My New Argument for a Nonphysical Consciousness

[ryan]

But can't one make the argument that we should be able to reduce an experience down to a frame of experience?

No. The counciousness is a dynamical process that follow dynamical laws. You can take "snapshots" of the process as you can take snapshots of a flying cannonball. But that does say that that snapshot in itself shows anything that is important to what really goes on (exampled by he momentum and speed that doesnt show up in a frozen image of a flying cannonball)

So: no, the experience is not a collection of frames.

Well wait a minute. 5 seconds of consciousness could be seen as an infinite number of frames in a 5 second interval, right?

 

[Juma]

No. The counciousness is a dynamical process that follow dynamical laws. You can take "snapshots" of the process as you can take snapshots of a flying cannonball. But that does say that that snapshot in itself shows anything that is important to what really goes on (exampled by he momentum and speed that doesnt show up in a frozen image of a flying cannonball)

So: no, the experience is not a collection of frames.

Well wait a minute. 5 seconds of consciousness could be seen as an infinite number of frames in a 5 second interval, right?

So what? Your frames are figments of your imagination. Consiousness is neuron activity,

 

[Speakpigeon]

You have a perfect twin right down to the molecule (you both have always experienced the exact same things). Some horrible new world order passes a "no twin" law, so one of you must die. The government will randomly choose. Is there a difference between ending your consciousness or ending your twin's consciousness? If you think that there is a difference, then what is it?

Looking at this objectively, probably nobody is going to say that there is a difference. That is why you have to be a twin in the thought experiment.

There is a flaw in your argument. It requires the twins to remain identical but implies that they cannot remain identical.

There will be no difference for the twins as long as the choice of which twin will be killed is not made or they are not informed of it. Then the choice is made. As soon as the twins are informed of it they can no longer be identical: One has the information "I am going to die" and the other has the information "I am not going to die yet". So the basis of your argument, the fact that the twins are strictly identical, no longer exists at this point.

And of course this make a dramatic difference for them, from both a subjective (considering themselves) and an objective point of view (considering the other twin). This also makes a difference for other people but of course it will be a less dramatic one.
EB

 

[ryan]

You have a perfect twin right down to the molecule (you both have always experienced the exact same things). Some horrible new world order passes a "no twin" law, so one of you must die. The government will randomly choose. Is there a difference between ending your consciousness or ending your twin's consciousness? If you think that there is a difference, then what is it?

Looking at this objectively, probably nobody is going to say that there is a difference. That is why you have to be a twin in the thought experiment.

There is a flaw in your argument. It requires the twins to remain identical but implies that they cannot remain identical.

There will be no difference for the twins as long as the choice of which twin will be killed is not made or they are not informed of it. Then the choice is made. As soon as the twins are informed of it they can no longer be identical: One has the information "I am going to die" and the other has the information "I am not going to die yet". So the basis of your argument, the fact that the twins are strictly identical, no longer exists at this point.

And of course this make a dramatic difference for them, from both a subjective (considering themselves) and an objective point of view (considering the other twin). This also makes a difference for other people but of course it will be a less dramatic one.
EB

Imagine that they make a perfect clone of you. They put you in a lab in the U.S., and they put your clone in an identical lab in Canada. To any outside observer, there is no distinguishable difference between you and your clone. But somehow there is a difference for you. You are observing in a lab in the U.S., but you are not observing in the lab in Canada.

 

[DBT]

There are two distinct but identical versions of a person (an organism), an original and a copy, each experiences himself by means of self awareness generated by each identical, but separate and distinct brain. Once separated, each respective brain begins to diverge and alter its connections (plasticity) and they are no producing identical conscious states, thoughts, perceptions, feelings....

 

[Juma]

There is a flaw in your argument. It requires the twins to remain identical but implies that they cannot remain identical.

There will be no difference for the twins as long as the choice of which twin will be killed is not made or they are not informed of it. Then the choice is made. As soon as the twins are informed of it they can no longer be identical: One has the information "I am going to die" and the other has the information "I am not going to die yet". So the basis of your argument, the fact that the twins are strictly identical, no longer exists at this point.

And of course this make a dramatic difference for them, from both a subjective (considering themselves) and an objective point of view (considering the other twin). This also makes a difference for other people but of course it will be a less dramatic one.
EB

Imagine that they make a perfect clone of you. They put you in a lab in the U.S., and they put your clone in an identical lab in Canada. To any outside observer, there is no distinguishable difference between you and your clone. But somehow there is a difference for you. You are observing in a lab in the U.S., but you are not observing in the lab in Canada.

