[Philosophy] What are you, and where?

[Xannari Ferrows]

The reason that silicon computers outperform us on things like adding numbers is because we did not evolve such an ability because we did not need such an ability. That said, there are of course many areas where we vastly outperform silicon computers.

Then again, I do not recall computers being inventors. We invented numbers... as a language... Binary language, ASCII code... to program computers, or reproduce?

Maybe both. Maybe in our subconscious, our brain instantly knows the answer to even the most complex mathematical equations, but it cross references that information with what we have in our memory in order to confirm it. If it cannot be confirmed, it is tossed, which would be when we say "I don't know" or something. Computers can do so much more efficiently, because of their lack of checking first. It just spits out the number it was told to, by solving the equation in the order it was programmed to, by us...​

Edited May 11, 2015 by Xannari Ferrows

[-Velocity-]

Well, obviously, our silicon computers and our biological brains are VERY different kinds of machines. When I say our brains are computers, I only mean it in the sense that they are complicated, deterministic (except for potential influences by the uncertainty principle) systems that take in data, store data, and then, by the arrangement of neurons and the chemicals released, produce some kind of output that is a highly complicated function of the input data. Don't take the analogy too far. So yes, we can calculate an estimated computing power for the human brain, but, to at least some extent, we are comparing apples and oranges.

[Xannari Ferrows]

We are comparing apples and oranges? What if told you that oranges ARE apples? In old English, "æpple" was used to describe... well, apples, but also any other fruit.

The french name for "orange", pomme de l'orange, translated means: Apple of the orange tree.

We both may be different, but we are both fruit.

[StrandedonEarth]

I am a collection of energy that has coalesced as mostly matter

[magnemoe]

If the brain consists wholly of physical matter, and the supernatural soul does not exist, then of course the brain is nothing but an extremely powerful computer. What else would or could it be?

In fact, our brains are actually immensely powerful computers, and have the type of computing power only perhaps exceeded by the most powerful supercomputer in the world (at least, last I checked)- a giant, parallel-processing supercomputer in China that consumes like 20 MW (yes, twenty MEGAWATTS). Silicon is still many orders of magnitude behind biology in efficiency and information processing density.

The reason that silicon computers outperform us on things like adding numbers is because we did not evolve such an ability because we did not need such an ability. That said, there are of course many areas where we vastly outperform silicon computers.

Yes, it should work, note however that brains are analog and analog computers are multiple magnitudes faster than digital ones, who is 100% accurate and fast to reprogram while analog is inaccurate and need rebuilding for new tasks. And you need to get the brain model exactly right, fun then evolved structures is so messy, look at how our genes are organized, an total chaos. Same is true then trying to evolve electrical circuits.

Modern cpus used very small transistors, however its mostly 2d, you can add layers but will run into heat issues very fast, an high performance cpu develop more heat on each cm^2 than an electrical cooking plate.

- - - Updated - - -

First of all, the feeling of a constant existence, a constant self, tied to a specific piece of matter is an illusion on multiple fronts. First of all, we are in no way tied to a specific piece of matter. Your brain is constantly rewiring and replacing itself. The brain is like the proverbial "ship of Theseus"- by the time you die, your brain will have probably replaced and rewired almost everything between the time of your birth and the time of your death. Secondly, as the brain is constantly rewiring itself, the idea of a constant self is also an illusion. So you could majorly rewire the way your brain works, even wholly replace your brain with a new one (which would be at least mostly functionally identical) and you would still feel that you were the same person- though you might think a bit differently if the new brain was wired a bit differently.

Anyway, the matter that makes up our brains is utterly irrelevant. Everything about who and what we are is nothing but the information in our heads. When I say "information", I mean all the information we store in memory PLUS the manners and rules by which that information and new information is processed, and the information that describes how our neurons are wired to make us think. In other words, the information that describes our memories plus the information that describes how to create our process of thought and self-awareness. To make a computer analogy, you are all your "save files" in memory PLUS the source code of the program that makes up you.

Because we are information, a functional equivalent of you made on a computer simulation- a simulated brain- would be exactly you. NOT a "copy". Because you are NOT made of matter, you are made of INFORMATION that is described in matter. How exactly matter is made to describe the information that is you is irrelevant- be it a biological brain or a computer software simulation.

(I already hear someone's lame-brained counter-argument: "But what if the simulation were to run faster than your original brain!?!?!!! It would be very different than the original you!" Well of course, then you haven't replicated your original brain. EVERYTHING about you is information, including how fast your brain processes information. The information that describes you includes everything needed to exactly replicate the function of your brain.)

