Thanks Bruce, that was quite illuminating. I know Bruno will say that these other notions of personal identity contradict COMP - and I can see that considering the original copy as dead, and two new persons being created directly contradicts the "Yes, doctor" postulate. But I can see it may be pertinent to discuss these alternate notions of personal identity in a computationalist setting.
On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 01:31:45PM +1000, Bruce Kellett wrote: > > If I might jump into this protracted argument here, I think that > John does have a point in what he is saying about the confusion over > personal pronouns. This refers back to the very old philosophical > problem of personal identity. The philosophical literature is full > of extended discussions on this, and it is widely understood that > ideas such as brain transplants and duplicating machines play merry > havoc with our intuitive notions of personal identity. > > This problem is brought to the fore with the first few steps of > Bruno's argument, but he does not really discuss this. The closest I > can see is a footnote to step 5 to the effect that Nozick's 'closest > continuer' account of personal identity is contradicted. This is > true, but one needs to replace this relatively intuitive notion of > personal identity with something a little more worked out. The basis > of personal identity in computationalism seems to be just the > computations underlying a particular consciousness, under which > theory a person's identity can be duplicated any number of times. > Hence the problems that John has from his more intuitive > perspective. > > The philosophical literature has not come to any consensus on this > matter. One could follow Parfit (Reason and Persons, 1984) and claim > that because the original person is not preserved in the > teleportation/duplication experiments of steps 1-4, new persons are > created each time, and the original person is killed (cut) each > time. There is, then, no first person indeterminacy because the > first person is always eliminated. > > There is a difference in step 5, where the original is duplicated > but not destroyed. Then one could follow the standard intuition and > say that the original person survives intact in Brussels, and some > new person is transported to Amsterdam. Such an approach to person > identity would solve John's problems and remove all the ambiguity > about personal pronouns. > > Because the problem of person identity is not resolved in the > philosophical literature, much less in popular intuition, it is > clearly premature to simply take over a comp version without further > discussion. Sure, in order to succeed, comp needs personal identity > to be associated exclusively with some abstract computations that > might or might not be performed by a physical brain. But one is > equally at liberty to argue that the physical body (extended even to > immediate environs and so on) is an essential part of our > understanding of personal identity. In other words, Bruno begs the > question here, and really does have to give an independent > justification of the notion of personal identity which he wants to > use. > > Bruce > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
