The Ship of Theseus - General

[QUOTE=Rofl my Waff;44493266]I think we might be, I'll concede that my interpretation of consciousness might not be the right one or it might be superficial. I went through a pretty depressed phase thinking about mortality on a regular basis and prospects of cloning for eternal life. Every simulation I ran in my head seemed to end with a black wall of unconsciousness though. But that is with the limitations of the human mind and a society that places a lot of value on the individual. For what I would want to use duplication for (eternal life) I don't see it working, and projecting it to teleportation I wouldn't want to use it as based on what I can tell would ultimately kill me.[/QUOTE] Running a subjective imaginary internal simulation of these kinds of thought experiments when trying to work out what the experience would be like doesn't seem to be of any use to me. You could imagine that you would experience anything, it doesn't have to correspond to reality at all. Try running this thought experiment through your imaginary simulator. I've made a machine that consists of a large upright cylinder large enough to stand in, with a dial on the front and a doorway that can be used to enter it. The dial allows you to select a percentage [i]p[/i], from the range 0% to 100%. When you have selected your value for [i]p[/i], entered the machine and closed the doorway, after 10 seconds the machine will instantaneously swap [i]p[/i] percent of the elementary particles within the cylinder with ones from outside the cylinder of equivalent quantum state. After another 10 seconds the door will reopen automatically, and you may leave the cylinder. When selecting the [i]p[/i] percent of particles to swap, a uniform distribution is chosen (so no big clumps are swapped etc). When setting the dial to 0% the machine does nothing. When setting the dial to 100% every single particle in the cylinder is replaced with equivalent particles from outside the vessel. Now imagine you repeatedly tested the machine on yourself, with values for [i]p[/i] ranging from 0% upwards, incrementing it by a small amount each time. At what value for [i]p[/i] is continuity of consciousness lost? My tentative answer is that every attempt will be indistinguishable all the way from 0% to 100%, as an isomorphic set of observer moments will be generated for each case. What would you predict?

In what sense are you using isomorphism here?

Contains equivalent elements with equivalent relations between them. [editline]9th April 2014[/editline] So an indistinguishable set of percepts and memories for each observer moment in each case.

[video=youtube;qjfaoe847qQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjfaoe847qQ[/video] This is pretty late but check this out, vsauce talks about what is consciousness is and the debate behind it. At the end he basically asked the same question I did about the teleportation thing and Ziks thought experiment. He also tries to define what is the difference between something that has consciousness and something that does not. He compares a computer program "cleaverbot" which responds to questions typed in a box to conscious beings, aka humans, and says that cleaverbot is not conscious because it lacks ~intentions,feels, and a bunch of these subjective ambiguous feelings that we have about ourselves when looking at ourselves. Do these subjective feelings that only we know actually exist, or are they just scripted responses to environmental stimuli? I feel like the answer to the teleportation question and zik's thought experiment has to do with what consciousness actually is. I need to do some thinking now...

I love the teleportation thought experiment as an extension of the Ship of Theseus. I feel like it makes for a much more interesting question when you mix consciousness in, and it really is a good tool to debate a lot of deeply ingrained philosophical beliefs.

Technically the human body is Theseus's ship, as every so often your body technically has none of the atoms it had 7 years or so ago. So every so often, are you a new ship? No, you're the same ship but in a different state due to the progression of time.

I researched a little about the 7 year thing, and its not entirely true, the cells that matter for example, your neurons are permanent. they don't regrow, once dead will stay dead. different parts of the body however refresh at different rates, some 10 years more or less. So its more like everything on Theseu's ship gets replaced except the steering wheel and its components :v: (or the captain, which would be a better example at the cost of being realistic.). So think of it as a new body forming within you at an incredibly small rate, so small that its a seamless painless transition.

I think we're attaching a little too much meaning to "die" here, and it comes from a slight issue with how we're defining consciousness. The self is not a persistent entity. It's the byproduct of a continuous series of electrical reactions. Sort of like the light from a lightbulb, it may appear as a single constant continuous thing, but is in actuality a series of imperceptibly short bursts. In that sense, your "self" dies over and over again constantly, the electrical signals that make up the "you" of the present fading and being replaced. And so the idea of death loses all meaning. The problem I see is that we're programmed to think about ourselves in a certain way, but then when we try and mesh that with how the universe actually functions it just turns into a big jumbled mess.

