From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Oct 12 2002 - 11:23:17 MDT
John Clark writes
> "Damien Broderick" <d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au> Wrote:
>
> >it never matters to *you* (defined as whoever is *outside* the
> >person, looking in), it only and absolutely matters to *me*
>
> Does it? How could it matter to you if you can't even tell if
> it happened to you last night?
If (i) 90 percent of your high-school memories were excised
while you slept last night and (ii) all recollection you
have about how much of high school you remember were replaced
by a false recollection, this *should* matter to you.
The reason that it should matter is that the threat exists
that the new *you* will undergo that or more radical transformation.
After a number of transformations, the person reading this will
no longer exist.
> In my humble opinion if something remembers being Damien
> Broderick then Damien Broderick is not dead.
Does it not all depend on the veracity of those memories?
What I mean is, more than just altering his high school
memories, we could replace his entire childhood, any
connections with music that he has, and the SF writer
that we know would still awake the next day perfectly
content. While I agree that in this case DB would still
live, it's getting marginal, and becomes false if many
more such occurances transpire as in my previous example.
> I'd be astounded and delighted to discover I was dead
> because the very fact that I could discover anything
> would mean death was not all it was cracked up to be;
> but maybe I'm crazy because almost nobody seems to
> understand what I'm talking about.
;-) Hardly. I consider you the second most sensible
person on this list when it comes to questions of
identity. What if you find out today that *all*
your memories were added last night, and the former
John Clark (who had completely different ones) is
gone?
As appalling as some consider it to be, I will essay
an answer to my own question! (Please, any other
gentle reader, do not let this inhibit you from
also answering!) *You* should be quite grateful,
of course, because finally *you* get genuine run time.
But you should be EXTREMELY apprehensive that the same
thing will happen to *you* tonight that happened to the
old John Clark.
Lee
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