X-Message-Number: 25350
From: 
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:35:04 EST
Subject: more of the same

Francois writes in part:
 

>if  the arragement of atoms in a brain is
>duplicated, the resulting brain's  sense of identity will be the same as that
>of the original. 
 
However, "sense of identity" and "identity" are not the same. (In addition,  
an exact duplication is probably not possible.) Saying they have the same 

"sense  of identity" is just another way of saying that they have the same brain
description, including attitudes and feelings. That is not the issue.
 
Also:


>I die, am cryonically preserved, then duplicated prior  to
>reanimation, both original and copy being then revived. Still, the  three
>premises force me to conclude, againts all common sense, that my  subjective
>experience would be the same as in situation 1. Except, of  course, that 'I'
>would wake up in both bodies. 
 

"My" subjective experience is the wrong word--that is assuming the  

consequent. The experience is objectively the same, or close enough perhaps, to
an 
outside observer, but that is not the issue. Francois poses one question but  
answers another.
 
(To a Martian, you and I may be the "same" with only trivial differences,  
interchangeable. But his view is not ours.)
 
Saying that "I" would wake up in both bodies is, once more, just assuming  
the truth of the very thing you are trying to establish. 
 
If (somehow) a million copies of you were created right now, at vast  

distances apart and unbeknownst to each other, it is not credible that a  
particular 
one would or should regard the possible others as sharing his  identity in any 
way that is important to that original.
 
Robert Ettinger



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