On Wed, Sep 9, 2020 at 4:50 PM 'Brent Meeker' via Everything List < everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> On 9/8/2020 10:51 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > On Wed, 9 Sep 2020 at 14:56, Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> Be a dualist if you want to. But the closest continuer theory is a >> convention designed to resolve questions of personal identity in cases of >> personal duplication, absent a "soul". Arbitrary random selections are not >> as satisfactory. >> > > I'm not a dualist. I think there is no metaphysical basis for continuity > of identity, it is just a psychological construct. > > > Realistically (sort of) in the duplication of Bruce there will be millions > of errors in each copy. There would be no point in trying to make them any > more accurate. That would certainly be good enough to fool his closest > friends and family. So at the molecular level there will certainly be a > unique closest continuer. But I can't see that it makes any difference. > That's just as arbitrary as denominating the first one to open his door the > REAL Bruce. > The importance of copying errors depends on the metric used to assess closeness of continuation. If and when actual duplication becomes possible, we can worry about the fine details of this. But if you think in terms of AI, duplication might involve no more than running the same program on multiple computers. Duplication errors are then eliminated. I think the point of taking more into account in terms of personal identity than just psychological continuity is that psychological continuity makes little sense when you are asleep, under anaesthesia, or otherwise unconscious. Do you cease to be a person when unconscious? The same person? Does your family recognize you then or not? Since we do not doubt continuity of personal existence even though our bodies change continuously at the molecular level, copying errors at that level are not relevant for bodily continuity. Our memories and emotions change every bit as much, if not more, on these time scales. So the metric to determine continuity of personal identity is not clear cut. It is the sort of thing that can be sorted out if and when we can actually duplicate persons and their bodies. 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/CAFxXSLRUo%3Drw9ykeUoxAhuz_Qeh3ZZh8N%2BC7fT4Vu05x9xg0rw%40mail.gmail.com.
