If it was really yourself, my guess is that you would disappear (assuming you didn’t die at some point before the consumption process was finished). You wouldn’t get to be twice your size unless you ate a clone of yourself or something–but that’s not really *you.* That’s a clone of you.
What the hell is this question, now that I’ve devoted all these neurons to it?
I don’t know… But this question has been plaguing me for the past week. My first thought was – “Since I define personhood as a working and functioning neural network, and the process of eating as the eventual breaking down of these networks… the person’s personhood would be destroyed and therefore no longer exist.”
sinlee said on: December 7, 2009 3:43 pm
You would remain the same if it were physically possible to consume ones self since the mass being consumed would be transferred into your person. Thus no growth or loss occurs, unless you are a messy eater.
Now from another standpoint once can look at the question as a philosophical debate, metamorphosis if you will where the past me is consumed by the present me to become the future me, as to whether that me would be twice as big(good) is subjective however the past me does dissapear to some extent with memories serving as the vehicle to explore who that me was as flawed as memory is.
Naeem said on: December 7, 2009 3:49 pm
Naeem, I think you’ve just fragged my brain.
sinlee said on: December 7, 2009 3:51 pm
If you ate yourself, you would slowly become like this guy.
you’d probably deplete the energy that you would be eating yourself to power yourself with, eventually leaving a husk, smaller than once you started, but having no nutritional content whatsoever
You’d become infinitely you-dense, by doubling the amount of yourself while taking up zero space. Such a you-singularity could not be observed directly, but only inferred by its effects on those around yourself. And of course, others would be drawn to you inexorably. Nothing could escape the you-singularity (which I hesitate to call a You Hole); but then, why would they want to?
Also, sorry if this double posts.
Daerwyn said on: December 7, 2009 10:28 pm
I think you would pass out before you actually finish eating 1/32 of your body
Ken said on: December 8, 2009 1:52 am
I don’t think it would be possible to literally eat yourself (or at least very much of you before something bad happens … like death).
Metaphorically, I don’t think you would become twice your size because you aren’t really adding anything new. You would either stay the same or possibly, in some weird metaphorical sense disappear, maybe into a different reality?
Kevin said on: December 8, 2009 3:20 am
Sin and I just had this conversation, so I’m posting for posterity. This really illustrates that I went to engineering school.
Assume it’s actually possible to eat yourself. You perform some kind of digestive Ouroboros magic.
1/2 the mass of flesh is water. Assume 100% conversion efficiency, because you’re losing it as you eat it.
As you know, you excrete most of the mass of what you consume, once you’ve extracted nutrition from it. Since we have to account for bones, hair, and other stuff, let’s be generous and assume a 30% conversion efficiency on the non-water mass. So, you excrete 0.7 * 0.5, or 35% of your mass. You shrink by about a third.
11 Comments:
If it was really yourself, my guess is that you would disappear (assuming you didn’t die at some point before the consumption process was finished). You wouldn’t get to be twice your size unless you ate a clone of yourself or something–but that’s not really *you.* That’s a clone of you.
What the hell is this question, now that I’ve devoted all these neurons to it?
I don’t know… But this question has been plaguing me for the past week. My first thought was – “Since I define personhood as a working and functioning neural network, and the process of eating as the eventual breaking down of these networks… the person’s personhood would be destroyed and therefore no longer exist.”
You would remain the same if it were physically possible to consume ones self since the mass being consumed would be transferred into your person. Thus no growth or loss occurs, unless you are a messy eater.
Now from another standpoint once can look at the question as a philosophical debate, metamorphosis if you will where the past me is consumed by the present me to become the future me, as to whether that me would be twice as big(good) is subjective however the past me does dissapear to some extent with memories serving as the vehicle to explore who that me was as flawed as memory is.
Naeem, I think you’ve just fragged my brain.
If you ate yourself, you would slowly become like this guy.
http://www.sumodawg.com/
you’d probably deplete the energy that you would be eating yourself to power yourself with, eventually leaving a husk, smaller than once you started, but having no nutritional content whatsoever
You’d become infinitely you-dense, by doubling the amount of yourself while taking up zero space. Such a you-singularity could not be observed directly, but only inferred by its effects on those around yourself. And of course, others would be drawn to you inexorably. Nothing could escape the you-singularity (which I hesitate to call a You Hole); but then, why would they want to?
Also, sorry if this double posts.
I think you would pass out before you actually finish eating 1/32 of your body
I don’t think it would be possible to literally eat yourself (or at least very much of you before something bad happens … like death).
Metaphorically, I don’t think you would become twice your size because you aren’t really adding anything new. You would either stay the same or possibly, in some weird metaphorical sense disappear, maybe into a different reality?
Sin and I just had this conversation, so I’m posting for posterity. This really illustrates that I went to engineering school.
Assume it’s actually possible to eat yourself. You perform some kind of digestive Ouroboros magic.
1/2 the mass of flesh is water. Assume 100% conversion efficiency, because you’re losing it as you eat it.
As you know, you excrete most of the mass of what you consume, once you’ve extracted nutrition from it. Since we have to account for bones, hair, and other stuff, let’s be generous and assume a 30% conversion efficiency on the non-water mass. So, you excrete 0.7 * 0.5, or 35% of your mass. You shrink by about a third.
Also, Ouroboros Magic is an ok band name.