From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Nov 14 2002 - 10:02:28 MST
Eugen Leitl wrote:
> I've offered to translate experiments on flesh persons
> into this [SHRDLU] framework, but that offer
> (which still stands) was not accepted since people
> rejected the model as unapplicable.
I offered a version of my US Senator paradox for you in that thread,
Eugene, hoping that you might give a new interpretation of it. Perhaps
you didn't see it.
In that thought experiment, a Senator announces publicly that he will
vote one way on an important issue and then makes a backup. He then
publicly changes his position on the same issue and dies. His backup is
restored but the American people know the backup holds to the Senator's
previous position rather than to the position he held at his time of
death. The Senate is still scheduled to vote on the issue. The backup
Senator's vote would be the swing vote.
This creates political and logical havoc for the American people,
because Lee Corbin asserts with seeming authority (taken from his
studies of sci-fi books, apparently) that the restored backup Senator
should be considered to have the same identity as the deceased Senator.
Those in favor of the Senator's old position would argue that his backup
has the same identity as the deceased, while those who favor his latter
position would argue that the backup is a different person.
I argue along with those who say the backup is a different person. The
backup Senator's opinion on the issue is not the same as that of the
Senator at his time of death, and so therefore we must consider the
backup a different person. And because personal opinions and attitudes
are always changing, lagged backups can never be considered to have the
same identity as the deceased. Backups must be kept current to the
smallest meaningful unit of time.
-gts
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jan 15 2003 - 17:58:06 MST