[geeks] [rescue] consciousness immortality [was: Sun Sparcstation 20 hard disks]

[Mouse]

>>> for me, it hinges on whether a real transference is ever possible,
>>> not just copy/deletion.
>> My point is that, depending on how you define "the same person", and
>> depending on how the technology turns out to work, there may not be
>> any difference between copy/delete and transfer.
> there's a big one for the deleted copy...

Even _speaking of_ "the deleted copy" doesn't make sense unless there
is a difference.

> yes, one can play word games with definitions, and much of a
> definition depends on viewpoint.  you're arguing for the definition
> of a person as the sum total of information etc. from a particular --
> mind?  so a copy indistinguishable from the original -is- the
> original in any meaningbful way - the same information 'image'.  just
> like email.

I'm not sure I'd say I'm arguing for it.  I'm arguing that for all we
know it might very well turn out to work that way, and we shouldn't
assume otherwise unless/until we have evidence.

But, that aside, yes: I'm arguing that you may have a "one person goes
in, two come out" process in which the two that come out are basically
indistinguishable, so that neither has a stronger claim to being the
original than the other.

Of course, they will be at least slightly different; if nothing else,
they exist in different locations.  But that may be the only
difference, even subjectively, between them - at least initially.

> but suppose you make 300 copies.  still a single person?

No, no more than the two were a single person.  (Unless that turns out
to be how it happens to work, of course, but I don't think we're
talking about single-shared-mind scenarios here.)

300 effectively identical persons with no way to choose one as "the
original" is basically no different from two, not for the philosophical
purposes at hand.

> what if each demands the right to vote?

That would be something the legal and/or electoral system(s) in
question would have to deal with.

It would be among the least of the problems such technology would
provoke, I predict. :)

> on my side, while other copies could be people in their own rights,
> only the original copy is -me-.

You are still clinging to this notion that there _is_ a single "me" in
some sense which is true of one of the resulting persons but not the
other(s).  I'm not convinced that will be true.  (I'm also not
convinced it will be false, but that possibility doesn't seem to be in
question.)

>> True enough.  I don't find it very nightmarish, though.
> not a nightmare if a stroke deprived you of the ability to speak?  or
> see and hear?  left you paraplegic?

Not really.  Perhaps my threshold for "nightmare" is higher than yours.
Or perhaps I lack imagination - or you have an excess.  Or perhaps I'm
just exhibiting the human tendency to downplay the seriousness of
familiar risks; that's a risk I've lived with basically all my life.

> you're a resilient person.

Perhaps.  No way to really tell without performing an experiment I'd
just as soon pass on. :-)

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