Regarding the Ship of Theseus, I think that a specific entity can be viewed as a set of its constituent parts. Any part of the object that is removed is no longer an element of that set, and any parts that are added become elements of said set. It's the set itself as an abstract concept that we refer to as the entity. In the case of the Ship of Theseus, the newer ship that has none of the original parts would still be the Ship of Theseus, even though the set of parts has changed gradually over time. A ship built from the old parts that were removed as Theseus' ship was repaired would not be the Ship of Theseus, as its constituent parts are no longer elements of the set that is referred to as the Ship of Theseus. [B]Edit[/B] I guess I'm using Zik's third definition of 'same', in this case. [quote=Ziks]If you define "same" to mean there is an unbroken transitive chain between the current components and the original components involving the subjectively defined symmetric and reflexive relationship of being part of the same vessel at some moment in time, it is the same.[/quote] Which to me implies that teleportation by deconstructing the original to reconstruct an exact duplicate would mean that consciousness would not be preserved as there is no unbroken continuous transition from one point to another - the electrical signals in the brain that make up the mind would be interrupted and then re-started. In the context of the Ship of Theseus, if the ship were to be entirely destroyed and then rebuilt, I would not consider it to be the same ship.

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44494480]I love the teleportation thought experiment as an extension of the Ship of Theseus. I feel like it makes for a much more interesting question when you mix consciousness in, and it really is a good tool to debate a lot of deeply ingrained philosophical beliefs.[/QUOTE] Imagine for a second there's a secret colony on Mars completely unknown to anyone on Earth. On this colony exists an exact copy of you, with every memory you have, but made from different atoms. Like I said no one on Earth, including you, knows about this copy of you. Now imagine tomorrow you step outside and get run over by a cement truck. What happens? This is essentially the same thing as the teleportation example, just broken up into smaller parts. From your perspective, and everyone on Earth, you would die. The electrical signals that constituted [I]you[/I] have been permanently interrupted. Just because the you on Mars shares your personality, appearance and memories would not mean that [I]you[/I] had been transported to Mars. Instead, you died, and the copy remained.

[QUOTE=greendevil;44526623]Imagine for a second there's a secret colony on Mars completely unknown to anyone on Earth. On this colony exists an exact copy of you, with every memory you have, but made from different atoms. Like I said no one on Earth, including you, knows about this copy of you. Now imagine tomorrow you step outside and get run over by a cement truck. What happens? This is essentially the same thing as the teleportation example, just broken up into smaller parts. From your perspective, and everyone on Earth, you would die. The electrical signals that constituted [I]you[/I] have been permanently interrupted. Just because the you on Mars shares your personality, appearance and memories would not mean that [I]you[/I] had been transported to Mars. Instead, you died, and the copy remained.[/QUOTE] How does he share my memories if he already existed on Mars before I was destroyed? Regardless, I disagree. You change the experiment by having the clones exist simultaneously. We can always stick a label on one that says "Person A" and another on "Person B," and a decent argument can be made that that is a good metric by which to separate the two people. That is one way to distinguish them. They evolve into clearly different systems. However, the experiment is not altered in that the sense of "you" as a conscious self experiencing things at the point in which they diverge is no different. The minds are indistinguishable at that one moment, and I think that's the only thing that makes you you. Neither copy of me has any better claim to being the real me, because all I am is a structure and both structures are identical. The idea of who do you "control" is just the wrong way of thinking about things. A mind is just a thing that emerges from a particular way of putting molecules together. I can push it even further and say if that I think if you disappeared entirely and reappeared as you were but 1000 years in the future, it's still you, so I guess here is an important point of what I think: "You" only exist moment to moment. There is no such thing as being globally "you." If you put two copies of the same person in different environments, it's pretty apparent that they must at least become different people. They no longer experience the same things. Then I would firmly agree that they are different people, but it's important whether or not there is a copy of you somewhere else. If there is only one person who we might recognize as me (e.g. the teleportation example), there's no sense in saying I'm a different person. I'm the same configuration of particles and there is no similar system for comparison, no "true" me. As an aside, Last Thursdayism informs my thoughts on this matter somewhat (the idea that the universe was created, fully formed with people having false thoughts and memories, last Thursday). Say there are two universes: this one and one where everything is identical to this one except everything was created last Thursday. They may be different but not measurably, so what sense is there in saying the "me"s from both universes are distinct in any way? I'm just a particular configuration of particles. [editline]12th April 2014[/editline] Also, this discussion is largely academic. Instant teleportation is impossible as far as we know. If it was possible, there would always be a frame of reference in which the person and their teleported copy exist at the same time. Part of the discussion could apply to reassembling someone someone at the speed of light somewhere else though.

