File name ch2 proofs better File created date 02:50 pm Sunday, June 10 2007

Richard Feynman described science as “what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves”

Outline of chapter 2 1. The concept of the web of belief as the nature of science 2. Identity of consciousness with identity of structure and functioning arguments

Scientific knowledge is based on a web of interconnecting mutually supporting observations, interconnecting theories, ideas, and understandings of how the world around us works. We want to be able to predict what will happen when we do certain things. When we predict incorrectly we frequently do not accomplish the goals we set for ourselves. Down through history this often meant extra suffering or dying. Science is all about making a system of ideas and processes that make accurate predictions and then checking to see if what we predict is correct or not. When we can not see if the predictions we make are correct or not it is not yet science; it is speculation, conjecture, wishful thinking or religion. Science is all about making better predictions about ourselves and our environment. Since any part of our environment can change over time so can the results of our observations and experiments. Thus retesting of already done experiments is important especially from new perspectives. There is another aspect of science that is the hope that the knowledge that we gain through science is actually connected to and explains reality. Explanations not only satisfy our curiosity they help in understanding how things work leading to better and more in depth understanding thus also better predictions of ways to lead better lives. Science is not based on one experiment or observation. Any particular scientific hypothesis is not proved by one experiment. The results of one scientific experiment can be used to support many different scientific theories. Consequently, new scientific theories need to be coherently tied to the scientific web of observations, experiments, and theories that have shown over time to be accurate in their predictions. The proofs of scientific theories like relativity, evolution, or QM are not based on one experiment. They are based on many experiments that collectively support the theory and disprove or show the improbability of the other theories.

We create a foundation for scientific and mathematical belief based on many interrelating factors.

The proof of the identireplica theory of consciousness lies in the interconnection of many different observations, experiments and arguments that support it. The following is a list of some of these arguments.

Exact same memories, knowledge, beliefs, feelings, sensations, argument

Because the cidentireplica will have the exact same behavior as the original it will report about having and have exactly the same memories, experiences, knowledge, secrets, feelings, emotions, sensations etc as the original has. Or visa verse the original will report having the same memories etc. as the cidentireplica. This is very strong evidence that a cidentireplica has the conscious aspects of the original that the original wants in his continuation through life. Many might argue that a cidentireplica besides being impossible to produce is a contrived situation where we are actually creating the speech that the cidentireplica is producing, but in fact this is not the case the requirement is not that the cidentireplica has the consciousness of the original but that the cidentireplica has the exact same structure and functions exactly the same as the original. The rest is a experiment to see how the cidentireplica responds.

Lets consider not keeping the requirement that the functioning and structure of the cidentireplica stays the same and allow it to change with a changing environment.

If we consider experiments where the cidentireplica body’s functioning diverges from that of the originals because of a diverging environment conditions these varying identical replicas -- videntireplicas, will still show close similarities in knowledge, secrets, personality traits, to that of the original

Videntireplicas will be able to remember things that have happened to the original that the original forgot and never remembers again. How is this possible that a person that never experienced something, that another person has, remember events about that person’s life that the original does not? Lets assume that we know what actually happened to the original at many points in his life. So we actually know if something did or did not happen to him in fact. Scientific experiments show that human memory is not exact. Over time many of our memories change from what actually did happen or the way something was. Our memories can change because of dreams, change to the brain over time, and the brain inability to store every memory that we have ever had. So the brain has been shown to tie together pieces of memories into a rational coherent whole memory of an event. When we remember some event or thing in our past it is often a stimulus like a smell that starts us thinking about it. As we think we remember more and more about it. Some aspects we can not remember. An example You smell a flower. It brings back memories of the house you lived in when you were a child. That kind of flower grew in front of the house. As you think about this you remember about the other plants in the front yard then you think about going into the house and you remember what the interior was like. But then there are parts you can not remember like the color of your room. How then is this possible that a videntireplica can remember the color of the original room where the original can not. Because the videntireplica experiences different things than the original as his body functions differently . He might have experienced that color in a different situation and remembered that that was the color he hated as a child because it was the color of his room as a child. There are any number of other possibilities that give the videntireplica reasons to remember things that the original will not be able to. This ties the videntireplica closer to some events and aspects of the originals life than the original. The sum of the consciousnesses of the different videntireplicas of an original will remember much more about the original’s life than the original does. They will also remember many things that did not happen as well because of the plasticity of memory.

Any cidentireplica can take the place of the original. Many videntireplicas can take the place of the original.

