CSflim

I came up with this argument while “pondering the meaning of it all”. It actually led to some quite shocking (for me at least) conclusions.
First of all, I would point out that this argument makes the assumption that the atheist picture of reality is correct: There is no soul. Obviously the existence of a soul would invalidate the entire argument from the beginning. I don’t wish for this thread to spark an argument of the for and against the existence of a soul. There are other threads where this issue is being fiercely debated!

1: All atoms of the same isotope are equivalent, and differ only in state. In a system, if a particle is replaced by an equivalent one, the two systems are identical. In effect they are actually the same system.

2: The atheistic picture of reality disallows the existence of a metaphysical mind/soul. A metaphysical soul, by definition cannot effect/be effected by a physical system.

3 (1,2): Consciousness is a (as of yet unexplained) phenomena that results due to *physical* activity of the brain.

4: A person's "self" cannot be held within their specific particles that make up their body. (Besides, people are constantly losing and replacing their constituent particles)

5: Nor can a person's sense of self be considered to be encapsulated by the *pattern* of constituent particles. said pattern is completely transient, which can be observed either on the macroscopic scale of physical movement, or the microscopic scale of electrical and chemical signals propagating through the brain/central nervous system.

Conclusion (1): Our perception of a continuous consciousness is completely illusionary. There is no "self" which is not completely transient.

Conclusion (2): So our experience of the persistence of "being" must come entirely in the information wrapped up within ourselves. i.e. our memories, both long term and immediate.

So what do you think of this argument? I posted a poll asking about http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26296]Amnesia vs. Death[/url], as from this argument we can deduce that amnesia and death are completely equivalent in terms of the preservation of "self".

It is hard to accept this, but it appears to be true. I cannot find any way out of the logical impasse other than to accept it as fact. Essentially what it hinges on is how we define our “self” that we experience.

It also seems to have a certain sense of giving head room to the possibility of immortality. If we were to invent artificial brains, which I cannot see any logical reason as to what we could not, at least in principle, then it follows that we could “download” our memories into this brain and live forever. This is something which I have a hard time accepting. Though it is a very popular topic among airy science-fiction writers, I find it difficult to accept. It doesn’t appear to make any logical sense that “we” could live in a state independent of our bodies. Surely such an artificial brain would only be duplicating us as opposed to actually being us. But what’s the difference?

One other consequence of this argument is something which I do find highly plausible. Consciousness is impossible without memory. In my poll I put forward a “once-off” memory reset. Now take that further. What would happen if you we not allowed to form memories. What if you had a “memory reset” continually, at every instant. Would you be conscious? (Disregard the film Memento. Leonard’s problem was with forming long term memories. I am including “instantaneous” memory as well). Without the ability to remember, you would obviously not be a functional human being, but that has precisely no implications on whether or not you would be conscious. Take for instance Guillain-Barre patients, who show no outward signs of consciousness, as they are completely paralysed, and show no response to stimulus, yet internally are fully functional and conscious.

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saltfish

The very knowledge and will that you displayed while typing that paragraph is nothing more than a culmination of developed and nurtured behavior that has been molded in what you call your "self."

The gift of concious thought is painful at best, it makes you want to explain, that which you are intimate with permantly (self). Only when you can remove yourself from a situation, can you accurately and objectively evaluate it. Thus, it is so difficult to explain your concious thought. So we have given it names like soul and spirit.. ..but we just wana sugar-coat it and make it special.

With one leg on the soapbox attempting to not stand up... ...don't you just love the way that we as humans enjoy the idea of cooking up great wordy and quite impossible explanations to the very RAW nature of our being? Soul, Bah!


...and I digress.

-SF

Johnny Rotten

I think the mind would provide the body, in order to preserve familiarty, and perhaps even sanity. In your dreams, you have a body, even though you are physically detached from it. The human mind inside a computer needs tactile and visual sense, at the least, and would likely make mental analogs of such. Our sensory input is part of what makes us human.

giblfiz

Wow, great thread!! This is one of the subjects that is currently super active in the philosophy community right now. (not that I'm actually part of that community, but I happen to know a few people who are, and this is one of there very active topics)

I have to recommend two books in relation to this thread the first is "the man who mistook his wife for a hat-rack" which is a pretty good exploration of this subject in people with strange bits of brain damage. The second (which regulars may notice I sight for just about everything) is "Godel Echer Bach: eternal golden braid" which covers quite a bit of this as well.

