This is just a copy

John K Clark (johnkc@well.com)
Tue, 14 Jul 1998 21:56:48 -0700 (PDT)

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On Mon, 13 Jul 1998 rrandall6@juno.com (Randall R Randall) Wrote:

>If I experience a memory from your brain, of you thinking about
>being conscious, then I know that you are (or were, at least, for
>that period) conscious

If you read my memories you would certainly have a subjective experience of some sort, but if you exclude behavior can you give me one scrap of evidence that you were reading my mind correctly and your feelings were anything like my subjective experience? If you don't want to exclude behavior then the Turing Test works.

>as that is the only way such a memory could be produced.

That part is certainly untrue, all the memories from my childhood could have been produced by nano machines 5 minutes ago.

>I only have to *know* that you thought about being conscious, which
>is the same as being conscious.

Actually, except when I'm arguing Philosophy on The Extropian List I seldom think about being conscious.

>But if no one died, who is that dead guy?

I don't see any dead guy, I just see a bunch of nasty looking protoplasm.

>Did the consciousness inside him magically jump to the other
>John Clark and combine with it?

It didn't have to jump because if consciousness has a spatial location, which is doubtful, it's certainly not where the brain is but where the senses are. The brain by itself has no way of detecting position, or time for that matter.

harv@gate.net (Harvey Newstrom) On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 Wrote:

>So the only difference is your memory? Your definiton of whether
>shooting someone in the head depends on what data is stored in their
>memory?

Yes. 

           


        >So killing the one body is not murder, but killing the other body         

        >that only differs by one 10-second memory is  murder?  

           
Yes, 10 seconds can be a very long time.
           



        > you seem to indicate that by killing someone, they lose their         

        >viewpoint, and therefore their desire doesn't count.  It seems         

        >that I could argue the same thing and kill you right now.  You have         

        >not copies, and you might not want to die, but after I do it you         

        >won't have a viewpoint so it won't matter.

If you kill me instantly and without warning I'll never know I'm dead which is good but unless I have a copy I'll never know I'm alive either which is bad. If I do have a copy I still won't know I'm dead but I will know I'm alive exactly as I did before, I won't notice the slightest change. As I said, my definition of death is having a last thought and in this scenario they are absolutely continuos and have not even slowed down.

>Where to steer the discussion from here, to help understand why our
>opinions differ so?

I think the basic difference is that I don't think I'm a noun, I'm not matter, I'm the complex way matter reacts when it is organized in a certain way. I think people are more like music than bricks. 

                                            John K Clark      johnkc@well.com

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