John Clark wrote:
I confess that I had never heard of the "Closer Continuer Theory" until
today, so I typed it into Google and read the first thing that came up.
http://www2.drury.edu/cpanza/continuer-theory.html
A quick glance at this indicates that it is not a very good or clear
exposition of the closest continuer theory. You should look at the
original sources.
In any case, we can't actually duplicate people, so we can't perform
experiments on this. Even the discussions of split brains and the like
are not really about duplication.
Bruce
And my original snap judgement was correct, it is a pretty silly theory.
> To be sent to the moon is not a violation, but to be beamed to
the moon while the original stayed behind on Earth would involve a
branching continuer -- the branch on the moon would introduce a
"break" with the past causal history of the person (which the person
on Earth maintains).
How is that a break with past causal history? There was a cause, a
reason, that the guy on the moon is the way he is, he is the way he is
because of the way things happened to the guy on earth. a clear-cut case
of cause and effect. And given that the atoms in your body and brain are
in a constant state of flux, just what is so original about "the
original" anyway?
> Nozick's theory suggests that if a branching event occurs, the
branch that is the closest in terms of psychological continuity will
be the branch that maintains personal identity.
What in the world does that even mean? Suppose I'm not the "closest
continuer", does that mean I have no identity even though I vividly
remember being John Clark as a child? Has some mysterious force emanated
from that closer guy reach out and found me and destroyed my
consciousness?
> If a person is duplicated, at the moment of duplication -- up to
the time when the closest continuer can be established -- neither
branch maintains a personal identity with the original chain. Then,
once the closest continuer is established, the closest one takes on
identity with the former chain. This, to be frank, is quite odd. For
a small amount of time a person would not be identical with his
former self, and then that person will once again be identical with
that self. So for a small time a person loses personal identity with
his former self.
That sounds like a parliamentary procedure dreamed up by a committee of
human politicians to determine which decedent of a recently deceased
Duke should receive that royal title; it does not sound like a law of
nature.
John K Clark
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