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Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:42 am
by Anonmare
Premise:
Consciousness and continuity, AKA, the problem of consciousness in a materialist universe

Outline:
Alice invents a pair of teleporters and shows it off to Bob. Alice explains to Bob that the teleporters are moving people and objects vast distances between a pair of teleporters near-instantaneously. Intrigued, Bob asks how it works and Alice explains that the teleporters work in the following way:-
-A person at the input teleporter, hereby dubbed Teleporter A, is scanned down to the quantum level - creating a perfect scan of the person.
-Teleporter A is then capable of relaying the scan to the output teleporter, hereby dubbed Teleporter B, with zero loss in information - How it does this is not relevant to the outline, just take it as fact.
-After the information is sent, the person at Teleporter A is vaporised.
-Teleporter B will then use the information given to it by Teleporter A and reconstitute that person perfectly, down to the quantum level
-To the person involved, there is no point at which two people exist at both ends of the teleporter.
-The person is not rendered unconscious, nor do they experience any change in subjective time

Arguments:
After hearing Alice's explanation, Bob is horrified and proclaims Alice has created a machine that murders people and creates an imposter to take their place. Alice refutes Bob's claim, stating that, since there is no point in time when two of the same people exist and both are 'perfect' copies - It must follow that they are the same person.

Bob counters that only their information is moved, not their atoms. He then says that as their matter is not the same, they cannot be perfect copies and therefore must be clones, the person's pattern of structure has changed at both ends.

Alice responds that our matter changes all the time and gets routinely replaced entirely within our lifetimes. She then says that if Bob is correct, then any change to our 'structural pattern' (even ones we experience whilst existing normally) is fatal to our present consciousness and that we "die" many times in our life anyway and it ultimately won't matter if you use the teleporter or not.

Conclusion:
There are only two viable solutions to the continuity of consciousness problem (Souls or other such concepts are excluded due to not having been demonstrably proven to be measurable or exist, and if it can't be measured it can't affect anything).
The first solution is that a perfect copy of you made after your death *is* you and that there is no reason not to do things like make back-up clones of yourself from up-to-date brain scans, it also proves that you are nothing more than information and theoretically could be used to revive anyone from history via enough time and effort with artificial brain scans and a random generator.
The second solution proves that your consciousness is impermanent and doesn't truly own the body you reside in. You are merely just one of many minds identifying by the name it was assigned to at birth and will die and be replaced by someone who thinks they're you, and that you have done the same to the previous iteration of you.

Both solutions prove that either mind transference is possible or that it's impossible but it doesn't matter as a copy is just as good as the real thing.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:46 am
by FantasticFwoosh
Don't worry about it, we're already dead on the inside anyway so transferring into a new mind is not a problem.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:51 am
by Anonmare
I haven't been able to sleep soundly for a long time because I can't be sure I'm just one of many impermanent minds that have occupied this body at some point. I'd rather the first answer be true, as it means my decisions and choices matter. But, if it's not, then the second solution *has* to be true. There can't exist any other choices as we understand the world presently

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:02 am
by FantasticFwoosh
Why do you care to explain a natural phonemeon? We are all slightly altered clones of our predecessors across generations implemented into who we are currently as individuals, our memory being able to be transferred would be indicative of no soul existing except the perfect representation of our current brain structure we can observe already with our current technology & medical science. Also you have the names from the story in the wrong order.

And even so it'd be naive that if a soul did exist consciousness would even be relevant, its like calling people in coma's soulless.

Nobody's been inside your mind, the only physiological changes have been ones of regrowth and your telomere's shortening as you age towards your eventual predetermined destination.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 10:56 am
by Lazengann
Can I enter the teleporter but not come out on the other side

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:25 am
by TheWiznard
wait is this a serious thread?

imo who caresss? lmao

oh no I'm a copy wubalubadubdub!!!

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 12:06 pm
by DemonFiren
classic old twinmaker problem

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 12:25 pm
by Timbrewolf
Experiments in the behavior of light particles and quantum mechanics would suggest that there is a conscious mind or "observer" of ourselves that transcends time.

