X-Message-Number: 20909
From: "Ben Best" <>
Subject: Re: perfect copies
Date: 18 Jan 2003 06:47:29 -0800

> Message #20898
> Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 08:14:26 -0800 (PST)
> From: Christine Gaspar <>
> Subject:  perfect copies

> Ben Best has an essay on his web site that discusses
> the same problem, BTW.

    In case anyone is interested, the URL for this reference
is 

       http://www.benbest.com/philo/doubles.html

> I still don't care who goes home thinking she is me 
> (be it Christine A or Christine B). I can only be one
> of them, and upon waking, only one of us will be right.
> It is similar to the teleportation devices that are
> still mostly in the realms of science fiction. If a
> machine can record every position of every atom in
> your body, then destroy you, converting you into a
> computer file,  or into energy, then rebuild you at
> a distant location, then it really,
> fundamentally doesn't matter how convincing the copy
> is to others or to the new Christine. The
> fact remains unchanged, that the Christine that is
> the continuity of ME is destroyed. I suppose
> that using the concept of a soul is a good literary
> device for such an argument. The soul of
> Christine resides here, where I am now. If there is
> a copy of Christine somewhere in the
> universe at this moment, it certainly is no benefit
> to me. My priority of extending MY life
> indefinitely remains.
> Christine (A)

    Although Chistine made reference to the essay on
my website, her argument is definitely different
from the one I make. I argue against the Continutity Criterion
of Identity on the grounds that it is
non-materialist. People who argue against the faithful identity
of a duplicate implicity are not accepting the idea that it is
*really* a duplicate. They say* "duplicate" but they don't *mean*
"duplicate". They are assuming an implicit difference between
the "duplicate" and the 
"original" which is contained in the word "continuity" -- but
without giving any *material* content to the meaning
of continuity.

     If a duplicate is a duplicate, it will materially
be a duplicate in every way except location. That includes
both the physical location of every atom as well as
the dynamic state of every atom (and the dynamic state
of the electrical activity in the brain). Since we can change
our location without changing our Identity,
location cannot be an essential critierion for Identity. 

                    -- Ben Best

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