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Staying Alive

73 pointsby memalignalmost 2 years ago

19 comments

vsaretoalmost 2 years ago
My brain groks this by considering it pass-by-reference vs. pass-by-value. The original you is the first instance. It occupies a particular place in space which you move about, and also experiences a particular path and timeline. As long as I&#x27;m considered alive, I&#x27;m adding to that path by moving around and interacting with the universe. You can keep finding and adding more details to get a unique picture of the first instance. The challenge here is easy because you only have to find one unique difference between the first instance and your copies to figure out which is which. It gets harder and harder to prove that one is perfectly equal to another.<p>If you&#x27;re building a copy of someone (regardless if the original is destroyed), that&#x27;s pass-by-value. It&#x27;s just making a copy at another memory location in the universe. If you&#x27;re moving me around in a space ship, that&#x27;s obviously pass-by-reference. If you&#x27;re moving my soul (even with some limitations), that&#x27;s pass-by-reference as well. What&#x27;s convenient about this is that if you remove enough things from the soul enough that you can&#x27;t know if it really is your soul, it casts doubt on how this transfer process was found out and proven in the first place, so we could reject the premise.<p>But if you go and make a second copy of yourself (regardless of destroying the first), memories and personality and other things might be equal, but you can&#x27;t replicate the path you took unless you can go back in time, so that will always be unique to the instance you&#x27;re making a copy from. Teletransporters and brain implants are far, far more believable technologies compared to time travel.<p>Experienced history is as much apart of you as your body and mind, and it&#x27;s conveniently observable externally, so people don&#x27;t have to trust your word that you&#x27;re really &#x27;you&#x27; or the first instance of you.
loresalmost 2 years ago
The game told me I was a psychological reductionist, for whom only psychological continuity is important. Fair enough, but it then berated me for taking the spaceship rather than the teleporter. Um, what? Whatever appears at the other end of the teleporter is not me, I&#x27;m dead and my consciousness extinct, so why the tut-tuting?
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hiccuphippoalmost 2 years ago
I played this after playing the No vehicles in the park one the other day.<p>When I got to the question about the soul I saw it as misleading and confidently selected the other option because previously the teleportation worked, and IIRC the other option had 30% success, both of which disproved the existence of a soul.
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qawwadsalmost 2 years ago
IMHO, the body, the psyche and the soul can&#x27;t be separated like that. A body without a soul is a cadaver. The soul is whatever makes the body not a cadaver. The psyche appears from the interaction of the body and the soul.<p>So, in question 1, the teleportation kill you 100%. In question 2, unsure but both choices is probably equaly deadly. And question 3 is pure fantasy because you can&#x27;t have a living body without a soul.
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aflagalmost 2 years ago
&gt; Your choices are consistent with the theory known as psychological reductionism.<p>&gt; But there is a tension. In allowing your brain and body to be replaced by synthetic parts, you seemed to be accepting that psychological continuity is what matters, not bodily continuity. But if this is the case, why did you risk the spacecraft instead of taking the teletransporter?<p>It seemed to me that the virus would essentially kill me anyway by altering my personality and making me lose all my memories. Which means deep alteration of the physical brain as well. The other solution was also death, my brain would be entirely replaced, but at least my psyche would continue. It seemed to me I´d die either way, I picked the least bad.