You're neglecting a third possibility, that you could be yourself in two places at the same time.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:00 pm
by TheWiznard
Timbrewolf wrote:Experiments in the behavior of light particles and quantum mechanics would suggest that there is a conscious mind or "observer" of ourselves that transcends time.

You're neglecting a third possibility, that you could be yourself in two places at the same time.
we're not even "us" we're the character in a super realistic vr simulation game

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 1:46 pm
by Lumbermancer
Are you for the sake of argument assuming copy down to quantum level? Because such copy can not exist. But if it did, what about having two identical copies at the same time? That's a fun though.

In any case, your whole exercise is kinda foundation of my idea of immortality and reincarnation.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:14 pm
by Kel-the-Oblivious
Same problem with transhumanism. If you upload your mind to a mechanical shell, are you transfering your consciousness, or merely making a copy, with all your memories, feelings, thoughts and dreams? Where in the mind is the seat of consciousness, or does any alteration to the brain alter the person? If you go under surgery, to augment your brain, does the creature that awakens merely THINK that it is you, while your perception, your awareness, has been snuffed out?

I for one don't care. I don't care if the biological awareness that is Kel dies, so long as the mental construct that is Kel continues to exist.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:15 pm
by lntigracy

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 4:07 pm
by Wyzack
As with most philosophy questions there is literally no way to obtain an answer to this so you are better off forgetting about it because dwelling will only upset you

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 4:35 pm
by Takeguru
Just turn off the vaporization part and suddenly two of you exist

As framed, nuking the original is entirely optional to this technology

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 4:39 pm
by SpaceInaba
Just keep sending alice through the teleporter until she gets a soul that wants to fuck bob and then it'll all be good

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 6:13 pm
by cedarbridge
We stuff Bob into the teleporter until it glitches out, produces two of him and he can finally fuck himself for being a killjoy.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 6:13 pm
by TribeOfBeavers
Timbrewolf wrote:Experiments in the behavior of light particles and quantum mechanics would suggest that there is a conscious mind or "observer" of ourselves that transcends time.

You're neglecting a third possibility, that you could be yourself in two places at the same time.

Do you have a source for this? It sounds like some bullshit tbh.

Also, in quantum physics the observer doen't have to be concious. Observing a system just means measuring something in it and affecting the system as a result (i.e. letting air out your tires to measure tire pressure). You can do it with a computer or whatever.



The device in the original post just sounds like a fancy 3D printer tthat murders you. If it were possible to make you'd probably not be the same person, like if you were to turn off the vapourize function you'd have two separate people, it wouldn't be one person with two bodies or anything.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 6:17 pm
by Qbopper
Wyzack wrote:As with most philosophy questions there is literally no way to obtain an answer to this so you are better off forgetting about it because dwelling will only upset you
philosophy is cool when you talk about it and debate but if you actually start to seriously focus on how you might not be technically you or whatever you'll just drive yourself crazy

just play video games instead

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 6:55 pm
by Lumbermancer
Timbrewolf wrote:You're neglecting a third possibility, that you could be yourself in two places at the same time.
Human brain and mind is not capable of this.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:05 pm
by ShadowDimentio
I think you've had too much to think, rabbit, come now, off to the reeducation camps.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 3:06 am
by John_Oxford
The lack of the religion side of it makes it morbidly depressing (see: souls)

I've actually always wondered the same thing, but taking souls into account be it that i'm religious. If for example a man to machine upload were ever to occur, how do you measure what someones conciousness is. If there is no soul, then is the reality that the only thing making me, me is the trillions of neurons sitting behind my eyes, or is it more than that?

The reality being in using a teleporter that if i created another copy of me, which would literally only be what i'm doing, then vaporized myself, i'd be killing me and creating a clone, because excluding souls the only thing that physically me as a person and all the carbon atoms that make up me is my brain. Be it that the person created at the other teleporter is indistinguishable from me, i wouldn't be that person, per say. The important part is being able to distinguish the difference between "you" as in your physical self right now, and a copy of what makes up you.

