Given that most brain cells can't be replaced, is immortality impossible? If all brain cells could be replaced...

Given that most brain cells can't be replaced, is immortality impossible? If all brain cells could be replaced, would you still be the same person?

Brain cells are constantly being replaced though

Not most of them

yes all of them

Yes, if not all of them. However, brain cell replacement rates are subject to similar age-related retardation as other cells, so there IS that

If the new ones had the exact same structure and functionality as the old ones you'd be the same person. Copying a program to a different computer completely replaces the physical hardware running it; but the structure of the program remains the same so it works the same.

Assuming they're replaced one at a time or at least in small sections and the neural connections and individual neuron function are replaced exactly as they were, you could replace the cells with artificial neurons and you'd still be the same person.

Theseus pls go

>Copying a program to a different computer completely replaces the physical hardware running it; but the structure of the program remains the same so it works the same.
So if your whole body was 100% replicated you could control and exist in 2 bodies at the same time?

What, you think just because it's the same molecules it means it's the same person?
The self is an illusion

>The self is an illusion
How do I ensure I get to experience my illusion and not the illusion of being a 3rd worlder?

"The CNS doesn't replicate" Is a meme from the 20th century, nerves divide all the time just at a lesser rate than most cells.

"You" don't even control or exist in one body to begin with. So your imagined scenario is one that won't work as your intuition is correctly leading you to believe, but you need to go even further and realize there isn't anything that could ever be carried over in the first place because "self" is an after the fact rationalization where the cartoon "you" is magically assigned credit for all the various things "you" do, as though any one entity could possibly be the real cause of all your elaborate / convoluted brain activity.

>I
>experience
>my
Don't think the point is being understood here.

There is an argument that if you replace all the molecules in your body, somehow you have a different "self."

There is not an ounce of justification to suggest that a "self" is paired with particular molecules and preserves itself over time. Rather it's much more easy to believe sensation and consciousness is just something which arises moment to moment, interaction to interaction.

It's true, we can influence this body and mind hours or years from now. And parts of our configuration will remain intact. But that's about as far as it goes in regards to being a "self preserved over time"

You just replace them in a way that the consciousness maintains continuity. You slowly replace peices so that the consciousness feels like it's still there the whole time.

>There is an argument
Yeah that might be the case, it might even be the most profound argument ever written. But I didnt read it and no one else did either because of your retarded primary school line spacing.

Stop avoiding the question. If someone builds a copy of me, I don't experience the world through that copy. That means if someone copies me and kills me I am dead, and that copy is not me.

It's only immortality as far as external observers are concerned, it means fuck all to the person being copied.

It's not avoiding the question. There is no module in the brain responsible for continuity of identity that could ever be carried over or not carried over in the first place. Having two versions of a body around at the same time is not a normal situation so it makes you think more about this lack of continuity, but this isn't actually an issue specific to copying.
"You" from ten minutes ago doesn't have access to "you" from five minutes ago either, so citing the lack of access "you" from before copying would have to "you" after copying doesn't add anything new except the weird situation of having two versions around at the same time instead of in separate moments in time like the different "you" versions normally exist in.

Also:
>That means if someone copies me and kills me I am dead, and that copy is not me.
That's true, except you're stopping short. The "you" now is not "you" from earlier points in time either.
>it means fuck all to the person being copied
Sure, except it also means fuck all to "you" from ten minutes ago that "you" from five minutes ago exists.

I have a set of personality characteristics that relate to me. I have memories that relate to my experiences. I will behave a certain way in certain circumstances, due to the way my brain is wired, while other people may behave differently. That is the self, and it exists. Going any further than that is pure philosopsuedoscience and has no place on Veeky Forums or in the head of a man of science.

>Sure, except it also means fuck all to "you" from ten minutes ago that "you" from five minutes ago exists.
There is continuity there. There is no continuity between you and a clone. I don't keep dying, I just gradually change. Whereas if you copy yourself and off yourself you're not waking up in the other body.

I don't think anybody can quantify consciousness yet but you're being an obtuse cunt if you deny that there is a difference between existing and not existing.

I live life through MY eyes and nobody elses. I have a set of personality characteristics that relate to me. I have memories that relate to my experiences. I will behave a certain way in certain circumstances, due to the way my brain is wired, while other people may behave differently. That is the self, and it exists. Going any further than that is pure philosopsuedoscience and has no place on Veeky Forums or in the head of a man of science. Or even just a man of intelligence.

>I live life through MY eyes and nobody elses. I have a set of personality characteristics that relate to me. I have memories that relate to my experiences. I will behave a certain way in certain circumstances, due to the way my brain is wired, while other people may behave differently. That is the self, and it exists.
Can you prove all of that scientifically with empirical and reproducible experiments? No?
Then you best start believing in philosopseudoscience threads, user.
You're in one.

No you are not the same person you were when you were 10 years old, your 10 year old self has essentially gone under ego death.

>start a thread with fucking urban legend, continues with fallacious reasoning
>200 replies
>people chimp out and argue for hours

>start a thread with carefully considered and planned, logically bulletproof opening post
>1 reply
>"lol gay"

Lets say this clone appeared suddenly when you were sleeping, and neither of you has an idea which one's the original. If concioucness is indeed continous, there should be some test that could determine that. What would that test be?

Consider abandoning the ways of Sodom

>There is continuity there.
Really? What specifically enforces this continuity in the brain? Is there a particular structure or process that makes sure to connect each instance of activity the brain fires off with every other instance of activity before and after it? Would like to see the specifics of how this would work.
> I don't keep dying, I just gradually change.
Line up a few pebbles next to one another. Does the line of pebbles have one unified identity now because they're nearby each other in space? Do a series of moments of brain activity have one unified identity now because they're nearby each other in space and time?
Doesn't look like there's anything necessarily gluing everything together like that, though it's convenient to act like there is. "You" aren't really responsible for all the random shit the brain does, right? That's more like a story to retroactively attribute everything to a "you" because that simplified version is a lot easier to deal with then if instead everyone was forced to deal with all the excessively granular real world details of how a brain functions. And a story isn't really any sort of continuity in reality. But feel free to try to make a case there is glue there or a "self" really does orchestrate what the brain does.

Brain cells not being replaced isn't really an urban legend so much as the conventional stance on the topic up until relatively recent in modern history. Although it's also irrelevant how accurate or not accurate an OP is since what makes people respond is more a matter of if the topic they're touching on is interesting.

>start a thread with carefully considered and planned, logically bulletproof opening post
Well if it's logically bulletproof then there's really not much to discuss now is there, bitch?

Our notion of "self", whether evolved or conditioned by society, is not at all based on the underlying physical reality of our brains, which is something we've only begun to understand in the last century. It makes sense, then, that mixing those two conceptual frameworks as if they could fit together like puzzle pieces will result in conclusions that either contradict our own experience or appear logically untenable.
The same is generally true of any argument involving long-held metaphysical notions and scientific ideas, like the argument around free will, and is why these kinds of threads just go in circles.

mind is not a computer, it does not story any information

>mind is not a computer, it does not story any information
You don't consider memory a part of your mind?

You die every time you fall asleep.

Sweet dreams.