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okaterina t1_ja3ud13 wrote

Reply to comment by DNMbeastly in An ICU coma patient costs $600 a day, how much will it cost to live in the digital world and keep the body alive here? by just-a-dreamer-

Never "truly" ? Define truly then. Definitely not the sum of atoms (as you agreed).

What if the copy takes place in a few milliseconds - or during your sleep. The duplicates will both have a "continued conscious experience".

BTW, that's the physicalism philosofical theory - the substrate of consciousness does not matter.

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DNMbeastly t1_ja485sj wrote

I'll retract my previous statement and just say what you're trying to argue has ZERO meaning. Why? because theories are theories, and consciousness is not proven to be physical, and even if it was, it doesn't matter in this context.

There are key components that of which make up anyone's experience as a human that don't rely on purely brain matter. You being present in time right at this moment, with all your sensations, making decisions is enough to make your experience valid. I'm honestly too fucking tired to do a in-depth rundown but imagine this. If you made an exact copy of someone and put them in the exact same environment, would their thoughts follow in the same exact order sequentially? Or would they be highly variable? That deviation in itself would prove a mere copy of atoms does not equate to you. You see the thing is, everything you do, every decision you make is all apart of what makes you, you. What i'm getting at is your mental state is directly tied to your physical state as time passes through you.

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okaterina t1_ja4hn82 wrote

"Consciousness is not proven to be physical". What else ? If you start speaking about the immortal soul, I am out of this discussion (sorry, pure agnostic atheist here).

Now you speak of the mental state as tied to the physical state as time passes. But as Descartes said, "I think therefore I am", ie all input from the senses (sensory input) cannot be trusted. Why would you trust your eyes, do they really show you the truth ? What about visual illusions ?

What I am saying is that I do not need to be meat, I need to have the *exact* (and that is the point I am willing to discuss: would that ever be possible ?) processes. Is the brain a super-processor ? What's the part of randomness ? Can a neuron and axones be modelized with enough precision to reproduce a thought process ? And finally, is it needed to simulate neurones and axones to reproduce a thought process ? Is there a possibility to use another substrate, other mecanisms and get the same results ? Is it possible to feed it replica inputs, so it thinks it sees with its eyes, ears with its ears (and can touch the ears as touch is just another sense to duplicate/copy over) ?

I do not have the answer to the questions above.

BUT

If I have a *perfect* copy, therefore not discernable, it will be the same. Just as 1=1, the '1' on the left is not the '1' on the right, but they have the exact same properties and behavior in mathematics. You can use either of them.

Ask yourself: what is the difference between an original and a *perfect* copy ? If there is any difference, then the copy is not perfect.

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