X-Message-Number: 32878
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:58:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: david pizer <>
Subject: reply to Brooks comments on duplicates


Brook says:  The initial assumption that is wrong with all survival thought 
experiments is "there is some essential human quality, that when preserved, 
results in survival of that person."


David:  Why is that assumption wrong? If it was wrong then it is also wrong to 
believe that you are the same person when you wake up each morning.


I believe there is a unique quality to myself that makes me different from any 
other person in that I experience consciousness and self consciousness from 
within my own brain that is mine and mine alone.  That is true whether I am 
doing it now, suspended a while and then doing again later on as long as that 
experience in always in my original brain.


Brook says:  I believe you have to totally step away from the mind set of "I" am
a person, unique and separate from the universe and my uniqueness must be 
maintained. Instead, see yourself from a third party distant observer, where 
each human is a collection of molecules, interacting with their environment in 
essentially the same way as inanimate objects. The human's awareness is a 
special property, but no more special than temperature or weight, to the 
observer.


David: that is another place where I believe you error.  I can't step away from 
my point of observation and experience, Me and you can only experience things in
our own unique and different brains.  I submit that a 3rd party observer may 
not be able to tell an original from a duplicate, but that has nothing to do 
with whether a person survives through a duplicate when the original (the one 
that wants to survive) has been destroyed.


Also, as all other opponents have done for 25 years, you have side-stepped the 
telling question.  It is just a yes or no answer that tells what you really 
believe so long as you answer honestly.


If you were convinced an exact duplicate was sitting across from you, would you 
then mind if you (the original) were killed and the duplicate were to live on 
instead of you?

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