Exact same behavior of cidentireplica as original. Exact same knowledge for the cidentireplica and original Exactly same memory of experiences for cidentireplica and original Can totally replace the original in every way for external purposes

Cidentireplica believes that he is the original argument

If the cidentireplica did not know that he was a cidentireplica and not the original he would think he was the original. The original believes he is the original even if there has been one or more idoriginal or cidentireplicas before him. If the cidentireplica believes that he is a cidentireplica, the original will also think that he is a cidentireplica as well because of identity of functioning. The cidentireplica will believe that he has the same body as the original and a smooth continuation of the originals consciousness because he believes that he is the original.

believes he is a case of survival for himself and he thinks that he is the original

The most important is that the cidentireplica thinks that he is the original Many divergent cidentireplicas videntireplicas will think that they are the original. The original through many divergent sensepaths, enviropaths, will believe that he is the original even though you are much different than you would have been as the original.

How do we know that the cidentireplica thinks that he is the original? What possible answers could we have either he is or he isn’t the original or like the continuum aspect of this theory says he can be a percentage the original and that percentage can change from point to point on the awarepath of the original compared to the awarepath of the videntireplica

If we could actually do the experiments. You can ask the any number of cidentireplicas of every original at each point in each original life, a number of different questions. Like what is your name? Tell me about your past? Tell me about your friends ,family, home, life, thoughts, beliefs, emotions. A cidentireplica will respond exactly like the original. Rather than holding this person to be a cidentireplica we can let the sensepath and or enviropaths change as well with this change we can also view how this new version of the original behaves though it behavior we learn what they really feel about themselves a divergent cidentireplica will still think that he is the original in many cases

Are you really a case of survival or Ixperiencit for the original if you have the same consciousness or a potential consciousness for the original?

Videntireplicas believes that they are the original argument

Many Videntireplicas will believe that they are the original. A videntireplica can know that he is not the original.

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You are consciousness argument if you have to choose to be conscious with out a body or a body with out being conscious

I cannot expereince the consciousness produced by another body bias argument I do not experience it bias argument “I don’t experience it, so it must not be me!” bias argument.

This argument is based on the belief that I do not experience the consciousness of the cidentireplica or idoriginal because they are different people thus I do not feel, hear, see sense, etc. through them. You can not experience the consciousness of another person consequently they are not me. An thus can not be a case of survival for me before or after my death

How do you know that you do not experience the consciousness of the cidentireplica? You only know things because of consciousness. If the consciousness is identical how can you know something different from the cidentireplica? The first thing that we do is view the cidentireplica from the out side looking in. We do not see him from the inside looking out. In other words you see your self subjectively and you see idoriginal and cidentireplicas objectively. You have to see the cidentireplica subjectively as he see himself. He see himself the same way that you see your self as you.

I can only expereince the consciousness that my own body produces

Scientifically

but since it is identical it just appears that you do not experience it If it is identical you do experience it

You do experience exactly what the cidentireplica of you experiences. A cidentireplica and you do not experience the same things so it is not you. The cidentireplica in fact does experience the same thing as you do.

The closest continuer theory is that the closest continuer produces personality. The criterion for personal identity, for you, by other people is different than the criterion of personal identity for oneself. The closest continuer theory is fine for others in determining your personal identity but it is not a good way for one’s self. If the closest continuer does not have your consciousness you are not there to experience it you are gone. For your self, you actually have to experience what this closest continuer is experiencing.

If we take the argument to the extreme you do not experience what you will in the future so with the same reasoning that future you then can not be you either. Same can be applied to the past as well. With this rational we are only our selves for this very instance.

14. The private experience bias argument

The bias is: Because the identireplica theory makes it possible for the same experiences to be generated by more than one person, the identireplica theory can not be true because experiences are private (individual singular).

The bias is: Because a cidentireplica makes it possible for the same experiences to be generated by more than one person, cidentireplica’s experiences can not be the original experiences because experiences are private.

From our subjective and limited perspective our consciousness does seem to be private. But because our perspective and knowledge about consciousness is so limited, consciousness being private, singular, individual, is just an assumption and not a scientific fact.

It is just from our perspective that experiences are private. There may well be conscious forms produced by physipaths that can exist in this universe that actually can feel your pain and others as well. A particular experience may well be able to be built on to imagine taking a physipath that produces a particular experience then removing all functioning that does not need to exist to produce that experience then adding other functioning in any way desired to combine that experience to that expanding consciousness. When you see a picture of blue it may be exactly like someone else sees it. Our experiences may not be private. If they were it might be impossible to communicate because we would not share the same meaning for our experiences, feelings and memories.

People can not see into another people minds so they seem to be private. But private in this sense is different from private as not being identical. We do in fact see into others people’s minds in limited ways through verbal communication, facial and body expression. With more direct connections there can be much closer ways of seeing into other minds. If there we not a lot of identity of mentality between people we would have a much harder time communication. Being mad, happy, angry are similar among

Concepts like madness happiness etc. can be different but not radically different between people. Of course what is happiness for one person might be sadness for another but this is just a mater of switching names. Behavior betrays feelings. Even if I say and think that I am happy, if I am acting like I am unhappy I am conveying information about may private consciousness.

