I’m sorry, I’m not repeating 1000 years old conversations.
Sorry, I thought you knew this was a philosophy forum.
Evasion, non-answer, predictable.
To me it just sounds like you are conceding defeat of the debate.
Well, in that case give the victor their prize, their Nobel prize that is.
That shows how much you know.
Because you didn’t quote my direct answer to your question: “Neither.”
I know you hate the computer analogy, but it captures the materialist position: if you cut a computer in half, which half gets the operating system? Would each half know everything about the other?
Here, I hope we would agree: The operating system doesn’t go anywhere, it’s destroyed. If the halves miraculously work at all, each is fully independent of the other, neither knows anything of the other.
That’s analogous to the materialist position on the mind/consciousness. When the brain is destroyed, as it when it’s divided, the mind that was there no longer is. It hasn’t gone, anywhere, it ceases to exist. If a mind continues to exist, it is a different mind, and each is different from and fully independent of the other.
You are clowning both of us with your continued evasion of the question.
The question was obviously if with more advanced tech, if a body was sliced in half symmetrically, which side would the consciousness be in. Obviously the body isn’t mortal because of the advanced technology, why don’t we make it even easier by saying “nano tech” regrows the other half of the body as robotic vital systems.
…why would it be a different mind just because the brain was destroyed — or are you saying that it would operate differently apart from the brain — kinda like you gotta operate differently when you drive different cars (even though you are the same mind)?
100% truth right there with regard to intentionally contradicting himself in every reply.
OK, I was answering a different question, I appreciate the clarification.
It seems like you’re asking about a perfect physical copy of the brain, is that right? We start with one brain, we cut it in half, and use “nano tech” to turn each half into a full brain identical in all relevant respects to the original. Am I understanding correctly?
What I would say is that they each have a copy of the original mind. There are two distinct, identical minds. Neither has access to the function of the other, and as they live they will grow more and more different. Again, compare to computer: initially you have two copies of the operating system, but the two operating systems can’t read what each other is doing, and over time as files are added and deleted they become different.
This gets into tangential, Ship-of-Theseus/can’t-step-in-the-same-river-twice problems, because in some sense they are immediately different minds because they immediately start having different experiences, and those experiences change neuron connections, neurotransmitter levels, nutrient availability, etc., even if only ever-so-slightly.
Because, by hypothesis, the mind is the brain. Destroying the brain destroys the mind; changing the brain changes the mind.
Example?
I didn’t notice any contradictions… only evasions, sleight of hands and not answering questions
What contradictions did you notice?
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No the nano tech thing was just something I said so you wouldn’t try to squirm out of answering the question. The nano tech is plot filler nothing more, it doesn’t matter if the brain is an exact copy or not and the personality matching or not matching is a red herring plot filler and does not mater.
Let me rephrase the question again, but in a different way:
If there was futuristic tech to split YOU in half, symmetrically, safely, where you do not die… which half does YOUR consciousness continue on in, and why?
This wasn’t the only thing you said that was inaccurate, but…
Stay in your hypothesis, hullo, and actually answer the question. When you say each would be independent, you seem to say it is not the same person, so… why do you think destroying the brain would create a new person, and also say:
AND
Split brains are not destroyed… which you acknowledged.
Even so… destroying a receiver doesn’t destroy a signal. Not saying a person is a signal… since persons can signal… but anywhayz…
I’m muting this thread.
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I’m sorry if I’m not answering your question, I’m not trying to be evasive, but I’m increasingly confused about what you’re asking. I’ll try to answer again in a different way, and then I’ll offer another hypothetical that I think gets at the same idea.
All of my brain makes me ‘me’. Different parts of my brain have different roles, processing different types of information, controlling different bodily functions, storing different memories, etc.
- My occipital lobe processes visual input;
- My temporal lobe processes auditory input;
- The left side of my brain controls sensation and motor function on the right side of my body, and vice versa;
- My cerebellum is involved in motor coordination and learning.
If you cut my brain in half, each half is missing these functions, and to the extent that any of those functions is a part of my consciousness, neither of those half-brains has the consciousness that the whole brain had.
Another common set of thought experiments to get at these issues use Star Trek-style transporters as an intuition pump:
Scenario 1: Suppose there’s a transporter that works as follows: you step onto the pad, the computer scans your body and records all relevant information about your body, disassembles your body into its constituent parts, and send the information it recorded to the receiver pad, which builds an exact copy of your body based on that information.
