Source Page. Credit is to SMBC-Comics and even more credit to @aperson@beehaw.org who noticed it was missing and found the credit in this comment. Sorry about that and thanks, you're awesome aperson <3
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
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Is there a clear cut distinction between consciousness and self awareness? I think based on common usage, most folks wouldn't say you were conscious when sleeping, as usually it's said when sleeping you are unconscious. Sure your brain is still doing stuff and it's not just "keep the heart beating" stuff, but you're not aware of it.
We don't really understand consciousness well. Current theory is that it's the weird self-awareness that comes from a human brain. Even sleeping our brains don't really stop. It just stops conscious thought. Which is a confusion of terms, really. So we don't really know.
Here's a more terrifying question: every time you lose and regain consciousness, is it you coming back? Or is it a new version of you with the same memories? What if every time you went to sleep, you effectively died but you'd never know it because the only version of you that you can actually be certain exists is the one right now?
To put the lie to the transporter-consciousness debate: a clone in the transporter either works one of two ways: 1. it creates a new consciousness with the exact same memories and there is no way to tell the 2 apart from the outside but they are clearly different consciousnesses i.e. different people, or 2. transporters kill and remake people constantly birthing new consciousnesses every time and a clone is not that remarkable as it's just creating 2 instead of 1 this time.