Topic: Consciousness - page 4. (Read 9000 times)

Answer: Pauli exclusion principle in quantum mechanics.

Consider the following two scenarios:

1. You step into the transporter room and your body is scanned at the molecular level and you are recreated somewhere else. Only problem is, the machine failed to actually destroy your body at this location. A service technician approaches you and says: "Sir, a minor glitch occurred. If you could come this way we'll manually finish the process..."

2. You step into the transporter room and your body is scanned at the molecular level and you are recreated not once, but three different times in three different locations. Clearly, you, the person who stepped into the transporter room, can't be all three of the newly created individuals. Granted, from their perspective, each of the three are you and fully believes in the success of the transportation process, but logically, at the very most, you are only one of them, and the other two are not. It makes further sense that you are in fact none of them, and are in fact, dead, forever, and not experiencing the world at all.

Because if we don't have the technology to teleport a living organism you can't possibly know the laws such a machine would be governed by and so I really can't for the life of me understand what possible insight could you gain by examining your fictitious scenario.. It'd be like theorizing how superman is affected by kryptonite in a melted form if he drank it -> who cares, neither exist in reality.

If we don't have the technology, and I'm not a scientist or an expert to know if we do or don't so, really, please do correct me if we do have such a technology or even good theories how to get there, but if we don't, we can't know how it would work once we invent it so we can't possibly learn anything by theorizing about it's use; and that is if the rules that govern reality even allow for such a machine to be invented.. For instance you still haven't addressed the obstacle of the Pauli exclusion principle in quantum mechanics that seems to stand in the way of your scenario being even possible.

Basically I'm asking what do you hope to learn about reality by examining a fantasy?

With regard to your question, I'm not clear why you're asking it. Not only are you incapable of answering my rhetorical question, but you actually think your question requires an answer. Why do you require me to answer your question? It boggles my mind. Don't you know the answer?

Haha, exactly. Because the exact points where we misunderstand each other haven't been dealt with.

This is what I meant by arguing over ambiguous definitions.

So does a rock have conscious experience? Am I just as conscious as you? What about a dog? Is consciousness actually a binary phenomenon (have it or you don't), or is there a spectrum of degrees of consciousness?

I guess I wont get an answer then?

Probably not. I don't know..

First, what is consciousness? Consciousness is often referred to by philosophers as what it’s like to feel pain or to see the color red. Qualia, phenomenal feel, and the subjective quality of experience are terms used by philosophers which all make reference to consciousness. The basic idea is that when one has an experience, a pain in the foot for example, it seems theoretically possible to separate all of the neuron firings, information processing in the brain, and behavioral responses, from what will be left—the feeling of pain (this is also called the phenomenal feel or the qualia associated with pain).

Qualia, dude. Conscious experience. Get it?

I don't want to go on until "aware" is defined more clearly.

Out of the Big Bang, point to the physical laws, or the physical matter, or the processes, which allowed consciousness to arise.

1. The Big Bang happens.
2. Matter forms into various objects.
3. Physical processes allow for more complex structures.
4. Parts of the Universe become aware of the Universe. How and why would that happen?

Somewhere in the above timeline (perhaps before 1 or between 1 and 2), physical laws came into being. You could almost say it's coincidental with the existence of mathematics. I don't know whether you'd call this step 0, or 1.5, or 0 and 1.5.

Steps 2 and 3 naturally follow.

Step 1 is a bit problematic. Physicists are working on it. It's a pretty interesting problem. Step 4 is problematic as well. Again, a pretty interesting problem. Step 0 and/or 1.5 are problematic and interesting as well.

The problem that neuroscientists are working on does not qualify as one of those 'interesting' problems. Don't get me wrong - it's very interesting relative to tax law, agriculture, etc., but it's just not one of the big problems. When neuroscientists say they're trying to understand consciousness, what they're saying is they're trying to understand what physical brain processes correlate to consciousness. In other words, they're peeling back the layers to discover neural correlates.

That still leaves question 4 unanswered.

Another thought experiment that interests me:

Imagine you are about to be subjected to horrible torture for days or weeks on end.  At the conclusion of the torture all memory of the event will be wiped.  Knowing this, should you be scared or apprehensive going in?  If so, why?  What parallels can we draw from this to portions or the entirety of our experience in life?

I'm not quite agreeing with you, from a common sense point of view.

Also, on a different note, consider this: you lose consciousness, for whatever reason, i.e. being put under for surgery, passing out, sleep, etc. When you regain consciousness, what does that mean, exactly? The most likely scenario is you only think you were the person you were before you lost consciousness, precisely because you have those memories - in a sense, you are fooled into believing you exist as something moving through time.

Let's take it further. For most every conscious instant of your life, you possess the memory of being what you were, thus you have this sense of identity, whereas the truth of the matter is, you might as well be the recreated replica of yourself as Captain Kirk is when he beams down to a planet.

To reiterate: Captain Kirk steps into the transporter room and is vaporized - killed. His form is recreated exactly on the planet's surface at the molecular level, and thus the new Captain Kirk has the memories of the former Captain Kirk, and thus believes he is the former Captain Kirk, but he isn't. The former Captain Kirk is dead.

However, this isn't just happening to Captain Kirk. It happens to everyone, every moment of their life.

I'll answer that when you tell me if we can do what you proposed with clones.

And I know you said it twice that quantum teleportation exists, but that doesn't tell me anything. I'm asking you if we have the technology to teleport a living organism?

Actually, your clone example above would likely be more difficult, or at least as difficult. And I'm not claiming that we'd ever be able to teleport human beings. However, I must point out now, for the second time in a row, contrary to what you keep insisting, quantum teleportation does exist.

As for imaginary devices in thought experiments, I consider you to be rather presumptuous and ill informed when you accuse me of not hoping to illustrate something or learn something by engaging in such thought experiments. Please direct your argument instead to those who have benefited from other thought experiments proposed by Heisenberg, Einstein, Bohr, Chalmers, Hofstadter, and others.

Right, cloning and memories alone aren't enough, you'd have to also feed the clone exactly the same molecules, grow it in exactly the same environment ect.. basically replicate the exact path of growth of the original, which is still a lot more likely doable unlike teleporting which doesn't exist.

Your mental states are the only things you have access to.