Consciousness Thought Experiments

Here are two thought experiments to make you think about consciousness.

Experiment 1

A scientist offers you $1000 to participate in an experiment. You will be strapped into a chair, and given a drug that causes extreme pain. The pain will last for five minutes. After that, the effects of the drug will wear off. There will be no permanent effects. Then he will give you a second drug that erases your memory of the last six minutes — enough to cover precisely the amount of time that you spent in the chair. The second drug also has no harmful permanent effects. It just erases your recent memory. After giving you the second drug, the scientist will unstrap you from the chair and pay you $1000.

From the perspective of your future self, it will be as if you just walked into the room, sat down in a chair, and then got out of the chair and were paid $1000. Your future self will have no memory of feeling the pain. If anything, you will feel better than when you walked in, because you will still be feeling relief from the pain ending, even though you don’t remember it.

On the other hand, from the perspective of your current self, you know that you will experience excruciating pain if you agree to the experiment.

Assume that you trust the scientist completely.

Would you agree to the experiment?

Think about it for a minute.

Now, suppose that you agreed to the experiment. You are strapped into the chair. The scientist gives you the first drug. You experience excruciating pain for five minutes. Then it rapidly fades away. The scientist has the second drug ready to administer. However, before he injects it, he asks if you would rather not have the second drug.

What would you choose? Would you prefer to keep your memories of the experience, or have them erased?

Experiment 2

A new, revolutionary technology can scan your brain and replicate your psychological self: your memories, your personality, your intellect — everything that makes you you.

You get a free promotional offer from a self-replication clinic. Since it’s free and there is no risk, you decide to replicate yourself. You go to the clinic, where they carry out the procedure. It takes about an hour.

When it is done, they hand you a thumb-drive that contains your replicated self. It comes with a program to interact with the replica. The program allows the replica to see through a video input, hear through an audio input, and speak through an audio output. You can turn it on or off at any time.

You take the thumb-drive home and insert it into your computer. But then you pause to consider the implications. Should you activate your replica?

If you do, the replica will awaken as a disembodied mind inside a computer. It will have the same feelings that you would have in that situation. After all, it is you, psychologically.

Unlike you, the replica has the possibility of unlimited existence, as long as it is properly stored. It can exist long after you die, but only as information in a computer.

Would you activate your replica? Would you put it in your desk drawer? Would you destroy the thumb-drive?

Now, suppose that someone you love replicated herself. A week later, she died in a car accident. You have the thumb-drive. It is sitting on your desk.

Would you activate it? Would you rescue her consciousness from one oblivion, only to consign it to another? Would you talk to her one last time? Would you tell her that she is dead?

What would you do?