This is just a copy

John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Mon, 13 Jul 1998 21:34:09 -0700 (PDT)

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harv@gate.net (Harvey Newstrom) On Mon, 13 Jul 1998 Wrote: 

             


        >I submit that #2 and #3 are the exact same scenario for our world.  

        >No atom will be different, no action will be changed. By all 

        >measurements and laws of physics, the person on our world in 

        >scenario #2 and #3 experience the exact same fate, atom per atom.  

        >Yet you interpret these identical fates differently.

Not true. The atoms in the two scenarios are arranged differently because I've received radically different information so, unless the soul is responsible for memory, the arrangement of atoms in my brain must be different.

>in scenario #2 you interpret it as death.

Yes because staring at a gun pointed at my head for 10 seconds has changed me, changed the pattern of atoms in me, so I no longer have an exact copy. In scenario #3 we're both changed by an equal amount so I still have a copy although I do not know it.

>To terminate one copy and measure the acceptability from the
>viewpoint of another copy seems unacceptable to me.

There is no alternative. If one copy has been terminated I can't measure his viewpoint because he doesn't have one.

>You seem to think that it is OK for one copy to die if the other
>copy lives. 

             
Yes.         



        >Is it OK for one copy to be horribly crippled in the murder attempt         

        >while the other goes unscathed?  

           


No, because the poor horrible cripple does have a viewpoint.
           




        >If one of them were in pain, and it bothered you, would killing it         

        >resolve you problem?  

                                               
Obviously.                                 
                                              John K Clark    johnkc@well.com

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