On Saturday, August 8, 2015, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','johnkcl...@gmail.com');>> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 smitra <smi...@zonnet.nl> wrote: > > > >> You can just define personal identity as a single observer moment, which >> includes any memories of the outcomes of the duplication experiments, so >> the string of the "W"'s and "M"'should be included in the definition of >> "you". >> > > OK. > > > >> But there is not problem here if you just take the formal description of >> any conscious being as defining its personal identity. > > > But if that definition of "you" is used then the question "What one and > only one city did you end up seeing?" has no answer because it is not a > question at all, it is just a sequence of ASCII characters the last of > which happens to be a question mark. > You might argue that it is false, but not that it is meaningless. Each observer moment believes they are a unique individual with a unique past and a unique future. They aren't unique because there are many of them, past, present and future. And even if they were unique at each time point they might not be the "same" persisting individual, since they could as easily be linked by false memories. Nevertheless, the illusion of continuity is both valid and important. It is both valid and important that each observer believes he will see one and only one city, even though it might be false. -- Stathis Papaioannou -- 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.
