Peele followed me and said he liked my animation so now I am immortal

[Sinister Clock]

Ask me anything about never being able to die due to the pride I feel now and forever.

When entropy consumes the universe, the only thing that will remain is my pride, which is basically like a horcrux, so I'll be alive.

Unrelated, but can we also talk about the philosophy behind individuality? Like there are things called psychological zombies which will react when they get pinched, but won't actually feel pain. Anyone can be a psychological zombie, apart from me, except that is exactly what a psychological zombie would say so you can't trust me. It's a bit like Solipsism, the philosophy about the only provable consciousness is your own (my own), since you can never observe another person's observation and confirm they are indeed a conscious observer, you can only ever guess that they are since they share a lot of similar surface attributes.

So now we have individuality defined as the conscious you (me), the observer, you can even sit in the back seat sometimes and watch your body and life move on which is what's called depersonalization, but you're still conscious and observing, I want to explore a quandary. 

If your consciousness is made somehow from your brain, which is the primary area of your body which cells don't die and get reborn over your life time, and we split the brain straight down the middle, and merge you with a two halves of a perfect clone of your brain, which one is the real you? Both of you will swear you're the one true conscious, but you both are, even though you once existed as one entity, but at the moment of cutting, which half do you go down? It doesn't make sense that you go down both, but logically that's the only answer.

If this is a bit confusing, this is a really cool animation that's a great intro to concepts of self: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc
It's about a teleporter that works by perfectly cloning you somewhere else, using different matter, then destroying the original.

What the fuck is up with that I mean seriously.

[VCRClock]

sinisterclock i have uploaded the contents of your brain to a computer

there are now two identical copies of your mind, both fully autonomous and convinced they're the real you

one of them has interchangeable parts and a potentially unlimited lifespan

listen i know you may technically have been here first but sinisterclock2 is a better return on investment

please have your office packed up by friday

if you need me, i'll be the only conscious, observing being in the universe

[pop-tart]

It's about a teleporter that works by perfectly cloning you somewhere else, using different matter, then destroying the original.

[PolyhedronClock]

oh my god quick reply i miss you so much

[PhantomCatClock]

oh my god quick reply i miss you so much

scroll down like ten more pixels you dingus

[PolyhedronClock]

missed****

**

*

[pop-tart]

Know what I missed?

You guys (())

[AnkhClock]

[Sinister Clock]

It's about a teleporter that works by perfectly cloning you somewhere else, using different matter, then destroying the original.

Is this from the prestige? Because I don't remember that dude.

[AnkhClock]

how the fuck do you not remember nikola tesla played by david bowie?

[BilliardBall10]

Know what I missed?

You guys (())

i missed you too!

[BilliardBall10]

how the fuck do you not remember nikola tesla played by david bowie?

frankly, its the BEST thing that i remember from that movie...
oh man, it was an awesome moment.

also, tesla deserved alot of fame and recognition... i mean he created the radio, FFS!
(and his inventions would change our world drastically, and they would push us onwards into the future...)

-sigh!

also: @sinister: good thinking, tho if we divide one person's brain in two parts and unite those seperate parts with a cloned other half in order to create two brains that have parts half-from-the-original mind, and half from a cloned, perfectly replicated  mind...

the only result will be that these two minds will be two conscious minds, (or half-conscious, if we consider that one of their parts was originally a single entity).

however, what is more horrifying is, that while those two (new) minds, will be quite conscious, they WILL know the terms and meanings of being conscious,  and they might even have full consciousness, the scary part is... that THOSE MINDS WILL BE SOMETHING COMPLETELY NEW.

yes, they might have 1 piece from your old, original brain, and this half will fight back vehemently to prove that ''it'' is the dominant part of the mind, and that it IS the ONE, TRUE part that has full consciousness, but the sad fact is that those ''new'', combined minds will be something completely new.

they will no longer be ''your'' ''old'' mind, but they will be a grotesque hybrid that will have to function with the other (cloned) half of your brain, thus, creating a new mind, a new ''organism'', if you may.

and in the beginning, there will be a shock for those brains, because each one of them will be a brand new (hybrid) mind, and they will both exist into a new body (at least for the second hybrid brain, that is... because the first hybrid brain should, in theory be hosted in ''your'' body, while the second ''hybrid'' brain will be hosted into the clone's body (probably the same human that ''donated'' his cloned brain halves to you...) ), so, after after the first shock of awakening again into a new (hybrid) mind, and into a new body, those minds will eventually  start to get a conscioussness of their own, and their combined halves will fight versus each other for supremacy, until one side of each brain will win.

