From: White, Ryan (ryan@dvelco.com)
Date: Fri May 05 2000 - 13:13:16 MDT
Harvey Newstrom writes:
Eugene, let me paraphrase your viewpoint into a different viewpoint.
What
you are saying sounds similar to the belief that the copy is an
inactive
backup. As long as it hasn't been activated or allowed to process a
single
thought on its own, it can be deleted. Since it has never run it's
neural
processor or processed a single thought, it is more like a standby
computer
with a backup disk that has not ever been turned on. Until we turn
it on,
it has never been alive.
Is this consistent with your viewpoint? Stated in the above words,
I must
agree. An inert backup copy that has never become functional is
just a
backup copy and can be deleted. Its software program is not
running, has
never run, and cannot be terminated. At this point, you are merely
destroying one of my backup copies, but not a running consciousness.
Your
analogy with abortion is very close here, with this copy ready to be
born
and become alive in an instant.
I think I agree with both points of view, and we are getting caught
up with
semantics of "what is death" and the details of "why" the copy is
not yet
alive. I was so distracted by your argument that the copies must be
identical, that it had not previously occurred to me that the copy
had not
yet been allowed to have independent thought on its own yet. To put
my own
semantic spin on things, you are interrupting the process of
creating a copy
and not finishing the final step of giving it consciousness. Until
that
final step, it is not yet alive. It is an inert clone of spare
parts that
has not been animated.
In reference to;
"you are interrupting the process of creating a copy and not finishing the
final step of giving it consciousness",
Observation: What you are hypothetically creating is not then, in fact, a
'copy,' since not all characteristics (such as consciousness [whatever you
mean by that]) are duplicated. IMO, it would be more accurate to assert
instead that you are creating a static _record_ of the present state of a
dynamic process. Yes, I agree, that the act of destroying a record would be
considered fundamentally different from the act of destroying a 'conscious'
dynamic process.
Question: I don't recall who originated this thread, but you know who you
are (or, as the case may be, 'were'). Of this person, I ask:
was activation implied by 'copy', or no?
Ryan v23.9
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