I'm not super experienced in quantum mechanics but i don't think the idea is related to it, as principles such as matter and anti matter and every atom having a acompanying anti version if it elsewhere in the universe, along with the principle that no two copies of the same thing can exist, isn't relevant, because regardless of how advanced computing and technology gets, as long as these laws are still laws, we'll never be able to truly recreate someone exactly.




So ultimately, no, teleporters create a copy of you with immeasurable differences. You die in the process but no one around you will ever know that.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 3:09 am
by John_Oxford
A better teleporter is one that utilizes worm holes or ones that utilize a way to bend time and move you at immeasurable speeds through all solid matter to the location of the other teleporter then spit you out there.

The person on the other end would still be you in every aspect.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:33 am
by DemonFiren
That's irrelevant.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:08 am
by oranges
extend the problem to it's most absurd.

Every time you close your eyes and blink, you are cloned and replaced.

Then you realise it's irrelevant to think about because it could be happening to you millions of times a day and you wouldn't even notice it.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:57 am
by Luke Cox
Related to this, what happens if multiverses end up being real? In an infinite number of universes, there will always be some exact copy of your consciousness out there somewhere, making you functionally immortal. Considering that and other things in this thread, quantum physics are oddly comforting

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:34 am
by Anonmare
The teleporter example is more a framing device, the most important concept to take away was the concept that your consciousness is nothing but a construct of information that can be replicated and the concept of uniqueness is one without merit. Or that a consciousness cannot be replicated but it is so ephemeral that it doesn't matter if its unique or not.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:55 am
by FantasticFwoosh
oranges wrote:extend the problem to it's most absurd.

Every time you close your eyes and blink, you are cloned and replaced.

Then you realise it's irrelevant to think about because it could be happening to you millions of times a day and you wouldn't even notice it.
Unlike some reptiles, we also shed & gradually regrow our skin daily leaving behind miniscule debris

The muck that gathers around you whilst you play SS13 and the dust you work so hard to clean away from your hardware equipment is as much you as your hand upon the mouse or the keyboard.

Humans are never really static, it would be very difficult for us to be when our bodies are rigid and callous.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 10:22 am
by DemonFiren
humans are not static, sure, but we are also continuous
the example given involves complete disruption, which doesn't occur

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:17 am
by oranges
what does it even mean to experience a disruption?

how small a unit of time can we slice?

does the world tick, or can you divide time infinitely.

if the disruption happens in a unit of time smaller than we can even perceive it's not like you'd notice

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 1:46 pm
by Whoisthere
>let's make a bunch of retarded assumptions like "since there is no point in time when two of the same people exist and both are 'perfect' copies - It must follow that they are the same person" or "any change to our 'structural pattern' (even ones we experience whilst existing normally) is fatal to our present consciousness"
>let's also present only two conclusions and claim no other conclusions are possible both of which are 2spooky
>btw if you poop one poop and start pooping the second poop identical to the first one and pee on the first poop, destroying it, just as the second poop is about to drop, you are now teleporting shit
>WOW UNIVERSE IS SCARY

or to simplify, the problem assumes that every time you cut your nails your present consciousness dies and a new one takes its place, and confuses how you perceive the world with how others perceive the world. When they cloned Dolly, it didn't behave as one consciousness in two bodies. When you clone a faggot you get a new body with a new consciousness (in reality it's a corpse possessed by demons like the current Rotschild) and the other body with the first consciousness stays the same. If it ded it ded and not coming back through clowning. I'm dumb for spending time on this so I will stop but I'm hungry for (you)'s on this online GNU mmorpg forum.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 3:10 pm
by captain sawrge
Whoisthere wrote:>let's make a bunch of retarded assumptions like "since there is no point in time when two of the same people exist and both are 'perfect' copies - It must follow that they are the same person" or "any change to our 'structural pattern' (even ones we experience whilst existing normally) is fatal to our present consciousness"
>let's also present only two conclusions and claim no other conclusions are possible both of which are 2spooky
>btw if you poop one poop and start pooping the second poop identical to the first one and pee on the first poop, destroying it, just as the second poop is about to drop, you are now teleporting shit
>WOW UNIVERSE IS SCARY

