wfz on 15 May 2012
| Dodece said: I feel qualified to answer this question, and the answer is that a perfect duplication is fundamentally impossible. This isn't a matter of philosophy, but the laws of nature. It goes all the way down to Quantum Uncertainty. Without going into a lecture you can replicate the dance hall, but you can't replicate the dance. The mind isn't the brain, and while it may not exist independently it is a unpredictable fluctuation. Just like in Uncertainty observing something changes the outcome. Trying to replicate a quantum fluctuation would require a measurement which would change how the next thought progresses. So though the scientists might try to pull it off. All they would get for their trouble is you waking up like you are always apt to do without a sense of anything being amiss. Your clone however will know damn well something is terribly wrong. They will sense a profound discontinuity of thought. You would have a real sense of continuity. While they will have a jarring collage of incomprehensible gibberish running through their head as they wake up. You may not grasp this, but your mind never actually shuts down. Even in the deepest sleep it is still continuing on. This is part of why you never see people acting like computers. Why you don't have to reboot, or why you never just lag all the way out. The mind isn't the hardware it is just something that resides within the hardware. It just isn't possible to replicate a mind. Now if you want to question the soul aspect of this endeavor. I would have to say that the soul would probably be at the quantum level as well. So no you wouldn't share a soul with the clone, because both of you would have decidedly different quantum states. You would be utterly different from each other in that regard. Your neurons will not fire in synch with one another, and you will not be having the same thoughts at the same time. Even if you are given the same stimulus you will not react in the exact same way, because thinking itself is random. This is also something that computers cannot do as well. If you and your clone were both asked to pick a purely random number. You will not pick the same number. The mind really is random at the moment to moment level. Only the overarching brush strokes could ever be the same. Anyway the clone wouldn't be you, and they would know that, and you would know that. You wouldn't be of the same mind on things from moment to moment, and whether the clone feels it has a soul would really be entirely up to your perspective. I would wager that clones of Atheists would have the lowest mortality rate. Clones of fundamentalists would probably go right off the deep end. You know not being able to live with the knowledge that they do not fit the criteria for having a soul. Really easy to see a lot of those walking off the top of tall buildings. |
Thanks for your insight. I suppose if it's just fundamentally impossible to replicate all of someone, then the question doesn't matter anymore as it would take place in a universe different than ours.
I'm aware that our brains never shut down, and I'm also aware that our brains also show more activity during parts of our sleep than it does while we're awake, but would our brain not shut down if we were in some sort of cryogenic sleep? What would theoretically (or literally?) happen to our brains if we were in such a state? If our brains stay active, do we dream or are otherwise aware of our being alive? If so... could we technically live forever in that sleep?