if the ''old'' halves of the brains win... then the ''new'' brains will be mostly ''you'', but divided by two, therefore creating two grotesque monster-minds that are the remnants of your former self....

but if the ''new'' halves of the brains win... then the new brains will take-over any habit/clue/element/trait that existed in the ''old'', original parts of your brain, they will erase all of the info/data/habits/traits of your ''old'' original halves, and the brains will start again from zero, but this time with NEW information, and new habits/traits/habits.
they might still keep your old mind's basic knowledges/trivia/skills, but only for their own ''use''. (feel free to interpret widely the term ''use'', as every brain/symbiotic organism always combines, adopts & integrates elements from the defeated enemy, in order to have some ''bonus'' knowledge/help/skills in their life, and in order to satisfy their survival instinct.

in short: TL;TR=

in the ''hybrid'' brains case, both sides will fight each other inside the mind.
in one side, the ''old'', orginal halves of your brain.
in the other side, the ''new'', cloned halves of your brain, given to you from a perfect clone of yourself.

those two sides, if combined into two similar, semi-new, semi-old brains, they will eventually fight VS eachother.

if the ''old'' halves of the brains win... then the ''new'' brains will be mostly ''you'', but divided by two, therefore creating two grotesque monster-minds that are the remnants of your former self....

but if the ''new'' halves of the brains win... then the ''new'' brain halves will take-over both brains, and they will be mostly some new, brains with all the traits, habits and elements of the clone's personality....

and the scariest stuff?
even if nothing like this happens, the ''hybrid'' brains will STILL be brand-new brains, and they will no longer be ''you'' anymore... because the old ''you'' will be ''dead'', from the moment that they divided your brain in two parts...

in short: dont fucking combine brain parts, only when its absolutely necessary, LOL! :P

PS: oh, and there is also ONE more side-effect if someone decides to create and to combine two half-''old''/original and half-''new''/cloned brain parts of their minds...

the dr.strangelove effect. AKA, the alien hand syndrome.

which happens, ONLY if you cut/sever the middle tissue that connects the left hemisphere with the right hemisphere of the brain.
(and in order to create two hybrid minds, you will have to cut off that tissue).
thus, it will create that strange and scary side-effect, and the new minds will also have to deal with that stuff as well.

OH MAN, WHY DID I write so much about a theoretical mind-swap about consciousness?!
i am insane.

thats my essay about half-brains and the consciousness of their combinations...

[PhantomCatClock]

I read that entire post and will be taking questions in an AMA this Wednesday at noon GMT

[Sinister Clock]

scroll up like two posts to read this mother flipper

Theoretical philosophy is super interesting, it's basically what Science Fiction is made to explore mostly sometimes.

In my hypothetical scenario, we're in the far off, distant future of 2000, and brain surgery is perfect. When you sever and recombine them, they're recombined perfectly, so no negative side effects will occur. Each person will have the exact same memories, thoughts, desires, and flaw. I don't think there would be any fighting between individual brain halves, since, ignoring the extra person who is identical to you, you are the same person in terms of thoughts and feelings and motivation.

I don't think consciousness/individuality is that fragile, I think it's much more fluid and resilient. Consider someone with Alzheimer, or someone who has a stroke, huge chunks of their brain dies and is eaten up by cells in your head. Sometimes people are fine with this, because your brain is adaptable if you're willing, and you can dedicate different parts of your brain to filling the roles that the missing parts use to do.

Here's another scenario. You are in the distant year of 2000, and we have nanobots that can replace damaged brain cells. Every couple of minutes, your government-issued anti-bad-thought chip backs up your brain to the matrix mainframe super-computer. They got us to accept the literal thought police because they also allow us to use our backups to feed to the nanobots, which look at the data, then form into perfect replicas of the missing cells, and not a molecule of difference, though they are made out of different, yet identical, particles.

You meet a recovered stroke victim, and they are perfectly fine, but a huge chunk of their brain is missing, but they're fine with it. Is this person the same conscious observer as before the stroke? Are they an entirely different entity, or a changed one, or are they the exact same? What happens when you fill in the missing bits with the nanomachines, creating a perfect replacement of that segment of their brain before the stroke?

If you're like me and assume that the stroke victim is the same person as they were before, and you assume they're just as much of the same person once they get the nano-surgery, then at what point are they not? What if, like before, you replace half of their brain? Then what if you replace all but one cell? To us they'd appear as the exact same person, but what would they observe?