Yes. You are stating something that is totally obvious. Did you intend do present a problem?

 

[ryan]

Imagine that they make a perfect clone of you. They put you in a lab in the U.S., and they put your clone in an identical lab in Canada. To any outside observer, there is no distinguishable difference between you and your clone. But somehow there is a difference for you. You are observing in a lab in the U.S., but you are not observing in the lab in Canada.

Yes. You are stating something that is totally obvious. Did you intend do present a problem?

Think about it this way. The person in the U.S. knows that there is a major difference between the two bodies in that he is alive and observing in the U.S. and he is not alive and observing in the Canadian lab. The observers cannot know this difference the way that the person in the U.S. does.

 

[bilby]

Yes. You are stating something that is totally obvious. Did you intend do present a problem?

Think about it this way. The person in the U.S. knows that there is a major difference between the two bodies in that he is alive and observing in the U.S. and he is not alive and observing in the Canadian lab. The observers cannot know this difference the way that the person in the U.S. does.

Why not? It seems like a pretty easy difference to observe to me.

 

[ryan]

Think about it this way. The person in the U.S. knows that there is a major difference between the two bodies in that he is alive and observing in the U.S. and he is not alive and observing in the Canadian lab. The observers cannot know this difference the way that the person in the U.S. does.

Why not? It seems like a pretty easy difference to observe to me.

You can assume it based on your own feeling of how the consciousness works with the body, but you cannot observe it the way you can observe anything scientifically accountable.

 

[Juma]

Why not? It seems like a pretty easy difference to observe to me.

You can assume it based on your own feeling of how the consciousness works with the body, but you cannot observe it the way you can observe anything scientifically accountable.

It is obvious that these copies are two separate bodies and thus has to separate minds. I gave no clue what you think is a problem here.

 

[bilby]

Why not? It seems like a pretty easy difference to observe to me.

You can assume it based on your own feeling of how the consciousness works with the body, but you cannot observe it the way you can observe anything scientifically accountable.

Of course you can.

You can observe that there are two bodies in different locations; you can measure their locations relative to your own, or to any arbitrarily chosen system of coordinates, or to each other.

Two separate but similar objects are always non-identical, even if the only difference between them is their position in spacetime. That's what 'separate' means.

 

[Speakpigeon]

There is a flaw in your argument. It requires the twins to remain identical but implies that they cannot remain identical.

There will be no difference for the twins as long as the choice of which twin will be killed is not made or they are not informed of it. Then the choice is made. As soon as the twins are informed of it they can no longer be identical: One has the information "I am going to die" and the other has the information "I am not going to die yet". So the basis of your argument, the fact that the twins are strictly identical, no longer exists at this point.

And of course this make a dramatic difference for them, from both a subjective (considering themselves) and an objective point of view (considering the other twin). This also makes a difference for other people but of course it will be a less dramatic one.
EB

Imagine that they make a perfect clone of you. They put you in a lab in the U.S., and they put your clone in an identical lab in Canada. To any outside observer, there is no distinguishable difference between you and your clone. But somehow there is a difference for you. You are observing in a lab in the U.S., but you are not observing in the lab in Canada.

Your notion that there is no difference between the clones for an outside observer even though there's a difference for the clones doesn't stand to scrutiny. If there is a difference between the clones in terms of their subjective perspectives then surely an outside observer could know about it just through ordinary conversation with each clone, like asking where the clone thinks he is. One will say he is in the U.S., the other will say in Canada, and this will be an objective observation by an outside observer on a report from the clones themselves, not an observation about their environment.

I think you want your cake and eat it. You want your twins, or your clones, to be identical and then you make sure they are in fact different. I guess that's the fundamental flaw in your argument, perhaps in your perspective on consciousness.

You don't seem to realise that consciousness is a reflection of the material world.
The twins or clones are in any case different. As soon as the twins are conceived in the womb or the clones produced in the factory or lab they will be different. As you describe them they will also perceive themselves differently. Hence their consciousnesses will also be different in a way which will reflect the difference between them as seen from an outside observer.

Try something different.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yes. You are stating something that is totally obvious. Did you intend do present a problem?

Think about it this way. The person in the U.S. knows that there is a major difference between the two bodies in that he is alive and observing in the U.S. and he is not alive and observing in the Canadian lab. The observers cannot know this difference the way that the person in the U.S. does.

