Restrider wrote...
Interesting.
I have a different take on it though.
Here is a thought experiment. If you would take your brain on three different occasions on the same day, you would still have a lot of changes on a molecular - let alone atomic level.
However I guess you would not be able to tell the difference between these three individuals, unless you asked them what time of the day it is. You would perceive them as the same person.
The big question here is, what is self-awareness and what makes you an individual?
Usually you'd say all your experiences stored in the neural network, the way your brain recieves input, the features of your brain chemistry etc.
The point I am trying to say is the following:
If your individuality/self-awareness/soul/conscience/personality - or however you want to call it - is determined by the subatomic position of all the particles your brain is comprised of, why is there always some sort of core-identity that prevails throughout your life (ignoring heavy traumata/turning-points that change a personality)?
And don't tell me that the matter your brain consists of is in a fixed state...
I do not really have an answer and I would really like more information on that topic (I guess some others are more adept on this kind of topic than I am).
I am not trying to defend Synthesis or Control here, I am just genuinely interested on this topic.
I find this kind of thing interesting too, but I'm afraid I know next to nothing about neurology. I do remember a little from some of my courses at uni. Something about the amount of times a particular synapse is stimulated to fire, progressively makes it more sensitive to subsequent activation by causing it to express more receptor sites in its cell membrane.
This change in a neuron's sensitivity is one of the ways in which we aquire memories, along with neurones growing, or pruning dendritic connections to each other. So to copy Shepard's personality and memories accurately, the catalyst would have to scan all his neurones, and note the number and sites of the individual receptor proteins on their surfaces... which seems a bit of a tall order in the 10 seconds or so it took to reduce him to ash.
Maybe it's a bit like compressing an MP3? Maybe there's extraneous or redundant information you could ignore or "compress" when scanning a brain and still get something that was recognisably "Shepard"?
It's all a bit beyond my pay grade to be honest. Spotlessvoid seems to know quite a bit about this sort of thing though.
Modifié par Eryri, 22 décembre 2012 - 11:55 .
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