My personal view is more or less cribbed from GEB:EGB and goes something like this: We have a pretty complex computable behavior system which sorts things out into "objects" what makes us conscious is that we have a special "self" object. Once you have that "Self" object, and have it with some (arbitrary) level of quality you become conscious. In particular consciousness stems from the ability to focus that lens inwards in recurring loop. Sort of like those cool halls of mirrors you get when you put to mirrors in front of each other. Neither mirror itself appears to in anyway be a hallway of infinite depth, but together they form one. Same with the self, it seems to be of massive depth because its sort of like a fractal, you can just keep descending into it, as you can just keep peering deeper into yourself.

As far as immortality, Well I'm hoping for and betting on it. Once your uploaded you can probably tweak a lot of how you look at things, and if it seems like it was bad then you can always just restore to backup.

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Use the star one and you'll be fighting off the old ones with your bare hands
-A Shoggoth on the Roof

CSflim

Hehehe... Godel, Escher, Bach is currently #3 on my reading queue!

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CSflim

First of all, the very fact that I *THINK* I am conscious, proves that I do.
It is perfectly concievible to think of a "man machine" which acts purely on a stimulus:response basis, but would not have consciousness.
The fact that I percieve a self is proof that I have a self. What I am intrested in, is that nature of that self. Denying it's existence is not an explaination.

Second of all, I want sugar coated nothing.

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skinbag

I'm stunned that a thinker like yourself (CSflim) would notice the instantaneous nature of being and follow it up with by considering immortality. Pardon me if the beer has taken over my logic, but it seems you missed the point that we do not in fact exist. For beings like ourselves immortality is a relative concept. We are immortal in the broad sense of action/reaction, and yet we do not inherently exist. Which transient moment would you say defines "you" ? No two are the same, mind you..

CSflim

Would you mind giving me directions to your house, so I can come over and kill you?
If not, then why not?

And I also said that immortality was not something that I accepted, but appeared to be possible within the above assumptions. I don't believe immortality is possible, (at least not in the sense described above).

Anyway, I have yet to formalise my argument against immortality as in the situation described above, but I believe what would actually happen is you would end up with a conscious artificial brain, who claims to actually be the subject. It wouldn't be lieing, it would have the same memories, etc, so in that sense it would be the consciousness of the subject. Or more precisely, it would be the "cloned" consciousness, of the subject.
As far as the subject himself is concerned, nothing has happened. He hasn't percieved a "leap" of consciousness. He is still trapped firmly inside his body, and will eventually die as usual*.

So the duplication of memory in this sense offers no help to producing immortality. It will create a conscious "twin", but we won't percieve ourselves as being that twin.

The problem, is that this seems at odds with our conclusions about the continuity of consciousness.

It requires a clearer definition of "self", which currently I don't have.
But denying the existence of a self is not the way to go about it. A self is percieved, therfore it exists. No argument can be made against that. We need a way to help understand this self, without resorting to denying its existence.

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*One interesting thing, is that the subject would undoubtedly die in the process of duplicating his memory. I put forward the reason for this in the thread, Clones, brain states, ect..., but it doesn't appear to have any direct implications on the consciousness argument here.

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chavos

why is it that a pattern can't be continous? I mean...we have brain waves, and they cycle through all sorts of patterns depenant on our mood, or if we're sleeping, with all sorts of variations and responses to stimuli.... but you define them as non-continous because the discharges themselves are transient.

yet you are willing to posit "memory" which is not transient, at least on some degree. well, what is memory if not a part of that pattern of electrical/physical activity of the brain?

why define a system that stores and processes information using electrical impulses as non-continous? talking about the transience of brain wave pattern, and then mystically defining memory seems like one hell of a logic jump. for instance, can you prove my computuer runs non-continously just because it stores data?

btw...you assume that in making an artifical brain, you can recreate all of its activity. that may well include "an operating system" of sorts...which many well be the continutity part of the equation. stored data + an interpretive method= intelligence.

