From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Sat Oct 26 2002 - 10:14:32 MDT
"Dickey, Michael F" <michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com>
> There is not 'one person' because there are
> obviously two of them standing in front of me,
There are two bodies but I'm interested in people not protoplasm.
A person is not an object he is a adjective, he is the way matter
reacts when it is organized in certain complex ways.
>Unless they share the same exact subjective experience at
>the same exact time (that is, they are two manifestations of
>one consciousness) then they are logically not one person.
Obviously.
>>Me:
>> Oh I think there is an excellent reason to suspect a
>>continuation of consciousness, just ask the fellow
>>if he had any subjective experience yesterday or
>> last month or last year and I'll bet he'll say "yes".
> So because he thinks he had continually subjective experience
>then he did?
Yep, that's why they call it subjective. What else could the word mean?
If you think you've survived then you must have done so.
> I was not aware that our thoughts formed the structure of the universe.
But our thoughts do form ... well... the structure of our thoughts, and
that is what survival is all about. If you are correct then it is entirely
possible that I am "dead" right now and so the word no longer has any
meaning, at least none that interest me.
>What if we copied the pattern and reproduced as a computer program
> and that computer program insisted that it had its own subjective
>history. Would you consider that a continuation of the subjective
>history of the original
Yes. Silicon or meat, it makes no difference.
>at any particular instant in time the atoms that make up your pattern
>are the same ones that made up your pattern the instant before.
No, not ANY instant in time, not if the particular instant of time
is a year and that time frame is as good as any other.
> If all of them change over a great deal of time, it matters not,
> because from one instant of time to the next, that vast majority
> of them are identical.
If I blow myself up with dynamite the atoms in my body will
not change much from one picosecond to the next and that
time frame is as good as any other, so it matters not.
Pretty silly argument don't you think.
>Would you bet your life on the 'possibility' that the universe
>is made up of only one proton, one nuetron, and one electron?
Yes, I'd bet my life that it might be 'possible' and actually that is
exactly what Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists of
the 20'th century thought; but for our purposes it doesn't really
matter if there are one or many because not only is it imposable
for us to know the history of individual atoms it is even imposable
for the universe to do so, thus there is no way an atom can
achieve individuality from its past position or any other achievement.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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