X-Message-Number: 14687
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 19:16:57 -0700
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Re: same or not same?

In Message #14664 www.IGGY.net (KC Homes) wrote:

>Same, by default, requires identical characteristics of an
>object, human being, etc.  When two "same" people are sitting
>across from one another - they are not "same," as they are
>*across* from each other. Their characteristics are totally
>different (e.g. air pressure in their particular location is
>different...

But you are the same person that you were yesterday, and 
probably last year, unless your life circumstances have
greatly changed.  Many easy thought-experiments convince
one that he or she is not a physical object; it seems to
be best to regard ourselves as pattern.  In this way, you
need not fear teleporting, for example, in which the
particular atoms physically making you up don't remain
the same ones.

Likewise plagiarism laws deem two books by different authors
to be the same, regardless of bindings, glue, or even
punctuation so long as the ideas are too similar to be
a coincidence.

The bottom line is that if you wish the "same" person that
you are now to be re-animated, you should surrender such a
tight standard for sameness.

Lee Corbin

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