[felipeerias]

What are you, ultimately, if not your body?

[margalabargala]

I don't know. I also don't see how that changes the question. What is an AI, ultimately, without its computer hardware?

[felipeerias]

Hardware is fungible. Each LLM response in a conversation could be served from a different machine.

Would you be "you" in a different body?

[margalabargala]

Human bodies are fungible. I think I would be "me" in a different body, yes. So is anybody.

To claim otherwise would mean anyone who's gotten a transplant or amputation is no longer themselves.

[confidantlake]

What most people think of as "me" is a product of their brain. If you somehow could get a brain transplant you certainly would not be "you".

[margalabargala]

Sure, if you remove the brain or delete the weights then the human or LLM are different than they were.

[Jensson]

> Sure, if you remove the brain or delete the weights then the human or LLM are different than they were.

If you delete the hardware and buy new hardware and write in the same weights its still the same LLM. If you delete your brain, get a new brain and put in the same weights in the neurons its a clone, its not you. We know what happens when we create a clone, the clones aren't the same person they are separate consciousness, so consciousness is tied to the hardware.

For example, if we have 5 identical clones down to the atoms of their brains, and send a message to the first and let him respond, then send the same message to the second together with the firsts response and let them add a new message etc. That is not one consciousness responding, thats 5 different consciousnesses responding, and that process doesn't connect them into a single consciousness. That is how LLM works, at best a single token generation is conscious, but that would be a less meaningful consciousness than a ringworm.

[felipeerias]

What, exactly, would be the link between you as you are right now, and “you” in a different body?

[foltik]

From a functionalist perspective, there is no “you” sitting in one body or another.

The experience of “you” is just your specific memories and world model, continuously updated with sensory input.

If another body “runs” the same exact pattern, that is you. Theres no link and nothing was transferred; the pattern of thoughts and memories is all “you” ever was.

Same as playing the same song on two different speakers. Nobody asks what links the song across them; it’s the same song wherever it’s played. You’re just a far more complicated pattern on a far more complicated speaker.

You might ask, “but why am I this pattern?” Because this is the specific pattern modeling itself from the inside in asking that question.

[felipeerias]

The question is whether you can separate that “same exact pattern” from the physical body where it is taking place.

And my intuition is that no, you can’t, they are two aspects of the same reality.

[margalabargala]

Well, you'll have to tell me. Your question depends on your choice of language meaning.

If "I" am in a different body, then what makes that "me" who's in a different body?

[maxerickson]

Of course they are themselves. The question is whether they are a different self.

[margalabargala]

The answer to that can be anything anyone would like it to be, depending on what definition of "self" they choose.

I don't see why hardware is any more fungible than a kidney. If your LLM reads the serial numbers of its motherboard/RAM/etc as a seed for entropy you can make identical arguments about body fungibility and self.