Personal Identity & Star Trek

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And lastly, would the being popping out at the target destination be the "you" that has stepped into the teleporter on the ship?

>>2563777
>this old chestnut

Seriously, think of better threads and stop being lazy.

>>2563777
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/1

>>2563777

no, fuck that.

>>2563782

you aren't the "you" you were 20 minutes ago if all you are is physical because radiation is blasting away your particles as we speak.

it sends you through subspace, it doesn't rearrange your atoms, the only thing that changes is time

of course whether you are the same person as "you" a few seconds ago is another matter

>>2563792
>>2563797
oh shit, hive mind, right down to the quoted "you"

>>2563787
I've literally never seen this thread here, and I've lurked /his/ since the start. Besides, even if it was, it might still be interesting to some people. If it doesn't interest you, don't reply, and if it doesn't interest anyone else either, it will just die off naturally.

As a panpsychist, I would.

I also would be the person emerging from the machine.

>>2563777
>>2563782

Continuity of self is a fictional meme to begin with. We behave like "selves" exist and magically tie together all the different times and configurations of bodily structure and processes that come up in a given "self's" life because it's more convenient to do that than to try existing in a society without a concept of "self." But there isn't any literal module that does the work of tying each body-moment together into one cohesive "self" entity over time. This becomes more obvious when you introduce speculative future technology like transporters or matter duplication machines because then you end up with cases where the intuition of that convenient fiction breaks down e.g. if you used a transporter and created two people at two different locations using one starting person ("you"), neither would be any more or less "you" than the other.

A common response to these duplication scenarios is "but it wouldn't be "you," it'd just be a copy!" Which misses the point that there isn't anything a copy could lack to fall short of being an authentic "you" if its material is arranged in exactly the same way as the source body's material.

Your conscious throughout the teleportation process, you never "die", the episode with Barclay dealing transporter phobia established this. Fucking plebs need to watch more star trek before asking questions about the transporter.

>>2563821
>Your conscious throughout the teleportation process
Your consciousness is maintained*

>>2563821

>You're conscious throughout

It wouldn't matter even if you weren't conscious throughout. Unless you believe self is "preserved" when you're kept awake at the dentist's with local anesthetics but "you die" during surgery with general anesthesia.

>>2563777
>Also, in a society where those "teleporters" existed and became commonly used, would it be morally permissible to demand of public officials such as politicians and police officers to use them to conduct their work more efficiently?
>Would it be morally obligatory for them to use them?
If it wasn't "you" the popped out, and using the machine would thereby amount to killing you in the process, then I still think that this is a burden that some people would have to take.

We demand of policemen to endanger themselves in the process of their work all the time. This even moreso applies to soldiers: We literally expect them to be ready to die for us.

>>2563777
Identity is a literal spook, I don'tget how many people still don't realize how the "I" is a temporary phenomenon and can be annhitilated easily, even via non-physical means

>>2563777
Pretry sure that this technology is against Christianity as it destroys the body permanently. It's suicide, so Orthodox Christians and any heretic worth their salt wouldn't use it.

>>2563832
There might be a meaningful difference that death is only a possibility for policemen and soldiers, though, while the teleporter would guarantee it.

I'm not sure how people think about sending soldiers/policemen on suicide missions.

>>2563835

^^^This. I'm glad a lot of people aren't falling for that mind trap in this thread, but a lot of time these things end up with everyone insisting it wouldn't be the "real you" because [magic thing that makes you "you" ordinarily] isn't there in a "mere copy."

Even if an original person was kept alive and a copy was made of him at that moment so both existed concurrently, it wouldn't mean the copied mind was more or less valid as a "self." The first person's mind wouldn't teleport into the second one's mind e.g. the first one wouldn't feel pain if the second one burnt his hand on a hot pocket later. But the trick is that never happened before the copying took place either. "You" from five minutes ago doesn't feel it if "you" burn your hand on a hot pocket now either. What makes those states of mind appear tied together is the similar memory information. It's a retrospective "I now must've been him in the past because... " narrative thing, not a feed-forward literal self continuity thing.

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>>2563789
People need to make more crops of this artist. They're hilarious.

>>2563816
>clone yourself
>shoot clone
>"ouch!"
Reductonism is not new or original.

Probably not. My thinking on the nature of consciousness is strictly material, which means if the material structure of the brain is disrupted I either change or cease by necessity. Conscious thought is just an illusion on top of a material basis, not much different from the graphical user interface of an operating system or the internal universe of a video game.

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>>2563777
what happens if you go in holding an animal or something, would the teleport happen normally or would something terrible happen?

>>2563864

>"ouch"

What are you trying to suggest? That because the first person didn't feel the pain of the copied person that means the copied person is less the self then the original person? That's wrong because the original person five minutes ago wouldn't feel pain if the original person now were shot either.

There never was continuity of self to begin with. Spook.

>>2563873
>or something,
You're going in with "something" either way: you're clothed, and full of bacteria and other microscopic organisms on your skin.

>>2563888
so you're saying that the teleportation wouldn't have a complication, and by something I mean't something like one of the aliens from alien.

>>2563797
>it sends you through subspace, it doesn't rearrange your atoms, the only thing that changes is time
Sounds like a boring copout. The idea of an unnoticed mass homicide is far more entertaining.

>>2563884
>There never was continuity of self to begin with. Spook.
>>>/out/

Lay off the research chems

>>2563873
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH-8L1iZq20

>>2563935

The closest thing to continuity of self is the similarity of memory content different versions of a brain support over time and the storytelling each version does to itself about how the past versions and itself are the same. There isn't an actual physical process that magically ties each moment of brain activity to the next.

>>2563949
The constant shifting of neurotransmitters throughout your brain that persist even after you fall asleep are very much physical.

>>2563816
>Which misses the point that there isn't anything a copy could lack to fall short of being an authentic "you" if its material is arranged in exactly the same way as the source body's material.
A person isn't just the sum of a body's material, though.

There are immaterial properties such as legal claims, too.

>>2563963

Constant shifting of neurotransmitters doesn't magically confer continuity of self. You're acting like there needs to be arbitrary movement maintained at all times or else the identity stops counting, which is a pretty silly / superstitious concept.

>>2563777
The idea that the continuous survival/integrity of your physical body is important is literally just the manifestation of the basic animal survival instinct in the context of a sapient mind.

>>2563908
Tuvix was a good episode

>>2563967
>Constant shifting of neurotransmitters doesn't magically confer continuity of self.
But they do. Your entire concept of self stems from them and goes away when they are tampered with. You're making some weird argument about consciousness having no basis in the physical when it's very clear it does.

>>2563965

I never said a person is the sum of material. Totally different from that, I was talking about the *arrangement* of material for one thing, and using examples that explicitly involved material that was completely different to boot. And for another thing, I wasn't saying anything counted as "self;" I was denying that anything genuinely counts as "self."

>>2563985

>You're making some weird argument about consciousness having no basis in the physical

I'm definitely not doing that at all. You're now conflating "consciousness" with "continuity of self." You don't have very clear ideas about what you're trying to discuss.

>>2563986
>I was talking about the *arrangement* of material for one thing,
Oh, I see, sorry.

