On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 08:34:48PM +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > 2009/2/27 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>: > > > Gosh! And what if the backup has been done last year, or one minute ago? I > > will be dead too? Less dead? > > This shows a potential problem the psychological criterion for > personal identity. If I am facing death it is little consolation to me > if a backup was made an hour ago, since I (the presently speaking I) > will not be able to anticipate any future experiences. Only if there > exists some copy who will have a memory of my present experiences > would I not object to dying, and this would require a backup updated > every moment. In that case, I should also object to an hour of memory > loss, due to a medication like midazolam. But I don't think that > taking midazolam is tantamount to dying. Inconsistency! Either I have > to agree that taking midazolam is like dying, or I have to agree that > dying while leaving an old (how old?) backup behind does not matter. > If I agree to the latter, then I give up worrying about the thing I > don't like about dying, which is the fact that I won't be able to > anticipate any future experiences. And if I give up worrying about > that, then there isn't anything else that worries me about dying. So > if I think that taking midazolam is no big deal (which I do), to be > consistent I should also think that death is no big deal. >
If Multiverse (or COMP), and no cul-de-sacs is true, then the backups are actually irrelevant. There will always be next OM to experience. If "no cul-de-sacs" is false, however, then true death is possible, and I'm not convinced that the presence of backups will help much. Either way, there is little to be concerned about :) Cheers -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 hpco...@hpcoders.com.au Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---