From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Oct 23 2002 - 02:56:31 MDT
gts writes
> Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> > Yes, one's duplicate's attributes *do* vary from one's, but
> > to a ridiculously small degree.
>
> Even people who differ by "ridiculously small" degrees are different
> people, Lee. There is no equivalency between them, which means they are
> not "one person in two places at the same time."
It seems to me that you keep ducking *my* question,
or my insinuations, at least: isn't it true that
you *are* the same person that you were yesterday
despite the fact that there are small differences
between you? And if you agree to that, then you
can see why logically I can consider myself to
be the same person as a close duplicate.
> You never replied to my answer to your cryonic backup argument. I will
> repost it here because it is relevant to the question at hand:
Thanks, I'll try to answer the question.
> Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> > Note that cryonicists often talk about how desirable it would
> > be to have a backup. Suppose that in some SF scenario it is
> > possible for cryonicists to get a scan made every two weeks.
> > Then, if a terrible accident occurred, they could still be
> > restored from backups, sans their most recent memories. I
> > regard this as survival. Do you?
>
> I replied:
>
> I would regard it as survival of someone very similar to me,
> but not me. I am the person who died -- not the person who
> was frozen two weeks ago and later restored.
>
> To illustrate, I may have experienced some major changes in my
> personality after my last backup. Perhaps as a result of some traumatic
> experience in the last week before I died, I experienced a religious
> conversion and decided with firm resolve to commit my life to the god
> Thor. Would my non-religious backup be a true copy of me, the devoted
> servant of Thor? Hardly. We would be two entirely different people with
> different beliefs, values, hopes and dreams.
>
> How do you answer this?
Yes, in *that* case you might very well be considered
to be, and rightly so, two different people. You
ought properly be considered two different people
precisely because gts has attempted to illustrate
a difference so profound that it does constitute a
very large difference.
However, these are *extremely* rare cases. I would
consider, in fact, that *never* during the course
of even a single decade have I become a different
person than I was. (It takes a couple of decades
at very least.) Therefore I would always be the
same (or, of course, as we say, very nearly the
same) person as I was last week. The situation
is clear: you think of your car today as the same
car that you had yesterday. But is it *REALLY* the
same? Blah, blah, blah. We know all the relevant
facts. I think that you agree with me that in
almost every way it should be considered the same
car.
I am *so nearly* the same as I was last year that
were I to die and be replaced by a backup from
last year, then I would agree with all my friends:
Lee was still the same Lee, a little less stout
perhaps, and a little less gray hair, but the
same guy nonetheless.
I am so nearly the same as I was yesterday, that
again everyone would agree that Lee had survived
having been replaced by a backup from yesterday.
And if my duplicate is in the next room, having
been copied from me ten minutes ago, then the
person who is typing this---namely, Lee Corbin
---will rightly be considered to have survived,
should only the duplicate live through the
night.
So suppose that you have to take a dangerous
3-minute helicopter ride to the opposite side
of the canyon, and a backup of you was made
ten seconds ago. Since due to the vagaries
of the winds you might die at any second now,
is that backup of any value to you?
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:43 MST