Inheriring memories is how the persistence of consciousness is accomplished. It's not an illusion. It's just not what people generally think it is if they haven't thought or read/heard much about it.
— Patterner

Are you totally sure? I've not read the proceeding conversation, but this seems to be a little bit off the mark to me.
We don't, generally, look at a person suffering from Alzheimer's or similar as lacking consciousness. Is that the take you go for? Not a problem if you say yes - legit position, I just don't see it. — AmadeusD

Without yet going back to look at what I was responding to, it sounds like I'm talking about the self. I don't think there's a soul-ish kind of thing inhabiting the body that is the true self, and it is why we have a feeling of a continuous self from our earliest memories. I think, for humans, consciousness is the subjective experience of all of our mental abilities. At least that's the most important part of what humans experience. What gives us the feeling of a continuous self is our memories. We have in our memories, some more clear and more detailed than others, a chain linking us to every part of our past. And what we do influences what we do next, and what we become. So we can look back on our chain and see how we came to be as we are.

Sufferers of Alzheimer's surely have consciousness. But a self? What is such a person's own feeling of self, with no memory of who they are, and no chain to see how they became who they are. Horrifying disease.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. That seems fundamentally way less off the mark :P

I suppose my point was more than, as a third party, we wouldn't say that. We still see the person we know, even if they don't behave the way we know (inconclusive and just banter, really).

I have never looked, but I imagine there are plenty of interviews with people with Alzheimer's, amnesia, and whatever else, as well as their families. I would have to assume that family eventually accepts that it's no longer the same person.

Excuse me, but I don't think you understand your own question. That's not an answer. — SolarWind

It's as clear an answer as I can give: I don't know, but the best supported theory of consciousness right now is that there is no such thing as continuity of consciousness. I am (numerically) not the same consciousness as went to bed last night, or began this sentence, and I won't be the being that wakes up from cryonics later.
And it was responding to your question, what do you mean by "your own question"?

Cryonics costs many thousands of dollars. You expect to see the world in a hundred years, not a copy of yourself walking around. — SolarWind

I haven't paid for cryonics. You asked my opinion.

You are yet again talking from your implicit soul perspective, where "instance of consciousness" is your word for soul. — hypericin

It's always a desperate debating tactic to rely on telling other people what they believe. And I even pointed out in the OP that people on both sides of this debate will tend to make their argument by accusing the other side of believing in souls.

For the fourth time, no I don't believe in souls. Not only am I an atheist, not only do I think that dualism is inherently flawed, but my background is in neuroscience; I have a post-grad degree in neuroimaging. So I don't want to have to address this straw man for a fifth time.

Assuming psychological continuity is key, you survive only to the degree that the new person's psychology resembles the old. Abraham Lincolns would not resemble it at all, so you would be completely extinguished.

Great, so we agree that there is a point at which you're simply dead. But you also believe that there is a point at which you survive with brain damage. This is the line we're interested in in the imperfect transporter. Where is that line: how does the universe decide, and how can we know where it is?

What do you regard as the necessary and sufficient conditions (or properties) for being you? I suggest that this is a central issue in the transporter scenario.

Are you a physicalist, with respect to the mind?
If not strictly a physicalist, do you agree that at least some physical components are necessary to being you?

My position: I'm a physicalist, so I believe I consist of my component, physical parts. These parts change over time, but there is a causal chain that accounts for these changes. As such, at any point of time - I consist of exactly the physical parts that comprise my body at that time (100% are necessary and sufficient for being me at that time). This accounts for the perdurance of my identity over time. AFAIK, no other theory if identity makes as much sense under physicalism. So, if you are a physicalist then I think you should embrace perdurantism (although I'm open to hearing alternative points of view and reconcidering).

This is the line we're interested in in the imperfect transporter. Where is that line: how does the universe decide, and how can we know where it is? — Mijin

We both know there is no line.

You want to say, in the imperfect transporter, if survival is possible at all, there must be a line between survival and death, as death is surely possible given enough imperfection. There is no such line, any such line must be arbitrary. Therefore survival isn't possible.

But this is only true if survival is binary. If we think of survival in terms of a body living or dying, it is binary. If we think in terms of a soul transmigrating or not, it is binary. But if we think in terms of psychological survival (which is the only way anyone can survive a transporter) it is not. Survival in this case is a continuum between 0-1, not a binary on-off.

That is why I keep returning to injury, such as stroke. In a stroke, while your body might survive, in a psychological sense, your mind may only partially survive. You may lose aspects of your cognition, abilities, personality, memory, and feelings, and in a very visceral sense you may feel discontinuous with your prior self. But not necessarily fully discontinuous, the discontinuity lies on a spectrum. And so partial survival is not some abstract construct, it is already part of everyday reality.

A fair point. I can't say I'd think the same. I would also add that lucidity, at times, tends to come with all but end-stage degenerative mental diseases. That lucidity likely makes it impossible to say the person is no longer there.

