On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 12:24 PM, Craig Weinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > "1. Do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture in the case of > the Restorers, even though you no longer remember it? If not, why not." > > Yes > > > "2. If yes, do you consider yourself to have experienced the torture in the > case of the Duplicators? If yes, please explain, if not, please explain." > > The idea that atoms can be duplicated is an assumption. If we only look at > the part of a plant that we can see and tried to duplicate that, it would > not have an roots and it would die. I think of the roots of atoms to be > experiences through time. Just having a person who seems to be shaped like > you according to an electron microscope does not make them you. > > 3. Both scenarios I think are based on misconceptions. Nothing in the > universe can be duplicated absolutely and nothing can be erased absolutely, > because what we see of time is, again, missing the roots that extend out to > eternity. I find it bizarre that we find it so easy to doubt our naive > realism when it comes to physics but not when it comes to consciousness. > Somehow we think that the idea that this moment of 'now' is mandated by > physics to be universal and uniform.
What is to stop duplication of, say, the simplest possible conscious being made up of only a few atoms? Sometimes the objection is raised that an exact quantum state cannot be measured (although it can be duplicated via quantum teleportation, with destruction of the original), but this is probably spurious. If duplication down to the quantum level were needed to maintain continuity of consciousness then it would be impossible to maintain continuity of consciousness from moment to moment in ordinary life, since the state of your body changes in a relatively gross way and you remain you. So what you have to explain Craig is what you think would happen if you tried to duplicate a person using very advanced science, and why you don't think that happens when a person lives his life from day to day, having his brain replaced completely (and imprecisely) over the course of months with the matter in the food he eats. -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
