X-Message-Number: 32515
From: Daniel Crevier <>
References: <>
Subject: Down with uploading!
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:33:31 -0400

As Robert points out, the uploading issue won't be resolved here. The reason 
could be that it is at bottom a subjective problem, with a different answer 
for each. The question "Is the simulation of a person the same as the 
person?" may not have a definitive answer because the concepts of "same" and 
"person" are very slippery. "Same" for example usually has more than one 
level of meaning, and your answer to a question about sameness depends on 
what level is important to you. This level may in turn depend on context, 
and your own experience. The answer could be "somewhat" rather than yes or 
no.

Consider a book. If we have both read Jules Verne's "Twenty thousand leagues 
under the sea", we will agree that we have read the "same" book. However, if 
your copy is a valuable, genuine 19th century edition in pristine condition, 
and mine is a cheap paperback, you will rightly insist that we do not own 
the "same" book. So, depending on context, "same" refers to different 
aspects of a book. In the context of owning, it refers to the "pile of dead 
tree material" aspect. In the context of reading, it refers to the contents 
of said pile, defined perhaps as a string of words or characters.

But what if I read the original "Vingt mille lieues sous les mers", and you 
read an English translation? Have we still read the same book? Here it gets 
a little iffy, because no translation is ever perfect. Still, I believe most 
people would agree that by and large, we have read the same book (note the 
qualifiers here: "same" is not a binary proposition. Things can be more or 
less the same). For this sameness to make sense, though, we have to abandon 
our definition of a book as a string of characters for something much more 
abstract. We might say that a book if a sequence of sentences that have some 
"meaning", whatever that is.

What if your version is an e-book and mine is on paper? That's interesting 
because your version can now be said to be a *simulation* of mine. It is a 
string of bits in an electronic medium that will cause the appearance on a 
screen of a replica of any given page in my book. Yet my pile of paper and 
your electronic simulation are, at some level, essentially the same.

For me, it is the only level that really counts. But that is because I know 
how to read, and like reading books. For someone who had never heard about 
reading, your steel and glass gadget and my pile of paper would be two very 
different things, and this entire discussion would make no sense.

So do I believe that an electronic simulation of me would, at some level, be 
the same as me? Yes, if only because it would behave, and talk to you and 
react pretty much as I would. You could say that its "meaning" would be the 
same as mine. Is this the only level that counts? I'm not prepared to say 
that yet. But then, perhaps I'm only learning to read. Perhaps if I had 
experienced the phenomenon ("Gee, it really is Dad in there!"), I'd have a 
different opinion.

Daniel Crevier

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