On 4/10/2015 6:54 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 4 October 2015 at 09:05, Bruce Kellett <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 4/10/2015 6:03 am, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:On 3 Oct 2015, at 5:21 PM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:On 3/10/2015 1:52 pm, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:On 2 Oct 2015, at 4:28 PM, Bruce Kellett <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:I think you are continuing to confuse the issues between local copies, obeying the laws of physics and information transfer, and remote copies outside our particle horizon. The latter are of absolutely no relevance to me here-and-now because there is no possibility of information transfer.Remote copies are still copies. If a copy of you were made in the Andromeda Galaxy a billion years hence, it would still *by definition* think it was you despite being made of different matter, despite it being far removed in space and time, despite it possibly having no physical connection with you.That is still within the forward light cone, so information could be transmitted. Information is physical. If there is no transfer of information, there is no way one could test what the copy thought.Are you saying that the copy would not really be a copy until it verified this by establishing contact with the original, or that the mere possibility of establishing contact with the original is necessary and sufficient?You would no know you had a copy until the two were compared -- and that involves the transfer of information.No, you wouldn't know you were a copy - you would probably think you were the original.
*An* original. You would have no reason to suspect that there was another person bearing any very close resemblance to you. To claim there is a 'copy', means that you must have compared the two and found them identical, or have a causal chain linking one (original) to the other (copy).
Alternatively, what could it possibly mean for the 'copy' to think -- I am the person that was born in another galaxy a million years ago? Perhaps people think crazy things like that all the time, but they are usually put away so that they can do no more harm to themselves.A lot of people believe that they are someone else, and they are deluded, because it isn't possible in the world we live in. They would not necessarily be deluded if it were possible.Even if copies were possible, being deluded would also be possible. We would only ever be able to tell the difference by checking our thoughts against independent evidence from the world around us, other people, etc, etc. None of these checks is possible for purported copies outside our light cone, or at remote times and locations.If matter is placed in the same configuration as you, it will think it is you and have all your physical and psychological qualities. This relies on the assumption that your physical and psychological qualities are due to the configuration of matter in your body. It does not rely on the further assumption that the copy be verified.
But thinking (or knowing) that it is a copy does require the transfer of information. Otherwise the only sensible position to take is that there are two independent persons.
Suppose you're told that according whatever criteria you have defined you were *inadequately* copied last night in your sleep. You believe you're Bruce Kellett, have his memories, look like him, and everyone who knew Bruce agrees that he seems to be the same guy. However, the atoms just weren't put in place using the right procedure, whatever that might be. What difference does the knowledge of this deficit make to you? What difference does it make to anyone else?How does such an implausible scenario differ from the observation that I sloughed off some flakes of skin during the night, some cells died, and some new cells grew, nourished by the food I ate for dinner last night? Minor changes do not disrupt bodily continuity, and all these changes are subject to the laws of physics, so are completely traceable and understandable.Yes, but as far as I can tell you think that there is some possible scenario where your psychological continuity is preserved in the sense I have described but physical continuity is not preserved.No, I don't think that. I think 'psychological continuity' is an empty phrase when there is no physical information transfer.So this is exactly what I am asking you to consider. Someone who looks like you, behaves like you, knows everything that you know, etc. wakes up in your bed this morning. Overnight, some physical changes have occurred. If you (the person waking up in your bed) are informed that these changes consist of a few cells dying and being replaced, you are not worried. But what if you are reliably informed that the physical changes involve a random process, or something else that would render 'psychological continuity' an empty phrase, as you say. You (the person waking up in your bed) still feel the same either way, and everyone who knows you agrees you seem to be the same person. Would you go around claiming that you were not Bruce, or that you are Bruce but have experienced a psychological discontinuity, or that you haven't experienced a psychological discontinuity because it's meaningless, or what?Psychological continuity is empty in many of the cases you propose because no independent checking is possible. Psychological continuity, if interpreted to mean only some commonality of memories, temperament and the like, might have some content as part of the muli-dimensional character of personal identity. But it is by no means sufficient, and possibly (in extreme cases) not even necessary.I don't think checking the copies is necessary, for the reasons given above. But do you agree at least that if the copies are checked and are similar enough then continuity of identity is established, and it does not matter how the copies were made?
I think that if there are to be 'copies', then there has to be an original that is copied. And that copying is a physical process, subject to the normal laws of physics and causality, so that the common origin can be traced by independent investigation. If the purported 'copy' arose by chance, or in another galaxy, or in another universe, so that there is no causal connection, then use of the word 'copy' is misleading -- copies have an original that is causally connected. Remove that causal connection and you have no more than chance resemblance that would have to be established by some form of information transfer. The two persons thus resembling each other would each, quite rightly, regard themselves as independent persons, not copies of anything. Continuity of identity is not established by mere resemblance, no matter how close.
I think I have lost track of exactly what you are trying to establish by this line of argument. Perhaps we should start with a clear statement of what you think these copies actually achieve.
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