Well there is the answer to your question.
Propose your brain is simulated by a super computer.
It’d still know itself to be “you”, just like the fly knew to groom itself.
Not sure why you are simultaneously questioning whether a position is true and making it sound like its self-evidently true.
Lets drink some tea then
I know that I am alive, because I am me and I have intimate direct access to this “me"-ness” which I am.
I do not have any such similar direct access to any me-ness of the fly inside the computer game. And unless I missed it you still have yet to give any reason why we should think that fly graphic generated from inside the computer game has anything like an internal “me-ness” going on inside of itself.
If we are in a simulation, which I do assume reality is a kind of simulation, then obviously it is the case that life and “me-ness” can occur inside of a simulation (can be simulated) since I already know that I am alive / I have a me-ness to my existence. But that was never the argument or the question, at least not for me. I already grant that is true. My question was clearly to you: why should we think the fly graphic generated by the computer program has anything similar going on inside of itself?
The fact that its program adapts and makes novel outcomes due to emergent network phenomena is not enough reason. In fact it is no reason at all. Unless you are able to explain exactly how me-ness or ‘being alive’ is a thing created by such network properties. Which would be interesting and is certainly possible that is the case, but so far you have not demonstrated or even argued for that. Unless I missed something.
Are we just talking past each other then? Perhaps you do not understand the point I was making.
Okay, but i hope you are aware that this is neither an argument nor anything sensible.
I mean according to this logic, you’d be the only person on planet earth who is “alive” because you are the only one you have direct access to and can tell that you are.
You have no direct access to me, to your family, to your dog or anything else.
Same way i dont have direct access to you, so then which of us is real? From my perspective i am and you are not.
I think we are missing a key piece somewhere.
How do you think you are?
What allows you to exist?
Is it your soul? Or is it your brain?
Because if your answer is the brain, then everything else should be self-explanatory.
Your brain produces your entire “me-ness” by processing information the way it does.
So if you do the exact same thing virtually, why on earth would you assume that the thing is not producing the same results? That is the very purpose of a simulation. You simulate something. Its not a caricature. Its a simulation.
“How” it happens is a secondary question. We know for a fact that if i were to blow away your frontal lobe it would irreversibly change your entire “me-ness”.
So your brain is definitely the organ that produces you, and screwing with it can screw the ENTIRETY of who you are, how you think, how you function or if you function at all.
With that being said, there is explanation on this. Thats how you got today’s trash AIs and LLMs for a starter, and thats how you got fruitfly “brains” mapped neuron by neuron with function and purpose.
We are definitely missing eachother’s points. Some you, some me.
I bet you $50 they (the interlocutors) are an intentional & solvable dialectic if you read it.
skips along and pops bubble gum
That is not true, and does not follow from what I said.
I can tell you’re new to this whole philosophy, logical thinking thing. Please try harder to really understand what is being said.
Yeah that is called solipsism, and it can be argued against if you want to go in that direction. But that wasn’t what we are discussing here. And not what I am arguing for either.
We both can exist, and we both can have a unique intimate direct access to our own “me-ness’“ as being alive. There is no contradiction here. Just because I cannot access your interior self-experience and you cannot access mine does not mean that either of us is not actually having that experience, is really alive with an interior self/subjectivity. Arguing against solipsism involves analyzing the elements of our own self-experience and how these can be projected and inferred based on deeper levels of understanding what they are, with respect to other people who share similarities with us. When it comes to the computer generated fly in the video game, I see no such shared similarities or understanding that could be used to make a similar inference.
No, from your perspective you KNOW that you are real, but you do not KNOW that I am real in the same way. You may assume I am real, or think I am real, or act as if I am real, and that is all fine and good. But you cannot know that I am real in the exact same way you KNOW you are real because you do not have the kind of intimate interior access to my self-experiencing that you have of your own. And again, this does not mean either of us is not real.
Why can’t you answer the question?
I am asking you what evidence or reasons there are to think the fly graphic in the computer game is having anything like the same kind of interior self-experience that I am having. I know I am having it. I do not know the fly is having it.
