From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Mon Feb 09 2009 - 14:19:42 MST
On Mon, 9 Feb 2009 "Stuart Armstrong"
<dragondreaming@googlemail.com> said:
> Fine then. When I drink coffee, I am slightly different.
> This doesn't normally matter, as there isn't someone
> else around to take over my identity.
Take over my identity? I have no idea what that means. The only thing
you should be concerned about is whether tomorrow there will be a being
who remembers being Stuart Armstrong of today. If there is such a being
then you’ve survived for another day, if there is more than one who has
that memory then lucky you, all the better. If nobody at all remembers
being you today then you’re dead.
If tomorrow a copy of you is made then there would be 2 bodies but still
only one Stuart Armstrong. After many many trillions of Plank time units
(not just one I think) it’s true you will start to diverge from your
copy and the two of you would no longer be the same person, but you’d
both still be the Stuart Armstrong of today because you’d both remember
being him. What’s so hard to understand about that? And what’s so
controversial?
I don’t claim to be saying anything profound, it’s bloody obvious. The
most difficult part of these arguments is just getting the grammar
right, the English language really wasn’t meant for this sort of stuff.
John K Clark
-- John K Clark johnkclark@fastmail.fm -- http://www.fastmail.fm - One of many happy users: http://www.fastmail.fm/docs/quotes.html
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