I'm also skeptical of the idea that one can "upload" consciousness and it would still be "you". I suppose this is true in a philosophical sense, but in a practical sense, subjective experience of consciousness rules the roost. It's inevitably going to be a mere copy of you. You don't get to experience any of it. Similar to a software project which is forked, I think it makes more sense to classify it as an entirely different entity at that point.
I suppose there are valid use cases for this, but I'm not that narcissistic to think the world needs eternal copies of me.
The continued subjective experience of the original consciousness is where I believe the real value lies. Digitisation of consciousness, assuming it has any sound scientific basis in the first place, would practically need to look more like the gradual replacement of brain (and bodily) matter with something more durable, enduring, and controllable. A slow process in which carbon is exchanged for silicon, or cellular damage is continuously reversed and aging kept at bay.
> It's inevitably going to be a mere copy of you. You don't get to experience any of it.
You can make the same argument for 'you before you went to sleep' and 'you after you woke up'. The only real link you have to that previous consciousness are memories of experiences, which are all produced by your current body/brain.
Think about this: For every consciousness (including you right now) it is _impossible_ to experience anything other than what the thing producing that consciousness produces (memories, sensations, etc.). It doesn't matter whether the different conscious entities or whatever produces them are separated by time or space. They _will_ be produced, and they _will_ experience exactly what the thing that produces them produces.
With an analogy: If you drop pebbles in either the same pond at different times or in different ponds at the same time, waves will be produced in all cases. From the perspectives of the waves themselves, what they interact with is always _exactly_ the stuff that interacts with the water they're made up of. To them, the question of identity or continuity is fully irrelevant. They're just them.
Similarly, it makes no difference whether you only have the memories of the previous conscious experiences, or if 'you' really experienced them. Those situations are indistinguishable to you. The link to future consciousnesses inhabiting your body is effectively the same.
>> It's inevitably going to be a mere copy of you. You don't get to experience any of it.
> You can make the same argument for 'you before you went to sleep' and 'you after you woke up'. The only real link you have to that previous consciousness are memories of experiences, which are all produced by your current body/brain.
Except I know, empirically, that people go to sleep all the time and wake up, and remain the same person. And I know (for practical purposes) I do the same. I -- my mind/body composite -- lie down, and get up the next morning. I remain the same person.
Simply 'copying' or 'uploading' my consciousness, like a computer file, is impossible even in theory, because I'm not just a conscious mind, but a conscious mind which is also a body. Consciousness cannot be split from the material body, even in theory. Somebody upthread said that he'd seen many amputees undergo personality changes as a result of their operations -- this is an informative (if very sad) example.
> that people go to sleep all the time and wake up, and remain the same person
You have absolutely no way of knowing that last part is true. You can only see their behavior, which is identical whether they are the same consciousness or a different one from the one it was yesterday. You don't even know whether they have any conscious experience at all.
> And I know (for practical purposes) I do the same.
You do not. The "for practical purposes" points at your _body_. There is no evidence that an organic body is in any way special. If you upload your consciousness and the resulting computer 'body' works as a normal body, it _will_ generate a consciousness and that consciousness _will_ feel that it is 'you' (itself). Note that we're talking about hypothetical practically perfect computer bodies (which may be completely virtual, as longs as its sensors and actuators live fully in that virtual world).
You can spin the illusion of a continuous conscious experience every way you want. It is still just that, an illusion.
> You can only see their behavior, which is identical whether they are the same consciousness or a different one from the one it was yesterday.
The first clause of the sentence is true, but the second is not.
You never directly see a thing itself, you only ever see its effects on the world. You rationally postulate the presence of water because of its clear colour, its hydrating effect on you, its tendency to become a gas at 100C, its tendency to dissolve salt, and so on. Similarly, you rationally postulate the presence of the same person, at 10pm on Monday and 7am on Tuesday, because he has the same personality, the same look, the same eye and hair colour, the same body shape, etc. We know about the presence of a thing from the presence of its effects and behaviour. If these remain the same, it is rational to believe that the person remains the same.
> You don't even know whether they have any conscious experience at all.
Again, knowledge of effects leads to knowledge of the thing causing said effects. I am aware of my own conscious experience, I see Bob affects the world in ways that are very similar to myself and other human beings, and so I rationally postulate that he is a conscious, rational being like I am. You never see a person's mind directly, but you see the effects of the person's mind the whole time. You see such effects through their body. If the effects remain the same, or change only in certain, limited ways, it's reasonable to believe that the cause remains the same (and frankly crazy to believe otherwise).
> The "for practical purposes" points at your _body_. There is no evidence that an organic body is in any way special.
The mind and the body form one substance. The idea that "my mind is one thing, my body another" has been tried and failed as a philosophical idea several times in history. It raises far more problems than it purports to solve. I know I continue through time in part because my body continues through time. You say the body isn't "special"; I don't know what this means, but I know my body, and other people's bodies, are different from other things, because they walk, talk, reason, sense, desire, and so on. (Once again, the effects and behaviour of a thing lead us to knowledge of that thing.) The idea that consciousness or self can be 'uploaded', even in theory, is pure fantasy. You and your body are one thing.
> You can spin the illusion of a continuous conscious experience every way you want. It is still just that, an illusion.
If this is so, explain how rational thought is possible. Given that rational thought involves you reasoning from A to B to C through time, how is this possible if there is no continuous 'you' that is going through time?
I suppose there are valid use cases for this, but I'm not that narcissistic to think the world needs eternal copies of me.
The continued subjective experience of the original consciousness is where I believe the real value lies. Digitisation of consciousness, assuming it has any sound scientific basis in the first place, would practically need to look more like the gradual replacement of brain (and bodily) matter with something more durable, enduring, and controllable. A slow process in which carbon is exchanged for silicon, or cellular damage is continuously reversed and aging kept at bay.