I assume you are having it because I observe you as another human being (unless you are a bot) in which case I already know that given you are another human being like I am, we share so much in common including brain structure and all that is involved in that so it would be silly for me to assume that you are NOT having your own inner self-experience like I am. Because we share a common structure and form, we are both the same thing, a human being. I know that myself as a human being has this kind if interior self-experiencing “I” or ‘me-ness’ of being alive, therefore I can assume that other human beings also have that.
But I have no reason to assume a computer generated graphic image of a fly on a screen does. You still haven’t given any reasons why I should assume that.
In fact there are instances of severe brain damage where the person continued to exist and didn’t even notice. You should look into it. Large, very large portions of the brain can be damaged or removed. Sometimes this affects the person, other times it does not. It is very strange. But in any case of course I agree with you that the brain is highly involved in what we experience as our self-experiencing ‘me-ness’ of conscious awareness and being alive. There is no reason to doubt that.
How it happens is an important question. Because we don’t really know the answer, there is a lot of gray area bordering this discussion. You should be aware of that and not presume too much. Humility of knowing what you don’t know is also an important part of philosophizing.
My point was that you still have yet to explain why what is going on inside the computer program must be producing the same kind of self-experience that what is going on inside my brain is producing for me (granting you for the sake of argument that it is only my brain that is doing it). Again, feel free to try and make that argument, explain how it works. Because if you can’t then there is nothing else backing up your claim at this point.
“I know that I am alive“ → “because I am me“ aka because i said so, because i think and think that i am alive.
You have now made a circular argument 3 times and i was gently trying to guide you towards realizing this. Its TRUE that this works for solipsism, but it does not work the question whether or not your copied brain and thought patterns would contain a personality or identity.
The premise here is that you have your entire brain copied neuron by neuron with firing patterns and all, and your claim is that you have absolutely no reason to believe that the resulting copy would be “alive”.
And for about 5 posts i have been trying to get an argument out of you in regards of WHY that would be the case to which you tell me “i know i am alive, because i say so”. Sorry. If there is a deeper philosophical theme im failing to catch here, then enlighten me.
Because the brain is the organ that produces you?
Your thoughts. Your internal self. Everything you are?
No seriously.
This is the problem.
Right here.
Unpack this for me.
What do you mean what evidence or reasons are there to assume that a 1:1 copied brain would contain a consciousness.
I mean if we’d be talking about your ass being copied then i’d see how this question and argument is warranted. Absolutely. But we are talking about a brain.
What are you inferring and suggesting here? That your brain does not contain you? That there is no evidence that your brain contains you?
Oh come on, this is an absolutely situational thing that omits the way these “wonders” and “miracles” happen.
Your brain adapts over the course of time and regions of it take over the role and purpose of other regions if they are damaged. Not all the time. But it happens.
However, this has nothing to do with the reality of a lobotomy destroying your personality or a brain bleed taking away every skill and ability you had going for you in that specific area of your brain whether its your self, your ability to move, see, or whatever.
When a brain surgeon opens your skull there is a reason why you are awake for the brain surgery. They make you speak, count, talk, sing, whatever to see how far they can go with the cutting before YOU stop being there.
So yes.
By all means.
Exceptional cases exist where the brain manages to adapt in such a shocking way that at first glance it should be impossible.
That does not change anything about the fact that if a brain surgeon were to go at you with a frikin ice cream spoon, then YOU’d be not leaving that room. Only your body would.
Correct, but i think this is a two way street is it not?
And from my perspective considering the amount of not just evidence but practical proof that exists on how the brain works and what it does in relation to your self and being alive… lets just say a circular argument of “im alive because i said so” aint cutting it as a counter argument.
Could i be wrong about it? Of course, but i will pass that ball back to you as well: Could you be wrong about it?
If thats arrogant or i am coming over as arrogant then i apologize.
Its not my intention and i am not suggesting that your position is wrong. I have no evidence of it being wrong. You could be right and i could be absolutely wrong.
Sorry, i usually dont consider emotions or things like ethics or being humble in a discussion. Its idea vs idea and thats all there is to it.
You can tell me that i can go f my mother for all intents and purposes as long as that insult is attached to an argument down the line because the moment it is, the insult just becomes a colorful way to express emphasis.
At least to me. But i am the way i am.
