From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@ricochet.net)
Date: Tue Jun 05 2001 - 21:01:32 MDT
Harvey writes
>I will concede and agree to your concepts and terms.
Only for the purposes of discussing my view of course;
I understand, and thanks.
>One person steps into a duplicating machine, and the same
>person steps out with two bodies. The two people stepping
>out are the same person as the one that stepped in. The
>two people who stepped out will be called "one" person
>in two bodies.
>
>Even conceding all these points, I still don't like it.
>The double-body person stepping out of the machine has
>a different operating system than the one-body person
>who stepped in.
Well, I've never looked at it that way. In one way,
yes, it is like a single operating system: e.g., I
have several machines at work that run Solaris. But
in another way, each machine is under a separately
running OS. In the same way, I view one Lee Corbin and
his duplicate as being two instantiations of the same
program, and shortly, of course, minor, inconsequential
differences actually accrue in the programs.
>I consider my centralized point of control part of me.
>If I lose the ability to control parts of myself from
>my central mind, I would feel disconnected from my parts.
Well put, and very true. Even if some idiotic law in the
future prevents me from having a lot of duplicates, surely
there will be times when I must detach some of my processing
into remote devices: after all, we run a million times
faster or so uploaded. So I'll end up with your "uneasy
feeling of being disconnected" in any case.
>Even conceding your definition of "me", I would
>prefer to find a more functional version of "me"
>before considering the upload.
What is it you are looking for? A better definition?
>I believe that the duplication process produces a fine
>replacement set of hardware and a fine backup of my
>software.
Whoa now! Are you coming over to my view? Recall in the
frozen duplicate experiment, that body *is* a fine
replacement set of hardware. And since the frozen
duplicate was made just a few minutes ago, it is also
a "fine backup" of your software, isn't it?
Lee
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