From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue Dec 05 2000 - 11:01:31 MST
Nicq MacDonald <namacdonald@stthomas.edu> Wrote:
> If you created a copy of me right now, it would NOT be numerically identical
> to ME.
Forget the "if", the truth of the matter is I did copy you 60 seconds ago and you are the copy,
it doesn't seem to have done you any harm. There was only one of you before, I made
the copy and then instantly destroyed "The Original" so there is only one of you now.
>it would, as I said, only be a copy
When you're talking about something in a constant state of flux the entire
concept of "The Original" becomes meaningless. What is "The Original"
Mississippi River?
> If I had to be destroyed in the process of creation, I would be gone forever.
> There would be no way of verifying this from an outsider's point of view,
True, but there no way of verifying this from an insiders point of view either.
You can't prove to me or even to yourself that you are not a copy made 60
seconds ago. And it wouldn't matter one bit if you were, not to me and not to
you, the reason is that you don't have thoughts, you are thoughts, so if
something is thinking your thoughts then that "thing" is you.
> if you've seen "The Sixth Day", think back to the part near the
> end where the dying geneticist clones himself, and the half-completed clone
> leaps out- and he immediately becomes aware that the clone is not him, just
> a copy who believes that he is him- and that he is about to die.
Ah yes, the great philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Arnold Schwarzengger.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:32:12 MST