mafian911 t1_iwrspfp wrote
The concept of continuous identity is an illusion. There's no way to be sure your "consciousness" doesn't die every night and wake up as a new person who thinks they are you every morning.
Every moment that passes, our identity evolves into something slightly different than it was before. We modify ourselves simply by existing and observing our surroundings. I am not the same person I was 10 years ago. I just happen to have all (most, even) of his memories.
"You" are a collection of memories. And an algorithm that acts on those memories, along with new input, to make new memories. If your neural configuration is duplicated, there are many of "you" for but one single moment, and then each of them will begin to evolve in different directions. Once this moment passes none of these are the you that was at the moment of duplication. Not even "you".
[deleted] t1_iwsch28 wrote
Couldn’t put it better. Continuity is a complete illusion
TupewDeZew t1_iwtgc18 wrote
That's fake cuz i know im still me every time i wake up again idk about you guys
ninjasaid13 t1_iws7pg0 wrote
Consciousness is like a Jenga block tower.
drsimonz t1_iwssp3y wrote
> There's no way to be sure your "consciousness" doesn't die every night and wake up as a new person who thinks they are you every morning.
Yes, omg!!! I was going to say something similar. Possibly the single biggest challenge to advancing the philosophy (or science) of consciousness, is the fact that people have such wildly differing ideas of what consciousness is. The fact is, our wakeful consciousness is dramatically compromised on a regular basis - sleep, general anesthesia, spacing out for a long time, etc. All we have to go on are memories, which obviously aren't the same as consciousness since memories can be stored on a hard drive with the power turned off.
I regularly think to myself, "this may be the first time I've ever been awake. My environment seems to match this brain's expectations, so this brain probably collected data on this environment in the past....but at the time, it could have been anyone's brain"
Zamorak_Everknight t1_iwsyut3 wrote
/thread
StarChild413 t1_iwsswy1 wrote
> There's no way to be sure your "consciousness" doesn't die every night and wake up as a new person who thinks they are you every morning.
and therefore no way to be sure any number of those don't wake up in a simulation etc. making any dreams of uploading the perceived continuous "you" moot as you could be already there
red75prime t1_iwtwfoz wrote
So is it an illusion or a collection of memories? Collection of memories has non-illusory continuity after all (barring confabulations and the like).
Nastypilot t1_iwugwfs wrote
The brain is known to lie to us. It's actually a fairly usual things for the brain to make-up or distort things in an effort to maintain consistency of thoughts, beliefs, and actions. You can easily observe an example by pointing out a person doing something they consider as against their stated beliefs, the brain in such case will make up anything to appear as if there never was any inconsistency. If a brain makes up false memories, a person will still act according to these memories as if they were real.
red75prime t1_iwuk88o wrote
Given replication crisis in psychology, I wouldn't be so sure about ubiquitousness of those lies.
The brain surely uses shortcuts that can be exploited in laboratory settings or by scammers (leaving aside malfunctions), but it is a bit different than lies.
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