6th May 2017, 10:18 AM
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.)
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.)
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)