or to simplify, the problem assumes that every time you cut your nails your present consciousness dies and a new one takes its place, and confuses how you perceive the world with how others perceive the world. When they cloned Dolly, it didn't behave as one consciousness in two bodies. When you clone a faggot you get a new body with a new consciousness (in reality it's a corpse possessed by demons like the current Rotschild) and the other body with the first consciousness stays the same. If it ded it ded and not coming back through clowning. I'm dumb for spending time on this so I will stop but I'm hungry for (you)'s on this online GNU mmorpg forum.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 3:12 pm
by SpaceInaba
your wrong retard havent u even played ss13 its the same soul

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:50 pm
by Whoisthere
captain sawrge wrote:you
thank
SpaceInaba wrote:your wrong retard havent u even played ss13 its the same soul
Say that to my face fucker not online Anonmare said souls aren't real

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 5:15 pm
by Timbrewolf
TribeOfBeavers wrote:[

Do you have a source for this? It sounds like some bullshit tbh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%8 ... le_duality

Systems changing in response to the circumstances under which the observer or future observers measure them. One of the most basic and well-known phenomenon. Surprised I would have to cite/explain this.

Whoisthere wrote:When they cloned Dolly, it didn't behave as one consciousness in two bodies. When you clone a faggot you get a new body with a new consciousness (in reality it's a corpse possessed by demons like the current Rotschild) and the other body with the first consciousness stays the same


Impressively stupid. Dolly and Dolly's clone were completely different organisms, they just shared a genetic code. The assumption or relation to this topic, that they should've shared a consciousness based on genome, is right up there with ancient Greek's believing that if you got ripped and had kids they would come out buff too. Please stop talking. Please read up on quantum entanglement and the relationship it creates between divided particles.
Lumbermancer wrote:
Timbrewolf wrote:You're neglecting a third possibility, that you could be yourself in two places at the same time.
Human brain and mind is not capable of this.
You have no method of evaluating or proving that.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:07 pm
by Lumbermancer
Timbrewolf wrote:You have no method of evaluating or proving that.
Even if we assume mind is beyond matter, human brain is not. If you want to put two minds into one brain, you get double neural activity. Even if we ignore the fact that neuron can't work twice at the same time, we still get excessive neuronal activity. And how is a generalized excessive neural activity called? Tonic-clonic seizure. Permanently. If you're lucky.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:10 pm
by Timbrewolf
Also, I can't believe I'm agreeing somewhat with John Oxford but he makes roundabout relevant observation regarding religion:

We have such little understanding of "life" that to assume we can transport a living thing by simply transporting the materials that make it up is a major presumption. For what we know a perfect copy of the person could be spit out at the other side of the machine, but dead.

Our understanding of life is entirely physiological. We know how to take life away from something by damaging the organs, and vice-versa we know how to protect or preserve life by repairing or maintaining them. But if we were, for sake of argument, provided with a perfectly healthy inert human body (no cellular degredation from oxygen deprivation, perfectly clean and healthy) we would have no idea how to instill life into it, to wake it up and make it into a living person. Nor do we know how, if we had a willing living subject, how to transfer life from one healthy living thing to another (ostensibly) healthy non-living thing.