skinbag

You can come over to my house and kill me anytime, but it won't be the same me that wrote the above reply. So I don't "inherently" exist in the sense of an enduring self. My "sense"of self persists because life would be too confusing for my brain otherwise. I consider it as a sort of experiential shorthand, like compressing files is to the original data. We can remember the past, but we cannot re-live it. So I believe in my self and have a vested interest in protecting it. It may exist, but not in any sense that I can comprehend with the limitations imposed by my current state of being.
So I'm saying I wouldn't give you directions, assuming you were going to come over to kill me, because I exist to the extent that I believe I do, and I do believe in a self that is needed by my family, etc. The function of understanding that I don't REALLY exist is to enable me to live more freely. "If I die the world will continue more or less as before." I don't inherently exist, but I do in the relative sense. Again- which "ME" has truly existed. To me "truth" implies immutability. If my self existed for a micro-moment, but then had to make way for the emerging self of the next micro-moment, it didn't really exist in practical terms. This is a "yes/no/both/neither" proposition, and I could go on trying to pin it down all day, but that would only prove that I had too much time on my hands..I'm not making the case for nihilism, but similarly I'm not going to swallow eternalism.
Thanks for the topic. I look forward to following this thread, as I do your others.

iamjero

A very very good book on the subject of consciousness is "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bi-Cameral Mind" by: Julian Jaynes

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"Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns, why should we allow them to have ideas?"

- Joseph Stalin

CSflim

I think you may have misread my arguement. The "pattern" does cause consciousness, the point is, that it cannot be the cause of the continuity of consciousness.
Bascially, think of it this way. Why do you percieve your "self" as being static...in the sense that you are the same "self" that existed a few miliseconds ago?
What links the "you" of now, to the "you" of the past?
What makes you, you?
It cannot be the specific particles that make up your body, as these are transient.
It cannot be the pattern that these particles make, as these too are transient.
So why do you percieve a non-transient self? There needs to obviously be a "link" of some sort to your past self.
Yuo are saying that it is because the pattern itself is continous. I'm not fully sure what you mean by this, but I assume that you mean in the sense that each "state" move smoothly into the next, passing through every intermidiate state, in a manner akin to a graphed continous curve?
Well first of all bear in mind that realaity is inherrently non-continuous. All states exist only in distinct quanta.
Secondly, even if these states were related in this manner, I don't see how it would affect my argument, which argues that the percieved permenance of self is an illusion.

I don't follow this arguemnt?

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CSflim

My question is, what causes this persitence of a sense of self?

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skinbag

I can't answer that directly, because I think you nailed it already. I believe that the sense of self is a delusion, hence it is brought on by ignorance of the truth. I have to fall back on the old film metaphor, i.e. the picture appears fluid although in reality it is merely a series of still pictures. It's an illusion produced by perception. I've never heard a full explanation, other than to say it's a product of our neurological hardware. I think you are stating the truth, I guess.

CSflim

Well, my "immortality of self" is the same self that you will act to protect, by not giving me permission to kill you!

So while I definately don't believe in immortality, in the case of a "magical soul", I, see the possibility arising to preserve your "percieved self" indefinately.

Another strange paradox occured to me a few days ago.

We construct an artificial neuron out of plastic/semiconductors/whatever. It opperates in the same way as a biological neuron.
We then replace a single neuron in your brain with this artificial neuron.
Are you still you?
Well the obvious answer is yes.
There's no fundamental difference to this, than recieving an artifical heart.
Also it is possible for a single brain cell to die, without losing your "sense of self"

So, it seems to be acceptable to believe that inserting an artificial brain cell wouldn't stop us being conscious.

So what if we replace another? And another? Is there a threshold or limit, at which we will stop percieving a "self"?

What about when there is nothing left of our original brain? Our brain is nothing more than a collection of artificial nerouns. Would we percieve that as being our self?
Presumably so. But what fundamental difference is this to our artificial brain? Why would we claim that one of them represents our "actual" self, and the other only a "simulation" of our self?

My answer to it, is that both and neither are our "self".
Neither of them are our "self", in the sense that our self is transient, and its continuity is only an illusion, based on the relative permenance of our memories.

Both are our self, in the sence that both would percieve themselves to be our self (and share the same memories etc.). Why then is it, that I don't feel that "downloading" our thoughts into a ready made brain would be benificial from my point of view of preservation of self, but the slow replacement of my brain would be?
Is it just my preconceptions of reality and existence that are fucking with my judgement, or is there something deeper to be understood?

These questions can only be properly understood with
.
1. A complete and unambigous physical "theory of everything"
and
2. A complete and unambigous model of the working of the human brain.

Sadly I don't believe that I will see either of these being realised in my own time!

