If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you?

Discuss the November 2022 Philosophy Book of the Month, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes.

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Dattatraya
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Dattatraya »

:)
Very well clarified.
Considering the eternal fact about human existence, I don't agree to place 'Mind ' in the outer covering.
One's Mind is the link between soul and brain!

The concept of the core will be clear if we define core.

I am very satisfied to have some idea of ourselves.
I got from your say what I wanted to know about 'I' and ' you '.
I think I correctly wanted to have that clarification.

Now I can answer the original question!
: I will be still 'I' till my Soul and Mind is intact!
And I believe no one can change and transform one's Mind into other's .
:D
Dattatraya
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Dattatraya »

Sushan wrote: December 30th, 2022, 7:55 pm
Dattatraya wrote: December 30th, 2022, 10:01 am
Sushan wrote: December 30th, 2022, 3:25 am
Richardkcaputophd009 wrote: December 2nd, 2022, 4:39 pm Would there be a difference in replacing every atom in turn rather than replacing the entire person at once?
I think there is. When we do it atom by atom there is subtlety. When things are subtle people do not feel the change. But if something done grossly and quickly, people tend to notice that even there is no change at all. So here the author might have wanted to exclude that error that I mentioned latter from the question. Otherwise the final result will have no difference whether you replace atom by atom or the whole subject at once.
:wink:
Actually the original question is not clear!
........................ identical copy of my body, would you still be you

' would I still be I ' : By which way or considering what?

Also there will be no meaning for the question or answer if there is no reference.
The whole concept is quite confusing. But in the book the author refers as one's self to the core that we all share, yet do not see because of the outer coverings comprised of our body, mind, clothes, etc. And it is said that that core is similar for every being. In that sense the changing of outer appearance (the outer covering) has nothing to do with one's real self. But the whole concept is not easy to grasp since we refer to our selves along with all these outer coverings.
:)
Very well clarified.
Considering the eternal fact about human existence, I don't agree to place 'Mind ' in the outer covering.
One's Mind is the link between soul and brain!

The concept of the core will be clear if we define core.

I am very satisfied to have some idea of ourselves.
I got from your say what I wanted to know about 'I' and ' you '.
I think I correctly wanted to have that clarification.

Now I can answer the original question!
: I will be still 'I' till my Soul and Mind is intact!
And I believe no one can change and transform one's Mind into other's .
:D
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Samantha Barnes 3
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Samantha Barnes 3 »

I would still be me because I am shaped by my experiences and memories. Even if was identical to another person in every way, we would have completely different lives so we could not be each other.
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Scott wrote: November 16th, 2022, 1:57 pm The below question is in a way simply a variation of the opening question of the book, worded very differently.


If over the next 30 years, your body (including your brain) very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body (including my brain), would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 7:08 pm I would still be me because I am shaped by my experiences and memories. Even if was identical to another person in every way, we would have completely different lives so we could not be each other.
Thank you for your reply! :)

The memories are stored in the brain, which is made of atoms. Once the atom-by-atom morphing is complete, you would have forgotten all of the memories you currently have now (in 2023), and you would then (in 2053) have all the memories that I currently have (in 2023).

So would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Richardkcaputophd009 wrote: November 20th, 2022, 4:27 pm Also, how would Scott or anyone else who buys into the two-selves idea know that they are incorrect?
I wouldn't say that I believe in "two selves".

In other words, in terms of the infamous Mind-Body Problem, I am not a dualist.

Nonetheless, I do believe, as I pointed out in the book, that the English word 'you' (and by extension the English word 'me') is equivocal.

One of the things to which the word 'you' is often used to refer is something that I believe is an illusion. Moreover, I think science has demonstrated very convincingly that it doesn't really exist. In the book, I sometimes refer to it as "the false self" or "the unreal you". It's to that very point that I believe many scientists and philosophers refer when they say things like "the self is an illusion". Realizing or learning that it doesn't exist is what many people call "self-transcendence" or sometimes "ego death".

In regard to the topics of "ego death", "dying before you die", and "self-transcendence", as well as common claims along the lines of "the self is an illusion" or "continuous personal identity is an illusion", here is a quote from the neuroscientist Sam Harris that I love, which is transcribed from the Big Think video, entitled The Self is an Illusion:

Sam Harris wrote:I’m not arguing that consciousness is a reality beyond science or beyond the brain or that it floats free of the brain at death. I’m not making any spooky claims about its metaphysics. What I am saying, however, is that the self is an illusion. The sense of being an ego, an I, a thinker of thoughts in addition to the thoughts. An experiencer in addition to the experience. The sense that we all have of riding around inside our heads as a kind of a passenger in the vehicle of the body.

