CSflim

I pretty much posted my views on this subject, in TheKak's Thread Clones, brain states, ect... but there was no other replies in that thread. A bit disappointing! But anyway, I'm just going to copy and paste what I posed there. The question may not have been exactly the same, but pretty much the same conclusions can be drawn.

The question: Could we make a "photocopy" of our body, and build a copy of ourselves, atom for atom? Whould this creation be conscious? Would he have identical memories to us? etc.


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Anyway, I am going to put forward my views and argue them. I may appear to go off the point at times, but bear with me! This is a profound and complex thing that we are dealing with.

The mechanism you put forward is used a lot in science fiction, most famously Star Trek, where Caption Kirk and Co "beam down" onto a planet's surface.
The idea is that your "picture" is taken, this information is then encoded and sent at light speed to your destination, where an atom-for-atom replica of you is made...teleportation!
Of course one consequence of this seems to be unexplored. What happens the "original" you?
"Sir, we have just received word that you have successfully arrived at your far away destination. We can now dispose of your current body at this location!" hmmm....don't think so.
But do I believe that the "construction" at the other end is conscious? Yes I do. So what happened to our stream of consciousness? How can our "being" split into two? Is the "construction" alive? Or is it merely a non-living automata, emulating our actions? I will come to that briefly.
I don't believe in any Aristotelian eidos, or magical "consciousness stuff". A quick read around some of the other threads (A question for atheists, Free Will, Souls) will inform you of my strong views on this subject. I see consciousness as an (unexplained as of yet) phenomena which occurs due to the chemical and electrical physical activity of our brains.
I am also not a subscriber to the philosophy of "functionalism" or "Strong A.I.". This philosophy basically states that an algorithm, which when executed, will cause consciousness to manifest if the algorithm is sufficiently complex. So in essence, if we were to create an intelligent "man machine", not only would it appear conscious, it would actually be conscious. I find this viewpoint rather ironic, as it results in having to accept the existence (on some level) of the very same "consciousness stuff" that we set out to avoid! (If anyone wants an elaboration on my disregarding of functionalism, please ask, but I don't wish to go too far off topic here).
I believe that our minds are non-algorithmic, and are fundamentally different to that which can be emulated by a computer. In essence I believe that our brain relies on physical phenomena which are non-computable. I also believe strongly that quantum effects play a large role in our brains.
I hope people will not claim that I am contradicting myself by dismissing functionalism, but also claiming that I believe our "being" is encapsulated by the physical actions of our brain. The important thing to realise is that physical phenomena are not necessarily computable. The simplest example of this is to define a location in space. If we are to define it precisely then we will require a number with a lot of decimal places. Actually we will need an infinite number of decimal places. the number will be an irrational number. Iratational numbers are of course non-algorithmic. (again an elaboration on the non-computable aspects of physical nature with respects to the operation of our brains is available on request! )
So to return to the original question about duplicating a human being, we must ask if it were possible in principle.
Well we must first ask what makes someone, "themselves". Is it the atoms that constitute their body? Hardly, we are constantly shedding our "atoms" and replacing our "atoms". Our personhood can have nothing to do with the atoms. More impotently, one atom is entirely equivalent to another (of the same isotope). It differs only in state. If we were to instantaneously replace an atom in one system with an atom of the same state, the system would not only behave in the same manner, but it would be indistinguishable from the time prior to the swap. In some ways we could say that it is in fact the same system.
So it would seem that our personhood would be in fact just the pattern of the particles in their specific states that make up our body. So would that allow us to photocopy/teleport ourselves? Well, so far so good.
We have to ask, in principle, how could we go about taking our "photo". Is it possible. I'm sure I won't be the only person to bring up Heisenberg. It would be impossible for us to determine fully the state of any particle (yet alone all) in your body. So our "photocopy" mechanism seems fundamentally flawed. We are not going to be able to encode the state of the particles in our bodies to transmit to another station for reassembly, and anyway, as I pointed out, it this would be impossible in principle to encode these values as they would be irrational.
However there is a way out of both of these problems. We simply need to ask, do we actually need to know the state of the particles? I put it to you that we do not. We simply need to transmit the state in some form or another. Would it be possible to transmit a signal, which remains at the quantum level and thus, despite being unknown to us, carries all of the required information? I put it to you that we can. And as it is only the particles position relative to each other that we are worried about we could transmit the "person".
So does this mean that we can duplicate a person? Actually, no. This is due to the quantum mechanical principle that it is impossible to duplicate a quantum state.
To explain it another way.
Suppose we have a proton in an unknown state W. We can cause it to interact with an electron, in known state Y, in such a way that the electron will emerge in the state W. However the state of the proton will not remain unchanged. It will in fact be in state Y!
We could then transmit the electron, with the correct state to our destination, where it could be reassembled to form the conscious human. However by the very process of transmission, we would have destroyed the original. Heisenbeg triumphs again!
Also, there is obviously no imaginable way in which this teleportation could be done, I can't see how it would be possible. However, were are merely talking about what could be done in principal.

