Thoughts about the Consciousness

[Mageth]

By the terms of your thought experiment, you have two of them, so of course one is not the other, even if they are "identical for a second".

(I think your confusion may be in part due to your conflating "identical" with "the same"...they may be identical bodies/minds, but they are never the same body/mind.)

That's what I am saying. That's why I put, "one is not the other" in this post you quoted.

You appear to be reading some "woo" into this trivial observation that two identical things are not the same thing. Why is that?

 

[ryan]

Well I guess it is an extrinsic property temporally speaking instead of spatially speaking.

What the heck are you talking about?

If Canada wins a gold medal in hockey this year but loses the next year, the next year Canada is still has the extrinsic property of being a gold medal winner because of the temporal relationship preservation of a defined identity.

 

[Mageth]

What the heck are you talking about?

If Canada wins a gold medal in hockey this year but loses the next year, the next year Canada is still has the extrinsic property of being a gold medal winner because of the temporal relationship.

I'll change the question: What the hell are you talking about?

 

[ryan]

That's what I am saying. That's why I put, "one is not the other" in this post you quoted.

You appear to be reading some "woo" into this trivial observation that two identical things are not the same thing. Why is that?

Because, I believe that the scientific account for what we are is incomplete.

 

[ryan]

If Canada wins a gold medal in hockey this year but loses the next year, the next year Canada is still has the extrinsic property of being a gold medal winner because of the temporal relationship.

I'll change the question: What the hell are you talking about?

Well if there are extrinsic spatial properties, then why can't there be extrinsic temporal properties? In other words, can an object's history be an extrinsic property, why or why not? Is that a physical property, why or why not?

 

[Mageth]

You appear to be reading some "woo" into this trivial observation that two identical things are not the same thing. Why is that?

Because, I believe that the scientific account for what we are is incomplete.

"The scientific account for what we are is incomplete. Therefore, Woo."

So you're making an argument from ignorance.

 

[Mageth]

I'll change the question: What the hell are you talking about?

Well if there are extrinsic spatial properties, then why can't there be extrinsic temporal properties? In other words, can an object's history be an extrinsic property, why or why not? Is that a physical property, why or why not?

I'll change the question again: What the FUCK are you talking about?

 

[ryan]

Because, I believe that the scientific account for what we are is incomplete.

"The scientific account for what we are is incomplete. Therefore, Woo."

So you're making an argument from ignorance.

It is both a strong intuition and subjective knowledge that makes me think that there's more about the brain that needs to be explained. I am trying to bring it out into object knowledge.

 

[ryan]

Well if there are extrinsic spatial properties, then why can't there be extrinsic temporal properties? In other words, can an object's history be an extrinsic property, why or why not? Is that a physical property, why or why not?

I'll change the question again: What the FUCK are you talking about?

I have an extrinsic property of weighing 980 Newtons on Earth. On the Moon I have an extrinsic property of weighing 160 Newtons. These peoperties are given to me extrinsically because of the environment. An intrinsic property would be my mass. It is the same everywhere; it is inherent to me.

External forces gave me extrinsic properties of weight. Then why can't events that happened in the past give me "temporally extrinsic properties"?

 

[Mageth]

I'll change the question again: What the FUCK are you talking about?

I have an extrinsic property of weighing 980 Newtons on Earth. On the Moon I have an extrinsic property of weighing 160 Newtons. These peoperties are given to me extrinsically because of the environment. An intrinsic property would be my mass. It is the same everywhere; it is inherent to me.

External forces gave me extrinsic properties of weight. Then why can't events that happened in the past give me "temporally extrinsic properties"?

To what end? Why is that not just your history? You have a history; so what? You won a gold star in third grade; so what? Why would that be considered a "temporally extrinsic property" of ryan?

 

[rousseau]

Consciousness is a steering wheel. Physiological needs and time are the drivers.

There is no steering wheel.

"... I contain multitudes". Decisions are made unconsciously, memories are mostly recalled unconsciously; while the conscious "self" is an observer, and as an observer it reports, and like reporters, it seldom knows the whole truth, frequently knows part of the truth, and not very uncommonly invents "reasons" for what it does not know.



"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman

Consciousness is a steering wheel in the sense that there is nothing steering other than physiological drivers. Awareness of sensory input (consciousness) allows us to navigate the world and meet our needs based on what those needs happen to be. I'm not suggesting there is an 'I' using consciousness, just that the function of consciousness is to steer. Without consciousness, we have no ability to meet our needs.

Of course, that has a ton of implications, but I'd suggest that the feeling of 'I' is a real thing. 'I' is the totality of my body / experiences.

Where this whole mess is problematic is when political systems work on the basis of every man being equal in ability, when it's obvious that effective function is almost entirely genetically determined.

 

[bilby]

Ryan, I believe you are mistaking the illusion of continuity of identity for something real.

In a very real sense, you are not the person you were yesterday.

If you have slept since yesterday, you don't even have continuity of conscious experience with the person you were yesterday.

Your present memories give the impression that you are the same person; but there is no proof that those memories are correct.

