From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Nov 11 2002 - 22:46:45 MST
gts asked
> Let us say that I am a US Senator. I change my position with respect to an
> important political question after my last back-up, for example the question
> of whether to approve Bush's impending use of force against Iraq. I then die
> and my back-up is restored. Who decides if my backup is the same person I
> was when I died?
and has not been satisfied with any of my answers. Evidently
an answer of the form "X decides" is requested.
> If the backup is considered the same person who died then
> his vote on the issue will be valid, but if not then his
> vote must be stricken from the record. The future of the
> world could hang on the decision of whether my backup is
> really me. Who makes that decision, Lee, and based
> on what criteria?
I have no idea who decides in this hypothetical situation.
Perhaps if you tell me the political situation in greater
detail, I could guess. Right now, my guess would be "the
Senate decides".
As I said before, however, if no one else is willing to
decide, I will. Write to lcorbin@tsoft.com.
But my guess is also that I am missing your point. I do not
mean to be missing your point. You ought to be asking a
question having to do with personal identity. Are you asking
whether the person who got himself backed up survived?
The answer to this in general cannot be a "yes" or "no" in
the same way that the question "is it hot today?" cannot
always have a simple yes or no. It's a matter of degree.
I believe that there is a truth to the matter about how
hot it is today, but it does depend on our current civilization's
ability to measure the quantity I postulate as *temperature*,
which I believe to be real. If a person X at time t1 gets himself
backed up, and then becomes person Y at time t2, the intelligent
question is, "to what degree is X the same person as Y?"
But I think that you believe the answer to that question to be
zero if t2-t1 > 10^-43 seconds. Is that right?
I have asked two questions in this post. If you have time, please
answer them. If you would like me to answer further questions,
please re-issue them in their entirety.
Thanks,
Lee
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