FrustratedMonkyalmost 2 years ago
To all the people with a problem with the 3rd question on Soul.<p>The point is, that many religions, and many people, do believe in a soul, or form of dualism, some form of immaterial soul. Thus the question is to tease out your stance, to make people think through some of the issues with their own beliefs.<p>Since it is impossible to define a single form of the immaterial soul, since there are a million interpretations, they provided a very generic simple model to base the question.<p>Who cares if it was new information, at the very start they said each question did NOT depend on the others, and would provide information for that question, that applies to that unique and generic hypothetic situation.<p>It would be pointless to have a questionnaire like this, but the first question be &quot;if you don&#x27;t believe in a soul, don&#x27;t take the quiz, this isn&#x27;t a safe space for the scientist.&quot;<p>The discussion of soul&#x27;s and the possible interactions between material and immaterial go back 1000&#x27;s of years, and not all from the religious. Early scientist spent a lot of time trying to reconcile science and soul, back to early scientist like Newton, Leibniz, Descartes. Even, does a soul have mass, with experiments on weighing a live body and dead body. It is a long standing question, and one that most people do not think is solved, hence still worth asking.<p>So, a lot of people believe in souls, there is hundreds of years of Scientist, Philosophers and Theologians trying to define and reconcile those views. But what? You, in particular, think it is all solved and wrapped up so it is a stupid question?<p>Note. I don&#x27;t believe in the immaterial soul, but to discount a philosophical survey because it mentions it, is pretty bogus reason to discount that line of thought.<p>These are all very valid questions in the latest craze of AI. I wouldn&#x27;t doubt that at some point soon, there would be some religious type protest when someone&#x27;s loved one is &#x27;mimicked&#x27; by an AI bot and then the rest of the congregation calls it a demon, or possesedd, or that it has trapped the persons soul.
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sterlindalmost 2 years ago
I took spaceship, then virus, under the idea that what I was keeping &quot;alive&quot; was some sort of soul - at least potentially - and that I could be sure of the soul&#x27;s continuity as long as I took the ship, and then that the virus wouldn&#x27;t change me as much as I&#x27;d changed from being an infant.<p>then, with the existence of the soul seemingly confirmed, there&#x27;s no way I&#x27;d let myself be frozen - I&#x27;d become a philosophical zombie.<p>but it takes me to task for my inconsistency, since I made previous choices to preserve bodily integrity over mental integrity. and I don&#x27;t quite understand that.
FrustratedMonkyalmost 2 years ago
I am bit surprised by the diversity of discussion. There seems to be so many strong opinions on both sides of the same argument that has raged for centuries.<p>Immaterialist:<p>There seems to be as many people that believe in a soul very strongly, to the point where they can&#x27;t fathom the questions. The questions almost have no meaning in a worldview with souls. Or extreme, the belief in soul has changed their mind to extent they can&#x27;t see the point of these questions, can&#x27;t get the point of the questions. (belief in soul in context of the questions in post means dead in a lot of cases)<p>Materialists:<p>There are just as many people that so strongly believe there is NO soul, scientific minded, that the third question that contains the word soul invalidates the entire questionnaire. Materialist think that modern science and technology has rendered the question pointless, that all the answers are already known. This is also false, there might not be an immaterial soul, but the nature of self and its continuity is still open question, and a lot of people equate that with soul, for better or worse.<p>Soul is just all around bad word to describe what we are getting at with consciousness, or sentience. It is too loaded with baggage.<p>Thus, it is a successful questionnaire, it makes both sides think a bit more.
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platzalmost 2 years ago
&gt; But your last choice sees the end to your psychological continuity, since the continued existence of the soul does not provide it. So you first ended bodily continuity and then you ended psychological continuity.<p>I reject the framing of the centrality of the soul in this exercise, and being forced to reconcile this question with the previous questions that do no pre-suppose the existence of the soul.
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benlivengoodalmost 2 years ago
70% is an outstanding success rate for cryonics. The real problem, of course, is that whatever idiot scientists regrew a complete biological replacement for me from silicon didn&#x27;t bother to keep a backup before the cryonics attempt. Like, the teleteleporter <i>already</i> made a perfect cellular replica so the technology is readily available.
