> On 30 Sep 2015, at 11:02 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> On 9/30/2015 7:44 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> It follows from the meaning of the words "psychologically continuous". If I >> have the same psychological properties as I did yesterday then I am >> psychologically continuous with my yesterday self. It is nonsensical to >> assert that yes, I remember everything I did yesterday, I have the same >> personality that I did yesterday, the same cognitive abilities that I did >> yesterday, etc., but I am not actually psychologically continuous, because >> there has been some sort of physical discontinuity. In fact, it is >> reflecting on this that should make it clear that physical change is >> irrelevant to psychological continuity except insofar as the physical change >> makes a psychological difference. If you feel the same, look the same, >> behave the same etc. today as you did yesterday but you are informed that >> advanced aliens performed a procedure X on you in your sleep, then that >> means that whatever X was, it did not affect psychological continuity. > > That sounds right, but if you think of testing it, it becomes problematic. > How could it be known that you remember what you did yesterday? that you > have the same cognitive abilities? the same personalities? You cannot rely > on your own introspection because that is what is in question. In fact we > judge all those things by there physical, i.e. third party, manifestation. > Do you behave the same. Are your memories consistent with physical > artifacts. Can you solve the same problems.
As a practical problem, yes, you'd want these guarantees. -- 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.