So to assume "it just works" in this case, and then to try to make conjecture about the after-effects of its function is a large leap over a bunch of unanswered questions that could provide the answers your looking for.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:14 pm
by Timbrewolf
Lumbermancer wrote:
Timbrewolf wrote:You have no method of evaluating or proving that.
Even if we assume mind is beyond matter, human brain is not. If you want to put two minds into one brain, you get double neural activity. Even if we ignore the fact that neuron can't work twice at the same time, we still get excessive neuronal activity. And how is a generalized excessive neural activity called? Tonic-clonic seizure. Permanently. If you're lucky.
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-who- ... sciousness

Our understanding of how much brain a person needs to be a person, how the brain works, etc. is still incredibly flawed and any conjecture about how much stress or work would be put on a person's mind by having two bodies at the same time (which would also include two functioning brains, you seem to forget) is impossible to accurately make.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:42 pm
by Anonmare
Whoisthere wrote:When you clone a faggot you get a new body with a new consciousness (in reality it's a corpse possessed by demons like the current Rotschild) and the other body with the first consciousness stays the same.
A key component is that the original person in Teleporter A in the scenario outlined is destroyed, before the copy in Teleporter B is created. It is vital to the scenario that the original is destroyed before the copy is produced so that there is no point where the consciousness' in Teleporter A and Teleporter B have overlapping existences - that there is a singular continuity. Otherwise it's just cloning and clones don't keep me up at night.

And yes I am aware that perfect information acquisition, retention and copying is not possible as far as we know, the thought experiment posits that it is for the sake of argument. It's the same reason nobody points out that the cat is an observer in Schrodinger's Cat in a Box thought experiment, it's not relevant the cat is just a framing device to explain the concept.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:57 pm
by Timbrewolf
Okay but in this experiment you're the cat in the box.

Imagine a machine that photocopies you and then randomly murders one of two of you. 50/50 shot.

No matter what happens after that 100th run whichever you steps out is going to feel like the luckiest person alive, who survived 100 turns, and the rest of us wont be able to tell the difference.

(though personally I think you would also remember being stabbed to death by the machine 100 times, but I'm just speaking in terms of the most popular theory of continuity)

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:12 pm
by Lumbermancer
Timbrewolf wrote:(which would also include two functioning brains, you seem to forget)
But each brain has to process two "points of view". This actually might be even worse, since reaction of one brain would affect other causing feedback loop.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:33 pm
by PKPenguin321
if souls are real and you can harness em to make cloning work basically exactly the way it does in ss13 that'd be pretty sick

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:44 pm
by Timbrewolf
Lumbermancer wrote:
Timbrewolf wrote:(which would also include two functioning brains, you seem to forget)
But each brain has to process two "points of view". This actually might be even worse, since reaction of one brain would affect other causing feedback loop.
Why would you experience sensory crossover? Your ego, your consciousness would be in two places at once experiencing two sets of stimuli but the two bodies wouldn't be any more connected than your left and right hand.

I agree that for your ego, for the "you" that would probably be very disorienting to experience at first, maybe permanently, but that's just an assumption. No way of knowing.

EDIT: Ahhhhh I see what you mean now, I hadn't thought about that but you're right, the quantum entanglement between your molecules in both locations would translate stimuli such that you wouldn't be able to tell the two apart and it would just be a mass of sensory input from two bodies.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:11 pm
by Lumbermancer
Timbrewolf wrote:Your ego, your consciousness would be in two places at once experiencing two sets of stimuli but the two bodies wouldn't be any more connected than your left and right hand.
That's nonsensical. That's having a cake and eating it too. Consciousness one and separate and the same time.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:31 pm
by TribeOfBeavers
Timbrewolf wrote:
TribeOfBeavers wrote:[

Do you have a source for this? It sounds like some bullshit tbh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%8 ... le_duality

Systems changing in response to the circumstances under which the observer or future observers measure them. One of the most basic and well-known phenomenon. Surprised I would have to cite/explain this.
I am well aware of wave particle duality, and that measurements affect systems (literially the next line of my post says this). I go to school for this stuff.

I was referring to the " concious observer that trancends time" bit, as its the first I've heard of anything like that.

