The problem is that what you're describing is literally impossible, and we can stick to one simple reason that it's literally impossible: nominalism is true.

So what you're downloading onto a disc, assuming that could work somehow (I don't believe it could, but we can assume that it could for the sake of argument) isn't identical to the person in question, and what you'd be uploading into another brain wouldn't be identical either.

Hi and thanks, I am off for now, but I will think about it during the day.

Sounds like Lokis wager to me

. It doesn't follow that if consciousness is simply a brain state, then everything is a brain state. I have no idea what your argument would be for that, but surely the argument isn't sound. — Terrapin Station

If consciousness is a brain state then everything that is consciousness is a brain state. You know about your body (including your head) and the world around you through conscious experience. Therefore the body you experience and the world you perceive around you must be equal to the state of a brain.

Touching your head is a conscious experience. If consciousness is the very same thing as a brain state, then your sensation of touching your head must be the very same thing as a brain state. Therefore the brain state which is the very same thing as 'touching your head' can't be the state of a physical brain within the head you touch, rather your touch experience of a head is already the state of a physical brain. There's no physical brain within your head that you touch, rather all your conscious experience, including that of your head, is already the state of a physical brain.

You know about your head with proprioception, touch, sight, etc.
Sense experiences are the very same thing as states of a physical brain.
Your head you are conscious of is the state of a physical brain.
Therefore your head you are conscious of can't contain the physical brain state that your conscious experience of a head is equal to.

You know about your body (including your head) and the world around you through conscious experience. Therefore the body you experience and the world you perceive around you must be equal to the state of a brain. — dukkha

Non sequitur. That you know about things via your conscious experience doesn't imply that only your conscious experience exists. And re the way you're stating that, you're contradicting yourself anyway. You say, "You know ABOUT THE WORLD AROUND YOU." Well, on your view, there is no world around you to know about, since you think that everything is just conscious experience.

Anyway, the means by which you know about something isn't identical to what you know about. So that's a non-sequitur. The means by which you know about something also doesn't exhaust what you know.

Also, by the way, my guess was correct. It turns out that you're yet another representationalist/idealist/solipsist-if-you're-consistent. What the heck is going on that there are so many of you folks around lately?

Non sequitur. That you know about things via your conscious experience doesn't imply that only your conscious experience exists. — Terrapin Station

I didn't imply that. I even said "equal to the state of a (physical) brain".

And re the way you're stating that, you're contradicting yourself anyway. You say, "You know ABOUT THE WORLD AROUND YOU." Well, on your view, there is no world around you to know about, since you think that everything is just conscious experience. —

Even if that was what I was saying, there's more ways than just physical of understanding the world around you. You seem to be saying that if you don't understand the world around you as being physical, you must therefore hold that it doesn't exist!

"Equal to" is "identical to," which implies that that's all that exists (on that view). But again, that you know about the world via your consciousness doesn't imply that the world is identical to your consciousness (or equal to it). How you know about something isn't the same thing as what you know about. That line of reasoning makes no more sense than saying that you're eating a toaster because a toaster is how you make toast. A toaster may be the means by which you make toast, but that doesn't imply that the toaster is the toast.

Re the other part, I'm a physicalist who is of the opinion that the very idea of nonphysical existents is incoherent.

Also, again I'm curious if you are, or were, an atheist who was a dualist?

"Equal to" is "identical to," which implies that that's all that exists (on that view). But again, that you know about the world via your consciousness doesn't imply that the world is identical to your consciousness (or equal to it). How you know about something isn't the same thing as what you know about. That line of reasoning makes no more sense than saying that you're eating a toaster because a toaster is how you make toast. A toaster may be the means by which you make toast, but that doesn't imply that the toaster is the toast. — Terrapin Station

There is a misunderstanding of what I mean by "world around you". So there's a physical world, with a physical brain state. And then there's the "world around you", and what I mean by that is the lived world, your experience of being a body in a world. So that's your visual field, what you hear, what you sense, etc. These are conscious experience. So if conscious experience is equal to the state of a physical brain, than your sense experiences of being a body in an environment is equal to the state of a physical brain. Because your sense experiences include what constitutes your lived head (you see your head, you feel your head, etc), your lived head must be equal to the state of a physical brain, which is in a physical body in the external physical world.

Or put it like this, sense experience can't be located as the state of a physical brain while also be a direct perception of the head that encapsulates it, and the world beyond.

So am I wrong in thinking that you think there is a physical brain inside your head, and your conscious experience is equal to the state of this physical brain?

