A recurring theme in the sci-fi movies nowadays is the notion that self or conscience is nothing but the aggregate of information in our brains. Classically expressed, according to this notion, what I call "I" is equal to the accumulation of all of the information throughout my life in my memory. I would like to put this interpretation under scrutiny in the light of basic human experience, modern scientific findings and pillars of faith.
At the foundation, let's see what makes a human being in terms of information. First, there is the genetic inheritance. The genetic information contains your talents, your weaknesses, your organs, etc. This code alone, however, is not enough to engender what we call life experiences. Aside from the genes, there is the chemical environment both in and around our bodies. These chemicals, be them good or bad, sometimes limit or boost the genetic activity, and sometimes they dictate how our genes are going to work. Aside from these, there are the people around us. Our experiences with them (parents, siblings, friends, relatives, society) shape our memories and our psychology. You can still dump all of these into the chemical bath in an individual's brain. Having distilled everything into material components, that is not considering any spiritual factors, if you look at what you have in hand, you'll see countless molecules interacting with each other through a unique structure. So, the first question is can you even make a copy of this?
Decoding a person's life events from their memory is not the same as decoding their psychology, since each person reacts and changes differently upon the same or similar events. This is true both in the biological sense and in the psychological sense. Therefore, in order to call something an exact replica of you, there is this daunting task of deciphering what you are, in the first place.
Second, according to the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, there is a limit of what you can know about a system. You can not learn everything about it, let alone copying. Then again, can you call something, which is at best similar to you, a replica of you?
At this point, let me make a clarification. By these comments I don't mean to discourage any studies to learn about how human mind works etc. My intention is to criticize the subjective philosophical attachments to the objective scientific studies and findings, since those attachments either don't make sense or contradict with the basic tenets of belief in Islam.
Going on with our discussion, let's assume somehow you deciphered all the information that makes you you, and then you copied this digital you. Now, are there two of you? For that matter, is there a limit to how many times you can "recreate" yourself? Furthermore, what if someone deletes you? Is that person a murderer?
Plus, what if that "you", by virtue of working on a digital computer, commits a cyber crime? Is "you" going to be punished for this? If yes, how? Or let's make it funny. Assuming that you and your digital copy are alive in the same time frame, and your digital copy commits a crime, and the officials put you in prison, or worse, they give you capital punishment. How would you like it?
What about in the afterlife? If there are hundreds of you, which one is going to be the real you to go to hell or heaven? This idea, in this sense, is similar to the idea of reincarnation, and has a fatal error in terms of the pillars of faith.
It is flattering to think that you can evade death by creating a digital you, but is it really you? The push by the materialistic and atheistic philosophy is the expectation that concepts like free will and conscience are all going to be proven as an artifact of the chemistry and electrodynamics in our brains. This is a mere wishful thinking on their side, which they are free to do, but it is not fair to advertise it or talk about it as a scientific truth.
Also, on the believers' side, it is important to be cautious, because an idea is not necessarily true only because it contains bits of scientific information and it is voiced by scientists or influential people. Such feelings of inferiority arises due to lack of information, weakness of faith and a disconnection with the revealed word of our Creator.
At the foundation, let's see what makes a human being in terms of information. First, there is the genetic inheritance. The genetic information contains your talents, your weaknesses, your organs, etc. This code alone, however, is not enough to engender what we call life experiences. Aside from the genes, there is the chemical environment both in and around our bodies. These chemicals, be them good or bad, sometimes limit or boost the genetic activity, and sometimes they dictate how our genes are going to work. Aside from these, there are the people around us. Our experiences with them (parents, siblings, friends, relatives, society) shape our memories and our psychology. You can still dump all of these into the chemical bath in an individual's brain. Having distilled everything into material components, that is not considering any spiritual factors, if you look at what you have in hand, you'll see countless molecules interacting with each other through a unique structure. So, the first question is can you even make a copy of this?
Decoding a person's life events from their memory is not the same as decoding their psychology, since each person reacts and changes differently upon the same or similar events. This is true both in the biological sense and in the psychological sense. Therefore, in order to call something an exact replica of you, there is this daunting task of deciphering what you are, in the first place.
Second, according to the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, there is a limit of what you can know about a system. You can not learn everything about it, let alone copying. Then again, can you call something, which is at best similar to you, a replica of you?
At this point, let me make a clarification. By these comments I don't mean to discourage any studies to learn about how human mind works etc. My intention is to criticize the subjective philosophical attachments to the objective scientific studies and findings, since those attachments either don't make sense or contradict with the basic tenets of belief in Islam.
Going on with our discussion, let's assume somehow you deciphered all the information that makes you you, and then you copied this digital you. Now, are there two of you? For that matter, is there a limit to how many times you can "recreate" yourself? Furthermore, what if someone deletes you? Is that person a murderer?
Plus, what if that "you", by virtue of working on a digital computer, commits a cyber crime? Is "you" going to be punished for this? If yes, how? Or let's make it funny. Assuming that you and your digital copy are alive in the same time frame, and your digital copy commits a crime, and the officials put you in prison, or worse, they give you capital punishment. How would you like it?
What about in the afterlife? If there are hundreds of you, which one is going to be the real you to go to hell or heaven? This idea, in this sense, is similar to the idea of reincarnation, and has a fatal error in terms of the pillars of faith.
It is flattering to think that you can evade death by creating a digital you, but is it really you? The push by the materialistic and atheistic philosophy is the expectation that concepts like free will and conscience are all going to be proven as an artifact of the chemistry and electrodynamics in our brains. This is a mere wishful thinking on their side, which they are free to do, but it is not fair to advertise it or talk about it as a scientific truth.
Also, on the believers' side, it is important to be cautious, because an idea is not necessarily true only because it contains bits of scientific information and it is voiced by scientists or influential people. Such feelings of inferiority arises due to lack of information, weakness of faith and a disconnection with the revealed word of our Creator.
No comments:
Post a Comment