X-Message-Number: 25406
From: 
Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 10:07:25 EST
Subject: Markovian vs. intuitive

Taking issue with my "physical overlap" criterion of survival, Mike Perry  

mentions a thought experiment similar to an old one of Lee Corbin, where a man
is gradually changed into Greta Garbo, or into a frog. Since at the end the  

original individual no longer exists, the suggestion is that gradual change can
 destroy a person.
 
Sure--but what of it? I don't claim that overlap guarantees  against change 
or against eventual total change. What overlap appears to  guarantee (subject 
to learning more about space, time, and matter) is that you  can at least 

partly identify with your near past and near future selves. And  that is all 
that 
is necessary for a plausible basis for value judgments, with no  metaphysics 
required, nothing taken on faith (except tentative acceptance of the  laws of 
physics and biology as they now appear to be).
 
 
Mike also writes in part:
 
>For me, survival would depend, not on physical continuity or the  related 
>psychological continuity (which could also be enforced here),  but on 
>psychological connectedness. In essence you become the person you  think you 
>are, and "survival" is essentially Markovian. That is to say,  the person 
>you "were" is determined by your memories and other  attributes present from 
>the given moment onward, rather than depending,  in a direct way, on 
>previous events. ......... I for one feel  
>fairly confident that the Markovian notion is "correct" (at least will  
>never be proved wrong--and it has other desirable features, including a  
>favorable nod to Occam's razor). To ask for more, to insist on an  
>additional continuity criterion for survival, for instance (or even to  
>assert its sufficiency as well as necessity), seems to imply a mystical  
>notion of the soul.



First, seems to me that Occam's razor favors my view, not  Mike's, in the 

sense that mine more nearly fits intuition. Intuition is fallible  and educable,
but also presumptively true--i.e., the burden of proof is on the  

counter-intuitive. Duplicates as self is wildly counterintuitive, with a strong
hint of 
wishful thinking.
 
Second, if you say that   
 
>the person you "were" is determined by your memories and  other attributes 
>present from the given moment onward, rather than  depending, in a direct 
way, on 
>previous events. ......... 
 
then you have forgotten that the issue is an appropriate  criterion of 
survival of the earlier, not how the new person should think  of himself. 
 
Robert Ettinger






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