[QUOTE=MyBumBum;44487781]What are your views on the Ship of Theseus, Facepunch? First, for those of you who don't know: The Ship of Theseus is an ancient Greek problem (as the name would suggest) which has puzzled philosophers for ages. The problem is: The Ship of Theseus sails around the Mediterranean, day in day out, for several years, until some parts of the ship are a bit leaky. So the ship enters a dock to be repaired. The broken parts are taken out and replaced, then the ship sets off again. This cycle repeats and repeats, until one day, the Ship of Theseus ends up with none of the original parts. They have all been replaced. Is this still the same Ship of Theseus? This is the same problem as Trigger's Broom. Trigger has replaced his broom handle and head 21 and 17 times respectively - is it still the same broom? What I would think is that: Physically, the boat is a completely different boat, but in meaning, it is still the same. It still carries the same purpose and meaning of the Ship of Theseus - to sail around the Mediterranean. Although the physical appearance has changed, it still essentially carries the same identity and meaning. Humans completely refresh their cells about every 7 years (e.g. after 7 years, all your cells that have been produced then would have died). Are you still the same person? Extension: Somebody collects the rotting, broken parts of the original Ship of Theseus and makes it a boat. Which boat is the real Ship of Theseus? What do you think, Facepunch?[/QUOTE] I pretty much agree with you on all counts. It's a different ship but it carries the same meaning. People though are far more complicated. After 7 years you may have changed loads or none at all. Your life could carry the same meaning you have given it or a completely different one. Very interesting topic though, looking forward to see what people say.

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;44488729]Your answer is very popular and I used to agree, but I don't any longer. The idea that the "new you" is physically indistinguishable from the "old you" to any experiment but it's not the same person seems very unscientific. It makes the self out to be some kind of magic. I accept the potential argument that "you" constitutes both the physical state of your body [I]and[/I] the physical state of your environment, but I think that any concept of the self that refers only to your person and not all of the environment you're in is forced to either say that the teleported you is the same person, or that consciousness involves something supernatural.[/QUOTE] I very much agree with you Johnny, it makes the concept of ones 'self' seem external, or eternal, or both, when truly I believe it can be deduced to be simply chemical in nature. If I replaced every single Iron atom in the body with a new set of Iron atoms, they would be chemically indistinguishable. Sure, if you had a different element it may spontaneously release an electron, or neutrino at a random time, in a rather chaotic manner.. But, it would still have the same chance of occurring as any other.. so that argument would be quite moot, given the law of large numbers (thanks, in part, to the long half-life of most of the atoms that constitute the human body). So, extending these principles to any, and all atoms in [I]your[/I] body, [I]you[/I] would still end up as [I]you[/I].. Whether through a process of one atom at a time, or one kind of atom a time, or every single atom at once. We are then left with the philosophical argument, as posited by the OP, of the inherent meaning of what it is to label an object. I'd argue that a philosopher has restricted domain on questions that can be answered by science. But, there is a certain philosophical answer that can be deduced from the discoveries (thus far) by science, and that is that if you were to change all of the atoms, in me, "Bradyns", I would still, the next second, be considered Bradyns.