Some people have a hard time conceiving this, so let me give an example. Lets look at another piece of information, say the number 1,638. Like you, it is a piece of information. A VERY TINY piece of information. So here's a question, when I write the number 1,638, am I writing the number 1,638 or just a "copy" of the number 1,638?...

It is idiotic to say that I'm writing just a "copy" of 1,638. The number is just the number, as all information that is exactly the same is exactly the same. Likewise, an exact copy of your brain- regardless of what medium it is realized in- would be you, because you are nothing but information, and thus all instances of that information are exactly you.

So far, we don't have any real use for these ideas outside of the philosophy of the mind. But, we may find a way to replicate human minds in software. Such minds could be vulnerable to prejudice and denied the rights of human beings. The above reasoning would show us that we should treat such software minds with the same respect we treat a biological mind.

We can also have fun applying these concepts to a silly science fiction debate about the Star Trek transporters. The argument goes that, if the transporters destroy the body at one point and then replicate it somewhere else, then every time a person uses a transporter they in fact "die". However, applying the knowledge of the mind as information, we see that you do not die when using the transporter, as the only thing you are is information, and that information does get properly transferred from place to place. The immense byte stream that is "Captain Kirk" does in fact get beamed up or down from the Enterprise.

It's a silly debate, but it could eventually have real world analogs for humans if "mind scan" like technologies come into being. And of course, it would have immediate real world analogs for any machine intelligences we might create in perhaps the not-so-distant future. That they were nothing but information would be immediately obvious to them, however, in a way that isn't immediately obvious to (most) humans.

Yes, the star trek teleporters would be an sufficient advanced magic. Any sensible wizard simply opens an hole in the spacetime fabric and kick you trough.

And you are correct, if your think you are yourself you are yourself, nothing else matter, waking up looking out of the window seeing the two suns, discover you have an tail then you turn fast and another ... then you look in the mirror. you still fell like your self at least until Jabba the hutt comes and order you to dance for him.

Now the stupid teleporters give one fun option, you can take copies of the people you send, so you can just restore and reuse the redshirts you kill. You also have the unexploited mission to duplicate useful crew members and good looking ladies, double bonus is combined, yes this could also be used against you and you meet yourself in the door However you still be your self.

More realistic would be to upload and emulate the brain or grow and new brain and body and copy you mind. Same rules applies, obviously both you will feel the same way.

Good chance the me identity is something who shows up gradually as the brain gets more complex and that plenty of the smarter mammals has at least part of it.

The me should have some pretty strong evolutionary reasons to evolve anyway as it makes an smart animal more likely to preserve himself.

[Fel]

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Well, if you ignore that many of the modern philosophers also brought significant advances to technology/science in their goals to prove their own theories, then yes, you can't make any money from philosophy.

Of course, since there is no space gold; why bother going to space? Even creating powerful underground bunkers that the entire planet can evacuate to is more practical than colonizing another planet.

-snip-

Yes... that's pretty much Decartes and dualism. You don't actually refute any of the arguments against dualism, just dismiss them.

So, here is a postulate (incorrect but...) let's say that two people have the same DNA and atomic arrangement just to fix the problem in the debate, at birth. They are separated, one lives in America the other lives in China. Are they the same person? Your argument is contingent on information being the same and, if these two babies have the same atomic arrangement at birth, they have the same INFORMATION since birth.

Let's try again, same two babies, only this time they live in the same family and obtain the same information input... except one of them contracted tuberculosis and went blind. Being blind changes perspective even though the same information is relayed to you. One grows to be bitter, the other happy she/he is still alive.

Dismissing an argument doesn't disprove it; if we are information then does changing that information also change us? Are you no longer the person you were 30 seconds ago? How about how that information was acquired? If we are information, and you were formed by your interactions with the environment, how does the mind-environment interface not matter? How about we are information, you were born with downs syndrome, you swap minds out into a body without an "abnormal brain" thus causing significant personality changes... depression, bipolar, addiction, extending past the information on the brain gives us aspects of the body that control our behavior; though we could add this to "information" was the goal not to exclude the body from the mind?

We can also have fun applying these concepts to a silly science fiction debate about the Star Trek transporters. The argument goes that, if the transporters destroy the body at one point and then replicate it somewhere else, then every time a person uses a transporter they in fact "die". However, applying the knowledge of the mind as information, we see that you do not die when using the transporter, as the only thing you are is information, and that information does get properly transferred from place to place. The immense byte stream that is "Captain Kirk" does in fact get beamed up or down from the Enterprise.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708771/

To be conscious is not to respond to information appropriately, but to ponder that information, and to choose the response that you feel to be right? That is a very good definition. I may have to add that to my personal dictionary.

