From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri Dec 14 2001 - 11:17:55 MST
John Clark wrote,
> Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> Wrote:
> >You are right, as far as you go. But I think the phrase
> "doesn't matter"
> >is incomplete. It doesn't matter "for some purposes".
>
> I don't understand. If it doesn't matter objectify and it doesn't matter
> subjectively where exactly does it matter?
It does matter for some purpose and not others. You cut out my list of
where it matters and where it doesn't.
> >The way I know that I am not my twin is that I am inside a body I
> >call "me" here. My brother is in a similar body over there.
> I can never
> >confuse the person "here" with the person "there".
>
> Sure you can, all I'd have to do is swap sensory inputs with your copy and
> you'd get very confused very fast.
Yes, I agree. This fits in with my position. Duplicating the atoms doesn’t
cause a shared reality or a coexistence as the same person. Now you are
proposing that there must be a communications between the two so that
thoughts and sensory input are exchanged. Now I would begin to think that
the two minds linked together might have a chance of becoming a single mind.
Before that communications link is established, the original consciousness
remains in the original body and the newly created consciousness always
remains in the newly created body. The copy operation does not change or
relocate the original.
> I don't think asking for the
> position in space
> where "you" exists is meaningful, it's like asking for the
> coordinates of "fast" or
> "red", but if you do have a position it would be where your sense
> transducers are.
Exactly. As long as my sensory input is coming from a single body, that’s
the body that I perceive as me. Perception equals sensory input. I can’t
experience anything but the sensory stream being fed to me. Arguing that a
copy is me when I can’t experience that person doesn’t satisfy my experience
of being me. If I can see through those eyes, control that body, think
thoughts with that brain, then that person seems to be me. Until these
sensory inputs are connected, I am “disconnected” from that person.
Connectivity defines where the boundary of the self lies. What I can access
is “me”. What I cannot access is outside of me. My skin feels like “me”.
My hair does not feel like “me” and can be discarded. If my head is severed
from my body, the body is no longer part of me. I think everything boils
down to where I perceive myself to be.
> The position of your brain is irrelevant as long as it's not so
> far away that time
> delay becomes important.
Agreed. However, if my brain is in one place and my sensory inputs are
somewhere else, it takes both functioning locations to keep me supplied with
a perception of being there. If the sensory input is destroyed OR if the
brain is destroyed OR if the communications link is destroyed, the
perception of being somewhere else is lost. As long as this illusion can be
maintained, it is subjectively as if I am at the location of the sensory
input.
> >Internally, each copy can easily distinguish itself from the other.
>
> How? How would you feel differently if I'd killed the original last night
> and you are the copy? How would you even know it had happened
> if I didn't tell you?
You are confusing this statement:
The copies can always tell themselves apart.
with this statement:
The copies can tell which was the original and which was the recreation.
The former statement is true and is what I claim. The latter statement is
false and is what you are arguing against. However, given these two
statements, each copy would prefer that his own local self survive over the
remote other self.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant, Newstaff Inc. <www.Newstaff.com> Board of Directors, Extropy Institute <www.Extropy.org> Cofounder, Pro-Act <www.ProgressAction.org>
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