On Tue, Jul 23, 2019 at 2:41 PM Stathis Papaioannou <stath...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jul 2019 at 11:50, 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < > everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote: > >> On 7/22/2019 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> Brain scans might have some bearing on whether not your brain can be >>> replaced by some equivalent digital device. Once you can do this, questions >>> about personal identity become an empirical matter, as has been pointed out >>> several times. >>> >> >> The substantive problem is a philosophical one, since by assumption in >> these debates the copied brain is identical by any empirical test. >> >> >> But what if, as seems likely to me, it is theoretically impossible to >> copy a brain to a level that it undetectable, i.e. it will necessarily be >> possible to distinguish physical differences. Now these differences may >> not matter to consciousness, or they may imply only a brief glitch at the >> conscious/classical level, but we know from Holevo's theorem that the >> duplicate can't be known to be in the same state. >> > > I feel that I am the same person today as yesterday because I am pretty > close to the person I was yesterday, even though if you were to look at me > in enough detail, even using simple tests and instruments, I am quite > different today. It seems unreasonable to insist that a copy of a person > must be closer to the original than the "copying" that occurs in everyday > life. > Dealing with this particular worry is one of the strengths of Nozick's 'closest continuer' theory. 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLRMwU0NiM_x5jvxhv9M-Z5m0DPOjgL6%3D6E%2BYPv99Qv%2BpA%40mail.gmail.com.
