Favorite neural artifacts time
Okay, here’s a good one: What’s your favorite thought experiment?
You get bonus points if it has a funny name. ;)
(I’ll tell mine later.)
Okay, here’s a good one: What’s your favorite thought experiment?
You get bonus points if it has a funny name. ;)
(I’ll tell mine later.)
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Hmm, maybe the Chinese room. It makes for good debates.
I LOVE the Chinese Room! I remember totally disagreeing with Searle’s conclusions, which just made it even more fun. ;)
This is easier to picture if you imagine yourself as a paperdoll than actual surgery going on.
“If we were to remove all of your hair and place it in a pile right over here, would you still be you?”
They naturally say “yes”.
“If I were to remove your skin and place it in a pile right overe here, would you still be you?”
They start to give me a disturbed face and reply “yes”.
You repeat this and go down the list of parts to remove:
muscles
lungs / heart
other organs
bones
nervous system
And you just pay attention to where they decide to draw the line where they are no longer themselves.
A second one I mention occasionally is:
Scientist James McConnell proposed that long term memory was stored in RNA (this has since been discredited). But this thought experiment assumes this to be true to act as a medium for transferring of memories.
Imagine one were to take the RNA from person A’s brain, including all of the experiences which make person A… person A, and transfer it to person B’s brain.
Person B would now have all the information, experiences, judgments and prejudices of person A as well as their own.
I then ask if this happened to the you and someone you admire, would you still be you?
It would be as though they’ve lived two lives and are now assimilating and intertwining those life experiences to make a new consciousness of both experience sets.
Ooo, if you’re into personal identity issues, you MUST read a book called “Kiln People” by David Brin. Great sci-fi, and SUCH a good treatment of that type of thought experiment that one of my toughest classes in the subject used it as a textbook!
(Yes, uberhard philosophy class with a science fiction textbook. And yes, I had an orgasm. ;)