----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruno Marchal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>When you said earlier that: >>"In a materialistic framework, ' I ' am a bunch of atoms. These atoms >>happen to constitute a system that has self-referential >>qualities that we call consciousness." > > >I would say I *own* a bunch of atoms. And we should distinguish >third person self-reference like "after the self-duplication you will see >me at W and at M, say", and first person self-reference like "after >the self-duplication, if comp is true, I will either feel to be at W, or >I will feel to be at M, but I will never feel to be at both place at once. I agree that *own* is a better term. But I still don't agree that I should either feel to be W or M. I believe I would still be the original. I have been discussing this on this list for a while and did not yet see a convincing argument. In fact, I think the people in this list have various different beliefs in this topic. Some say I should somehow expect to be both at the same time; some say personal identity does not exist at all, which is quite nice to be said but hard to make a sense of (if you are not an enlightened buddhist or something); and some, like you, believe I should have equal subjective probabilities of being each. But I don't see a justification for this beyond personal taste. I know I must have lost this argument earlier on this list, but could you refer me to a more complete argument, or give a description of it here? -Eric.
