Posted by John Tchoe on July 06, 19101 at 12:04:12:
In Reply to: Whoa posted by Noctillucent on July 05, 19101 at 20:09:22:
: If I AM my brain’s cortex, how can I NOT have direct knowledge of it? Indeed, how can I have knowledge of anything EXCEPT the cortex?
Yet nothing in my subjective experience gives any insight into the cortex, or that it even exists.
<JT>Why would you have direct knowledge of your physical structure? I don't understand your umption. Your cortex is the organ with which you are aware. That doesn't necessarily translate to self-awareness (most animals don't; it's been shown through experiments with mirrors), and certainly not to an understanding of how your physical structures work.</JT>
Even more oddly, what I experience are things that lie all together outside my brain. How is that possible if I AM my cortex?
<JT>Because you get your input through your sensory organs.</JT>
Obviously my subjective experience is not the cortex itself, but something that is ontologically distinct from the cortex. That should be obvious to anyone.
<JT>We are able to consider aspects of an indivisible unit in our minds, e.g., our subjective experiences apart from the physical structure in which it takes place, but that does not mean that in reality the two are separable.</JT>
: Yet your whole thesis seems to hang on the idea that subjective experience IS the cortex. Yet when I put that forward as a very serious claim, you back away from it. And for obvious reasons.
: So it’s very hard to pin down what you actually believe about the brain and it’s subjective experience.
<JT>Please don't ume anything about my reasons.
You taking my words to mean (deliberately or from misunderstanding) that the stuff of the cortex directly translates to your subjective consciousness. I never said that, and I held out reservations on saying "The brain is the mind," for exactly that reason. A dead brain has no mind in it, only possibly memories. My understanding is that the activity within the brain is what we call consciousness, the nature of which we understand on a sub-lingual level. We know what it is, but have a very hard time explaining it.</JT>
: As for a copy of your brain, my question was: If your brain were ITSELF made of a different set of atoms, would you exist, or would it be someone else who only ACTS like you?
: Note: I am not speaking here of a separate duplicate brain.
<JT>What if your brain were made up of a different set of atoms in the exact same arrangement? This is the exact same scenario as copying one's brain, as far as our discussion is concerned. The only difference is that rather than leaving both copies intact, you destroy the original. Kind of like "moving" a file on your hard drive, rather than "copying" it.
Would it be you? He would say so. I hope you don't take this to be an evasion, but it depends on how you define a person. Legally? I don't think we have precedence, so a whole new set of laws would have to be made. Subjectively? No, that person would not be me, but a different person who is very, very similar to me. He would be me in the sense that an image on a videotape is "me," I suppose. How about from the subjective point of view of someone close to me? Both of us would be me. There'd be no way to tell us apart, and if there were (quantum signatures, whatever), I think the distinction would really be artificial. The other "me" would feel a mive injustice, surely as I would now, at this moment, if I were to find out now that I am a clone, and get kicked out of what I think is my life. That doesn't mean I don't have a sense of self, though, because I can ure you that I do. :)</JT>
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