X-Message-Number: 14934
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
Subject: nature of identity
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 17:22:20 -0000

Someone raised the point as to whether we are the same people one day to the
next.

Doesn't it depend on circumstance?

Suppose you telephone a friend for a chat just as he is sitting in the sun
doing nothing much wondering what to do next.

Suppose you telephoned the same physical person just after his hard disk had
crashed, he has loads of work to do and it is a fortnight since he backed it
up.

Is he going to react to your idle chat in exactly the same way?

If in each instant you had a very sophisticated computer avatar program that
analysed the resulting conversation and tried to create a simulation of the
person on the other end of the telephone do you think it would produce the
same result?

__
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors'
report, an autobio and various other projects:
http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt
http://www.autopsychoice.com - should you be able to chose autopsy?

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