
People who divide like an amoeba thought experiment - yoaviram
https://thoughtexperiments.net/people-who-divide-like-an-amoeba/
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thomyorkie
> ”Will I survive?” seems, I said, equivalent to “Will there be some person
> alive who is the same person as me?”

Although taking these two questions as equivalent does simplify the thought
experiment, it goes so strongly against my intuition that I find it incredibly
unsatisfying. Of course, I know that doesn’t make me right. But, If the stream
of consciousness that my mind is currently experiencing ceases to exist, it
gives me no comfort to think that someone exactly like me would live on.
However, I recognize that this statement is filled with a ton of metaphysical
baggage, and Occam’s razor may suggest Parfit is correct to eliminate the
concept of personal identity. I do wonder though if we really can properly
describe our reality without the concept of personal identity.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Let me add, how do we know that this situation isn't already the case? How do
we know that other people's stream of consciousness is distinct from our own?
Why do we ascribe importance to that?

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r00fus
The Ship of Theseus was gaining and losing mass at a molecular level
constantly.

So from a scientific analysis, it is the concept that remains, and the
materials/constituency of the whole are details that must be abstracted
(unless you have a way to diff at the molecular and/or subatomic level).

From an philosophical view of identity, I don't see much in past works that
recognize how a person changes through their life path - I would most
certainly make some different decisions than the 20y ago self - does that mean
I am a different person? If not, then how do you determine identity? For every
moment could it possibly be that you are a different person, and there are
infinite instances of "you"?

~~~
Retric
From a physics standpoint every single electron is the same electron they have
the same identity and that's not a problem.

Which is why I think this argument is ridiculous. People approach philosophy
trying to get their mutually contradictory assumptions to work out rather than
accept some assumptions are wrong. Human identity is a social construct not a
physical one, so it only needs to work in human terms.

PS: Yes, that means I and You have no well defined meaning, they also don't
need a well defined meaning to be useful.

~~~
r00fus
> From a physics standpoint every single electron is the same electron they
> have the same identity and that's not a problem.

Cite? This is an unproven hypothesis.

~~~
Retric
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles)

I don't mean there is only one electron ever or something like that, just you
can't actually distinguish them. There is also math which works better if
Electrons have no identity.

"The fact that particles can be identical has important consequences in
statistical mechanics. Calculations in statistical mechanics rely on
probabilistic arguments, which are sensitive to whether or not the objects
being studied are identical."

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maverick_iceman
I think it's useful to think about this issue from an Effective Field Theory
perspective. This implies that there are hierarchical descriptions about the
world and higher level descriptions may not apply to lower level phenomena
(though they are derived from lower level). E.g. a roomful of air has
temperature and pressure but a single air molecule has none of those
properties. Here. temperature and pressure are higher level properties which
arise from a large number of molecules. Similarly, the concept of personal
identity is very useful in everyday circumstances, but it breaks down when we
consider amoeba/teletransporter like thought experiments.

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syphilis2
The story reminds me of something my grandfather told me when I was young. He
used to shave with a straight razor because, "a straight razor will last you
forever, I've only had to change the blade once and the handle twice."

That might have been the first time I recognized identity as a construct,
though it wasn't until much later that I began to think of "things", including
people, as constantly changing.

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gwern
Eliezer has a fun version of the amoeba: beings with two-dimensional (but
highly folded) sheet brains who reproduce like DNA - at what point in the
process are there two consciousnesses rather than one?
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ps/where_physics_meets_experience/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/ps/where_physics_meets_experience/)

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mannykannot
In the Ship of Theseus case, no-one is disputing the facts of the matter, and,
for the most part, this is so for the other thought experiments presented
here. The issue seems to be one of language - yet language does not seem to be
deficient, given that we agree on the facts, and that agreement is reached
through language. Perhaps the issue is in our intuitions about what we expect
language to be able to do.

As is always the case, someone (in this case, Parfit) says 'we have to give up
the notion of X', where X in this case is personal identity, but that seems to
me to be an over-reaction; instead, all we have to do is to accept that there
are corner cases where our intuitions about the universality of language do
not work. For the most part, we can talk about personal identity without
problems, but in the corners, we have to be more specific.

We have lived our lives with ambiguous language, so is it that much of a
stretch to accept that that's all there is, that there is no Platonic-ideal,
complete-and-sound language no matter how careful we are with definitions and
usage?

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vacri
Take the House of Commons, which is the lower house of parliament in the UK.
It is made of constituent members (whom some liken to planks...), which are
routinely replaced. It remains the lower house of parliament, despite
switching out all components on a routine basis. If you collected the ex-
members of the House of Commons and made an identical grouping of people out
of them, you would not have a second House of Commons - you'd just have a
gathering of people. Abstract concepts don't nail themselves to physical
objects.

Besides, create an entirely new ship out of the discarded planks, and the
question becomes not "is that Theseus's ship?", but "why is Theseus removing
perfectly functional planks from his ship and replacing them with identical
ones?". :)

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ythn
I know there is no scientific evidence of a spirit or soul inside a person.
But, given that most world religions teach that every person has a spirit/soul
which is somehow connected to your identity/consciousness, I think it will be
really interesting to see if any of these thought experiments do (or don't)
actually happen experimentally.

What does it mean for religion if conscious AI emerges, or someone has half of
their brain implanted into a second body, and both bodies are conscious
entities that think they are the original?

What does it mean for religion if even in 1000 years conscious AI never
emerges, and if it's impossible to get two halves of a brain to "wake up" in
two different bodies?

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tudorw
If you like that you might enjoy this
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1844268691/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?i...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1844268691/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1479231468&sr=1-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=Katsunari+Nishihara)

~~~
techer
Very tempted to order that - do you mind telling me a little more if you have
the time? Thanks, either way.

~~~
tudorw
Ok, here goes, I'm a layman so I'll do my best...It proposes a different
evolutionary path by looking at the origin of functions and postulates that
our consciousness may be a whole body construct created by our organs in
concert. For example he looks at the origin of the eye and traces it back to
the first creatures exhibiting the ability to move towards light, he
hypothesizes that within that creature there is a form of consciousness in
that the decision to move towards the light is one that can only be made from
within a conscious entity. So as humans we are a mish mash of signals being
sent from all around our body and what we call consciousness is the brain's
ability to not only receive the signals but also adjust what signals are being
sent closing the loop, it's disruptive literature from a very intelligent
scientist with a very impressive track list of achievements in the creation of
artificial organs.

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yoaviram
The notion of self identity or “sameness” is fundamental to our understanding
of the world. Or is it? This post explores how philosophy makes use of thought
experiments to demonstrate how problematic our notion of self identity really
is.

