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Comment by danparsonson | Hacker News Reader

So if we copy you into a robot and the copying process leaves you unharmed and awake, are they both you?

Yes, they are both me. It is admittedly a weird conclusion, but that doesn't make it false- we did a weird thing and got a weird result. Objectively, there is no case for saying either is not you.

So twins are both the same person? Not sure what you mean, they aren't both you, you create a new person who thinks the same way you do.

I agree that they'd both be you, but I don't think that's what's at stake. "You" would only get to experience one of the two lives at that point: either the original's or the robot's. Presumably whatever consciousness was present before the duplication still resides with the original.

So there's certainly an argument to be made that if someone created a copy of "you" and put it in a robot, and then destroyed your organic body, that consciousness wouldn't "move" to the robot; it would stay in the organic body and be killed. The robot would be a completely new consciousness, but with all of your memories and behaviors and attitudes.

I'm honestly not sure what I believe around this. Perhaps we will discover "consciousness" as a physical thing and learn how to transfer that as well. Or not. Who knows.

I'm with you on this one - continuity is important too, it's not just about form. A robot version of me might be a suitable substitute to my loved ones, but it would always be outside my head and therefore not a continuous extension of my self.

No, one is a copy of you. There is only one you. Literally. A copy can be perceived as being you, but it's literally, physically, not you. If it was you, literally you, it couldn't exist in both. Your copy could answer a question differently than you might, because the copy would immediately start having a different experience than you. If it was you, that wouldn't be possible. If it was a copy of you, you wouldn't exist along side of it, and it wouldn't be able to answer a question differently than you.

What a silly conundrum you’ve got yourself into. It’s fine to take a step back and say oops, what I just said here was quite stupid.

I think it would both be me until it started to drift, which would be almost instantly.

Right. You'd have a memory of cloning your mind, and the copy wouldn't have a memory of that. From the first boot of the copy, it would be operating with a different set of data than you. Also the fact you exist along side of it, means it's not you. It's a copy of you.

As long as we're dreaming up stuff, why do we assume the consciousness wouldn't be shared? what if you woke up and there was one mind but two bodies?

For myself at least, consciousness is the product of the body and in particular the brain. Without any kind of high bandwidth connection between two bodies, I don't see how your proposal could work.

That said, I wonder if that offers a possible way to 'transfer consciousness' between a human and their robot copy - link both brains together and then once synchronised (whatever that means), shutdown the biological half. Like a sort of extended Ship of Theseus idea.

That's an interesting idea. I think as long as the continuity of consciousness happens then it doesn't matter and you would negate the copy problem.

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