That’s where most people start when they think about any of these questions. Most people don’t feel identical to their bodies. They feel like they have bodies. They feel like they’re inside the body. And most people feel like they’re inside their heads. Now that sense of being a subject, a locus of consciousness inside the head is an illusion. It makes no neuro-anatomical sense. There’s no place in the brain for your ego to be hiding.

We know that everything you experience – your conscious emotions and thoughts and moods and the impulses that initiate behavior – all of these things are delivered by a myriad of different processes in the brain that are spread out over the whole of the brain. They can be independently erupted. We have a changing system. We are a process and there’s not one unitary self that’s carried through from one moment to the next unchanging.

And yet we feel that we have this self that’s just this center of experience.

Now it’s possible I claim and people have claimed for thousands of years to lose this feeling, to actually have the center drop out of the experience so that... you can just be identical to this sphere of experience that is all of the color and light and feeling and energy of consciousness. But there’s no sense of center there. So this is classically described as self-transcendence or ego transcendence in spiritual, mystical, new age religious literature. It is in large measure the baby in the bathwater that religious people are afraid to throw out. If you want to take seriously the project of being like Jesus or Buddha or some, you know, whatever your favorite contemplative is, self-transcendence really is at the core of the phenomenology that is described there. And what I’m saying is that it’s a real experience.
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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Samantha Barnes 3
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Samantha Barnes 3 »

Scott wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:32 pm
Scott wrote: November 16th, 2022, 1:57 pm The below question is in a way simply a variation of the opening question of the book, worded very differently.


If over the next 30 years, your body (including your brain) very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body (including my brain), would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 7:08 pm I would still be me because I am shaped by my experiences and memories. Even if was identical to another person in every way, we would have completely different lives so we could not be each other.
Thank you for your reply! :)

The memories are stored in the brain, which is made of atoms. Once the atom-by-atom morphing is complete, you would have forgotten all of the memories you currently have now (in 2023), and you would then (in 2053) have all the memories that I currently have (in 2023).

So would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
If I had all the memories that you have, then I would no longer be me. At that point, I would be you. The me from 2023 would no longer exist.
Dattatraya
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Dattatraya »

Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:38 am
Scott wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:32 pm
Scott wrote: November 16th, 2022, 1:57 pm The below question is in a way simply a variation of the opening question of the book, worded very differently.


If over the next 30 years, your body (including your brain) very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body (including my brain), would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 7:08 pm I would still be me because I am shaped by my experiences and memories. Even if was identical to another person in every way, we would have completely different lives so we could not be each other.
Thank you for your reply! :)

The memories are stored in the brain, which is made of atoms. Once the atom-by-atom morphing is complete, you would have forgotten all of the memories you currently have now (in 2023), and you would then (in 2053) have all the memories that I currently have (in 2023).

So would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
If I had all the memories that you have, then I would no longer be me. At that point, I would be you. The me from 2023 would no longer exist.
The me from 2023 would no longer exist.

I am having one query.
Where that me will go?
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Samantha Barnes 3
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Samantha Barnes 3 »

Dattatraya wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:34 pm
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:38 am
Scott wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:32 pm
Scott wrote: November 16th, 2022, 1:57 pm The below question is in a way simply a variation of the opening question of the book, worded very differently.


If over the next 30 years, your body (including your brain) very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body (including my brain), would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 7:08 pm I would still be me because I am shaped by my experiences and memories. Even if was identical to another person in every way, we would have completely different lives so we could not be each other.
Thank you for your reply! :)

The memories are stored in the brain, which is made of atoms. Once the atom-by-atom morphing is complete, you would have forgotten all of the memories you currently have now (in 2023), and you would then (in 2053) have all the memories that I currently have (in 2023).

So would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
If I had all the memories that you have, then I would no longer be me. At that point, I would be you. The me from 2023 would no longer exist.
The me from 2023 would no longer exist.

I am having one query.
Where that me will go?


The previous me never went anywhere, it was just replaced with something new. However, if I had no memory of the me before the change, then its existence would be forgotten like it was never there at all.
Dattatraya
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Dattatraya »

Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:48 pm
Dattatraya wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:34 pm
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:38 am
Scott wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:32 pm

Thank you for your reply! :)

The memories are stored in the brain, which is made of atoms. Once the atom-by-atom morphing is complete, you would have forgotten all of the memories you currently have now (in 2023), and you would then (in 2053) have all the memories that I currently have (in 2023).

So would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
If I had all the memories that you have, then I would no longer be me. At that point, I would be you. The me from 2023 would no longer exist.
The me from 2023 would no longer exist.

