X-Message-Number: 25343 Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 08:43:36 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #25329 - #25340 Hi everyone! Well, I guess I've now been declared unable to discuss RBR's ideas. You get to choose: is RBR correct and my mind has ceased to work very well, or am I correct and RBR still needs to define what he means by continuity in the case of QEs? For however you answer that question, I will point out that in math functions are not "continuous" without some extra definition of continuity, and we now have many different point-set topologies in which we can make such definitions. It's so easy to put around the notion of continuity without bothering to define it --- doesn't everyone know how to define continuity as a matter of instinct? Bob Ettinger almost touched upon this issue when he stated that in his belief things spread around themselves (ie a bit like quantum mechanics) so that it wasn't as if we experienced the world in entirely separate experiences, one after the other. A simple comment from mathematics on this issue suggests that we don't even need to make such an assumption: think of the rational numbers, which are pointlike but dense in space and time. In such a case, you would be continuous if at any time t, your positions during the period t-e and t+e (where e is small) would differ from one another by another small number d ie. | inst.you.1 - inst.you.2 | < d. Such a notion would raise problems with RBR's ideas, so far as my poor damaged old mind can understand them. Every one of these instances would be different and separable from any other. Close, even very close, but not the same. If I understand this discussion, it seems to me that a definition of continuity for QEs becomes quite critical. In any case, perhaps those of you who subscribe to PERIASTRON will find my article about injuries to identity interesting in the context of this discussion. Best wishes and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=25343