These people believe this while at the same time considering dualism so ridiculous as to laugh dualists out of the room. The evident problem being that "mind uploading" is the most dualistic possible position to take. A real monist would easily see that by doing mind uploading you have just created a clone that is a whole separate entity from yourself and it is not yourself.

Oft-repeated but not true. Neurons, for the most part, are never replaced. If a neuron dies, it's gone forever. Repeated head traumas (leading to CTE) are known to cause personality changes as the brain has been permanently altered due to neuron losses.

Invoking the Ship of Theseus is a distraction. The Ship of Theseus paradox does not involve a full copy at the atomic level while the original still stands. If it did, the paradox would not even exists. The paradox exists because there is the key element that you do not have in mind copying/uploading: _continuity_.

Edit: Just to clarify my opinion: This means that the relationship between my self from five seconds ago and my current self and the relationship between my self from five seconds ago and a clone of that self that aged the same amount would be equivalent. Both of us would _not_ be the same as my past self

consciousness always exists in the past of reality around you. It is a physical process with an execution time. Light takes nanoseconds to get to your eyes. The chemical reactions in your eyes take milliseconds. Then you have that signal getting to your visual cortex. Then your brain takes a while and shoves a bunch of shit it assumes is there from pattern matching taking its own number of milliseconds. Eventually this is passed up to your consciousness to interpret 'long' after it actually happened.

But you can make it even more screwy from that point that totally screw with your perception of time. Even more fun are drugs that keep you conscious but keep you from recording short term memories so it's like that time never existed.

You are but a chemical dream upon meat hardware.

The easiest rebuttal would be to simply say that continuity is not a mere implementation detail. If you give up continuity, you can make a copy without altering the original, you just have to read it.

But if you need to ensure continuity you have to alter the original. This seems to me a very fundamental part of the process, making it qualitatively different.

If not, what if the aliens recycled the atoms from your original body to make the new body, putting each original atom into the same original spot with the same position and momentum (ignoring quantum and uncertainty principle).

What if they recycled 99% of the atoms from your original body, but swapped 1% of them for different atoms?

What if they only destroyed 5% of your brain and reassembled that destroyed portion, leaving the rest of you untouched? What about 50%?

What if they waited 1 planck moment before reassembling you versus 5 seconds?

Where is your dividing line in this scenario space between "that's really me" versus "that's just a copy and is not really me" ?

The functionalist answer, as I understand it, is fungibility across time and copies when arriving at definitions of words like "you".

The functionalist answer is not that > 1 copy can communicate telepathically or supernaturally share experiences is a dualist sense. They are still causally independent physical entities.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

- 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

> 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 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.

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

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)

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 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.

I think that many who talk about consciousness digitization handwave away what happens to their body/brain afterwards, but I don't necessarily think that means they think they'll move into the computer.

That's reducing an individual to, I assume, the sum of its neural network. So like considering everything else happening in the fleshy body matters to what a human is, nor how they relate to the rest of cosmos as such a body.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#Interna...

It contains both the original artist-band bipartite network, and the actual projections used in the paper (and blog post).

The page on my website (https://www.michelecoscia.com/?page_id=2336) is slightly better because it also contains the code to make the projections yourself (and to verify the claims in the paper).

At the same time, is it monstrous to put forward the option that you, as an audience member, are not a passive brainless drone, but you are collaborating in creating the meaning of what you experience? That your inner life and meaning and interpretation stemming from being exposed to art are actually interesting and worth talking about?

Why do we have to live in a world where we assume words written on a page or colors dripped on a canvas have a single truly objective interpretation? Why do we have to beat with a stick on the head of someone telling them "no, you're enjoying this work in the wrong way because the author said so"?

It wasn't until the tertiary level that I first analyzed science writings and related philosophy writings to a similar depth (albeit for a different purpose), and discovered to my delight how many of them are written with a beauty and a kind of humanity that verges on poetry. It moved me in ways that fiction never has, I think in part because of the purity and honesty of my discovery — so unlike the trudging hours I spent miming proundness in school until I could no longer recognize it.

I am truly glad that nonfiction analysis was neglected in school, because it otherwise would have been robbed of all its spirit and magic, too.

Why do we force students to analyze text in this manner at the cost of killing their love for recreational reading? So many children, who once loved story time best of all, grow up to hate books and poetry. Yet they still love the search for meaning in cinema and music which, as yet, still remain mostly beyond the killing touch of involuntary study.

Is it any wonder literary analysis feels fake to so many people?

But I broadly share the sentiment of your message, and I personally blame some sort of variation of Goodhart's law. School curricula take an unquestionably good thing ("the critical search of meaning is an important skill to have") and have to pigeonhole it into something standardized and quantifiable (otherwise, how can you stitch a grade number to it? The horror!). The result is this desolate widespread contempt for everything that is not a literal interpretation.