From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Sat Jun 02 2001 - 09:37:48 MDT
Samantha writes
>> Processes are physical. We need not distinguish between
>> a process and the states that constitute it. Perhaps we
>> agree: it's not the instantiations that matter, but the
>> pattern and flow. By "physical criteria" then, please
>> think of the physical criteria characterising your
>> process, the process of being Samantha Atkins.
>
>Why do we need to distinquish between process and states thus?
I'm trying to be agreeable :-) but you won't have it.
Look at my second line. I wasn't saying that we need
to distinguish between process and states! Quite the
contrary. Looks like you misread my sentence.
>What does it add to this subject? I am lost as to what
>physical criteria you are actually claiming are crucial
>to me being me.
I was hoping that you would simply acknowledge that there
are such conditions or criteria. I was hoping that you'd
agree that "whether Samantha Atkins exists in a certain
volume of spacetime" is an objective query, as much as
it is to ask whether a printed volume of "A Tale of Two
Cities" exists in a certain region of spacetime.
>> What? Please answer: if you slowly evolve into this
>> [Tony Blair] entity do you survive or not? Or maybe
>> I should ask, does your core survive or not? Please
>> clarify. Thanks.
>
>The *core* survives. I think our disagreement is on what is and
>is not me in a critical, not to be parted with, sense.
Okay. I think that I understand.
>> Perhaps it would help if you could use your fine imagination
>> and explain how incredibly different you could become without
>> this core becoming so different that you're no longer alive.
>Who said the core would be so different that *I*, what I
>consider *I*, was no longer alive? Not I.
Alas, our communication falters. If you **carefully**
read my sentence, you'll see that I was interested in
knowing exactly how different you could become yet still
have the same core. I'm sorry for writing with so little
clarity.
I won't press the point. First, I know that you're eager
to get into discussing future possibilities (what this
thread is really about).
I conclude that you'll eagerly evolve into something
so different from what you are now, that those of us
who care about precise conditions will have to suppose
that you're not alive any more.
>I have no vested interest in remaining a "human being"
>as most people understand it. Much of what most people
>see as "human being" is a deadly and noxious mixture
>even without transhumanist possibilities. Why would I
>choose to carry all that latter-day primate baggage
>around with me indefinitely? Out of fear of losing my-self?
>Does a butterfly drag around a caterpillar shell?
Sure, there are many things about myself that I want
to discard too. Are you at present a "deadly and
noxious mixture"? I doubt it. I want to know what
you see, not what "most people understand".
Apparently, you want to discard more than anyone else
I've ever talked to.
I think that I can keep a huge amount of what I am now,
even though there'll be inconceivably wonderful enhancements
and additions. On my whiteboard here at home I wrote last
year "Is there any human being that feels that life could
be of more worth than I think it could be?"
Lee
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