On Mon, 22 Jul 2019 at 14:12, Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 21, 2019 at 9:55 PM Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On 21 Jul 2019, at 08:11, Dan Sonik <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> <snip> >> >> >> >>> Or, if you don’t die, the only way to avoid the indeterminacy is by >>> claiming that you will feel to be at both city at once, but that will need >>> some telepathy hardly compatible with the idea that the level of >>> substitution was correctly chosen. >>> >>> So, do you die or not in the step 3? >>> >> >> I don't know -- build a DDTR machine from all that great math and let's >> find out -- you go first. >> >> >> Let me rephrase the question: >> >> Assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT) do you die in the step 3? >> > > According to the protocol, you are scanned, and then the original is cut. > The scanned data is then reconstituted; locally, or after a delay, or in > several different places. > > The simplest interpretation of the "cut" phase is that the original > disappears, i.e., dies. If you take a slightly more sophisticated view of > personal identity, depending on a lot more the just memories of previous > states, but depending also on bodily continuity, then the question of > whether the original dies or not depends on the details of your theory of > personal identity. For example, in Nozik's "closest continuer" theory, if > the duplicate has an equivalent body and environment, then a single > continuer is the closest continuer of the original, and can be considered > the same person in some sense. Nozik's argument is that if there are two or > more continuers, and there is a tie in the relevant sense of "closeness", > then each continuer is a new person, and the original no longer exists > (dies). > > So, as Dan points out, there is a lot more to this scenario than your > simplistic assumptions allow: it is actually an empirical question as to > whether the "person" continues unaltered or not. So rather than armchair > philosophising, we should wait until the relevant brain scans are indeed > possible and we perform the experiment, before we pontificate absolutely on > what will or will not happen. > > As for assuming digital mechanism (YD + CT), it is not a matter of > assuming this. It is a matter of whether the assumptions that you are > building in make sense or not. And that is an empirical matter. Does any of > it comport with our usual understandings of personal identity and other > matters. > What evidence do you think “the relevant brain scans” could provide that might have any bearing on the question of personal identity? > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAH%3D2ypWi3oerPJ-97sZWOMZuXALGDxcihRb4%2B8-q%2Bx1T-JuTog%40mail.gmail.com.