Its a pity, as the prospect of immortality is an enticing one! If only I could just hang on long enough! I'm very suspicious of cryogenics, so I guess the only real way, is to somehow raise funding for me to take a near light speed round trip of the galaxy, and return having aged only a few years to find that immortality has been achieved (or that we've blown ourselves up in a nuclear war!)

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ccxcone

You pretty much found the reason why downloading our memories wouldn't develop the same level of consciousness we currently feel: The computer doesn't operate on the same system that the brain does. If you had a working model of a brain, however, that could completely copy another brain, then we would have a different idea, then. The thing is, scientists haven't been able to duplicate dendrites in the same way that they form on human brains.

Now, taking consciousness as an illusion of memories from a brain, what can be inferred from death? Based on this previous model, consciousness would siece to be, and thus, so would the self that carried it. Based on that, existance of the outside world is really nothing more than an illusion from the brain. If the same neural stimuli were to be duplicated with synthesized electric impulses that we gain from our nervous system through the outside world, then all functions of reality could be synthesized by a computer with lots of wires hanging out of it.

This brings me to my point, which was also mentioned earlier: existance is an illusion. If existance is only an illusion generated by your brain, for all practical reasons, reality isn't real at all. If reality only exists in our brain (which it essentially does), then consciousness is only the presense of a reality which is interpreted (prehapse imagined?) by the brain. Take away that consciousness, then reality of that world no longer exists to the self, because the self which interpreted it would also sieze to exist. In the end, all I can really conclude is that we don't exist. Consciousness is pretty much a loop, like you said before: reality is formed by the brain, and the existance of the brain which interpets reality is formed by that same brain that interpreted reality to begin with. It pretty much boils down to the fact that we define ourselves, and since one thing cannot scientifically define itself, then there is no proof for such said existance. If reality doesn't exist, then the brain that exists in reality cannot exist, and so, neither can we.

You know, I find it very odd that I just argued out the belief that I don't exist, but the funny thing is, I really believe it, too.

CSflim

Note that I never once metioned a computer, always "an artificial brain". My feelings on a conscious/intelligent computer are summed up in this thread. (i.e. it is impossible).

Further more, I was putting forward my "artificial neuron" story, purely as a hypothetical thought experiment, (to be carried out in the future perhaps?)
I even gave the two points which need to be satisfied for this experiment to be realised.

I would dismiss the "Brain in a Vat" hypothesis (or more recently "The Matrix hypothesis") on the basis of Ockham's Razor. Why try to push away reality, to a futher level of abstraction, when it can be dealt with here and now?
Certainly, Ockham's razor is no proof, but it certainly goes a long way to convince me (Ockhams razor is the reason we think the earth roates the sun).

I am a hardened realist, and will never accept any "participatory universe" principle. Certainly, I cannot prove that that reality exists independantly of us, I just feel such a belief is such an anachronistic step back towards times before heliocentrism et al.

In the words of Samual Johnson, "I refure it THUS!" *thump*

You've got the exact oppositve viewpoint to skinbag, who would claim only materialism exists, and the self does not.
You would claim that material doesn't exist, and only the self does!

The biggest problem is your claim that *nothing* exists, neither realty, nor your perception of it is:
Cognito Ero Sum!
If there is one thing that we can prove, beyond all doubt, and this is that something exists!

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Kyo

It's difficult to really piece together all of my thoughts, since I have just read this thread now and am itching to respond before I forget everything. So, you will have to forgive me if my statements seem disjointed.

Your concept of immortality isn't immortality at all - entropy wins eventually. Whatever you use as the container for your 'self' will, at some far-off and unknown time, disintegrate into its constituent subatomic particles and/or energy.

Regardless, it brings up an interesting problem - which of you is really you? If you could pattern the mind exactly, what would determine which is the original? If all we truly are is some matrix of physical and chemical processes and structures in our minds, a perfect copy should be ourselves, exactly. Going further with this eventually leads us down into the bottomless pit that is the argument for/against a soul, so I'm going to stop here.

Something to note, however, is that at the very moment of 'download,' or transfer, if you will, the two beings begin to diverge - they are instantly different upon the moment of creation. And another thought - would the method of download make a difference? Consider two different methods: 1) actual physical transfer and then replacement (ie, actually moving the brain one particle(?) at a time and then recreating the original), or 2) True replication (the original remains untouched). Would the result be different? Assume that both the original and the copy are completely and utterly unconcious during the process. Both would think they are the original, yes, that much is obvious. But would the original actually know which one he was?