>>2563777
Nope.

I haven't slept for 3 days. Fuck the guy waking up, I'm doing the most out of the time I'm me.

>>2563991
There's no real distinction. You're being dumb.

>>2564002

"Consciousness" and "continuity of self" aren't even close to the same thing.

>>2564002
You're an idiot if you think "consciousness" and "continuity of self" are the same. The former is a far more abstract concept while the latter has a clearer physical manifestation and that's just a basic difference. There are a lot more.

>>2563816
>the copy is the same as the genuine article
To a third party observer.
Are you retarded or something? The point is that you have ceased to exist. You were atomized. It's irrelevant if a 200% flawless copy has taken your place. You died.

>>2564025

Other way around. It's not that continuity of self traveled to the copy. It's that it was never there in the original to begin with.

>>2563983

^This essentially.

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>>2564032
Christ you fucks are so silly, protip every one hates the guy that regurgitates bullshit that they don't actually believe deep down. Continuity of self exists and you're just a chucklefuck fedora Lord!

>>2564040

You can tell it's right in part by how ridiculously emotional anons like you get when you're forced to start thinking about it.

>I-IT EXISTS BECAUSE IT JUST DOES FUCK YOU

>>2564040
Ad hominem, sir, the discussion ends here.

>>2564047
>you're resisting the idea therefore you actually think it's true
>>>/po/ppsychology

>>2564032
>there was never an original
Nonsense. If that were the case there would be no pattern to copy.
I'm talking about conciousness. Once you get atomized your conciousness is terminated.

>>2564047
>You can tell it's right in part by how ridiculously emotional anons like you get when you're forced to start thinking about it.
That actually only both indicates:
1.) How cogent the reasoning appears.
2.) How important the issue is to a poster.

It isn't necessarily only one or the other.

>>2564047
Solely for the purpose of discussion, if you subscribe to the view that continuity of self is dependent on consciousness and not substance, can the argument not be made in this scenario that though the substance is changing, the individual's consciousness remains the same and so it's still the same person even though it is a duplicate in terms of substance.

The original You would die and a new one would be created. The new one would have all the memories of the past one, and wouldn't realize that it is not the original.

>>2563965
muh metaphysics

>>2564057

You're conflating "consciousness" with "continuity of self." Nobody's denying that the pattern of consciousness exists and is copied. What I'm denying is that there's some magic "you" module that's maintained from moment to moment before the copying takes place but is "missing" in the copied version. Every moment is its own version to begin with. The brain comes up with stories about the past and those stories are the basis for behaving as though "you" at age three and "you" today are the same "self."

There is not any way possible to come up with some extra "self-transportation" process that would make a copy more "you" than it already is. Destroying the original body wouldn't make it more "you." Keeping "neurotransmitters moving" wouldn't make it more "you" either. These are all ridiculous attempts to try to make an entirely abstract concept (the self) seem like a literal physical process.

>>2564067
Retard allert.

>>2563777
As long as there are memories of "you" and you choose to identify with them "you" are alive, yes, "you" are a product of your brain and nothing else, so your probablem is a "non problem", in short you're asking a "non question"

As long as your memories remain "you" exist, of course there are different layers to the ego but you get the point, the ego is a temporary phenomenon like everything else

would you enter a star trek teleport if the disintegration caused you unbearable excruciating pain but the clone made after wouldn't have any memory of it?

Doesn't this machine realize an eternal life?
You only have to scan yourself when you are healthy. After your death, they create your body based on the scan data.

>>2564080
"You" are entirely based in the physical integrity of your brain and it's neurotransmitters. "You", your consciousness, and the continuity all exist because your brain exists. No more brain no more you.

>>2563985

>he thinks consciousness has anything to do with neurons

TOP

KEKEN

>>2564114

Wrong. "You" is an abstract fiction, not a physical process. It has the same sort of existence numbers and language do. You're doing the equivalent of trying to find the number 5 physically as some part of the 5 fingers on your hand. It doesn't exist like that.

Your neurotransmitters aren't "you." The patterns OF your neurotransmitters aren't "you" either. Consciousness is the software to the hardware of the brain. Neither the software nor the hardware is what continuity of self is. They're totally different topics.

Just because you aren't conscious doesn't mean others can't be.

>>2564175
That's wrong. Move on from brain mind duality. "You" are entirely rooted in observable physical processes and in the coming decades the brain will become much less of a spoopy black box than it used to be.

sometimes I really don't feel like I'm the "yesterday's" me, or sometimes even the "this morning's" me, in the afternoon. Sometimes memories of just a couple hours ago feel so fake

>>2564212
>physical processes
>observable

choose one

>>2564212

No, you're misunderstanding. I'm not arguing for mind / brain duality. I'm saying "self" isn't a real, physical thing at all, it's an abstract fiction. You're never going to find "self" by learning more about the physical processes of the brain any more than you're going to find the number 5 inside your hand by learning more about the biology of it. You're confusing abstract fictions with physical things.

>>2564213

you probably need to seek out professional help anon

>>2564229
>"self" isn't a real

keep telling yourself that

>self isn't self-evident

>>2564236
I don't know lad it's a rare occasion. Feels quite alienating when it happens tho. Good thing I'm usually too dumb to care or think about it :)

>>2564229
The self is totally rooted in a physical reality. The self can be disrupted by tampering with the physical parts that construct it. Drugs and alcohol intoxication are proof of this. Your whole worldview is pure bunk.

>>2564238

>I can see all the Colleges and the Libraries but where's the University?

^Literally the mistake being made here. Try reading some Gilbert Ryle and then come back. You don't understand what abstractions are yet.

>>2564265

You too:

>>2564268

Just because maths work don't mean numbers exist in physical reality either. Category mistake.

>>2564268

You can't see the university? Wow, I feel sorry for you.

Must feel bad not having a distinct conscious phenomenon. Oh wait I forgot, """you""" don't feel anything. Because you are a clock.

>>2564307

"You" is an abstract concept like numbers, not an actual thing you can look at under a microscope.

Abstract concepts can be very useful without being physical things. I get paid money to write programs in terms of abstract objects that have no real physical existence. I like money a lot too, but I wouldn't mistake money as a physical thing either. There are lots of useful abstract fictions like those.

>>2564349
Everything in a program has a physical reality via transistors in an on or off state in a solid state hard drive get out crazy chucklefuck.

>>2563777
/trek/ what are you doing here? you're supposed to be on /tv/

>The teleporters in Star Trek work by scanning you, then disintegrating you, and then (or meanwhile?) creating a being based on the scan using completely different materia elsewhere.
no, they don't
they turn matter into energy, send it where it's going, and then turn the energy back into matter

>>2564364

Programs aren't the same as what the machine does. A class you write isn't a thing a machine does, it's an abstract object you use to get an idea you understand in terms of the language to work on the machine through the use of a compiler that mediates between the two. If the two were simply the same thing, you wouldn't need a language to begin with.

>>2563797
Right. It scans the location of every subatomic particles in your body, transmits the information to another place and then makes a new you a la the food replicator

So is that information "you" or did you get dissolved into paste to prevent there from being two copies running around?