[QUOTE=Bradyns;44621627]I very much agree with you Johnny, it makes the concept of ones 'self' seem external, or eternal, or both, when truly I believe it can be deduced to be simply chemical in nature. If I replaced every single Iron atom in the body with a new set of Iron atoms, they would be chemically indistinguishable. Sure, if you had a different element it may spontaneously release an electron, or neutrino at a random time, in a rather chaotic manner.. But, it would still have the same chance of occurring as any other.. so that argument would be quite moot, given the law of large numbers (thanks, in part, to the long half-life of most of the atoms that constitute the human body). So, extending these principles to any, and all atoms in [I]your[/I] body, [I]you[/I] would still end up as [I]you[/I].. Whether through a process of one atom at a time, or one kind of atom a time, or every single atom at once. We are then left with the philosophical argument, as posited by the OP, of the inherent meaning of what it is to label an object. I'd argue that a philosopher has restricted domain on questions that can be answered by science. But, there is a certain philosophical answer that can be deduced from the discoveries (thus far) by science, and that is that if you were to change all of the atoms, in me, "Bradyns", I would still, the next second, be considered Bradyns.[/QUOTE] After you perfectly cloned yourself, the clone would also instantly not be you anymore. The moment time passes, the sensory inputs and environmental influence the clone receives is different from yours which all result in different chemical reactions in the body. If you get a phonecall giving you information and you dont share it with your clone, your brain will be different from each other.

[QUOTE=Impact1986;44640194]After you perfectly cloned yourself, the clone would also instantly not be you anymore. The moment time passes, the sensory inputs and environmental influence the clone receives is different from yours which all result in different chemical reactions in the body. If you get a phonecall giving you information and you dont share it with your clone, your brain will be different from each other.[/QUOTE] So the clone would be different to the other instance of you that exists simultaneously with it, but the thing we are claiming is there is no objective basis in calling one of those instances the "real" you, and the other an impersonator. You could say things like the "real" you is the one that uses the same atoms, but that's just subjectively defining the criteria we should use when evaluating the situation. Why, objectively, must that be the correct criteria? I want to draw a diagram of what follows but I have a report to write, I'll try to get back to drawing it when I have the time. You can break your subjective stream of consciousness into what is experienced at each moment in time, an observer moment. Each observer moment consists of any external percepts being observed, and any internal memories being recollected (I'd wager that external percepts are encoded as memories before being experienced anyway, but maintaining a distinction in the model will help in this description). Let the notation for an observer moment be L:(M, S), where L is an identifier we can use to reference other observer moments, M is any internal memories being accessed at that moment, and S is any external sensory data being observed. Obviously there are many observer moments generated each second by an individual (although not an infinite continuous stream, as you can quantize time in the brain into periods where nothing subjectively changes, i.e., individual neuron firing events), but for the sake of saving space let's imagine it was one per second. Here's thought experiment A; which observer moments are generated by an observer going into a room at t=1, seeing an apple at t=2, then leaving the room at t=3? Here's your set: [code]# t = 0 A: ({}, {Outside, Room Exterior}) # t = 1 B: ({A}, {Room Interior}) # t = 2 C: ({A, B}, {Room Interior, Apple}) # t = 3 D: ({A, B, C}, {Outside, Room Exterior}) # t = 4 ...[/code] As you can see, each observer moment is tied to the previous one by a recollection of experiencing it. Apart from that, no real relations exist between them. They are just abstractions of information encoded at an arbitrary place in spacetime, and yet this is the entirety of your conscious experience. Let's look at another set of observer moments, generated by a man entering a cloning machine at t=1, being cloned at t=2, then the two instances leaving their respective machines and looking at whatever is outside at t=3. [code]# t = 0 A: ({}, {Outside Tube, Picture of roses on wall}) # t = 1 B: ({A}, {Inside Tube}) # t = 2 C: ({A, B}, {Inside Tube}) D: ({A, B}, {Inside Tube}) # t = 3 E: ({A, B, D}, {Outside Tube, Picture of roses on wall}) F: ({A, B, C}, {Outside Tube, Picture of lilacs on wall}) # t = 4 ...[/code] Again, the only relations connecting observer moments to other observer moments are the chains of recalling previous ones. At the exact moment of cloning (t=2), the two observer moments generated by the two consciousness instances are indistinguishable, and so have consistent internal histories. At t=3 they diverge because they observe different percepts, but no information here encodes which of the two observers is the "original". Sure, they could look at their respective environments to establish which one came out of the same tube as the "original" entered, but there's no way for them to know if some sneaky experimenter swapped the tubes between t=1 and t=2.

If I were to take a shot at this: Couldn't the Ship of Theseus be judged from the position that you'll always have degeneration of quality, and as such, the boat is always changing regardless of you changing out parts and such??