Again: Was not my intent to be arrogant or make you feel… anything.
I also do not claim to be right, or you being wrong. I am merely mixing and matching. If i cant see how it would fly, then i will not pretend that it does. I think thats the same for you as well.
Pretty sure a traditional biological fruitfly (alive fruitfly) has no sense of “me-ness” either. Its brain is too small for that.
I’m tempted to make a joke in reference to a ridicule contrary situation
Its really a matter of what you want to make out of “me-ness”.
For the better part, every multi cellular organism has a template by which it considers itself “one” “whole” of “me”.
Going up from that to mammals, you will have hundreds of times more complex expressions of “me-ness”, self and individualism.
If a fruit fly had no concept of self, at least in the biological sense, it would not be capable of cleaning itself. Tf would i clean if my body was unaware of itself?
Give in to the temptation
Of course most multicellular organisms don’t have a template by which they consider themselves. They just react as programmed. A fruitfly needs no concept of self to clean itself. You really are obsessed with this self-concept nonsense.
Multicellular organisms have no template by which they consider themselves ←→ They have a programming and act as programmed
How can you build something specific and simultaneously claim that there is no reference, plan, concept by which you would do it?
I understand that you are trying to apply “self” in one very specific way and by one very specific definition, but what you claimed here was a bit too steep. Every multicellular organism by definition has a concept of self even if on a level of code.
If they didnt, the only two forms of life on this planet would be single cell and then tumor.
If you say that the DNA is a concept of self, then all life has a concept of self, single-celled ones too.
This may appear as another non sense link, but just today I got this:
This may appear as another piece of non sense but just a few minutes ago I purchased this in a hard ware store:
.
I could go into how they are too small and as such do not require complex self regulating and reactionary systems but f-it sure. Why not. They require a blueprint like any other living being.
Make sure to treat your pc, local servers and nutjob scientists with it to ensure that no flying insects make it into virtual space.
That’s not virtually impossible, even though highly unlikely!
Hey man, no hard feelings. I know you’re trying.
Copied how? The human brain is not the same as a computer. The hardwares are entirely different.
You can “copy” it into a computer software all you want, that is no guarantee you have really achieved a true copy. For one thing the brain exists in physical 3D space, and neurons are not the same as transistors. Neurons actually operate on quantum principles including entanglement, are you going to somehow “copy” that into existence within your computer software too?
First of all because it’s not a 1:1 copied brain unless it exists in physical 3D space and is built from the same kinds of atomic and subatomic materials that the human brain is made from, or similar enough stuff that can actually repllicate all the super complex physics and chemistry that is going on in there and which we do not even barely understand.
The idea you can copy a brain into a computer program is just silly. You really think that is possible don’t you? Does your computer program also have exact replicas of every neuron and other cell including down to its mitochondria and ATP and DNA and all the rest? Does your program replicate every neurotransmitter? For every single one of the cells?
Of course not.
Yes it is quite clear humility is not something you value.
Unfortunately for you, the link between humility and philosophy runs deep. Ethics too. You may understand that someday once you inevitably bump up against enough of your own errors as time goes on. Assuming you have the intellectual honesty AND acuity to realize it and admit it to yourself (cognitive dissonance is a real bitch sometimes). I sincerely wish you luck.
And yet brain mapping and llm all work based simply on the principle of a brain.
You are arguing semantics.
Every tech based on the principle of neuron functions works. Down to this point where we recreate living beings and how the work virtually.
Let me put this to rest once and for all.
First, arguing the delivery of a point is nothing more than ad hominem. You dont need to like me or the argument in order to respond to it, so this is really hardly anything more than you venting frustration via being personal.
Second, even if i were to disregard the nature of your commentary, it’d be still very hard to listen to someone go on about humility while being as condescending and arrogant as humanely possible.
I hope you have the “intellectual honesty and acuity” to figure out what your real problem is, and wish you the best of luck with that as well.
It really is like you are deliberately not trying. Ok then 
All you are asking of me is to concede my point because you cant counter argue it and calling this act my lack of humility. Sorry but please spare me the kindergarden shenanigans, act like an adult.
You are not required to be right about everything and neither am i.
