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 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14799