I don't see how you can state that consciousness is literally equal to the state of a physical brain, and yet you directly (or at least non-representional) perceive the physical world existing beyond this brain?

So there's a physical world, with a physical brain state. And then there's the "world around you", and what I mean by that is the lived world, your experience of being a body in a world. — dukkha

Which is the same physical world. You're just saying that you're limiting it to the world that you personally experience, and not, say, China (outside of film locations, documentaries, books, etc.), if you never get to China.

than your sense experiences of being a body in an environment is equal to the state of a physical brain. — dukkha

What you're perceiving isn't your brain. You're not perceiving your perception. You're perceiving things like buildings and streets and traffic lights and trees and so on.

Or put it like this, sense experience can't be located as the state of a physical brain while also be a direct perception of the head that encapsulates it — dukkha

. . . because? That would require an argument.

So am I wrong in thinking that you think there is a physical brain inside your head, and your conscious experience is equal to the state of this physical brain? — dukkha

"Conscious experience is equal to a set of states in the brain" just to clarify. No, you'd be right if you thought that.

I don't see how you can state that consciousness is literally equal to the state of a physical brain, and yet you directly (or at least non-representional) perceive the physical world existing beyond this brain? — dukkha

I don't see why you don't see that, but representationalism has never made much sense to me. I think it's an incoherent view.

. . . because? That would require an argument. — Terrapin Station

How can your perception be located as the state of a physical brain, and yet somehow you're directly perceiving the world outside/beyond this brain?

How can what you see be a physical world and yet sight is located as a brain state?

Basically how can you see beyond a head when sight is within that head?

Don't you have any idea whatsoever what perception even is/how it works? Lightwaves stimulate your eyes, which send signals along your optic nerves to your brain, or soundwaves stimulate your eardrums with send signals along your auditory nerves to your brain, etc.

If you're not referring to that, what would you even be talking about with the word "perception"? It would seem that you're not talking about perception at all.

You mean incoherent to you, right?

Well, I'm not going to mean that it's incoherent to the people who feel that it's coherent, haha. So yeah, it's incoherent to me (and to the other people who feel that it's incoherent).

What do you mean by 'states'?
— csalisbury

Nothing at all unusual, just the normal sense of "state:" the particular (dynamic) conditions, that is, the particular set of materials and their (dynamic) relations at a set of contiguous points of time (or abstracted as a single point of time). — TerrapinStation

The idea that thoughts are simply brain states is called 'identity theory'. I think in formal philosophy, identity theory is no longer well regarded, as there are many arguments against it.

So consider this argument. If you two people share the same experience, could you expect them to have the same brain state? So when it is said that the brain state is 'the same' as an experience, what does 'the same' mean? Does it feel the same? Does it have the same meaning? So to even answer those questions means accepting that a configuration of brain tissues and neural chemistry 'feels like' something. But that is subject to the arguments of David Chalmers in his analysis of the 'hard problem of consciousness'. A brain state considered as an objective array of material, doesn't 'feel like' anything; the datum of what something 'feels like' is a first-person phenomenon.

There was a well-known Canadian neurosurgeon, by the name of Wilder Penfield, who was a pioneer of open brain surgery techniques. He used to stimulate patients' brains whilst they were conscious (as there are no nerve cells in the brain and the patients, under local anaesthetic, don't feel pain from the contact). He could elicit responses and sensations from the subjects by doing specific things. But the subjects seemed to know when these sensations originated with his actions, rather than as a consequence of their own decision. They would say 'you're doing that'. He also noted that despite rigourous and disciplined mapping of the areas of the brain by literally touching parts of it and seeing what parts of the body were affected by it, he was never able to trigger or elicit an abstract thought. At the end of his career, he had become a convinced dualist (as documented in his 1975 book Mystery of the Mind.)

This is actually related to a well-known problem in neuroscience called the 'neural binding problem'. That term refers to a set of interconnected problems, but the particular aspect that is relevant here is the problem of the subjective unity of experience. Neuroscience has a lot of information on which aspects of the brain are responsible for specific mental operations. But the 'binding' process is the act whereby various kinds of visual and auditory data - shape, colour, number, location, direction - are combined into a whole. And the precise part of the brain that performs that all-important functionality can't be identified. In fact there appears to be no room for it, amongst all the other dedicated areas of the brain. The 'subjective unity of conscious experience' is basically the same issue as Chalmer's 'hard problem of consciousness' (which is referenced in the paper).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/

that you know about the world via your consciousness doesn't imply that the world is identical to your consciousness (or equal to it) — 'TerrapinStation"

But, how can you get outside of your consciousness, to compare 'your consciousness of the world' with 'the world'? You can't step outside your own cognitive apparatus and look at the world as it is. You can try and imagine it, but that is still a mental act.