And so partial survival is not some abstract construct, it is already part of everyday reality. — hypericin

I don't think this is right. Either you survive or you don't. How you survive certain seems up for grabs, but there you cannot be 'part there'. You're either an altered, different person, or you are you. That's how the concept of Identity works. Whether there could be two you's is more interesting. If what you mean is that not all of you survives that's quite a different claim and might bear some clarification.

. If what you mean is that not all of you survives that's quite a different claim and might bear some clarification. — AmadeusD

Why is "not all of you survives" "quite a different claim" from "part of you survives"?

This comes somewhat from the context (which is why I gave myself an out for misunderstanding) but I'll give it a go:

Partial survival would mean partly you survive, and partly you don't. That seems plainly absurd. Not that "part of you survives" in the sense outlined below. The way you've worded it seems to indicate you think you can survive, and not survive in parts. "you" is what's in question here, so that seems impossible.

Not all of you surviving might just mean you've lost your legs or some particular aspect of you like the memories which make you confident in x skill you supposedly have. The survival is vouchsafed, and we need only discuss what survived for us to still say "you" (or me, or whatever).

I think the key for my objection (its not really an objection proper) is that the concept of survival is a 1 or 0. The way you survive seems to be the ground of the intuitions we're testing (and this would lead to your claims of an arbitrary point at which someone remains themselves through different processes we're discussing). It could be that you didn't mean to say this at all, and that's fair - I will simply be on the wrong train here in that case.

That lucidity likely makes it impossible to say the person is no longer there. — AmadeusD

It's a difficult thing to figure out. I don't know much about it, but I assume the storage systems are still there, but access to it is very spotty, and sometimes gone for good. If the person no longer remembers anyone they knew, and acts different than they ever had before, then how do we judge them to be the same person? Yet I know I'd still go see my loved one, hoping they'd recover access to themselves. And wanting to be there to help them be less afraid if they did. It's all very Notebook, eh?

I've actually not seen/read Notebook. Possibly aging myself (downward...).

Yes, it's pretty difficult. I found it extremely hard to conceive of my dementia stricken grandmother as no longer there. There's no where for her to go, and she didn't become a new person. I can't see a way out of hte matrix other than discomfort with the person you know being different.

The difference between ages 15 and 65 might be the same as the difference between 65 and 66 for someone who hit dementia at that time. I don't see any real difference I guess, in those changes and how they might result in a different person.

I think the key for my objection (its not really an objection proper) is that the concept of survival is a 1 or 0. — AmadeusD

You are thinking in terms of bodily survival. But the core of this question is which type of survival is relevant for personal continuity: bodily, or psychological?

Survival is only a 1 or 0 if we are talking about bodily survival. Either the heart is still beating, or it has stopped forever.

This is not how psychological survival works. Here the full range from 0 to 1 is possible. Think of someone in a complete vegetative coma. The body is still alive, it survives, this is a 1. But the mind is gone, a 0. Call the healthy state, before whatever illness or accident caused a coma, a 1. Between that there is a full spectrum between psychic wholeness and psychic death. If you have ever witnessed someone's descent into dementia this reality would be painfully apparent. As dementia progresses, bits and pieces are taken away from the victim, until there is nothing left.

Of course, in reality bodily integrity has the same continuity. The body undergoes degrees of degradation, it doesn't just stop working one day. But we are so attuned to the divide between life and death that we think of it as binary. The line between awareness of any kind, and vegetative unconsciousness, just isn't as salient for us, so we don't have an equivalent binary conception of psychological survival.

What do you regard as the necessary and sufficient conditions (or properties) for being you? I suggest that this is a central issue in the transporter scenario. — Relativist

If you're asking me qualitatively, sure I can list off things like my personality, my memories etc.

In the context of this discussion on continuity of the self? Nothing. What I mean is: the most defensible position on the self is that consciousness is just a momentary phenomenon that comes packaged with the illusion of continuity.

We both know there is no line.

You want to say, in the imperfect transporter, if survival is possible at all, there must be a line between survival and death, as death is surely possible given enough imperfection. There is no such line, any such line must be arbitrary. Therefore survival isn't possible.

But this is only true if survival is binary. If we think of survival in terms of a body living or dying, it is binary. If we think in terms of a soul transmigrating or not, it is binary. But if we think in terms of psychological survival (which is the only way anyone can survive a transporter) it is not. Survival in this case is a continuum between 0-1, not a binary on-off. — hypericin

(emphasis added)

This is the critical point right here.

I am exactly talking about that line, except I am talking about persistence of the self, not "the body". Like it or not, whether I survive in any form -- whatever that might be -- versus being as dead as Napoleon, *is* a binary.

Presumably you are happy to say Napoleon is completely dead today, right?
So, to put it in your "continuum" terms, Napoleon's level of alive is 0.0. And, in the imperfect transporter, the proposition that we are interested in, that is binary, is whether the person stepping into the transporter will be 0.0 alive after the process.

And it is very problematic for the position of psychological continuity for the reasons given; the line is arbitrary, yet important, and further yet: unknowable.

