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+--- Thread: I've been upgrading my computer for years now... (/showthread.php?tid=7031)
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Dark Jaguar - 21st March 2017
So, I buy upgrades every now and then. I've had the same computer since I first got one as a kid. I'll switch out a hard drive, or an optical drive, or a new motherboard, or a new case, or what have you. Point is, my computer always moves along for the ride. At this point, I've replaced everything in my computer multiple times. Still the same computer though, right? I never out and out just plunked down a new PC in place of the old, it's just replacing a few parts.
Well, here's the thing. I often have enough parts left over to built a decent second-hand computer for a relative or someone. That second computer is built from the parts I took out, and basically consists of what used to be my computer.
So which one is actually my original computer?
My computer's name is Theseus by the way.
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Great Rumbler - 26th April 2017
Your computer is deeeeeeaaaaaaaad
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Sacred Jellybean - 29th April 2017
The computer you're using is still your computer. For all intents and purposes, you bought it and used it for its task. Any time you swap out a part, certainly it replaces an old one, but the overall object is still your computer. But I also think the degree to which you did this mattered. Since you did it little by little, each new part became "appropriated" and became a part of your new computer. One by one, the old parts were no longer relevant, just sad little orphan electronics to be discarded into a drawer and forgotten, so lonely and sad that they didn't even mind being eventually taken out to endure the indignity of getting recycled into an unimportant second-hand computer, forever a shadow of their former selves.
The "new" computer you build with the old parts is still a "new" computer, but really a "new old" computer, uh, or something. Part of what makes an object is its role and function, and since you were no longer using those parts, none of them are "your" computer any more. Just demoted to running solitaire for old folks, and occasionally pulling up facebook to let their owners embarass their grandchildren.
...Thesus?
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Dark Jaguar - 30th April 2017
It's less "is it my computer?" and more "is it the same computer, and if not, when did it become a different computer?".
Here's where I got the name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Sacred Jellybean - 6th May 2017
Hmm. I see what you're saying, but I still see it primarily as a whole entity, rather than the sum of its parts. Think of it this way: a company is formed, and as its grows and changes, various staff leave and are replaced. Eventually, even the CEO and other high level personnel are switched out. Wouldn't you still call it the same company? Even with drastic changes in management, most of the time you would keep the company name. Aside from branding, maybe, but that's splitting hairs.
If you don't want to take it as a whole, maybe it became a different computer when 51% or more of the original was replaced. How you measure the percentage is another question entirely... maybe you could weigh each component according to its importance. Would the CPU be the most important? I would say so. Maybe followed by RAM, hard drive, etc. I don't know as much about computers as I used to.
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Dark Jaguar - 6th May 2017
Another way to handle it would be a sliding scale instead of a binary question. So, at 51% it would be 51% new computer, 49% old computer.
What REALLY puts this question through it's paces is when you start to consider full brain replacement. I've seen a lot of people who are convinced that if you just made a perfect computer simulation of a brain and stuck that in someone's skull, it would be a distinctly different "awareness" and that original consciousness would be gone. But, what if you did it one piece at a time? Conciousness appears to be an emergent property, constructed from numerous parts of the brain at once, so let's start with those lower level functions like breathing, then replace sensory areas, then replace short term memory, and so on and so forth. Heck, depending on the tech, maybe a "digital neuron" could be made containing the full suite of functions of a typical neuron (they're pretty complicated), and now you're replacing the brain one neuron at a time. Eventually, you'll reach 100% but at no single point could any reasonable person claimed the old consciousness "died" and the new one was "born". One couldn't even claim there was a sliding scale of a "new" consciousness taking over from the old, because a consciousness, barring catastrophic damage to the brain, is a whole unit. It also seems, to me, that the speed this transition takes place is irrelevant, and "full instant replacement" should be the same thing.
But, here's the problem. It may be possible to make a full recreation non-destructively (MAY being the operative word), leaving the original brain intact. Wouldn't that original brain still be the original consciousness, with that new digital brain being a brand new awareness no matter what it thinks of itself? My own resolution to that paradox would be to consider both brains, at the moment they are identical, to be creating the exact same emergent consciousness and so it literally would be the exact same awareness, but the moment time starts to pass, they would diverge into two distinct consciousnesses with their own experiences, but both having full rights to say they "were" the original seed awareness. Remember that catastrophic brain damage? If you cut that linking section between left and right, the result seems to be two distinct personalities emerging from one, but the difference being they are two "parts" of the whole now making two new wholes.
But hey, why stop there? There may be a resolution to this identity crisis (a crisis for the two beings involved) in the form of reunification, that is, if we had a way to naturally merge those two awarenesses, with all their new memories, back into one consciousness. It seems to me the difficulty of that merger would grow the more unique the two split minds became over time. So, if those two minds spend decades apart, developing very different lives and personal viewpoints, they would be a lot harder to "merge" than two minds that only spent a day apart (depending on just how different that day was). Paradox resolved?
(On thinking about it, that would be the ultimate way to expand one's horizons. Imagine being able to do everything you ever wanted just by splitting your attention. Imagine learning a new skill you have ZERO talent for via natural selection. Imagine those super heroes with that power that lets them do exactly this. I guess I'm nothing brand new.)
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Great Rumbler - 6th May 2017
You can't own property, man.
I've been upgrading my computer for years now... - Dark Jaguar - 7th May 2017
I can, but that's because I'm not a penniless hippy!