Also, by the way, my guess was correct. It turns out that you're yet another representationalist/idealist/solipsist-if-you're-consistent. What the heck is going on that there are so many of you folks around lately?

You're not alone; I've noticed a similar thing on other forums. The ones I've interacted with seem to believe that internalism is necessarily a solipsistic position.

I am not sure. Do you think all experiences would have to be down loaded? or just those experiences that are pertinent to identity (if tech was this advanced, don't you think there would be a way to relevantly parse experience)....and beyond this even if something is physically impossible, it might still be logically possible and therefore relevant to the argument.

Maybe, but that is the problem for those saying we have some sort of specific identity, which is maintained even after death, which is exactly what I am questioning.

So consider this argument. If you two people share the same experience, — Wayfarer

There's a problem already there. I'm a nominalist. Two people can't literally share the same experience. Two people can have similar experiences, we could say, however, and they'd be in similar brain states in some respects.

So when it is said that the brain state is 'the same' as an experience, what does 'the same' mean?

The brain state and the experience are identical.

Does it feel the same?

Are you talking about in the case of two different persons? Again, they can't have the same experience literally.

Does it have the same meaning?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. And does it have the same meaning to whom?

So to even answer those questions means accepting that a configuration of brain tissues and neural chemistry 'feels like' something. But that is subject to the arguments of David Chalmers in his analysis of the 'hard problem of consciousness'. A brain state considered as an objective array of material, doesn't 'feel like' anything;

Again, we'd have to ask "Doesn't feel like anything to whom?" "Feeling like" something is always to someone. And actually, third-person brain states do "feel like something" to everyone who is conscious of them, because "feeling like something" is just another way of saying that there are subjective qualities (qualia) to that experience/perception. Of course, third-person perspectives aren;t the same as first-person perspectives, and that is just an extension of an ontological truism that isn't just about consciousness. For any object/phenomenon/event, x, x at spatio-temporal reference point R1 isn't identical to x at different spatio-temporal reference point R2.

There was a well-known Canadian neurosurgeon, by the name of Wilder Penfield, who was a pioneer of open brain surgery techniques. He used to stimulate patients brains whilst they were conscious (as there are no nerve cells in the brain and the patients, under local anaesthetic, don't feel pain from the contact). He could elicit responses and sensations from the subjects by doing specific things. But the subjects seemed to know when these sensations originated with his actions, rather than as a consequence of their own decision. They would say 'you're doing that'. He also noted that despite rigourous and disciplined mapping of the areas of the brain by literally touching parts of it and seeing what parts of the body were affected by it, he was never able to trigger or elicit an abstract thought. At the end of his career, he had become a convinced dualist (as documented in his 1975 book Mystery of the Mind.)

Ridiculously simplistic and rather arrogant in a manner. He should have rather been convinced either that (a) no one had quite figured out just what to stimulate and how to stimulate it yet to produce abstract thought, or (b) that abstract thought must not amount to something as simple as could be engendered by touching particular parts of the brain; abstract thought must be some more complex systemic state that involves very fine-grained states of a large number of different neurons, synapses, etc., spread throughout the brain.

. . . But the 'binding' process is the act whereby various kinds of visual and auditory data - shape, colour, number, location, direction - are combined into a whole.

And the reason that we wouldn't assume that the whole is simply all of the relevant parts of the brain being in those states at that moment is?

Why would there have to be a specific part of the brain that's responsible for "unifying" all of the information rather than that being a factor that all of those parts are in the states they're in at the moment in question?

But, how can you get outside of your consciousness, to compare 'your consciousness of the world' with 'the world'? — Wayfarer

Too many people here don't seem to even understand the concept of perception. You perceive the extramental world. You simply look at it, hear it, feel it, etc.

You can't step outside your own cognitive apparatus and look at the world as it is. — Wayfarer

There's no coherent reason to believe that it's not as you perceive it to be, at least not outside of evidence, when it's present, that an earlier perception was mistaken, because this present perception has it right instead.

I am not sure. Do you think all experiences would have to be down loaded? — Cavacava

Do I think that all experiences would have to be downloaded for what? None of them would be identical to the experiences that are being "downloaded," and none would be identical to the person in question.

I don't think it's logically possible.

