Comments for The Phantom Self

Comment on Progress in Replication Technology by Sammael.

Sammael. — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:12:50 +0000

It is indeed possible to replicate a human.
It’s much simpler than most people think it is as well.

I’d be more than happy to talk with you more.

Comment on Phoenix – episode 3 by David Nyman

David Nyman — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:04:09 +0000

Excellent idea!! There are so many ramifications: “why get old and die?” for one. It makes you realise that a technology like this couldn’t help but re-shape human psychology in a fundamental way. Thanks goodness it’s only a story.

Comment on The Self Illusion by David Nyman

David Nyman — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:58:20 +0000

Another way, consistent with appearances, to intuit why there is no difference between SURVIVE and DIE, or between EXPERIENCE-AS-USUAL and THE-END-AS-USUAL, is that consciousness associates to each of the alternatives “according to its season”. In this view, first-personal experience is a qualitative integration, within each mutually-exclusive here-and-now instance, of a particular stage in the informational history of “how I got here”. These seemingly different pairs are actually framed so as to re-constitute equivalent first-personal histories; consequently they are indistinguishable. Looked at in this way, it is an analytic truth that the “self” referenced in each instance of consciousness is the same.

Comment on Introduction by Bill Meacham

Bill Meacham — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:11:47 +0000

Fascinating. Your notion of personhood or selfhood as a collection of attributes rather than a substance sounds remarkably like the Buddhist notion of _anatta_ or no-self. In this view, what we take ourselves to be is a collection of thoughts, feelings, perceptions and so forth (this is not a complete list) that undergoes change, but in that collection there is no stable thing or substance that is the self. What has continuity is the pattern, which is constituted by the attributes but is not itself any of the attributes or even all of them. Instead it is how they are combined and how they interact through time. A bit like information, I suppose. Good on ya!

Comment on Introduction by Gordon Cornwall

Gordon Cornwall — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 18:04:07 +0000

My theory has some explanatory and predictive content, and therefore is subject to test. That does not make testing it easy; but testing becomes more straightforward when there is a clearly stated alternative theory to test against. In your September comment you suggested the possibility that we have souls. What is the predictive content of THAT hypothesis? If I believed in souls, I would predict that information-based teleportation, as I have described it, would not work. Scientists’ best attempts to replicate a person would fail, because a soul is (I suppose) something that cannot be copied by conventional technology. Without a soul, the replica would, presumably, be dead–or perhaps it would have a kind of organic life, but no ‘inner life,’ no consciousness. Would it be zombie-like? What’s your prediction? (If you think it would be dead, consider the fact that even today it is possible to construct a mouse heart using ink-jet printing technology, and the heart beats! See my post on bioprinting.)

The more general a theory is, typically, the more difficult it is to prove or disprove it by empirical test. For many years after the Copernican revolution, Ptolemaic geocentrism was better than Copernican heliocentrism at predicting astronomical observations. Today, we see the difficulties in trying to confirm or disconfirm the existence of the Higgs boson. Difficult is not impossible, but it will be a few more decades before we have a definitive answer on human replication.

Comment on Introduction by J W

J W — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:39:03 +0000

Let’s assume an exceedingly simplified model. I transmit an attribute to three people. One person absorbs it, turns it into the complete opposite of what I originally gave him, and passes that attribute on to others. The second person acquires my attribute, garbles it somewhat, and transfers it to others. The third person passes the attribute on to others exactly as I originally transmitted it. This isn’t a very good success rate even in a simple model. It’s also interesting to note that each of these three people made an individual choice about what to do with the attribute.

So are you working toward a metric to measure the impact of individual “informational entities” on other “informational entities?” Quantifying the impact of someone like Mahatma Gandhi would be difficult, but perhaps within the realm of possibility.

I would caution you to not move into the realm of the unprovable, namely:

“If we are attributes, not substances, then the immortality we can aspire to consists in our effect on other people and on the world at large.”

This is a rather exclusive claim. Examples of other exclusive claims are, “Studying Buddha is the only way to attain Nirvana,” (I know, I know, most Buddhists don’t say that), or “Jesus is the only way to Heaven,” or “I myself am God.”

Instead, I suggest you stick to what you can say about your model. Namely, you are discussing the assimilation and transmission of attributes. You have some very fascinating ideas, but I caution you to remember the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Human beings are incredibly complex, and you’re describing just one aspect of humanity – the acquisition, processing, and transmission of traits. That alone is a wonderfully deep subject, but it’s merely one tiny little aspect of what makes an individual human being tick.

Comment on Introduction by J W

J W — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:14:30 +0000

Proof by lack of evidence is a fallacy as well. One must be exceedingly careful when presenting a case for one’s world view!

Comment on Death, Revisited by Ramachandran - The Phantom Neuroscientist | Chandra Telescope

Ramachandran - The Phantom Neuroscientist | Chandra Telescope — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:03:45 +0000

[...] The Phantom Self, by Gordon Cornwall – an inquiry into the concept of self. Table of Contents. Posted in Chandra Telescope Articles | Tags: Neuroscientist, Phantom, Phantom Neuroscientist, Ramachandran, Ramachandran Phantom [...]

Comment on The Phantom Neuroscientist by Clancette Clift

Clancette Clift — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 09:45:58 +0000

This article is very interesing, and I shall take it to bed with me tonight to peruse more fully. Thank you. Clancette

Comment on On Sympathy by Claudia

Claudia — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:32:06 +0000

Hi Gordon,
When I read that anticipation of future experience is not rationally required, I balk. Of course, it is! And then I remember that there is a long chain of reasoning that gets you here–the puzzle cases in which it seems equally rational to anticipate being a certain person and not anticipating being her. Anticipation requires an element of decision, it is not demanded by the facts…But it is so hard to keep all this in mind. And when put against the sharp insistence of self concern, it seems such a will o wisp!