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BestGuessalmost 2 years ago
Just to cut off a problem at the pass I ain&#x27;t nitpicking him here like he is reading palms or nothin. Just blabbering about some frustrations on somethin I think important but maybe for dumb reasons I don&#x27;t know. So I want to share in case it is, but don&#x27;t want claims it&#x27;s dumb for reasons I ain&#x27;t meaning. I can&#x27;t be the only one who feels round 3 didn&#x27;t make sense and feel bamboozled by the jumping guesses about why I answered the prior two. Not in some silly way like &quot;how dare the fella&quot; I mean like he might not notice people interpret his soul thing in a way he definitely doesn&#x27;t seem to. I took the teleporter, and sure silicon whatever, but round 3 claims souls exist changing what my assumptions are for the game. The guy who made it seems to assume soul means no &#x27;psychological continuity&#x27;, but I ain&#x27;t ever heard nobody think that and they seem to think the opposite which is why I went with dying because round 3 gave me information telling me reality don&#x27;t work like I think it does now.<p>Gotta say ahead of time I read the thing and I know he says the &quot;soul effect&quot; is small but that don&#x27;t matter if &#x27;that small part is what counts&#x27;. Thing is that&#x27;s exactly what everybody who believes in a soul thinks so I went with the stuff I&#x27;ve heard all my life and thought &quot;Well guess they were right so I better change how I think and answer like they do&quot;. Now where that seems a problem is he seems to think people who think souls exist don&#x27;t think that mental continuity exists in souls in an important way, or that changing your choice based on new information implies I believe in souls when I don&#x27;t.<p>I&#x27;m tryin to explain, badly I guess, that he tried to make it sound unimportant in a way that doesn&#x27;t do what he thinks it does. Just goin by a lifetime of bibles being thumped on me. So others might make the same choice for the same reason but don&#x27;t seem many notice the mountain looks real darn different from where someone like me is at.
Krollifialmost 2 years ago
I took the transporter, silicon, and freeze. The soul comes from the brain&#x2F;mind. I don’t accept the premise of the third question. It is not a reduction to see that the brain&#x2F;mind produces the soul. And I use the term soul because if one does not then their morality is questioned so that is an easy fix to make.
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JoelSanchezalmost 2 years ago
&gt; Your choices are consistent with the view that bodily continuity is necessary for personal survival. You risk death on the spacecraft, allow your mind to be messed around with by the virus and allow your soul to be destroyed so that your body (or at least your brain in a body) can have a chance of staying in existence. And it does.<p>apparently i have survived. the &quot;virus vs silicon&quot; choice was very easy, i already took something that changed my entire personality and rewrote my memories (mtf hrt)<p>&gt; But is this survival of you? Is it enough for your body to continue to exist if your personality, wishes, beliefs, desires and memories do not?<p>it&#x27;s the survival of a version of me and that&#x27;s enough imo
runjakealmost 2 years ago
For scenario 1, in terms of a soul (self-awareness), will it replicate you or a clone of you?<p>What does our soul constitute?<p>In other words, does option #1 effectively kill you?<p><i>Edit: Thanks for the polite clue, klausa. Back to mowing.</i><p><i>Edit 2: If this thought experiment interests you, check out this[1] Black Mirror episode (which has mixed reviews, but illustrates this experiment fairly well).</i><p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rachel,_Jack_and_Ashley_Too" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rachel,_Jack_and_Ashley_Too</a>
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vharuckalmost 2 years ago
I chose teleporter, silicon, and reincarnation. My view of a &quot;person&quot; is a continuous arc through time: unlikely to be constant, but you can see how f(t) is connected to f(t-1).<p>The teleporter preserves physicality and behavior. Ship of Theseus via silicon is fine, because replacing bit by bit is close enough to continuity. Reincarnation is a strange twist in the arc, but still continuous; the other option had a chance of termination.
Claude_Shannonalmost 2 years ago
I had went with spaceship, virus, letting my body die.<p>Teleportation would kill me anyway, it is not the same person. Either getting a silicon brain or letting virus go on would kill my current self, so I chose to preserve my body; and if in third question we are sure soul exists, risking its&#x27; obliteration is never worth the gamble.
downvotetruthalmost 2 years ago
Could be more convincing if the <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.philosophyexperiments.com&#x2F;Contact.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.philosophyexperiments.com&#x2F;Contact.aspx</a> did not return a Runtime Error.
whatever1almost 2 years ago
Even if we replicate 100% the state of our cells, we would also need all of the micorobiome that was developed on&#x2F;in us over the year. Myself without my current gut, is not the same person.
dudinaxalmost 2 years ago
It&#x27;s kind-of a bad test. When you get to the &quot;reincarnation is real&quot; bit, you&#x27;ve undermined anyone who doesn&#x27;t believe in a transcendent soul.
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