If there were not similarities between human consciousnesses we could not communicate. Animals that have less and less conscious similarities to us we have a harder and harder time understanding them and their behavior and consequently communication with them.

There are not enough imaginable emotions etc. for every one to have totally uniquely different emotions ideas etc. -- consciousness. Consciousnesses have to be part of a continuum of consciousnesses, where there can be very small changes between consciousnesses, to even no difference in consciousness.

Evolution bias argument

We are not meant to see the possibility of immortality, it is a detrimental to our ability to survive, If we think that if we die it is not the permanent end to our experiencing we will not try to survive as much because temporary non consciousness will be better than extreme pain and suffering. If it is false why do so many people believe in an afterlife? The view of an after life that people have is not correct so evolution either has not the ability to see the truth or has no reason to develop the correct ideas in people. The view of an after life is a singular view so this concept is carrying over where as the truth is multiple. The evolution view is a singular linear individual unique view where as in reality our consciousness and ixperiencit is multiple and continuum.

Some religions have to make suicide a sin just so people will not kill themselves, thinking that things will be better after death -- life in heaven.

What would be the evolutionary reason for thinking that we are discrete, singular, linear, private, individual, unique separate distinct autonomous independent. The feeling of here and now. To survive you have to think in terms of this body this awarepaducer. Keeping the awarepaducer alive long enough to reproduce more awarepaducers. Creating consciousness is not the major reason or purpose of evolution. It is a minor side issue that can help survival if produced in the correct ways. Some types of consciousness will be detrimental to survival. to survival like life is not fun it is easier to die. We suffer a lot in life in simply surviving and if we gave up, and said, I will exist some where else, where life will be better, is not going to have a lot of people surviving and reproducing. Fear is different from pain. We will suffer great pain because of fear of dying. If the fear of dying was reduced the struggle to survive would be reduced as well.

Even in death we feel that we have to keep this singular, linear, discrete, line of ourselves going. The christians believe that there body will be resurrected in an after life as did the egyptians with mummification and many other civilizations with their burial rituals.

It is not just that the perspective is distorted the importance is different as well

evolution does not care if the consciousness survives it cares that the process survives But evolution has lead us to this point where we can see the difference the difference is that the awarepaducer does not have to survive but the awarepath does need to survive. The purpose of the awarepaducer is the production of the awarepath. We are not the awarepaducer we are the awarepath. We care about the awarepaducer because we care about the creation of the awarevenues which we are. If it had not been for evolution the awarepaducer would not have been created. There may not be any other way to create the awarepath that through the human body but this does not seen likely since there may be many ways to manipulate matter to create awarepaths.

Argument for survival or evolution

We see ourselves as singular rather than multiple because it helps us survive. Seeing your self as multiple can be confusing which body do you save which body or line of thought do you concentrate on. If you think that you will live forever or at least live on past the life of this body you call your own you are not so likely to work and suffer so much for the survival of this body. Nor for the bodies of all your family and friends.

For the consciousness not to correspond to reality is not an aid to survival. A consciousness for evolutionary reasons should correspond to reality and to predict the behavior of reality the further the consciousness get from reality either there is a waste of resources by producing a consciousness that does not control ones behavior or there are bad choices being made which takes away from one survivability.

Survival is based on learning that certain efforts will produce certain results. For instance, if we plant corn in the spring on good soil with the right climate, and protect the crop from insects, disease and weeds we will get a crop much larger than if we did the opposite. We start with the simplest case of duplicatability and add complexity to the theory of cause and effect until we have duplicateability. An example A man is hungry he throws a rock at a rabbit and hits it and has a meal next time he throws a rock he misses the rabbit. He thinks what did I do wrong? He realized that the conditions were different he was twice as far away. Now he always throws the rock at the same distance. But he still only gets the rabbit 2 out of three times. He thinks what Am I doing wrong? Then he realizes that he is using different size rocks once he uses the right size of rocks he gets the rabbit three out of four times. This is still not good enough (he has a family to feed and there are getting less rabbits) He notices that he misses when the wind is blowing.

“Person” bias argument for consciousness

This bias is that if the original and cidentireplica had the same consciousness they would be the same person, but since they are not the same person they can not have the same consciousness. This bias presupposes that we are singular, unique, individual,

Person bias argument we are biased against there being more than one you at a time because of the belief that we are the body but the body is actually what created our consciousness not the necessary

The people that do not accept this multiple view of have to prove that only your body will produce your consciousness and your ixperiencit

They (the belief is by ) insist that you are your body Most people do not believe this they believe in something more such as a soul. But they carry with them the idea that the soul is singular as well.