>>2563908
well pretty much every other sci-fi universe either does what you're describing or never goes to the trouble of denying it, so you can have your hypothetical in one of those

>>2564395
That is neither here nor there and is akin to saying the spoken word has no real physical existence despite their entire purpose is to vibrate your tongue in such a way to propagate certain sound waves. Everything has a physical basis including the programs you write which are stored in a very physical reality who go on to manipulate electrical impulses.

>>2564349
>"You" is an abstract concept like numbers

to """you""" maybe

You don't get to speak for me because you simply cannot know if I do or do not have a "soul" or at the least, additional physical traits beyond the power of our current science to detect enabling conscious action.

Also numbers are more real than particles.

>abstract objects that have no real physical existence

Honestly just think about this. If it were the case that "abstracts" had absolutely zero basis in reality you wouldn't be able to conceive of them, much less talk about them as particulars.

"physical" is a spook

point to something that doesn't exist, I'll wait.

>>2564412

>That is neither here nor there

It's the exact thing we're arguing about, it's very much here and there.

>akin to saying the spoken word has no real physical existence despite their entire purpose is to vibrate your tongue in such a way to propagate certain sound waves

Language has no real physical existence. Sound waves have real physical existence. It's important not to confuse the two. One is an abstract object, the other is an actual thing.

>Everything has a physical basis

There's a big difference between the abstract fiction a program is and the actual physical things a machine does. If you were to discount this as not important, you'd be stuck in a world without programming where you have to directly conduct the machine's behavior. I think you're greatly underestimating how huge a difference that world and our world with programming have between them. You can look into assembly (has a one to one mapping with the machine code, unlike with abstract languages) if you want to see how awful it would be to have to work in terms of the machine instead of in terms of abstract language constructs.

>>2564416
You dumb fuck, you dumb disgusting ego centered fuck, "you" IS a mental concept, of course it couldn't eist without a physical support, also please, GO AHEAD and define what a soul id, the ego is an illusion.

>>2564416

>You don't get to speak for me because you simply cannot know if I do or do not have a "soul"

You can't know if I can't know. That's where that particular logic train crashes.

>Honestly just think about this. If it were the case that "abstracts" had absolutely zero basis in reality

I never said abstracts have no basis in reality. I said abstract objects aren't physical objects.

>>2564446
You dumb fuck, you dumb disgusting ego centered fuck, "you" IS a mental concept, of course it couldn't exist without a physical support, also please, GO AHEAD and define what a soul is, the ego is an illusion.

>>2564446
Language has its entire basis in human biology and is completely physical in origin, and operates within the confines of the physical. Every class you instantiate in your intro to C++ class has a physical location in the computers memory. You are making a distinction where there is none.

>>2564449
>mental concepts aren't real

next you'll be telling me that our eyes aren't real, therefore mirrors aren't.

why u mad tho?

>>2564456
>You can't know if I can't know.

you got me there m8, though desu you can't know I can't now if you can't know.

>>2564468
No, they are an ABSTRACTION, you dumb fuck, useful, but not existent

>>2564477

*k* now

>>2564479

>abstractions don't exist

then how can they have the property of being useful?

>>2564460

You can pick up a rock or an apple and show it to me. You can't do the same for the concept of an adjective.

>You are making a distinction where there is none.

The distinction is a programmer can know everything about the abstract objects of his program and nothing about the physical actions a machine takes. That's the whole point of why programming languages and compilers exist. There is an actual one to one mapped thing for working with machines and it isn't programming languages like C++. It's assembly. They're not the same thing. You can't write assembly and have it work without knowing how the machine works. One works with abstract objects, the other works with the actual machine.

>>2564482
They are but do not EXIST, study philosophy, THEN you can debate.

>>2564479
>>2564488

Are you trying to be a parody of something? Maybe try having an argument instead.

>>2564483

you can show me the image of an apple, not the apple itself. Unless you're telling me that the image of the apple is all there really is to it.

>>2564488

>x does not exist
>x is heavy, useful, red, etc

what? How does this happen?

>>2564490
Define what identity is to you, go ahead, I will destroy your argument, define what "you" iss to you, what defines the identity fo a person, and I will prove to you that it is finite and bound to change and therefore prove the not existence of a soul

>>2564496

>what? How does this happen?

He's not being serious. He's shitposting parody arguments of ideas that offend him because he's angry he can't come up with a real argument.

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>>2564498
>define what "you" is

I am you.

>>2564496
what are the qualities of a "self"?

>>2564496

Apples have physical structure which can be viewed with your eyes, held with your hand, and sensed or otherwise detected physically in other ways.

The concept of an adjective doesn't have a physical structure. It can't be viewed with your eyes or held with your hand. It's not that sort of thing. It's an abstract object we use to manage our behavior. It lets us deal with the fictions of words instead of being stuck more like base animals who (mostly, or at least much more so depending on how much credit you want to give nonhuman cognition) only deal with the physical in itself directly.

>>2564514
>detected physically

oh boy, isn't perception a "mental concept"?

>>2564530

Perception is a physical process (or rather, many different physical processes).

The idea of qualia (e.g. speaking about a visual like the color red) is a concept.

There's a difference between the apple you're detecting vs. the descriptions you give for what you think the "experience" of doing the detection is "like."

>>2564513

>distinctness
>self-evidence
>???
>profit

idk anon, maybe it's immaterial.

>>2564554
>Perception is a physical process

like clockwork. Do clocks perceive?

To put it another way, why are some collections of particles able to perceive while others aren't? What means of significantly differentiating or labeling these groups do we even have that aren't completely arbitrary, or based on nothing more than surface patterns we've been conditioned to identify as distinct?

Could it be the case that perception is a universal? Could consciousness be bound up in the fabric of reality itself?

>>2564582
not that guy but I think the point is exactly that we've decided to categorize certain things as "consciousness" and it being but an artificial classification is what makes "you" non "existant" in this sense he's portraying

When this old-ass memethread shows up, fags always, without fail, start hypothesizing about consciousness, being etc. when the answer is clear, logical and simple. If the transporters dematerializes you, you die. From your current point of view, you're dead- in the black abyss. No matter how perfectly you get reconstructed on the other side or how you spin it philosophically in the long run, the current concsiousness(which is physical) is destroyed and you die, while a clone continues to exist in your place. You get fucked.
>inb4 that one fridge cartoon

>>2564621
>artificial classification

I must disagree, having had some personal experience with consciousness from time to time. I cannot say that everybody can boast the same, of course.

>>2564654
not saying we don't experience consciousness. But we experience "red" too even tho that's just our perception of wave lenghts noamean
it's still artificial classifications of real phenomenons

>>2563777
if a question like this really was raised, telecommuting would be the obvious alternative

>>2564629

>the old "but it'd just be a copy!" argument

Your problem is you aren't going a step further and questioning whether the original itself ever had what isn't carried over to the copy.

Yes, "you" aren't magically teleported into the copy. But "you" were never magically teleported from one moment to the next in the original either. Take some psychedelics ffs, self not being real isn't just some philosophical wankery, it's been known through experience for a long time now. The illusion of self dropping away (ego death) is a literal side effect of certain chemicals. It's also the whole point of the Buddhist idea of "self is illusory, there's no I, me, or mine."

