From: Nick Bostrom (bostrom@ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Wed Aug 19 1998 - 18:35:20 MDT
Hal Finney wrote:
> For one thing, I have memories of 20th century events, so I cannot have
> been born earlier than the 20th century.
We have to distinguish two "cannots" here. (1) Given the validity of
these memories then I was in fact not born <1900.[true] (2) I could
not exist without these memories.[much more doubtful]
> I am a product of
> my times in a very fundamental way. I would be a very different person
> if I were born in the 17th or 23rd centuries.
In one way this is true, but I'm not sure it's true in the
relevant way. This view seems to create problems for those of us who
want to personally become posthumans?
_____________________________________________________
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb
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