From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Fri Jun 01 2001 - 09:23:21 MDT
Alas! So many good posts, and so little time to read
and respond. This has to serve as an answer to many.
Emlyn wrote
>> As soon as it became sufficiently cheap and convenient, and
>> as soon as all your friends started doing it, your reservations
>> (about teleportation) would vanish.
>[About "proof by peer pressure"] you know it was a joke?
>ie: that what I meant was that I think this holds no water,
>given that saying something is ok because "all your mates
>are doing it" is not really a useful moral argument?
Of course. But as I wrote
>> The point, of course, is that when you consult your intuition
>> about all this after you've finally gone on a lot of vacations
>> with your friends teleporting everywhere, "you" will dismiss your
>> previous doubts as philosophically old-fashioned. Instinctively
>> "you" will realize that you and your buddies are really the
>> same people that they've always been.
>>
>Well, a materialist would.
No, I think that you would too, unless you're just incredibly
stubborn. Imagine that everyone but you began doing it. Years
and years go by. You see the same people slowly age. Time and
again you hear them recount their adventures on other planets.
The tiny voice in your head "but they're not the same people!
my old friends are dead!" becomes pitifully weak. Eventually
you stop listening to it.
Imagine the hundreds of times over the years, when a group of
people, or your band, proposes to go somewhere, and then someone
remembers that Emlyn has this thing about teleporting. "Oh, yeah,"
one of the younger people say, "I heard about this. Some people
born in the twentieth century just don't believe in flitting.
Man, can you believe it? What do they call it, uh...",
"Teleportaphobia", another says, "Yes. It's quite rare now.
You see, there was this philosophy...", and everyone suddenly
looks bored not wanting to hear about yet another insanity,
like deathism or racism or something, that came from back then.
"Emlyn, come now," one persists holding your arm. "This is
quite silly. Now do I look like I've died? Do you really
think that people die? Now suppose that unbeknownst to you,
you were being teleported about 20 times per second, along
with this room, all over the solar syst..."
"It's no use, Kim," says another. "He knows all your arguments
and has been hearing them for centuries. He probably couldn't
change his mind even if he wanted to."
Well, you'd get sick of hearing this over the centuries. Of
course, this isn't any sort of proof. But it shows how
extremely difficult it would be to maintain this view in
some worlds that could happen. Unless you had superhuman
stubbornness, you'd always wonder if you were cheating
yourself out of a lot of convenience for not a really good
reason.
>It depends on how you define it, I guess. If your goal is
>to continue survival of your class of person (Emlyn in my
>case), then there is no problem at all... that's Lee's
>position I guess.
Yes! We are patterns, not collections of atoms.
Lee
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