This whole thread sounds like a drunk McCoy arguing with a brain damaged Spock.

This whole argument hinges on a technology we don't know specifics for. Having watched EVERYTHING trek many times over I am still not 100% sure the writers of various shows, seasons, even the same episodes were on the page about how it was supposed to work and the implications.

It's a tv show. Non scientists writers created rules for a technology that doesn't exist and here we are arguing endlessly about the mysteries of the universe. They could have written that you always rematerialize wearing a purple hat, but that wouldn't have any bearing on our reality.

It's just a show. You Nerds. Go outside. Live a little.

NOPE

>>2564699
>we experience "red" too even tho that's just our perception of wave lenghts

We experience "apples" too, even though that's just our perception of what we call light, fructose, tactile properties, etc. Seems like apples must then be artificial classifications too, if not all objects registered by the senses.

You may note that the common thread between all these different perceptions is unified experience. That is the self, and it is necessarily non-artificial. Or at least it is actually more concrete than perception in that it doesn't change over time. It is like a rock in an ocean of perception, washed upon but unmoved.

>inb4 erosion

please understand that this is a metaphor

>>2565081
I am drunk, and Spock is a fucking autist. Autists don't have feelings and cannot imagine what it is like to have feelings because they are autistic.

>EVERYTHING

I am so sorry.

>>2564772
>telecommuting would be the obvious alternative
Your job requires you to be physically present. Your headquarters are on Earth, but you telecommute from Pluto. Suddenly, crisis strucks and requires you to quickly be on Mars.

Your job can't be delegated and you need to be phyiscally present. How is telecommuting going to help you if you need to be on the opposite side of the Solar System and then back again within a few minutes?

>>2565089

>unified experience
>That is the self
>doesn't change over time

That's not what self is and each person's self concept changes heavily over time.

Y'all niggers need some Buddha. This is very basic "hey fools, don't fall for that faulty idea" tier buddhism shit. The ego thrives on the illusions of permanence and continuity, exactly the things it doesn't have in reality.

>>2565227
>self concept

you've already switched terms

>le white buddhist meme
>muh ego

I'm not talking about self-image, which is a perception (something I've already portrayed as a chaotic ocean). Maybe you should look into your own philosophy a little more.

If self-image changes over time, what does it change in relation to? What is that which has a self-image in the first place?

I'm not suggesting the self-image is accurate anymore than I'm suggesting the image of an apple is, I'm saying there is obviously SOMETHING to which these perceptions are subject.

Bruv, the Buddhist have already come up with a perfectly reasonable answer to this.

As the others are saying in this thread, the idea of a (You) as a tangible thing is rooted in shortsightedness. Derrida has a book on identity as well. Which goes more indepth on the topic. Physically speaking the body changes when teleported. The self is destroyed in the classical sense for short period of time before it is rebuilt by the teleporter. People get hung up on whether you die or not, but for those people, you did die. For the derrida-buddhist-hume personal identity type, the identity never was established in the first place

>>2565259
>Bruv, the Christians have already come up with a perfectly reasonable answer to this.

an equally valid sentiment

>>2565250

It's important to qualify "self" as a concept because you're trying to make it seem like it's more than just a concept. Want to be clear that use of the term "self" isn't an agreement with the belief the underlying idea of "self" has a physical reality, hence "self concept." Using "self" on its own would be fine except that you're using it for things I don't agree it applies to which forces me to distinguish between what you're saying vs. what it is i.e. a concept.

>self-image

That's not really the same thing as the concept of self. Self-image is how you think other people perceive you. The concept of self is the idea you have of a character who's responsible for all your body's and mind's output. Self-image in a specific instance of use might be "I'm tall" or "I'm good at playing the guitar" or "family and friends know they can rely on me to help solve difficult problems." Concept of self is the idea there is a character for which all those images apply.

>If self-image changes over time, what does it change in relation to?

Self-image one moment is different from self-image from a prior moment. A person can lose confidence to where their self-image was one of competence five minutes ago and one of incompetence now.

The idea of self *concept* not being unchanging is more what the buddhist thing is about. The gist of it is you believe you have a single, constant "self" when really what exists are collections of physical things (e.g. the body and its processes as they change over time) and mental "things" (e.g. memories, thoughts, feelings, habits, beliefs, discernment, decisions, etc). The self concept is the idea where all those different things are part of some unified, unchanging entity. It's not so much that this concept itself changes over time as it is the case this concept of self isn't really there to begin with as a real unchanging thing. Not being there as an unchanging thing is subtly different from being there as a changing thing.

>>2565264
Do you know what you're talking about or is this just an automatic reaction?

It's literally as simple as "Is it possible for the teleporting to create 'you' at the other end without 'disposing' of 'you' at your end?"
If yes: Then it's not your consciousness-stream. You die
If no: It's still probably not your consciousness stream. You still die, but now it's confusing and scientists are scratching their heads.

>>2565259

>People get hung up on whether you die or not, but for those people, you did die. For the derrida-buddhist-hume personal identity type, the identity never was established in the first place

^Exactly. I think it's kind of telling these discussions usually involve some scenario where the copying mechanism is perfect in every known physical way and yet people are still convinced "you" are nonetheless not carried over. I hope everyone thinks "why is that?" It's a really great intuition pump.

Because I think these people are right, except that they stop there and say it's just the copy that doesn't have a "you" when they should be thinking a little more about the implications of all the physical stuff being there but the "you" still not ending up in the equation. These implications ultimately lead back to questioning whether this "you" ever even existed in the original itself.

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From a purely materialist perspective, oddly, the transporter described is more murderous than from a religious perspective. The chain of entanglement is broken, therefore the new object is not the original, regardless of how identical. There are countless identical objects in this universe, even on the molecular level, but each 20c bucky ball is its own object.

Now, they can't be identical on the quantum level, as to be so would require both objects be in the same place, at which point the Pauli exclusion principle and E=MC2 would come into play with disastrous results.

Though, in this debate, what is often overlooked, the Star Trek transporters don't work like that. They use an "matter-energy transfer beam". Meaning, the matter at the source is converted to energy, and then converted to matter again upon its arrival. The chain of entanglement is thus not broken - this is indeed the same object, albeit, undergoing an extreme state change. Roddenberry stated that he actually came up with that idea to avoid this very conundrum (though, various Star Trek writers have certainly bent to broken that rule from time to time).

But in the case of a data based scan and remote assembly style teleporter, that is indeed a near-perfect clone on the other end, and not the original. From a "spirtual" perspective you can say it's the same person, and for all intents and purposes it may be, but from a purely materialistic and scientific perspective, it objectively is not.

You can say, from a philosophical perspective, that you are not the same person from one moment to the next, but convergence and the custody of chain of events denies this.

Suddenly I'm glad we're not in the 2200s and I don't have to deal with the existential nightmare of mass teleporter transit.

>>2565300
>Self-image is how you think other people perceive you.

Not quite. It's the image you have of yourself, which may or may not be accurate. The image you have of how other people perceive you is part of that. Concept is effectively the same thing as an image, or at least they are of a kind in that they both are essentially apparitions (one logical, the other sensory, both perceptual).

