X-Message-Number: 25261
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:27:29 -0800
Subject: Thomas & Continuation, Spooky Rays
From: <>

Dear Thomas:

[snip]

>Why is it better to think of a QE remade from the plan of a QE as
>different rather than the same?

Because the remade QE IS different than the original, in at very 
least the fact that it is not the original. It looks like you are 
finally beginning to see this. Instead of insisting they ARE the 
same, as you have insisted in the past, you are now asking the 
question, 'Why shouldn't we TREAT them as the same, for purposes of 
continuation?'

As I have proven in past messages, following a blueprint won't give 
you the original---it will give you a copy. If you doubt this, then 
all you have to do is follow the blueprint to building something 
that already exists. Once you conduct this experiment, you will 
clearly see that two things exist, and not one; therefore, these 
two things that exist are not the same thing.

So now let us consider it a given, from this point forward, that 
blueprint-following results in a COPY, and not the original. 

Now you can ask the question, as you have in your most recent 
message, 'Since the copy has the same atomic arrangement as the 
original, why isn't the subjective inner-life of the original 
continued in the copy?'

The fundamental answer to this question is that subjectivity is, by 
its very nature, a property of a *particular* system. Subjectivity 
is an aspect of the identity of systems supporting subjectivity. 
Therefore, you can no more copy subjectivity than you can copy 
identity. It's not that it cannot be done due to lack of 
technological prowess---it's that doing it would entail a logical 
contradiction, so it can't be done by any means.

To illustrate this forcefully, imagine creating a duplicate of you 
WHILE you exist, but creating this duplicate 100 million lightyears 
away from you.

For example, we could put you into suspended animation on a 
spacecraft, scan you, send this information 100 million lightyears 
away to some space-based manufacturing plant that would create a 
suspended duplicate of you. Then we can unsuspend both of you at 
the same time (possible, but tricky due to relativity).

From YOUR perspective---YOU as in the one whose brain was scanned---
you are suspended and awaken on the same space craft you were 
suspended on. Therefore, it is manifestly obvious that your 
subjective inner life did not continue in the copy, since the copy 
is 100 million lightyears away from you, in an entirely different 
part of the galaxy, and he awakens in a space-based manufacturing 
plant, not in your space craft.

'WAIT,' you say, 'you have to DESTROY THE ORIGINAL!' Let me get 
this straight. You think that by destroying yourself, your 
subjectivity (which is a property localized to your brain, on board 
the spacecraft) will simultaneously hop 100 million lightyears to 
your copy?!? If I may be so bold...

WHAT THE HELL?!?

In what form is your 'subjectivity' going to travel??? Can I see 
spooky light rays shooting from your brain and traveling the vast 
expanses of space to reach your copy? Can I detect any transfer at 
all, of anything?

Clearly, the destruction of one can have NO EFFECT on the 
subjective inner life of the other; moreover, the creation of a 
copy can have NO EFFECT on the subjective inner life of the 
original.

You can wish it to be otherwise, but you can also wish for a 
bearded man in the sky to rescue you upon your death, and raise you 
and your pet cat to everlasting happiness in a fairy tale world of 
your choosing. That won't make it so.

[snip]

Best Regards,

Richard B. R.

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