That's true but so what? We already know that, don't we? This is just a restatment of the idea that there are two epistemological modalities, subjective and objective. So of course only the clone in the U.S. knows his own subjective perspective. All that observers can do is ask questions of him. But it just turns out that the difference between the two clones is accessible to observers in the same way that objective events are. They won't experience the subjective perspective of any of the two clones but we already expected that since that's how it goes with all of us.

To arrive at the kind of valid logical conclusion you want, you need to go a little farther in your thought experiment. However, once there, you'll see that you don't know that this conclusion is actually true. But at least the argument would be good.

Also, you are making another incorrect inference. Contrary to what you say, the clone is the U.S. doesn't know what the clone in Canada is experiencing (and vice versa) so he doesn't actually know that there is a difference between them. Your own argument in fact tells you that he cannot possibly know that there is a difference anymore than any observer of the clone in Canada could. So you are also assuming without proof that there is a difference. Unfortunately, as it stands, your argument is merely confusing the issue.
EB

 

[Keith&Co.]

Think about it this way. The person in the U.S. knows that there is a major difference between the two bodies in that he is alive and observing in the U.S. and he is not alive and observing in the Canadian lab. The observers cannot know this difference the way that the person in the U.S. does.

All this means is that our personalities are restricted to sensations that our own body experiences.
It would seem, to me, to be counter-evidence to a non-physical consciousness.

If our consciousness is not physical, then our nervous system has to have some means of transmitting information to this nonphysical entity. If the brain is the transmitter and the NPC is the receiver, what is preventing the NPC from accessing information from any other transmitters?

If this is how we're arranged, why don't we feel the pain of someone nearby experiencing agony? Or why don't we feel the pleasure of a sexual partner along with our own? Why does every student have to study, why can't one teacher transmit the knowledge to everyone else in the class?

The intelligence seems to be locked into the physical confines of the body it's associate with. How would the skull limit a non-physical trait in that manner?

 

[ryan]

I concede.

 

[Mageth]

I concede.

I was going to ask, "If consciousness is non-physical, and you clone someone's physical body, how would the non-physical consciousness get cloned?"

 

[ryan]

I concede.

I was going to ask, "If consciousness is non-physical, and you clone someone's physical body, how would the non-physical consciousness get cloned?"

When discussing something nonphysical, it's really about behavior/phenomena that is not explained by physics. For example, imagine I have two rocks, and every time I put these rocks within a certain radius from each other, a third rock appears above one of them. This would be "actual emergence"; from what I have been reading, there's "emergence" and there's "actual emergence".

 

[Keith&Co.]

When discussing something nonphysical, it's really about behavior/phenomena that is not explained by physics. For example, imagine I have two rocks, and every time I put these rocks within a certain radius from each other, a third rock appears above one of them. This would be "actual emergence"; from what I have been reading, there's "emergence" and there's "actual emergence".

Is there any real example of a non-physical phenomena?

 

[Mageth]

I was going to ask, "If consciousness is non-physical, and you clone someone's physical body, how would the non-physical consciousness get cloned?"

When discussing something nonphysical, it's really about behavior/phenomena that is not explained by physics. For example, imagine I have two rocks, and every time I put these rocks within a certain radius from each other, a third rock appears above one of them. This would be "actual emergence"; from what I have been reading, there's "emergence" and there's "actual emergence".

What the hell have you been reading?

 

[PyramidHead]

I was going to ask, "If consciousness is non-physical, and you clone someone's physical body, how would the non-physical consciousness get cloned?"

When discussing something nonphysical, it's really about behavior/phenomena that is not explained by physics. For example, imagine I have two rocks, and every time I put these rocks within a certain radius from each other, a third rock appears above one of them. This would be "actual emergence"; from what I have been reading, there's "emergence" and there's "actual emergence".

As far as I understand, nobody thinks emergence refers to the appearance of new objects. Emergence is the concept that systems have properties not shared by all of their constituent parts. A red shirt, for example, is made of red fabric, but it is not made of red protons and electrons. Descriptions only apply to a certain level of organization, and not the one below it. I'm thinking about a dog; my brain is (I guess) thinking about a dog; my frontal lobe is... mayyyybe thinking about a dog; but none of my neurons are thinking about a dog, and none of their constituent molecules, atoms, or quarks are either. That's emergence.