>memories, thoughts, feelings, habits, beliefs, discernment, decisions
>all those different things are part of some unified, unchanging entity

Where did I ever imply that? All those things are transient perceptions, I specifically went out of my way to make sure I included nothing like that in the metaphor I laid out. Sounds to me like "concept of self" and "self-image" are equivalent.

>what exists are collections of physical things

That somehow undergo illusions of self as an emergent property of random groups of particles rubbing against each other? You're making the assertion that the self is an illusion, but you seem to forget that if that's true then there's nothing to actually trick. You can't throw the wool over an eye that doesn't exist.

>Self-image one moment is different from self-image from a prior moment.

You've actually gone down the road of infinite regression here.

>>2563777
Why can't you just do things by remote terminal?

>>2565405
I'd assume the conservatives in that time doesn't use teleporters.

>>2565422
Maybe after someone invents a way to punch people in the face through the internet.

>>2565422
That's technically what you are doing - except in the case of the teleporter described, you're killing yourself to do it.

>>2565405
>born too late to die from smallpox
>born too early to be disintegrated and reanimated by teleporters every day going to your 9-5

We truly are in the golden age of humanity

>>2565406

>You're making the assertion that the self is an illusion, but you seem to forget that if that's true then there's nothing to actually trick. You can't throw the wool over an eye that doesn't exist.

That's not true. You can have an illusion without having a self. I don't think most people would consider image recognition programs to be in possession of a self for example, and they're definitely subject to illusion. All that's required for illusion is an appearance of something that isn't really there. The reading in of an appearance of something doesn't require a "self."

>>2565406
>>2565466
Why not just Apple the self-illusion to all things? That chair doesn't have any self-existence. That cat, that man, that bus, etc. Even the whole universe, the concepts, etc.

Any changing thing may not have those self-existence.

>>2565486

Congratulations, you've discovered:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mereological_nihilism

>>2563777
this wouldn't work IRL you would die

>>2565493
Wasn't exactly going for that but I'll take it. I was actually thinking of the Buddhist idea of anatta in application to the whole, the sunyata.

Read it a while back during one of those existentialism trips.

>>2565466
>You can have an illusion without having a self.
>you can be fooled into thinking you exist when you don't exist
>you don't exist but it appears like you exist, to you. Because you've been fooled into thinking you exist; you don't exist but it's still possible to fool you into thinking you exist

can't make this shit up

>in possession of a self

Not how this works you know. The self is that which may possess, not that which is possessed. It's not an idea or a concept.

>>2565554

The trick is you're using language which itself has been influenced by that illusion (and I am too, even in this sentence where I use the pronouns you and I).

Just because you use the word "sunrise" doesn't mean geocentrism is right. What it means is the word "sunrise" was influenced by geocentric thinking. Just because you write sentences implying a "self" is being "fooled" doesn't mean illusion requires a "self." It means the language for being fooled / subject to illusion was influenced by self illusion thinking.

Nobody needs to be "fooled" for an illusion to happen. An appearance needs to be read in that differs from reality. Again, consider image recognition programs for a less controversial instance of this. Google Images doesn't have a "self" (or isn't a "self"). It can still read in appearances that differ from reality. It can identify thing A as thing B. That's all an illusion is. No self required.

>>2565579
>image recognition programs

The analogy is bad because you're still conflating self with image. I'm not disputing the fact that images do not represent reality, that self-image is an illusion.

I'm saying that no matter how hard you try, you can't get around the fact that there remains ineffable consciousness. Strip away all the phenomenal qualia, concepts, and you're still necessarily left with that which once simply beheld them. Not anything that renders judgement, just simple awareness. You can't fool that, because it doesn't reason.

>>2563792
Hypothetically what would a man be if he remained a "you" form a set period?

Would he be a human voice mail system?

>>2565881

literally the same man he was from that set period

>>2565307

>my religious ideology is more valid than yours

The copy isn't "you", the teleporter kills you, and yes, there did in fact exist a "you" to be killed. Consciousness is real and not an illusion and the teleporter zaps your consciousness out of existence and creates a new one.

No concept you can name from fucking Buddhism has any relevance here. Anybody who disagrees is an asshole.

It's cool, though. You can step into the murder-teleporter all you want. Step into it a hundred times! I won't, and neither will anybody I care about (because I'll yell at them if they try).

I'm sure your clone will enjoy exploring Planet Zxur'bxia, and I hope YOU will enjoy endless nonexistence or whatever else comes after death.

>>2565954
>the teleporter zaps your consciousness out of existence

lol no, I actually doubt you can create or destroy consciousness.

>your clone will enjoy exploring Planet Zxur'bxia

Actually a utilitarian could really get behind this I think.

>>2565962
>lol no, I actually doubt you can create or destroy consciousness.
Kind of a silly thing to argue about since we really have no idea what causes consciousness or what it even is.

I have no opinion on whether or not consciousness ends with death -- again, it's stupid thing to have strong opinions about since we know fuck all about it -- but I think there's at least a reasonable chance that total brain death = cessation of consciousness.

Consequently I will not be stepping into a murder-teleporter anytime soon.

>>2565973
>causation

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>2563777
There's an episode in Next Gen where there was a transporter malfunction and it creates a new riker, but doesn't destroy the old one. They're percieved and two individual people, and in this case the replicated riker was abandoned on a space station for something like 10 years and still retained all the memories/desires of his old life

>>2563777
>not just folding space and be "relocated" as a way of transportation

Beaming up in Star Trek is a very good sci-fi idea, but it wouldn't be the perfect way to "teleport".
A few years and people will understand how much easier is to simply change the spatial coordinates / data of the person and simply get from here to there.

>>2565954

>Consciousness is real and not an illusion

Yes, nobody called *consciousness* an illusion here. The problem is you're confusing consciousness with "self."

>there did in fact exist a "you" to be killed

No. There's a very good reason a teleporter can perfectly recreate every single physical structure and bodily process a person has and yet it still seems like "you" weren't carried over. Consider the possibilities for why that would be the case; it mostly boils down to these two:

1) "You" aren't carried over because the self is somehow a phenomenon that doesn't have any basis in physical structure or bodily processes.

2) There was never any literal "you" object to begin with.

Possibility 1 doesn't make much sense. We're assuming for the sake of argument the copying mechanism is absolutely perfect and yet isn't carrying this one thing over. Why? Can you come up with a way to improve on this perfect copying mechanism so it begins succeeding at carrying over the self? By definition you can't, it's already perfect.

The resolution for how it can both be perfect in its copying and still "miss" the "self" is that the "self" was never there to begin with. And this isn't just some conclusion you can only reach through logic. You can actually experience the dissolution of the "self" belief. Buddhism / the Pali Canon teaches how this can be experienced through sustained focus of attention on the mind. And ego death is a well known effect of certain psychoactive drugs. When dissolution of the self belief occurs, all the mental processes are still there: memories are still accessible, thinking's still possible, sensations are still felt, etc. But the sense "you" now shares in an identity with "you" from earlier falls away. You realize all of that was a narrative, not a physical reality. This narrative has tremendous power, to the point where those who haven't experienced the release from it can't even imagine what it's like not to believe in it.