Most scientists seem to agree that the nature of a photon (or whatever thing you're looking at) is decided at the time of observation, not retroactively applied from the future (as that violates relativity and thermodynamics). At least that's what i remember from school/some brief googling.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:11 pm
by Timbrewolf
Lumbermancer wrote:
Timbrewolf wrote:Your ego, your consciousness would be in two places at once experiencing two sets of stimuli but the two bodies wouldn't be any more connected than your left and right hand.
That's nonsensical. That's having a cake and eating it too. Consciousness one and separate and the same time.
Depending on where you believe the root of consciousness is, the "host" part of the human body that the "us" resides in, yes and no. Once upon a time we thought the "soul" lived in the heart. I think most modern thought says it resides in the brain. I don't think either of these things are really right and that it's in a place our science hasn't quite reached into yet. Something still inbetween energy and matter, a place we can feel is there but not yet reach out and touch or tap into.

But regardless, I was out for a walk and it clicked that you were right, because of the quantum entanglement thing. Like I edited my post above to reflect. Over time as the two bodies ate different food, breathed different air, etc. I think some harmonic distortion between the two entagled masses would occur and it would be easier to make distinctions between them but it begs the question of what that might do to the conscious shared between the two...and we're back to the original question: which one of the two is/are/becomes you?
TribeOfBeavers wrote:
Most scientists seem to agree that the nature of a photon (or whatever thing you're looking at) is decided at the time of observation, not retroactively applied from the future (as that violates relativity and thermodynamics). At least that's what i remember from school/some brief googling.
Even if its decided at the time of observation that implies that it is somehow "aware" that it will be observed under a certain set of circumstances in the future. Which supports the whole idea that time is a flat, concurrent thing, yadda yadda.

I'm totally willing to admit you likely know way more about the subject than me and I'd be interested to hear more about what you've discussed with your professors. I've only taken some college-level physics and chemistry courses, nothing like a grad/post-grad level so again you probably have more hands-on experience working and reading this material on the day to day.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:23 pm
by Timbrewolf
Hmm, now that I think about it's also been over a decade since I was doing any active learning on the topic beyond reading any interesting science journal articles that happened to cross my way.

It's quite possible highly likely what I understood and learned to be our working model of things has been debunked, expanded, etc. over the time since.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:59 pm
by TribeOfBeavers
I'm by no means an expert, this stuff isn't directly related to what i'm currently doing but it's mentioned/talked about indirectly a lot and I've taken classes on it in the past.

Anyway, as with anything in quantum physics, the results are weird and nobody really agrees with exactly how to interpret them. Experimentally, we know that observing a quantum system affects what the outcome. Exactly why this happens or what counts as an "observation" is an open question.

I was taught the Copenhagen Interpretation, which is the most common. There are a few other alternatives though like the many worlds one and all that fun stuff.


Here is the article I read about the non-concious observer thing. They use a small electronic device to observe electrons and find that the accuracy of its observations affects the interference of the electrons in the system (how much they exhibit wave-like behaviour vs particle like).

As for the time stuff: check out the "Delayed Choice" experiments. This one is up for debate. You can find articles arguing for or against the past somehow being affected by measurements. This is what I was going off of.

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:35 am
by PKPenguin321
>caring about your consciousness' attachment to your physical body when the descartes method of doubt problem exists

lol you cant even prove anything exists beyond yourself as a thinking concept

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 5:22 am
by oranges
>when tg forum posters are finally at university level

Re: Philosophy problem that genuinely keeps me up at night

Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 8:06 am
by Whoisthere
Anonmare wrote:the thought experiment posits that it is for the sake of argument
Exactly. It posits a bunch of stuff to arrive at a bunch of conclusions. The assumptions have no basis. So the conclusions that result from the assumptions have no basis. It's irrelevant to our reality. They could've assumed that souls are real and thus it follows that Allah will send the consciousness of those who commit the sin of suicide by teleport booth to hell and the conclusion would have the same value as the current one. IIRC stuff like this was originally a bunch of hypothetical situations to test how you perceive consciousness, and now apparently some angry WASP or jinn rewrote it to push the global Zionist agenda and here we are issuing a fatwa on oranges for destroying mass transit systems of NZ and Austria.