The trouble with your reply is that it is self-contradictory. It's your argument that brain-states and experiences are the same, but as soon as you're asked to justify that, you say that two people can't share the same experiences! So what is the basis for your argument? What does 'the same' even mean? Are you saying anything? By your own argument, it's impossible for you to make sense, because 'sense' for you and for anyone else may be different things.

Yeah, we can't quite define things, or capture them in their entirety in thought. We can't quite define, or show exactly what we our selves are, or even necks and heads for that matter -- but do we have any trouble actually doing it in practice?

Well, I think that's fine then, but it doesn't seem to leave much of an opening for discussion.

but do we have any trouble actually doing it in practice?

No, but what does that mean? I think it means that our notions about such concepts such as identity are faulty, as you state we seem to have no such problem in practice.

It means that our notions are incomplete. There are two problems with fitting the world in your head in its entirety... the first being that it's really really immeasurably big, and your head is comparatively minuscule. Secondly you'd also have to fit your head in your head too.

It's your argument that brain-states and experiences are the same, but as soon as you're asked to justify that, you say that two people can't share the same experiences! — Wayfarer

<sigh> there's nothing contradictory about that. To even think that there's something contradictory about that suggests that you're way off base re having the faintest idea what I'm even talking about.

That brain states and experiences are the same means that, say, experience x, which is a unique, particular experience that only occurs in person S at time Tn, is identical to brain state y, which only occurs in the same person S at the same time Tn.

There's nothing contradictory about saying that and saying that person O can't have the identical experience x or the identical brain state y as S has. (Or that person S can't have the identical experience x or brain state y at time Tn + or - m for that matter.)

"The same" is identical. Seriously, if you're not familiar with that. I'm not going to waste my time explaining the concept of identity to you. It's a Phil 101 idea. If you haven't a basic grasp of Phil 101 ideas, I'm not going to proceed as if you're capable of a graduate-level debate about something.

Perhaps weirdly dovetailing into my conversation with TS, he thinks that our experiences can't be uploaded onto a disk, and he is probably right, but I don't see how that is logically impossible, which he maintains (for whatever reason). I think my experiences are what I recall and, they are not the actual experiences, any more than the information on a disk is the original information. So I don't think you would have to fit the world into your head, just as AphaGo does not have to calculate all the possible moves in playing Go.

Well, I think that's fine then, but it doesn't seem to leave much of an opening for discussion. — John

What I'd be interested in for someone who thinks the idea of nonphysical existents is coherent to attempt to explain it to me so that I could make some sense out of it. I wouldn't bank on the possibility of success there, but I'd be interested in trying to understand it as someone who can make some sense out of it understands it.

To even think that there's something contradictory about that suggests that you're way off base re having the faintest idea what I'm even talking about.

That brain states and experiences are the same means that, say, experience x, which is a unique, particular experience that only occurs in person S at time Tn, is identical to brain state y, which only occurs in the same person S at the same time Tn. — TerrapinStation

But you said, in the post I was commenting on:

Two people can't literally share the same experience. Two people can have similar experiences, we could say, however, and they'd be in similar brain states in some respects. — TerrapinStation

then

The brain state and the experience are identical. — TerrapinStation

then

"Does it feel the same?"

Are you talking about in the case of two different persons? Again, they can't have the same experience literally.

So, what I'm finding hard to fathom is, what is the basis for the assertion that 'experiences are brain states?' It's not a matter of you 'explaining anything to me' - I'm saying that your assertion of 'brain-states equal experiences' doesn't actually mean anything, it doesn't stack up.

What happened to saying that anything is contradictory? Or are you using words so loosely that "contradictory" is the same as "meaningless" to you?

What I'd be interested in for someone who thinks the idea of nonphysical existents is coherent to attempt to explain it to me so that I could make some sense out of it. I wouldn't bank on the possibility of success there, but I'd be interested in trying to understand it as someone who can make some sense out of it understands it. — TerrapinStation

OK, I will try in good faith. Consider a sentence, like the one you're reading. Now in one sense, that is a physical thing - it is a pattern of pixels on a monitor. Print it out - then it's a pattern of dots on a piece of paper. Engrave it on a bronze plaque - then it's a series of marks on metal.

In each case, the meaning is conserved, but the physical representation is different. Therefore, they're different kinds of things, there's a difference in kind between the semantic content, the meaning, and how it is represented.

I think the non-material nature of mind is analogous to that. The word 'intellligence' is derived from 'inte-legere', meaning 'to read between'. So intelligence interprets meaning. Whether that is 'reading the clouds' so as to predict rain, or reading this sentence, so as to form an argument.