From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Fri Mar 31 2000 - 23:30:49 MST
Mark Gubrud <mgubrud@squid.umd.edu>
>The claim that "I am one person who is living one life" is sufficiently
> well-justified in terms of physical facts as long as you don't start
>messing with Xeroxes or uploads.
Yes, but I was under the impression that messing around with such things
was what we were talking about.
>However, there is no way you can extend this to the latter cases, without
>opening the door to all kinds of paradoxes and ambiguities
Like what? I can think of all sorts of very strange things that would
result, strange because they are outside my experience, strange because
up to now only one chunk of matter in the entire universe has the John Clark
property, but strange is not the same as illogical, I know of no paradoxes
involved.
>>Me:
>>Only one way to tell, ask them. I'll bet you already know what they'll say.
>They will both claim to be the original person.
Yep, I think you're right.
> Which shows that the claims of either one are either false or meaningless
>(I say the latter).
How does it show that? Of course nobody will ever be able to prove that the claim is
true or false, just as I can't prove I'm not the only conscious being in the universe,
but the claim has meaning and is as clear as any other statement about the self.
>I am a human being, and human beings are physical objects,
Not me. I am not an object, I am a process.
>made of matter.
Matter (and energy) are generic but we know from personal experience that
minds are not. Unless you believe in mumbo jumbo about an immaterial soul then
the only thing left that could possibly make one mind different from another is
information. Information can be duplicated.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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