We've also discovered why the existence of a soul, like many religious concepts, is such a convenient theory.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

CSflim

Yeah, that’s true. I mean "immortality" in the loosest sense of the word, i.e. living for a really really long time...assuming you don't get hit by a bus/get plugged out by the cleaning lady/get swallowed by a black hole...etc... Should have stated that explicitly though! Immortality in the sense of not "dying of old age"



Well assuming the correctness of "proper" atheism, and assuming the correctness of my original argument, then the question of "who is the original" is meaningless. The original existed in the past. The "original" no longer exists.

Yup. No disagrement there!

That's what I'm trying to figure out. In a hypothetical future world, given a choice of potential immortality via:
a)Transferring your thoughts into an artificial brain
or
b)Having your brain, bit by bit replaced by artificial neurons,

I would undoubtedly choose b, from a point of view of preservation of self.
The question is...WHY?

If I am look to the success of both of these operations on my friends, I would come to the conclusion that they are equivalent.
My friend John got his memories transferred to an artificial brain, which was connected up to a mobile robotic suit. When I talk to him, he is obviously still John. We share jokes about times past, and reminisce about common acquaintances, who just didn't live long enough to see immortality become a reality. Pity really, that bobby was great laugh! Wouldn’t have minded seeing him stick around for another couple of thousand years...etc.
Similarly my friend Mary, has had her brain slowly replaced. Then to ensure immortality, she had all of the limbs/organs/flesh etc replaced at a later date. She is now, like John, purely artificial. We also talk, and remember times past. This person too, is obviously Mary.
Ironically, now that we even have the technology required to perform these operations, we still cannot answer the question about the preservation of self. The only way to find out, is to try it for yourself....and if it fails, you'll never know. And even if it does fail, "someone else" will experience as if it all went well, and will go and tell of their friends about how great this new treatment is! And if it works, nobody can take our word for it that it works!
So even with the ability to empirically observe the results, it won't answer our question.
The only way to answer it seems to be to logically "philosophise" on it...but it appears to be a bottomless pit!
What we really need to do, is ask if the question is in fact meaningless....which I am starting to believe.
I wouldn't go so far as to make the claim that there is no self, and that there is no consciousness, for reasons that I already explained.
But rather I feel, we need to look more closely at what is the nature of this elusive "self". What unfounded assumptions are we making, without even realising them?

To analogise:
Take Newtonian time. It "makes sense", it fact it is "obvious". There seemed no sensible way that you could argue with Newton's definition of time. It most certainly matched our natural intuitive grasp of what exactly time was.
Then along came Einstein, and blew all that away! The REAL nature of time, is in fact quite very different to the time that we find "obvious".

Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are the two things which cause me to be instantly suspicious of making any assumptions, on the basis that "they are obvious".

So, in the same way that the true nature of time, is not expressed correctly in the "obvious" Newtonian sense, I fear that our "obvious" interpretation of self, is not the true self.
In fact, I feel that the argument I stated at the start of this thread is one indication that such things are so. After all, the continuity of consciousness is undoubtedly an illusion, despite that fact that it seems "obvious" that it exists! The “obvious” self is starting to come apart at the seams!

I don't see what you mean? Both would claim to be the original. The copy would say that he has just experienced himself being teleported into a different room, and the "real original" would claim that "obviously" he was the actual real self, that he experienced lying on an operating table and hearing all sorts of loud noises, after which he got up, and his identical twin walked into the room.

Quote:

e've also discovered why the existence of a soul, like many religious concepts, is such a convenient theory.

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Kyo

I plan to get more than 6 hours of sleep for once tonight, so forgive the bullet-form. Watch it turn into a mini-essay anyway *mutter*.

- In terms of there not being an original because of your argument that 'self' is transient, if I grant that the 'self' is transient then yes, I agree that the original is meaningless, since a 'person' (or perhaps I should say 'personality'?) is really a state of being at a particular instant - one that is wiped away as quickly as it is created. However, I don't agree that the self is quite so transient - I believe that continuity is present in our existences. I am still in the process of organizing my reasoning; I will get that up here as soon as possible.

For now, however, assume that we freeze time, perform the transfer or replication, and then attempt to discover which is the 'original' and which is the 'copy.'

