X-Message-Number: 14799
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 23:58:48 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Pattern vs. Thing

Pat Clancy, #14790, considers an argument to support the position that a
person is a "thing" not a pattern. A matter transmitter creates a duplicate
of you but leaves the original unaltered. The "real" you is then identified
with the original rather than the copy. But to me that identification is not
mandatory. I see no serious problem with treating both constructs on an
equal footing and regarding them both as continuers of what has gone before.
One, to be sure, has had its atoms replaced with other, similar atoms, the
other has not. But that to me is not an essential difference. Since both (in
my view) are equal representatives of one past individual, the one has
fissioned into two, who from this point will have divergent experiences. I
see no philosophical problem with this either.

Mike Perry

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