It is possible that we could see ourselves as more than one body. There is nothing that says that a consciousness could not be this way. Would you have to have more than two bodies at one time or just sense having more than one body at a time It is possible that some insane people do see them selves as more than one body certainly as more than one person

“I” bias argument

We are so biased against the multiplicity of self that we do not even have terms to describe the multiplicity of self. “I” is a singular term. It is consciousness for me if I experience it -- is composed in singular terms. The presumption (presupposition) is that you are singular. You have to define the singular I when you use what am “I”, for I to experience it. We keep coming back to everything from the singular perspective in defining the self -- I. We are actually a potential awarevenue on a awarecontinuum that grades out to percentages of self measured from that point. There are potential consciousness that “I” experience that “sees” or actually experiences the multiplicity of self.

Singular versus multiple bias argument

We are biased if we think that we can only have a consciousness that seems to us to be singular-- where we see only one conscious perspective at a time. Even though evolution has produced a singular bias on the consciousness that the body produces this does not mean that only singular types of consciousness are the only ones and that

When a consciousness allows you can see directly the multiplicity of consciousness the identity theory does not seem so strange. And gives direct empirical proof for the continuum theory of consciousness.

I believe that evolution has worked hard at creating a awareness producing organ uniting consciousness of humans into one perspective where as the normal will be a more multiple view --- schizoid

Limited perspective bias argument

From our limited perspective we seem similar to others in body and mind but not exactly, thus we see our selves as singular, unique, and individual, but upon seeing ourselves from a larger perspective we are actually multiple, duplicatable, variable, multispacial multitemporal, multimaterial, multistructural, multifunctional etc.

Incomplete/ limited knowledge argument

Another reason that we see ourselves as singular, separate, unique is because of limited and incomplete knowledge. We do not see the whole picture We have a limited perspective. From incomplete knowledge comes all sorts of different theories that have limited supporting evidence for them at best. The idea of a soul was created way before there was any supposed evidence for its existence. This is unlike the usual scientific process of observing a phenomena (soul) and then trying to understand it The purpose of the concept of a soul was to have a way of producing singular, linear, unique immortality. This is a different process than observing something and then trying to find out about it The reason that we do not see ourselves as potential, multiple, continuums of consciousness is lack of knowledge.

Who is a cidentireplica a continuation of argument

Who is a cidentireplica a continuation of if he is not a continuation of the original? Who is a cidentireplica a case of survival for if he is not a case of survival for the original? He thinks that he is the original everyone else thinks that he is the original. There needs to be something uniquely different that ties him to someone else. We already accept that he is a different person from the original but what we are arguing is that a cidentireplica’s body is just as good a continuation of the original’s survival as the original’s body is. If not cases of survival for the original then who are the cidentireplicas argument

If not the original then who are the cidentireplicas of the original? The cidentireplicas think they are the original every one that does not know the status of the cidentireplica thinks that he is the original.

If it has the same consciousness or an approximation it is a case of survival for the original argument Conscious identity equals ixperiencit identity argument

We are supposed to be more than consciousness because we can still be alive and not be conscious -- coma, periods of sleep. We tie ourselves to our body because it is an aspect of our consciousness

If consciousness is the key aspect of self then it follows that where there is identity there is identity of self.

Approximate conscious identity equals ixperiencit identity argument

If consciousness is the key aspect of self then it follows that where there is identity of consciousness there is identity of self. Since we know that consciousness over time changes for a persons in different ways these kinds of variations to consciousness will also be

Singularity a priori bias argument

This is the bias that we are necessarily singular rather than multiple. It is a necessary fact, not based on any empirical evidence. Thus it can not be disproved by any experimental evidence. An a priori proof that can not be argued because it is self evidently true. There are closed minded people everywhere. If your mind is already made up about some issue and you will not consider any argument or scientific evidence you are the one that will loose if the knowledge is true and useful. Being open minded myself where is the proof that a priori knowledge actually exists and second what is the proof that singularity of self is a priori. You have to show one fact that is necessarily true under all conditions. For example the concept that one plus two is always three. First there is the name three. It means it means the number 3 in english Not is other languages. Second it is not always three even in english. In base three it is the number 10. Third when applied to the real world we do not always get three objects or amounts when we add three objects or amounts together. If you add 2 cups of alcohol to 1 cup of water you do not have three cups of mixture. If you add three hydrogen atoms you can have either one hydrogen atom or one helium atom 2 plus 1 is 3 by definition in mathematics. It is not an a priori truth. No empirical information is a priori by definition. The body is material thus information about it is empirical thus not a priori. Consciousness is a property of the body so information about consciousness is empirical also.

Not used in this chapter

Does belief implies consciousness

linear individual singular