From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Nov 12 2002 - 21:17:25 MST
gts writes
> Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> re: my bifurcation chamber
>
> > I understand how atoms can be withdrawn from a repository.
> > I want you to give me separate histories for where the atoms
> > of Person A (by definition the entity who walks out of door
> > A) come from, and for where the atoms of Person B came from.
> > I cannot really understand your thought experiment, above,
> > until you tell me this.
>
> The history of each atom is irrelevant, (and, strictly speaking,
> non-existent).
It may be irrelevant for your purposes, which I think is
good. But it might help to clarify the issue. So allow
me to revisit your example:
> Imagine a "bifurcation chamber," which houses the
> futuristic technology necessary to create two versions
> of a single person. It has an entrance door on one
> side and two exit doors on the other side. A person
> who walks into this chamber instantly becomes two
> people, Person-A and Person-B, each of whom then walk
> out of one of the two exits. Both Person-A and
> Person-B would experience a continuation of self and
> rightly believe himself to be a continuation of the
> original Person.
Are you sure that it doesn't matter to you which, if
either, got to keep the original atoms? The entity
which approached your bifurcation chamber is composed
of a set M of atoms. Naturally, as the entity walks
through the air, the precise set changes as some atoms
are whipped away by friction, others exhaled, and yet
others incorporated into the entity. But by and large
this set M down to a factor of more than 99.999999%
remains unchanged as the entity walks into the room.
Suddenly there are two people, Person-A and Person-B,
which, I may say, proceed to walk out door A and door
B respectively. Suppose first that Person-A retains
the set M of atoms, by and large, and Person-B becomes
composed of atoms from
> ...let us say the bifurcation chamber stores several
> hundred pounds of the various different elements needed
> to manufacture a duplicate.
Now, when you wrote
> Both Person-A and Person-B would experience a continuation
> of self and rightly believe himself to be a continuation
> of the original Person.
do you see Person-B having any less claim than person A
to be the continuation of the original person?
Lee
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