I am having one query.
Where that me will go?


The previous me never went anywhere, it was just replaced with something new. However, if I had no memory of the me before the change, then its existence would be forgotten like it was never there at all.

:)

1: replacing means removing original and adding new!
2: when we are discussing ' I ' and ' you ' it is not possible that ' I ' had no memory.
Existence points to someone, either ' I ' or ' you '.
When You replaces I, I has to move out of the body!
Existence includes mind and soul!
And mind and soul are missing from the transformation process!
:)
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Samantha Barnes 3
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Samantha Barnes 3 »

Dattatraya wrote: January 27th, 2023, 1:36 pm
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:48 pm
Dattatraya wrote: January 27th, 2023, 12:34 pm
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:38 am

If I had all the memories that you have, then I would no longer be me. At that point, I would be you. The me from 2023 would no longer exist.
The me from 2023 would no longer exist.

I am having one query.
Where that me will go?


The previous me never went anywhere, it was just replaced with something new. However, if I had no memory of the me before the change, then its existence would be forgotten like it was never there at all.

:)

1: replacing means removing original and adding new!
2: when we are discussing ' I ' and ' you ' it is not possible that ' I ' had no memory.
Existence points to someone, either ' I ' or ' you '.
When You replaces I, I has to move out of the body!
Existence includes mind and soul!
And mind and soul are missing from the transformation process!
:)


This is fair. But isn't the soul shaped by past experiences? If the experiences that shaped you were no longer attainable, wouldn't your soul be changed as well? It still hasn't gone anywhere, you just wouldn't remember that it was ever there to begin with.
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 26th, 2023, 7:08 pm I would still be me because I am shaped by my experiences and memories. Even if was identical to another person in every way, we would have completely different lives so we could not be each other.
Scott wrote: January 26th, 2023, 8:32 pm Thank you for your reply! :)

The memories are stored in the brain, which is made of atoms. Once the atom-by-atom morphing is complete, you would have forgotten all of the memories you currently have now (in 2023), and you would then (in 2053) have all the memories that I currently have (in 2023).

So would you still be you?

Would you also be me?
Samantha Barnes 3 wrote: January 27th, 2023, 9:38 am If I had all the memories that you have, then I would no longer be me. At that point, I would be you. The me from 2023 would no longer exist.
Interesting, thank you for your answer!

At what point would you stop being you and become me? Keep in mind, the morphing is happening very gradually over 30 years, so you would likely not notice a single difference from any one day to next. Halfway through the morphing, would you be you or me?

I am currently 36-years-old, and we can refer to this me writing this here and now as 36-year-old Scott. I don't have any of the same memories as 6-year-old Scott. And he had/has none of the ones I do now. Does that mean that I am not him?

What if instead of morphing into me over the next 30 years you lost all your memories through a severe case of amnesia, and then built 30-years worth of total new members? Would you not be you then?

In terms of the "Two Yous" as explained in the book, are you saying that both of the two yous would cease to exist if you slowly morphed into an atom-by-atom copy of me? Or are you saying one of the two yous would cease to exist and the other of the two yous would persist?


Sorry for all the questions! I love learning about different perspectives. :)
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
Clara Alston
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Clara Alston »

Such a fun question! Absolutely, I would still be me because my atoms do not hold my consciousness. If I were to morph into you, it would be a drastic change, but it would not change who I am. I would feel like I am dressing up for Halloween! Some of us do this every year and realize we are not a frog, or a fairy, but are simply changing our appearance whether for a long or short period of time. We never lose our identity during this time and simply enjoy the transformation for however long it will happen.
Pauline Parnell
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Pauline Parnell »

If I somehow morphed into looking like you, that does not mean I am you. The outward appearance will look like you, but inwardly I am me. Being me isn't only physical, but also spiritual and mental. I am shaped by my own memories.
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Shillah Andeso »

From my perspective, if my body morphed atom by atom, I would still be me but in a small percentage. This is because according to science, we learn that diamond is an isotope of carbon. In the same way, the newly developed atoms would have a memory of the previous me. In the same way, I would also be you since my body has formed something new. I think the same reason I have explained applies to the brain. I hope this makes some sense.
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Re: If your body very slowly and steadily morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of my body, would you still be you

Post by Surabhi Rani »

The original and copied forms are never the same. We all are unique. Even if my body very slowly morphed into an atom-by-atom identical copy of your body, I would never be you. I would still be myself at the very core of my existence. In that case, your body would still carry all the original traits whereas my body would not. Instead, my body would have its unique traits. It is simply impossible that I would also be you. Although, both of the bodies would share certain similarities in such a circumstance.
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