X-Message-Number: 21320 Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 08:13:07 -0500 From: Francois <> Subject: For David, about message 21314 <snip snip> >This argument appears to be air-tight, so don't tell me about books and how >you feel when you wake up, if you want to prove a duplicate surviving the >original's death equals the survival of the original, find a hole in the >above argument. There is no hole. Even if object B is a perfect copy of object A, by even the strictest possible definition of perfect, object B is NOT object A, that is trivially obvious. But that's not really what we are talking about here, is it? You seem to argue that the physical distinctiveness between A and B is an impenetrable barrier to the continuation of self. It is not. The person existing in A will jump the gap between A and B, and will exist in A and in B. If A is destroyed, then the person in A is also destroyed, obviously. Notice that I didn't say person A, I said person in A. The person in B still exists, therefore the person still lives. Maybe a little example about something else will clarify what I mean by person in A being the same as person in B. A ruby is red in color. If I duplicate this ruby atom for atom, the resulting stone will also be red in color. However, at no time did I duplicate something in the ruby that could be called red. The red color of a ruby is an emergent property of the stone's structure. Recreate the structure and you recreate the color. The color red of ruby A is the same as the color red of ruby B. A person is also an emergent property, the emergent property of a brain's structure. The person in brain A is the same as the person in exact duplicate brain B. If ruby A is destroyed, the original red color still exists in ruby B. If brain A is destroyed, the original person still exists in brain B. Francois --------------------------------------------------------------------- No lifespan shorter than eternity is acceptable --------------------------------------------------------------------- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21320