselves, but assuming the existence of the magically perfect duplication, both would be valid experiences and again neither could make a claim about being the real me. I don't find this to be a contradiction.

An interesting question would be whether consciousness can be reunited after being forked.

But all of these scenarios have been explored extensively. Are you familiar with the Egan's "Permutation City"?

edit: I was not familiar with the functionalist position, but for the little I read, it seems to me that it is just a variant of the monist position. You could say I'm a functionalist I guess. Also I believe that we are fundamentally in agreement and we might just disagree with definitions of words.

[1] what does "continuous" even mean? Do one have a "continuous" experience of being yourself after a night's sleep? After anesthesia? After a coma?

> I would say that both A and B would claim to be X and have the "continuous"[1] experience to be X while agreeing that they are distinct persons. I think that the question of whether A or B, both, or neither is the true X, is not a scientific question, and as a philosophical question, a fairly empty one.

I agree that it is not a scientific question, but as with virtually all ethical questions not being scientific doesn't mean it's empty. They are, in fact, very fundamental. This specific question might be empty now, but it won't be when people start messing up with brains (e.g. advancements in Neuralink).

In the hypothetical scenario, it is the most important question in the whole world from X's perspective because it involves, you know, them dying. X cannot be either of A or B, because they are indistinguishable (any argument proving A=X also holds for B=X, but A!=B so they are wrong). Saying that X is both A and B requires dualism (A's and B's experiences somehow get beamed to a third consciousness). Only X's death and A and B independence (with the same memories) is compatible with a position that doesn't involve contradictions or souls of some kind.

> Regarding the challenge, I would expect that the consciousness would be forked: there is a "me" that would awake inside the machine and would be very glad to be alive, while the "me" outside would experience dying. This seems to go against the exclusiveness of the experience of being themselves, but assuming the existence of the magically perfect duplication, both would be valid experiences and again neither could make a claim about being the real me. I don't find this to be a contradiction.

Do you not find a contradiction in saying that you cannot make the claim of being the real you just because your brain was copied? Suppose that this copy happens without you falling asleep and without you noticing: have you stopped being you?

> But all of these scenarios have been explored extensively. Are you familiar with the Egan's "Permutation City"?

I read it a while ago. From what I remember, it is based on Tegmark's mathematical universe hypothesis, which I find being hopelessly confused about the nature of reality. Doesn't the novel assume the consequent (it starts from the assumption that you can do this kind of manipulation with consciousness)? I had similar issues with Accelerando.

> [1] what does "continuous" even mean? Do one have a "continuous" experience of being yourself after a night's sleep? After anesthesia? After a coma?

Sleep and anesthesia? Of course: your brain is still active even if it is not recording memories. Coma it depends: unless you're brain dead, still yes.