So to answer your question:
Yes to Teleportation (in principle)
No to Duplication.
No to Souls
No to Conscious Computers.

As for the possibility of a conscious A.I. machine which is not a computer; Well I think that such a thing is possible, it would simply not take the form of a Turing Machine. This machine would not operate in a discrete ,digital, way. Rather it would have to work with, rather than against, the non-computability of nature. In particular it would be required to take advantage of "quantum magic" in order to work. I believe that the incredibly primitive field of "quantum-computing" would make significant contributions to such a machine. However I believe that before we can build said machine, we will need to gain a firmer grasp of the nature of quantum mechanics. As most of us know, relativity and quantum mechanics cannot, in their current form, both be true. There are areas where they appear to contradict each other. What we are looking for is our infamous "Grand Unified Theory".
Some people take such a search the wrong way. It is as if people are out to prove quantum physics and Einstein's relativity wrong. I wouldn't strictly agree with this. Rather they wish to further the knowledge that has been pioneered by these fields. In the same way that Einstein didn't prove Newton wrong when he put forward general relativity. Rather he expanded on Newton's theories.
Anyway, I believe that the knowledge we require to understand consciousness and hence to build it, is in the GUT.
A very interesting book on this is The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. Highly recommended!
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While I'm at it, I may as well copy+paste some of the things I have written previously on this board, to help throw open the debate.

"A Question For The Atheists"
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Well the point is that our bodies are made of matter, which are controlled by our brains. Our brains are also made of matter, and hence follow the laws of physics. So were we able to explain the behaviour of the brain (at the moment we cannot), we could conclude that the brain follows the laws of physics, leaving no room for "magical" intervention by a soul.
Although we are currently far from understanding the workings of the brain, I see no reason to believe that it is beyond us.
Again being able to encapsulate the workings of our mind in the physical laws of the workings of the brain, does not explicitly prove the non-existence of a soul, but we are, once again, in the territory of the invisible purple llama.

Counter-argument:
A physcially alterable brain does not disprove
the existance of a metaphysical mind or a soul.


What good is a metaphysical mind if it is powerless over the actions of the physical brain? Again, the metaphysical mind is another made up idea used to explain that which we didn't understand. Now, although we don't know in any kind of detail how the mind/brain works, we have certainly made a lot of progress.
People who get a severe knock on the head can turn into completely different people. Their friends and family can no longer recognise the personality of this "new" person..."what happened our old Jimmy?".
In this type of situation what do you believe happened? That the knock on the head actually influenced the metaphysical mind?...not much of a metaphysical mind if you ask me!
The "original" personality is the metaphysical mind, which is has had its "communication link" damaged, and so cannot completely control the brain? What is controlling the rest of the brain? Is it working on its own? In that case what is the need for a metaphysical mind at all, if the brain is perfectly capable of operation in "automatic"? After all it is working perfectly well...just different than before.

What mechanism are you proposing for how this metaphysical soul operates? How can it interact with the physical world of the brain? The brain works on electrical impulses and chemical signals, all of which follow known physical laws. Are you suggesting that the brain defies such laws? That like charges attract? I believe you will find few who agree with you on that one!
The only possible apparent mechanism for a metaphysical mind appears to me to be one the opperates ona quantum level. But such a suggestion, to me feels very cheeky! But I'll continue with it for now.
Quantum level actions are random. They have come up positive in every test for randomness that we have at our disposal. On the large scale we can make very accurate predicitions of the outcome of such randomness, but a single event behaves in acompletely random manner. (In a similar way that we cannot predict the outsome of a single spin of a roulette wheel, but we can make a prediction on the large scale: ultimately the house will win!) So this leaves, ultiamtely no room for the intervention of a metaphysical mind, unless, once again you are to accept the it can defy the laws of physics as above.
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