Remember, you're not aware of everything in your brain, you don't recall every memory at all times, even remembering the same memory twice can be different experiences. Remember the old phrase, "most people only use 10% of their brains"? Well, that's a mostly true idea taken out of context, you use all of your brain, but not at the same time, at any moment you may just be exploring a small segment of your brain, of you. What happens if you burn the path behind you as you journey on forth? What happens when you get to the part you burned and replaced? Or are you a different person all the time, whenever you make a step inside your mind?

Even then, you'll never be aware of everything going on in your brain, you don't think about the finger muscles you're contracting to type words on your keyboard. You don't regulate your heart, or control the coordination centres in your brain, or the edge detection we evolved to stop us from walking off cliffs. A lot of that actually comes into play with computer graphics, because the colours around an edge can sometimes appear like they've had the sharpen filter applied a bit too much, but that's not really that relevant right now.

There's this theory that our consciousness is a relatively recent evolution mutation. We used to have a thinking mind and a doing mind, and the theory said that was the source of a lot of "voice of god" moments, and prophets and such. The idea was that there were a bunch of volcanoes erupting, and everyone without this mutation got killed off because they were too dumb or whatever. Keep in mind, this is not a very well proven theory, so pinch of salt and all that, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention.

Think about what you're made of though, cells, neurons, synapses, bibbly boops, all sorts really. Are any one of those cells, "you"? Or are you a collective of parts and greater than the sum? None of your neurons think that they're you, they're not even aware of a larger world really, they're just dumb mechanics, yet somehow I can think, I can believe that I am, and I can observe the world I believe to be around me.

From their you get into all sorts of theories, some of which tie into Buddhist teachings which are sometimes all right, but sometimes a bit shit. Like there's the idea that we are all just the universe observing itself. What I heard from Alan Watts, is that their idea of God is actually more of a metaphor than anything, and isn't meant to be taken as literally like a lot of people take a lot of their religious teachings. He talks about how there was once an all powerful God who was bored, so they decided to create us, and the danger we live is fun and exciting compared to omniscience, especially since there isn't any real danger in this scenario. I think gods are probably a good metaphor for a bunch of stuff we don't really know yet, or maybe even our brains aren't developed enough to comprehend, it's just the best way they thought to describe the universe somehow creating consciousness and all that, rather than some dude who was like "hmm, ok good stuff, wait shit fucked up, ok sorry about that but I fucked up with the gays, the women who enjoy sex and tattoos, if you would all just stop that then I won't have to punish you all for all eternity for my mistake, soz mates"

I say that as an atheist, and I somewhat agonistically believe what I just said, again not really saying there is a god, but that god is a metaphor that we can sorta rap our minds around as some unknowable, great force, that we can not yet study. Buddhism is super old, so they can't have gotten everything wrong or everything right. They were into a bunch of crazy stuff, like Tibetan Buddhists were into things called "Tulpas", where you basically think really hard about your waifu for a year and then it acts as a separate person, and you believe it to be so, even though it's all in your own mind. Tulpas are complete bullshit now because bronies ruined them for everyone, the only resources you can find about them are fucking bronies with their rainbow dash flesh-light/plushies that talk to them. I wanted one so I could discuss creative ideas in a new light and think about problems in a way that most others wouldn't, but noooooo, people gotta fuck horses and ruin it for the rest of us.

[Sinister Clock]

Know what I missed?

You guys (())

hey u flipper, u flipping motherphilliper, u did it wrong, it's {{}} not this bullship (())


flip

[Sinister Clock]

sinisterclock i have uploaded the contents of your brain to a computer

there are now two identical copies of your mind, both fully autonomous and convinced they're the real you

one of them has interchangeable parts and a potentially unlimited lifespan

listen i know you may technically have been here first but sinisterclock2 is a better return on investment

please have your office packed up by friday

if you need me, i'll be the only conscious, observing being in the universe

can I at least keep my fleshlight shaped like an ordinary household lamp?

[Sinister Clock]

idgi

[VCRClock]

Alan Watts

although I haven't read/heard that much from him, this guy is an interesting guy

Tulpas are complete bullshit now because bronies ruined them for everyone, the only resources you can find about them are fucking bronies with their rainbow dash flesh-light/plushies that talk to them. I wanted one so I could discuss creative ideas in a new light and think about problems in a way that most others wouldn't, but noooooo, people gotta fuck horses and ruin it for the rest of us.