How do we know that our identity preserved when we wake up after long sleep? Could be that we just die every morning and can't really do better.

>>2566421
Only way to be sure is to be conscious of everything at all points in time. Since time moves in wave like function anyway, how can we even tell whether or not our identities are same during those ups and downs between plank time?

>>2565656

>Strip away all the phenomenal qualia, concepts, and you're still necessarily left with that which once simply beheld them.

Attention is a mental process too. It isn't the "self." The idea attention is the "self" is the illusion (or one part of the illusion anyway; people also tend to identify most of their other mental processes as part of their "self").

>You can't fool that, because it doesn't reason.

There is no requirement that attention / awareness be "fooled" in order for the illusion of attention / awareness being one's "self" to happen. You keep on acting like illusion always needs someone to "fool" when all that's actually required is an untrue belief or assertion. The mind saying "this is X" when really there is no "X" can happen just fine without a "self" needing to be there.

>>2566421

>How do we know that our identity preserved

It was never there to begin with. Imagine a row of rocks lined up on the ground. And imagine you believe that row of rocks is one cohesive thing because you're looking at it from far away and they kind of blur together into what looks like a single line. But on closer inspection you can see they aren't all part of the same cohesive thing and it was just their proximity to one another that created an illusion of physical continuity.

Now replace the rocks with moments in time. You believe the array of moments in time of your mind's activity are one cohesive thing. But on closer inspection you can see they aren't all part of one cohesive thing and it was just their proximity to one another that created the illusion of temporal continuity.

>>2566416
God damn you're retarded you're acting like there is only 2 possibilities when there is another:
You die because "you" is that specific ongoing instance of yourself and a copy is a separate instance so you die.
If you open up a program twice on a computer, you're not running the same instance of the program twice. You're running two separate instances of the same program.
Retard.

>>2563864
What does reductionism even mean in this context?

>>2566470
Your identity is preserved, there's no doubt about that. It's a perfect copy (or close enough that no one could tell, has all your memories, etc.)

Question is whether your point of perception is preserved. Does it magically move to this new copy, or did you die?

From everyone else's perspective, you've been preserved, from an internal point of perception, something known only to yourself, are you still you?

I don't think we know enough about how consciousness works to really say.

>>2566453

>attention = awareness
>error = illusion

If teleportation were discovered there would be about a week of philosophy until the Chinese/Russians just start teleporting people who don't know/care about continuity, and the rest of the world' s politicians do whatever they can to make people lose their objections

Next time my mom complains about how I should call her more because I owe her a debt of gratitude because she labored 36 hours to give birth to me I will just tell her:

Mom, you don't exist, and neither do I. We are just probabilistic constructs of the fluctuations of energy, perceived as matter, acting entirely according to unchangeable deterministic chains of events falsely perceived as time but more accurately as random and continuous variability. You didn't give birth to me, I don't exist.

Moms, BTFO. How will they ever recover.

>>2569505
I need a Mother's Day card with this on it.

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>>2563777
I wouldn't care about stepping into them so much, mainly because if it does strip my soul from my mortal body, not much changes except I die sooner. In the philosophical sense, now, a simulacrum is going about my business and doing my will since our wills are the same.

In a sense, I "die," but I'm still affecting the world, leaving a lasting legacy in this physical realm. This assumes that the soul does not affect the physical beyond simply applying the idea of consciousness to something, though if it did, we'd be able to see a marked change in people after stepping into a teleporter.

>>2566740

>You die because "you" is that specific ongoing instance of yourself and a copy is a separate instance so you die.
>If you open up a program twice on a computer, you're not running the same instance of the program twice.

Opening a separate instance of a program doesn't make the second instance carry over the memory recorded during the first instance. That's different from the person copying machine which does reproduce memories.

>>2569505

>perceived

see, this right there is where the whole "I don't exist" thing starts to fall apart.

>>2569562
dank

>>2566740
>>2569575

Also if you had a program running where memory was being stored e.g. all your keystrokes were being written to a table then you could stop it and start it again and it wouldn't "die." It would continue with the memory it stored the same as if you never stopped it to begin with. It's the same idea as saving a video game and then picking it back up later. The memory being there is what determines whether you're resuming the previous game or starting a new one. If the memory's carried over, that's the most continuity of identity you can get out of the situation. And the fact you could resume the same file on two different machines instead of just one doesn't make the two separate resumed games any less a continuation of the game before it was stopped. Having two copies around at the same time screws with people's intuition about "self" because it's not a situation you normally have to deal with, but there's really nothing about multiplicity that takes away from what either copy has. When there are two separate copies, each can begin having its own distinct memories that aren't shared with one another, but this doesn't make the connection between the two copies and the source from before the copying less legitimate. As long as the copy has all the memories from the source up until the point of being copied, then it's as good as any other moment to moment memory carryover in the source from before the copying took place.

>>2569626

Perceptions aren't what self is. And perceptions only seem to require a "self" because that's what the "self" idea does: promotes the belief different mental processes are all being done by or for the "self."

>>2569640
>And the fact you could resume the same file on two different machines instead of just one doesn't make the two separate resumed games any less a continuation of the game before it was stopped.
It is a different continuation of the game though, it's just the information that the player cares about is retained.
>but this doesn't make the connection between the two copies and the source from before the copying less legitimate.
No one fucking cares man, that's not what is being argued YOU are dead.
If I hit your clone, you don't feel it. You can't think with the clones mind, and take actions using the clones body. If you fuck your clone, you're not going to feel the sensation of fucking yourself while you fuck yourself. You still only get half of the equation. That's what's important, and since you can't the clone isn't you.
You can commit suicide thinking a copy of you is the same thing as your self.
I'll be over here still alive with my copy laughing at you for being retarded and bullying your orphaned copy for being just as retarded.

>>2569684

>YOU are dead

Yes, but not any more dead than you already are from moment to moment before the copying took place. Continuity of self isn't an actual physical process. It's a meme story used to make sense of memory. There's nothing there to die.

>If I hit your clone, you don't feel it.

That's because now you're dealing with two separate bodies at the same time. Of course they're not going to share sensations or memories between each other. That doesn't make the copy less of a carryover of the past source as the present source is. The source from before the copying isn't any more in the present source as it is in the copy. Past version "selves" don't teleport into future version selves to begin with. It's a faulty premise. The copy doesn't pick up the "self" and neither does the original. The closest thing to "self" are the memories, and both are equal inheritors of the source's memories from before the copying, regardless of if both then have their own separate paths of memory formation after the copying.

>>2569757
>The source from before the copying isn't any more in the present source as it is in the copy. Past version "selves" don't teleport into future version selves to begin with. It's a faulty premise.
Okay man go stick "your" head in a woodchipper because "you" will already be dead so 'you' don't have to worry about the consequences.

>>2569785

There isn't really a very good reason to worry about death except that it's a biological impulse to do so. So that's not a great argument to try to make.

>>2563777

OP's question is a little "cute" by /his/ standards, but everyone who is seriously interested in the implications of this would be well-served to listen to the commentary track of The Fly by Cronenberg, and other "behind-the-scenes" stuff about that movie.

