Free will, determanism and all that (choices, choice)

[Kungfuzed]

Originally Posted by Guitar's Cry

If I may...

Probably more than that. In fact, it would have to be the result of our entire physical being. Would reproducing the same chemical and electrical reactions suddenly reproduce my subjective perspective? It seems absurd.

Only the ghost in the shell would know for sure.

Originally Posted by Guitar's Cry

While I agree it is probably physically based, can it be physically reproduced? As I stated in a previous post, this is reductionism. It says nothing of the experience, it just describes the mechanism behind it.

Take emotional response for example. We know the neurology behind it - chemical reactions and such - but to us, to the subject experiencing it, the emotions are something more.

Same with free will. We can describe the mechanisms behind choice, but that says nothing about the experience of being an agent of influence.

We don't have the technology yet, but if it could be reproduced, no one would still know exactly what it's like except the person running in the virtual mind. And that person's subjective experience would be completely determined by the system reproducing the experience.

[Guitar's Cry]

Originally Posted by Kungfuzed

Only the ghost in the shell would know for sure.

Yeah, but it wouldn't be my "ghost." Only the primitive brain structure.

Originally Posted by Kungfuzed

We don't have the technology yet, but if it could be reproduced, no one would still know exactly what it's like except the person running in the virtual mind.

Actually, my point was, I should know. If my subjective experience is based primarily on the physical attributes that are reproduced, then my subjective experience will be reproduced. It wouldn't. Or, it seems absurd it would.

It may be due to the specific atoms that consist of my physical structure existing in this specific temporal and spatial point, but even the reproduction of that becomes absurd - unless we're talking total recurrence.

Originally Posted by Kungfuzed

And that person's subjective experience would be completely determined by the system reproducing the experience.

I agree. And it would be different from my own despite its reproduction of my physical makeup. Is it simply due to the atoms not being the same atoms in my body?
Possibly. But are the atoms in my body now the same ones that'll be in my body when I'm 75? Maybe some (I'm not sure), but certainly not all. Will I then have a different subjective self then? Arguably so.

But subjectively, I can't imagine it.