From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Wed Oct 30 2002 - 11:18:21 MST
"Dickey, Michael F" <michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com>
> I contend that it is dependant on using the majority of the same
> atoms from one moment to the next.
I have 3 Problems with that:
1) Science can no more tell the difference between one hydrogen atom and
another than it can detect a change when a priest claims to have turned it
into the body and blood of Christ, so how can identical things give us
individuality?
2) Individual atoms do not have a unique history so how can they give us a
unique history.
3) You don't tell us how long a "moment" is, all time frames are equally
valid but you're saying some are more equal than others.
> a copy of me does not have the same subjective experiences as me
I don't get it, you take that as a given and make deductions from there but
that's what we're debating.
> I do not know if I am continually destroyed and recreated
>in the same place from instant to instant.
True, and that's the point.
> But is that reason enough to assume that I am being
> destroyed from one instant to the next
No, but it would be reason not to care if you did.
>and to then think it ok to be destroyed and recreated the next instant
>somewhere else without worry?
If you've been destroyed and put together a thousand times a second from the
day you were born and you feel fine then why are you going to start worrying
about it now?
> If you first show that I am being destroyed and recreated from one
>instant to the next then I will consider this a valid argument
Einstein did not really ride on a beam of light either, it's a thought
experiment. I can not prove it did or did not happen because there are no
objective consequences and you can't prove even to yourself that it did or
did not happen because there are no subjective consequences. In other words
it is of no consequence. We've said what we think the subjective effect of
this experiment would be, none, but you have not said what it would be like
to be the copy, all you'll say is it's a different person but tell me what
it would be like to be the copy.
> How can my location 'suddenly change' exactly without me either
> moving from point a to b (and thus having the same pattern and same
> atoms) the only way it can suddenly change is if I were teleported.
Easy. My eyes ears and hands are on Tokyo connected by a fiber optic line to
my brain in a vat in Wichita Kansas and John Clark is in Tokyo. Somebody
moves a toggle switch and I'm on a different line and zap, I'm in Paris. If
something as abstract as consciousness can even be said to have a position
it's where the senses are not where the brain is.
>if you think a copy is you, then shouldn't you and the copy share the
> same experiences?
Yes.
> If you do not, he is a different person
Yes.
> Then would you agree that a copy is NOT a continuation of the
> consciousness of the original?
No.
> The same points seem repeated
Yes.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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