In Star Trek, "transportation" (teleportation) is just one incidental magical piece of technology among many, in the future. Its horrors and possibilities are explored a bit, but there's always a bunch of other stuff going on, so this doesn't get too deep.

In The Fly, teleportation and its technological and ethical implications are THE central high-concept sci-fi premise. Cronenberg alternately considers that every act of teleportation literally kills its "input" instance, replacing it with a functionally similar "output" instance when all goes well. Yet the two are not the same person. In other words, Brundle was already dead the moment he teleported over - with the fly in the chamber as well. What was left was a copy that wasn't even really, "essentially" Brundle to begin with.

On the other hand, Cronenberg is even-handed about the historical implications of his speculation, and just because he wanted to make a monster movie doesn't necessarily mean that he condemns the tech possibility as-such. After all, the development of trains and automobiles and so on entailed countless deaths and pose plenty of hazards, but we like this tech enough that we can live with ourselves and go on using it. Cronenberg supposes that apart from his abortive speculation, it might happen that some future society finds a good use for teleportation if it were possible.

polite sage for not-/his/ but sorta-meta-related.

>>2569814
>OP's question is a little "cute" by /his/ standards,
That can sound really rude, depending on what kind of threads one thinks are predominant here.

>>2569814
I keep seeing pop culture references to The Fly, but never watched it. I might watch it today then.

>After all, the development of trains and automobiles and so on entailed countless deaths and pose plenty of hazards, but we like this tech enough that we can live with ourselves and go on using it.
When you enter a car or a train, you accept the possibility of death, but you, personally, wouldn't count it as a success when you actually die in the process.
When you enter the duplication device and think that it kills you, you accept assured death.

To society as a whole the difference wouldn't be meaningful, but to the individuum involved it would be.

>>2569814
Welcome to & Humanities. The teleporter conundrum has become a staple of philosophical debate, alluding to the illusion of self in the same way a tree collapsing in a forest with no one around to hear it once did. Sadly, there is no /phil/ nor /rel/igion to clean up /his/.

Roddenberry did actually think of this in his "magical pieces of technology", however, and solved the problem in Star Trek by not having a teleporter that kills you and makes a copy. It's a matter-energy transfer beam, that converts the matter you're made of to energy, and converts it back to matter elsewhere. So it's just a severe state change, rather than death. It's a bit more extreme an interruption to consciousness than anesthesia, but a lot quicker. (Not that, again, a lot of writers didn't fudge this system.)

>>2569814
>by /his/ standards

Ayy fucking lmao

>>2569814
>polite sage for not-/his/ but sorta-meta-related.

please, PLEASE fuck off to reddit or whatever forum you came from

Trek teleportation is matter to energy to matter conversion.

Spoiler alert, your matter is already just an expression of energy as a probabilistic system. You are just as alive in the transporter beam as you are outside of it. Nothing outside the transporter beam of yourself is missing inside the beam as you transport.

There is no disintegration or reanimation. Everything standing on the pad has its state changed and changed back. Does an electro magnet die if you change its polarity? No. It can be change back and forth. The polarity positive and negative are both natural possible states. The same goes for your physical bodies. If every material part of you was converted to energy and that energy pattern converted back to matter, you did not die, there was no copy. It's a phase change process.

OPs question was misleading. Please stop these threads.

>>2570446
>Please stop these threads.
What threads?

>>2570446
You didn't watch trek if you did you'd know about the problems of steel teleportation and personal identity. There are few episodes that specifically deal with the teleportation and identity. One such example is when people were duplicated in a transported issue. Others when new life was created by mixing multiple people.

It's physically impossible to make a perfect copy with every single particle in the right order, because quantum mechanics don't allow it.

>>2563816
If the consciousness of the original continues in the copy then it is the same person. Every single cell that currently makes up your body is different than the cells that made you when you were a child. However, you have the same consciousness, therefore it's still you.

>>2566416
Goddamn you people are fucking annoying.

Nobody's confusing shit, they're DISAGREEING with you, and you're failing to understand them (me (all of us)). As the person who replied to you said, consciousness is an integral part of the "self." You are all three of these things:

1) the hardware (your brain/body)
2) the software running on that hardware (your consciousness)
3) THE SPECIFIC INSTANCE OF THAT SOFTWARE (your current thread of consciousness, the one that's been continuous since you were born and will be terminated the second you step into the teleporter)

Everything you wrote about ego death was pure wankery. Temporary loss of your SENSE OF SELF does not equal loss of your ACTUAL SELF, any more than your hand is missing when it goes numb.

>>2569757
>>2569804
>Yes, but not any more dead than you already are from moment to moment before the copying took place. Continuity of self isn't an actual physical process. It's a meme story used to make sense of memory. There's nothing there to die.
>There isn't really a very good reason to worry about death except that it's a biological impulse to do so. So that's not a great argument to try to make.
That's a big fat assertion with absolutely nothing to support it. Fine if that's one of your religious beliefs, but not appropriate here.

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>>2570487
Because not every episode of Star Trek was written by, or even checked by, Gene Roddenberry, and any bit of tech could be twisted for sake of plot advancement.

Not that his system would preclude some of those possibilities nor that they didn't try to explain it from time to time. In the Riker Clone incident, they stated that Riker's energy bounced off a "mysterious energy field" in this strange planet's atmosphere, created an echo, and somehow made a duplicate from that using that anomaly's energy, rather than his own.

The Tuvix incident Roddenberry had nothing to do with at all, but one of course could have two sources of energy and mix them together wrong under such a system.

A more blatant violation happened in DS9's episode "Our Man Bashir" when they state they've lost the energy and are forced to put the crew back together from the data alone, which they've somehow stored at a higher than normal capacity by wiping the bulk of the station's computer core and storing it there. (Which someone ends them up on the holodeck, cuz, fuck you, magic.)

>>2570446
But in the end the fact that it's a misnomer doesn't matter, because one COULD conceivably have a teleporter that did operate by disassembling and cloning you rather than transforming you. Even if Roddenberry was forward thinking enough to avoid that conundrum himself, it still exists.

>>2570529

#3 in your list is just memories. The separate instance analogy is bad because separate instances don't carry over memory, this copying machine does carry over memory.

*After* the copying, if you keep the original around or otherwise end up with two or more versions of a person running at the same time, then you have separate instances. No memories will be transmitted between them because they're each making new memories of their own now. This has nothing to do with the actual relationship between source and copy where memories are copied over by that machine for everything in the source's head up until the moment of copying.

In this way, the copy in its first moment compared to the source in its last moment before being copied is exactly like the relationship between any other two moments in the source's past mental states. These moments are interpretted as two parts of a cohesive chain in both cases on the basis of memory and narative logic (that second thing being cases like when you think you must have had a croissant for breakfast because you notice the receipt, where the memory of getting it slips your mind but the evidence convinces you to decide that must be what you did earlier). This interpretation falls apart when you consider cases like a person copying machine because it was never a physical thing to begin with. We know you wouldn't be teleported into a copy because then "you" would be in two minds at once - a state that doesn't seem to make sense. But it also doesn't make sense to say you wouldn't teleport over to the other body in the copying case but would teleport over from moment to moment in different states of your body since the copy and you from t+1 second are physically identical in structure, bodily processes, and mental processes.

