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gg2ezpzlemonsqz OP t1_j1p1hj3 wrote

Reply to comment by michaeleid811 in Is it possible to Live Forever? by gg2ezpzlemonsqz

But its "YOUR" memory. Everything from your first thought to a "NEW BODY" is you. What you like, what you feel, PC or mac, the memory of YOU so wouldnt just a copy of a clone just be like getting a new organ from a transplant?

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michaeleid811 t1_j1p1w2d wrote

I dont' believe that there is an essential me that transcends my own body. So if you copied every thought I had and then transferred it to a perfect replication of me. That still wouldn't be me it would be a copy of me with my exact memories and thoughts but me would still be dead.

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MayorOfSmurftown t1_j1pakci wrote

>That still wouldn't be me it would be a copy of me with my exact memories and thoughts but me would still be dead.

Until you wake up and realize you were the copy all along.

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LostN3ko t1_j1r1w96 wrote

The clone would wake up and realize it was a clone since its inception a few moments ago. It has your memories but it has no past of its own. You would still be dead.

Defining "you" here is the key to this debate.

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MayorOfSmurftown t1_j1rstiz wrote

As far as you know right now, all of your memories are fabricated and you have no past of your own.

How do you know you weren't created this morning when you woke up? How do you know you won't disappear tonight when you go to sleep, and a "new" consciousness with all your memories emerges to take your place tomorrow?

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LostN3ko t1_j1rvhv8 wrote

Ah different than your previous suggestion. I was answering that "you" can't wake up as your clone, your clone is a separate person from you. But yes I agree I have no proof that I am the same person because we have no empirical way to judge the authenticity of an individual's personality. It is an emergent property of a system. It's not any one part of you but the synergistic effect of the combination. If you were to produce an atom for atom recreation of every part of your brain it would still not be you.

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MayorOfSmurftown t1_j1sgbqr wrote

But that's kind of my point. What's it matter if it's really "you" or the clone? You can't tell the difference. You might be being reborn every single day as a brand new entity, but from your perspective, you're still one continuous existence.

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LostN3ko t1_j1vd719 wrote

Um in which case you don't need clones if your reborn every day then congrats everyone is you and your already immortal or you can never live more than 1 day and you'll never be immortal. So either way this whole question is moot and having clones changes nothing. Not sure why this view of the self cares if clones exist or not.

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MayorOfSmurftown t1_j1viij0 wrote

"You" might have been the clone all along. Imagine you're a clone. From your perspective, you don't feel like a clone, because all of your memories are completely identical to your original.

You seem so convinced you're the real deal, but for all you know, you could wake up tomorrow in a clone body, and everything you thought you experienced today was just a copied memory.

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LostN3ko t1_j1vk9fj wrote

If I have 10 clones in a room with me there are 11 discrete individuals in the room each with their own thoughts and opinions and only one of them is you. It doesn't matter how many clones you make none of them will be you. Identical twins are clones of each other but that doesn't make either of them immortal even if they both had complete retrograde amnesia they are not immortal. You keep saying "wake up in a clone body" but that can not happen, the clone can wake up and think it is the original but it would still be it's own person. If I have 100 clones they can all believe they are the original but none of them are the original. If I woke up with only the memories of King James in my head I would still not be King James and he did not just become immortal. I feel like this point is being lost on you. Even if the self dies every night and a new self wakes it the morning with all of the memories in the bodies brain that self will still not be King James.

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MayorOfSmurftown t1_j1votvw wrote

What does it even mean to be the "original"? What's so important about that? Your cells are constantly dying and being replaced. You literally aren't physically the same person you were 5 years ago. So what is it? What makes you "you"?

Imagine a human version of the Ship of Theseus. Let's say, to make a "clone", they split your brain in half, then copy the cells from the other half of the brain to create two identical brains. Which one is the "original"? Which one is "you"?

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LostN3ko t1_j1vqhxh wrote

Before you ask me to solve a 2000 year old philosophical paradox please explain in what world view can I wake up in someone else's body.

For the purpose of this discussion we have to assume a self exists. If we don't then there is no point continuing the discussion as no one exists anymore and no amount of clones change that and immortality explicitly doesn't exist. If a self is only alive for one day again immortality no longer exists. The only philosophical realm where immortality exists is where every person has a self and that self has a timeline beginning with birth and ending with death. Immortality is a self with a birth but no foreseeable death.

Now if I have 10 clones they are all discrete individuals. They each have their own feelings thoughts sense of individuality. They are not a hive consciousness they are each a unique instance with unique selfs. Each of which dies when their body dies. Not one of them is immortal.

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MayorOfSmurftown t1_j1vuf9w wrote

What if your "self" isn't defined by physical matter like cells or atoms, but by the continuity of your memory and conscious experience?

Yes, those 10 clones are all distinct individuals after they are created, but before then, they were all essentially the same entity. From their perspective, it's as if all 10 of them started out inhabiting the same body, and at a certain point, they diverged.

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LostN3ko t1_j1vwgvh wrote

From the moment of divergence they begin to have unique experiences that make their self a different person than the others. 10 selfs. Each with their own end and none of which will be a shared experience meaning they are not the same self anymore.

Identical twins start out as one egg with a shared experience. After separating they become two selfs each unique. Identical twins are not a version of immortality.

There is a wishy washy version of immortality here but it's the same one we have always had, legacy through progeny. Your children were once part of your body, you split them off, they grew into new selfs and you passed on your memories, opinions and stories to them and they carry them forward. Offspring, pictures, movies, stories, histories, crafted materials, art and fame all fall into this psudo immortality of keeping your memory alive, a little bit of you as people like to say. None of these are true immortality where a self does not die.

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