Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 14 April 2015 at 11:26, Bruce Kellett <bhkell...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
It's an illusion even in a dualist model, because dualism does not
logically rule out copying. The illusion, to spell it out further, is
that I am a unique entity persisting through time. That is what I feel
to be "personal identity" at the visceral level, and even though
intellectually I know better, I can't shake the feeling.
It's stubborn, even if an illusion, eh? If you were duplicated, would you be
prepared to kill your duplicate? Who would you kill?
If it came to a fight over the last place in a lifeboat I might be
prepared to kill my duplicate and he would be prepared to kill me (I
can say this since I know how he thinks). I would feel bad about
killing him because he can then anticipate no future experiences:
there will be no future entity that remembers being him so the
illusion of being a person persisting through time would end. I would
not worry about destructive copying of myself or someone else because
then the illusion would persist. This is a rough answer and it is not
difficult to think of situations that cause problems. For example,
taking a drug such as midazolam which causes amnesia could be seen as
equivalent to killing your copy.
Wouldn't it be easier just to commit suicide? You are still killing the
same person on your account.
Bruce
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