X-Message-Number: 25183
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 08:24:35 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: Brook Norton <>
Subject: I doubt we "survive"


A discussion of late (for example the email appended below) has been the 
criteria for survival. I'd like to restate a different approach that I feel 
answers the thought experiments well. When one talks of survival, it is 
reminiscent of talk of a metaphysical "soul". Survival is spoken of as having 
transported some essential essence of the person from one point in space and 
time to another. And then the many discussions and thought experiments ensue 
regarding what comprises a person's "essential essence" or "soul", and if one 
can only preserve that essence, one will survive.


Consider that there is no "essential essence". That like all inanimate objects, 
we too are just a collection of matter and energy that changes over time. You 
can compare a former self to a later self and point out similarities but to 
speak of survival of those similarities is a bad usage of the word. It is a bad 
usage because saying "survive" implies that some special quality has transferred
from the former to the later self. Further, stating that those similarities 
"survive" is an extra complication and Ockham's razor prefers you chose the 
simplest explanation. The simplest explanation is that the self changes over 
time and may maintain some similarities. Period.


This approach leads to the following answers to the following thought 
experiments:

* When you sleep and then awake, do you survive? No. You awaken later in time 
and slightly changed.

* If you use a Star Trek transporter to beam yourself somewhere, do you survive?
No. A human pattern at one location is duplicated at another. Period.

* If a duplicate of you is created in another space, is your survival split into
two entities? No. A duplicate was created. Period.

And so on... basically, no, you never survive, you just change and move through 
time like all the other matter and energy in the universe.


There are interesting philosophical questions raised, like "if I don't survive, 
does it make sense to have long term goals in the present? and others, for 
another time. Am I 100% confident of the above approach? Well, no. But it fits 
the thought experiments best and so I'll go with it for now.

Brook Norton

>Message #25178
>From: 
>Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 10:05:51 EST
>Subject: continuity etc.

>Thomas Donaldson reiterates the old question:

>>A small question: first, suppose you have been copied, then 
>>destroyed, and then rebuilt exactly --- for the sake of the metaphysics
>>involved, with the very same molecules. In just what way do you
>>fail to be the same person?

>It's the wrong question, but the answer is that you fail the continuity test.

>Next question: Is continuity important, or what is important, or ought to be 
>considered important?

>We don't know, because we don't understand any of the things 
>involved--matter, space, time, consciousness.

>Stay tuned for a few centuries.

>Robert Ettinger

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