No we ask, did ‘you’ die? Is the person standing on the receiver pad ‘you’?
Scenario 2: Now suppose, due to a malfunction, the whole process happens as planned except that the machine fails to disassemble you. Now there are two copies of you.
Which is ‘you’? Where did ‘your consciousness’ go?
I would expect that if you asked the copy in Scenario 1, “Did you die?”, he would say, “No, of course not, I’m right here!”, and that both copies in Scenario 2 would feel like ‘me’. I would not expect them to have any psychic connection or anything like that. They remember being the same person, but they are now two distinct instances of that person.
For me, the intuition pumps point to a problem with our intuitive sense of what consciousness is. It’s not a thing separate from the brain. I think @PerpetuallyCurious gets at it well when they said, “Consciousness is an action.” ‘I’ am the function of my brain.
I don’t think FutureOne is asking about split-brain patients in the sense they exist in the real world. Those brains aren’t fully split, only the corpus callosum is cut. But both hemispheres are still connected to the cerebellum, which is how they can still walk etc.
Splitting the brain as FutureOne seems to be describing it (though I’m still not sure I understand him) does destroy the brain, completely separating it into two fully separate hemispheres (what I’ll call ‘half-brain’ to distinguish it from ‘split-brain’). In that case, a body controlled by either half-brain would be missing all the memories, all the functions, all the everything stored in the other half-brain. A body controlled by a split-brain retains most of its prior attributes, so the changes can be subtle and the person roughly the same as before the surgery – though, again, there are Ship-of-Theseus/can’t-step-in-the-same-river-twice problems, and I don’t think it’s a clean binary.
So, split-brain (small change to the brain, roughly the same person) is different from half-brain (significant change to the brain, different person).
Sure, but the brain isn’t a receiver for an immaterial mind. There’s no reasonable version of that model that makes sense of what we observe.
Well that’s easy, obviously the original consciousness stays in the original brain, not the clone, because consciousness is physically tethered to that brain because of the soul.
Sure, but the brain isn’t a receiver for an immaterial mind. There’s no reasonable version of that model that makes sense of what we observe.
My concept is the soul is the immaterial receiver of the material mind. The soul can interact with the brain only in a limited quantum way, to give freewill, if freewill indeed exists. If freewill doesn’t exist, then the soul doesn’t interact with the brain at all, and only receives data from the brain.
so your new self becomes an inferior copy, sobeit, sounds like another dodge of the question, lol
just tell me which side does your consciousness inhabit? Or you believe you become omniscient, witnessing both brains at once?
No, I don’t think that’s right. It’s not an inferior copy, it’s a partial copy, with some functions completely missing and other functions rendered incoherent because the system that performed them was spread across both hemispheres.
And when I say “functions”, I mean everything a human minds does, everything that could plausibly be said to be what makes me ‘me’. The things I love, the things I fear, the memories, the preferences, the patterns of thought, everything broken in two.
NEITHER.
It’s like taking every other word of a book, or every other sentence, and making two new books out of them, and then asking, “Which book has the story?” Neither has the story. They aren’t inferior copies, they are different books.
I am unimpressed by this response.
Do you think it’s incoherent, or just factually wrong?
My point in this thread is to reject your claim that atheists have to believe that consciousness would move between the bodies of clones when one is unconscious. I’m assuming a worldview that I take it you reject, i.e. atheism, so I’d expect you think I’m wrong.
But if you think that what I’m saying is incoherent even assuming an atheist/materialist worldview, I’d be interested to know where I’m failing to convince you.
side tangent subboss/ high tier minion merely. not the main boss of the argument.
yes.
No, I don’t think that’s right. It’s not an inferior copy, it’s a partial copy, with some functions completely missing and other functions rendered incoherent because the system that performed them was spread across both hemispheres.
its inferior…
NEITHER.
It’s like taking every other word of a book, or every other sentence, and making two new books out of them, and then asking, “Which book has the story?” Neither has the story. They aren’t inferior copies, they are different books.
This can’t be correct. I said the procedure would not kill the patient and you are claiming it would kill, obliterate and annihilate the patient’s consciousness entirely.
Then you’re begging the question, baking a contradiction into the hypothetical.
If, as atheist materialism holds, the mind is the functioning of the brain, then changing the brain necessarily changes the mind.
So assuming that the brain is divided in two while the mind is unaffected is assuming a contradiction.