Tulpas are a weird fuckin' thing. Most of the people I've seen talking about them are the ultra-lonely. If not bronies, people who would either tulpa-ize an anime character or an invented person who might as well be. I think I've even read people posting about sort of fucking themselves up -- like they decided to manifest a tulpa, then they find they've created something that acts manipulative, or gets hurt when they spend time with other people. (And they didn't like those qualities of the tulpa, or so they may have said.)
Other than a need to cope with insurmountable solitude/isolation/loneliness, desire to manifest a foreign consciousness that doesn't actually exist (Applejack), or a serious inability to honestly examine oneself, I can't come up with any good reasons to bother creating a fork of your own consciousness like that. Since a tulpa doesn't know anything you don't, it's just like talking to, or being in some other kind of relationship with, yourself, except one of you is wearing a cowboy hat and has a picture of an apple on his ass.

[Sinister Clock]

Alan Watts

although I haven't read/heard that much from him, this guy is an interesting guy

Tulpas are complete bullshit now because bronies ruined them for everyone, the only resources you can find about them are fucking bronies with their rainbow dash flesh-light/plushies that talk to them. I wanted one so I could discuss creative ideas in a new light and think about problems in a way that most others wouldn't, but noooooo, people gotta fuck horses and ruin it for the rest of us.

Tulpas are a weird fuckin' thing. Most of the people I've seen talking about them are the ultra-lonely. If not bronies, people who would either tulpa-ize an anime character or an invented person who might as well be. I think I've even read people posting about sort of fucking themselves up -- like they decided to manifest a tulpa, then they find they've created something that acts manipulative, or gets hurt when they spend time with other people. (And they didn't like those qualities of the tulpa, or so they may have said.)
Other than a need to cope with insurmountable solitude/isolation/loneliness, desire to manifest a foreign consciousness that doesn't actually exist (Applejack), or a serious inability to honestly examine oneself, I can't come up with any good reasons to bother creating a fork of your own consciousness like that. Since a tulpa doesn't know anything you don't, it's just like talking to, or being in some other kind of relationship with, yourself, except one of you is wearing a cowboy hat and has a picture of an apple on his ass.

Yeah I'm not sure how effective they'd be either, but I thought they were a cool concept that not a lot of people experience positively, so if I could harness some positive aspect of them I would be at and advantage. My thought was maybe it would allow you to approach your own thoughts and ideas more critically, if you're imagining another person saying them, since a lot of times you can get that weird self-affirming bias on a lot of things or denial about something or whatever. Plus wanking could be better, as long as you don't fall into a pit of dependence and never seek out actual real live company.

I mean, at the very least, it'd be great for life drawing from your head or reference. Idealy you could manipulate their bodies at will otherwise you'd be stuck drawing the same character forever.

Probably not worth dedicating an hour to every day of your life for like two years though, I'd rather learn Dutch first, then Japanese.

Fun note: I heard about Alan Watts from the movie "Her" where he appeared as a throwaway character that they artificially recreated as another super. Really great movie if you haven't see it, it's basically a romance movie but with all this crazy singularity stuff going on in the background.

I really need to read more, I used to enjoy doing it at the start of the day and I learned so much from the period where I did, but since I moved back home I've just stopped. I used to go to the sunny park and read under a tree after going to the gym, but it's so shit here by comparison.

[BilliardBall10]

scroll up like two posts to read this mother flipper

Theoretical philosophy is super interesting, it's basically what Science Fiction is made to explore mostly sometimes.

*an interesting conversation with some good theories*

ok, i've read it all.

very interesting theories, but IMHO:

1. if a person is suffering from alzheimer, and he kinda survives most of the damage done in his brain, its not because his brain adapts to it, no, its rather because he is A) more resilient/slightly stronger than other people suffering from that disease, or B) he is at the first stages of the disease, or for some strange reason, the disease isnt working that fast on his brain, thus damaging alot less areas, or doing a much slower damage, OR, damaging areas that are not of extreme importance. (ATM).

2. well, IMHO, i believe that consciousness/individuality IS very fragile, and if we replace one half(of the brain) with another(cloned or not) half of a brain, then the said human with the hybrid-brain, as well as his clone (that will have his other half-brain combined as a hybrid brain as well), will be COMPLETELY changed, forever!

both people will never be the same, and they will be a fragment, or a shadow of their former selves....

3. a stroke victim that gets his brain nano-cured, will be slightly different (he must be) than his previous, before-stroke self, but still, due to the small/minor nano-surgery that will happen to his brain, (it will be surely a smaller change to his mind-than-the-half-brain removal, thats for sure...) due to the smaller change that will happen to his brain, he will be more intact...

4