If you disagree, you will need to explain how to update the copying machine to do the same "self" carrying over that the body does. How do you transmit the alleged "self" state?

>>2569653
>Perceptions aren't what self is.

I NEVER FUCKING SAID THAT IT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS BUT YOU INSIST ON MISREPRESENTING MY POSITION

>that's what the "self" idea does

THE TRUE SELF IS NOT THE IDEA OF SELF (SELF IMAGE) WHY CAN YOU NOT GET THIS THROUGH YOUR HEAD

>>2573499

There is no "true self." The idea of a "self" is all that's actually there. It's an idea, not a physical reality. Your "self" is a story, not some literal physical mechanism responsible for doing anything. It's not like you can turn "it" on or off or take it from one body to another. Just because you want it to be more than an idea doesn't mean it is. The belief a "self" is having thoughts doesn't make the thoughts actually a product of the "self." Same for any of the other things you believe your "self" does or experiences. You have a belief of that going on, but it isn't in reality. The brain tells stories about selves, it doesn't actually maintain a literal "self" program that could ever be copied over; can't be in the copy because it was never in the original. Nobody suffers from "self loss." Lots of people suffer from memory loss. "Self" isn't a real brain process, memories and narratives featuring the character named "myself" are what really exist.

>>2573499
>>2573560

Also I think you made a point of differentiating between awareness / attention vs. thoughts / feelings / other mental states.

So I'll clarify the same thing applies in either case. Awareness isn't "self" any more than any other mental process is. And awareness doesn't carry over from moment to moment. Memories are what carry over. If you lose lots of memories that's the closest real world neurological analogue to losing "self."

>>2573560
>You have a belief
>"self" is a story

But I don't exist. How can I believe or listen to a story that I exist, if it is the case that I don't exist?

>you can turn "it" on or off

It's not something you possess. It is essence, essential logically and experientially. It is that from which all else necessarily proceeds.

>have a belief of that going on, but it isn't in reality

Duh, that belief or story is self image (though to be precise illusions are actually real, they just misrepresent or pose as other real things). Again you conflate fleeting perception, image, and memory with self. You are trapped in a logical cycle that always returns to the blind assertion taken as tautology that "there is no true self".

Why is that? With what justification do you make that universal negative assertion?

>real brain process is real
>buddhist logic

So you're saying the brain is the real. Like clockwork, pure material. Just random particle clusters banging around, fooling themselves into believing they have experiences.

>>2573612
Awareness is a metaphorical term here, like all language. Experience cannot actually be communicated. It's the "tell me what the color red looks like without pointing at an apple" problem again. Can you solve it?

>Memories are what carry over.

They appear to, but they don't (they degrade quickly, and are reconstructed). What is the thing that they appear to?

File: buddha-smile-e1323944656403.jpg (107KB, 1100x692px) Image search: [Google]

107KB, 1100x692px

>>2564040
>Continuity of self exists

File: 1487886424858.jpg (50KB, 552x615px) Image search: [Google]

50KB, 552x615px

>>2573733
>he thinks self is a slightly longer perception than normal

what is that which is perceiving perception?

>tfw pic related is as valid a response as your picture of Gautama Buddha

nobody cares if you take your religious precepts as truth. You still have to prove it. I could just as easily appeal to Xenu, doesn't mean I'm right.

>>2573763

>what is that which is perceiving perception?

the 5 skandhas.

there, it has been proved.

>>2573785
>form (or matter or body) (rupa)
...
>sensations (or feelings, received from form) (vedana), perceptions (samjna), mental activity or formations (sankhara)

These are all the same thing. Perceptions perceive perception perceiving percepts?

>and consciousness (vijnana).

Now we're talking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vij%C3%B1%C4%81na#Across_Buddhist_schools

JUST

>>2573835

well they're all connected, that's the point. there is no free standing thing which is not dependant on other things, including the thing that perceives.

>>2573890
>they're all connected

by what

>>2573903

by each other. the principles which explain their relation are called dependant origination and 'emptiness'.

>>2573927
>by each other

so they're all the same thing

>>2573946

in a way, yes. in another way, no.

>>2573706

>But I don't exist. How can I believe or listen to a story that I exist, if it is the case that I don't exist?

Neither listening nor believing require a "self" to happen. The idea they do is an example of the language we've inherited being influenced by the "self" story. Again, consider the example of the word sunrise. If I tell you the sun doesn't actually rise during a sunrise, you would be making a bad argument by trying to point out I used the word "sunrise" which implies the sun did rise. The language in that case was influenced by the incorrect premise of geocentrism, just like the language in the case of a lot of language we use today is influenced (heavily) by the assumption of the premise there are "selves" doing / experiencing everything.

>It is essence, essential logically and experientially. It is that from which all else necessarily proceeds.

That sounds like a bunch of spooky magical thinking shenanigans, like this old and now obsolete concept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

Why does there need to be some magical unfalsifiable "essence" that we conveniently cannot experimentally validate?

>So you're saying the brain is the real.

The line you're referring to, with its context, is:

>"Self" isn't a real brain process, memories and narratives featuring the character named "myself" are what really exist.

The brain is real, specifically in the sense that it's a physical object that can validated as there by multiple senses, people, and measuring apparatuses independently. Abstract objects aren't real in that sense, though that's also not to say they're nothing at all. Numbers obviously have a lot of power as abstract objects without existing physically for example. It would be incredibly inefficient to only think in terms of actual physical objects; you probably wouldn't have a computer to read this (or electric lighting, or even just language) if we did.

>>2574098
>consider the example of the word sunrise
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

really bad analogy

You still can't meaningfully substantiate your universal negative assertion, ie that "there is no true self". I am going to force you into agnosticism on this issue.

>brain is real
>can validated as there by multiple senses, people, and measuring apparatuses independently

As if there isn't anything else that people generally have an intuition about in the same way relating to identity. I find it ironic that you now come down on the side of the naive validity of sensory information, given that you've previously attacked the "concept of self" using terms that would suggest perceptions related to a unified and individual experience cannot be taken at their face value because it somehow must be an illusion.

But somehow "brain" is more real than "self". It's not like the term "brain" is just a mental abstraction we use to try and make sense of correlated perceptions or anything.

I'm just trying to get to the root of why experience is even remotely necessary in a singularly material universe, it seems completely superfluous to me. A clock can function just fine without an internal experience, a computer can, why does it suddenly become necessary for humans?

This brings me back to my original point, that you can't get around the problem of consciousness. You must either apply consciousness to all particular objects in the universe, or restrict it to one or several.

I'll ask again, can you tell me what the color red looks like to you without pointing at an object you call red?

>>2570397

No. I never have, and I never will. I've been using 4chan literally since early 2004, I'm not going anywhere, and there's nothing that you can do about it. :^)

>Philosotard is still trying to argue that the self doesn't exist
>Literally everything in modern civilization is based on self and free will. Justice system, economy, property rights, rights in general.
How do you reconcile believing self doesn't actually exist and it literally not mattering if it does or not because everyone else acts as if it does?
What is even the point of arguing? What changes do you expect if society collectively realized self doesn't exist?

>>2574566
Enlightenment era