On 23 Jun 2015, at 05:03, 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
And my original snap judgement was correct, it is a pretty silly
theory.
Comp refute it, but it is easy to have non-comp ad hoc theory which
satisfy it. You confirm of course that you have no problem with
computationalism (abbreviated comp, or CTM, or just Mechanism...).
It is step 5 which refutes definitely the closest continuer theory in
the computationalist frame.
Bruno
> 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
--
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.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
--
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.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
