At least, consciousness seems to be the precondition for all other mental operation. And all the mental operations and interactions are the signs of being conscious.
We cannot call someone is conscious, unless he/she exhibits the signs of being conscious with intelligible and proper interactions, communications and responses with nature and other folks.
But no one can exhibit those signs unless he/she is conscious.
I have counter-arguments for the duplication hypothetical, but I was asking about a recreation hypothetical. In the recreation hypothetical, does it make a difference (i.e. whether you survive the process) if I use the original atoms or new atoms, and if so: why?
Maybe but if that’s true then AI is still not conscious. We can infer all we like but consciousness is still something rather personal.
But I digress, my question still stands above, how do all these speculations about identity look and function in our lives? How would these apply? For the guy saying there is no continuity, what does that look like and work like in life?
Would criminal trials be pointless because the person who committed the crime “died” a second ago? Would we be having constant funerals for the same reason? Would people bond with anyone else or make friends?
Like, idle speculation is all well and good but the rubber has to meet the road eventually.
Hehe. I disagree with every word. I don’t think there’s any such thing as “signs of consciousness”. I don’t think for example, worms are not conscious just because they cannot communicate with us or show signs of any kind of mental operations or intelligence. that just means they don’t have mental operations or intelligence. It doesn’t mean they do not subjectively experience.
I cannot survive the process of being vaporized down to the constituent atoms.
To me, the way you are responding to my posts and replying is a good sign of consciousness of your mind. If you didn’t reply at all, then I wouldn’t have any sign for your consciousness. Or if you replied with some irrelevant topics and contents, then I might be suspicious if you were conscious while writing the replies.
Every word people utter, and sentences they write, the expressions on their face, and actions they take are the signs of consciousness.
Worms could well be conscious but it is limited to just finding the darkness and lightness, and warmth and moist in the soils. Obviously you cannot communicate with worms, because they don’t have language.
That is just your imagination. There is no evidence to prove worms have subjective experience or not.
I have not had any luck searching the old website, so can’t link to where’s I said this. But I have used vision as an analogy to try to explain my thinking.
If I am looking at a blank, white sheet of paper, I am not seeing nearly as much complexity and detail as I am when I am looking at the Grand Canyon or a flower garden. But that doesn’t mean I’m not seeing. And it doesn’t mean I am seeing to a lesser degree. It just means what I am seeing is less complex and detailed.
A worm does not subjectively experience remotely as much mental complexity and detail as a human does. But that doesn’t mean it’s not experiencing. And it doesn’t mean it’s experiencing to a lesser degree. It just means what it’s experiencing is less complex and detailed.
It’s not even my imagination. At least not in the sense that I imagine I see signs of consciousness in worms, or electrons. Rather, I think it is necessary for the capacity to subjectively experience to exist in all things, in all particles. Consciousness is not physical (nobody can find any physical characteristics), and it doesn’t make sense that something non-physical can arise from physical components. Therefore, it must be present in the components.
Worms can be conscious, but their mental capacity is much limited than other animals.
From our observations, worms are far more conscious than plants.
Only evidence we have for telling consciousness is the signs of consciousness by observing how the agents respond and interacts with nature and other agents.
I agree that consciousness is not physical.
Only knowledge we have about consciousness is that it is behaviour of the biological beings for their survival and wellbeing via interacting in intelligible and coherent way with nature and other beings.
So let’s follow this through. If I had a magic machine that can separate every atom of your brain for a millisecond, and reassemble them, did you survive that?
For clarity btw, what I am trying to get at with questions like this is whether we have a good model of what personal identity is, and in turn whether it is preserved across various operations.
Someone just asserting “you survive that” or “that’s not you” or whatever, isn’t that. Anyone who is satisfied with using their intuition to just make a judgement call: great, I’m happy for you.
But I remain much more interested in trying to arrive at a concrete model, or otherwise at least acknowledging that it is not possible to make such a model at this time.
Yes. I’m suggesting all that is wrong. I think we have been defining consciousness incorrectly all along. (And many define it only vaguely, at that.) This is not how we should be thinking of consciousness. My reasoning is that, first, there’s no evidence or logic to support the idea that something non-physical can emerge from physical components. Second, because I like having what I think is a definition of consciousness that, because it is very basic, is fairly straightforward.
Again, I know I’m alone in this thinking. 
OK, if that is your belief, then no one can change it. I am not trying to change your belief. I just find your belief totally different from mine, and that is fine.
The problem with your reasoning is that you seem to trying to make out something must emerge from some physical component. Nothing need to emerge from physical component, be it physical or non-physical.
We have our own biological body functional, and evolved for thousands of years, and as long as the body functions as it should, we have our consciousness.
Nothing need to emerge from anything. We are conscious and able to interact in the world with other humans working away and doing daily chores.
From my view, nothing else need to be involved in the matter of consciousness apart from the ability to interact intelligibly and coherent in the world and with other humans.