Finally, let's stop with the "we both know" -- try to get through a post without asserting someone else's inner beliefs.

So, to put it in your "continuum" terms, Napoleon's level of alive is 0.0. And, in the imperfect transporter, the proposition that we are interested in, that is binary, is whether the person stepping into the transporter will be 0.0 alive after the process. — Mijin

Yes, The person stepping into the transporter will be 0.0 alive after the process. Their atoms were dispersed. There is no way to disperse someone's items without them dying.

The person at destination is a copy of the person that stepped into the transporter. We could make any number of copies, either through other means, or by adjusting the transporter so that it makes multiple copies. All of those copies are copies. They are not all the person who stepped onto the transporter.

Yes, The person stepping into the transporter will be 0.0 alive after the process. Their atoms were dispersed. There is no way to disperse someone's items without them dying. — Patterner

I am putting the point to hypericin, because it's an argument against psychological continuity. Perhaps put your point to him?

Apart from that, it seems again you're just asserting bodily continuity. What would take things further is an explanation or further elaboration. A couple of posts ago you suggested that freezing time would not end the self, but even a nanosecond of separation would. Why's that? What's lost in that nanosecond?

And it is very problematic for the position of psychological continuity for the reasons given; the line is arbitrary, yet important, and further yet: unknowable. — Mijin

Assuming psychological continuity is correct, it is up to you to draw the line. If you believe that any degree of survival counts as survival of the original, then if Napoleon came out of the teleporter, and he had the faintest, most fleeting and occasional memory of the teleportee, well then for you that is full survival. But that is just your personal judgement: you are treating a continuous property as a binary, and you are free to designate any line you wish. But however you draw the line, the reality is that in this case the teleportee survived only to an infinitesimal degree.

Again, I think I personally believe in bodily continuity at this point. But, the imperfect teleporter does not refute psychological continuity. That conclusion relies on treating something that is continuous, psychological survival, as a binary.

You are thinking in terms of bodily survival. — hypericin

I am, quite explicitly, not. On a psychological conception, it doesn't change anything about what i've said. Either you survive or you don't. The intuitions being tested are at what point, and under what criteria does the 1 or 0 obtain. There is no way ot argue for "partial survival" because one cannot be and not be.

To make this clearer, what I'm saying is that if you're wanting to give me a "0-0.1-0.2-0.3...1" spectrum, then you need to say at what exact point survival obtains. It cannot be part here, more there. Either the person survives at point A or not. I do not see there is another way for this to run. You simply cannot survive and not survive.

It's as clear an answer as I can give: I don't know, but the best supported theory of consciousness right now is that there is no such thing as continuity of consciousness. I am (numerically) not the same consciousness as went to bed last night, or began this sentence, and I won't be the being that wakes up from cryonics later. — Mijin

You think the you that's waking up tomorrow morning isn't really you? That if you go on a bender, you won't have to suffer the hangover? Someone else will? That's so obviously wrong.

In the context of this discussion on continuity of the self? Nothing. What I mean is: the most defensible position on the self is that consciousness is just a momentary phenomenon that comes packaged with the illusion of continuity. — Mijin

I agree.

It's as clear an answer as I can give: I don't know, but the best supported theory of consciousness right now is that there is no such thing as continuity of consciousness. I am (numerically) not the same consciousness as went to bed last night, or began this sentence, and I won't be the being that wakes up from cryonics later.
— Mijin

You think the you that's waking up tomorrow morning isn't really you? That if you go on a bender, you won't have to suffer the hangover? Someone else will? That's so obviously wrong. — RogueAI

I think you understand better than the thread starter.

What is your opinion on "cryonic sleep"?

but the best supported theory of consciousness right now is that there is no such thing as continuity of consciousness. — RogueAI

That does not seem right, at all. There is no cessation of consciousness during sleep. There is a dampening. Your pre-and-sub-conscious are all fully intact. It is only normal, waking consciousness which has been stymied. This butters no bread for the discussion. Suspension is not cessation is also worth noting.

I was quoting the OP

What is your opinion on "cryonic sleep"? — SolarWind

I haven't followed the whole thread. I just jumped in at the end. What is the issue with cryonic sleep?

What is the issue with cryonic sleep? — RogueAI

Would you expect to see the world in a hundred years (if cryonics is working well) or would it be just your copy claiming being you?

I see. I would expect it to be me.

There is no way ot argue for "partial survival" because one cannot be and not be. — AmadeusD

I have given you ample reasons why you can partially survive, in the psychological sense. You respond by blankly insisting that no, you can't. .

Assume psychological continuity is correct. If on your terms, if any degree of survival counts as survival, then if Napoleon came out of the teleporter, and he had the faintest, most fleeting and occasional memory of the teleportee, well then for you that is full survival. — hypericin

Not at all. I make no claim about how persistence works under psychological continuity, the whole argument is against it working as an explanation.
So, if you're asking me under "my terms" of whether Napoleon has survived, my answer is f-knows, it depends on what determines the difference between surviving in any form versus not surviving at all, and we have no idea what does, or could, determine that.