X-Message-Number: 21279 Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2003 17:40:33 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Reply to Dave Pizer on Duplicates I said (#21228): >Dave Pizer, #21218, offers a simple argument as to why a duplicate person >cannot be "the same" as the original. As far as I am concerned, he is >perfectly right, based on his own concept of "sameness"--but also >irrelevant. The concept of sameness that is important to me is not >trivial--it depends on my being the "same" as a less-developed version of >myself. But it does not require the nonexistence of anyone else who is also >the "same" in this sense, but is not ........................." Dave Pizer, #21244, replied: >Mike, thanks for the try, but I can't understand what your discussion here >does to refute the rock-solid premises and logic in my argument. It seems >like all you are saying is that you don't like my conclusion. I already knew >that. If you want to convince me, or others, lay out my position, show that >a premise is false, or that the logic doesn't follow some where, not that you >are uncomfortable with the conclusion. So now I'll try again, hoping this time my position will be clearer. First, following Dave's suggestion, I'll lay out his position as stated in #21218 (with one very minor correction). >Why a duplicate cannot be the original - the final proof! >By: David Pizer > >1. X is really distinct from Y if and only if X can exist without Y, and Y >can exist without X. > >2. By definition, a duplicate would have to be separate from the original >to qualify in the discussions/debates we have been having on this subject as >being a duplicate. > >3. SO, if there was a real duplicate, it could exist apart from, and >without, the original and by premise one it would be distinct. In other >words, a duplicate is distinct from the original. > >4. THEREFORE, a duplicate is not the original. > >THEREFORE, destroying/killing the original and letting the duplicate survive >results in the death (non-survival) of the original and therefore duplication >is not a viable form of survival for any original. Going from here, and expanding on my previous comment, I see a major difficulty in that something important is not stated. What is it? Not enough is said about just what it is that is "original" and is then duplicated. Presumably, the "original" we are talking about is a human body, this much is clear (right?). But now I ask, *what is the significance of a body?* Is the body the person? For me the short answer is *no*, the body is not purely and simply the person, but is better thought of as an *instantiation* of the person. By way of a rough analogy, a "book you write" is not purely and simply the copy of the book you put on your shelf, after it finally comes back from the publisher. True, the book can be said to survive in its copies (instantiations)--yet the book is not any one of these but something apart from them. In a roughly similar way, though there are some important complications that I'll gloss over in the interest of brevity, the person too can be said to survive in his/her instantiations. In the case of the book, we see how instantiations can be separate and distinct without thereby creating different books. Thus, to dupicate an instantiation is not to create a different book. In a similar way, a person could survive, I feel, through more than one instantiation, though again the situation is more complicated than in the case of the book. But again, to duplicate an instantiation (human body in this case) does not, in and of itself, mean we have created another person who is different from the original. If two initially identical instantiations start to live separate lives and have different experiences, as we would expect if duplication actually happened, *then* they become different individuals. But even then, in my view, the original person can be said to survive in both, in the same way as an earlier version of a person survives in a (single) later version. Thus one person could fission into two or more, equally authentic continuers which would be different people--I see no fundamental problem with that, at the philosophical level. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21279