X-Message-Number: 21223 Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 07:07:09 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #21214 - #21221 For Dave Pizer: You now are distinct from the Dave Pizer who existed yesterday. The Dave Pizer of tomorrow will be distinct from the Dave Pizer of today. Do we then consider you to be totally different people for each day/hour/minute/second of your life? In what way does your brain continue the same? The problem with your argument is that it uses a very narrow and precise definition of "sameness" to draw its conclusions. Any such argument must deal with the simple fact that many of our atoms have been inserted long after we were born, and others removed long after we were born. So far as our brains show any changes at all, that is true of our brains, also. Clearly if we duplicate someone (forgetting all the problems of doing so, even with Nanotechnology) then the two duplicates cannot be the same person. If nothing else, they have different locations in space, and soon will fall to arguing over just what possessions and attachments (wife, children, dog, cat) are to go to which one of them --- thus becoming increasingly different, and perhaps even hating one another. However if by some event one person is destroyed while a duplicate of him/her is created, the situation at least is less full of strife and problems. Other than the obvious and very severe problems of making a true duplicate, I see no philosophical reason why that duplicate does not continue living as the person duplicated. How is he/she any different than you are from the Dave Pizer of 5 minutes ago? Your brain has busily made new molecules and destroyed others as you were thinking; in that sense you aren't even the same person as you were 5 minutes ago. So what is the problem here? Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21223