If you upload an exact copy of your brain-state to an exact copy of your brain, then there are now two independent 'yous', each with an absolute certainty that they are the 'real' you from yesterday. Both are wrong - you today is not you yesterday - and both are right, insofar as they were made from the 'you yesterday' template, which is the only sense in which there is continuity of existence at all.

Identity is a fiction to which our brains subscribe. We like to think it is real, but it is not. There is no one 'me' or 'you'.

 

[DBT]

Memory function being not only the key to continuity, but recognition, self identity, self awareness, language, a set of beliefs, knowledge, feeling, thought and response...

 

[Juma]

I'll change the question: What the hell are you talking about?

Well if there are extrinsic spatial properties, then why can't there be extrinsic temporal properties? In other words, can an object's history be an extrinsic property, why or why not? Is that a physical property, why or why not?

The difference between intrinsic and extrinsic properties is in the applied transformation. That the mass is intrinsic is just because it is constant relativ the move transformation.

 

[ryan]

I have an extrinsic property of weighing 980 Newtons on Earth. On the Moon I have an extrinsic property of weighing 160 Newtons. These peoperties are given to me extrinsically because of the environment. An intrinsic property would be my mass. It is the same everywhere; it is inherent to me.

External forces gave me extrinsic properties of weight. Then why can't events that happened in the past give me "temporally extrinsic properties"?

To what end?

The end is whatever we define as the beginning of the mind.

Why is that not just your history?

Call it history; call it blah; call it a property; call it what you want.

You have a history; so what? You won a gold star in third grade; so what? Why would that be considered a "temporally extrinsic property" of ryan?

If a property can exist for a object in another coordinate of a spatial dimension, then why not in another coordinate of the temporal dimension?

 

[ryan]

Ryan, I believe you are mistaking the illusion of continuity of identity for something real.

In a very real sense, you are not the person you were yesterday.

If you have slept since yesterday, you don't even have continuity of conscious experience with the person you were yesterday.

Your present memories give the impression that you are the same person; but there is no proof that those memories are correct.

If you upload an exact copy of your brain-state to an exact copy of your brain, then there are now two independent 'yous', each with an absolute certainty that they are the 'real' you from yesterday. Both are wrong - you today is not you yesterday - and both are right, insofar as they were made from the 'you yesterday' template, which is the only sense in which there is continuity of existence at all.

Identity is a fiction to which our brains subscribe. We like to think it is real, but it is not. There is no one 'me' or 'you'.

It almost doesn't make a difference. Whatever my new consciousness is depends on what the old one is doing and what it has done in the past. I am somehow "connected" through time in a different way that I am connected with another person through time.

 

[DBT]

Ryan, I believe you are mistaking the illusion of continuity of identity for something real.

In a very real sense, you are not the person you were yesterday.

If you have slept since yesterday, you don't even have continuity of conscious experience with the person you were yesterday.

Your present memories give the impression that you are the same person; but there is no proof that those memories are correct.

If you upload an exact copy of your brain-state to an exact copy of your brain, then there are now two independent 'yous', each with an absolute certainty that they are the 'real' you from yesterday. Both are wrong - you today is not you yesterday - and both are right, insofar as they were made from the 'you yesterday' template, which is the only sense in which there is continuity of existence at all.

Identity is a fiction to which our brains subscribe. We like to think it is real, but it is not. There is no one 'me' or 'you'.

It almost doesn't make a difference. Whatever my new consciousness is depends on what the old one is doing and what it has done in the past. I am somehow "connected" through time in a different way that I am connected with another person through time.

You are connected from moment by moment in conscious experience by memory....'you' being composed of information provided by the memory function of the brain. The loss of information (memory) relating to self identity and awareness also entails a loss of selfhood and continuity: consciousness being reduced to a state of disconnected and incomprehensible sensations, which are immediately forgotten.

 

[bilby]

Ryan, I believe you are mistaking the illusion of continuity of identity for something real.

In a very real sense, you are not the person you were yesterday.

If you have slept since yesterday, you don't even have continuity of conscious experience with the person you were yesterday.

Your present memories give the impression that you are the same person; but there is no proof that those memories are correct.

If you upload an exact copy of your brain-state to an exact copy of your brain, then there are now two independent 'yous', each with an absolute certainty that they are the 'real' you from yesterday. Both are wrong - you today is not you yesterday - and both are right, insofar as they were made from the 'you yesterday' template, which is the only sense in which there is continuity of existence at all.

Identity is a fiction to which our brains subscribe. We like to think it is real, but it is not. There is no one 'me' or 'you'.

It almost doesn't make a difference. Whatever my new consciousness is depends on what the old one is doing and what it the brain remembers of what it has done in the past. I am somehow "connected" through time in a different way that I am connected with another person through time.

Fixed that for you. It is nonsensical to say 'what the old one is doing' - the old one has done things, and the current one is doing things; but the old one cannot 'be doing' (present tense) anything, by definition.

The past is available to the conciousness only through memory - which may not be even vaguely accurate, and is never complete.

You are just as much you if you remember eating breakfast because you are breakfast or if you remember eating breakfast because the aliens who built your brain ten minutes ago included that memory and all the others in their design.