From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Thu May 11 2000 - 22:52:55 MDT
Harvey Newstrom <hnewstro@us.ibm.com> Wrote:
>>Me:
>> how can the "old guy" be dead when you remember being him?
>How can Jesus be dead when people claim to be him?
Claims are a dime a dozen, Jesus is dead because nobody remembers
being him.
>The viewpoint of the new body would never match
> that of the original Harvey Newstrom unless its original memory is erased
The new brain was just made, it has no memories except the ones I choose to
put in. I choose to put in your memories, that's why he's you.
> and replaced with false memories matching the originals.
They are not false, they are your memories.
> All you have created is an external facade that looks the same as the
>original.
It's much more than a facade, I have created a condition where neither
the most subtle experiments of science nor subjective experience can
tell any difference, any difference at all. I conclude this is because there
is no difference.
>The viewpoint or experience of the original Harvey Newstrom never
> transfers to the new body.
Well something certainly transfers. I could have done it yesterday to you
and you'd never be able to tell the difference. I could have done it a billion
times a second from the day you were born and it wouldn't matter a hill of
beans to you or any of your friends. Perhaps it actually has happened.
> What makes me "me" in my definition is my viewpoint of being "here". I do
> not perceive that something acting like me over "there" can be me.
Two points:
1) You don't know where you are you only know where your sense inputs are.
2) I think Leibniz's idea of the Identity Of Indiscernibles is quite reasonable,
it's the idea that if you exchange the position of two things and there
is no change in the system then the two things are the same. If I place
you and the original an equal distance from the center of a symmetrical
room so you see the same things and then instantly swap your brain
with the other then neither you or the original or any outside observer
could detect the slightest change.
>Why does your plan for transferring consciousness depend on killing me
>instead of convincing me of the plans' success.
Because otherwise it wouldn't work. After about a second the two would start
to diverge, that's why I said I would only be happy in being "killed" if a copy of
me was made right now.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:28:34 MST