> >a copy is not the original
>
> And the original is not the original, none of the atoms in your body have
a
> permanent home, everything is in a state of flux.
>
> >The original, "I" , is what I'm concerned about-
>
> You imply that you are "the original I" but I can't imagine why you think
that,
> you could be a copy made just 60 seconds ago. And anyway who cares,
> what difference would it make to your subjective experience if you were,
> or were not?
If you created a copy of me right now, it would NOT be numerically identical
to ME. It would be an independent being with it's own thoughts,
experiences, and state of being- it would, as I said, only be a copy, not be
myself, and would be conscious as an entity independent of myself. If I had
to be destroyed in the process of creation, I would be gone forever.
There would be no way of verifying this from an outsider's point of view,
however- the new being would believe that it was the old being in every way,
yet it would not be the old being, because it would not be the same observer
that the former being was.
As I said, if you've seen "The Sixth Day", think back to the part near the
end where the dying geneticist clones himself, and the half-completed clone
leaps out- and he immediately becomes aware that the clone is not him, just
a copy who believes that he is him- and that he is about to die.
> If I have not convinced you it's because you only saw a copy of this post,
> you should have seen the original, it was great, you would have been
> convinced for sure!
Yes, but if the post was capable of thinking and feeling (which it just may
be ;)), and you were the post, the perspective on this situation would be
different.
-Nicq MacDonald
"We do progress, but how? Not by the tinkering of the meliorist; not by the
crushing of initiative; not by laws and regulations which hamstring the
racehorse, and handcuff the boxer; but by the innovations of the eccentric,
by the phantasies of the hashish-dreamer of philosophy, by the aspirations
of the idealist to the impossible, by the imagination of the revolutionary,
by the perilous adventure of the pioneer. Progress is by leaps and bounds,
by breaking from custom, by working on untried experiments; in short, by the
follies and crimes of men of genius, only recognizable as wisdom and virtue
after they have been tortured to death, and their murderers reap gloatingly
the harvest of the seeds they sowed at midnight." -Aleister Crowley, "On
Original Sin"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:33 MDT