From: gts (gts@optexinc.com)
Date: Sat Nov 02 2002 - 20:25:19 MST
Lee Corbin wrote:
> > You have never explained the mysterious mechanism by which my sense of
> > self should be transferred upon my death into the old self of mine that
> > is to be restored from my past backup. What kind of magic is that? It
> > reminds me of "familiars" (cats that are said to adopt the personalities
> > of people upon their death.)
>
> Suppose that your sense of self derives from physics.
I do.
> That is,
> what you feel and experience is only molecules in motion and
> the progression through various states of a physical device.
> If that is true, then you would have the same sense of self
> that you had in the past when that particular state got
> additional run time. (It did, of course, or else you wouldn't
> be here.)
I don't believe that is so. I am the person who died, not the backup who is
resurrected.
Nevermind my witchcraft allegation for now... let's just focus on the
personality changes since the time of backup.
You have agreed that a religious conversion in the interval between my
backup and my dying "last-breath" constitutes a sufficiently large
personality change to justify tbe denial of the equality of the backup
identity and the last-breath identity. I say further that for purposes of
determining the equality of identities, smaller personality changes are no
less relevant than larger personality changes; that is, that the distinction
between small personality changes and large personality changes is purely
arbitrary.
You replied.
> I think that they're objective
Sure, personality changes are objective as well as subjective. They can be
measured objectively, as in a test of pizza affinity, or as in a test of
religious beliefs.
> Many people will probably note that Lee's new PC system is
> similar to LINUX in some ways, but not in others. It will
> be a matter of degree. But if there is a high degree of
> similarity, I shall rightly be accused of plagiarism.
And who is going to determine what constitutes a "high degree of similarity"
between one personality and the next? Clearly it is entirely a judgment call
based on arbitrary criteria.
So then we are left with noting that either 1) some personality change
occured since the backup, or else 2) no personality change occured. If 1)
then we are forced to say the backup identity is the same as the last-breath
identity. If 2) then they are different people.
You agree that your argument fails for large personality changes but are so
far reluctant to agree that it fails for small personality changes. Again,
who is to decide the distinction between large and small, and on what
criteria? Please answer.
Also I would like you to address my recent post in which I describe the
persistence of identity with a film analogy, or my other recent post in
which I describe persistence of identity with a whirlpool analogy. I believe
that if you could only briefly see what I and most psychologists see -- that
non-nominal identity is DYNAMIC and not STATIC -- then you would understand
that you are asking the wrong questions about the survival of identity. Your
desire to provide for the survival of an identity you falsely perceive as
static is leading you to reach controversial and nonsensical conclusions.
-gts
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