On 20 Feb 2013, at 21:18, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/20/2013 8:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 20 Feb 2013, at 00:27, meekerdb wrote:
On 2/19/2013 1:58 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net>
wrote:
On 2/18/2013 10:49 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
6. Swapping places with someone: In 5 seconds, your mind and
consciousness will swap with that of some rich and famous
person. Let's say Bill Gates. I hope you are ready. 5. 4. 3.
2. 1. The swap is complete. Bill Gates is now in your body,
with access to your memories and living as you were just before
you got to reading this sentence, while you are living as a
billionaire and enjoying Bills bank account. Of course, while
you are in his body you only have access to his memories. Not
only does his wife not notice the switch, but you don't even
notice it. You only have access to Bill's memories now so you
do not realize anything is awry. Don't worry, everything will
be set back how it was, in 3. 2. 1. Welcome back. How was it? Of
course, you don't remember. Fortunately, Bill was nice enough to
read the last few sentences for you and now they have been
placed into your memory. This shows it is meaningless to say "I
wish I could live as X", or "experience a day in Y's shoes".
For all you know, you already are, have, and will.
This, if true, only shows that "you" and "Bill Gates" don't exist
apart from your bodies and memories, so that it is nonsense to
talk of exchanging bodies and memories.
We agree it is nonsense.
For it to make sense there would have to be a "you" soul and a
"Bill Gates" soul that switched.
Okay, if no soul involved, then by what means can we talk of you
at T1 and you at T2, when the two are different in terms of
memories and material?
There is a problem with any theories of personal identity two
individuals at two different times. Inevitably it comes down to
some arbitrary measure of similarity. There are two
alternatives, no-self theories of personal identity, in which you
are nothing but a single observer moment, and universalism, which
identifies you with every conscious entity.
You have been seduced by comp so that you forget the simplest
theory - physical continuity.
Physical continuity entails, very plausibly, computability.
Yes that is very plausible. But I also suspect that comp plus
intelligence entails physics.
But comp implies that intelligence exists, in arithmetic, in many
exemplars. OK?
If you are OK, then comp implies physics, and that's my point.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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