Equivocation, all you've done is turned "conscious" into "ponder." A computer that is brute forcing the answer to a problem may use many processing cycles to find an answer that it establishes is correct within certainty bounds; but then we'll try claiming things like the computer didn't perform with INTENTION. The computer is a machine, it is easier to describe the operation of a machine as a mechanism that is designed. Of course, this thus falls on language and human arrogance to decide if something is intentional or not. We can describe our actions, in detail, in the design stance or the physical stance while similarly lacking the ability to adequately explain how simple AI in computer games works. "They found me" not "The pathfinding code allowed the virtual enemies to plan a route and execute the plan"

The point is that the Mark of the Cognitive is as much debated as the mind-body problem.

[-Velocity-]

So, here is a postulate (incorrect but...) let's say that two people have the same DNA and atomic arrangement just to fix the problem in the debate, at birth. They are separated, one lives in America the other lives in China. Are they the same person? Your argument is contingent on information being the same and, if these two babies have the same atomic arrangement at birth, they have the same INFORMATION since birth.

Let's try again, same two babies, only this time they live in the same family and obtain the same information input... except one of them contracted tuberculosis and went blind. Being blind changes perspective even though the same information is relayed to you. One grows to be bitter, the other happy she/he is still alive.

If you think these are refutations to my argument, then you don't even understand my argument. Of course the people are different persons, they contain different information in their brain; their brains are wired differently. It takes a drastically different set of information to describe their brains.

Dismissing an argument doesn't disprove it; if we are information then does changing that information also change us? Are you no longer the person you were 30 seconds ago? How about how that information was acquired? If we are information, and you were formed by your interactions with the environment, how does the mind-environment interface not matter? How about we are information, you were born with downs syndrome, you swap minds out into a body without an "abnormal brain" thus causing significant personality changes... depression, bipolar, addiction, extending past the information on the brain gives us aspects of the body that control our behavior; though we could add this to "information" was the goal not to exclude the body from the mind?

I'm not sure what I'm dismissing? The supernatural soul? Is that what you refer to? If so, then yes, of course my arguments are false, as they are built on the premise that the soul does not exist. We needn't argue that point, as I will immediately grant that my arguments are false if the soul exists. If that's your supposition, then there really isn't any point in a discussion at all, as we are both correct within our own set of assumptions.

Discounting the soul, then you fail to understand the totality to which we are information. The only thing that is ever provable about physical reality is that it consists of information. The total energy content of the universe is, in fact, zero- gravitational potential energy is in fact negative- but the information content is NOT zero. In fact, the only realm we know of that exists for certainty is the realm of information. They are finding some "strange" parallels between information theory and the actual physical universe, such as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in_thermodynamics_and_information_theory

Imagine you were to exchange every atom in your body for an identical atom (same isotope and ionization) from somewhere else. Would you be the "same" person? Every atom that is identical is identical, after all. If it's the same isotope of the same element, an atom forged artificially in a nuclear reactor is fundamentally identical to one forged in a supernova explosion. It's not like an atom contains a little sticker inside it saying "Made in Betelgeuse". If you were conscious during the process of this atomic exchange, you wouldn't notice a single thing out of the ordinary, since none of the "calculations" involving the "computation" of your conscious state would be in any way altered. Hence, "you" are nothing but the information that describes how your atoms are configured. The physical matter that makes up your mind is completely irrelevant as long as it exactly replicates the information that describes you.

Yes, you are a different person than who you were 30 seconds ago, but only slightly. But since it takes a different set of information to describe your brain, which has slightly rewired itself in the 30 seconds that have elapsed, yes, you are a slightly different person. Is the difference significant? Not really though, only in a technical sense.

Of course the mind-environment interface matters to the formation of a person. But you can be stricken blind or deaf or numb by the cutting of certain nerves outside of the brain. That doesn't, the instant it happens, change who you are. It will lead to a significantly different "you" down the road though, as your brain adapts to these changes.

You can't "exchange minds" or brains with someone else. The brain describes the mind. To talk of exchanging it with someone else doesn't make sense.

If you believe in physicalism, then I must be correct. There is no other explanation that makes sense. If you don't believe in physicalism, then we have nothing to discuss, because logic fails to describe reality when physicalism is discarded and anything can be true.

[WinkAllKerb'']

I am a collection of energy that has coalesced as mostly matter

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dunno tell me xDr