From: Randall Randall (wolfkin@phonetech.com)
Date: Mon Nov 23 1998 - 13:04:33 MST
John Clark wrote:
> Randall Randall <wolfkin@phonetech.com> Wrote:
>
> >>Me:
> >> things are made of atoms and atoms have no individuality, if they can't even
> >> give this interesting property to themselves how can they give it to me?
>
> >In the same way that they can give greenness, or consciousness,
> >though atoms have neither property themselves.
>
> if the atoms in a blade of grass are are organized in the same way then both are green
> but there is only one green.
"[O]ne green"? I don't know that that makes any sense.
I think that it is a little sloppy to use green as a
noun, as that leads one to believe that it exists as
something distinct from the object which is green. The
color "green" is only a property of groups of atoms,
not an object, and not a property of only one atom.
> If another bunch of atoms were organized in a Johnclarkish way
> it would be John Clark but there is only one John Clark.
To draw the analogy with color, are you saying that "John Clark"
is an adjective (property of matter)?
> >> If I have two printers printing out the same novel and I smash one is the book
> >> destroyed ?
>
> >Well, the one you stopped certainly is.
>
> I don't care because nothing irreplaceable has been destroyed.
Well, no, but is that what really matters? Is a promise to
record the positions of every atom in your brain sufficient
to make your death palatable? I would say not, even though
nothing irreplaceable has been destroyed. The point seems
to be not whether you can be replaced, but whether this
iteration of you ends.
> >>Me:
> >> If I have two phonographs playing the same symphony and I smash
> >> one machine what happens to the music?
>
> >There certainly is *less* music than before
>
> I don't care because nothing irreplaceable has been destroyed.
>
> I never said destroying an exact copy of my brain would not make the
> make the slightest difference to anything, I only said that there
> is no logical reason to think it could make any difference to me, or even
> that I could tell that it happened.
Of course you couldn't tell, but that is true *now*! Yet you
haven't suicided. Curious. ;)
Wolfkin.
wolfkin@phonetech.com
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