That is the border line where philosophy can deal with. More than that talking about neurons and electrochemical signals going in and out of brains, is the area of the biologists and neuro scientists.
I don’t have any lab facilities or experiments, tests and dissecting apparatus for doing researches into that type of tasks.
I can only tell about the signs of being conscious of humans, and what could they mean when they exhibit certain signs of being conscious or when they utter certain type of words - what type of conscious state could they be? - that is my interest. Nothing else.
It is not about right or wrong. We have different views on the topic. Hence I wouldn’t say your idea is wrong and mine is right.
It is about which ideas make more sense and sound more reasonable, not being right or wrong.
My ideas is that you cannot see consciousness without the biological beings such as humans or animals.
Humans always come with consciousness, and that is the definition of humans unless they have some physical disability.
All biological animals also exhibit some form of consciousness by their behaviours and actions they take in nature for their survivals.
It seems not quite meaningful to trying to see consciousness as something on its own be it physical or immaterial, or something emerged from somewhere.
Brain alone is totally incapable of doing anything intelligent unless it is in someone’s head and fully functioning as a part of a normal healthy biological being with the full biological functions.
If separating all of a person’s atoms does not kill them, I can’t imagine what would.
I don’t see that it matters how long you wait to reassemble the person.
I agree on all points. I am interested in understanding the different beliefs. I find it interesting, even if I do booty change my own. It may or may not be important. No matter which view, or yet another, is accurate, it plays out the same way. We behave as we behave. We feel as we feel.
But don’t worry if you tire of this, and don’t want to continue. We have very different definitions and outlooks, and will largely be repeating ourselves.
I would like to know how we subjectively experience. No evidence or logic explains how that can come from physical properties and characteristics.
How does the biological body accomplish this feat? What is it about biological processes that explains subjective experience?
What are the types of conscious state?
I think it is about completely different definitions; about looking at completely different things, and saying, “That is consciousness.”
My ideas is that things are conscious even when there are no signs of it to see.
I think the definitions of humans is regarding our mental abilities. That’s our nature. We are conscious of (we experience) our mental abilities. And things of a different nature, including those without our, or any, mental abilities, are conscious (experience their own nature).
My imprecise wording probably had much to do with that sentence. Consciousness isn’t a thing on its own. It’s simply the subjective experience of things. But the physical properties and characteristics of matter do not explain, or even suggest, this subjective experience.
I agree. But I do not think that has anything to do with consciousness.
Only thing we know is that our subjective experience is affected by physical state of the body. How and why - it is still in blackbox.
If you drank, 10 bottles of beer, you will feel drunk and your mind will become happier than you would normally be. And you may even say things you won’t remember next day. Your brain is under the influence, and you will behave and respond in different way than you would in normal state.
If you fall asleep, you won’t be conscious at all. You will be unconscious while in sleep, and be dreaming.
Your physical bodily and brain state will definitely affect your mind, hence we know they are co-related. But how and where in the brain and what cells, neurons or chemicals affect your mind, I don’t know.
We just know any normal human being living and healthy are conscious, because they interact and respond to the world and other humans in natural and intelligible way. That is all we know about consciousness of others.
We only know our own consciousness contents, but never others. Only way we can know others are conscious is how they speak to you, respond to you and what actions they take in daily life situation.
There is no such things the types of conscious state. A person is either conscious or unconcious.
It can be. But that sounds too much assuming with no evidence of being conscious. Someone might be sleeping pretending reading or working on the computer. You only know he is conscious, if he tells you what he is doing or say hello when you said hi.
It was to say, that brain alone or any part of physical body alone is not responsible for emergence of consciousness. Consciousness is not something emerging from brain or neurons on its own. It is not some material or immaterial thing.
Consciousness is non-existent. It is just a word. What exist are the conscious humans and biological beings with the normally functioning living bodies.
Consciousness is existent but it’s not material. Though if you want to get technical about it what “Exists” is just your experience, everything else is a guess.
You don’t though, as our exchange in pms showed me. You didn’t even have an answer to the teleport but a non-answer, nor do you have a model for how your answer would work in daily life which is what ultimately matters in philosophy.
You want identity to be something concrete when it never really was. It’s just something that is intuited, like whether something is alive. Despite our attempts to define life we can’t agree on it, and yet no one would call a rock alive.
But my main question is what is the point in saying that we don’t have a concrete model? What if we never get there? You’re not really engaging so much as you have one idea you want validation on. Despite saying you’re questioning you seem rather rigid in your replies, as though you have a conclusion in mind and are working backward.
You say there is no continuity, so what does that look like for us then? How would human life operate under that insight.
I was asking about your own words:
I don’t see consciousness in the whole universe. I see conscious humans and animals.
At the beginning of engaging this thread, I was open minded on the types of consciousness. But after discussing and thinking about it, that is my conclusion.