21-07-2002 17:42									#241
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Nah nah, after reading two of Hawking books, it's not bad. Generally, I wouldn't mind meating such a clever person.

	28-09-2002 12:10									#242
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I'm not personally convinced that the supernatural does not exist, but I'm going to assume a materialistic universe for the sake of argument.

The relevant question here is "What makes you 'you'?" Is it your exact physical state? Can't be, that's changing every second. The same is true for your exact mental state. Is it the matter that makes you up? That gets almost completely replaced every 7 years or so, IIRC. It can't be your memories, because you keep gaining new ones and losing old ones. Etc.

One argument goes like this:
"Say you create an exact copy of me. If you take the two of us into different rooms, neither of us will know what the other is experiencing. If you tell something or show something to one of us, the other will have no knowledge of it. This demonstrates that we are different people."

The rebuttal is as follows :
Suppose I show A several pictures and ask him to memorize them. I then ask him to recall the pictures I showed to B. He cannot. Then I hit him on the head very hard , causing him to forget what just happened. In a little while B wakes up. I ask him to recall the pictures I showed to A. He can't. Now, is this scenario compatible with A and B being the same person? Neither one is aware of what is happening to the other.

But wait, you object. I require that the subjects must be tested at the same time! No problemo, I say. I'll just take my handy time machine and take B back in time so I can test him at the same time as A.

If you were cryogenically frozen, and disassembled by nanobots, then reassembled and unfrozen, would it still be "you"? What if they reassembled your body in exactly the same way using different atoms? Would it matter? The atoms are exactly the same as the ones that made you up. "Particles don't carry identity cards." If it did matter, how many atoms would have to be replaced before it was no longer "you"? And what if they "reassembled" more than one of you? Would both be "you"? Would just being frozen (irreversibly) "kill" you? Why?

Some would say that one's identity is maintained if there is a continuous transition from one state to the other. Under this view, the same person could never exist at two different places at the same time, but (s)he could exist at two different places at two different times. But that's weakening the criteria! If X and Y are the same person at different times, why wouldn't they be the same person at the same time? Surely, existing at the same time gives them more in common, not less?

Personally, I would have no qualms about teleporting. I would happily upload my mind into a computer. I would willingly alter my personality. I would get rid of old memories, if I no longer found them useful.

"But wait", you might object. "You've now completely replaced your body and mind. Why not just create a totally separate mentally, physically, and morally superior being, then kill yourself? The end result would be the same." Well, killing myself would probably be unnecessary. But if I had to give my life to create such a being, I would.

My ego, my sense of self, is just a byproduct of the working of my brain. No more. There's nothing objective about it. When faced with the question of identity, different people will argue for the "continuity" of the body or mind, or the preservation of the essential characteristics of a person's mind or body. Myself, I don't think identity is any more than a convention. Having no philosophical sense of self, I also have no desire for self-preservation -- not for its own sake. And this, I would contend, is the only truly objective perspective -- the one that acknowledges that identity is fundamentally subjective.

In actuality, I would probably be afraid of death, or teleportation, or destructive copying, but only because I'm afraid of what might happen to my soul. I only fear what dreams may come after I have shuffled off this mortal coil. But I have no fear of oblivion, something which, by definition, I will never actually experience. If I'm around to experience anything, it hasn't happened yet.