- While you are correct that both would claim to be the original, there is an original (again, ignoring for now the transient self argument). If you were the one being copied - where would your conciousness go? Obviously you couldn't control two bodies - by copying yourself or transfering yourself you have created a conciousness separate from your own. You and every perfect copy of you would claim to be you, but the original should know which one it is, intuitively. But how? If it is a perfect copy, it is literally indistinguishible from the original - how can it be determined which body your conciousness inhabits?

All right. I need shut eye.

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Sure I have a heart; it's floating in a jar in my closet, along with my tonsils, my appendix, and all of the other useless organs I ripped out.

Loki

Great topic, and i'd like to raise a point. Unfortunately, its been a few years since ive done the research, so i cant remember the name of the guy. Ill add it in if i can find it, but if someone else knows the name, by all means throw it in.


Anyway, i would say that you would not be you at all after inserting an artifical neuron, and in fact, you may very well cease to be. The experiment that i am referring to, was done by <insert name here> on an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). What he wanted to do, was to 'evolve' a circuit (For those of you who don't know what an FPGA is, um, for simplicites sake, its a logic device, that allows you to program some code, from which it creates an equivalent circuit) that could discern between a high frequency and low frequency signal, using only 100 gates (way way smaller than then smallest design humans can make). He created 50 random sets of instructions, and loaded them into the FPGA. Then, he culled every instruction set except a few that did the closest to what he wanted it to, and then, using those few instruction sets, created 50 subsets containing random parts of the original surviving instruction sets. He repeated the process, calling new batch a generation.

By, uh, around the 6100th generation of this, i think, he had created a fully functional circuit that could perfectly tell the difference between the high and low frequencies, and output different voltages for the two frequencies.

The funny thing is, of the 100 gates allocated, only 39 gates were used by the final circuit (incidentally, nobody understands how the hell the final circuit works, but it does). But, (and heres why this is relevant), if even one unused gate was taken away, the whole circuit collapsed, and did not work. The theory behind this is that the circuit evolved to work with what was given to it.

If you replace that neuron, regardless of what you do, it will not be identical to a human neuron, and as such, there is a possibility that the entire system will come to a screeching halt. So, id say yes, there is a possibility that every single brain cell is required in order for you to be you.


Heh, this thread reminds me of a rather unsettling thought i had a few weeks ago: How do you know that you were really you one minute ago?

CSflim

Not strictly true...The majority of the unconnected gates were in fact unused. It was just a small loop of gates, that were unconnected to the main circuit which could not be removed, but regardless...

I believe that you may have missed the point. If you replace the loop of gates in that circuit with an entirely equivalent set of gates, you will find that your overall circuit functions correctly. Removing it entirely will cause the circuit to stop functioning.

When it comes to replacing it, the thing is that, the actual implementation of the circuit is irrelevant, as long as it does the same thing.
However, an important thing to bear in mind is, what characteristics of the implementation are required.
At present the operation of the discriminator is not understood, so it would not be possible to replace the gate loop with an equivalent circuit using a different implementation.
You could design a semiconductor chip, which was logically equivalent. and use that in the discriminator, but the device would cease to work.
Only with an understanding of the operation of the circuit as a whole can we hope to replace a part of it with something equivalent.
e.g. it has been postulated that the main circuit induces an electromagnetic force in the gate loop, which has an effect on the device at large. If we were to replace the gate loop, we would need something which could take advantage of the slight electromagnetic field generated by the rest of the circuit.

None of this takes away from my theory. I firmly put forward the conditions that must be met, before we can hope to build a replacement neuron, namely a full understanding of physics, and a full understanding of the brain.
The corresponding conditions also apply to the tone discriminator.

Further more, you make the claim that every neuron in your brain is required for your sense of self.
This could not be true. Brain cells die all the time, without any adverse effects to your self. While most of the cells die a natural death, as part of the general operation of the brain, sometimes cells die independently of the brains operation, again without causing problems to your sense of self.
So, if a cell can be removed/destroyed, without "killing" you, surely something much less drastic (replacement) would do no such thing.
Further more, how could an entirely equivalent thing, have any effect what so ever?

According to this theory...you weren't!

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Moonduck

Killer thread. REALLY wish I was conscious enough to read it, absorb it, and post my two cp.

"A man cannot step into the same river twice" is about as much as I can rpdouce tonight. *yawn* *snooze*